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Alexandre Du Mège

Please don't use machine translation as you apparently did at Alexandre Du Mège, as the consensus is that this is worse than nothing. I acknowledge your good faith efforts to clean this up by copyediting to improve the English, but sometimes this can actually make things worse by hiding errors of fact created by MT under a façade of proper English. If your skills in French are not sufficient to fully understand the original article, you should probably not be doing translations from French; instead, please just request assistance in translating it, rather than pasting in a whitewashed MT version, which may only cover the dry rot rather than fix it.

If you want to help with French articles, maybe start by picking some already listed at WP:PNT and work on finding references in English where possible, and adding stub and portal templates, Categories, See also articles, and Further reading sections where applicable. Cordially, Mathglot (talk) 02:45, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Actually Mathglot, I am aware of that principal but it is not all machine translation by any means, however, I used MT as a start and then tried to refine it into proper understandable English and yes there certainly is some still in there where I did not understand the exact meaning. That's my fault for not trying harder. English language sources are rather poor for this subject as it is for many French topics. I started this one because there were several associated people, without enwiki pages, mentioned in another article I had worked on and I thought it was a good idea to at least try to give them an enwiki page. I was using the new translations feature and did not realise there was no preview when hitting the "Publish" button, so I should probably have also taken more time to refine and edit it before doing so. A preview would be a good feature for this tool.
My interest in choosing any French article would stem from an interest in the topics rather than choosing ones out of the blue that dosen't interest me. I will take your advise on board for the future. Thanks. ww2censor (talk) 07:47, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
If you want help with a specific expression or clause of a foreign language article which is unclear, you could leave specific notes here on the Talk page about what you need help with. Probably even better, would be to edit the article and tag the exact spots where you need help. You could do that either with invisible comments, or even better and more precisely using {{clarify span}}. For the latter, use the |text= param for the English running text that you came up with (or that google did) and use the |explain= param to quote the French, and if needed, follow that with a comment about the problem you're having.
Example: suppose you're editing the French article William Bourdon and you're looking at the section #Activités professionnelles et associatives, and you see the following:

Il est proche d'associations d'aide aux étrangers en situation irrégulière, notamment la Cimade, pour laquelle il est intervenu en qualité d'observateur en 1992.

So you start off with MT to get the following:

It is close to associations assisting foreigners in an irregular situation, in particular the Cimade, for which it acted as an observer in 1992.

And you figure out that the first "it" is really "he" but you're confused about two parts of that sentence, the situation irrégulière, and the il est intervenu. So you mark it up like this:

He is close to associations assisting {{clarify span|text=foreigners in an irregular situation|explain="étrangers en situation irrégulière": What situation are they talking about?}}, in particular the [[Cimade]], for which {{clarify span|text=it acted|explain="il est intervenu": 'It' (the assoc.) or 'he' (the guy) acted? What's the antecedent here?}} as an observer in 1992.}}

which will show up in running text like this when you hit the Preview button, or Save:

He is close to associations assisting foreigners in an irregular situation[clarify], in particular the Cimade, for which it acted[clarify] as an observer in 1992.

You can mouse over those two superscript Clarify notes just above, to see the explanations. And then hopefully someone will eventually come along, and replace that markup with this:

He is close to associations which provide help to foreign nationals without proper papers, such as Cimade, for whom he acted as an observer in 1992.

Make sense? Mathglot (talk) 08:54, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
Brilliant advise Mathglot, now I'll have to absorb it all. Thanks so much. I'll be a bit more careful in future. Again thanks. ww2censor (talk) 09:06, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

If you're interested, I redid the section on the #Nérac affair which was a pretty interesting story about an archaeological forgery in which Du Mège was implicated, in case you want to see how it reads now. Mathglot (talk) 20:29, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

That's great stuff. If I had spent more time on it I think I might have figured out the sense but your prose is much better than anything I might have produced. Thanks again Mathglot and for the advise. I'll have another look at the rest of it to see if I can improve the prose. ww2censor (talk) 21:15, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:CUS, Dublin logo.jpg

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Infobox philatelist

I've noticed an apparent error and inconsistency in the use of an infobox on pages for philatelists. On the pages for both Emilio Diena and Alfred Lichtenstein, for example, we see an "infobox engineer" template, but these people do not seem to have been engineers! In other cases, a prominent philatelist's page has no infobox. Shouldn't we set up an "infobox philatelist" template?Fconaway (talk) 17:09, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Fconaway, the editor who wrote those, and several other philatelic biogs, used the same incorrect infobox for several and occasionally, as I've seen them, I try to correct them. I recall telling not to use that infobox at the time, 8+ years ago, User talk:Wikited#Philatelic biographies but they never bothered to do anything to correct them. I don't think any of these people were engineers, so just change them as you see fit. ww2censor (talk) 22:50, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Stamps

Hello, I've declined the copyvio speedy on File:James Bond cover.jpg, File:Hornby cover.jpg, and File:David Bowie Music Icons.jpg. The permissions queue has received emails regarding the licensing of these images, and, as someone with access to the queue, I can confirm that one of the emails (VRTS ticket # 2017050510006981) has correspondence between Buckingham Covers and the Royal Mail that might mean Buckingham Covers does have permission to release the images. Ultimately, it's up to one of the permissions people to sort out. If the permission is not enough, the image will be deleted. clpo13(talk) 23:43, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks clpo13. I highly doubt Royal Mail will give a free license for any of its stamps even on a cover illustrated by a stamp dealer. If they do, then they probably don't understand what that means and that those stamps can be used commercially by anyone for anything and derivative works can be made. We shall see, though I presume I can still challenge the OTRS ticket if one is issued. Personally I would suggest the OTRS volunteer make sure to see the Royal Mail permission and not just that of the dealer supplying the permission. ww2censor (talk) 08:35, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
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Hi,

Thank you for your suggestion.I made the changes which you have suggested for File:Sentrifugo icon,png for the article on Sentrifugo Opensource HRMS. The logo which I have uploaded is free content and it is not licensed and no copy rights. Please suggest me if any other changes are required to avoid deletion message. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pavan at sapplica (talk • contribs) 11:47, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Atheist (and religion) categories

Hi Ww2censor. I noticed you'd removed the "Irish atheist" cat from several articles, saying there was nothing in the article mentioning it. Actually, even if someone's atheism (or religion, or sexuality) is mentioned in an article and referenced, they still shouldn't be included in an atheism/religion or sexuality category, unless their notability derives from membership of that category. Per WP:BLPCAT: "Categories regarding religious beliefs (or lack of such) or sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question, and the subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to their public life or notability, according to reliable published sources." (My emphasis added). It's possible to police this on Irish BLP's, but tends to break down when you try to remove a religion category from some minor American celebrity, I've found, so I tend to just do it on Irish ones. Regards, BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 12:19, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Alexandre Du Mège

Just checking it to see if you had any questions about the tags on this. I am working with that list now; do you want me to strike this article for you when I come across its title on the list? I am pretty sure it is not at this point struck off, so you should do that if you want to keep the article and don't want to go through getting someone to undelete it. Again, if it were up to me, this wouldn't be a question; I have questions about the translation but I am not trying to delete it. On the other hand, if I strike the article on your behalf I am assuming you're going to address these tags, and though I suspect you will, this *is* our first interaction so forgive me if I would prefer you do that yourself. I do edit fast at times and have been known, at least once, to misread something, so if a question seems out in left field, ask me what the hell I meant, k? I am wandering off now, have a nice day. Elinruby (talk) 12:47, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Elinruby I've been rather busy IRL with various dramas, also had no internet access for 10 days and next week am going away on holidays, so I doubt I can refine any of the prose or citations until after June 6. I do not see anywhere that the article is up for any deletion or removal, so I don't know what you mean by "Struck off". Do you mean removing it from the requested translations page? I have not received any deletion notices about it, so I'm a bit confused. I am hoping to get some time to review the translation in relationship to the sources to see if I can clarify some of the phraseology. I also see you have some questions on the talk page that I will attempt to answer there. Thanks for your consideration and whatever edits you make, I am sure, even if made quickly, will only bring clarity to the oddities of machine translation. Thanks ww2censor (talk) 13:58, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
That was approximately how I felt about the whole thing, why would they make a policy that affects translators but not tell them? But yeah, seriously, I'll send you a link when I have it handy but that will be for your information only -- if real life is interfering then I will make sure to take it off the list; as it happens I got curious and looked at the French and that *is* what it says so am happy to attest that the article does not have a translation problem...it has a confusing sentence that was correctly translated from the confusing French. Meanwhile if questions do arise about translation practices (dysfunctional as they currently are on WP) or French, feel free to ping me. Now I will go make sure the article is not on that list, since you reminded me.Thanks for the answer. Elinruby (talk) 14:12, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
ok, you have ntthing to worry about. Go deal with drama, this article will not be deleted. Elinruby (talk) 14:25, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

William C.C. Claiborne

Would you stop using Simon Farve's portrait for William C.C. Claiborne?

I tried to give you the right screen shot of the Times Picayune picture of Claiborne.

Healthy Feet (talk) 13:03, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Healthy Feet, you asked questions on here WP:MCQ#Trying to put in a picture of Claiborne from the Times Picayune to which I responded but you never bothered to respond to the questions or add further information. Please follow up at that discussion so other editors can contribute if they know. Where is the evidence for you claim: in the same discussion I stated I had reverted your edits. BTW, two screenshots of your webpages [1] prove nothing. We require reliable sources as evidence there is an error, if there really is one. Do not reply here, please just follow up at WP:MCQ as requested and where the discussion started. ww2censor (talk) 14:16, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Wicklow Mountains

About the Wicklow Mountains article:

  1. I did not simply remove content, I replaced content: I replaced the word in with the word from.
  2. I did 'adequately explain' why I made the replacement.
  3. I did leave an 'accurate edit summary': 'A mountain cannot be in a valley. This photo of the mountain was taken from the valley.'
  4. Your edit summary states 'revert blanking of content'; that is incorrect: I did not blank content, I replaced content.
  5. The fact that you did not replace the word from with the word in (a true reversion), implies that my original edit was correct.
  6. Your insertion of the word seen does not change the meaning of the sentence in any substantial way: the sentence context relates to a photo, so the meaning of 'from' is clear.
  7. Your own edit summary is inaccurate, since your edit was not a reversion.

Eblana (talk) 17:21, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Actually Eblana if you look at the difference in your edit and the previous one you will see four instance, highlighted in yellow (on my view anyway) where dates and a population statistic, have been removed and left blank causing sentence problems, so saying you did not remove content is in fact false. The edit summary you gave, that you just altered the caption of an image only reflects only one aspect of your edit; you did more than just recaption an image. In reverting you I rephrased that caption for a more accurate description, which is also what you tried to do. I think my caption rephrasing is in fact better but, indeed if you want to be a pedant, my edit summary did not reflect ALL of my edit but essentially it reflects the revert I made of your removal of details you don't acknowledge. Maybe you made a mistake in removing the dates and population but you did do that. ww2censor (talk) 21:44, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Importance

I'll raise a few points and explain why you could be in error as to the importance of Fossa, Ireland overall. Look at how highly related Killarney is on here, high importance. Your name on here is ww2censor, you seem to stir up drama unintentionally or without even wanting to, you have been said to be in edit wars, you don't wish to be an admin, why is that? While you may appreciate humor you come across as unduly meddlesome. I suppose you're open to polling about the importance of Fossa, correct? Bleucheeses (talk) 02:21, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Bleucheeses I'm taken aback by your unsubstantiated accusations. For an editor with less than 200 edits in six years, you have been able to form a very poor and false opinion of an editor who actively assists many editors with copyright issues, has helped keep some articles as featured as well as write articles and have assess countless Irish related articles. In fact I was involved in building the consensus for the core importance criteria for such articles. Perhaps you should review Wikipedia:WikiProject Ireland/Assessment#Importance assessment before you throw stones, and you will see that articles such as Fossa are clearly recommended to be assessed as low-importance. No, I did not make an error, I followed the established criteria. The article has not even got one sentence of information beyond its location, so explain how that can possibly be considered more than of low-importance. Your accusations that my name implies that dramas surrounds my edits is completely false and as for the edit-war comment, you are the editor who was blocked for edit-warring in less than 200 edit; not me who is approaching 100,000 edits. If you want to get the article reassessed you are welcome and can make such a request at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ireland/Assessment#Requesting an assessment.
You ask why I don't want to be an admin, that's because I have a real life with plenty of other things to do and when I see the dramas inflicted on admins and the burnout they suffer with the crap they endure, I don't need that hassle and prefer to contribute to make the encyclopedia better. If you were more active, less critical and assumed good faith you might be a productive contributor too. I'm off on holidays early tomorrow, so any response will not be answered for at least a week. ww2censor (talk) 22:47, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Andrew Beatty photo

Thanks so much for your cleanup help with Andrew Beatty! I'm very rusty with Wikipedia, but I'm trying.  :) I was trying to think of how to add a copyright-free image of him, so I went with a screenshot of him speaking in an official White House broadcast. The White House holds no copyright on those broadcasts, but since I technically took the screenshot, I'm not sure if that means I need to also release any copyright? Please let me know. (As a side note, I realize it's not a great image, but I figured it falls under the "better than nothing" principle. I'll keep looking for something better.) Beginning (talk) 19:00, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

@Beginning: you did extremely well with the image File:Journalist Andrew Beatty, White House Rose Garden, April 2015.jpg but, even though it is tagged on YouTube as having a Standard YouTube License that does not allow reuse, because it is US government work it is in fact a public domain video, so the screenshot is a freely licenced image. You should really have uploaded it to the commons, so I've tagged it to be moved there but I also added some appropriate categories. You are not the actual author of the image so should not be listed as such, you just made a slavish copy, so it is correct. The one thing you can do is indicated where in the almost 1 hour video the image appears. I believe there is a way of actually linking to the exact frame but I don't know how to do that but have seen it somewhere. It is not too bad an image but anyway, thanks for asking. It is really hard to find images of some people. After a long search I eventually found some missing Taoiseach and Irish President images but 2 presidents are still evading us. ww2censor (talk) 22:17, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
Thanks so much for your input and guidance. Glad to know the image isn't quite as bad as I'd thought! I had tried to upload to the Commons but kept getting stuck in a redirect loop for some reason, so I'll try to figure that out now. And I know approximately where in the video the screenshot was taken, so I can look it up to be certain and add that in. Thanks so much for your patience and help. Beginning (talk) 05:05, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Alexandre Du Mège

looking better. The only thing I noticed this time out is that quote at the end --- I see it in the French but if we don't know where it came from, I guess we should loose it (?) Elinruby (talk) 22:25, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

@Elinruby: I found a citation for the quote! Thanks ww2censor (talk) 23:09, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
@Ww2censor: sounds great Elinruby (talk) 23:11, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
@Ww2censor: In response to your question on my French talk page: I might look at the French page, but I'm busy with other stuff right now. Thanks for the heads-up, and I hope to get to it when I free up some time. There are not a ton of resources about him in any language, and we may have exhausted what's available on-line. If you're able to check out your local library, or even to phone your reference librarian, you may be able to find more information. They love to help, give 'em a call. Mathglot (talk) 11:00, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks and I'm trying again

Hello,

Thank you for your speedy reply.

Article name: John W. “Sam” Keltner

I have updated the info on my image File:Keltner's_Celebration_of_Life_program_photo.tif and believe I've done it right. Please let me know. Luckybrian (talk) 21:55, 10 July 2017 (UTC) Luckybrian 10 July 2017 2152 UTC

@Luckybrian: You messed it up again and pasting the contents of the image file does not help tell me what you did. You must link to the history of the edits to be informative. Here is what I have done to cleanup your attempt. Note I am showing you the history and by clicking on it you see exactly what was done; this is how you should have posted your changes. The new fields you added and filled in do not work within the {{information}} template; click on this link to see the supported links, anything else will not work and does not show up because the fields are not defined. Also you should really have continued you question on the media copyright page as i could have been away for many hours but someone else might have answered and would not know you had replied on my talk page. In future when you start a discussion on a page you should continue it there. If you or she gets an OTRS ticket number by email reply you can add it to the file in the format stated. Good luck. ww2censor (talk) 22:52, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Photograph

I wanted to upload a photograph to an article, where shall I send it to you for you to check if it is possible or not? kirunOrVumsiBukusum 11:40, 9 August 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by KiranVamseeBakasam (talk • contribs)

You should really have just continued your question on the WP:MCQ page where you started the discussion as no one is likely to check here. Where is the photo? Is it online, did you take it, or has someone else got it? Answer this and then I can assist you further but you can't send me a photo. The copyright holder could use the following page to donate their photo: Wikipedia:Donating copyrighted materials#Donating your photographs. ww2censor (talk) 17:21, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

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Nomination of Pan Am Clipper Panama for deletion

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Thank You

Dear WW2censor,

Thank you for being so helpful with my draft article. That was very good of you.

Linnaean Street (talk) 16:57, 19 September 2017 (UTC) Linnaean Street

Knockferry

Hi Ww

I spotted your rating of this article. A question: - this is a townland and there appears to be no claim in the article that it is a village of any sort. It is in the category "towns and villages of Galway".

I think it should be removed from the category; we need to create a new category of simply "townlands".  Sarah777 (talk) 20:48, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

I think you mean to place it in one of these Category:Townlands of the Republic of Ireland by county. Personally I see little real use for stubs of townlands in general; few are notable in their own right other than the fact they exist. I've replace the towns and villages category with the county townland category. Well spotted Sarah777. Thanks ww2censor (talk) 21:58, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Cork City

Hello Ww2censor. You did not give a reason for reverting my deletion of the Cork County Hall image. I did give a reason for removing it. It is displayed in a section called 'Places of interest'. Having been born and raised in Cork I can say that it is not a place of interest. People only go there to pay their taxes. We could pick a more interesting place and a better image. Which place of interest would you suggest to replace it? http://time.com/4180414/wikipedia-15th-anniversary/ Thanks. CharlesOliverCork

@Charlesolivercork: If you logged in to your account and signed your posts I could find you relatively easily. Posting as an anonIP is not useful when referring to things you have done as a logged in editor. You could even have put a link to the edit you are talking about. So to answer you, actually I did give a reason in my edit summary: revert image removal and reinstate better quality image of bridge. Not every image in an article has to be placed exactly with prose that complements it and anyway, the images are there to enhance the prose but are only necessary where the reader's understanding of the topic would be disadvantageous to them.
I think this is a classic case of being too closely associated with the topic. Many article don;t have any images at all. You lived/live there and to you it's not of much interest except for paying taxes but to the general encyclopaedia reader, after The Elysian, it is the 2nd tallest building in Cork and the equal 2nd tallest building in the republic and for many years was the tallest on the island, so it is actually of interest in an article of the city. I don't know what you are trying to tell me with the Time magazine link but one of the criticisms of wikipedia is that it is not reliable, which is why we require suitable reliable sources to verify the statements made in articles. If you can't verify some statements then is should not be in the article. ww2censor (talk) 20:39, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Article Resubmitted Following Your Comments

Dear Ww2censor,

This is just to let you know that I have now formally resubmitted the article on which you gave me such helpful comments last month. It is much improved as a result. Fingers crossed!

Linnaean Street (talk) 13:57, 10 October 2017 (UTC) Linnaean Street

Thank you

Hadn't noticed that I'd put Biddy White Lennon in as c-class at all - thought I'd put them all in as stub. So thanks for catching that and upgrading it - I didn't think it was much better than stub. ☕ Antiqueight haver 18:37, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Antiqueight for responding. No problem. For me, and I have assessed many hundreds, maybe even thousands of Irish articles, stub-quality is really only a few sentences and start has a few paragraphs, so this was easily a start-quality for me. However, it is all rather subjective. ww2censor (talk) 19:10, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

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Rating request

I made a rating request at WP Ireland/Assessments however I don't know how active the page is, and as I have seen you over the years assessing could you please assess Provinces of Ireland for me? I did a major overhaul of it last year and reaslised it is still rated as a start. Mabuska (talk) 14:56, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

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Paquebot page

I noticed you haven't edited your page at User:Ww2censor/Paquebot in a few years. You may want to consider incorporating this material into an article. Daask (talk) 06:23, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Daask for the reminder. Actually, even though the page is called Paquebot, it is really another of my sandbox pages with different information that may be added to an existing page or just dumped when I do some housekeeping. You are welcome to take anything you find useful to the main Paquebot article if you feel it adds to it. Just let me know, by striking whatever you use, so I don't end up wasting time later on. Basically I have too many sandbox type pages with prose for several articles but am working on just one at the moment. Of course you also know that RL intervenes. ww2censor (talk) 10:29, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Survey Invite

I'm working on a study of political motivations and how they affect editing. I'd like to ask you to take a survey. The survey should take no more than 1-2 minutes. Your survey responses will be kept private. Our project is documented at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_%2B_Politics.

Your survey Link: http://uchicago.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9S3JByWf57fXEkR?Q_DL=56np5HpEZWkMlr7_9S3JByWf57fXEkR_MLRP_cD4SNCpEkMHouOx&Q_CHL=gl

I am asking you to participate in this study because you are a frequent editor of pages on Wikipedia that are of political interest. We would like to learn about your experiences in dealing with editors of different political orientations.

Sincere thanks for your help! Porteclefs (talk) 16:55, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Ptt (Turkey) logo.png

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⚠

Thanks for uploading File:Ptt (Turkey) 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. --B-bot (talk) 17:19, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Cillian Murphy's birthday

Hi WW2Censor,

Regarding me not providing a reliable source for Murphy's birthday, I did not do so purely because i've rarely seen birthdays require a source on Wikipedia. Nonetheless my source was IMDb, which is a very reliable source on movies and actors. Please let me know if I can re-change it.

All the best — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheInterFan (talk • contribs) 20:54, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

TheInterFan: IMDb is not considered a good enough source. You may want to refer to Wikipedia:Citing IMDb before relying on it. You really need a source like a mainstream newspaper or journal. Each time this has been added it has been mentioned there is no verifiable source so please don't add it until you find one and even them maybe discuss it on the article talk page first. I assume, maybe wrongly, that the previous additions were you but not logged in. Either way you can access the history to see what others have said. Thanks for asking. ww2censor (talk) 21:04, 28 May 2018 (UTC)


Hi,

Just want to clarify that this was the first time i edited his page, as i normally would not do it a second time if it was not allowed, as i now know.

Cheers — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheInterFan (talk • contribs) 21:41, 29 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   12:04, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

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
  • Image 1Tower Bridge
    Tower Bridge
  • Image 2US Bank Tower
    US Bank Tower
  • Image 3State Capitol Building
    State Capitol Building
  • Image 4Pocket Sacramento Canal
    Pocket Sacramento Canal
  • Image 5Sacramento Memorial Auditorium
    Sacramento Memorial Auditorium
  • Image 6Old Town Sacramento, the capital as it looked like in 19th century
    Old Town Sacramento, the capital as it looked like in 19th century
  • Image 7Sacramento from near the Sacramento River
    Sacramento from near the Sacramento River
  • Image 8Capitol Mall, seen from the Capitol
    Capitol Mall, seen from the Capitol

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   02:13, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

have my edits on Fence Lake, New Mexico been approved?

wondering if i am doing the correct things. Danrig (talk) 07:32, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

@Danrig:: Wow, a question 9 years later, perhaps that's a record. Anyway, aside from that, I had a look at your talk page and reviewed the images in question. Well, you have actually used a software copyright licence which is not really totally appropriate. You should really use a free licence, such as, {{attribution}}, {{cc-by-4.0}} or {{cc-by-sa-4.0}} instead but if you want to retain the GFDL you should use one of the variants shown at {{self}}. Click on the links to see the possible additional attributes. Good luck. ww2censor (talk) 11:22, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #009, 15 June 2018

(Article slideshow prototype)
Selected animals
  • Image 1 The horse (Equus ferus caballus) is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies 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...)

    The horse (Equus ferus caballus) is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies 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...)
  • 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...)


    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 cat (Felis catus), also referred to as domestic cat or house cat, is a small domesticated carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species of the family Felidae. Advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that the domestication of the cat occurred in the Near East around 7500 BC. It is commonly kept as a pet and farm cat, but also ranges freely as a feral cat avoiding human contact. Valued by humans for companionship and its ability to kill vermin, the cat's retractable claws are adapted to killing small prey like mice and rats. It has a strong, flexible body, quick reflexes, and sharp teeth, and its night vision and sense of smell are well developed. It is a social species, but a solitary hunter and a crepuscular predator. Cat communication includes vocalizations—including meowing, purring, trilling, hissing, growling, and grunting–as well as body language. It can hear sounds too faint or too high in frequency for human ears, such as those made by small mammals. It secretes and perceives pheromones. Female domestic cats can have kittens from spring to late autumn in temperate zones and throughout the year in equatorial regions, with litter sizes often ranging from two to five kittens. Domestic cats are bred and shown at events as registered pedigreed cats, a hobby known as cat fancy. Animal population control of cats may be achieved by spaying and neutering, but their proliferation and the abandonment of pets has resulted in large numbers of feral cats worldwide, contributing to the extinction of bird, mammal, and reptile species. As of 2017 '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000010-QINU`"' ,[update] '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000011-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-00000012-QINU`"' .[update] '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000013-QINU`"' As of 2021 '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000014-QINU`"' ,[update] '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000015-QINU`"' there were an estimated 220 million owned and 480 million stray cats in the world. (Full article...)


    The cat (Felis catus), also referred to as domestic cat or house cat, is a small domesticated carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species of the family Felidae. Advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that the domestication of the cat occurred in the Near East around 7500 BC. It is commonly kept as a pet and farm cat, but also ranges freely as a feral cat avoiding human contact. Valued by humans for companionship and its ability to kill vermin, the cat's retractable claws are adapted to killing small prey like mice and rats. It has a strong, flexible body, quick reflexes, and sharp teeth, and its night vision and sense of smell are well developed. It is a social species, but a solitary hunter and a crepuscular predator. Cat communication includes vocalizations—including meowing, purring, trilling, hissing, growling, and grunting–as well as body language. It can hear sounds too faint or too high in frequency for human ears, such as those made by small mammals. It secretes and perceives pheromones.

    Female domestic cats can have kittens from spring to late autumn in temperate zones and throughout the year in equatorial regions, with litter sizes often ranging from two to five kittens. Domestic cats are bred and shown at events as registered pedigreed cats, a hobby known as cat fancy. Animal population control of cats may be achieved by spaying and neutering, but their proliferation and the abandonment of pets has resulted in large numbers of feral cats worldwide, contributing to the extinction of bird, mammal, and reptile species.

    As of 2017
    '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000010-QINU`"'
    ,
    '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000011-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-00000012-QINU`"'
    .
    '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000013-QINU`"'
    As of 2021
    '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000014-QINU`"'
    ,
    '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000015-QINU`"'
    there were an estimated 220 million owned and 480 million stray cats in the world. (Full article...)
  • Image 4 House mouse (Mus musculus) A mouse (<abbr title=" '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000016-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...)
    House mouse (Mus musculus)

    A mouse (<abbr title="
    '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000016-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...)

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   11:06, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

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   13:34, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #011, 10 July 2018

We now have 97 participants.

Be sure to welcome our newest members, BrantleyIzMe, Coffeeandcrumbs, and Nolan Perry, with warm regards.

Work is proceeding apace. We have 2 major thrusts right now: converting the intro sections of portals, and building the components of the one-page automated model...

Converting the intro sections

We need everybody, except those building software components, to work on converting intros. If you have AWB, definitely use that. If not, then work on them manually. Even one a day, or as often as you can muster, will help a lot. There are only about 1,000 of them left to go, so if everyone chips in, it will go pretty quickly. Remember, there are 97 of us!

The intros for most of the portals starting with A through F have already been converted to use the {{Transclude lead excerpt}} template.

The standard wikicode for the automated intro that we want to put into place looks like this: 

{{/box-header|Introduction|noedit=yes|}}
{{Transclude lead excerpt | {{PAGENAME}} | paragraphs=1-2 | files=1}}
{{Box-footer|[[{{PAGENAME}}|Read more...]]}}

That works for most portals, but not all. For some portals it requires some tweaking, and for others, we may have to use a different or more customized approach. Remember to visually inspect each portal you work on and make sure that it works before moving on to the next one.

Be sure to skip user-maintained portals. They are listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Portals#Specific_portal_maintainers.

AWB tips

I've started an AWB tips page, for those of you feeling a bit overwhelmed by that power user tool. Feel free to add to it and/or improve it.

Portal automation

We have some very talented Lua programmers, who are pushing the limits of what we can do in gathering data from Wikipedia's various namespaces and presenting it in portals. Due to their efforts, Lua is powering the selective transclusion core of our emerging automated portal design, in the form of selected article sections that rotate content, and slideshows.

To go beyond Lua's limits, to take full advantage of Mediawiki's API, we are in the midst of adding another programming language to the resources we shall be making use of: JavaScript. The ways that JavaScript can help us edit portals to boost the power of our Lua solutions, are being explored, which will likely make the two languages synergistic if not symbiotic. Research is under way on how we can use JavaScript to make some of the portal semi-automated features fully automatically self-updating, in ways that Lua cannot. Like gathering random members from a category and inserting them into a portal's templates as parameters. Once the parameters are in place, Lua does the rest.

If you would like to get involved with design efforts, or just keep up on them, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design.

When should we start building new portals?

Well, not at the present time, because building portals is quite time consuming. The good news is that we are working on a design that will be fully automated, or as close to that as we can get. And the new design is being implemented in the portal department's main portal creation template. This means, that not only will portals update themselves, their creation will be highly automated as well. That's the nature of templates. You put them in place, and they just... work.

What I'm getting at here, is that it would be better to wait to build lots of new portals until after the new design is completed. Because with it, instead of taking hours to create a new portal, it will likely take minutes.

That does not mean we should be idle in the meantime. The main reason most of us are here is because it became apparent that portals were largely unmaintained and had grown out-of-date. This had become so apparent that a proposal was made to delete all the portals and the portal namespace to boot. That makes our main objective in the short term to improve all the existing portals so that the community will want to keep them—forever.

Building lots of new portals comes later. Let's fix up the ones we have first. ;)

And on that note, I bid you adieu. Until next newsletter, see ya 'round the WikiProject.    — The Transhumanist   12:33, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #012, 15 July 2018

We have 97 participants.

Getting faster

Automation makes things go faster, even portal creation. One of the components Certes made was {{Transclude list item excerpt}}. I became curious about its possible applications.

So I worked out a portal design using it, the initial prototypes being Portal:Kyoto (without a "Selected pictures" section), and Portal:Dubai (with a "Selected pictures" section). Then I used Portal:Dubai as the basis for further portals of this type...

I was able to revamp Portal:Munich from start to finish in less than 22 minutes.
Portal:Dresden took about 19 minutes.
Portal:Athens took less than 17 minutes.
Did Portal:Florence in about 13 minutes.
Portal:Stockholm also in about 13.
Portal:Palermo approx. 12 minutes.

Why?

To see, and to show, what may become feasible via automation.

It now looks highly feasible that we could get portal construction time down to a few minutes, or maybe even down to a few seconds.

The singularity is just around the corner. :)

Slideshows

When using the {{Random slideshow}} template to display pictures, be sure to use the plural tense in the section title: "Selected pictures". That's because slideshows don't show up on many mobile devices. Instead the whole set of pictures is shown, hence the section title "Selected pictures", as it fits both situations.

In case you are curious, here is a list of the portals so far that have a slideshow:

Progress on intro conversions

The intros for most of the portals up through the letter "O" have been converted, using this wikicode: 

{{/box-header|Introduction|noedit=yes|}}
{{Transclude lead excerpt | {{PAGENAME}} | paragraphs=1-2 | files=1}}
{{Box-footer|[[{{PAGENAME}}|Read more...]]}}

Where the pagename didn't match the article title for the subject, the title was typed in.

Most of the portals that do not contain {{/intro}} or {{{{FULLPGENAME}}/Intro}} have not yet been processed.

About a thousand portals use the method of selective transclusion for the intro section. That's about two-thirds. That means we have one-third of the way to go on the intro section conversions.

Much more to come...

So much has been happening with portals that I can't keep up with it. (That's good). Which means, more in the upcoming issue. Until then, see ya 'round the project. Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   08:47, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

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