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NPR Newsletter No.11 25 May 2018

Hello Northamerica1000, thank you for your work reviewing New Pages!

ACTRIAL:

  • WP:ACREQ has been implemented. The flow at the feed has dropped back to the levels during the trial. However, the backlog is on the rise again so please consider reviewing a few extra articles each day; a backlog approaching 5,000 is still far too high. An effort is also needed to ensure that older unsuitable older pages at the back of the queue do not get automatically indexed for Google.

Deletion tags

  • Do bear in mind that articles in the feed showing the trash can icon may have been tagged by inexperienced or non NPR rights holders. They require your further verification.

Backlog drive:

  • A backlog drive will take place from 10 through 20 June. Check out our talk page at WT:NPR for more details. NOTE: It is extremely important that we focus on quality reviewing. Despite our goal of reducing the backlog as much as possible, please do not rush while reviewing.

Editathons

  • There will be a large increase in the number of editathons in June. Please be gentle with new pages that obviously come from good faith participants, especially articles from developing economies and ones about female subjects. Consider using the 'move to draft' tool rather than bluntly tagging articles that may have potential but which cannot yet reside in mainspace.

Paid editing - new policy

  • Now that ACTRIAL is ACREQ, please be sure to look for tell-tale signs of undisclosed paid editing. Contact the creator if appropriate, and submit the issue to WP:COIN if necessary. There is a new global WMF policy that requires paid editors to connect to their adverts.

Subject-specific notability guidelines

  • The box at the right contains each of the subject-specific notability guidelines, please review any that are relevant BEFORE nominating an article for deletion.
  • Reviewers are requested to familiarise themselves with the new version of the notability guidelines for organisations and companies.

Not English

  • A common issue: Pages not in English or poor, unattributed machine translations should not reside in main space even if they are stubs. Please ensure you are familiar with WP:NPPNE. Check in Google for the language and content, tag as required, then move to draft if they do have potential.

News

  • Development is underway by the WMF on upgrades to the New Pages Feed, in particular ORES features that will help to identify COPYVIOs, and more granular options for selecting articles to review.
  • The next issue of The Signpost has been published. The newspaper is one of the best ways to stay up to date with news and new developments. between our newsletters.

Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:34, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Whoa, I missed one...

There's an article about the Portals WikiProject in the new issue of Signpost:

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-05-24/WikiProject report

Enjoy.

P.S.: We now have 80 members. Evad37 just joined!    — The Transhumanist   01:37, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Please expand this article, you will find some information about this font. Thanks! --Cyrus noto3at bulaga Talk to me 03:07, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

G13 Eligibility Notice

The following pages will become eligible for CSD:G13 shortly.

Thanks, HasteurBot (talk) 03:01, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

12:40, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

G13 Eligibility Notice

The following pages will become eligible for CSD:G13 shortly.

Thanks, HasteurBot (talk) 03:00, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

G13 Eligibility Notice

The following pages will become eligible for CSD:G13 shortly.

Thanks, HasteurBot (talk) 03:01, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #007, 31 May 2018

We have grown to 89 members.

This is the seventh issue of this newsletter. For previous issues, see our newsletter archive.

Welcome

A warm welcome to our nearly one dozen new members...

Our new members include:

Be sure to say "hi" and welcome them to the team.

The portal set has shrunk

There were 1515 portals, but now we have 1475, because we speedy deleted a bunch of incompleted portals that had been sitting around for ages, that were empty shells or had very little content. Because they were speedied, they can be rebuilt from scratch without acquiring approval from WP:DRV.

Maintenance runs on the portals set have begun

This is what we have been gearing up for: upgrading the portals en masse, using AWB.

More than half of the Associated Wikimedia sections have been converted to no longer use a subpage. This chore will probably be completed over the next week or two. Many thanks to the WikiGnome Squad, who have added an Associated Wikimedia section to the many geography-related portals that lacked one. The rest of the subjects await. :)

The next maintenance drive will be on the intro sections. Notices have gone out to the WikiProjects for which one or more portals fall within their subject scope. Once enough time has elapsed for them to respond (1 week), AWB processing of intro sections will begin.

Thank you, you

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your part in the RfC. I went back and reread much of it. I believe your enthusiasm played a major part in turning the tide on there. I'm proud of all of you.

Why reread that mess, you ask?

To harvest ideas, and to keep the problems that need to be fixed firmly in mind. But, also to keep in touch. See below...

Thank yous all around

I've contacted all of the other opposers of the RfC proposal to delete portals, to thank them for their support, and to assure them that their decision was not made in vain. I updated them on our activities, provided the link to the interviews about this project in the Signpost, pointed out our newsletter archive so they can keep up-to-date with what we are doing, and I invited them all to come and have a look-see at our operations (on our talk page).

Sockpuppet, and reverting his work

It so happened that one of our members was a sockpuppet: JLJ001. According to the admin who blocked him, he was a particularly tricky long term abuser. This is a weird situation, since the user was quite helpful. He will be missed.

This has been somewhat disruptive, because admins are doing routine deletions of the pages (portals, templates, etc.) he created, and reversion of his edits (I don't know if they will be reverting all of them). Please bear with them, as they are only doing what is best in the long run.

The following pages have been deleted by the admins so far, that I know of:

Automation so far, section by section...

Automatic article alerts is up and running

Automatic article alerts are now featured on the project page.

Some super out-of-date entries kept showing up on there, so posting it on the Project page was delayed. Thanks to Evad37 and AfroThundr for providing solutions on this one. Evad37 adjusted the workflow settings per Wikipedia:Article alerts/Subscribing#Choosing workflows, to make sure only the appropriate page types show up. AfroThundr removed the tags from the old entries that caused them to keep showing up in the article alerts.

Other things that could use some automation

Noyster pointed out that it would be nice to automate the updating of the portals section at the Community bulletin board.

Another major component of the portal system is the main list of portals, at Portal:Contents/Portals. How would we go about automating the updating of that?

Please post your ideas on the WikiProject's talk page. Thank you.

Deletion discussion survivors

Keep in mind that we have already speedy deleted almost all of the nearly empty portals, which can be rebuilt without approval whenever it is convenient to do so. Other portals should be completed if at all possible rather than delete them through MfD (which requires approval from Deletion review to rebuild).

(Current deletion discussions are posted on our WikiProject page).

Portals needing repair

Wrapping up

There's still more, but it will have to wait until next issue.

Until then, see ya around the project.    — The Transhumanist   12:02, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

G13 Eligibility Notice

The following pages will become eligible for CSD:G13 shortly.

Thanks, HasteurBot (talk) 03:00, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

G13 Eligibility Notice

The following pages will become eligible for CSD:G13 shortly.

Thanks, HasteurBot (talk) 03:27, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

21:54, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 22, 2018)

Henri Nestlé was a German-born Swiss confectioner and the founder of Nestlé, the world's largest food and beverage company as of 2014.
Hello, Northamerica1000.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Henri Nestlé

Please be bold and help to improve this article!


Previous selections: Weapon • Arts festival


Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations


Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:06, 28 May 2018 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Administrators' newsletter – June 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2018).

Administrator changes

added None
removed Al Ameer sonAliveFreeHappyCenariumLupoMichaelBillington

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in June. This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.
  • The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team will build granular types of blocks in 2018 (e.g. a block from uploading or editing specific pages, categories, or namespaces, as opposed to a full-site block). Feedback on the concept may be left at the talk page.
  • There is now a checkbox on Special:ListUsers to let you see only users in temporary user groups.
  • It is now easier for blocked mobile users to see why they were blocked.

Arbitration

  • A recent technical issue with the Arbitration Committee's spam filter inadvertently caused all messages sent to the committee through Wikipedia (i.e. Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee) to be discarded. If you attempted to send an email to the Arbitration Committee via Wikipedia between May 16 and May 31, your message was not received and you are encouraged to resend it. Messages sent outside of these dates or directly to the Arbitration Committee email address were not affected by this issue.

Miscellaneous


June 2018 GOCE newsletter

Guild of Copy Editors June 2018 News

Welcome to the June 2018 GOCE newsletter, in which you will find Guild updates since the February edition. Progress continues to be made on the copyediting backlog, which has been reduced to 7 months and reached a new all-time low. Requests continue to be handled efficiently this year, with 272 completed by the end of May (an average completion time of 10.5 days). Fewer than 10% of these waited longer than 20 days, and the longest wait time was 29 days.

Wikipedia in general, and the Guild in particular, experienced a deep loss with the death on 20 March of Corinne. Corinne (a GOCE coordinator since 1 July 2016) was a tireless aide on the requests page, and her peerless copyediting is a part of innumerable GAs and FAs. Her good cheer, courtesy and tact are very much missed.

March drive: The goal was to remove June, July and August 2017 from our backlog and all February 2018 Requests (a total of 219 articles). This drive was an outstanding success, and by the end of the month all but eight of these articles were cleared. Of the 33 editors who signed up, 19 recorded 277 copy edits (425,758 words).

April blitz: This one-week copy-editing blitz ran from 15 through 21 April, focusing on Requests and the last eight articles tagged in August 2017. At the end of the week there were only 17 pending requests, with none older than 17 days. Of the nine editors who signed up, eight editors completed 22 copy edits (62,412 words).

May drive: We set out to remove September, October and November 2017 from our backlog and all April 2018 Requests (a total of 298 articles). There was great success this month with the backlog more than halved from 1,449 articles at the beginning of the month to a record low of 716 articles. Officially, of the 20 who signed up, 15 editors recorded 151 copy edits (248,813 words).

Coordinator elections: It's election time again. Nominations for Guild coordinators (who will serve a six-month term for the second half of 2018) have begun, and will close at 23:59 UTC on 15 June. All Wikipedia editors in good standing are eligible, and self-nominations are encouraged. Voting will take place between 00:01 UTC on 16 June and 23:59 UTC on 30 June.

June blitz: Stay tuned for this one-week copy-editing blitz, which will take place in mid-June.

Thank you all again for your participation; we wouldn't be able to achieve what we have without you! Cheers from your GOCE coordinators: Corinne, Jonesey95, Miniapolis, Reidgreg and Tdslk.

To discontinue receiving GOCE newsletters, please remove your name from our mailing list.

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:26, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 23, 2018)

Richard Rohr OFM (born 1943, pictured at podium) is an American Franciscan friar ordained in 1970. He is a known inspirational speaker and has published numerous recorded talks and books.
Hello, Northamerica1000.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Richard Rohr

Please be bold and help to improve this article!


Previous selections: Henri Nestlé • Weapon


Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations


Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 4 June 2018 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Portals WikiProject update #008, 7 June 2018

The WikiProject now has 92 participants, including 16 admins.

Welcome

A warm welcome to the newest members of the team:

Be sure to say hi.

Congrats

Pbsouthwood has just gotten through the grueling RfA process to become a Wikipedia administrator. Be sure to congratulate him.

The reason he went for it was: "For some time I expect to be busy with subpage deletion for Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals as mentioned above. The amount of work is expected to keep me busy for some time. I am primarly a content creator and contributor to policy discussions, but would be willing to consider other admin work on request, providing that I feel that my involvement would be appropriate and not too far outside my comfort zone."

New feature: Picture slideshow

Picture slideshow

Evad37 has figured out a way to let the user flip through pictures without purging the page. Purging is awkward because there is an intermediary confirmation screen that you have to click on "yes". In the new picture slideshow section, all you have to do is click on the > to go to the next picture or < to instantly show the previous feature. The feature also shuffles the pictures when the page is initiated, so that they are shown in a different order each time the user visits the page (or purges it).

It is featured in Portal:Sacramento, California. Check it out to the right.

Keep in mind that the feature is a beta version. Please share your comments on how to refine this feature, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals#Refining the Picture slideshow.

The one-page portal has been achieved

We now have a one-page portal design. It isn't fully automated, nor is it even fully semi-automated, as there are still some manually filled-in areas. But it no longer requires any subpages in portal space, and that is a huge improvement. For example, Portal:Sacramento, California utilizes the one-page design concept. While is employs heavy use of templates, it does not have any subpages of its own.

I commend you for your teamwork

This is the most cooperative team I've ever seen. With a strong spirit of working together to get an important job done. Kudos to you.

In conclusion...

There's more. A lot more. But it will have to wait until next issue, but you don't have to wait. See what's going on at the WikiProject's talk page.    — The Transhumanist   02:10, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Please see Talk:List of North Korean dishes for a move discussion. It appears you have edited this article in the past. I have no opinion on renaming the article, but it looks like the best arrangement of topics has to be decided. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 03:01, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

@EdJohnston: Thanks for the notification. North America1000 03:05, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

As you've already edited the nomination, would you like to give this nomination a review? Thanks. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 13:27, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Gerda Arendt has already provided a review. North America1000 07:10, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

21:55, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Paper Boat logo.png

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:Paper Boat logo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 16:18, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 24, 2018)

Hello, Northamerica1000.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Xenophobia

Please be bold and help to improve this article!


Previous selections: Richard Rohr • Henri Nestlé


Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations


Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 11 June 2018 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Happy First Edit Day

Happy First Edit Day, Northamerica1000, from the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! Kpgjhpjm (talk) 12:50, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

You notified the wrong wikiproject

[27] It should be in the video game discussion, not the games discussion, that two different list. Since the talk page has it with the banner for video games, shouldn't it have been added automatically? Dream Focus 19:14, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Hello Dream Focus: Yes indeed, I acted hastily seeing the phrase "puzzle game" in the lead and made an erroneous assumption. I have struck the Games delsort listing from the AfD discussion (diff) and removed it from the Games delsort page (diff). I'm not aware of any deletion sorting that is automatically added based upon talk page project tags and have never seen this, although it would be neat to have a script that performed this. Hope you've been enjoying yourself in Wiki-land and in real life as well. North America1000 01:56, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

NPP Backlog Elimination Drive

Hello Northamerica1000, thank you for your work reviewing New Pages!

We can see the light at the end of the tunnel: there are currently 2900 unreviewed articles, and 4000 unreviewed redirects.

Announcing the Backlog Elimination Drive!

  • As a final push, we have decided to run a backlog elimination drive from the 20th to the 30th of June.
  • Reviewers who review at least 50 articles or redirects will receive a Special Edition NPP Barnstar: Special Edition New Page Patroller's Barnstar. Those who review 100, 250, 500, or 1000 pages will also receive tiered awards: 100 review coin, 250 review coin, 500 review coin, 1000 review certificate.
  • Please do not be hasty, take your time and fully review each page. It is extremely important that we focus on quality reviewing.

Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 06:57, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #009, 15 June 2018

(Article slideshow prototype)
Selected animals

Don't mind that box to the right. We'll be talking about that later, below.

Almost done...

With the portals upgrades?

No. :)

What is almost done is the updating of the main list of portals!

There are 23 portals left to be listed.

Kudos to the WikiGnome Squadron, for spearheading this.

Once it is fully updated, we need to keep it up to date. When you complete a portal, remember to add it to Portal:Contents/Portals.

Concerning portal upgrades, we are working on those section-by-section...

Associated Wikimedia section conversion task complete

The Associated Wikimedia sections of the entire set of portals have been upgraded. These are now handled on each portal base page (bypassing the previously used corresponding subpages), using the {{Wikimedia for portals}} template rather than reiterated copied/pasted code.

So, to be more accurate on reporting upgrade progress, that's one section down (for the whole set of portals), with (about) nine sections to go. (Skipping curated portals, regarding custom content sections, of course).

Further section conversions (using AWB)

Work is underway on converting Portals' introduction sections, and the categories sections.

If you would like to help, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Upgrade introduction sections and Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#AWB task: Convert category sections

Further section conversions (by hand)

Work has also started with converting selected picture sections to picture slideshow sections. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Install picture slideshows.

Quality rating system for portals under development

Currently, there is no quality rating for portals: in the Portals WikiProject box on each portals' talk page, it just says "Portal". But times are a changin'. Quality assessment is on the way, and you can help. See the discussion.

What's coming: excerpt slideshows

Evad37 has figured out a way to apply the picture slideshow feature to displaying article excerpts (now you can check out the provided box above). :) This allows us to bypass page purging to see the next selection, and you can even click through them rather quickly. Currently, the wikicode for doing this for article excerpts is a bit eye-boggling, and so we are looking into simplifying it. A streamlined version may be just around the corner.

Note that this is a prototype, not ready for widespread use. Click on the box in between the lesser than and greater than signs, to see what I mean. It was meant for pictures, and so the thumbnail feature doesn't apply to article prose very well. I've presented it even though it isn't ready, to show the direction portal development is heading. See the discussion.

Wow

I'm amazed at how rapidly portals are evolving. And we're still within a single generation of portal technological evolution. Imagine what they might be in 2 or 3 more generations of developments. Pretty soon, portals will be able to shake your hand. :)    — The Transhumanist   11:05, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Portal:Tamil civilization

Portal:Tamil civilization, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Tamil civilization (2nd nomination) and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Portal:Tamil civilization during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Greatedits1 (I hope so | If not, let me know) 15:09, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

21:47, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 25, 2018)

Hello, Northamerica1000.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Civil ceremony

Please be bold and help to improve this article!


Previous selections: Xenophobia • Richard Rohr


Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations


Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 18 June 2018 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Re. your edits to Heroine of Hackney in 2011

Please see Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2018 June 17, Pauline Pearce. Matt 190417 (talk) 11:05, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at User:Kudpung/What do admins do?. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:30, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Ramzan Miah

Hello Northamerica1000, can you please take a look at Draft:Ramzan Miah if it's eligible for G4 since you nominated this for deletion two months back. The draft was first recreated under Draft:Ramzan Miah M and then under Draft:Ramzan Miah by the same user who was registered a few days back so this appears a case of UPE and sockpuppetry. Thank you. GSS (talk|c|em) 05:22, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

  • Hello GSS: I have compared the deleted draft with the new draft version, and also the deleted article with the new draft. The new version of the draft is entirely different in prose and style compared to the deleted draft version. Furthermore, the content of the deleted version of the article that was in main namespace is also entirely different compared to the present draft. As such, the new draft does not qualify for WP:G4 deletion. North America1000 10:43, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Also Draft:Ramzan Miah M presently redirects to Draft:Ramzan Miah, which isn't of significant importance, because if the draft were to be deleted, then the redirect would be as well. North America1000 10:48, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Lastly, suspicions of sockpuppetry have to be filed at WP:SPI for administrator consideration. Concerns about WP:UPE can be placed on the article talk page, and you can also discuss your concerns with the user directly on their talk page, if you'd like. North America1000 11:51, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

23:10, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

This week's article for improvement (week 26, 2018)

U.S. Air Force 1st Lt. Matthew Feeman, builds a fire to help combat frostbite and hypothermia during a survival, evasion, resistance and escape exercise in Alaska. Note that there is a draft for the Survival page located at Draft:Survival.
Hello, Northamerica1000.

The following is WikiProject Today's articles for improvement's weekly selection:

Survival

Please be bold and help to improve this article!


Previous selections: Civil ceremony • Xenophobia


Get involved with the TAFI project. You can: Nominate an article • Review nominations


Posted by: MusikBot talk 00:05, 25 June 2018 (UTC) using MediaWiki message delivery (talk) on behalf of WikiProject TAFI • Opt-out instructions

Portals WikiProject update #010, 30 June 2018

We've grown to 94 participants.

A warm welcome to dcljr and Kpgjhpjm.

Rating system for portals

We are in the process of developing a rating system specifically for portals, as the quality assessment scheme for articles does not apply to portals. It is coming along nicely. Your input would be very helpful. See the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/General#Proposed new quality class assessments.

Better than a barnstar

One of our participants got involved with this WikiProject through interest in how the new generation of portals would be handled in WP's MOS (Manual of Style). It didn't take long before he got sucked in deeper. This has given him an opportunity to look around, and so, he has made an assessment of this WikiProject's operations:

I'm quite frankly really impressed and inspired by what's happening here. If you'd asked me a year ago if I thought portals should just be scrapped as a failed, dragged-out experiment, I would have said "yes". This planning and the progress toward making it all practical is exemplary of the wiki spirit, in particular of a happy service-to-readers puppy properly wagging its technological and editorial tail instead of the other way around, and without "drama". It's also one of the few examples I've seen in a long time of a new wikiproject actually doing something useful and fomenting constructive activity (instead of acting as a barrier to participation, and a canvassing/ownership farm for PoV pushers). Kudos all around. — SMcCandlish

Congratulations, everyone. Keep up the great work.

Slideshow development

We've run into a glitch with slideshows: they don't work on mobile devices.

Initially, we will need to explore options that allow portals to have slideshows without adversely affecting mobile viewers. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design#Mobile view support.

Eventually, we may need another way to do slideshows. If we do go this route, and I don't see why we wouldn't, then (user configurable) automatic slideshows also become a possibility.

TemplateStyles RfC passed

Once implemented, this will allow editors to create and edit cascading style sheets for use with templates. This will expand what we can do with portals. For more detail, see mw:Extension:TemplateStyles and Wikipedia:TemplateStyles.

Automation effort

We've run into an obstacle using Lua-based selective transclusion: Lua is incapable (on Wikipedia) of reading in article names from categories. Because of this, we'll need to seek other approaches for fully automating the Selected article section. We are exploring sources other than categories, and other technologies besides Lua.

Speaking of using other sources, the template {{Transclude list item excerpt}} collects list items from a specified page, or from a section of that page, and transcludes the lead from a randomly selected link from that list. Courtesy of Certes. So, if you use this in a portal, and if the template specifies a page or section serviced by JL-Bot, you've now got yourself an automatically updated section in the portal. JL-Bot provides links to featured content and good articles, by subject.

What is "fully automated"? When you create a portal using a creation template, and the portal works thereafter without editor intervention, the portal is fully automated. That is, the portal is supported by features that fetch new content. If you have to add new article names every so often for it to display new content, then it is only semi-automated.

Currently, the Selected article section is semi-automated, because it requires that an editor supplies the names of the various articles for which excerpts are (automatically) displayed. For examples, look at the wikisource code of Portal:Reptiles, Portal:Ancient Tamil civilization, and Portal:Reference works.

So far, 3 sections are fully automatable: the introduction section, the categories section, and the Associated Wikimedia section.

Where is all this heading?

Henry.

Or some other name.

Eventually, the portal department will be a software program. And we won't have to do anything (unless we want to). Not even tell it what portals to create (unless we want to). It will just do it all (plus whatever else we want it to do). And we will of course give it good manners, and a name.

But, that is a few years off.

Until then, building portals is still (partially) up to us.    — The Transhumanist   13:33, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

00:46, 3 July 2018 (UTC)