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Archive 5 | ← | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | Archive 11 | Archive 12 | → | Archive 15 |
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2018).
And welcome aboard :-) Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 14:04, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). Legobot ( talk) 04:32, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Hi Pbsouthwood, Thank you for your note. Completely understand you pov, however the sources indicated for the following lines are no longer available.
PADI is often subject to criticism. In particular, accusations are sometimes made against the organization that it "dumbs down" scuba diving training courses, making them too short and easy.[81]: https://web.archive.org/web/20080512004255/http://www.cdnn.info/news/editorial/o050620.html
PADI has been referred to facetiously as a mnemonic for 'Put Another Dollar In'.[84]: https://web.archive.org/web/20070222231250/http://diveherald.com/2006/07/23/padi-put-another-dollar-in/ http://diveherald.com/2006/07/23/padi-put-another-dollar-in/
I will remove those lines for now, leaving the other point. Looking forward to your thoughts.
12.165.253.4 ( talk) 18:02, 5 July 2018 (UTC) Jennifersmall4
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch. Legobot ( talk) 04:30, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography. Legobot ( talk) 04:34, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways. Legobot ( talk) 04:29, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
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...
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.
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.
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.
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 12:32, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography. Legobot ( talk) 04:29, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
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We have 97 participants.
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...
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. :)
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:
|
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.
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 08:46, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Legobot ( talk) 04:31, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
I got overwhelmed IRL (in real life) during the production of issue #12. So, here is a catch-up issue, to help bring you (and me) up to speed on what is happening with portals...
By the way, we still have 97 participants. (Tell all your friends about this WikiProject, and have them join!)
One cool feature of some of the geographical portals is a panoramic picture at the top of the intro section.
Check these out:
The Portals WikiGnome squadron is busy adding panoramas to geographical portals that don't yet have one. Feel free to join in on the fun. See task details at Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Add a panorama or skyline to a geographic portal.
Caveat: avoid super-huge pics, as they can cause portal scripts to time-out. Please try to keep picture size down below 2 megabytes. Thank you.
Speaking of pictures...
We now have two slideshow templates. You may be familiar with {{ Random slideshow}}, in which the editor types in (or copies/pastes) a list of pictures he or she wants it to display.
Well, now we have another template, courtesy of Evad37, which accepts one or more page names instead, and displays a random image off of the listed pages. So instead of listing dozens of files by hand, you can include a title or three to be scanned automatically. It even lets you specify particular sections.
The new slideshow template is {{ Transclude files as random slideshow}}.
Here's a sample, that grabs images from a single page:
Speaking of new templates, here's another one!
Also from Evad37, we have a new component for starting section boxes, that is color configurable, and that bypasses the need for box-header subpages altogether. It is {{ Box-header colour}}.
For color support, see Web colors.
For the discussion in which this was inspired, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Tasks#Colour combinations for accessibility.
(In case you didn't notice, the slideshow box above uses this new template).
BTW, don't forget to close your box with {{ Box-footer}}.
The answer to this question is quite involved, and would fill this page to overflowing. Therefore, this subject, including a complete update on where we are at and where we are going with portal design, is covered at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design.
An AWB pass to convert intros on the portals has been completed. The pass couldn't convert them all (due to various formatting configurations, etc.).
All but about 170 portals now have introductions selectively transcluded on the base page. Not counting manually maintained portals, that leaves about 70 portals that either need their intros converted, or they need an intro.
Next, we'll be converting the categories sections!
The course of action we have been taking goes something like this, with all steps being pursued simultaeneously...
1) Design a one-page automated portal model
2) Convert existing portals to that design (except those being manually maintained)
3) Remove subpages no longer needed
4) Develop further tools to empower editors working on portals
Later, when the tools are up to the task, filling in the gaps in coverage (with new portals) will also become practical.
Probably not.
Who knows what our programmers and editors have dreamed up while I was writing this.
See ya again soon, — The Transhumanist 11:08, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Film. Legobot ( talk) 04:30, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
Have a look at meta:User:Perhelion/userstatus, seems to work nicely across all wikis if you add it to your version of [1]. Thanks. Mike Peel ( talk) 11:02, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Alt-right. Legobot ( talk) 04:31, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
Hi, I noticed there is a discussion from 4 July to move Thai Navy special forces unit Underwater Demolition Assault Unit at Talk:Underwater_Demolition_Assault_Unit#Requested_move_4_July_2018. Not sure if you were aware, remembered last year when I proposed to move Frogman Corps (Denmark) you commented and also posted on Military history Wikiproject for views - I posted on military project. Regards, -- Melbguy05 ( talk) 11:58, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
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Development of design continues, full speed ahead...
Can you say " paradigm shift"?
Now, in addition to picture slideshows, we have slideshows that can display excerpts. Portals are not just for topic tasting anymore. Now they can be made useful for surveying Wikipedia's coverage of entire subjects. This gives a deeper meaning to their name. Hmmm. "Portals"... Doorways to knowledge.
Portal:Lithuania was redesigned using excerpt slideshows. Check it out.
For those of you who cannot wait to test out these new toys...
We have not one, but three excerpt slideshow components to pick from:
{{ Transclude excerpts as random slideshow}}
{{ Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow}}
{{ Transclude linked excerpts as random slideshow}}
{{ Portal image banner}} displays a panoramic picture the width of the page, and adjusts its size, so it stays that way even if the user changes page view size. And it accepts multiple file names, so that the picture displayed randomizes between them each time the page is visited/purged.
Give resizing the page a try:
Before:
After:
Notice how the box bottoms line up. That readjusts even if you click the slideshow buttons.
The template used for this is {{ Flex columns}}.
By the way, when you include more than one box in a column, any left over whitespace in that column is divided between them.
You may have noticed the new {{ Box-header colour}} template used above. It lets you pick the color locally (right on the same page). Before, this was handled on a subpage somewhere.
Now that we have lots of toys to play with for making cool portals...
Don't forget, that the majority of views of Wikipedia these days are from mobile devices. We need to make certain that portals display well on those. So, remember to check your work on portals in mobile view mode...
To see a portal in mobile view mode, insert a ".m" into a portal's url, after "en", like this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Reptile
If you discover problems in a portal you can't fix, report them on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design.
Have fun. — The Transhumanist 00:59, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
Hi Peter. Concerning your edit [2] - could you please explain how you envision clarification? There is Koppen classification (linked from that paragraph), they have in particular aw3 which they call wet-dry. Do you think I should add a sentence clarifying what wet-dry is, or a couple of words? It would obviously affect a lot of other articles, and it is good to understand first what is missing. Thanks.-- Ymblanter ( talk) 09:59, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Help talk:Citation Style 1. Legobot ( talk) 04:31, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
|
Hello Pbsouthwood, thank you for your work reviewing New Pages!
Overall the June backlog drive was a success, reducing the last 3,000 or so to below 500. However, as expected, 90% of the patrolling was done by less than 10% of reviewers.
Since the drive closed, the backlog has begun to rise sharply again and is back up to nearly 1,400 already. Please help reduce this total and keep it from raising further by reviewing some articles each day.
Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings. — Insertcleverphrasehere ( or here) 00:00, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
Now that we have lots of toys to play with, it's play time!
Here are some fun activities to use our new toys on...
Would you like to travel around the world? Well, this may be the next best thing...
Here's another fun toy to play with: {{ Portal image banner}}
To see what it looks like, check out the panoramas at the tops of the following portals:
The task: There are many geography portals that lack panoramas. Please add some. Please keep the file size down below 2 megabytes, and keep in mind that you may find quality banners at commons: at less than 200K (.2 megabytes). Good search terms to include with the place name are "banner", "cityscape", "skyline", "panorama", "landscape", etc.
Related task: There are also lots of geography portals that have panoramas used as gaudy banners (with print or icons splattered across them) or that display them in some random location on the page. In many cases, those pages would be improved by displaying the panorama as a clean picture at the top of the intro section, like on the examples above. This works best with banner-like panoramas. Please fix such pages when you come across them, if you believe it would improve the look of the page.
Taller images might be better suited displayed further down the page, or in the "Selected images" section.
Note that {{ Portal image banner}} supports multiple images, and displays one at random upon the first visit, and each time the page is purged.
That is, image slideshows!
Over 200 have been installed so far. Just 1200 to go. (Be sure not to install them on portals with active maintainers, unless they want you to).
The title "Selected images" reflects the fact that not all images on Wikipedia are pictures, and encompasses maps, graphs, diagrams, sketches, paintings, pictures, and so on.
The toys we have to work with for this are:
{{ Random slideshow}}
and
{{ Transclude files as random slideshow}}
The task: Using one of the above templates directly on a portal's base page, replace static "Selected picture" sections, with a section like one of these:
The one on the left uses {{ Random slideshow}} (which accepts file names), and the one on the right uses {{ Transclude files as random slideshow}} (which accepts source pages from which the filenames are gathered).
The above section formatting is used on many of the pages you will come across, but not all. In those cases, use whatever section formatting matches the rest of the page.
Note that you may come across "Selected picture" sections done with {{ Random portal component}} templates. That template call is the entire section. Replace it with a section that matches the other sections on the page, and put the new slideshow inside that.
For example, in Portal:California, this code:
{{Random portal component|max=21|seed=27|header=Selected picture|subpage=Selected picture}}
was replaced with this code:
{{/box-header|Selected images|noedit=yes}}
{{Transclude files as random slideshow
| {{PAGENAME}}
| Culture of {{PAGENAME}}
}}
{{Box-footer}}
And the new section blended right in with the formatting of the rest of the page. Note the use of the {{PAGENAME}}
magic word. Plain article titles also work. Don't feel limited to one or two page names. But be sure to test each slideshow before installing the next one. (Or if you prefer, in batches - just don't leave them hanging). Report technical problems at the
Portal design talk page.
These sections, where unmaintained, have gone stale. That's because 1) the excerpts are static, having been manually copied and pasted, and 2) because they lack automatic addition of new entries.
They can be upgraded with:
{{ Transclude random excerpt}}
or
{{ Transclude list item excerpt}}
or
{{ Transclude linked excerpt}}
All three of these will provide excerpts that won't go stale. The latter two can provide excerpt collections that won't go stale, by providing new entries over time. The key is to select source pages or source sections that are frequently updated, such as root article sections, mainstream lists, or navigation templates.
When the above tasks are completed for the entire collection of portals (except the ones with specific maintainers), we'll be more than half-way done with the portal system upgrade.
Keep up the great work. — The Transhumanist 19:16, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Ohio gubernatorial election, 2018. Legobot ( talk) 04:27, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
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The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources. Legobot ( talk) 04:31, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
Hi Peter, first of all congrats on the creation and maintenance of the Portal:Underwater diving. I like the portal, though it is to my taste a bit too much focused on your specialty and expertise; professional and technical diving. I reckon 90% of the readers here are recreational divers like myself. That is not to say it is bad to educate them/us in other topics, but my surprise was struck how awfully poor most of the recreational dive site categories and articles actually are. I am working to improve those, especially -like you- staying "close to home"; that what you know. Taganga I created some time ago and is like the standard I want to use, I am working on my own other dive sites to get them to a good level too. I have linked to your portal in all the categories, but there is still a lot to do. We keep in contact and good night there in South Africa, definitely a place I need to visit... Baaie success, Tisquesusa ( talk) 00:16, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2018).
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation. Legobot ( talk) 04:30, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
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Hi Peter,
I am sure that you are Peter Southwood from Cape town :)). Long time no see or speak, I hope that you are well. I would like to update the information about me in Wikipedia. Not all of it is correct (specially in the first paragraph). I would appreciate your help.
What information would you like? Please ask the questions and I will supply the answers. A lot of the information is in my New and simplified website: www.nunogomes.co.za
Best Regards from New York
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Legobot ( talk) 04:28, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Solo diving you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Courcelles -- Courcelles ( talk) 21:21, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
The article Solo diving you nominated as a good article has failed ; see Talk:Solo diving for reasons why the nomination failed. If or when these points have been taken care of, you may apply for a new nomination of the article. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Courcelles -- Courcelles ( talk) 21:42, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Username policy. Legobot ( talk) 04:29, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
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Discussions are underway on the design of a portal tool (user script) that will hopefully have features for modifying portals at the click of a menu item, to make editing them easier. It might do things like change the color for you, add to a selection, add a new section, move a section, and so on.
If you'd like to be involved and suggest features for the tool, please join us at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design#What would you want a portal tool to be able to do?.
As new portal components are built by our Lua gurus, those components are being used to upgrade portals. Each component automates a section of a portal in a particular way.
The sections that are mostly upgraded so far are the Intro, and the Associated Wikimedia section.
The sections currently undergoing upgrade are: Selected image, Categories, and the Intro.
The Intro? Isn't that done already?
Yes, and no.
The upgrade of the excerpt in intros is mostly complete (there are about 70 non-standard portals that still need it).
Now we are doing another upgrade of intros in the form of adding a panoramic picture at the top of the intro, on portals for which such a picture is available on Commons:. Dozens of panoramas have been added so far, and they are really starting to affect the look of portals — the portals that have them look really good.
Regions are the most likely subjects to have panoramas, but a surprising number of other subjects have banner-shaped pictures too. Some examples of non-geographic portals that they have been added to are:
Speaking of pictures, several hundred Selected image sections have been upgraded to include image slideshows.
The push for automation continues, with new components under continuous testing in the field. As problems are spotted, they are reported to our programmers, who have done a fantastic job of keeping up with bug reports and fixing the relevant Lua modules fast. I am highly impressed.
Construction time on new portals is now down to as little as a minute or less. Though not in general. If you are lucky enough to spot portals that fit the profile of the new tools (their strengths), then a portal can be complete almost as soon as it is created, with the added time it takes to find and add a panorama. Source page titles are not generally standardized, and so it source pages in many cases must be entered manually. Where source page titles follow a standard naming convention, portal creation for those subjects goes quickly.
So, we still have some hurdles, but the outlook on portals is very good. New features, and many improvements to features are on the horizon. I'll be sure to report them when they become available.
What will the portal of the future look like? That is up to you!
See you on the project's talk pages.
Sincerely, — The Transhumanist 21:09, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Legobot ( talk) 04:32, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
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Hi. Any user subpages with duplicate parameter names (as in cite templates) now trigger a link into the dups tracking category (which gains over 30 pages per day):
So expect subpages with cite-template issues to be edited from there. I wish the {{ cite web}} did not list user-pages as having template errors, but would need to discuss for consensus to bypass user pages, at WT:CS1. - Wikid77 ( talk) 06:46, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. 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. |
Archive 5 | ← | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 | Archive 11 | Archive 12 | → | Archive 15 |
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2018).
And welcome aboard :-) Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 14:04, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). Legobot ( talk) 04:32, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Hi Pbsouthwood, Thank you for your note. Completely understand you pov, however the sources indicated for the following lines are no longer available.
PADI is often subject to criticism. In particular, accusations are sometimes made against the organization that it "dumbs down" scuba diving training courses, making them too short and easy.[81]: https://web.archive.org/web/20080512004255/http://www.cdnn.info/news/editorial/o050620.html
PADI has been referred to facetiously as a mnemonic for 'Put Another Dollar In'.[84]: https://web.archive.org/web/20070222231250/http://diveherald.com/2006/07/23/padi-put-another-dollar-in/ http://diveherald.com/2006/07/23/padi-put-another-dollar-in/
I will remove those lines for now, leaving the other point. Looking forward to your thoughts.
12.165.253.4 ( talk) 18:02, 5 July 2018 (UTC) Jennifersmall4
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch. Legobot ( talk) 04:30, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography. Legobot ( talk) 04:34, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways. Legobot ( talk) 04:29, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
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...
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.
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.
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.
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 12:32, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
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We have 97 participants.
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...
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. :)
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:
|
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.
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 08:46, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
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I got overwhelmed IRL (in real life) during the production of issue #12. So, here is a catch-up issue, to help bring you (and me) up to speed on what is happening with portals...
By the way, we still have 97 participants. (Tell all your friends about this WikiProject, and have them join!)
One cool feature of some of the geographical portals is a panoramic picture at the top of the intro section.
Check these out:
The Portals WikiGnome squadron is busy adding panoramas to geographical portals that don't yet have one. Feel free to join in on the fun. See task details at Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Add a panorama or skyline to a geographic portal.
Caveat: avoid super-huge pics, as they can cause portal scripts to time-out. Please try to keep picture size down below 2 megabytes. Thank you.
Speaking of pictures...
We now have two slideshow templates. You may be familiar with {{ Random slideshow}}, in which the editor types in (or copies/pastes) a list of pictures he or she wants it to display.
Well, now we have another template, courtesy of Evad37, which accepts one or more page names instead, and displays a random image off of the listed pages. So instead of listing dozens of files by hand, you can include a title or three to be scanned automatically. It even lets you specify particular sections.
The new slideshow template is {{ Transclude files as random slideshow}}.
Here's a sample, that grabs images from a single page:
Speaking of new templates, here's another one!
Also from Evad37, we have a new component for starting section boxes, that is color configurable, and that bypasses the need for box-header subpages altogether. It is {{ Box-header colour}}.
For color support, see Web colors.
For the discussion in which this was inspired, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Tasks#Colour combinations for accessibility.
(In case you didn't notice, the slideshow box above uses this new template).
BTW, don't forget to close your box with {{ Box-footer}}.
The answer to this question is quite involved, and would fill this page to overflowing. Therefore, this subject, including a complete update on where we are at and where we are going with portal design, is covered at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design.
An AWB pass to convert intros on the portals has been completed. The pass couldn't convert them all (due to various formatting configurations, etc.).
All but about 170 portals now have introductions selectively transcluded on the base page. Not counting manually maintained portals, that leaves about 70 portals that either need their intros converted, or they need an intro.
Next, we'll be converting the categories sections!
The course of action we have been taking goes something like this, with all steps being pursued simultaeneously...
1) Design a one-page automated portal model
2) Convert existing portals to that design (except those being manually maintained)
3) Remove subpages no longer needed
4) Develop further tools to empower editors working on portals
Later, when the tools are up to the task, filling in the gaps in coverage (with new portals) will also become practical.
Probably not.
Who knows what our programmers and editors have dreamed up while I was writing this.
See ya again soon, — The Transhumanist 11:08, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Film. Legobot ( talk) 04:30, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
Have a look at meta:User:Perhelion/userstatus, seems to work nicely across all wikis if you add it to your version of [1]. Thanks. Mike Peel ( talk) 11:02, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
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Hi, I noticed there is a discussion from 4 July to move Thai Navy special forces unit Underwater Demolition Assault Unit at Talk:Underwater_Demolition_Assault_Unit#Requested_move_4_July_2018. Not sure if you were aware, remembered last year when I proposed to move Frogman Corps (Denmark) you commented and also posted on Military history Wikiproject for views - I posted on military project. Regards, -- Melbguy05 ( talk) 11:58, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
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Development of design continues, full speed ahead...
Can you say " paradigm shift"?
Now, in addition to picture slideshows, we have slideshows that can display excerpts. Portals are not just for topic tasting anymore. Now they can be made useful for surveying Wikipedia's coverage of entire subjects. This gives a deeper meaning to their name. Hmmm. "Portals"... Doorways to knowledge.
Portal:Lithuania was redesigned using excerpt slideshows. Check it out.
For those of you who cannot wait to test out these new toys...
We have not one, but three excerpt slideshow components to pick from:
{{ Transclude excerpts as random slideshow}}
{{ Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow}}
{{ Transclude linked excerpts as random slideshow}}
{{ Portal image banner}} displays a panoramic picture the width of the page, and adjusts its size, so it stays that way even if the user changes page view size. And it accepts multiple file names, so that the picture displayed randomizes between them each time the page is visited/purged.
Give resizing the page a try:
Before:
After:
Notice how the box bottoms line up. That readjusts even if you click the slideshow buttons.
The template used for this is {{ Flex columns}}.
By the way, when you include more than one box in a column, any left over whitespace in that column is divided between them.
You may have noticed the new {{ Box-header colour}} template used above. It lets you pick the color locally (right on the same page). Before, this was handled on a subpage somewhere.
Now that we have lots of toys to play with for making cool portals...
Don't forget, that the majority of views of Wikipedia these days are from mobile devices. We need to make certain that portals display well on those. So, remember to check your work on portals in mobile view mode...
To see a portal in mobile view mode, insert a ".m" into a portal's url, after "en", like this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Reptile
If you discover problems in a portal you can't fix, report them on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design.
Have fun. — The Transhumanist 00:59, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
Hi Peter. Concerning your edit [2] - could you please explain how you envision clarification? There is Koppen classification (linked from that paragraph), they have in particular aw3 which they call wet-dry. Do you think I should add a sentence clarifying what wet-dry is, or a couple of words? It would obviously affect a lot of other articles, and it is good to understand first what is missing. Thanks.-- Ymblanter ( talk) 09:59, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
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|
Hello Pbsouthwood, thank you for your work reviewing New Pages!
Overall the June backlog drive was a success, reducing the last 3,000 or so to below 500. However, as expected, 90% of the patrolling was done by less than 10% of reviewers.
Since the drive closed, the backlog has begun to rise sharply again and is back up to nearly 1,400 already. Please help reduce this total and keep it from raising further by reviewing some articles each day.
Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings. — Insertcleverphrasehere ( or here) 00:00, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
Now that we have lots of toys to play with, it's play time!
Here are some fun activities to use our new toys on...
Would you like to travel around the world? Well, this may be the next best thing...
Here's another fun toy to play with: {{ Portal image banner}}
To see what it looks like, check out the panoramas at the tops of the following portals:
The task: There are many geography portals that lack panoramas. Please add some. Please keep the file size down below 2 megabytes, and keep in mind that you may find quality banners at commons: at less than 200K (.2 megabytes). Good search terms to include with the place name are "banner", "cityscape", "skyline", "panorama", "landscape", etc.
Related task: There are also lots of geography portals that have panoramas used as gaudy banners (with print or icons splattered across them) or that display them in some random location on the page. In many cases, those pages would be improved by displaying the panorama as a clean picture at the top of the intro section, like on the examples above. This works best with banner-like panoramas. Please fix such pages when you come across them, if you believe it would improve the look of the page.
Taller images might be better suited displayed further down the page, or in the "Selected images" section.
Note that {{ Portal image banner}} supports multiple images, and displays one at random upon the first visit, and each time the page is purged.
That is, image slideshows!
Over 200 have been installed so far. Just 1200 to go. (Be sure not to install them on portals with active maintainers, unless they want you to).
The title "Selected images" reflects the fact that not all images on Wikipedia are pictures, and encompasses maps, graphs, diagrams, sketches, paintings, pictures, and so on.
The toys we have to work with for this are:
{{ Random slideshow}}
and
{{ Transclude files as random slideshow}}
The task: Using one of the above templates directly on a portal's base page, replace static "Selected picture" sections, with a section like one of these:
The one on the left uses {{ Random slideshow}} (which accepts file names), and the one on the right uses {{ Transclude files as random slideshow}} (which accepts source pages from which the filenames are gathered).
The above section formatting is used on many of the pages you will come across, but not all. In those cases, use whatever section formatting matches the rest of the page.
Note that you may come across "Selected picture" sections done with {{ Random portal component}} templates. That template call is the entire section. Replace it with a section that matches the other sections on the page, and put the new slideshow inside that.
For example, in Portal:California, this code:
{{Random portal component|max=21|seed=27|header=Selected picture|subpage=Selected picture}}
was replaced with this code:
{{/box-header|Selected images|noedit=yes}}
{{Transclude files as random slideshow
| {{PAGENAME}}
| Culture of {{PAGENAME}}
}}
{{Box-footer}}
And the new section blended right in with the formatting of the rest of the page. Note the use of the {{PAGENAME}}
magic word. Plain article titles also work. Don't feel limited to one or two page names. But be sure to test each slideshow before installing the next one. (Or if you prefer, in batches - just don't leave them hanging). Report technical problems at the
Portal design talk page.
These sections, where unmaintained, have gone stale. That's because 1) the excerpts are static, having been manually copied and pasted, and 2) because they lack automatic addition of new entries.
They can be upgraded with:
{{ Transclude random excerpt}}
or
{{ Transclude list item excerpt}}
or
{{ Transclude linked excerpt}}
All three of these will provide excerpts that won't go stale. The latter two can provide excerpt collections that won't go stale, by providing new entries over time. The key is to select source pages or source sections that are frequently updated, such as root article sections, mainstream lists, or navigation templates.
When the above tasks are completed for the entire collection of portals (except the ones with specific maintainers), we'll be more than half-way done with the portal system upgrade.
Keep up the great work. — The Transhumanist 19:16, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
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Hi Peter, first of all congrats on the creation and maintenance of the Portal:Underwater diving. I like the portal, though it is to my taste a bit too much focused on your specialty and expertise; professional and technical diving. I reckon 90% of the readers here are recreational divers like myself. That is not to say it is bad to educate them/us in other topics, but my surprise was struck how awfully poor most of the recreational dive site categories and articles actually are. I am working to improve those, especially -like you- staying "close to home"; that what you know. Taganga I created some time ago and is like the standard I want to use, I am working on my own other dive sites to get them to a good level too. I have linked to your portal in all the categories, but there is still a lot to do. We keep in contact and good night there in South Africa, definitely a place I need to visit... Baaie success, Tisquesusa ( talk) 00:16, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2018).
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Hi Peter,
I am sure that you are Peter Southwood from Cape town :)). Long time no see or speak, I hope that you are well. I would like to update the information about me in Wikipedia. Not all of it is correct (specially in the first paragraph). I would appreciate your help.
What information would you like? Please ask the questions and I will supply the answers. A lot of the information is in my New and simplified website: www.nunogomes.co.za
Best Regards from New York
The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Legobot ( talk) 04:28, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
Hi there, I'm pleased to inform you that I've begun reviewing the article Solo diving you nominated for GA-status according to the criteria. This process may take up to 7 days. Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you might have during this period. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Courcelles -- Courcelles ( talk) 21:21, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
The article Solo diving you nominated as a good article has failed ; see Talk:Solo diving for reasons why the nomination failed. If or when these points have been taken care of, you may apply for a new nomination of the article. Message delivered by Legobot, on behalf of Courcelles -- Courcelles ( talk) 21:42, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
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Discussions are underway on the design of a portal tool (user script) that will hopefully have features for modifying portals at the click of a menu item, to make editing them easier. It might do things like change the color for you, add to a selection, add a new section, move a section, and so on.
If you'd like to be involved and suggest features for the tool, please join us at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design#What would you want a portal tool to be able to do?.
As new portal components are built by our Lua gurus, those components are being used to upgrade portals. Each component automates a section of a portal in a particular way.
The sections that are mostly upgraded so far are the Intro, and the Associated Wikimedia section.
The sections currently undergoing upgrade are: Selected image, Categories, and the Intro.
The Intro? Isn't that done already?
Yes, and no.
The upgrade of the excerpt in intros is mostly complete (there are about 70 non-standard portals that still need it).
Now we are doing another upgrade of intros in the form of adding a panoramic picture at the top of the intro, on portals for which such a picture is available on Commons:. Dozens of panoramas have been added so far, and they are really starting to affect the look of portals — the portals that have them look really good.
Regions are the most likely subjects to have panoramas, but a surprising number of other subjects have banner-shaped pictures too. Some examples of non-geographic portals that they have been added to are:
Speaking of pictures, several hundred Selected image sections have been upgraded to include image slideshows.
The push for automation continues, with new components under continuous testing in the field. As problems are spotted, they are reported to our programmers, who have done a fantastic job of keeping up with bug reports and fixing the relevant Lua modules fast. I am highly impressed.
Construction time on new portals is now down to as little as a minute or less. Though not in general. If you are lucky enough to spot portals that fit the profile of the new tools (their strengths), then a portal can be complete almost as soon as it is created, with the added time it takes to find and add a panorama. Source page titles are not generally standardized, and so it source pages in many cases must be entered manually. Where source page titles follow a standard naming convention, portal creation for those subjects goes quickly.
So, we still have some hurdles, but the outlook on portals is very good. New features, and many improvements to features are on the horizon. I'll be sure to report them when they become available.
What will the portal of the future look like? That is up to you!
See you on the project's talk pages.
Sincerely, — The Transhumanist 21:09, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
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Hi. Any user subpages with duplicate parameter names (as in cite templates) now trigger a link into the dups tracking category (which gains over 30 pages per day):
So expect subpages with cite-template issues to be edited from there. I wish the {{ cite web}} did not list user-pages as having template errors, but would need to discuss for consensus to bypass user pages, at WT:CS1. - Wikid77 ( talk) 06:46, 21 August 2018 (UTC)