User talk:Ɱ/Archive 10

Invitation to WikiProject Portals
The Portals WikiProject has been rebooted.

You are invited to join, and participate in the effort to revitalize and improve the Portal system and all the portals in it.

There are sections on the WikiProject page dedicated to tasks (including WikiGnome tasks too), and areas on the talk page for discussing the improvement and automation of the various features of portals.

Many complaints have been lodged in the RfC to delete all portals, pointing out their various problems. They say that many portals are not maintained, or have fallen out of date, are useless, etc. Many of the !votes indicate that the editors who posted them simply don't believe in the potential of portals anymore.

It's time to change all that. Let's give them reasons to believe in portals, by revitalizing them.

The best response to a deletion nomination is to fix the page that was nominated. The further underway the effort is to improve portals by the time the RfC has run its course, the more of the reasons against portals will no longer apply. RfCs typically run 30 days. There are 19 days left in this one. Let's see how many portals we can update and improve before the RfC is closed, and beyond.

A healthy WikiProject dedicated to supporting and maintaining portals may be the strongest argument of all not to delete.

We may even surprise ourselves and exceed all expectations. Who knows what we will be able to accomplish in what may become the biggest Wikicollaboration in years.

Let's do this.

See ya at the WikiProject!

Sincerely,   &mdash; The Transhumanist   10:25, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update, April 22, 2018
Thank you for joining the Portals WikiProject.

Here's our first project-wide update. I hope you enjoy it...

Reboot
The WikiProject reboot has been a success: the new re-envisioned project is up and running, with new members, ongoing discussions about automation, design, and upkeep; maintained task queques; and updates to members, like this, the very first one!

The RfC
As you know, there's a proposal to delete all portals. It started out looking pretty dismal for portals, with primarily posts supporting their demise. It turned out that the proposer didn't post a deletion notice on the very pages being nominated for deletion (a requirement for all deletion discussions). Once that was done, a flood of opposition came in and has apparently turned the tide.

RfCs generally run for 30 days. It started April 8th, and so it has about 14 more days to run its course.

The more work we can do during that time on the portals, the stronger the reasons for keeping them will be. And the more prepared we will be for any MfDs that follow the closing of the RfC.

AWB?
You may be wondering why we asked for AWB experience in the member-sign-up list.

We are gearing up to do maintenance runs on the entire set of portals, and the more people we have who can use AWB, the better.

But we're not quite ready to start this yet.

To be able to use AWB on the portals, we first need to know what the end result needs to be. Like on the news sections, do we comment out the out-of-date ones, or do we place the code to activate the newsbot on those pages? That would require an assessment of WikiNews and its news generating performance (areas covered, volume in each area), etc.

You can help us figure this out at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals.

Another area we're gearing up for, to do passes with AWB, are upgrades to the intro sections of portals. Many of these have static (copied/pasted) excerpts that go stale over time.

We're trying to figure out how to make self-updating excerpts to replace the existing static excerpts that are on many portals, and once this is done, AWB will be used to place the new code. See the discussion on this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals.

"What can I do?"
There are 3 major areas of activity right now:

Update the main portal list at Portal:Contents/Portals
There are a few hundred existing portals that are missing from this list.

The list of missing entries, and instructions on what to do, can be found at Portal talk:Contents/Portals.

We need everybody's help on this. It's a big chore for one persons. But, many hands make light work. Please help chip away at this chore as much as you can. A little each day, form all of us, will get this done pretty quick.

Familiarize yourself with the portal system
In addition to browsing the portals in the 2 lists mentioned in the section above, you should take a look at the portal name space itself and what is in it.

That can be done at WikiProject Portals.

Join in on the discussions
There are discussions on many aspects of the WikiProject's operations, with more to come.

Such as about the purposes and functions of portals, design discussions, and so on.

There's even a automated design discussion over at Village Pump Technical, on selective transclusion.

I hope to see you on the talk page.

What's coming?
In addition to the automation efforts mentioned above, we will be looking into how to automate the selection and display of alternating excerpts, and alternating pictures, for the various portal sections.

Watch for these discussions on the Wikiproject's talk page.

Summing up...
Get ready, get set, go! &mdash; The Transhumanist  22:54, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

P.S.: The main example given at the RfC of the problems of portals was Portal:Cricket. Therefore, it's the top priority portal to update. Please lend a hand. - TT

Portals WikiProject heads up, April 27, 2018
We now have 52 members, and more are joining daily.

New and easier way to handle excerpts
Attention portal maintainers!

There's a new template to improve existing and new portals, called Transclude lead excerpt.

It is a lot easier to use than copying and pasting text from articles, as it displays the paragraphs you specify automatically for you.

It makes excerpts so that they are always current and never go stale or fork.

It is more powerful than it looks, because it has the Lua Module:Excerpt supporting it.

Be careful, as it is alpha software. Please notify the WikiProject talkpage of any problems you come across.

To give you a sense of the reaction this template is generating, here is an excerpt of a discussion thread from the WikiProject's talk page:


 * This new template is fantastic. I've added it to the intro sections of the portals on Australian cities (eg P:PER) and it works brilliantly.  My compliments to its creators.  It can probably also be used in other sections of many portals (eg "Selected article" and "Selected biography"), and, for that reason, will probably make the task of maintaining portals a great deal easier. Bahnfrend (talk) 09:02, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for being so brave.  just got a lot simpler! Certes (talk) 10:43, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Kudos on a wonderful template.   &mdash; The Transhumanist   03:27, 25 April 2018 (UTC)
 * This is amazing stuff. I'm going to get to work on using it on the selected content at most of these portals very soon. WaggersTALK  13:40, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

The RfC
I wrote a comment in the the April 26 section of the RfC explaining what we are up to. I liked the excerpt above so much, that I went back to my RfC posting, and inserted it.

Wish list
What's this? An old oil lamp. It's so dirty, I think I'll polish it...

*poof*

Whoa! Are you a WikiGenie? In that case, I get 3 wishes!

I wish...
 * 1) ...that Portal:Contents/Portals becomes up-to-date.   (The missing entries are listed on the talk page, with instructions).
 * 2) ...the WikiProject to have Article Alerts.   (WikiProject Portals templates have already been placed on all portal talk pages).
 * 3) ...that Portal:Cricket becomes a shining example of portal excellence.   (It was the main example of a crappy and unmaintained portal at the RfC).

Please make my wishes come true. See you around the portals! &mdash; The Transhumanist  08:04, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject Portals Overview, May 04, 2018
Thank you for being a member of the Portals WikiProject, and thank you for all the work you have all been doing on the portal namespace. To see the activity, check out the watchlist.

This is our 3rd issue, see previous issues at the Newsletter archive.

Top priority: Main list of portals needs updating
The top, and one of the most visible parts, of the portal system is Portal:Contents/Portals, which is intended to list all (completed) portals on Wikipedia.

About half of the missing existing portals have been added since this WikiProject's reboot (April 17th). Thank you to RockMagnetist, TriNitrobrick, Polyamorph, PratyushSinha101, Ganesha811, Bermicourt, Javert2113, Noyster, Ɱ, Lepricavark, XOR'easter, and Emir of Wikipedia, for working on this.

We are half-way to completion with this. We need everyone to chip in until it is done. Instructions, and the list of missing entries are at Portal talk:Contents/Portals.

I hope you'll join me there. ("Many hands make light work").

Thank you.

Membership
We're at 66 members, with more joining daily. We even have 6 WikiGnomes!

Special thanks
I have awarded Certes with a portals barnstar on his talk page for his work on the new excerpt templates that are revolutionizing the portal system (Template:Transclude lead excerpt & Template:Transclude random excerpt). If you'd like to show your appreciation, please feel free to stop by his talk page and add your signature to the barnstar itself.

Thank you Certes. You are enabling this WikiProject to get the right things done, fast.

By the way, the templates have already gone international. After being told about the templates, Mossab wrote:

"Thanks You very much!. Those are fantastic and great templates! I transferred them to Arabic Wikipedia and they do a magic great job. I worked to improve portal anatomy here and i do every thing i can to improve it and i am very sad for the nomination for deletion of portals :(. I am glad to be member on WikiProject Portals and i added my name with pleasure. Kind regards"

RFC
As you know, the (April 8th) proposal to delete all portals and the portal namespace inspired the reboot of this WikiProject. RfCs typically run for 30 days, which means there are 5 days left including today, before the RfC will be closed. The !votes are predominantly "oppose", but many editors have shared their disappointment with the portal system. We have our work cut out for us in correcting the problems of the portals to address their concerns. Complaints ranged from being out of date and lacking maintenance, to taking up the time of editors that they felt (due to low traffic) would be better spent improving articles.

Anti-WikiProject drama
This past week has been somewhat stressful for me, with more than a little conflict...

It culminated with my being reported at the Administrator's Noticeboard "for spamming and canvassing". This is the second time I've been reported there during the RfC; the first one was for posting notices of the deletion discussion (the RfC) at the top of all portal pages.

The accusations were 1) Posting notices of the deletion discussion (the RfC) at the top of all portal pages, 2) Adding an Article alerts section to the Portals WikiProject page, and 3) posting notices (invitations) about this WikiProject on user talk and portal talk pages.

None of which fall under the Wikipedia definitions of spamming or canvassing.

Thank you, Lionelt and Lepricavark, for coming to my rescue. I don't know how the discussion would have turned out if you had not spoken up.

The discussion was closed as "no action necessary".

After that, the person responsible posted their thoughts to my talk page. Here they are, with my response:

"Congratulations, it appears your relentless targeted advertising of the RFC, your beating the RFC Supporters with a stick by posting countless times there, your dishonest insistence that Current Events was on the chopping block, and your obstruction of clean up efforts at MfD are paying dividends. Have fun playing with Portal space where no one will read your work. I'm sure someone will eventually clean up the mess when your interest wanes. Cheers. Legacypac"


 * Thank you. I accept your congratulations on behalf of Wikiproject Portals and the portal-loving community – it was a team effort. In addition, I'd like to clarify some things about your claims above...
 * Each page nominated for deletion must have a notice at the top of its page, per the deletion guideline. Not to have one there, would be unfair to those who use such pages, and would constitute a secret deletion tribunal. We don't do things that way on Wikipedia.
 * As new facts became available (e.g., a motivated and thriving WikiProject to support the portals, new building blocks, etc.), it was appropriate to post the developments to the RfC, to support informed decision making.
 * Proposals are literal, not figurative. The proposal specified "all portals". All means all.
 * The fact is, the rebooted WikiProject is cleaning up the mess, rather rapidly. By updating and upgrading the portals, rather than getting rid of them.
 * I think I'll be hanging around for awhile, but the project is more than likely to achieve critical mass and may outlive us all, due in part to the development of tools to assist editors in building, upgrading, and maintaining portals that are fully dynamic and self-updating.
 * Portals are more fun to work with than ever. Thank you for your role in making this happen. You made us try even harder, and inspired us to pull together as a team. You'll have a warm place in our hearts, forever. The Transhumanist

Automatically refreshed excerpts
The main advancement we've made so far is applying selective transclusion Transclusion is template technology, showing a page on another page. Selective transclusion shows only part of that page. We use it to show excerpts that always match the source. The two templates we have so far, are Template:Transclude lead excerpt and Template:Transclude random excerpt.

Obsoleting subpages
Excerpts are migrating toward the base page of each portal, and where this is done, a subpage is no longer needed.

Template:Transclude lead excerpt will be able to be used to put the intro excerpt directly on the portal page, rather than on an intro subpage, once we adapt a portal design to accommodate this.

Template:Transclude random excerpt is currently being used on 1st-level subpages, and eliminates the need for 2nd-level subpages. (Many portals have 2 levels of subpages).

There are about 1500 portals, but there are around 148,000 subpages in portal space. Further discussions are needed to develop designs and components that do not require them.

It is my hope that the portal of the future will be a single page, or close to it, pulling in excerpts from specified dynamic sources (like category pages), filtered by ratings. This would obviate the need for subpages at all (except for maybe the header and footer subpages, which store a portal's settings). A more likely near-term solution would be subpages with a list maintained by a bot, or editors using semi-automatic tools.

New portals
Since the reboot, a new portal has been created:
 * Portal:Limited recognition

Please watchlist these pages
Some central pages in the portal system. The more eyes on them, the better.


 * WikiProject Portals
 * User:The Transhumanist (there's a fair amount of portal project traffic on my talk page these days)
 * WikiProject Portal/List of all portals/Page 1
 * WikiProject Portal/List of all portals/Page 2
 * WikiProject Portal/List of all portals/Page 3
 * WikiProject Portal/List of all portals/Page 4
 * Wikipedia:Portal:Portal Example portal. And funny.
 * Portal:Contents/Portals
 * Portal:Contents/Portals/Culture and the arts
 * Portal:Contents/Portals/Geography and places
 * Portal:Contents/Portals/Health and fitness
 * Portal:Contents/Portals/History and events
 * Portal:Contents/Portals/Infobox
 * Portal:Contents/Portals/Intro
 * Portal:Contents/Portals/Mathematics and logic
 * Portal:Contents/Portals/Natural and physical sciences
 * Portal:Contents/Portals/People and self
 * Portal:Contents/Portals/Philosophy and thinking
 * Portal:Contents/Portals/Portal nav footer
 * Portal:Contents/Portals/Reference
 * Portal:Contents/Portals/Religion and belief systems
 * Portal:Contents/Portals/Society and social sciences
 * Portal:Contents/Portals/Technology and applied sciences
 * Portal:Contents/Portals/Topic

Wrapping up...
There's more in the works, like a rating system, further redesigns, etc. Keep an eye on the discussions on the project's talk page. They should start showing up there soon.

Hope to see you there. Sincerely,    &mdash; The Transhumanist   06:25, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject Portals update, 11 May 2018
We've grown to 73 members, and morale is high. Thank you for joining. Here is some news, and some tasks...

The RfC will be closed soon...
2018-05-11: preparations are being made to close the RfC. See Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure.

When there, be sure to notice the consultation link.

We're trying to get a prototypical single-page portal developed in time to show the RfC closers before they make their final decision. You can help. It's Portal:Humanism. So far, we've applied selective transclusion (automation) to excerpts, and have made the following sections without subpages: intro, selected article, selected biography, categories, related portals, wikiprojects, things to do, and wikimedia. Eight down, 4 to go, plus 2 formatting subpages (not sure we can migrate those). Automating every section, would also be nice.

Main objectives
Our main objectives currently, are:


 * 1) Replace static excerpts with selective transclusions, so that the excerpts always stay fresh (that is, match the source content). We are now doing this on the portal base page as much as possible, to reduce the number of subpages that are needed. See #2...
 * 2) Migrate the functions of subpages to the portal base pages. There are around 150,000 subpages in portal space. We aim to make these obsolete by using templates and other calls from the portal base pages.
 * 3) Improve portal design to make portals self-update. Semi-dynamic sections update from a static list, as used in Transclude random excerpt. Fully-dynamic sections would update from a list maintained elsewhere on Wikipedia, like a category. We haven't found a way to do this yet, other than to create a bot (which we will probably need to do).

Maintenance pass #1: Upgrading the intro section
The intro section of many portals transcludes an "Intro" subpage that has an excerpt in it.

We're replacing that with a selective transclusion directly in the intro section, bypassing the subpage. Though, there's a little  more to it...

For instructions, see: WikiProject Portals.

Please skip Portal:American Civil War, as that is specifically being maintained by hand.

Maintenance pass #2: Obsoleting the Wikimedia subpages
One of the sections on many portals links to sister projects on the subject. This needlessly takes a subpage. The subpage can be made obsolete by using the template Wikimedia for portals directly on the portal base page.

This has been done for several hundred portals so far.

See WikiProject Portals for instructions.

Maintenance pass #3: calling the category tree from the portal base page
Certes figured out how...

}}

For more information, see the thread WikiProject Portals (it does now).

More to come...
In the meantime, see ya around the portals! &mdash; The Transhumanist  16:02, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Discussion moved from @User:Epicgenius' talk page
Greetings,  ɱ. Nice to hear from you.

What would I like to know about you? Three things, I guess: 1) Just for the record, what town might that have been you had taken such arresting pictures of? 2) How did you come by the name, Ɱ| ɱ, given its definition Ɱ|here? And 3) Did you make the dishes in your photograph 'Duck, Duck, Duck'.png? Like the presentation in Filet de bœuf.jpg, everything looks staggeringly scrumptious.  Yours, Wikiuser100 (talk) 18:01, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Hey - so - I take photos throughout everywhere I travel, but most of my photography has centered around my hometown of Briarcliff Manor, New York. Most of the color photos in its Commons category and subcategories are ones I've taken. All of my photos can be seen on this page here (and by clicking "next page" further there). As for the username, to be fair, my brother once used "Ɲ" as a username to represent the first initial in his name, so I followed suit. And lastly, no, 'Duck, Duck, Duck' was not my cooking, it was a dish made at Crabtree's Kittle House in Chappaqua, New York. However, most of my food photos are of things me or my family cooked. I personally cooked these to the right here, maybe among others... ɱ  (talk) · vbm  · coi) 18:20, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Event coordinator
Hi, the English Wikipedia recently created a new user permission for editors involved in off-wiki outreach work, event coordinator. This new permission allows users to mark accounts for confirmed for up to 10 days, and also allows them to create accounts for events without rate limits without some of the features of the account creator right that aren't used at edit-a-thons and other events. I have added the event coordinator permission to your account and removed the account creator permission, as you appear to have been using it mainly for outreach work.This should have no noticeable impact on your ability to create accounts, and will give you the extra ability to temporarily confirm accounts if you need to. For more information, you can see the information page on the right, or you can ask me if you have any questions. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:58, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

May 23: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC
(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Portals WikiProject update, 25 May 2018
We have grown to 79 members.

Please provide a warm welcome to our latest additions, Wpgbrown, Cactus.man, JLJ001, and Wumbolo.

A lot is going on, much of it on the WikiProject's talk page, so be sure to go there and join in on any of the many discussions taking place there.

Elsewhere around the portal project, or related to portals, the following is happening...

New news template ready for testing
Evad37 has created a new template, with supporting lua module, to handle news in portals...

Transclude selected current events is ready to be tested in some actual portals. Let Evad37 know if you need help with the search patterns.

Noyster commented that "This is the best portal innovation since sliced bread!"

See the relevant discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals.

Thank you, Evad.

Coming soon: Automatic article alerts (but there is a glitch)
Our WikiProject is now subscribed to the bot that makes automatic article alerts, but the subpage where they are posted has not been added to our WikiProject page yet because of a weird problem...

Featured portal nominations from two years ago keep popping up on there.

Please check WikiProject Portals/Article alerts to see if you can figure out how to fix this.

Once that is remedied, it will be posted on our WikiProject page.

Thank you.

Note that, this will only track base pages, because to track the rest, we'd have to create over 140,000 talk pages for the subpages, and that just isn't worthwhile (as we're trying to remove the subpages anyways). Therefore, any alerts for subpages will still need to be posted manually.

New portal, still needs work

 * Portal:Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, courtesy of Mozart834428196. See also, the discussion.

Drafting a new portals guideline
Your input/editing is welcome on the draft-in-progress of a new guideline for portals.

See or work on the draft at User:Cesdeva/sandbox11.

See also the discussion at: Wikipedia talk:Portal guidelines

RfC on new TOC layout for main portal list
There is a proposal to change the look of the table of contents at Portal:Contents/Portals.

See: Portal talk:Contents/Portals.

Deletion discussion survivors
Thank you to those who have participated in portal deletion discussions. There are still some editors out there who despise portals, and this comes across in their argumentation style. Wow. Such negativity. But, there is some good news...


 * Portal:Quidditch survived its 2nd deletion nomination
 * Portal:Prehistory of Antarctica did the same

Current deletion discussions are posted on our WikiProject page.

Portal space clean up
While portal detractors are trying to get rid of portals via MfD, we have deleted many of them via speedy deletion (per Db-p1 or Db-p2). Essentially, they were bare skeletons, with maybe a little meat on them. The plus here is that speedy deletion is without prejudice to re-creating the portals. They can easily be restarted from scratch without getting approval, or be undeleted by request by someone willing to work on them. We have kept track of these, for when someone wants to rebuild them. They are listed at Portal talk:Contents/Portals.

We are also removing subpages, the functions of which have been migrated to portal base pages. To see which ones have been removed, look for the redlinks in our watchlist.

There is also an MfD concerning some of these at Miscellany for deletion/Redundant subpages of the Cornwall portal.

For subpages that need to be deleted, you can conveniently place this speedy deletion template at the top of each of them:

Then an admin will come along and delete them.

Please help list the unlisted portals!
There are still 100 existing portals not yet presented on the main portal list at Portal:Contents/Portals. There were 400, so we've come a long way. Thank you! But we are not done yet...

Please list a couple of them. Every little bit helps. If each member of this project listed one more, it would almost all be done. Many hands make light work.

The list of missings, and instructions, are to be found at Portal talk:Contents/Portals.

I hope to see you there!

Wrapping up
These developments make up just the tip of the iceberg. I'll have more to report in the next update, soon. &mdash; The Transhumanist  00:37, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Whoa, I missed one...
There's an article about the Portals WikiProject in the new issue of Signpost:

Wikipedia Signpost/2018-05-24/WikiProject report

Enjoy.

P.S.: We now have 80 members. Evad37 just joined! &mdash; The Transhumanist  01:40, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

It's time: the Portals WikiProject AWBers are needed for a task...
I'm contacting you because you indicated on the Portals WikiProject's members list that you use AWB.

We are now working on a task that requires your help.

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals.

Thank you. &mdash; The Transhumanist  22:46, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Your pictures II
Greetings User:Ɱ. Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. Looks like our dialogue got archived, as did one I was tardy to get back to at @User:epicgenius's talk page.

I scoured all the photos in your linked archives but just did not see any collection that jumped out at me as having been the ones I had been referring to. I'm baffled. I wonder whose page they had been on. Would have sworn it was yours. Little town on the east bank of the Hudson. Garrison, Cold Spring, maybe further south. Gaily painted clapboard downtown. A bit funky. Something makes me think it might have been around the time I did some edits to the Philipsburg Manor House article, right near your neck of the woods. That would have made it Feb '15. Oh, well....

Thanks for the links to your pix. Some great CIA-related stuff, and of Olana and the Sleepy Hollow Country Club in particular. You got it going on. Yours, Wikiuser100 (talk) 12:39, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Responding in brief for now, the pretty painted old rivertowns generally include (S-N) Tarrytown, old Ossining, Cold Spring, Beacon, Rhinebeck, and Hudson. Look at photos of their downtowns/downtown historic districts! It might be one of those... ɱ  (talk) · vbm  · coi) 15:23, 27 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Roger that. I've checked all the reasonable possibilities - continuing south through Verplank, Montrose, Dobbs Ferry, et al - but still come up blank.  Ditto Beacon to the north.  All seem to have much more developed brick downtowns than what I recall as clapboard dominated storefronts and homes.  Then again, some (or many) could have been painted brick buildings...though my overriding sense is that the pics were of a tiny burg time had pretty well passed by, till a recent glamming up.
 * In the end the town doesn't really matter. I've clarified one thing, no, two: that you're a real human (and not just a dauntingly blank square) and a heck of a photographer, which is what I had come to believe however I had arrived at the conclusion.
 * Last thing: How did you ever get permission to shoot atop the Golden Gate? That is such a rarefied thing it doesn't even make it onto the bucket lists of even the most avid dreamers.  Yours, Wikiuser100 (talk) 17:11, 27 May 2018 (UTC)


 * So in full response now - well according to the edit history, I was editing the Philipsburg MH article right before you were, did you see me there back then?

Oh, before. One can't nose around any NYC metro area articles w/o running into you, EG, and Ken.


 * And okay, yeah most of these rivertowns have lots of brick and plaster, not too much clapboard. Sparta, Ossining has much more, but I didn't photograph there too much unfortunately.

Well, that wasn't it. Not familiar with it. The mystery endures.


 * And thanks for the photo complements again.

You are welcome. If I ever need a picture of a fire engine taken I know who to call. :)


 * I only got permission on the bridge because my sister's boyfriend's mom works for the Golden Gate Bridge, so me and my sister and her boyfriend all went up for free! I think you have to know someone to get in, they don't really have the capacity for full-on public tours. The elevator's probably 2 ft. in circumference also, making the ride up not fun but oh so so worth it.

Unbelievable. I've only ever seen TV footage of someone in the media and their small film crew up there, and was gob-smacked. The views in any direction are mind-bending. It's a one-man elevator?


 * Also - so what's your background, have you lived in Westchester or nearby? ɱ  (talk) · vbm  · coi) 14:20, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

As you may gather by my user name and page I am very private about my background and identity. I keep it that way so that my edits here stand on their merits alone, and avoid getting drawn into and He said/She said type POV conflicts on any subjects. It's strictly business.

That said, yes, I am very familiar with the area(s) we have discussed and indeed spent a very significant portion of my life in the region. I have lived variously in a dozen or so states from the Atlantic shores to the central Pacific, the far, far north, West Coast, Rockies, South, bordering on Mexico, and abroad. And studied at nine different colleges and universities here and in Europe. In spite of that diversity there is no dilution when matters of the NYC metro area come up, as they inspire a special jolt of electricity, a combination of familiarity, warmth, and love, warts and all. Your edits and splendid photographs capture the area exceptionally well. Yours, Wikiuser100 (talk) 11:07, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #007, 31 May 2018
We have grown to 89 members.

This is the seventh issue of this newsletter. For previous issues, see our newsletter archive.

Welcome
A warm welcome to our nearly one dozen new members...

Our new members include:
 * Evad37
 * Checkingfax
 * Grey Wanderer
 * Voceditenore
 * TestPAKISTAN
 * Godsy
 * Greatedits1
 * Charlesdrakew
 * Ww2censor
 * Simon Burchell
 * TheGridExe

Be sure to say "hi" and welcome them to the team.

The portal set has shrunk
There were 1515 portals, but now we have 1475, because we speedy deleted a bunch of incompleted portals that had been sitting around for ages, that were empty shells or had very little content. Because they were speedied, they can be rebuilt from scratch without acquiring approval from WP:DRV.

Maintenance runs on the portals set have begun
This is what we have been gearing up for: upgrading the portals en masse, using AWB.

More than half of the Associated Wikimedia sections have been converted to no longer use a subpage. This chore will probably be completed over the next week or two. Many thanks to the WikiGnome Squad, who have added an Associated Wikimedia section to the many geography-related portals that lacked one. The rest of the subjects await. :)

The next maintenance drive will be on the intro sections. Notices have gone out to the WikiProjects for which one or more portals fall within their subject scope. Once enough time has elapsed for them to respond (1 week), AWB processing of intro sections will begin.

Thank you, you
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your part in the RfC. I went back and reread much of it. I believe your enthusiasm played a major part in turning the tide on there. I'm proud of all of you.

Why reread that mess, you ask?

To harvest ideas, and to keep the problems that need to be fixed firmly in mind. But, also to keep in touch. See below...

Thank yous all around
I've contacted all of the other opposers of the RfC proposal to delete portals, to thank them for their support, and to assure them that their decision was not made in vain. I updated them on our activities, provided the link to the interviews about this project in the Signpost, pointed out our newsletter archive so they can keep up-to-date with what we are doing, and I invited them all to come and have a look-see at our operations (on our talk page).

Sockpuppet, and reverting his work
It so happened that one of our members was a sockpuppet: JLJ001. According to the admin who blocked him, he was a particularly tricky long term abuser. This is a weird situation, since the user was quite helpful. He will be missed.

This has been somewhat disruptive, because admins are doing routine deletions of the pages (portals, templates, etc.) he created, and reversion of his edits (I don't know if they will be reverting all of them). Please bear with them, as they are only doing what is best in the long run.

The following pages have been deleted by the admins so far, that I know of:
 * Portal:Plymouth
 * Portal:Bedfordshire
 * Portal:Suffolk
 * Portal:Norfolk
 * User:JLJ001/tag
 * Template:Non-standard portal flag
 * Template:Portal flag

Automation so far, section by section...

 * Intro – Transclude lead excerpt
 * Selected article – Transclude random excerpt
 * In the news – Transclude selected current events
 * Associated Wikimedia –
 * Categories –

Automatic article alerts is up and running
Automatic article alerts are now featured on the project page.

Some super out-of-date entries kept showing up on there, so posting it on the Project page was delayed. Thanks to Evad37 and AfroThundr for providing solutions on this one. Evad37 adjusted the workflow settings per Article alerts/Subscribing, to make sure only the appropriate page types show up. AfroThundr removed the tags from the old entries that caused them to keep showing up in the article alerts.

Other things that could use some automation
Noyster pointed out that it would be nice to automate the updating of the portals section at the Community bulletin board.

Another major component of the portal system is the main list of portals, at Portal:Contents/Portals. How would we go about automating the updating of that?

Please post your ideas on the WikiProject's talk page. Thank you.

Deletion discussion survivors
Keep in mind that we have already speedy deleted almost all of the nearly empty portals, which can be rebuilt without approval whenever it is convenient to do so. Other portals should be completed if at all possible rather than delete them through MfD (which requires approval from Deletion review to rebuild).


 * Portal:Juanes – see the discussion

(Current deletion discussions are posted on our WikiProject page).

Portals needing repair

 * Portal:Toys

Wrapping up
There's still more, but it will have to wait until next issue.

Until then, see ya around the project. &mdash; The Transhumanist  12:04, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #008, 7 June 2018
The WikiProject now has 92 participants, including 16 admins.

Welcome
A warm welcome to the newest members of the team:
 * Keith D
 * RL0919

Be sure to say hi.

Congrats
Pbsouthwood has just gotten through the grueling RfA process to become a Wikipedia administrator. Be sure to congratulate him.

The reason he went for it was: "For some time I expect to be busy with subpage deletion for Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals as mentioned above. The amount of work is expected to keep me busy for some time. I am primarly a content creator and contributor to policy discussions, but would be willing to consider other admin work on request, providing that I feel that my involvement would be appropriate and not too far outside my comfort zone."

New feature: Picture slideshow
Evad37 has figured out a way to let the user flip through pictures without purging the page. Purging is awkward because there is an intermediary confirmation screen that you have to click on "yes". In the new picture slideshow section, all you have to do is click on the  to go to the next picture or   to instantly show the previous feature. The feature also shuffles the pictures when the page is initiated, so that they are shown in a different order each time the user visits the page (or purges it).

It is featured in Portal:Sacramento, California. Check it out to the right.

Keep in mind that the feature is a beta version. Please share your comments on how to refine this feature, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals.

The one-page portal has been achieved
We now have a one-page portal design. It isn't fully automated, nor is it even fully semi-automated, as there are still some manually filled-in areas. But it no longer requires any subpages in portal space, and that is a huge improvement. For example, Portal:Sacramento, California utilizes the one-page design concept. While is employs heavy use of templates, it does not have any subpages of its own.

I commend you for your teamwork
This is the most cooperative team I've ever seen. With a strong spirit of working together to get an important job done. Kudos to you.

In conclusion...
There's more. A lot more. But it will have to wait until next issue, but you don't have to wait. See what's going on at the WikiProject's talk page. &mdash; The Transhumanist  02:14, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

AWB task requests, from the Portals WikiProject
1) Replace the intro box sections on portals with an upgrade. See details at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Tasks.

2) Replace categories box sections on portals with an upgrade. See details at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Tasks.

Enjoy. &mdash; The Transhumanist  08:09, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

== June 20: WikiWednesday Salon and Skill-Share NYC (and Pratt Women Wikipedia Design this Saturday June 16) ==

(You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future notifications for NYC-area events by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Portals WikiProject update #009, 15 June 2018
Don't mind that box to the right. We'll be talking about that later, below.

Almost done...
With the portals upgrades?

No. :)

What is almost done is the updating of the main list of portals!

There are 23 portals left to be listed.

Kudos to the WikiGnome Squadron, for spearheading this.

Once it is fully updated, we need to keep it up to date. When you complete a portal, remember to add it to Portal:Contents/Portals.

Concerning portal upgrades, we are working on those section-by-section...

Associated Wikimedia section conversion task complete
The Associated Wikimedia sections of the entire set of portals have been upgraded. These are now handled on each portal base page (bypassing the previously used corresponding subpages), using the Wikimedia for portals template rather than reiterated copied/pasted code.

So, to be more accurate on reporting upgrade progress, that's one section down (for the whole set of portals), with (about) nine sections to go. (Skipping curated portals, regarding custom content sections, of course).

Further section conversions (using AWB)
Work is underway on converting Portals' introduction sections, and the categories sections.

If you would like to help, see WikiProject Portals and WikiProject Portals

Further section conversions (by hand)
Work has also started with converting selected picture sections to picture slideshow sections. See WikiProject Portals.

Quality rating system for portals under development
Currently, there is no quality rating for portals: in the Portals WikiProject box on each portals' talk page, it just says "Portal". But times are a changin'. Quality assessment is on the way, and you can help. See the discussion.

What's coming: excerpt slideshows
Evad37 has figured out a way to apply the picture slideshow feature to displaying article excerpts (now you can check out the provided box above). :) This allows us to bypass page purging to see the next selection, and you can even click through them rather quickly. Currently, the wikicode for doing this for article excerpts is a bit eye-boggling, and so we are looking into simplifying it. A streamlined version may be just around the corner.

Note that this is a prototype, not ready for widespread use. Click on the box in between the lesser than and greater than signs, to see what I mean. It was meant for pictures, and so the thumbnail feature doesn't apply to article prose very well. I've presented it even though it isn't ready, to show the direction portal development is heading. See the discussion.

Wow
I'm amazed at how rapidly portals are evolving. And we're still within a single generation of portal technological evolution. Imagine what they might be in 2 or 3 more generations of developments. Pretty soon, portals will be able to shake your hand. :)   &mdash; The Transhumanist   11:06, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Wiki category
Template:Wiki category has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Ahecht (TALK PAGE ) 19:50, 16 June 2018 (UTC) PAGE ]]) 20:17, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Never mind. I see why the template is needed now. Nomination withdrawn. --Ahecht ([[User_talk:Ahecht|TALK
 * No problem. If you know any other articles where it'll be useful, even if there's not an FOP issue, please add the template! ɱ  (talk) · vbm  · coi) 02:02, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Sock edits
The policy that allows such removal is WP:BANREVERT. If you find the material posted by this globally-locked serial sockmaster that is a drain on the resources of administrators, stewards and editors to be helpful you are more than welcome to add the material yourself, which I suggested in my edit summary. -- Jezebel's Ponyo bons mots 18:13, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #010, 30 June 2018
We've grown to 94 participants.

A warm welcome to dcljr and Kpgjhpjm.

Rating system for portals
We are in the process of developing a rating system specifically for portals, as the quality assessment scheme for articles does not apply to portals. It is coming along nicely. Your input would be very helpful. See the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/General.

Better than a barnstar
One of our participants got involved with this WikiProject through interest in how the new generation of portals would be handled in WP's MOS (Manual of Style). It didn't take long before he got sucked in deeper. This has given him an opportunity to look around, and so, he has made an assessment of this WikiProject's operations:

"I'm quite frankly really impressed and inspired by what's happening here. If you'd asked me a year ago if I thought portals should just be scrapped as a failed, dragged-out experiment, I would have said 'yes'. This planning and the progress toward making it all practical is exemplary of the wiki spirit, in particular of a happy service-to-readers puppy properly wagging its technological and editorial tail instead of the other way around, and without 'drama'. It's also one of the few examples I've seen in a long time of a new wikiproject actually doing something useful and fomenting constructive activity (instead of acting as a barrier to participation, and a canvassing/ownership farm for PoV pushers). Kudos all around. — SMcCandlish"

Congratulations, everyone. Keep up the great work.

Slideshow development
We've run into a glitch with slideshows: they don't work on mobile devices.

Initially, we will need to explore options that allow portals to have slideshows without adversely affecting mobile viewers. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design.

Eventually, we may need another way to do slideshows. If we do go this route, and I don't see why we wouldn't, then (user configurable) automatic slideshows also become a possibility.

TemplateStyles RfC passed
Once implemented, this will allow editors to create and edit cascading style sheets for use with templates. This will expand what we can do with portals. For more detail, see mw:Extension:TemplateStyles and TemplateStyles.

Automation effort
We've run into an obstacle using Lua-based selective transclusion: Lua is incapable (on Wikipedia) of reading in article names from categories. Because of this, we'll need to seek other approaches for fully automating the Selected article section. We are exploring sources other than categories, and other technologies besides Lua.

Speaking of using other sources, the template Transclude list item excerpt collects list items from a specified page, or from a section of that page, and transcludes the lead from a randomly selected link from that list. Courtesy of Certes. So, if you use this in a portal, and if the template specifies a page or section serviced by JL-Bot, you've now got yourself an automatically updated section in the portal. JL-Bot provides links to featured content and good articles, by subject.

What is "fully automated"? When you create a portal using a creation template, and the portal works thereafter without editor intervention, the portal is fully automated. That is, the portal is supported by features that fetch new content. If you have to add new article names every so often for it to display new content, then it is only semi-automated.

Currently, the Selected article section is semi-automated, because it requires that an editor supplies the names of the various articles for which excerpts are (automatically) displayed. For examples, look at the wikisource code of Portal:Reptiles, Portal:Ancient Tamil civilization, and Portal:Reference works.

So far, 3 sections are fully automatable: the introduction section, the categories section, and the Associated Wikimedia section.

Where is all this heading?
Henry.

Or some other name.

Eventually, the portal department will be a software program. And we won't have to do anything (unless we want to). Not even tell it what portals to create (unless we want to). It will just do it all (plus whatever else we want it to do). And we will of course give it good manners, and a name.

But, that is a few years off.

Until then, building portals is still (partially) up to us. &mdash; The Transhumanist  13:35, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #013, 18 July 2018
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!)

Panoramas!
One cool feature of some of the geographical portals is a panoramic picture at the top of the intro section.

Check these out:
 * Portal:Kyoto
 * Portal:Miami
 * Portal:Seattle
 * Portal:Houston
 * Portal:Tokyo
 * Portal:New Orleans
 * Portal:Brisbane
 * Portal:Calgary
 * Portal:Moscow

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 WikiProject Portals.

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.

Auto-populated slideshows
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:

New Template:Box-header colour
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.

(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.

Where are we on the redesign?
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.

Where are we on portal conversion?
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!

What's the plan, man?
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.

Are we caught up yet?
Probably not.

Who knows what our programmers and editors have dreamed up while I was writing this.

See ya again soon,   &mdash; The Transhumanist   11:10, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #012, 15 July 2018
We have 97 participants.

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

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


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

Why?

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

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

The singularity is just around the corner. :)

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

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


 * Algae
 * Amphibians
 * Anatomy
 * Ancient Tamil civilization
 * Athens
 * Bangladesh.
 * Berkshire
 * Birds
 * Buckinghamshire
 * Cenozoic
 * Dresden
 * Dubai
 * East Sussex
 * Fish
 * Florence
 * Florida


 * Genocide
 * Gilgit-Baltistan
 * H. P. Lovecraft
 * Hampshire
 * Human body
 * Humanism
 * Isle of Wight
 * Kent
 * London transport
 * Mammals
 * Milan
 * Munich
 * Oxfordshire
 * Palermo
 * Prague
 * Reference works
 * Reptiles


 * Sacramento
 * Saint Petersburg
 * Salem
 * Scottish Islands
 * South East England
 * Stockholm
 * Surrey
 * Sydney
 * Tamil People
 * Telephones (empty – please add some pictures)
 * Turin
 * Underwater diving
 * Vienna
 * West Sussex

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

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  or   have not yet been processed.

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

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

File:Henry SF Cooper.jpg
Hi, I'm RonBot, a script that checks new non-free file uploads. I have found that the subject image that you recently uploaded was more than 5% in excess of the Non-free content guideline size of 100,000 pixels. I have tagged the image for a standard reduction, which (for jpg/gif/png/svg files) normally happens within a day. Please check the reduced image, and make sure that the image is not excessively corrupted. Other files will be added to Category:Wikipedia non-free file size reduction requests for manual processing. There is a full seven-day period before the original oversized image will be hidden; during that time you might want to consider editing the original image yourself (perhaps an initial crop to allow a smaller reduction or none at all). A formula for calculation the desired size can be found at WP:Image resolution, along with instructions on how to tag the image in the rare cases that it requires an oversized image (typically about 0.2% of non-free uploads are tagged as necessarily oversized). Please contact the bot owner if you have any questions, or you can ask them at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content. RonBot (talk) 17:13, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #011, 10 July 2018
We now have 97 participants.

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

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


 * Converting the intro sections

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

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

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

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 WikiProject_Portals.


 * AWB tips

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


 * Portal automation

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

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

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


 * When should we start building new portals?

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

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

That does not mean we should be idle in the meantime. The main reason most of us are here is because it became apparent that portals were largely unmaintained and had grown out-of-date. This had become so apparent that a proposal was made to delete all the portals and the portal namespace to boot. That makes our main objective in the short term to improve all the existing portals so that the community will want to keep them&mdash;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. &mdash; The Transhumanist  12:33, 10 July 2018 (UTC)