When a project includes multiple operational pages, it is generally best to redirect their discussion pages to the main discussion page for the project. That way, participants remain aware of what is going on with the project without having to search out every nook and cranny where discussions may be taking place.
The exception to this strategy is when a task is delegated that would generate a great deal of discussion, and centralizing it with the project's other discussions would create a discussion page of unmanageable size.
By purpose, indexes are identical to categories, in that both alphabetically list articles related to some topic. I looked at past discussions at talk pages related to indexes, and only found a small discussion and a request for comment (both here) about their existence. I see few arguments and they don't convince me. I will discuss some of them in the next paragraph.
Generally, categories aren't ported to offline versions of Wikipedia. I would propose some kind of "printworthiness" for categories like we have for redirects. Some editors were giving arguments for having list articles, but indexes are not list articles (in the sense that they have no room for expansion, by definition). Readers don't care much about categories, but if that is so, they don't care about indexes either. It is true that categories can't contain red links, while indexes can; I must say that I fundamentally disagree with that (just like infoboxes shouldn't contain "unknown" parameters, indexes of articles on Wikipedia shouldn't contain red-links). Some said at the RfC that indexes are more editor-oriented, and I believe that makes them unsuitable for mainspace. Another argument was that indexes can have related changes tracked; however, categories can do that as well. wumbolo^^^ 12:26, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Wumbolo, good question. It's nice to see when an editor puts thought into the purposes and practices of the encyclopedia. I hope I can provide you with some good answers...
Each of Wikipedia's navigation systems, of which categories and indexes are two, have their own strengths and weaknesses. Categories are useful for some things, and not for others. The same applies to indexes.
Categories are split up, and so are not alphabetical across the whole subject. They are classified indexes, sorted by subtopic. The counterpart to classified indexes, are alphabetical indexes. Wikipedia's index articles are alphabetically arranged for their whole subject, where possible.
One thing you can do with indexes more easily than with categories is see related changes for all the topics (or at least many more of them) belonging to the subject. Categories are split up into many smaller groups, making the operation repetitive, quite tedious, and time-consuming when you want to cover the whole subject.
Categories are decentralized (as tags at the bottom of many different articles), while indexes are centralized. The main ramification of this is that there is a record of what happened with indexes, which makes them much better for tracking. When a category is removed from a page, the page disappears from those categories with no record in the categories' histories. You would have to notice that it is missing. With indexes, the removal of links from them show up in the indexes' histories.
Indexes support redlinks, categories do not. When a page is deleted, it disappears from its categories without a trace. On indexes, you can see the redlink, and look into the reason for it. Redlinks can also indicated that an article is needed for that topic, a benefit of list articles, including indexes. Providing redlinks is one of the ways that Wikipedia has expanded so rapidly. You just click on a redlink, and an editor opens up so you can start typing away. This ease of creating new articles is why redlinks are a core feature of the MediaWiki software, and thus a key feature of Wikipedia. Very powerful, and one of the factors leading to the most comprehensive encyclopedia in the world.
Categories are not ported to offline versions of Wikipedia, leaving those versions without an index. Printed encyclopedias have tables of contents and indexes, as they are very useful. And so does Wikipedia, as they are very useful, even more so than with paper encyclopedias, because WP indexes contain links you can click on, rather than page numbers that you would have to manually open a book to. Indexes utilize the power of hypertext very effectively, compacted, all on one page.
Both categories and indexes are a form of list, while indexes are a type of list article. While potential for expansion has no bearing on the qualification to be a list, as lists can be of finite sets of things, the scope of subject indexes expand as the scope of Wikipedia's coverage of their subjects expand. And Wikipedia is expanding all the time.
Indexes are alphabetical general topics list. There are two types of general topics lists on Wikipedia: indexes and outlines. Outlines are structured general topics lists. Outlines and indexes go hand-in-hand. Outlines serve as the subject-based tables of contents of Wikipedia, while indexes serve as the alphabetical indexes of Wikipedia. Analogous to books, but with the power of hypertext. How useful is a book with the table of contents and index ripped out? Which brings us to the issue of search...
It is not actually true that readers don't care about categories or indexes. The page views indicate that those are probably used mainly when search fails a reader, when readers are forced to find what they are looking for through browsing. Having these browsing backup systems are very important. Because you can't search for something you don't know the name of. Also, search fails miserably when you type in something like "Everything on geology". Wikipedia, on the other hand, provides lists of everything on geology. They are great for students wanting an overview of everything Wikipedia includes on a subject. In this regard, the mathematics topics lists are phenomenal, including both indexes and outlines, though they don't include those terms in their titles. Search works well most of the time, but not all of the time. For those other times, we have our browsing-based navigation systems.
If indexes were moved out of article space, then ported versions of Wikipedia would be indexless. The benefits mentioned directly above would not be available to readers.
The various navigation systems are synergistic. They are built in different ways by editors with different styles, and are useful in building each other. Indexes are useful to identify topics that need to be added to categories, and are much easier to build. Therefor, they are a useful preparation step for category building, and for outline and glossary building too, for example. Categories, in turn, help to provide terms that the other navigation systems can use.
Another aspect of indexes is that they exist, and can therefor be improved upon. You can't transform them into something even better if they no longer exist. Nobody knows what improvements or inventions may be made in the future regarding them. Take the portals, for example. They are currently being improved in ways nobody ever dreamed of before. The same type of thing (innovation) is also happening to outlines, and can also happen to glossaries, indexes, categories, etc. That's a good thing. Let's keep 'em all. See WP:CLN.
I hope I've shed some light on the usefulness of indexes. Sincerely, — The Transhumanist 21:57, 5 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the reply. Since there is no documented scope of indexes, I would like to propose that an article X belongs to an index Y iff a subtopic of Y is a defining characteristic of X. By making criteria for index articles kind of equivalent to those for categories, we could fully automate the generation of index articles. As a matter of fact, we would only need to pick a topic, select which subcategories are "true subtopics", and let the index be generated automatically (most likely we would have to resort to updating indexes using bots, as it seems unlikely that a MediaWiki proposal would pass). Red-links can be added manually and won't be removed by automated processes.
I reread your reply and believe that my solution fulfills the whole purpose of indexes. Categories don't have histories of add/remove operations, and my proposed automatic processes would generate an accurate summary of additions/removals each time the index is updated (perhaps daily). If indexes were automated, they wouldn't lose anything; they would only be more up-to-date.
I'm thinking about why indexes could use the WP:DEFINING logic, and will try to put some arguments. I took a look at Subject indexing, which linked Subject (documents). I read the latter; however, I can't really summarize the whole article. I do feel that it both applies to Wikipedia's concept of indexes, and that it doesn't deviate much from WP:DEFINING. wumbolo^^^ 12:49, 6 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
a new portal-style with many little features currently developed by Chiananda for de:Portal:Ethnologie
New feature: Picture slideshow. Very nice. Thx. Is this also possible with a) random pictures? b) automatic changes?
Please make up your mind which elements of the above is worthy enough to be traced by Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals. Best --Ｔｏｍ (talk) 06:04, 7 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Picture navigation looks worthy of portal customization, by specific editors willing to put the time into making the images. Creation of these doesn't appear to be automatable at this time.
The picture slideshow randomizes every time you visit or purge the page, just like other "selected" sections. Adding pictures, or managing the list of pictures shown, is not automatic at this time. Though we will be working on it, it hasn't passed the discussion phase yet.
My answers to your other 3 list items will have to wait until I get a translator installed on this machine. — The Transhumanist 20:31, 7 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The portal project has lost a member. Hopefully this incident won't lead to auto-deletion of their portals. Certes (talk) 17:47, 7 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Certes: Yes, that's unfortunate. It was a behavioral block, which he might be able to get forgiven for if he promises to change his ways. Regarding your concern, he wasn't a sock violating an existing block. Therefore, his previous works remain in place. They remove edits made by editors who make them while blocked (via a sock-puppet account). Those edits are invalid. Edits made while not blocked are not rendered invalid by becoming blocked. I hope this clarification helps. — The Transhumanist 18:06, 7 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure if a simple barnstar can express the communities gratitude to the portal work that you're doing. Your an indispensable member of our community. Moxy (talk) 18:08, 7 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Moxy, thank you. I'm honored, and I receive this praise for the team, without whom there would be very little progress on portals. They are literally transforming them into something new. I'm glad to be a part of that. — The Transhumanist 18:20, 7 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Nevertheless ... may I also praise your work? You are doing a great job! Best --Ｔｏｍ (talk) 14:01, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
:: @Tom: Thank you. By the way, I saw your thread over at WT:WPPORT, and have touched up the Portal:Anatomy. Feel free to reverse, change, or expand upon anything I did. Enjoy. — The Transhumanist 20:35, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@The Transhumanist: Pls. compare User:Tom (LT) versus my account User:Ｔｏｍ ... that another colleague ;-) Cheers --Ｔｏｍ (talk) 22:27, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Ｔｏｍ: Whoa, and I pinged a 3rd Tom. :) There's another Tom whose pagename looks exactly the same as yours, but with different underlying letters. Very strange. Haven't seen that before. I'm glad you like the work we're doing on portals. If you have any ideas on how else the portals can be improved, please let me know. Thanks. — The Transhumanist 23:17, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As you may have already seen by the time I post this, I have reverted away the voluminous "update" information you just posted to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/RfC: Ending the system of portals. The discussion there is pretty much dead, and everyone who was interested in the topic has no doubt moved on. If you'd like to post a pointer to that information, most/all of which appears to be at Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals/Newsletter archive, please do. But I don't think posting about 40K of additional text to the RFC page is appropriate at this point. - dcljr (talk) 23:19, 7 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the heads up. I've added a more modest ending section to the page. Done — The Transhumanist 23:30, 7 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Everywhere I go I find your lengthy portal spam. Wikiproject Math? Assorted editor talk pages? No other WikiProject or function on Wikipedia posts all this detailed advertising all over the place. It's annoying and must be against some policy - amd if not - it should be. Legacypac (talk) 15:27, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello again. But it's not WP:SPAM by the Wikipedia community's definition, and not even by the dictionary definition (as it is on-topic). And while what I've been posting are notifications of wiki activity which are entirely appropriate per WP:APPNOTE, thank you for reminding me that WikiProject advertising is also allowed, and that one of the WikiProject's participants has created an ad...
I've been spreading news about portals that portal supporters and related WikiProjects may wish to know. For example, there are several portals within the scope of the Mathematics WikiProject.
By the way, there is also news concerning the clean up of portal space that those who supported removal of portals may be interested in. Here it is:
Since the reboot of the Portals WikiProject, so far, we've speedy deleted:
A total of over 4,000 pages from portal space, including obsoleted subpages of existing portals
For the sake of clean up, we are undergoing an effort to obsolete most if not all of the 142,000+ remaining subpages in portal space. That is being done through automating portal features and migrating subpage functions to portal base pages (in the form of much more compact code). Having 100-page portals is maintenance-intensive, and so we are in the process of developing a one-page mostly automated portal model to which they can be converted.
Other concerns that supporters of portal deletion expressed during last month's RfC are also being addressed. For example, portals' being out-of-date and their lack of maintenance are being dealt with in the following 3 ways:
1) by a larger, more vibrant WikiProject
2) through the design of new portal tools and automated components
3) by the ongoing reduction of the number of portal subpages (as mentioned above). As the theory goes, remove 99% of the pages, and you remove the need for 99% of the maintenance.
Hi again - I think the new streamlining of portals broke Wikipedia:WikiProject Ohio. It seems it was set up using many of the same portal boxes as Portal:Ohio used. Can you help me repair this? Thanks ɱ(talk) · vbm · coi) 13:48, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Ɱ: Done It looks like it was caused by something wrong with its box-footer subpage. I've bypassed it. — The Transhumanist 17:49, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
PS: I didn't mean for you to manually do something special for me; rather, the idea was to change the template or outline that you use, to have regular boldfacing (and not ; markup either; that's really description list markup and we need to get away from abusing it). :-) — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 03:12, 1 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Transhumanist: I've been watching with interest as the Birds Portal undergoes its metamorphosis. You "portal folks" are doing a nice job! One question though; why have you cut the lead article (from "Bird") down from the full four paragraphs to two? I see that your automatic template allows for all four paragraphs to be shown... MeegsC (talk) 09:20, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@MeegsC: It was formatting bias on my part. I've now expanded it to 4 paragraphs, and have replaced the selected picture section with a picture slideshow. The initial slide selection includes all the bird-related featured pictures, but this can be expanded as desired. — The Transhumanist 10:22, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Looks great! Thanks. MeegsC (talk) 13:07, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
One comment — if I press the advance button (the right arrow) for the slideshow, there's a massive amount of "flickering" between pictures. The section below the slideshow appears briefly and this is replaced by the picture, over and over and over. Is there any way to keep that from happening? Have a dedicated "box size" or something? MeegsC (talk) 21:04, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Edits working on the Wikimedia section (removing the purge link code)[edit]
The portals that still have the purge link in their box headers, now all have the purge link for the Wikimedia section, as you removed this via AWB. For examples see [10], [11] and [12]. Did you mean to do this (as the link seems out of place on a section that is static)? Wpgbrowntalk | contribs 21:25, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Wpgbrown: I can't see any purge links in any section on any portal. The 3 examples you gave me present Wikimedia boxes with no edit link, and no purge link (for those sections). The only purge links I see are the ones below the intro section, and the ones at the bottom of the page. However, we are working toward replacing the box-header subpages, and this should be accomplished in the next month or three. It is complicated by the fact that boxheader subpage calls are included in {{Random portal component}}, but that template will likely be replaced in most portals. For any that keep it, that also have purge in their box-header subpage, the purge link bypass can be added back into those portals. We'll be doing a lot of AWB passes on the set of portals over the coming weeks, and so the set will be transforming pretty fast. — The Transhumanist 07:51, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@The Transhumanist: I had fixed those portals by adding the purge parameter (|Purge=<i></i>) back into the wikimedia section (example of a portal that has not been fixed (as of now): Portal:Yukon. Dreamy Jazztalk | contribs 22:20, 4 July 2018 (UTC) (I recently renamed my user account)[reply]
Hey, TH. Is it on the up and up to use AWB to send mass messages to talk pages? Having fun! Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 00:57, 1 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Checkingfax: Sure, for on-topic and in-scope messages. For example, you opted in to receive project updates when you added your name at Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Project participants. ;) During the RfC on portals, I sent hundreds of invites to join the Portals WikiProject – one to each of those who supported portals in the RfC. I've posted thousands of notices to portal talk pages and WikiProject talk pages (those that have a corresponding portal page), about portal resources and the Portals WikiProject. I sent a thank you message to all those who supported portals in the RfC. And so on. — The Transhumanist 18:15, 1 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello Transhumanist, I am in the process of reviving the wikiproject Buddhism bit by bit. There is a link on the form page of the project that advises people to add their articles on Buddhist topics to the subpage Wikipedia:WikiProject Buddhism/Articles. I wonder if this is still necessary, and whether it cannot be automated somehow.--Farang Rak Tham(Talk) 17:35, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The Portal Barnstar is awarded to Wikipedians who have made significant contributions to topic portals. Thanks for the great work you have been doing in the WikiProject. Dreamy Jazztalk | contribs 22:15, 4 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You are welcome, formerly Wpgbrown. Nice new name. ;) — The Transhumanist 10:26, 6 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Languages of North Korea. Since you had some involvement with the Languages of North Korea redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Thryduulf (talk) 13:56, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Heads up: several portals you've made with {{box portal skeleton}} have a redundant {{portal description}} and {{portal maintenance status}} (they are a part of the skeleton already). I've fixed two of them linked in your WikiGnome notice, but there may be several more. I've also updated the box skeleton to actually subst: the date parameter in the maintenance status, so the ones created before my edit will actually need those substituted. I may do an AWB run to find those later (maybe a regex search for {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTDATE}}). — AfroThundr (u · t · c) 02:54, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@AfroThundr3007730: I see you found and removed some of them. I found and removed another (at Portal:Dubai). There were a handful of city portals I converted. I think I've checked them all. They're good to go. Thanks for the heads up and assist. — The Transhumanist 05:21, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello The Transhumanist :-) thank you so much for your ongoing Works. Due to the last Progress Report I noted Works at Portal:Dresden. I checked this and found that Wikidata was not existing in that case. I fixed it with this entry at Wikidata. Pls add a check for Wikidata in overhauling-checks for Portals. As a tool for international overview you can f.ex. use this tool with Statistics. Once again: I just drop this at yours to let you decedide where to place this suggestion for best usage. Cheers --Ｔｏｍ (talk) 06:44, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, how do you submit a new portal image so that it links to the actual portal rather than that ugly blue icon visible on newly created portals? Thanks. Senegambianamestudy (talk) 15:58, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
In the future, the best place to request a change to protected portal-related pages is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Tasks. Make sure your message heading includes "Admin help needed". And you don't need to use a requests template there. Just explain what you need in a regular message. — The Transhumanist 07:10, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note that we can still transclude text and insert images manually, but Kusma had issues with the text as well, favoring the portal's customized text. I agree with him, that it is better than the text from the root article's lead.
The purpose of the "upgrade" is two-fold: 1) to keep the excerpt from going stale (by always showing the lastest version of the text from the root article, which in most cases receives more attention); and 2) to remove subpages.
We can still achieve #2 here, by merging the contents of the subpage to the base page. Done — The Transhumanist 22:43, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to make an infobox for music series. Similar to the infobox for television shows, but this one for music series. It would have the year it spanned from, the genre(s), the artist, producers, and so on. Please could you give me some help?
Here's how I would go about it (read this whole list before starting):
Install SearchSuite.js. It is a search results formatter. It makes looking up page names much more convenient.
Then do this search: intitle:"album series".
In the sidebar tools menu, click SR details (turn off).
Some of the pages listed will have infoboxes. Choose one that you like, and copy and paste it in to the article you want it in.
Then, immediately, edit its content to fit the subject. If you can't work on it immediately, copy it into your sandbox instead. (The link for it is at the top of the page, right next to "Preferences".
Let me know if you run into any problems. I hope these tips help. Good luck. Sincererly, — The Transhumanist 19:25, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well, thank you for recommending the idea, but what I meant is create a new Wikipedia infobox. Similar to the one we have for a television series. --Mozart834428196 (talk) 12:32, 24 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Chiming in: what precisely is a music series, and what in {{infobox musical composition}} would not work? (We try to rather have fewer infobox templates than more.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:38, 24 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The release date span, for example "1791-1820", the musical artist, the genre(s), etc. In a sense, most of the things we have on the album infobox, kind of mixed together with the TV series infobox. --Mozart834428196 (talk) 10:25, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Mozart834428196 and Gerda Arendt: It sounds like all you need to do is copy an infobox into your sandbox, and edit it. What are you having problems with? Also, why don't you use {{infobox musical composition}} instead of creating a new infobox design? Why is a new one needed? — The Transhumanist 18:37, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I tried making a new infobox, it didn't work. Also, I'm talking about a series, not a composition. --Mozart834428196 (talk) 21:31, 27 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
What should a Portal talk page look like? My hometown portal is:
{{WikiProject Portals|importance= |quality= }}
{{Portal talk}}
{{WikiProject Philadelphia}}
{{WikiProject Pennsylvania}}
{{WikiProject New Jersey}}<!--Suburban NJ counties-->
{{WikiProject United States|class=|importance=|DE=yes|DE-importance=}}<!--New Castle County, DE-->
{{WikiProject Maryland}}<!--Cecil County, Maryland-->
{| width="30%" align=right
|
{{Portal:Philadelphia/box-header|''Portal collaborators''|Portal:Philadelphia/Collaborators|}}
{{Portal:Philadelphia/Collaborators}}
{{Box-footer|}}
|}
Please tell me what this page should be.--Dthomsen8 (talk) 20:07, 22 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Dthomsen8: It's a page for discussing the development and maintenance of Portal:Philadelphia. The top of the page was a bit cluttered. I've added {{WikiProjectBannerShell}}. Let me know if that helps. You could also use an archive page. See Portal talk:United States and other portal talk pages for further ideas on talk page support features.
Weird: I've lost my contents list on my talk page since your last portal update[edit]
Hi there. There's absolutely no criticism implied, but since your last portal update message I've been missing the contents list on my Talk page. By selective deletion, I've finally narrowed the cause down to the template text {{Box-header colour}}, but for the life of me I can't see what precisely is the cause as I can't see any No Contents command being invoked anywhere. And even weirder, I've just inserted the 'offending' code here, page previewed, and it hasn't affected your talk page at all. So I've no idea what additional script or conflict has caused the issue on my page and no other, but thought you and Evad37 might like to be aware of this.
Hello and thanks again for User:The Transhumanist/SearchSuite.js which I find very useful. May I suggest another switch, to turn off the suppression of non-matching entries? For example, I'm currently searching for linksto:"Adventure" intitle:"film" (because many of those articles should link to Adventure film instead), but I need to comment out SearchSuite in my common.js to see any results. Thanks, Certes (talk) 09:38, 27 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea. I will work on it as time allows. — The Transhumanist 22:37, 29 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Aha! The problem is that intitle: wasn't the first thing in my search. Line 147 of SearchSuite.js sets intitle to linksto:"Adventure" film, and line 151 doesn't find that string in any article titles. An extra .* in line 145 might fix it, as in RegExp('.*intitle:"(.+?)".*','i'), but I've not tested that change. Certes (talk) 23:41, 29 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply edit the submission and remove the {{db-afc}}, {{db-draft}}, or {{db-g13}} code.
If your submission has already been deleted by the time you get there, and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.
Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Hhkohh (talk) 13:52, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Transhumanist: Is there a reason why the {{Birds tasks}} template is now locked, so that members of the WP:BIRDS can no longer update it? The information there is now woefully out of date. All of the articles listed in the "Stubs" section are no longer stubs, for example, and Bonaparte's gull was copyedited years ago! Could this section reference the actual categories of the project's cleanup listing? If not, then we need to be able to update it problems are addressed. MeegsC (talk) 15:25, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@MeegsC and Primefac: Let's take a look at the template's log entries, and see what's up. Clicking on View source, we discover there's a notice on there "The reason for protection can be found in the protection log", and it provides a link. Following that link and looking at the protection log, we see this: 08:29, 23 February 2018 Primefac (talk | contribs) changed protection level for Template:Birds tasks [Edit=Require template editor access] (indefinite) [Move=Require template editor access] (indefinite) (high-risk template with 4000+ transclusions). So, you have a number of options:
Start a discussion on the template's talk page about its protection level
I think #3 is your best option. I've pinged Primefac, for their input. — The Transhumanist 22:43, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, for this, any one except #3 are good options (no need to get TE just to edit one template). I've dropped it down to EC protection. I've also linked the template in the first line of the thread for convenience.
As for the original concern that was brought up here, the template hasn't been edited since 2015, so I'm not overly surprised it's out of date! Primefac (talk) 22:53, 11 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks @Primefac:. It will certainly be helpful that anyone in the project can update the work list — though, as you say, it doesn't appear that (m)any of us are actually using it. I'm guessing the project's "cleanup listing" is taking priority these days... MeegsC (talk) 08:00, 12 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect History of District (Austria). Since you had some involvement with the History of District (Austria) redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. Damvile (talk) 00:54, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've diverted most of the "awkward" links from Portal:Java to Portal:Java (programming language), and switched the P:JAVAP redirect. I've also put in an edit request for Module:Portal/images/j, to fix the image. That just leaves about 200 articles with boilerplate {{Portal|Java}} (such as Applet#See also) to do later. That tidy-up will be much easier if it's completed before we create a new portal on a different topic at the same name. I've left the P:JAVA redirect as is, ready for use by the island. All the best, Certes (talk) 00:58, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've now fixed the boilerplate links. A few archives and inactive WP: pages still link to Portal:Java, but if you agree that leaving them unchanged is the lesser of the two evils then you're probably ready to go. Certes (talk) 10:13, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Portal:Java displays "{{#tag:gallery|File:Blank.png|". Previewing a null edit shows Warning: This page calls Template:Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow which causes a template loop (an infinite recursive call). Certes (talk) 10:50, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Certes: We've been getting this same type of error since before the portal link was added to the template. So that's probably not it (this can be tested by removing the link temporarily).
I removed the portal link from the template, and then ctrl-clicked on the portal links above 15 times, then purged each tab to get a different entry. Some of the entries came up with that error. So, it's not the portal link on {{Java (software platform)}} causing it.
Do these clues help you track it down? — The Transhumanist 19:40, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see anything obvious. Evad37 wrote the template and may be more helpful. Certes (talk) 19:42, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not seeing any problems at the moment, even with purging plenty of times or doing a preview with the limit removed. So maybe it was the portal link, but there was some cache somewhere that didn't get updated straight away. - Evad37[talk] 02:28, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A permanent general fix will probably need to be made in the lua module that gathers the links from the sourcepage, in the form of ignoring portal links. — The Transhumanist 07:12, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) This edit [13] should fix the problem by making sure excerpts are only taken from mainspace articles - Evad37[talk] 07:17, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Evad37: That seems to have fixed the problem. Even without the limit. Excellent. Looks good. — The Transhumanist 07:25, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Could you put more parameter names in when creating new portals please. It makes it a lot easier to add parameters for broken, notes etc if the names are already there. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 10:15, 4 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Pbsouthwood: I don't know what you mean. Can you be more specific, and provide some examples? And what is the name of the template to which you are referring? — The Transhumanist 11:32, 4 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Pbsouthwood: No problem, but in the documentation it is |note= rather than |notes=. Added them to {{Box portal skeleton}} and {{Quick portal}}. Will also hit the new portals with AWB, when I can find the time. — The Transhumanist 04:37, 5 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And that (notes => note) illustrates why it helps for it to be there already... Fewer options to get it wrong for the reviewer.
I looked through the parameter list again, and there do not seem to be any others from the current list that would be useful for the new style portal, assuming that you do not make any that are incomplete, as opposed to broken due to template bugs, which are not defects of the portal itself. A person who is not familiar with the presentation of the template bugs would reasonably tag the portal as broken or incomplete when one of the bugs shows up. On the other hand, I thought Portal:Capital punishment was incomplete when the truncation bug manifested, so maybe incomplete would be useful. What do you think? · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 06:22, 5 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Pbsouthwood: Anything tagged warrants being looked at for one reason or another. Being aware of truncation bugs, we would know that when a complete portal gets marked incomplete, it is probably due to that type of bug. But the template I've been using, and all the portals I've created, don't require an "incomplete" parameter, because they are all complete. We could watch for notes on the talk page, like the one you posted for Portal:Capital punishment.
By the way, the parameters you requested have now been added in to the new portals of the new design. Done — The Transhumanist 06:52, 5 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yes they are currently complete, and when the standard changes, I expect they will be made complete in an AWB run, but when a person unfamiliar with the truncation bug sees it in action, the first impression is likely to be that the portal is incomplete - it happened to me. It is then a question of whether we provide what they will consider the obvious parameter or not. We can leave it and see if anyone else requests it. Do we need to report multiple occurrences of the same bug, or is once enough for troubleshooting?· · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 11:25, 5 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Pbsouthwood: Different bugs have been causing the truncation effect, so, report them all. And ping Evad37 when you do. ;) — The Transhumanist 11:41, 5 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, |notes= is an alias to |note=. I figured that would be a common misspelling. — AfroThundr (u · t · c) 19:02, 5 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@AfroThundr3007730: Nice. Then we don't have to go around and change it. What a relief. Thank you for the heads up. — The Transhumanist 20:47, 5 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I figured that was the case because the |notes= showed up. · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 03:34, 15 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Good to see others of the view we have as to the need to know more. Im a research person here just of this week and your views relate to my work here. take care.
Follow-up for your geographic portal creation spree[edit]
So I noticed several hundred new geographic portals populating our rating categories. Someone's been busy. I hate to pile on to that mountain of work, but those should also be categorized somewhere under Category:Portals (most likely Portals by country > United States portals > United States portals by city). There's a whole taxonomy for these that needs to be populated (this extends to the non-geographic portals too). Looks like another major task for the WikiProject. — AfroThundr (u · t · c) 18:42, 5 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As an aside, Portal:Virginia Beach doesn't seem to have a Category:Virginia Beach - probably because it's at Category:Virginia Beach, Virginia. In this case, renaming the portal would suffice, but I'm thinking: should we make the category section collapsible like the DYK section if the category doesn't exist, or should it populate an error category? — AfroThundr (u · t · c) 18:51, 5 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@AfroThundr3007730: In that particular case, the portal was misnamed (following the template title, which was misnamed). Now it matches the article and the category. I also renamed the navigation template to match. Thank you for the heads up.
Concerning a conditional category tree section that only appears when there is a category, my inclination is no, because a redlink indicates an error or problem that needs to be fixed. Either the portal needs to be renamed, the redlink may need to be replaced, or the category needs to be created. Whichever of those 3 applies, should be done. That way, we fix the encyclopedia, rather than leaving it as a chore for someone else to do, and we improve the portal at the same time (bringing it closer to completion). By the way, can you think of any other circumstances that would result in a red category link? — The Transhumanist 21:11, 5 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Those are the only reasons for a red category that I can think of, assuming the topic is notable enough to warrant a category. — AfroThundr (u · t · c) 04:19, 6 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If the topic is not notable enough to warrant a category, is it notable enough to warrant a portal? Do we have any examples of a topic notable enough to warrant a portal, but not enough to warrant a category? · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 03:53, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Pbsouthwood: In most cases, it's a missing category. If a topic is notable enough to warrant an article, then that covers it for notability in regards to all the navigation systems (outlines, indexes, portals, navboxes, sidebar navs, books, categories, etc.) Then it becomes a question of whether or not the scope of the topic is large enough for navigation aids to be of aid. For example, if there was an article on someone's shoe, because it was a really famous shoe, I doubt there would be any subtopics for it, unless there was also an article on its shoe lace. The shoe probably doesn't have enough subtopics to support an outline, or a portal, or any of the rest. If a topic has a navbox, then it probably warrants also having a portal, a category, etc. — The Transhumanist 22:45, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That is my point. If there are enough articles for a portal, there are enough for a category for that portal. The names may differ slightly, but should be similar. A related question is whether the portal name should follow the category name or vice versa. Probably depends on which comes first, but if both exist and do not have the same name, should one be renamed to match the other? · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 03:43, 15 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@AfroThundr3007730: After thinking about this more, if there is way to identify portals with disappeared category trees, then not having them display with a redlink would be a good thing. Making them conditional, just like the news, DYK, and "Get involved" sections, is easy. But how do we have portals, where the condition to display isn't met, alert us? — The Transhumanist 23:48, 13 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Most likely by leveraging an #ifexist condition to add the page to a tracking category when the link would be red.
{{#ifexist:Category:{{PAGENAME}}|{{#tag:categorytree|{{PAGENAME}}}}|[[Category:Portals with missing category trees]]}}
Or something to that effect. — AfroThundr (u · t · c) 00:08, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean by a "disappeared category tree"? · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 03:53, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Pbsouthwood: The category tree section currently shows up, even if there is no category, in which case it displays a redlink. Afrothundr suggested that we make the category tree section conditional, only appearing when the category exists. I referred to that section not appearing as "disappeared". A missing category tree section on a standard new portal means the same thing to us as a redlink, and so we don't really need the redlink showing, if there is a way to detect category tree sections that are not visible. Afrothundr pointed out how we could do this with conditional category tags. Brilliant. — The Transhumanist 21:52, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As a side note, I'm assuming the reason {{Box portal skeleton}} is using a manual category tree (instead of {{Category tree}} and friends) is to remove the unwanted formatting for direct placement inside a {{box-header}}? Weren't we working on a template to strip styles from any template that's passed to it? Not that there's any problem with the manual method, of course. — AfroThundr (u · t · c) 00:13, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Providing the raw code is simpler. It skips the extra step of using another template to strip out formatting. Fewer keystrokes too. Besides, anything handled by a template is by definition, automatic. :) — The Transhumanist 22:21, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, {{Plain navboxes}} is for stripping formatting from navboxes, and is a huge success. It has been tested out on hundreds of portals and makes the topics section look clean, like the inserted template is actually a part of the portal (rather than just stuck in there). I don't know it if will work on any other kind of template. — The Transhumanist 22:21, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello The Transhumanist, many thanks for updating this Portal. There are two points from my side. In the last weeks I updated the News.:Portal:Ancient Egypt/News. This is now totally lost. Is there any change to incorporate that into the new portal? I have no idea how to do it. There was also a link for having a look at the changes made in the relevant titles. I found that very useful and wonder whether it can go back into the new design. best wishes -- Udimu (talk) 10:18, 10 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Udimu, Evad37, and Pbsouthwood: You are welcome, and I'm happy to help. Per your request, I've replaced the conditional (magically appearing) news section with a static news box that contains both the auto-searched news, and the manual entries from the subpage you mentioned (merged, via cut & paste). The problem has been that when news items were added to portals by hand, whomever posted many of them forgot about them and didn't return to remove them when they were no longer current. We are still cleaning up news items from as far back as 2009. As for the static box, when there is no generated news and no manually posted news, you are left with an empty "In the news" box. Please don't let it go empty. ;)
By the way, the portal no longer transcludes subpages, so please post future news items directly on the portal base page, and return to remove them when they are no longer current. Thank you. Sincerely, — The Transhumanist 23:49, 13 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I was pinged. I came, I saw. Is there something you wanted me to do? · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 05:11, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Udimu: You also mentioned "There was a long for having a look..." I think you might have left out a word. A long what? If you meant "log", to what log were you referring? I look forward to your reply. — The Transhumanist 23:49, 13 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
sorry, I made a typo and did not check, what I have written. Can you perhaps incorporate this link: CHANGES? It shows the last changes made in Ancient Egypt articles. I find that very useful, for spotting spam and other (bad or good) new edits. Best wishes and many thanks again. -- Udimu (talk) 06:22, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Udimu: I can't find it anywhere on the old portal. To what are you referring? — The Transhumanist 21:42, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
it was not really part of the old portal. I added it some weeks ago, before you made the big change. Look at this version Portal August 2018 -- Udimu (talk) 04:55, 15 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hypothetical technology until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
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New tool in the box for anything using lists[edit]
{{Annotated link}} is up and running thanks to Evad37, and the portal templates for transcluding from lists have been upgraded to be compatible. This should allow outline and index lists to be automatically populated with annotations using the associated short descriptions, and remain up to date. A step forward for portals, short descriptions and lists in one go. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 12:28, 13 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Geodesic – Straight path on a curved surface or a Riemannian manifold
That's a step in the right direction! It's good to have this in place, ready for when short descriptions are in general use. And if an editor is going to annotate a list, he can use this and annotate the articles instead, with short descriptions, and kill 2 birds with one stone. Well done. — The Transhumanist 22:35, 13 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, is there a way to automatically generate short descriptions for articles? — The Transhumanist 21:02, 13 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Some short descriptions have been autogenerated from infoboxes. They are usually acceptable, but seldom as good as when manually generated by someone who has some comprehension of the topic. Some articles provide an adequate short description in the first sentence, some need careful reading of the whole lead, or even the whole article, others are so poorly written that it may not be possible to generate an accurate short description from anything written in the whole article, so not very amenable to automtic generation by a simple algorithm. The Wikidata descriptions also range from very good to very bad, with no obvious predictor. I have done thousands. Some are drag and drop in a few seconds, others one gives up after several minutes of bafflement. · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 05:24, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
What is the maximum? How many of these can be included on a list page? — The Transhumanist 21:02, 13 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
No idea. I expect to find out by experiment. In our favour is that indexes and outlines don't usually have major usage of complicated templates like some of our portal excerpt slideshows. · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 05:24, 14 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I just wanted to let you know that Portal:Cheltenham is extremely malformed as it mixes content related to Cheltenham in England and Cheltenham Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. I don't know which Cheltenham the portal is intended to represent but the portal needs to be focused on one of them as right now it focuses on two unrelated towns in different countries. Dough4872 02:55, 22 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've made that your link in the participants list, so that the newsletter doesn't inadvertently go to your regular talk page. — The Transhumanist 21:42, 23 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The "all" prefix is generally used for {{DMC}}, so I wanted to keep that convention. I'm moving the others with JWB already. — AfroThundr (u · t · c) 03:44, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@AfroThundr3007730: The categories were specifically named that way (with "All"), so they wouldn't be divided into subcategories. Thoughts? — The Transhumanist 05:04, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure that one name or the other would really lend itself to the enforcement of a no-subdivision rule, but to me at least, "all" implies there are other subsets, for which "all" would be the superset. If there are no other subcategories (dated or otherwise), "all" becomes superfluous, as anything that matches the categorization criteria would be in that main category anyway. If we needed to subcategorize, there would then be a reason to have an "all" to hold all members of all subcategories, assuming the subcategory member pages aren't also a member of the parent anyway, which would obviate the need for an "all" category.
As an example Category:Articles with dead external links is one scenario where I would see the need for an "all" category to list all of the members from the dated subcategories, or another hypothetical category with subcategories for each geographic region could have an "all" category. This is all mostly just stylistic nitpicking, as I don't believe there are hard guidelines on this bit. — AfroThundr (u · t · c) 08:09, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@AfroThundr300730: Well, as long as they can all be listed in there. Subcategories are fine, as long as the entries aren't removed from the parent. I'll be using these cats to process all the portals of those types. — The Transhumanist 08:16, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Portal:Pebble Beach, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Pebble Beach and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Portal:Pebble Beach during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 06:13, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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Portal:Alexander Korda, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Alexander Korda and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Portal:Alexander Korda during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 21:16, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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Portal:Bill Bryson, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Bill Bryson and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Portal:Bill Bryson during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 04:41, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there. I'm reaching out because you made significant chances to the Portal, and I'm trying to wrap my head around some of them. Here are my two questions:
Why did you delete the icons next to FAs, GAs, GANs, and DYKs?
Is there a way we can get the Good Article nominees section back?
I usually kept an eye on the GANs in case other editors were not available to fix the concerns that might arise from a review. Cheers, MX (✉ • ✎) 18:14, 3 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@MX: I was reducing overhead (server load). I've reinstated the features you desire; the icons should appear the next time JL-Bot checks the page. Note that there doesn't appear to be any good article nominations at this time (see Wikipedia:WikiProject New Mexico/Recognized content), but as soon as there are, JL-Bot will add them during its subsequent update of the page. — The Transhumanist 20:24, 3 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your reply. Happy editing, MX (✉ • ✎) 20:33, 3 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. The icons never appeared. Can this be amended? Thanks, 23:02, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
I moved the portal you added to Milwaukee Bucks to the "External links" section. I suppose it's not well coordinated with {{portal-inline}}, but {{portal}} says to not create a new section just to place a portal on the page. It looks like you are using AWB. Not sure if you can automate these changes. Regards.—Bagumba (talk) 08:33, 6 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Bagumba: It is a list item, rather than a margin button, and wouldn't fit in with the list items in the external links section. Thanks for the inquiry. — The Transhumanist 08:38, 6 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, but a list of exactly one portal item is not all too elegant.—Bagumba (talk) 08:44, 6 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Bagumba: I'll go back through 'em and see if I can populate those further, with links to related topics. Thanks for the heads up. — The Transhumanist 08:52, 6 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Magnolia677: Because it was available, and because it's a new style of portal. — The Transhumanist 10:13, 6 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I see the discussion. It looks cool with the little icon and may get more traffic to the portals. My concern is that it hasn't been well publicized, and seems to contradict the instructions on the portal pages. You may want to mention something at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities/US Guideline. Cheers, and thanks for your hard work on this. Magnolia677 (talk) 10:26, 6 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Would it be possible for you to have a look at the "Selected sports article" column, please? Thank you, —Cote d'Azur (talk) 06:20, 7 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Yo-Yo Ma, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. StarcheerspeaksnewslostwarsTalk to me 22:16, 11 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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Hello The Transhumanist: Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Halloween! – North America1000 16:21, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Send Halloween cheer by adding {{subst:Happy Halloween}} to user talk pages with a friendly message.
I created Portal:Pies, but after tinkering with it, I cannot get any Selected general articles to list in the port. What am I doing incorrectly? Could you fix it? North America1000 18:18, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Also having problems with Portal:Adventure travel that I created. Cannot get any images to appear as a slideshow, so I have temporarily removed the section (diff). I checked out the various portal template pages, but can't fix. What am I missing? North America1000 20:23, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Just a short note to let you know that I split off the section Notable tells, which you expanded recently, to a separate article: List of tells to keep the article on the concept of tell itself a little more focused. Best, --Zoeperkoe (talk) 11:11, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Greetings The Transhumanist - In addition to doing article assessments, I've been contributing input for daily WP 1.0 bot assessment processing. There are on-going issues with the bot stalling, repeating WP deadlocks, not creating daily log files. Details are Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index#Conflicting project tags.
Do you know of a Category expert to help solve at least this one issue? Thanks for your advice. Regards, JoeHebda (talk) 00:22, 24 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
User:Oleg Alexandrov has created a bot that harvests categories for entries in the math article lists. If he doesn't know how to fix the problem, he may know who can. — The Transhumanist 00:32, 24 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Transhumanist. Quick question about the "did you know" listings on the Portal:Birds page. Where are they coming from? All but one of them have nothing to do with birds, other than the fact that some permutation of "bird" appears somewhere in their title. Birdsill Holly? The novel Birdsong? Early Birds of Aviation?! Really??! How about some real bird articles?! I'm happy to populate this with actual bird-related "did you know" teasers if you'll tell me where to do so. MeegsC (talk) 20:21, 24 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@MeegsC: Thank you for the heads up. Keep in mind that the portal operates the DYK and ITN sections by search patterns: to improve the results, we just need to improve the search parameters (using lua search query format). There is much we can do to improve the results presented. Watch my posts there to see an example of how its done. ;) By the way, "%s" indicates a space. — The Transhumanist 00:23, 25 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
P.S.: I've changed the search parameter, and have added a bunch more search parameters. The results are returning more bird-related blurbs now. The new search terms even found a news item! — The Transhumanist 00:23, 25 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, The Transhumanist. You have new messages at Northamerica1000's talk page. Message added 15:45, 25 October 2018 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.[reply]
Hello, The Transhumanist. You have new messages at Northamerica1000's talk page. Message added 21:18, 25 October 2018 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.[reply]
Important query on my talk page regarding Portal image banner heights. North America1000 21:18, 25 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, The Transhumanist. You have new messages at Northamerica1000's talk page. Message added 06:06, 27 October 2018 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.[reply]
Not needed now, but maybe someday: portal bar to list food ports. North America1000 06:06, 27 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, The Transhumanist. You have new messages at Northamerica1000's talk page. Message added 11:51, 28 October 2018 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.[reply]
Regarding an idea to automate related portal links templates... North America1000 11:51, 28 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
For your excellent work on Portals. Everyday the portal project improves. Your dedication and willingness to get people involved really pays off. Cannot wait to continue working with you and the Portal team. Thank you for your work. AmericanAir88(talk) 00:30, 30 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, The Transhumanist. You have new messages at AmericanAir88's talk page. Message added 04:47, 31 October 2018 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.[reply]
Then the proper response is to fix the portal or the transcluding template / module or don't do the transclusion. The proper solution is not to sprinkle little 'fixes' here and there around article space; that kind of fragile 'fix' only masks the problem. Does the template / module author know about this particular problem?
I agree. I placed those to find what is causing the bugs, to enable the programmers to fix them. We've fixed many Portal bugs so far and will keep fixing them as we find them. I'm still trying to track down the bugs in Portal:Organs (anatomy). — The Transhumanist 11:08, 31 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Every article in the template is being listed in the general articles of Portal:Halloween. Hopefully there's a fix for this! North America1000 19:14, 31 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I found a solution for this, simply removing the template as the source for the articles and using only the page.--Aurictalk 13:15, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Not exactly, although Halloween does revolve around candy nowadays, so it isn't too out of place. At the least, it's fixed the immediate problem, the layout. For some reason, having the template as the source caused the source images for the slideshow to display, pushing the other boxes out of shape.--Aurictalk 13:58, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Noticed another template you renamed and did not also move the /doc subpage. Please be sure when you move a template title to also check for documentation ("Template:(name)/doc"), a template sandbox ("Template:(name)/sandbox") and a testcases page ("Template:(name)/testcases"). Those subpages must also be moved along with the main template page. Thank you!Paine Ellsworthput'r there 10:35, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi TTH, I do not know how to add a new box section into Portal:Contents for Human activities. This needs to be done for all the subpages: Overview, Outlines, Lists, Portals, Glossaries, Categories, and Indices. If there is any documentation, I have not found it. Can you help? Cheers · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 08:27, 9 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There is no documentation, probably because, in this case, it would make things even more complicated. Simply copy all the Portal:Contents navigation pages of one of the other main classifications, such as History and events, and modify them for Human activities (though "Human activity" is shorter, which may be a consideration for the menu bar). Start with History on the navigation menu, and drill down from there. But, before you do, consider the titles of the classifications, and how they were structured...
Note, that the naming of the classifications uses a pairing structure. Each title includes two subjects. The first is a singular noun that (usually) encompasses the entire subject. Geography, History, Philosophy, Society, Technology, etc. Analogous to those would be "Human activity", which encompasses all human activities as a whole. We never documented the naming structure, because we didn't expect any more classifications to be added—we thought we covered the entire breadth of human knowledge. And we did - human activity entirely overlaps with the other classifications. But, the more the merrier. ;) In the end, it turns out that there is more than one way to organize things. Who knew? :)
The second part of each title is another subject, usually the most major subtopic (or, the most major one we could think of and agree upon). People → self, Culture → arts, Health → fitness, Geography → places, History → events, etc. So, a possible corresponding structure for the new classification might be "Human activity and _____". But, what would go in the blank? What is the most major human activity?
We kind of screwed up and got "Religion and belief systems" backwards (religion is a belief system, not the other way around), because we were trying to get it and all the other main classifications added to the Main page, and we didn't think the Main page workgroup would go for "Belief systems", as it is 13 characters long (including the space). But, it turned out they wouldn't accept more than 8 out of the 12 classifications at that time anyways. Not even Health. :( Plus, devout editors resisted "Religion" being relegated to a subtopic of "Belief system", as the adherents to religion far outnumber those of other types of belief system.
We messed up even worse with "Mathematics and logic", as logic isn't math, rather, both of those are formal sciences. But the mathematics department wouldn't relinquish their hold on the classification (nor their spot on the Main page). They wouldn't go for "Formal science and mathematics". Instead, we paired math with the next most major formal science (logic). Notice how "Formal sciences" is awkwardly placed at the top of the contents in that classification. I wonder how many readers wonder why the classification isn't named after it. (Sigh). Politics.
Oh well.
"Science" as a main classification was also an afterthought, as the contents department wasn't formed until a few years after the encyclopedia was established. So, there were already ad hoc classifications in place, which we were forced by their very existence to work with. Such as "Religion", which actually falls under "Culture", which in turn falls under "Society". Another consequence of the makeshift system was that science got split up into 4 of the main classifications, which raised the big question: "Where do we list "Science"? This issue still hasn't been worked out fully.
So, our rather quirky classification system may never get the serious attention of scholars that the Library of Congress or Dewey Decimal systems get. But, at least we try. :)
I hope you enjoyed the history lesson, and find it enlightening if not useful. Good luck in your endeavor. Cheerio, — The Transhumanist 11:05, 9 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It should be possible to put every topic in Wikipedia into one of the box sections, or the system fails. Where would you put underwater diving? · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 16:35, 9 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Pbsouthwood: Good question. It definitely fits within the realm of human activity, but needs more company there, as that section is sparsely populated. It also falls under recreation, and is an area of technology, which is used for work as an applied science. — The Transhumanist 22:49, 10 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Not all diving is recreational, it is also a significant support industry, and a way to get to work for science. Some diving requires very little technology, and diving itself is not a technology. The diving subportals are easier, Diving equipment is technology, Sport diving is sport, Diving medicine is health, Science of underwater diving is science, Underwater divers is biography. Underwater work is what? For that matter where do occupations fit in? Crime? Gardening? Politics? Warfare? Education? · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 15:07, 11 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Surely professionals have produced workable systems that could be used. We have invented a square wheel here and it will not roll well. Though possibly the analogy of the horse designed by a committee works better. · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 15:20, 11 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Pbsouthwood: Another option is to leave it in Human activities, and put sub-portals in the other classifications. — The Transhumanist 15:27, 11 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That was my intention, but the more I think about it the less sure I get that users will find what they are looking for. The system is more a network than a tree.· · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 15:54, 11 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Pbsouthwood: The directories of the nav systems (Portal:Contents pages and top-level category pages), are in place mostly for those who do not know what they are looking for, to allow them to explore to see what's there. When you know what you are looking for, that's what search engines are for. The main benefit of portals, rather than the catalog of them, in my humble opinion, is that they augment the root article of the corresponding root article. So, any article that has a like-named portal attached to it is more useful than one that lacks portal support. That's where most of the traffic to portals will come from, I'd wager, enabling those who wish to drill down deeper into a subject. — The Transhumanist 03:02, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello The Transhumanist, first of all thank you for all the great efforts from you and the whole portal project to improve project portals. With your latest update, there has been a minor problem though with Template:Germany topics in the Germany portal. Several of the template's structural elements (row headers, rows) are using colors to distinguish these elements and add visual structure to the whole template. But these element definitions get overriden by the new layout. I could probably fix this part myself, but don't want to override any new conventions or improvements by the portal project. Could you have a look and advise please, how to handle this situation in the most consistent manner? The topics template is readable of course but it looks a bit awkward with that coloring scheme. GermanJoe (talk) 13:17, 9 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@GermanJoe: I'm going to that page now to see if I can handle the issue. Thank you for the heads up. — The Transhumanist 13:39, 9 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the temporary fix/rollback, The Transhumanist. Just fyi, I have copied the essential parts of this minor issue to the portal talkpage to document the actual status and avoid misunderstandings from other editors. GermanJoe (talk) 21:06, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I have a question regarding Portal:Germany, which I raised on its talk, but no answer. Trying here, as you are the portal person: why can't I edit that portal any more, directly I mean. I know how to do it, but I imagine a reader who sees a spelling mistake and wants to fix it. I have no time to check if it is only that portal. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:42, 11 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Auric: Nice catch. I've tagged the duplicate for speedy deletion, to pave the way for the original portal to be moved to that title so that it matches the name of the article. Keep up the good work. — The Transhumanist 20:51, 12 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much. Did you automate the process?Guilherme Burn (talk) 11:14, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Guilherme Burn: You are welcome. Regarding your question... To what process are you referring? — The Transhumanist 11:18, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The process to convert to a single page.Guilherme Burn (talk) 11:21, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Not the whole process. Not yet. What we do have is {{subst:Basic portal start page}}, which fills in most everything, except no categories at the end -- so I leave the categories in. To save keystrokes, we have the {{subst:bpsp}} redirect. This template replaces the whole portal, and therefore doesn't fit every situation.
I've also been using WP:AWB to convert portals, but that takes multiple passes, but can handle more configurations. Right now, I'm working on replacing instances of {{Random portal component}} with sections that can be worked on more easily (for further conversion).
If you are interested in power tools for working on portals, see the discussions at User talk:AmericanAir88. I'm in the process of introducing him to faster methods to work on portals.
If you have any further questions, feel free to ask. — The Transhumanist 11:44, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I have saw you editing pearl jam's page consistently in these days so i expect that you know about them and thats why i have a request for you. Considering Pearl jam's stature when talking about rock music and their influence it is pretty much well known that pearl jam have now flourished as one of the greatest rock bands of all time. I have some references too to prove thr case like corey taylor's verdict about pearl jam and etc. But there is no such claim about them on their page. I know its a pretty subjective content but when you look at other rock bands like The beatles, Pink floyd, Nirvana they all have this sort of contents on their page. So abstaining a single page from this type of content would make peoples overlook them and also it is a bit biasness too. So i was looking for the right man to look out the case and add this content on their page. If you don't know much about the bands history(which is unlikely to be) then you can simply add the discussion on their talk page asking the question.
Best regards
2405:204:A02A:147A:0:0:1D2B:E0B1 (talk) 16:43, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, then please contact the deleting administrator, or if you have already done so, you can place a request here. wumbolo^^^ 15:30, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I did a WP search on Portal: namespace for hastemplate:"Transclude lead excerpt" insource:/ransclude lead excerpt/ (the latter to make the relevant text appear in the output snippet; no T as it may be lower case) then ran a perl script off-wiki on the output to resolve PAGENAME to the portal title and report duplicates. There were 37 pairs but 36 were acceptable uses such as Tea quoted in both Portal:Tea and Portal:Drink. Certes (talk) 12:26, 15 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Are you the relevant person about {{Women's Classical Committee|class=start|importance=low}} template, which has some problems, or someone else? If someone else, tell me.--Dthomsen8 (talk) 13:35, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Northamerica1000: Impressive. You are starting to put the corresponding articles to shame. I wonder what effect that will have on them in the long run. — The Transhumanist 00:39, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Apples and oranges. I view portals as a functional alternate means to browse content, but articles have the meat, as well as the sources backing everything up. North America1000 00:42, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I have a bit of experience creating new portals the old way, from scratch with subpages, etc. It was so time consuming that I sort of gave up, in favor of performing other editing activities.North America1000 00:51, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Catfurball: I looked at it. What seems to be the problem? It might be a bug (not of the six-legged variety). What did the portal look like? — The Transhumanist 00:28, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@The Transhumanist: It's not a bug, a vandal attacked it. A message was left saying something like this. This religion is a cult. And also there was a file that went by the name 0. And also Selected general articles & Selected biographies had been merged together as one, and was showing up to 5 different articles at the same time. But today it seems to be OK.Catfurball (talk) 16:43, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, The Transhumanist. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
Hi, although I visited the page today by coincidence, this didn't work without adding a signature in the same edit. It's a pain, but that's currently what is required. See WP:Notifications. – FayenaticLondon 10:12, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
My "P.S." pings should work in the future then. Thanks! — The Transhumanist 10:17, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, you copied a massive amount of text from many different articles to Food. Whether this is the best way contentwise to build an article is debatable, but not the point here. What you did is a serious violation of Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia though. Basically, you are posting text written by others as if it is text by you (probably not your intention, but the result is the same).
In the future, please follow the instructions for such copies to make sure that if such copies are done, they have the correct attribution. i'll now spotcheck your contributions to see if other edits also need cleaning. Fram (talk) 14:44, 22 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Fram: Thanks for the heads up. I was experimenting with selective transclusion using the subst: code, and wasn't finished yet (needed more prose from the same sources added). I should have posted a {{construction}} tag. Note that attributions can be posted to the talk page after-the-fact, and the overhaul wasn't/isn't done yet. I've re-posted the changes, with attribution per WP:ATTRIB. Further additions to follow. — The Transhumanist 08:56, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. While attribution can be done after the fact on the talk page, it is not the advised method: " At minimum, this means providing an edit summary at the destination page – that is, the page into which the material is copied – stating that content was copied, together with a link to the source (copied-from) page, e.g., copied content from page name; see that page's history for attribution. It is good practice, especially if copying is extensive, to make a note in an edit summary at the source page as well. Content reusers should also consider leaving notes at the talk pages of both source and destination. " So first and foremsot, attribution is needed at the actual page (history) the copies are made to: adding a note to the talk page is good, but secondary. Fram (talk) 09:39, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, the layout of your talk page has probably unintended but negative results: when looking at a diff like this, the page looks all wrong, with the top of your actual talk page obscuring the diff. Please consider changing your layout to something without these problems. Fram (talk) 09:43, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Transhumanist. If you have time, could you possibly have a look at the Selected Articles part of Portal:Banks as I can't seem to make it work and don't know what I should do to it either... Thanks a lot, Gazamp (talk) 19:12, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! Gazamp (talk) 18:34, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello again! In connecting some new portals to their corresponding articles, I couldn't find a way to change this icon, , to something more relevant... How would I go about changing it? Thanks, Gazamp (talk) 18:36, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Gazamp: Thank you for helping out so much on the portals. Glad to have you as part of the team. As for your question, I pulled this answer off of Template:Portal/doc:
The portal image names are stored in subpages of Module:Portal/images, organised by the first letter of the portal name. For example, the first letter of Portal:Fishing is "F", so the image name is stored at Module:Portal/images/f. If there is an entry for a portal on the correct page then the corresponding image will be shown next to the portal link. If no image is found then File:Portal-puzzle.svg will be shown instead.
It is also possible to specify aliases for portal images. For example, the code {{Portal|Detroit}} produces the same image as the code {{Portal|Metro Detroit}}. The "Detroit" alias is found on the page Module:Portal/images/aliases.
The image-detection algorithm is case-insensitive. For example, the code {{Portal|Detroit}} will produce the same image as the code {{Portal|detroit}} (although the portal links will be different). Portal names are stored in lower case in the image subpages, and input is converted to lower case before being checked.
To add new images to the list, please make a protected edit request at Template talk:Portal to get an administrator to edit the correct subpage for you. Portal images must be either in the public domain or available under a free license that allows commercial reuse and derivative works; fair-use images are not acceptable. The template {{Portal icon demonstration}} may be of use when deciding whether an image is suitable for use as a portal icon; it formats an image using the same size and style that the {{Portal}} template uses by default.
I hope that helps. Keep up the good work! — The Transhumanist 20:52, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you again... Gazamp (talk) 17:34, 1 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Your user talk page is incredibly complicated and it is hard to find relevant content. Could you archive everything that is, say 6 months old? Or over one month old? If you put older content in an archive page it is always available to you and then the talk page could function as it should, as a place where editors can talk to one another. Please think about it. LizRead!Talk! 04:45, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
See, this message should be at the very bottom of the page. But instead there are tables and other content that are, for some reason, referenced at the bottom of the talk page. It's a very sizeable and complicated page to get through. LizRead!Talk! 04:48, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As a regular visitor, I'm afraid I have to agree with Liz. This page is 3½ times the recommended maximum per WP:TALKCOND. The footer might sit better on your user page or a subpage, leaving the talk page free for conversations with other editors. Something on this page also breaks the table of contents: it takes me to the right section but then the page jumps randomly to somewhere else, which has confused me into adding text to the wrong conversation once already. A clean-up would be appreciated. Certes (talk) 10:42, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It's become bloated alright. Time for some housekeeping... There, that should help. I've removed the newsletters, which were taking up a lot of space, and reduced the clutter below. The tip is displayed to remind me to monitor it before it goes live - that's the only place I'll be sure to notice it. I don't know what is causing the jumping. It happens to me all over the place. It might be a script. — The Transhumanist 19:58, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Use the <ref> tag to add references to your articles presented as footnotes. This tag is easy and convenient because it allows you to cite your sources within your text and have them automatically numbered and added to your References section at the end of the article. To cite a source, simply type the <ref> tag after the statement the reference is for.
For example: Haliburton park is the largest park in the world.<ref>Bill Harton (2005). http://www.linkhere.com. Retrieved March 3, 2005.</ref> Then, at the end of your article, add the following template to include all of the citations in your article: {{Reflist}} directly under the References or Notes section title.
_(1)_-_The_Art_of_the_Motorcycle_-_Memphis.jpg)
Citation footnotes
