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Administrators' newsletter – February 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2019).

Administrator changes

added EnterpriseyJJMC89
readded BorgQueen
removed Harro5Jenks24GraftR. Baley

Interface administrator changes

removedEnterprisey

Guideline and policy news

  • A request for comment is currently open to reevaluate the activity requirements for administrators.
  • Administrators who are blocked have the technical ability to block the administrator who blocked their own account. A recent request for comment has amended the blocking policy to clarify that this ability should only be used in exceptional circumstances, such as account compromises, where there is a clear and immediate need.
  • A request for comment closed with a consensus in favor of deprecating The Sun as a permissible reference, and creating an edit filter to warn users who attempt to cite it.

Technical news

  • A discussion regarding an overhaul of the format and appearance of Wikipedia:Requests for page protection is in progress (permalink). The proposed changes will make it easier to create requests for those who are not using Twinkle. The workflow for administrators at this venue will largely be unchanged. Additionally, there are plans to archive requests similar to how it is done at WP:PERM, where historical records are kept so that prior requests can more easily be searched for.

Miscellaneous

  • Voting in the 2019 Steward elections will begin on 08 February 2019, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 28 February 2019, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
  • A new IRC bot is available that allows you to subscribe to notifications when specific filters are tripped. This requires that your IRC handle be identified.

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #028, 04 Feb 2019

Here's a quicky status report:

Old-style portals: 1,018
Single-page portals: 4,367
Total portals: 5,385

But of course, there has been more going on than just that...

Dreamy Jazz Bot is up and running!

Dreamy Jazz Bot has been approved and is now up and running.

What it does is places missing links to orphaned portals. It places a link in the See also section of the corresponding root article, and it puts one at the top of the corresponding category page.

We have thousands of new portals that have yet to be added to the encyclopedia proper, just waiting to go live.

When they do go live, over the coming days or weeks, due to Dreamy Jazz Bot, it will be like an explosion of new portals on the scene. We should expect an increase in awareness and interest in the portals project. Perhaps even new participants.

Get ready...

Get set...

Go!

Another sockpuppet infiltrator has been discovered

User:Emoteplump, a recent contributor to the portals project, was discovered to be a sockpuppet account of an indefinitely blocked user.

When that happens, admins endeavor to eradicate everything the editor contributed. This aftermath has left a wake of destruction throughout the portals department, again.

The following portals which have been speedy deleted, are in the process of being re-created. Please feel free to help to turn these blue again:

And the corresponding talk pages:

New portals since the last issue

Keep up the great work

Until next time,    — The Transhumanist   09:03, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Lost thread

Remember the initial discussion we had about quantum portals?

I can't find it.

Can you?

(Please provide a link).    — The Transhumanist   07:19, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

The Transhumanist, Its quantum, and no-one is observing it...
I will have a look. It may have been archived. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 07:55, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
The Transhumanist, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Portals/Design/Archive_3#Menu_item_or_special:_link_that_generates_a_portal_when_you_click_on_it might be it? As far as I know this was the first time I used the term. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 08:56, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
Also mentioned at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Portals/Archive_7#The_instant_portal_and_creation_criteria. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 09:09, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   09:12, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

It's a convenient location to place research on the subject, and for discussion, planning, etc. Hope to see you there.    — The Transhumanist   09:30, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Watchlisted. Been there. Made suggestions. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 11:36, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #029, 13 Feb 2019

Where we are at:

Single-page portals: 4,704
Total portals: 5,705

The Ref desks survived the proposal to shut them down

You might be familiar with the Ref desks, by their link on every new portal. They are a place you can go to ask volunteers almost any knowledge-related question, and have been a feature of Wikipedia since August of 2005 (or perhaps earlier). They were linked to from portals in an effort to improve their visibility, and to provide a bridge from the encyclopedia proper to project space (the Wikipedia community).

Well, somebody proposed that we get rid of them, and the community decided that that was not going to happen. Thank you for defending the Ref desks!

Here's a link to the dramatic discussion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Indefinitely_semiprotecting_the_refdesk#Proposal_II:_Shut_down_the_Ref_Desks

The cleanup after sockpuppet Emoteplump continues...

The wake of disruption left by Emoteplump and the admins who reverted many (but not all) of his/her edits is still undergoing cleanup. We could use all the help we can get on this task...

Almost all of the speedy deleted portals have been rebuilt from scratch.

For the portals he/she restarted (many of which were done mistakenly, overwriting restarts and further development that had already been done), and/or tagged as the maintainer, see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Emoteplump&oldid=881568794#Additional_Portals_under_my_watch

10,000 portals, here we come...

We're at 5,705 portals and counting.

New portals since issue #28

  1. Portal:Abitibi-Témiscamingue
  2. Portal:Ahold Delhaize
  3. Portal:AKB48
  4. Portal:Åland Islands
  5. Portal:Alaska Airlines
  6. Portal:Albanian Civil War
  7. Portal:Albertsons
  8. Portal:Alevism
  9. Portal:All in the Family
  10. Portal:Alternative metal
  11. Portal:Ambient music
  12. Portal:Ancient Near East mythology
  13. Portal:Ancient Roman religion
  14. Portal:Andrew Cuomo
  15. Portal:Anti-consumerism
  16. Portal:Antimatter
  17. Portal:Arameans
  18. Portal:Arianism
  19. Portal:Australian Crawl
  20. Portal:Bali
  21. Portal:Banten
  22. Portal:Bengkulu
  23. Portal:Black Lives Matter
  24. Portal:Bluegrass music
  25. Portal:Bonnie Tyler
  26. Portal:Breakbeat
  27. Portal:Calypso music
  28. Portal:Cambridgeshire
  29. Portal:Camila Cabello
  30. Portal:Capcom
  31. Portal:Capsicum
  32. Portal:Celtic music
  33. Portal:Central American music
  34. Portal:Central Java
  35. Portal:Central Kalimantan
  36. Portal:Central Sulawesi
  37. Portal:Chanel
  38. Portal:Cinema of Australia
  39. Portal:Cognitive psychology
  40. Portal:Communication studies
  41. Portal:Conservatism in the United States
  42. Portal:Cortina d'Ampezzo
  43. Portal:Cross-Strait relations
  44. Portal:Cryptozoology
  45. Portal:Danish folk music
  46. Portal:Disco
  47. Portal:Dyslexia
  48. Portal:East Java
  49. Portal:East Kalimantan
  50. Portal:East Nusa Tenggara
  51. Portal:Easy listening
  52. Portal:Ed Sheeran
  53. Portal:Ehime
  54. Portal:Electricity
  55. Portal:Electronica
  56. Portal:Electronic rock
  57. Portal:English folk music
  58. Portal:Environmental technology
  59. Portal:Experimental music
  60. Portal:Extreme metal
  61. Portal:Fall Out Boy
  62. Portal:Finnish Defence Forces
  63. Portal:Finnish folk music
  64. Portal:Football in Croatia
  65. Portal:Football in Jordan
  66. Portal:Funk
  67. Portal:Gamelan
  68. Portal:General Mills
  69. Portal:Germanic languages
  70. Portal:German language
  71. Portal:Government of Canada
  72. Portal:Government of Hong Kong
  73. Portal:Government of Indonesia
  74. Portal:Government of Ireland
  75. Portal:Government of Malaysia
  76. Portal:Government of Russia
  77. Portal:Government of Singapore
  78. Portal:Government of Spain
  79. Portal:Government of Thailand
  80. Portal:Grapes
  81. Portal:Green Party of the United States
  82. Portal:Grinspoon
  83. Portal:Gwen Stefani
  84. Portal:Hardcore punk
  85. Portal:Hardcore techno
  86. Portal:Haskell (programming language)
  87. Portal:History of art
  88. Portal:History of North America
  89. Portal:History of Thailand
  90. Portal:Hollywood
  91. Portal:Hotels
  92. Portal:House music
  93. Portal:Hungarian folk music
  94. Portal:Hunters & Collectors
  95. Portal:Hydrogen
  96. Portal:Icelandic folk music
  97. Portal:Indigenous music of North America
  98. Portal:Insomniac Games
  99. Portal:International field hockey
  100. Portal:International trade
  101. Portal:Iranian music
  102. Portal:Islamophobia
  103. Portal:Jambi
  104. Portal:Jet engines
  105. Portal:Jordin Sparks
  106. Portal:Julius Caesar
  107. Portal:Kannur
  108. Portal:Kansas City Spurs
  109. Portal:Kelly Rowland
  110. Portal:Kirby
  111. Portal:Kraft Heinz
  112. Portal:Krasnoyarsk Krai
  113. Portal:Kroger
  114. Portal:Kuala Lumpur
  115. Portal:Lampung
  116. Portal:Larry Kramer
  117. Portal:LeBron James
  118. Portal:Lehigh Valley
  119. Portal:Leicestershire
  120. Portal:Liège
  121. Portal:Liguria
  122. Portal:Los Angeles Aztecs
  123. Portal:Los Angeles Wolves
  124. Portal:Macedonian language
  125. Portal:Magnetism
  126. Portal:Maithripala Sirisena
  127. Portal:Maluku (province)
  128. Portal:Mangoes
  129. Portal:Marco Pierre White
  130. Portal:McLaren
  131. Portal:Menstrual cycle
  132. Portal:Metalcore
  133. Portal:Miami FC
  134. Portal:Microblogging
  135. Portal:Microtonal music
  136. Portal:Midnight Oil
  137. Portal:Minnesota Kicks
  138. Portal:Mission: Impossible
  139. Portal:Modernism (music)
  140. Portal:Moheener Ghoraguli
  141. Portal:Mondelez International
  142. Portal:Music genres
  143. Portal:Music of Bangladesh
  144. Portal:Music of India
  145. Portal:Music of Italy
  146. Portal:Music of Japan
  147. Portal:Music of Korea
  148. Portal:Music of Latin America
  149. Portal:Music of Micronesia
  150. Portal:Music of North Africa
  151. Portal:Music of Pakistan
  152. Portal:Music of Serbia
  153. Portal:Music of the Philippines
  154. Portal:Music of the United States
  155. Portal:Mutations
  156. Portal:National Rugby League
  157. Portal:Neoclassicism (music)
  158. Portal:Netball
  159. Portal:New York City Fire Department
  160. Portal:Nick Jr.
  161. Portal:Nobility
  162. Portal:Nordic countries
  163. Portal:North Africa
  164. Portal:North Kalimantan
  165. Portal:North Maluku
  166. Portal:North Pole
  167. Portal:North Queensland
  168. Portal:North Sulawesi
  169. Portal:North Sumatra
  170. Portal:Norwegian folk music
  171. Portal:Papua (province)
  172. Portal:Peaches
  173. Portal:Politics of Abkhazia
  174. Portal:Politics of Afghanistan
  175. Portal:Politics of Albania
  176. Portal:Politics of Algeria
  177. Portal:Politics of Andorra
  178. Portal:Politics of Angola
  179. Portal:Politics of Antigua and Barbuda
  180. Portal:Politics of Argentina
  181. Portal:Politics of Artsakh
  182. Portal:Politics of Bahrain
  183. Portal:Politics of Bangladesh
  184. Portal:Politics of Bavaria
  185. Portal:Politics of Belarus
  186. Portal:Politics of Belgium
  187. Portal:Politics of Belize
  188. Portal:Politics of Benin
  189. Portal:Politics of Bhutan
  190. Portal:Politics of Bosnia and Herzegovina
  191. Portal:Politics of Botswana
  192. Portal:Politics of Brazil
  193. Portal:Politics of Brunei
  194. Portal:Politics of Bulgaria
  195. Portal:Politics of Burkina Faso
  196. Portal:Politics of Burundi
  197. Portal:Politics of Cambodia
  198. Portal:Politics of Cameroon
  199. Portal:Politics of China
  200. Portal:Politics of São Tomé and Príncipe
  201. Portal:Politics of South Sudan
  202. Portal:Politics of Sudan
  203. Portal:Politics of Tanzania
  204. Portal:Politics of the Republic of the Congo
  205. Portal:Politics of Togo
  206. Portal:Politics of Tunisia
  207. Portal:Politics of Uganda
  208. Portal:Pop rock
  209. Portal:Rap rock
  210. Portal:Ras Al Khaimah
  211. Portal:Riau
  212. Portal:Riau Islands
  213. Portal:Ricky Martin
  214. Portal:Royal Canadian Air Force
  215. Portal:Rutland
  216. Portal:Saxophones
  217. Portal:Semiotics
  218. Portal:Ska
  219. Portal:Soca music
  220. Portal:Soul music
  221. Portal:Sound sculptures
  222. Portal:Southeast Sulawesi
  223. Portal:South Kalimantan
  224. Portal:South Sulawesi
  225. Portal:South Sumatra
  226. Portal:Space: 1999
  227. Portal:Special Region of Yogyakarta
  228. Portal:Swedish folk music
  229. Portal:Tamil language
  230. Portal:Techno
  231. Portal:Terry Brooks
  232. Portal:The Living End
  233. Portal:Thrissur
  234. Portal:Trance music
  235. Portal:Tyrant flycatchers
  236. Portal:Veterinary medicine
  237. Portal:Wayanad
  238. Portal:Welsh folk music
  239. Portal:West Champaran district
  240. Portal:Western dress codes
  241. Portal:West Flanders
  242. Portal:West Java
  243. Portal:West Kalimantan
  244. Portal:West Nusa Tenggara
  245. Portal:West Papua (province)
  246. Portal:West Sulawesi
  247. Portal:West Sumatra
  248. Portal:Wildlife of India
  249. Portal:Wildlife of Nepal
  250. Portal:Windows 10
  251. Portal:Winter War
  252. Portal:Woodpeckers
  253. Portal:Worcestershire
  254. Portal:World economy
  255. Portal:World Ocean
  256. Portal:World Rally Championship
  257. Portal:World views
  258. Portal:XTC
  259. Portal:Yahoo!
  260. Portal:Yoruba people
  261. Portal:You Am I
  262. Portal:Young Wizards
  263. Portal:Yugoslavs

Prior to 2018, for the previous 14 years, portal creation was at about 80 portals per year on average. We did over 3 times that in just the past 9 days. At this rate, we'll hit the 10,000 portal mark in 5 months. But, I'm sure we can do it sooner than that.

What's next for portal pages?

There are 5 drives for portal development:

  1. Create new portals
  2. Expand existing portals, such as with new sections like Recognized content
  3. Convert or restart old-style portals into automated single-page portals
  4. Link to new portals from the encyclopedia
  5. Pageless portals

Let's take a closer look at these...

1: Creating new portals

Portal creation, for subjects that happen to have the necessary support structures already in place, is down to about a minute per portal. The creation part, which is automated, takes about 10 seconds. The other 50 seconds is taken up by manual activities, such as finding candidate subjects, inspecting generated portals, and selecting the portal creation template to be used according to the resources available. Tools are under development to automate these activities as much as possible, to pare portal creation time down even more. Ten seconds each is the goal.

Eventually, we are going to run out of navigation templates to base portals off of. Though there are still thousands to go. But, when they do run out, we'll need an easy way to create more. A nav footer creation script.

Meanwhile, other resources are being explored and developed, such as categories, and methods to harvest the links they contain.

2: Expanding existing portals

The portal collection is growing, not only by the addition of new portals, but by further developing the ones we already have, by...

  • Improving and/or adding search parameters to better power the Did you know and In the news sections.
  • Adding more selected content sections, like Selected biographies.
  • Adding and maintaining Recognized content sections, via JL-Bot.
  • Adding pictures to the image slideshow.
  • Adding panoramic pics.
  • Categorizing portals.

More features will be added as we dream them up and design them. So, don't be shy, make a wish.

3: Converting old portals

By far the hardest and most time-consuming task we have been working on is updating the old portals, the very reason we revamped this WikiProject in the first place.

There are two approaches here:

A) Restart a portal from scratch, using our automated tools. For basic no-frills portals, that works find. But, for more elaborate portals, as that tends to lose content and features, the following approach is being tried...
B) Upgrade a portal section by section, so little to nothing is lost in the process.

4: Linking to new portals

Or "portal deorphanization"...

Dreamy Jazz Bot is purring along.

And a tool in the form of a script is under development for linking to portals at the time they are created, or shortly thereafter.

5...

See below...

New WikiProject for the post-saved-portal phase of operations...

Saved portals, are portals with a saved page.

What is the next stage in the evolutionary progression?

Quantum portals.

What are quantum portals?

Portals that come into existence when you click on the portal button, and which disappear when you leave the page.

Or, as Pbsouthwood put it:

...portals that exist only as a probability function (algorithm) until you collapse the wave form by observing through the portal button (run the script), and disappear again after use...

Introducing...

Wikipedia:WikiProject Quantum portals (see it's talk page).

Keep on keepin' on

...'til next time,    — The Transhumanist   10:26, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Reducing the orphan problem

Dear Pbsouthwood,

Dreamy Jazz Bot is handling this via "Task 2".

It appears to be doing the daily function quite well, linking to all new portals since the previous daily run. This means we are not adding to the orphan problem by creating more portals. Dreamy Jazz has certainly gone beyond the call of duty with this feature.    — The Transhumanist   21:26, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Quantum portal prototype (sort of)

Peter...

Okay, I've got a very rough menu-item-controlled prototype up and running. It shows proof-of-concept by using preview pages as the display page for quantum portals. If a portal already exists, it shows that.

For the prototype, I've added the "Matching portal" menu item to the script User:The Transhumanist/QuickPortal.js.

That script (not the new menu item), along with an assortment of "bpsp" (numbered) templates, is how I've been creating so many portals so quickly.

I'm currently trying to figure out how to integrate all the numbered templates into a single process, but for now, swapping out templates (by adding a number) is done manually during portal creation (at the preview page stage).

Please give the menu item a test run, and let me know what you think.

All ideas, thoughts, comments, observations, questions, and suggestions are welcome.

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   21:40, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

P.S.: For non-existing portals, I haven't made the menu item single click yet. When on an article page that doesn't have a portal yet, after clicking on Matching portal, you have to click on the "Start the" link provided on the page that shows up. Then QuickPortal's main feature will kick in and create the portal (in preview mode).    — The Transhumanist   22:10, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

P.P.S.: There's a bug in QuickPortal.js; an incompatibility with WP:wikEd. So you have to have wikEd turned off. Otherwise, QuickPortal will go into an endless loop, creating the portal over and over. That's why I haven't publicly announced the script yet. Alpha software.    — The Transhumanist   22:17, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Script loaded and run. Seems to do what it says on the box, but have only done a few runs. 04:25, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi, I'm RonBot, a script that checks new non-free file uploads. I have found that the subject image that you recently uploaded was more than 5% in excess of the Non-free content guideline size of 100,000 pixels. I have tagged the image for a standard reduction, which (for jpg/gif/png/svg files) normally happens within a day. Please check the reduced image, and make sure that the image is not excessively corrupted. Other files will be added to Category:Wikipedia non-free file size reduction requests for manual processing. There is a full seven-day period before the original oversized image will be hidden; during that time you might want to consider editing the original image yourself (perhaps an initial crop to allow a smaller reduction or none at all). A formula for the calculation of the desired size can be found at WP:Image resolution, along with instructions on how to tag the image in the rare cases that it requires an oversized image (typically about 0.2% of non-free uploads are tagged as necessarily oversized). Please contact the bot owner if you have any questions, or you can ask them at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content. See User:RonBot for info on how to not get these messages. RonBot (talk) 18:02, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

sheesh

you gonna do that for the rest of the planet? (biodiversity of south africa) - it looks very good but... the precedent issue - that is a hard act to follow for the rest of the planet... JarrahTree 05:56, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

JarrahTree, Not by myself, I don't think I will live long enough, but this is Wikipedia, maybe someday someone else will do something similar, and if I notice I will chip in. I have done a few marine species lists for Australia when I was out there diving and got given a few books. It all adds up, and having an act to follow is sometimes the most important step in getting something going. I am doing South Africa because I know many of the people working in the field, and it is where I am. Makes it a bit easier. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 07:54, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
its very impressive - not sure I would want to do oz - just getting the biota-importance has worn me out so far... JarrahTree 07:56, 18 February 2019 (UTC)
If you ever change your mind, ping me. Nice photo of Cape Leeuwin. I think it was dark when I passed, also somewhat rougher. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 08:11, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Diving equipment standards

I'm so glad the equipment standard references I added to Swimfin proved welcome. I have now added others in Diving mask and I'd be happy to create articles about the swimfin, diving mask and snorkel standards that have appeared since the late 1960s. I have full-text copies of each of them and I have sufficient foreign language skills to glean the essentials from them all. I'm delighted too that my DIN 7876 swimfin standard article has been accepted. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to see in print here what I have come up with. Helmardine (talk) 10:50, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Helmardine, we few who write about diving on Wikipedia are very happy to welcome anyone who produces well-written and apparently well researched material on the less known aspects, because it fills out the coverage nicely, and we all learn from it. I hope you will continue to create good content and enjoy your contributions. It is highly satisfying and at times a bit scary to realise just how high on the internet search results your contributions here will be. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 12:20, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Discretionary Sanctions Alert

This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.

You have shown interest in Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.

For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.

Guy Macon (talk) 12:41, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

@Guy Macon:. Noted. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 15:01, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

February 2019

Information icon Hello, I'm Zackmann08. Thank you for your recent contributions to Template:Marine biodiversity of South Africa. When you were adding content to the page, you added duplicate arguments to a template which can cause issues with how the template is rendered. In the future, please use the preview button before you save your edit; this helps you find these errors as they will display in red at the top of the page. Thanks! Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 18:46, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Zackmann08. Thanks for fixing. Actually I did preview, and also had to re-edit to get rid of an ambiguous link, but I seem to have missed the warning. I am going to play around with the template a bit to see if I can find out whether there really is a problem or just me not paying attention properly, so don't worry about the next couple of changes to the template. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 20:02, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
Zackmann08, I did an experiment by adding a duplicate argument again and previewing, but got no warning message that I could see. Nothing red at the top of the page anyway, just the standard "This is only a preview" etc. Most strange. Anyway I am taking this all as a suggestion to knock off for the night. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 20:19, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

You are wrong

@Pbsouthwood: Sadly you are wrong, Portal:Tanagers was created by using List of tanager species. But any way I just found a category that I didn't know about until today. It's called Category:Portals needing attention, I think I'll use this on portals that I asked User:The Transhumanist to create for me.Catfurball (talk) 18:27, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Catfurball, Not so sad at all, If there is a way to use the table then the portal can probably be fixed. It might just need to use an alternative template. This is better than not being able to fix it. In this case I am happy to be corrected. It seems that that specific obstacle has been surmounted. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 18:46, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Portal update

@Pbsouthwood: I added Category:Portals needing attention to the following portals that I asked User:The Transhumanist to create for me. Portal:Cotingas; Portal:Hummingbirds; Portal:Plums; Portal:Tanagers; Portal:Tyrant flycatchers & Portal:Woodpeckers. I just added some new nice pictures to the Introduction section of these portals, but sadly someone will have to clean my work a little.Catfurball (talk) 19:31, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Heads up

Copied "Navbox builder script" thread to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Navigation templates#Navbox builder script".    — The Transhumanist   18:31, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2019).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • A new tool is available to help determine if a given IP is an open proxy/VPN/webhost/compromised host.

Arbitration

  • The Arbitration Committee announced two new OTRS queues. Both are meant solely for cases involving private information; other cases will continue to be handled at the appropriate venues (e.g., WP:COIN or WP:SPI).
    • paid-en-wp@wikipedia.org has been set up to receive private evidence related to abusive paid editing.
    • checkuser-en-wp@wikipedia.org has been set up to receive private requests for CheckUser. For instance, requests for IP block exemption for anonymous proxy editing should now be sent to this address instead of the functionaries-en list.

Miscellaneous


Restoration

If you restore a page, it is a good idea to remove the speedy tag! And, but I admit I often forget, restore the talk page as well. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 14:56, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

Both good points. Thanks, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 17:19, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Notability (people). Legobot (talk) 04:48, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Been there, have nothing to say. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 05:26, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Transclusion in outlines

The lead entries of outlines are typically formatted the same as other entries in the outlines, annotation style, with an en-dash separating the main entry from its descriptive annotation.

Transclusion doesn't accommodate the en dash, and so, we have a formatting problem.

I've been delaying the use of transcluding leads into outlines, hoping to find or develop a solution to this. Then I got distracted by the WP:ENDPORTALS RfC.

It may seem like a minor distinction, but it may come into significance when we build an outline parser. In addition to parsing branches of the tree structure down to individual entries, such a parser would also differentiate between each topic and its description. List items are a hell of a lot easier to parse than paragraphs. The en dash differentiates where the topic ends and its description begins, and serves as a disambiguator (ambiguities plague natural language processing algorithms such as text parsers). Parsing a formal outline format is easy, but an informal format, that includes non-outline features such as natural language prose (paragraph format), is exponentially more complex, and in many cases is impossible to disambiguate with the programming resources we have available. Outline parsers are used in outline viewers and outline editors (see Outliner).    — The Transhumanist   01:04, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

The Transhumanist, It is not clear what your point is. I assume this comment is in the context of my recent use of a trancluded lead in Outline of Cape Town and the subsequent talk page discussion. Are you suggesting that there is a good practical reason not to use a transcluded lead, that there is a guidance or policy based reason not to use one, that there is local or general consensus not to use one or something else? Are you saying that the lead entries of outlines must be, should be, or just usually are formatted the same as other entries? Do you have a suggestion for the short or long-term amprovement of that outline? At present it is not even clear to everyone what can or should be included as within scope. A reasonably accurate lead section is usually a good indicator of scope. Transcluding it was easier than copying it. It does not have to be perfect, better is generally acceptable, though there are often disputes on what is better. If someone prefers to write a unique custom handcrafted lead nothing is stopping them. If a better version of transclusion template is developed that is also easy to change. I am not seeing the problem here. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 05:03, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
Not arguing here. Just filling in the gaps. See Wikipedia:Outlines#What an outline is not. Of course, like the rest of Wikipedia, it is a work-in-progress, and is subject to revision.
With an en dash separating outlines' lead topics from their descriptions, their annotations can be toggled (at some point in the future), along with the rest of the annotations in the outlines, so that annotated outlines can be viewed with annotations, or as bare topics lists, at the will of the user. Unfortunately, development stalled with a problem beyond my ability to program past: the screen jumps with the toggle. That is, when the toggle hides annotated text, the current list entries that the user is looking at move up (and usually off) the screen, so the user isn't looking at the same location in the page anymore. It can be rather disconcerting. I have not been able to figure out how to stabilize it, but will eventually.
Another reason for annotation format is that an outline that has a prose lead isn't entirely an outline. In that situation, only the body of the page is an outline. Outlines are lists. At some point in the future, it would be nice to have WP's outline format be able to be loaded into outliners. That won't happen with any page that isn't in a parsable (outline) format.
I'm beginning to think that putting outline development on hold for a year for the portals was a mistake. The tools would be lot further along by now.
Since you seem interested in features under development, and future technological possibilities, I thought you'd like to know. Cheers.    — The Transhumanist   06:51, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
In my opinion, a lead section/introduction is very useful to both the reader and editor of an outline, as without it there is no on-page context provided. There is no obvious reason why it cannot be ring-fenced by some code to make it easy to ignore by software. Maybe a template that calls the transclude lead excerpt and displays it in a consistent way. For exanple, if the Outline of Cape Town had a standard en dash description or annotated link, followed by a transcluded lead excerpt from the topics main article, the parser would need to be told to ignore the transclude lead excerpt content or other lead section content. I do not know how complicated that would be, but it might be possible to put in a marker if balancing opening and closing curly braces has too many loopholes. Maybe a template {{non-list content}}. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 08:13, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

NPR Newsletter No.17

Hello Pbsouthwood,

News
Discussions of interest
  • Two elements of CSD G6 have been split into their own criteria: R4 for redirects in the "File:" namespace with the same name as a file or redirect at Wikimedia Commons (Discussion), and G14 for disambiguation pages which disambiguate zero pages, or have "(disambiguation)" in the title but disambiguate a single page (Discussion).
  • {{db-blankdraft}} was merged into G13 (Discussion)
  • A discussion recently closed with no consensus on whether to create a subject-specific notability guideline for theatrical plays.
  • There is an ongoing discussion on a proposal to create subject-specific notability guidelines for chemicals and organism taxa.
Reminders
  • NPR is not a binary keep / delete process. In many cases a redirect may be appropriate. The deletion policy and its associated guideline clearly emphasise that not all unsuitable articles must be deleted. Redirects are not contentious. See a classic example of the templates to use. More templates are listed at the R template index. Reviewers who are not aware, do please take this into consideration before PROD, CSD, and especially AfD because not even all admins are aware of such policies, and many NAC do not have a full knowledge of them.
NPP Tools Report
  • Superlinks – allows you to check an article's history, logs, talk page, NPP flowchart (on unpatrolled pages) and more without navigating away from the article itself.
  • copyvio-check – automatically checks the copyvio percentage of new pages in the background and displays this info with a link to the report in the 'info' panel of the Page curation toolbar.
  • The NPP flowchart now has clickable hyperlinks.

Six Month Queue Data: Today – Low – 2393 High – 4828
Looking for inspiration? There are approximately 1000 female biographies to review.
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--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:18, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

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Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #030, 17 Mar 2019

Previous issue:

Single-page portals: 4,704
Total portals: 5,705

This issue:

Single-page portals: 4,562
Total portals: 5,578

The collection of portals has shrunk

All Portals closed at WP:MfD during 2019

Grouped Nominations total 127 Portals:

  1. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/US County Portals Deleted 64 portals
  2. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Districts of India Portals Deleted 30 Portals
  3. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portals for Portland, Oregon neighborhoods Deleted 23 Portals
  4. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Allen Park, Michigan Deleted 6 Portals
  5. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Cryptocurrency Deleted 2 Portals
  6. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:North Pole Deleted 2 Portals

Individual Nominations:

  1. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Circles Deleted
  2. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Fruits Deleted
  3. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:E (mathematical constant) Deleted
  4. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Burger King Deleted
  5. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Cotingas Deleted
  6. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Prostitution in Canada Deleted
  7. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Agoura Hills, California Deleted
  8. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Urinary system Deleted
  9. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:You Am I Deleted
  10. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Cannabis (2nd nomination) Reverted to non-Automated version
  11. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Intermodal containers Deleted
  12. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Adventure travel Deleted
  13. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Adam Ant Deleted
  14. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Benito Juárez, Mexico City Deleted
  15. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Spaghetti Deleted
  16. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Wikiatlas Deleted
  17. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Greek alphabet Deleted
  18. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Deleted
  19. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Accounting Deleted G7
  20. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Lents, Portland, Oregon Deleted P2
  21. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Ankaran Deleted
  22. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Jiu-jitsu Deleted G8
  23. Portal:University of Nebraska Speedy Deleted P1/A10 exactly the same as Portal:University of Nebraska–Lincoln also created by the TTH

Related WikiProject:

  1. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Quantum portals Demoted

(Attribution: Copied from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Portal MfD Results)

WikiProject Quantum portals

This was a spin-off from WikiProject Portals, for the purpose of developing zero-page portals (portals generated on-the-screen at the push of a button, with no stored pages).

It has been merged back into WikiProject Portals. In the MfD the vote was "demote". See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Quantum portals.

Hiatus on mass creation of Portals

At WP:VPR, mass creation of Portals using semi-automated tools has been put on hold until clearer community consensus is established.

See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Hiatus on mass creation of Portals.

The Transhumanist banned from creating new portals for 3 months

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Proposal 1: Interim Topic-Ban on New Portals.

Until next issue...

Keep on keepin' on.    — The Transhumanist   03:53, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

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Administrators' newsletter – April 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2019).

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • Two more administrator accounts were compromised. Evidence has shown that these attacks, like previous incidents, were due to reusing a password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. All admins are strongly encouraged to enable two-factor authentication, please consider doing so. Please always practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.
  • As a reminder, according to WP:NOQUORUM, administrators looking to close or relist an AfD should evaluate a nomination that has received few or no comments as if it were a proposed deletion (PROD) prior to determining whether it should be relisted.

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