User talk:Ddstretch/Archives/2018/November

Administrators' newsletter – November 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (October 2018).

Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Sir Sputnik
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Kudpung • Liz • Lourdes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Everyking • Jackmcbarn

Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Dinoguy1000

CheckUser changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg AGK • Ivanvector • Stwalkerster • TonyBallioni

Oversight changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Amorymeltzer • Oshwah • TonyBallioni • Vanamonde93
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Keilana

Guideline and policy news
 * A request for comment determined that non-administrators will not be able to request interface admin access.
 * A request for comment is in progress to determine whether the Mediation Committee should be closed and marked as historical.
 * A village pump discussion has been ongoing about whether the proposed deletion policy (PROD) should be clarified or amended.
 * A request for comment is in progress to determine whether pending changes protection should be applied automatically to today's featured article (TFA) in order to mitigate a recent trend of severe image vandalism.

Technical news
 * Partial blocks is now available for testing on the Test Wikipedia. The new functionality allows you to block users from editing specific pages. Bugs may exist and can be reported on the local talk page or on Meta. A discussion regarding deployment to English Wikipedia will be started by community liaisons sometime in the near future.
 * A user script is now available to quickly review unblock requests.
 * The 2019 Community Wishlist Survey is now accepting new proposals until November 11, 2018. The results of this survey will determine what software the Wikimedia Foundation's Community Tech team will work on next year. Voting on the proposals will take place from November 16 to November 30, 2018. Specifically, there is a proposal category for admins and stewards that may be of interest.

Arbitration
 * Eligible editors will be invited to nominate themselves as candidates in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections starting on November 4 until November 13. Voting will begin on November 19 and last until December 2.
 * The Arbitration Committee's email address has changed to arbcom-en@wikimedia.org. Other email lists, such as functionaries-en and clerks-l, remain unchanged.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:18, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Welcome AmericanAir88
Give a hearty welcome to AmericanAir88, who has adopted working on portals as one of his main purposes on Wikipedia. So far, he has created the following portals:


 * Portal:Blueberries
 * Portal:Olives
 * Portal:Bananas
 * Portal:Bone fractures
 * Portal:Carbohydrates
 * Portal:Cherries
 * Portal:Coconuts
 * Portal:Hartford Whalers
 * Portal:Integumentary system
 * Portal:Exercise
 * Portal:Fatty acids

Way to go!

Where's Evad?
Evad disappeared from Wikipedia on October 18.

He has been, and will continue to be, sorely missed.

Hopefully, he is okay, on a Caribbean cruise or something.

The conversion continues
Portals of the old design, are slowly but surely being converted to the new single-page design.

One factor that has slowed things down is that for many sections, the section header call and section contents call are integrated into a template and buried in a lua module, locking them in on each portal. They have been that way for years.

This means that these sections can't be directly edited like the other sections on the same portal. So, search/replaces affect all the sections except those. So, upgrading headers on these portals, for example, misses the integrated sections and inadvertently results in 2 different header colors.

Before we can continue with the upgrade of these portals, the headers and section contents calls need to be restored to each portal, so that those can be edited in concert with the other sections on the portal, and worked on independently of each other.

This is underway, with a solution implemented on about 1/4 of the affected portals so far. Around 300 of them. The remaining 900 should be done within a couple weeks or so.

Going wide...
We now have banner-shaped pictures included in the introduction sections of 180 portals. The rarity of such pictures has made it difficult to find suitably narrow images for display across the tops of portals.

We have a solution for this, courtesy of FR30799386...

Most pictures are not banner-shaped. But, you can still use them as banners. Here's how:

Using both  and   produces this:

Project's status
There are now 4,140 portals, with more being created almost daily. Prior to this project's reboot, portals were created at about the rate of 80 per year. Since April of this year, we've created about 2,600 new portals, or 32.5 years' worth at the old rate.

Of those new portals, about 3/4 of them need links leading to them. Almost all of them are linked to from the category system, but they still need links in article see also sections, at the bottom of navigation templates, and on the main portals list at Portal:Contents/Portals.

Of the 1500 portals created before the reboot, about 300 have been completely converted to the new design so far. About 1100 more have been partially converted, with intros, image slideshows, and associated wikimedia sections getting the most attention.

Discussion has resumed on the portal guidelines.

Until next issue...
See ya round the portal system! &mdash; The Transhumanist  11:41, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Precious anniversary
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:25, 12 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Many thanks, Gerda. Have a really good day!  DDStretch    (talk)  10:36, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject Portals update #023, 25 Nov 2018
There are now 4,180 portals.

Will we break 5,000 by the end of the year?

I know we can. But, that is up to you!

( New portals are created with  or   )

Happy Holidays
Happy Holidays text.png Hello everyone! Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice (if it's occurring in your area of the world), and thanks for your work in maintaining, improving, and expanding portals. Cheers,  &mdash; The Transhumanist   06:51, 26 November 2018 (UTC)


 * Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings}} to send this message

Jingling along
The following portals have been created since the last issue:


 * 1) Advanced Micro Devices
 * 2) Aqua Teen Hunger Force
 * 3) Aquatic ecosystems
 * 4) Blackberries
 * 5) Blade
 * 6) Blake and Mortimer
 * 7) Climate
 * 8) Democratic Party
 * 9) Dua Lipa
 * 10) Eels
 * 11) Eggs
 * 12) Emmy Awards
 * 13) Fallout
 * 14) Flutes and whistles
 * 15) Geophysics
 * 16) Ghost
 * 17) Hartford Whalers
 * 18) HBO
 * 19) Hot sauces
 * 20) International System of Units
 * 21) Jawaharlal Nehru
 * 22) Kendrick Lamar
 * 23) KFC
 * 24) Kingdom of England
 * 25) M.I.A.
 * 26) Marvel Comics
 * 27) Marvel Entertainment
 * 28) Minerals
 * 29) Mixed martial arts
 * 30) Money
 * 31) MTV
 * 32) Museums
 * 33) National Hockey League
 * 34) Natural resources
 * 35) Nature
 * 36) NBC
 * 37) Nehru–Gandhi family
 * 38) Orthoptera
 * 39) PATH
 * 40) Pears
 * 41) Physiology
 * 42) Ponds
 * 43) Pope Francis
 * 44) Potatoes
 * 45) Presidents of the United States
 * 46) Republican Party
 * 47) Salad dressings
 * 48) Santiago
 * 49) Six Flags
 * 50) Stan Lee
 * 51) Starbucks
 * 52) Stem cells
 * 53) Systems of measurement
 * 54) SZA
 * 55) The West Wing
 * 56) Tintin
 * 57) Tomato sauces
 * 58) Tove Lo
 * 59) Viticulture
 * 60) Waffles
 * 61) Wendy's
 * 62) White House
 * 63) Will Smith
 * 64) Winemaking

Keep 'em coming!

By the way, the above list was generated using this Petscan query. It can be easily modified by changing the date. The data page (under the Output tab) also has options for receiving the data in CSV or tabbed format, which some operating systems automatically load into a spreadsheet program for ease of use, such as copying and pasting the desired column (like page names).

In closing
We'll keep it short this issue.

Expect a flood next time. Or the one after that.

Cheerio,  &mdash; The Transhumanist   07:46, 26 November 2018 (UTC)