User talk:Charlesdrakew/Archives/2019/August

WikiProject Portals update #030, 17 Mar 2019
Previous issue:
 * Single-page portals: 4,704
 * Total portals:      5,705

This issue:
 * Single-page portals: 4,562
 * Total portals:      5,578

The collection of portals has shrunk
All Portals closed at WP:MfD during 2019

Grouped Nominations total 127 Portals:
 * 1) Miscellany for deletion/US County Portals Deleted 64 portals
 * 2) Miscellany for deletion/Districts of India Portals Deleted 30 Portals
 * 3) Miscellany for deletion/Portals for Portland, Oregon neighborhoods Deleted 23 Portals
 * 4) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Allen Park, Michigan Deleted 6 Portals
 * 5) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Cryptocurrency Deleted 2 Portals
 * 6) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:North Pole Deleted 2 Portals

Individual Nominations:
 * 1) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Circles Deleted
 * 2) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Fruits Deleted
 * 3) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:E (mathematical constant) Deleted
 * 4) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Burger King Deleted
 * 5) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Cotingas Deleted
 * 6) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Prostitution in Canada Deleted
 * 7) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Agoura Hills, California Deleted
 * 8) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Urinary system Deleted
 * 9) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:You Am I Deleted
 * 10) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Cannabis (2nd nomination) Reverted to non-Automated version
 * 11) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Intermodal containers Deleted
 * 12) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Adventure travel Deleted
 * 13) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Adam Ant Deleted
 * 14) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Benito Juárez, Mexico City Deleted
 * 15) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Spaghetti Deleted
 * 16) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Wikiatlas Deleted
 * 17) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Greek alphabet Deleted
 * 18) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Deleted
 * 19) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Accounting Deleted G7
 * 20) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Lents, Portland, Oregon Deleted P2
 * 21) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Ankaran Deleted
 * 22) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Jiu-jitsu Deleted G8
 * 23) Portal:University of Nebraska Speedy Deleted P1/A10 exactly the same as Portal:University of Nebraska–Lincoln also created by the TTH

Related WikiProject:
 * 1) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Quantum portals Demoted

(Attribution: Copied from Administrators' noticeboard)

WikiProject Quantum portals
This was a spin-off from WikiProject Portals, for the purpose of developing zero-page portals (portals generated on-the-screen at the push of a button, with no stored pages).

It has been merged back into WikiProject Portals. In the MfD the vote was "demote". See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Quantum portals.

Hiatus on mass creation of Portals
At WP:VPR, mass creation of Portals using semi-automated tools has been put on hold until clearer community consensus is established.

See Village pump (proposals).

The Transhumanist banned from creating new portals for 3 months
See Administrators' noticeboard.

Until next issue...
Keep on keepin' on. &mdash; The Transhumanist  10:06, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Adoption
I'm new to Wikipedia. I just joined yesterday and I want to know more about Wikipedia's features and all that. While I do know about how to use userboxes for example, I wanna know more. So, can you give me a tour around Wikipedia? If so, I would greatly appreciate that. Scrooosh (talk · contribs) 13:10, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Hello Scrooosh. It is good to have a Hungarian here. You like dance too and I am a Ballroom and Latin dancer. You can start at Welcoming committee/Welcome to Wikipedia. The teahouse has editors who know technical things better than I do. I will be interested to see how you are doing.Charles (talk) 18:39, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi Charles, thanks for the tip and fast response! I'll be sure to go on over Teahouse. :) --Scrooosh (talk · contribs) 19:21, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Hey I'm new to wikipedia. I also joined yesterday. I was wondering if you would Adopt me so we can get better with wikipedia together. (talk)

Reversion
I note you reverted my edit last night on page First Glasgow with the reason given 'Rv unsourced', however I had included a citation to an online source. The only bit I can think of that was specifically unsourced was the list of routes and their colour-specific branding, however this was simply re-wording existing text on the article (I felt it read poorly and contained errors - it now remains on the article unsourced). Is that why the edit was reversed, or was the source I provided insufficient? I would appreciate an explanation so I can avoid making the same mistake again! FbiZinc (talk) 23:08, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
 * The source given is an in-house promotional piece which mentions 75 new buses, not 150 as stated in the text. It says nothing about colour coding for different routes. The latter is trivial and recentist and seems to be original research.Charles (talk) 09:11, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your speedy reply and for looking into this. The orders were announced separately, i.e. 2 batches of 75, totalling 150. I could have cited both articles, but I thought that would have been duplication. Putting aside the colour-coding, which was already (and is still) within the article unsourced (should this not be boldly deleted?), is the section I wrote worthy of inclusion? I was trying to explain a noticeable and significant change that readers may want information on, it also explains that route branding that other editors were already placing in the article as a continuation of the SimpliCITY section which is entirely unsourced. I could provide citations to other sources, i.e. not First, for example media or environmental websites. If I did that, should I include them alongside the official company article, or instead of? But there's no point in me going to that work if it will be again subject to swift reversion! I am only an infrequent editor so I do appreciate your guidance. FbiZinc (talk) 12:33, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes the new buses are worth including if properly sourced. A source for each batch is not duplication. I do not consider the colour coding encyclopedic even if reliably sourced. It is trivial, ephemeral and tends towards being a guide.Charles (talk) 14:21, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks again Charles. I've also now learnt how to indent replies! FbiZinc (talk) 17:51, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Notice of Edit warring noticeboard discussion
Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion involving you at Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring regarding a possible violation of Wikipedia's policy on edit warring. The thread is Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring. Thank you. User:Bonner16 (talk) 17:40, 06 April 2019 (UTC)

Length of rivers
I recall you mentioning the length of the Rhine being given incorrectly for a time. I just came across Length which whilst being unsourced has a ring of truth. I expect there is some similar convention concerning winterbournes? Yours.SovalValtos (talk) 20:15, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
 * You have got me there. I have no knowledge of this. The problem with the Rhine was that two numbers had been transposed by an ancient typo and that figure was copied between reference sources.Charles (talk) 09:33, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
 * What amused me was the thought that someone might want to include some computer program to adjust the length of rivers live in Wikipedia articles, depending on the state of tide, and hence the visible course, or the winterbourne flow state! Little things please little minds.... Yes, the typo and your mention of it have guided me to be critical when looking at sources. Thanks SovalValtos (talk) 21:17, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Back to the drawing board
Implementation of the new portal design has been culled back almost completely, and the cull is still ongoing. The cull has also affected portals that existed before the development of the automated design.

Some of the reasons for the purge are:
 * Portals receive insufficient traffic, making it a waste of editor resources to maintain them, especially for narrow-scope or "micro" portals
 * The default bpsp portals are redundant with the corresponding articles, being based primarily on the corresponding navigation footer displayed on each of those articles, and therefore not worth separate pages to do so
 * They were mass created

Most of the deletions have been made without prejudice to recreation of curated portals, so that approval does not need to be sought at Deletion Review in those cases.

In addition to new portals being deleted, most of the portals that were converted to an automated design have been reverted.

Which puts us back to portals with manually selected content, that need to be maintained by hand, for the most part, for the time being, and back facing some of the same problems we had when we were at this crossroads before:
 * Manually maintained portals are not scalable (they are labor intensive, and there aren't very many editors available to maintain them)
 * The builders/maintainers tend to eventually abandon them
 * Untended handcrafted portals go stale and fall into disrepair over time

These and other concepts require further discussion. See you at WT:POG.

However, after the purge/reversion is completed, some of the single-page portals might be left, due to having acceptable characteristics (their design varied some). If so, then those could possibly be used as a model to convert and/or build more, after the discussions on portal creation and design guidelines have reached a community consensus on what is and is not acceptable for a portal.

See you at WT:POG.

Curation
A major theme in the deletion discussions was the need for portals to be curated, that is, each one having a dedicated maintainer.

There are currently around 100 curated portals. Based on the predominant reasoning at MfD, it seems likely that all the other portals may be subject to deletion.

See you at WT:POG.

Traffic
An observation and argument that arose again and again during the WP:ENDPORTALS RfC and the ongoing deletion drive of bpsp default portals, was that portals simply do not get much traffic. Typically, they get a tiny fraction of what the corresponding like-titled articles get.

And while this isn't generally considered a good rationale for creation or deletion of articles, portals are not articles, and portal critics insist that traffic is a key factor in the utility of portals.

The implication is that portals won't be seen much, so wouldn't it be better to develop pages that are?

And since such development isn't limited to editing, almost anything is possible. If we can't bring readers to portals, we could bring portal features, or even better features, to the readers (i.e., to articles)...

Quantum portals?
An approach that has received some brainstorming is "quantum portals", meaning portals generated on-the-fly and presented directly on the view screen without any saved portal pages. This could be done by script or as a MediaWiki program feature, but would initially be done by script. The main benefits of this is that it would be opt-in (only those who wanted it would install it), and the resultant generated pages wouldn't be saved, so that there wouldn't be anything to maintain except the script itself.

Non-portal integrated components
Another approach would be to focus on implementing specific features independently, and provide them somewhere highly visible in a non-portal presentation context (that is, on a page that wasn't a portal that has lots of traffic, i.e., articles). Such as inserted directly into an article's HTML, as a pop-up there, or as a temporary page. There are scripts that use these approaches (providing unrelated features), and so these approaches have been proven to be feasible.

What kind of features could this be done with?

The various components of the automated portal design are transcluded excerpts, news, did you know, image slideshows, excerpt slideshows, and so on.

Some of the features, such as navigation footers and links to sister projects are already included on article pages. And some already have interface counterparts (such as image slideshows). Some of the rest may be able to be integrated directly via script, but may need further development before they are perfected. Fortunately, scripts are used on an opt-in basis, and therefore wouldn't affect readers-in-general and editors-at-large during the development process (except for those who wanted to be beta testers and installed the scripts).

The development of such scripts falls under the scope of the Javascript-WikiProject/Userscript-department, and will likely be listed on User scripts/List when completed enough for beta-testing. Be sure to watchlist that page.

Where would that leave curated portals?
Being curated. At least for the time being.

New encyclopedia program features will likely eventually render most portals obsolete. For example, the pop-up feature of MediaWiki provides much the same functionality as excerpts in portals already, and there is also a slideshow feature to view all the images on the current page (just click on any image, and that activates the slideshow). Future features could also overlap portal features, until there is nothing that portals provide that isn't provided elsewhere or as part of Wikipedia's interface.

But, that may be a ways off. Perhaps months or years. It depends on how rapidly programmers develop them.

Keep on keepin' on
The features of Wikipedia and its articles will continue to evolve, even if Portals go by the wayside. Most, if not all of portals' functionality, or functions very similar, will likely be made available in some form or other.

And who knows what else?

No worries.

Until next issue... &mdash; The Transhumanist  01:10, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Please
Please Adopt me... My email is mydogisfaster@gmail.com and would like to learn the ropes of wikipedia. I am normally online at the weekends, but occasionally during the week.

-Mydogisfast

Adding Teahouse invite
Often I think adding a welcome to new users is the most important edit one can make. Sometimes I would like to go further and add an invite to the Teahouse. Hostbot seems to do it in an automated way. I use Twinkle but I have not seen it has an option to add it. Is there a quick way of doing it? YoursSovalValtos (talk) 16:31, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * There is indeed. You can have extra tabs at the top of the Twinkle window and add an invite or a talkback with one click. If you go to Teahouse/Host landing you should see a panel floating in the bottom right with a button marked "Install Teahouse scripts". This will create a user subpage for you with the required java scripts. I hope this works for you.Charles (talk) 20:21, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that seems to have worked. You will excuse me for having used you for my first trial run. I noticed in doing it that Twinkle has something to call the attention of an admin to a user, but for now I will not follow that up just continue to rely on admins nosing out trouble.SovalValtos (talk) 20:52, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * There is another useful script which shows the status, age of the account and edit count of users at the top of user talkpages. importScript("User:PleaseStand/userinfo.js");  Charles (talk) 21:26, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia: check out the Teahouse!

 * Thanks fot the invite. When the teahouse was first set up we intended it to be a quiet place where selected new editors who showed promise could go for coaching. It has evolved into an advice centre for all new users, and does a brilliant job, with excellent hosts always active. I rarely edit there now because someone else has nearly always replied before my contribution has seeped along the copper phone line. A carrier pidgeon would probably be quicker.Charles (talk) 21:38, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Arriva
Hi Charles, Thanks for letting me know that you'd deleted the addition of the Arriva Click I added. I'm new to this, as you can probably tell. I am a little confused though. My intention was to add to the travel services already provided within the Liverpool area. The Click is a service provided by the Company Arriva within the area. The company is already within the section. If advertising is not allowed, wouldn't Arriva, Mersey travel or even Liverpool Airport themselves need to be removed ? Or is it the fact it was a link ? Thanks AlanLooney (talk) 18:05, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi. External links are only allowed in the External links section at the bottom, not in the text. Links formatted as references are welcome if they meet our standards. Wikipedia is not intended to be a travel guide or source of trivial information that can be found on travel company websites, which is where people should go for it, because it is more likely to be accurate there.Charles (talk) 22:50, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

Bordeaux airport
Hello..Why did you revert my edits when i had source provided ? Plus i had the seasonal ones separated as it s customary...Now the way you left it it's as if FR flies to all the destinations year round,which it doesnt so you're providing wrong info to the public.. Airthess3 (talk) 23:00, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
 * The public should not be looking for flight info on Wikipedia.Charles (talk) 09:56, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Airthess3 (talk) 20:02, 3 July 2019 (UTC)That does not mean that you have the right to cancel valid information provided.By that standard then we should erase or revert all seasonal flights from all other companies too. And as long as tables keep being updated the public should have access to right sort of info Airthess3 (talk) 20:02, 3 July 2019 (UTC)


 * If you wish to erase all other seasonal flights I agree that would be an improvement. Please go right ahead.Charles (talk) 22:27, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Airthess3 (talk) 06:01, 4 July 2019 (UTC)you're cluttering together seasonal and year round destinations,plus you're leaving out new ones that should be added. Is there a point to this unreasonable action? You are of the opinion to erase them,not me..Have a look at other airports and tables before you go on insisting on this