This is an archive of past discussions about User:Pbsouthwood. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
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:
Associated Wikimedia – {{Wikimedia for portals|species=no|voy=no}}
Categories – {{#tag:categorytree|{{PAGENAME}}}}
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.
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).
Following a successful request for comment, administrators are now able to add and remove editors to the "event coordinator" group. Users in the event coordinator group have the ability to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit. Users will no longer need to be in the "account creator" group if they are in the event coordinator group.
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.
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.
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
Image 1Tower Bridge
Image 2Pocket Sacramento Canal
Image 3State Capitol Building
Image 4Sacramento from near the Sacramento River
Image 5US Bank Tower
Image 6Sacramento Memorial Auditorium
Image 7Capitol Mall, seen from the Capitol
Image 8Old Town Sacramento, the capital as it looked like in 19th century
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).
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.
Hey there, just sending you some positive vibes about your RFA experience. I respect you for weathering the process thus far. In my opinion you are just the type of admin we need: thoughtful, mature, and interested in building an encyclopedia. While there are certainly some valid points in your opposition section, most of it is indicative of what's gone wrong with this site. I'm not ready to jump ship though, and I hope this process doesn't make you feel that way. Whatever happens, face forward and let's keep influencing this place for the better. --Laser brain(talk)14:24, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
Laser brain, Thanks for the kind words. I agree with your analysis: The oppose reasons are generally plausible and logically valid. Whether they are sufficient is the question that the closer will have to decide. I will ride this out because of the support and because all else aside, it is an interesting experience and less stressful than is generally implied. Perhaps that is because to me it really isn't a big deal, and even the opposes are being very polite about it. I think the underlying debate here is between those who fear the appointment of admins that may be difficult to get rid of, for whatever reason, and those who don't see a problem with admins who may not be skilled with all tools and continuously active in admin work. I can sympathise with the former, because I also think admin recall should be easier and a community procedure. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 15:09, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
User info screenshotI've cast my eye over that list and count nine admins. Admittedly, that status isn't explicitly mentioned with any of them but you get their user rights when you hover your cursor over the user name (at least that happens with the way my account is set up). Schwede6604:52, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
Your RFA reminds me of how my RFA vote percentage looked like and how mine turned out (although the reasons for users opposing your RFA are much different than the reasons that users opposed mine... which is a good thing, lol). I haven't seen such an "on-the-border" RFA vote turnout since mine... and I remember just how of a nail-biter it was to me. Although I decided to oppose, I want you to know that I meant it when I said that I thought you were a fantastic editor. Should your RFA not pass, I hope that you can look past any disheartened feelings and that you don't let it weigh you down. I was left feeling quite disheartened when my first RFA failed, and I would be blowing smoke at you if I told you that I wouldn't have felt the same way had my second one also failed... just keep your head up and power on should that happen. If your RFA does pass, I hope that you'll not only complete the objectives that primarily motivated you to run in the first place, but that you'll slowly, carefully, and with wisdom - transition yourself into the role and that you'll continue to use the tools in order to improve the project long-term. Passing an RFA is something that a very few number of editors achieve, and is something that's been continuing to decrease in number and become harder to accomplish as time goes by and the project ages and changes. Don't take such an achievement lightly; use the opportunity that you may be given ;-). I wish you good luck and I hope that the RFA isn't leaving you stressed, up late at night, etc :-) ~Oshwah~(talk)(contribs)08:56, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
Oshwah, If my RfA does not pass, I will be free of the responsibilities and work that go with it, and not because I shirked the burden. I have so much to do without additional work that I wouldn't notice the loss and any discernible disheartening effect should be over in a day or so. It seems that I misjudged the need, but I did so in good faith, so it does not cause me any loss of sleep. If it passes I intend to take the responsibilities as seriously as they deserve and to follow a route much as you recommend, so don't you lose any sleep over it either. I am confident that the encyclopedia is in no danger from me. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 12:54, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
Well HEY!!! holy hell, look at this! Your RFA did pretty much the same thing that mine did... and you made a clean pass.... congratulations are absolutely in order here. Even though I decided to oppose your RFA, I want you to know that I'm so so glad that your RFA passed. You have the chance and the opportunity to show the community that, despite your narrow primary motivations for running and what you'd use the tools for - you became a fair, knowledgeable, dedicated, and respected administrator. You have the potential to be an amazing and excellent example that editors point to in order to show that RFA candidates don't have to be held to such a high level of expectations and with such a wide level of demonstrated experience in the "typical areas" first. You could be the one that indirectly results in the RFA process becoming a better and less-extreme environment than what it's slowly allowed itself to work up to become over the years, and I think that this "kick in the face" with how we think and judge in this area would be good for us. I'm not at all trying to imply any pressure toward you or say that "we'll all be watching you" (lol)... I simply wanted to say that this RFA was a step in the right direction to unbreak the expectations we set and make a positive adjustment to such for new candidates. Again, I congratulate you for passing, and I'm available should you have any questions or need my help with anything. Now crack open a beer (five) and relax. You definitely deserve it. Welcome aboard :-) ~Oshwah~(talk)(contribs)03:21, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
This possibility (of having a positive influence on future RfAs) did pass through my mind, and is one of the reasons I decided to not try to game the system in any way, which would not have been too difficult. The other reason I guess is that gaming the system sucks;-/ What you see here is what you get, though maybe with an extra layer of civility which has now become a habit. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 07:30, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
Despite the fact that I snuck in my additional question to you soon after the opening of your RfA, I waited to vote for almost an entire week. I want you to know that I have put a considerable amount of time into digging through your contributions and efforts prior to making this vote; it is not that I did not have confidence in your abilities to be an upstanding administrator. I do see the side of people who say that you have not been as involved in admin-related areas. However, your a) sense of commitment to making Wikipedia richer by improving its content and b) need for the tools, even if it is for a particular task, shows your alignment with Wikipedia's goals, which is what Wikipedia's policies are derived from. A person doesn't have to have a finance major to go into finance; they can have a degree in engineering, for instance; an engineer typically has the analytical skills needed to go into a financial role. You have demonstrated an ability to have a mature understanding of Wikipedia's policies, particularly those related to content creation, have demonstrated an understanding and application of policies on Wikivoyage, and have familiarity with Wikipedia's goals. Moreover, your having gained trust on Wikivoyage and willingness to recall suggests that you are not in it to hat collect. I ended up supporting your RfA. I applaud you for your willingness to step up to the plate, and best of luck to you until the closing of the process. JustBerry (talk) 01:23, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
Adding thanks for admin services ;) - It was the first time that I was No. 1 supporting, and I was a bit afraid thinking that some might oppose just for that ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:47, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
welcome to the mop corps
Congratulations on your successful RFA! You signed up for this, so now it's your turn to hear what the puppy told me after my RFA passed – eleven long, sordid, good-lord-how-has-it-been-eleven-years years ago:
Remember you will always protect the wrong version. (I got nothing here. It's inevitable. I'd be shocked if you haven't done it already.)
Remember you must always follow the rules, except for when you ignore them. Without exception, you will pick the wrong one to do. (See #5.)
Remember to assume good faith and not bite. Remember that when you are applying these principles most diligently, you are probably dealing with a troll. (You'll attract many more of those now, because mop. They must like to drink the dirty water in the bucket.)
Use the block ability sparingly. Enjoy the insults you receive when you do block, because really, what else is there to live for?
Remember that when you make these errors, someone will be more than happy to point them out to you in dazzling clarity and descriptive terminology. It will not be a personal attack because we are admins and, therefore, we are all rouge anyway.
Finally, remember to contact me if you ever need assistance, and I will do what I am able.
DISCLAIMER: This humor does not reflect the official humor of Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation, or Jimbo Wales, because if it did, it would be much, much better. Or worse. Who knows. All rights released under GFDL.
Yup. "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. So I elect for neither label."[1] Thanks, Katie. · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 14:03, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
Thank you so much for all the great work you're doing behind the scenes on Portals. You've taken on quite the task and the community thanks you for it. Moxy (talk) 18:18, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
Welcome aboard! Enjoy the warm glow of new adminship - it lasts about 24 hours and after that it's down to work! I know you'll be a real asset to the project. --MelanieN (talk) 00:36, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
Thanks to all for encouragement and support. The RfA was not as bad as all that, and was quite interesting at many levels. Most criticism was fair, and unfair criticism reflects more on the critic. Anyway, excitement is over, back to work. Much to do, much to learn... · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 06:57, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
The correct result. Most of us admins are very friendly and helpful, and asking questions of them is a good thing, never feel unsure whether you can do so or not. I'm sure, however, that you'll be fine. More than fine. All the best. Fish+Karate08:37, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
Congratulations, Peter! During the RfA, I was depressed by what I considered to be so many examples of how not to evaluate a potential administrator. Thankfully, good reason prevailed. Now get that mopping job done and we can get back to scuba diving articles. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 18:23, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
I was impressed by the amount of goodwill, even from much of the opposition. It was an interesting exerience. And thanks for the support.
The mopping is never finished, and the sub-encyclopaedia of underwater diving will also never be finished, but it is getting better. I can shift between them as the inspiration calls. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 18:57, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
Congratulations on the successful RfA!
With 213 supporters, Pbsouthwood's request for adminship is the fourth to succeed in 2018 (image courtesy of Linguist111).
Well done! And do well! Lourdes 07:13, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Looks like a couple of people beat me to it as I was doing the tidy up. So I'll just drop this here! WormTT(talk) 07:19, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Congratulations Pbsouthwood! Your RfA was successful. You are now an administrator on the English Wikipedia. I hope you have just as happy a time editing in the future as you did before your RfA. You may want to look at the admin guide to read up on any tools you are unfamiliar with.
A beer for you! (or suitable non-alcoholic drink if you prefer) A toast to your successful RfA! Best of luck to you! — Amakuru (talk) 09:57, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Congratulations for your RfA! Especially this one, which was quite stressful. You went under 73% before finally going up to 77%. L293D (☎ • ✎)12:03, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
yeah, I knew from the start your RfA would pass. I think we should get drunk, and bi+ch about jimbo now. —usernamekiran(talk)12:11, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Congratulations on making it through the gauntlet!! I went through it 12 years ago and it has gotten a lot tougher since then! --rogerd (talk) 13:11, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Cheers, so pleased for the project! Lucky to have you. Thanks for all your work, as well as standing; I meant it when I said I hope we'll get more candidates like you, and I appreciate your helping pave the way! Innisfree987 (talk) 18:01, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Thanks! Replacing the template is not that trivial to me, as I don't even know where exactly it is used. I only know that its deletion messed up the layout of Portal:Poland/Selected picture. Can you tell me where I should make the replacement? — Kpalion(talk)23:51, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
Kpalion, That may be less trivial than I thought, as I cannot find it in use anywhere. There is no visible use in Portal:Poland/Selected picture. It should be easy to fix once we find it. I will be unavailable for editing most of today, so will copy this discussion to the WikiProject talk page in the hope that someone else can work out what is going on. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 04:49, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
Hi PBsouthwood, congratulations on your recent adminship! I was wondering if you'd be able to help me with your new admin skills clean up a portal. I'm in the process of remaking Portal:Human body as a single page, would you be able to help me with some speedy deletion requests? (I figure a single request here is easier than 60 subrequests and the time that takes!) My rationale is "G6 Redundant portal page - now on main page".
If you'd be able to speedy delete from the subpages of the portal (subpages are here: [1]) - but not from the main portal:
All Wikimedia subpages (no longer needed - integrated into main)
All intro and intro box headers of the subpages
All the nervous system, lymphatic system, and digestive system subpages
All of the "things to do" subpages
That would be most appreciated!! As you're doing that I'm going to continue to move content over and tighten up the main page. (have just done something similar with Portal:Anatomy which also has a few outstanding speedy deletion requests. Many thanks! --Tom (LT) (talk) 07:14, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
Tom (LT), That should not be a problem. I will take a look and see if your request is unambiguous. If it is I will delete. If it turns out less unambiguous than it looks, you will have to ask me to undelete specific pages by name. The easiest for me is if you list all the pages you want deleted on one of your user subpages, then I can bulk delete very quickly and you will be 100% sure the right stuff is being deleted. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 07:22, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
Thank you, Pbsouthwood! I have a few more pages to request:
Reproductive system subpages Done
Nervous system subpages Done
Musculoskeletal subpages Done
Integumentary subpages Done
Cardiovascular system subpage Done
Featured picture/article subpage Done
Again same rationale as above, and have integrated the content into the main page. Pages are listed here [3]. That should leave only a few pages left, which I'll go through myself and check that there are no unexpected dependencies. Your work is much appreciated! --Tom (LT) (talk) 01:08, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
Tom (LT), The information you are giving me is not sufficient to positively and unambiguously identify the pages to delete. If I click on some of the links on the special page, then check what links to that page I get quite a list. Generally that means the page is still used by several pages, and deleting it will break articles, which is not the way to do this. For me to spend maybe 20 minutes or more checking through each of those pages to ensure that I only delete the ones which will not break something is not efficient. If you blank all the unused pages, with an edit summary that they are now redundant, you can check for yourself if there are unwanted side effects, and if there are none then I can delete them with reasonable confidence that no harm is likely to be done, as then I can check if the page is blank, and the edit summary specifies that the page is no longer in use before deleting, which is relatively quick. If you list the specific pages to be deleted and only those pages on one of your own talk pages, I can assume that you have personally checked that there will be no unforeseen complications and are taking responsibility for having checked, and I can delete much more quickly. If there is anything unclear about this, please ask. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 15:30, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
@Pbsouthwood, hmm. Both options you discuss are labour-intensive (you checking, and me blanking). I have requested speedy deletion of the main system subpages, on the grounds that they are redundant. A second impartial admin can make that assessment and, if they are deleted, then all "system" subpages will be both not used and not have a parent page (which I think is G6 and G8 criteria). If you're still not comfortable deleting ( :( ) then I may migrate my request to the administrator's noticeboard. My blanking the pages will take quite some time and not change the fact that at the time of deletion an admin will still be checking "what links here". Nor will my making a list when there's a list provided on the link I provide. Deleting the main subpages will, however, make that process a lot simpler. Thanks for your help above, still much appreciated. --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:24, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
Tom (LT), You have linked to special pages that list all subpages prefixed with a specific page name, and provided a short list of generic page types presumably associated with the special page list. I cannot read the two together and know with any certainty exactly which pages can be safely deleted. This may be due to ignorance of the system on my part, or may be a real lack of unambiguous specification. Either way it would be irresponsible for me to delete. Sorry about that. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 05:03, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
Firstly, I'm very glad to hear you have batch delete ability!! Secondly - this is what I wanted, and I have checked the main page checked, no errors. Thanks very much for your help! --Tom (LT) (talk) 09:03, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
I am glad I could help, and that I was able to work out what you wanted. Batch delete is very powerful and very fast, All those deletions would take only a few seconds once the correct list is selected, but for those reasons I treat it like a loaded gun. I want to be sure that the target is correctly identified before I point it at anything, and it cannot select from the list on special pages. A simple bulleted list on a talk page - either one of your own, mine or the WikiProject - created by someone who takes responsibility for the list being correct, is appropriate. Please consider this option if you expect to need large numbers of portal subpages deleted again. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 09:24, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
NPP Backlog Elimination Drive
Hello Pbsouthwood, 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: . Those who review 100, 250, 500, or 1000 pages will also receive tiered awards: , , , .
Please do not be hasty, take your time and fully review each page. It is extremely important that we focus on quality reviewing.
House mouse (Mus musculus) A mouse (<abbr title=" '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000018-QINU`"' ">pl.: mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (Mus musculus). Mice are also popular as pets. In some places, certain kinds of field mice are locally common. They are known to invade homes for food and shelter.
Mice are typically distinguished from rats by their size. Generally, when a muroid rodent is discovered, its common name includes the term mouse if it is smaller, or rat if it is larger. The common terms rat and mouse are not taxonomically specific. Typical mice are classified in the genus Mus, but the term mouse is not confined to members of Mus and can also apply to species from other genera such as the deer mouse (Peromyscus).
Domestic mice sold as pets often differ substantially in size from the common house mouse. This is attributable to breeding and different conditions in the wild. The best-known strain of mouse is the white lab mouse. It has more uniform traits that are appropriate to its use in research. (Full article...)
Image 2
The dog (Canis familiaris or Canis lupus familiaris) is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it was selectively bred from an extinct population of wolves during the Late Pleistocene by hunter-gatherers. The dog was the first species to be domesticated by humans, over 14,000 years ago and before the development of agriculture. Experts estimate that due to their long association with humans, dogs have gained the ability to thrive on a starch-rich diet that would be inadequate for other canids.
Dogs have been bred for desired behaviors, sensory capabilities, and physical attributes. Dog breeds vary widely in shape, size, and color. They have the same number of bones (with the exception of the tail), powerful jaws that house around 42 teeth, and well-developed senses of smell, hearing, and sight. Compared to humans, dogs have an inferior visual acuity, a superior sense of smell, and a relatively large olfactory cortex. They perform many roles for humans, such as hunting, herding, pulling loads, protection, companionship, therapy, aiding disabled people, and assisting police and the military.
Communication in dogs includes eye gaze, facial expression, vocalization, body posture (including movements of bodies and limbs), and gustatory communication (scents, pheromones, and taste). They mark their territories by urinating on them, which is more likely when entering a new environment. Over the millennia, dogs became uniquely adapted to human behavior; this adaptation includes being able to understand and communicate with humans. As such, the human–canine bond has been a topic of frequent study, and dogs' influence on human society has given them the sobriquet of "man's best friend". (Full article...)
Image 3
The horse (Equus ferus caballus) is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extantsubspecies of Equus ferus. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, Eohippus, into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began domesticating horses around 4000 BCE, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BCE. Horses in the subspecies caballus are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. These feral populations are not true wild horses, which are horses that never have been domesticated. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, size, colors, markings, breeds, locomotion, and behavior.
Horses are adapted to run, allowing them to quickly escape predators, and possess a good sense of balance and a strong fight-or-flight response. Related to this need to flee from predators in the wild is an unusual trait: horses are able to sleep both standing up and lying down, with younger horses tending to sleep significantly more than adults. Female horses, called mares, carry their young for approximately 11 months and a young horse, called a foal, can stand and run shortly following birth. Most domesticated horses begin training under a saddle or in a harness between the ages of two and four. They reach full adult development by age five, and have an average lifespan of between 25 and 30 years.
Horse breeds are loosely divided into three categories based on general temperament: spirited "hot bloods" with speed and endurance; "cold bloods", such as draft horses and some ponies, suitable for slow, heavy work; and "warmbloods", developed from crosses between hot bloods and cold bloods, often focusing on creating breeds for specific riding purposes, particularly in Europe. There are more than 300 breeds of horse in the world today, developed for many different uses. (Full article...)
As of 2017 '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000012-QINU`"' ,[update] '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000013-QINU`"' the domestic cat was the second most popular pet in the United States, with 95.6 million cats owned and around 42 million households owning at least one cat. In the United Kingdom, 26% of adults have a cat, with an estimated population of 10.9 million pet cats as of 2020 '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000014-QINU`"' .[update] '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000015-QINU`"' As of 2021 '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000016-QINU`"' ,[update] '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000017-QINU`"' there were an estimated 220 million owned and 480 million stray cats in the world. (Full article...)
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!
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.
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 Transhumanist11:05, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
G6 speedy of Portal:Shakespeare/box-footer
On 6 June you G6'ed Portal:Shakespeare/box-footer with the log entry Housekeeping and routine cleanup of redundant portal subpages, but the page is still in use in a couple of places on Portal:Shakespeare. Am I missing something, or did you just overlook a couple of transclusions? Not knowing what the page's content was, I'm unsure how to fix it without major surgery to the portal (which, of course, might be a good idea for other reasons). --Xover (talk) 05:21, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
Xover, we occasionally have that problem when the dedicated box footer is called through a Lua module via a template, as a subpage of the portal, which is relatively hard to find as it uses a generated name to identify the subpage, not a direct call. There are a couple of template editors skilled at fixing that problem in WikiProject:Portals. I will list it on the portal project talk page and it should be fixed quite soon. Let me know if it persists more than a day or so. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 05:39, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
Done. It turns out that these were ordinary cases and easily fixed, so did it myself. The person who converted this portal to the generic template probably just missed them as there are three "main pages" in this portal. Thanks for letting us know. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 06:03, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
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.
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.
Administrator changes
None
Al Ameer son • AliveFreeHappy • Cenarium • Lupo • MichaelBillington
Guideline and policy news
Technical news
Arbitration
Miscellaneous
Tower Bridge
Pocket Sacramento Canal
State Capitol Building
Sacramento from near the Sacramento River
US Bank Tower
Sacramento Memorial Auditorium
Capitol Mall, seen from the Capitol
Old Town Sacramento, the capital as it looked like in 19th century
Now, get to work!! Atsme📞📧 14:32, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Done. Note that it is trivially simple to substitute the generic {{Box-footer}} as it is exactly the same thing disguised with another name. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood) (talk): 17:00, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
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