User talk:OhanaUnited/Archive 25

Administrators' newsletter – January 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2017). Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Muboshgu
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Anetode • Laser brain • Worm That Turned
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg None

Bureaucrat changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Worm That Turned

Guideline and policy news
 * A request for comment is in progress to determine whether the administrator policy should be amended to require disclosure of paid editing activity at WP:RFA and to prohibit the use of administrative tools as part of paid editing activity, with certain exceptions.

Technical news
 * The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey results have been posted. The Community Tech team will investigate and address the top ten results.
 * The Anti-Harassment Tools team is inviting comments on new blocking tools and improvements to existing blocking tools for development in early 2018. Feedback can be left on the discussion page or by email.

Arbitration
 * Following the results of the 2017 election, the following editors have been (re)appointed to the Arbitration Committee:, , , , , , ,.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:37, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Romila Thapar
Hi Ohana, the page log indicates that you have semi-protected Romila Thapar in 2010 indefinitely. There are requests on the the talk page to reduce protection. I recommend Pending Changes protection to see how it goes. Thanks. Kautilya3 (talk) 13:41, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Request for Participation at WT: Airports
As you may be aware, there was a recent discussion on the talk page of WP:Airports which prematurely and without consensus resulted in mass changes to airport articles throughout Wikipedia. Before a drastic change like this is put into practice, it is important to have clear consensus, which from my readings as an observer, did not occur. Many of these changes started to occur before any real discussion had taken place, and despite much disagreement from some community members. Disagreement is good -- it's great actually -- without it nothing would ever get done. But it's important that everyone opinions are heard fairly and accurately, and that significant changes like merging the Regional Airline destinations with the Mainline destinations are not done without such consensus. I encourage you, as someone involved in WP:Airports and the original discussion, to voice your opinions and discuss with others about how we should move forward at this point. Positive and constructive conversation is the way to a consensus. I also ask that everyone (myself included) ceases merging or un-merging mainline/regional destinations until a censuses is reached. Please contribute to the conversation here. T ofutwitch11  (T ALK ) 00:45, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2018). Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg None
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Blurpeace • Dana boomer • Deltabeignet • Denelson83 • Grandiose • Salvidrim! • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news
 * An RfC has closed with a consensus that candidates at WP:RFA must disclose whether they have ever edited for pay and that administrators may never use administrative tools as part of any paid editing activity, except when they are acting as a Wikipedian-in-Residence or when the payment is made by the Wikimedia Foundation or an affiliate of the WMF.
 * Editors responding to threats of harm can now contact the Wikimedia Foundation's emergency address by using Special:EmailUser/Emergency. If you don't have email enabled on Wikipedia, directly contacting the emergency address using your own email client remains an option.

Technical news
 * A tag will now be automatically applied to edits that blank a page, turn a page into a redirect, remove/replace almost all content in a page, undo an edit, or rollback an edit. These edits were previously denoted solely by automatic edit summaries.

Arbitration
 * The Arbitration Committee has enacted a change to the discretionary sanctions procedure which requires administrators to add a standardized editnotice when placing page restrictions. Editors cannot be sanctioned for violations of page restrictions if this editnotice was not in place at the time of the violation.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:52, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – March 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2018). Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Lourdes†
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg AngelOfSadness • Bhadani • Chris 73 • Coren • Friday • Midom • Mike V
 * † Lourdes has requested that her admin rights be temporarily removed, pending her return from travel.

Guideline and policy news
 * The autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) is scheduled to end on 14 March 2018. The results of the research collected can be read on Meta Wiki.
 * Community ban discussions must now stay open for at least 24 hours prior to being closed.
 * A change to the administrator inactivity policy has been proposed. Under the proposal, if an administrator has not used their admin tools for a period of five years and is subsequently desysopped for inactivity, the administrator would have to file a new RfA in order to regain the tools.
 * A change to the banning policy has been proposed which would specify conditions under which a repeat sockmaster may be considered de facto banned, reducing the need to start a community ban discussion for these users.

Technical news
 * CheckUsers are now able to view private data such as IP addresses from the edit filter log, e.g. when the filter prevents a user from creating an account. Previously, this information was unavailable to CheckUsers because access to it could not be logged.
 * The edit filter has a new feature  that edit filter managers may use to check if one or more strings are all contained in another given string.

Miscellaneous
 * Following the 2018 Steward elections, the following users are our new stewards:, , , ,.

Obituaries
 * Bhadani (Gangadhar Bhadani) passed away on 8 February 2018. Bhadani joined Wikipedia in March 2005 and became an administrator in September 2005. While he was active, Bhadani was regarded as one of the most prolific Wikipedians from India.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:01, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Courses Modules are being deprecated
Hello,

Your account is currently configured with an education program flag. This system (the Courses system) is being deprecated. As such, your account will soon be updated to remove these no longer supported flags. For details on the changes, and how to migrate to using the replacement system (the Programs and Events Dashboard) please see Education noticeboard/Archive 18.

Thank you! Sent by: xaosflux 20:28, 8 March 2018 (UTC)


 * ✅ — xaosflux  Talk 17:33, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – April 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2018). Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg 331dot • Cordless Larry • ClueBot NG
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Gogo Dodo • Pb30 • Sebastiankessel • Seicer • SoLando

Guideline and policy news
 * Administrators who have been desysopped due to inactivity are now required to have performed at least one (logged) administrative action in the past 5 years in order to qualify for a resysop without going through a new RfA.
 * Editors who have been found to have engaged in sockpuppetry on at least two occasions after an initial indefinite block, for whatever reason, are now automatically considered banned by the community without the need to start a ban discussion.
 * The notability guideline for organizations and companies has been substantially rewritten following the closure of this request for comment. Among the changes, the guideline more clearly defines the sourcing requirements needed for organizations and companies to be considered notable.
 * The six-month autoconfirmed article creation trial (ACTRIAL) ended on 14 March 2018. The post-trial research report has been published. A request for comment is now underway to determine whether the restrictions from ACTRIAL should be implemented permanently.

Technical news
 * There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

Arbitration
 * The Arbitration Committee is considering a change to the discretionary sanctions procedures which would require an editor to appeal a sanction to the community at WP:AE or WP:AN prior to appealing directly to the Arbitration Committee at WP:ARCA.

Miscellaneous
 * A discussion has closed which concluded that administrators are not required to enable email, though many editors suggested doing so as a matter of best practice.
 * The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team has released the Interaction Timeline. This shows a chronologic history for two users on pages where they have both made edits, which may be helpful in identifying sockpuppetry and investigating editing disputes.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:23, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Indigenize Wikipedia
Hello lone ranger of the Canadian Wikipedians.

The Yukon will be hosting a Wikithon April 28th, 2018 to Indigenize Wikipedia with Yukon First Nations. Do you know of any current Wikipedian's who would be interested in help us?

Thank you in advance for your reply.

All of the best,

Heather Heathervon (talk) 20:33, 4 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the geonotice! Heathervon (talk) 07:04, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Select Survey Invite
I'm working on a study of political motivations and how they affect editing. I'd like to ask you to take a survey. The survey should take no more than 1-2 minutes. Your survey responses will be kept private. Our project is documented at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_%2B_Politics.

Your survey Link: https://uchicago.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9S3JByWf57fXEkR?Q_DL=56np5HpEZWkMlr7_9S3JByWf57fXEkR_MLRP_3z2RpOqCkyCiCah&Q_CHL=gl

I am asking you to participate in this study because you are a frequent editor of pages on Wikipedia that are of political interest. We would like to learn about your experiences in dealing with editors of different political orientations.

Sincere thanks for your help! Porteclefs (talk) 20:05, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

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   10:23, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2018). Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg None
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Chochopk • Coffee • Gryffindor • Jimp • Knowledge Seeker • Lankiveil • Peridon • Rjd0060

Guideline and policy news
 * The ability to create articles directly in mainspace is now indefinitely restricted to autoconfirmed users.
 * A proposal is being discussed which would create a new "event coordinator" right that would allow users to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit.

Technical news
 * AbuseFilter has received numerous improvements, including an OOUI overhaul, syntax highlighting, ability to search existing filters, and a few new functions. In particular, the search feature can be used to ensure there aren't existing filters for what you need, and the new  function can be used when checking multiple namespaces. One major upcoming change is the ability to see which filters are the slowest. This information is currently only available to those with access to Logstash.
 * When blocking anonymous users, a cookie will be applied that reloads the block if the user changes their IP. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. This currently only occurs when hard-blocking accounts.
 * The block notice shown on mobile will soon be more informative and point users to a help page on how to request an unblock, just as it currently does on desktop.
 * There will soon be a calendar widget at Special:Block, making it easier to set expiries for a specific date and time.

Arbitration
 * The Arbitration Committee is seeking additional clerks to help with the arbitration process.

Obituaries
 * (Craig Franklin) passed away in mid-April. Lankiveil joined Wikipedia on 12 August 2004 and became an administrator on 31 August 2008. During his time with the Wikimedia community, Lankiveil served as an oversighter for the English Wikipedia and as president of Wikimedia Australia.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 07:05, 2 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  15:54, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update, 15 May 2018
We are at 74 members. If you know anyone who might find this WikiProject interesting, please invite them.

The RfC has ended
The RfC was closed May 11th, and a closing statement was posted May 12th which says "There exists a strong consensus against deleting or even deprecating portals at this time."

Ongoing tasks
Some major activities that we are in the middle of include:


 * Adding the missing existing portals to the main portals list at Portal:Contents/Portals. Instructions are on the talk page. There are about 125 portals left to be processed. (There were 400). Keep up the good work!
 * Development discussions on how to migrate the subpages to the base pages. There are around 150,000 subpages in portal space, associated with the various sections on a typical portal. We are trying to obsolete them section type by section type. Currently, we're working on obsoleting the intro subpages and the "selected articles" subpages. Please join in.

Other tasks

 * The list of portals not ready to be listed on the main list can be found at WikiProject Portals (scroll down to see them - they are marked ). They are incomplete. If you want a specific portal to work on, please consider choosing one from that list.
 * Over the years, some incomplete portals (portals under construction) got added to Portal:Contents/Portals. Therefore, every portal listed there needs to be inspected, and any that are incomplete should be removed from that list and added to the not ready list at WikiProject Portals (scroll down to see it). On Portal:Contents/Portals, I'm already almost done inspecting the portals in the culture section, and so you can skip those.  The types of things to look for are empty sections (most will have a redlinked subpage), lack of "selected" sections, portal stubs with just an intro and end sections, and very poor layout (like seriously unbalanced columns).

Portal-building resources
During his work on portals, Broter found a quote randomizer. It is Random quotation.

Trailblazer: approaching the one-page portal
Broter has transformed the Portal:Community of Christ so it is comprised of only 3 pages in portal space: the base page, its box-header subpage, and its box-footer subpage. Its other other subpages are now obsolete and are waiting for deletion. Nice job, Broter!

Well, that's all for now. See ya around the portals. &mdash; The Transhumanist  06:39, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

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  00:32, 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  01:37, 25 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  12:02, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – June 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2018). Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg None
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Al Ameer son • AliveFreeHappy • Cenarium • Lupo • MichaelBillington

Guideline and policy news
 * Following a successful request for comment, administrators are now able to add and remove editors to the "event coordinator" group. Users in the event coordinator group have the ability to temporarily add the "confirmed" flag to new user accounts and to create many new user accounts without being hindered by a rate limit. Users will no longer need to be in the "account creator" group if they are in the event coordinator group.
 * Following an AN discussion, all pages with content related to blockchain and cryptocurrencies, broadly construed, are now under indefinite general sanctions.

Technical news
 * IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in June. This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.
 * The Wikimedia Foundation's Anti-Harassment Tools team will build granular types of blocks in 2018 (e.g. a block from uploading or editing specific pages, categories, or namespaces, as opposed to a full-site block). Feedback on the concept may be left at the talk page.
 * There is now a checkbox on Special:ListUsers to let you see only users in temporary user groups.
 * It is now easier for blocked mobile users to see why they were blocked.

Arbitration
 * A recent technical issue with the Arbitration Committee's spam filter inadvertently caused all messages sent to the committee through Wikipedia (i.e. Special:EmailUser/Arbitration Committee) to be discarded. If you attempted to send an email to the Arbitration Committee via Wikipedia between May 16 and May 31, your message was not received and you are encouraged to resend it. Messages sent outside of these dates or directly to the Arbitration Committee email address were not affected by this issue.

Miscellaneous
 * In early May, an unusually high level of failed login attempts was observed. The WMF has stated that this was an "external effort to gain unauthorized access to random accounts". Under Wikipedia policy, administrators are required to have strong passwords. To further reinforce security, administrators should also consider enabling two-factor authentication. A committed identity can be used to verify that you are the true account owner in the event that your account is compromised and/or you are unable to log in.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:00, 1 June 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  02:10, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

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   11:05, 16 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  13:33, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – July 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2018). Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Pbsouthwood • TheSandDoctor
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Gogo Dodo
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Andrevan • Doug • EVula • KaisaL • Tony Fox • WilyD

Bureaucrat changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Andrevan • EVula

Guideline and policy news
 * An RfC about the deletion of drafts closed with a consensus to change the wording of WP:NMFD. Specifically, a draft that has been repeatedly resubmitted and declined at AfC without any substantial improvement may be deleted at MfD if consensus determines that it is unlikely to ever meet the requirements for mainspace and it otherwise meets one of the reasons for deletion outlined in the deletion policy.
 * A request for comment closed with a consensus that the promising draft template cannot be used to indefinitely prevent a WP:G13 speedy deletion nomination.

Technical news
 * Starting on July 9, the WMF Security team, Trust & Safety, and the broader technical community will be seeking input on an upcoming change that will restrict editing of site-wide JavaScript and CSS to a new technical administrators user group. Bureaucrats and stewards will be able to grant this right per a community-defined process. The intention is to reduce the number of accounts who can edit frontend code to those who actually need to, which in turn lessens the risk of malicious code being added that compromises the security and privacy of everyone who accesses Wikipedia. For more information, please review the FAQ.
 * Syntax highlighting has been graduated from a Beta feature on the English Wikipedia. To enable this feature, click the highlighter icon (Codemirror-icon.png) in your editing toolbar (or under the hamburger menu in the 2017 wikitext editor). This feature can help prevent you from making mistakes when editing complex templates.
 * IP-based cookie blocks should be deployed to English Wikipedia in July (previously scheduled for June). This will cause the block of a logged-out user to be reloaded if they change IPs. This means in most cases, you may no longer need to do /64 range blocks on residential IPv6 addresses in order to effectively block the end user. It will also help combat abuse from IP hoppers in general. For the time being, it only affects users of the desktop interface.

Miscellaneous
 * Currently around 20% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 17% a year ago. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless if you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:22, 3 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  12:32, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Nomination of List of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? top prize winners for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article List of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? top prize winners is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/List of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? top prize winners 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.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. AldezD (talk) 11:57, 13 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   08:46, 15 July 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   11:08, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #014, 27 July 2018
Development of design continues, full speed ahead...

Excerpt slideshows are here!
Can you say "paradigm shift"?

Now, in addition to picture slideshows, we have slideshows that can display excerpts. Portals are not just for topic tasting anymore. Now they can be made useful for surveying Wikipedia's coverage of entire subjects. This gives a deeper meaning to their name. Hmmm. "Portals"... Doorways to knowledge.

Portal:Lithuania was redesigned using excerpt slideshows. Check it out.

For those of you who cannot wait to test out these new toys...

We have not one, but three excerpt slideshow components to pick from:

Transclude excerpts as random slideshow


 * For this one, you specify the page names where the excerpts are to be extracted from.

Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow


 * This one accepts source pages from where the page names are gathered from list items. Then an excerpt from one of those pages is displayed. The selection of what is included in the slide show can be limited to a specific number from the collection (of the page names gathered), and that selection is renewed from scratch each time the page is purged.


 * For example, if you specify Template:World Heritage Sites in Spain as a source page, the slideshow will cycle through those sites. Now you don't have to type them in one-by-one. This greatly reduces portal creation time.

Transclude linked excerpts as random slideshow


 * Same as above, but gathers links instead of just linked list items.

Panoramic banners
Portal image banner displays a panoramic picture the width of the page, and adjusts its size, so it stays that way even if the user changes page view size. And it accepts multiple file names, so that the picture displayed randomizes between them each time the page is visited/purged.

Give resizing the page a try:

Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.

You can now balance section boxes
Before:

After:

Notice how the box bottoms line up. That readjusts even if you click the slideshow buttons.

The template used for this is Flex columns.

By the way, when you include more than one box in a column, any left over whitespace in that column is divided between them.

Box-header colour
You may have noticed the new Box-header colour template used above. It lets you pick the color locally (right on the same page). Before, this was handled on a subpage somewhere.

Testing, testing
Now that we have lots of toys to play with for making cool portals...

Don't forget, that the majority of views of Wikipedia these days are from mobile devices. We need to make certain that portals display well on those. So, remember to check your work on portals in mobile view mode...

To see a portal in mobile view mode, insert a ".m" into a portal's url, after "en", like this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Reptile

If you discover problems in a portal you can't fix, report them on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design.

Until next time...
Have fun. &mdash; The Transhumanist  00:59, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #015, 31 July 2018
Now that we have lots of toys to play with, it's play time!

Here are some fun activities to use our new toys on...

Fun activity #1: put the improved panorama template to use
Would you like to travel around the world? Well, this may be the next best thing...

Here's another fun toy to play with: Portal image banner

To see what it looks like, check out the panoramas at the tops of the following portals:
 * Portal:India
 * Portal:Melbourne
 * Portal:Perth
 * Portal:Monaco
 * Portal:South Sudan
 * Portal:Thiruvananthapuram
 * Portal:Lithuania
 * Portal:Brisbane
 * Portal:Abu Dhabi
 * Portal:Athens
 * Portal:Barcelona
 * Portal:Calgary
 * Portal:Dhaka
 * Portal:Dresden
 * Portal:Edinburgh
 * Portal:Florence
 * Portal:Houston
 * Portal:Miami
 * Portal:Milan
 * Portal:Moscow
 * Portal:Munich
 * Portal:Seattle
 * Portal:Stockholm
 * Portal:Turin
 * Portal:Bermuda

The task: There are many geography portals that lack panoramas. Please add some. Please keep the file size down below 2 megabytes, and keep in mind that you may find quality banners at at less than 200K (.2 megabytes). Good search terms to include with the place name are "banner", "cityscape", "skyline", "panorama", "landscape", etc.

Related task: There are also lots of geography portals that have panoramas used as gaudy banners (with print or icons splattered across them) or that display them in some random location on the page. In many cases, those pages would be improved by displaying the panorama as a clean picture at the top of the intro section, like on the examples above. This works best with banner-like panoramas. Please fix such pages when you come across them, if you believe it would improve the look of the page.

Taller images might be better suited displayed further down the page, or in the "Selected images" section.

Note that Portal image banner supports multiple images, and displays one at random upon the first visit, and each time the page is purged.

Fun activity #2: install "Selected images" sections
That is, image slideshows!

Over 200 have been installed so far. Just 1200 to go. (Be sure not to install them on portals with active maintainers, unless they want you to).

The title "Selected images" reflects the fact that not all images on Wikipedia are pictures, and encompasses maps, graphs, diagrams, sketches, paintings, pictures, and so on.

The toys we have to work with for this are:

Random slideshow

and

Transclude files as random slideshow

The task: Using one of the above templates directly on a portal's base page, replace static "Selected picture" sections, with a section like one of these:

The one on the left uses Random slideshow (which accepts file names), and the one on the right uses Transclude files as random slideshow (which accepts source pages from which the filenames are gathered).

The above section formatting is used on many of the pages you will come across, but not all. In those cases, use whatever section formatting matches the rest of the page.

Note that you may come across "Selected picture" sections done with Random portal component templates. That template call is the entire section. Replace it with a section that matches the other sections on the page, and put the new slideshow inside that.

For example, in Portal:California, this code:

was replaced with this code:

And the new section blended right in with the formatting of the rest of the page. Note the use of the  magic word. Plain article titles also work. Don't feel limited to one or two page names. But be sure to test each slideshow before installing the next one. (Or if you prefer, in batches - just don't leave them hanging). Report technical problems at the Portal design talk page.

Fun activity #3: upgrade "Selected article" sections
These sections, where unmaintained, have gone stale. That's because 1) the excerpts are static, having been manually copied and pasted, and 2) because they lack automatic addition of new entries.

They can be upgraded with:

Transclude random excerpt

or

Transclude list item excerpt

or

Transclude linked excerpt

All three of these will provide excerpts that won't go stale. The latter two can provide excerpt collections that won't go stale, by providing new entries over time. The key is to select source pages or source sections that are frequently updated, such as root article sections, mainstream lists, or navigation templates.

Where will this put us?
When the above tasks are completed for the entire collection of portals (except the ones with specific maintainers), we'll be more than half-way done with the portal system upgrade.

Keep up the great work. &mdash; The Transhumanist  19:15, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2018). Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Sro23
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg KaisaL • Ymblanter

Guideline and policy news
 * After a discussion at Meta, a new user group called "interface administrators" (formerly "technical administrator") has been created. Come the end of August, interface admins will be the only users able to edit site-wide JavaScript and CSS pages like MediaWiki:Common.js and MediaWiki:Common.css, or edit other user's personal JavaScript and CSS. The intention is to improve security and privacy by reducing the number of accounts which could be used to compromise the site or another user's account through malicious code. The new user group can be assigned and revoked by bureaucrats. Discussion is ongoing to establish details for implementing the group on the English Wikipedia.
 * Following a request for comment, the WP:SISTER style guideline now states that in the mainspace, interwiki links to Wikinews should only be made as per the external links guideline. This generally means that within the body of an article, you should not link to Wikinews about a particular event that is only a part of the larger topic. Wikinews links in "external links" sections can be used where helpful, but not automatically if an equivalent article from a reliable news outlet could be linked in the same manner.

Technical news
 * The WMF Anti-Harassment Tools team is seeking input on the second set of wireframes for the Special:Block redesign that will introduce partial blocks. The new functionality will allow you to block a user from editing a specific set of pages, pages in a category, a namespace, and for specific actions such as moving pages and uploading files.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:31, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Future portal tool
Discussions are underway on the design of a portal tool (user script) that will hopefully have features for modifying portals at the click of a menu item, to make editing them easier. It might do things like change the color for you, add to a selection, add a new section, move a section, and so on.

If you'd like to be involved and suggest features for the tool, please join us at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design.

Progress report: upgrade of portals
As new portal components are built by our Lua gurus, those components are being used to upgrade portals. Each component automates a section of a portal in a particular way.

The sections that are mostly upgraded so far are the Intro, and the Associated Wikimedia section. The sections currently undergoing upgrade are: Selected image, Categories, and the Intro.

The Intro? Isn't that done already?

Yes, and no.

The upgrade of the excerpt in intros is mostly complete (there are about 70 non-standard portals that still need it).

Now we are doing another upgrade of intros in the form of adding a panoramic picture at the top of the intro, on portals for which such a picture is available on. Dozens of panoramas have been added so far, and they are really starting to affect the look of portals &mdash; the portals that have them look really good.

Regions are the most likely subjects to have panoramas, but a surprising number of other subjects have banner-shaped pictures too. Some examples of non-geographic portals that they have been added to are:
 * Portal:Underwater diving
 * Portal:Sharks
 * Portal:Reptiles
 * Portal:Meat
 * Portal:Cheese
 * Portal:Cereals
 * Portal:Tea
 * Portal:Milk
 * Portal:Wheat
 * Portal:Rice
 * Portal:Clothing

Speaking of pictures, several hundred Selected image sections have been upgraded to include image slideshows.

Progress report: design
The push for automation continues, with new components under continuous testing in the field. As problems are spotted, they are reported to our programmers, who have done a fantastic job of keeping up with bug reports and fixing the relevant Lua modules fast. I am highly impressed.

Construction time on new portals is now down to as little as a minute or less. Though not in general. If you are lucky enough to spot portals that fit the profile of the new tools (their strengths), then a portal can be complete almost as soon as it is created, with the added time it takes to find and add a panorama. Source page titles are not generally standardized, and so it source pages in many cases must be entered manually. Where source page titles follow a standard naming convention, portal creation for those subjects goes quickly.

So, we still have some hurdles, but the outlook on portals is very good. New features, and many improvements to features are on the horizon. I'll be sure to report them when they become available.

What will the portal of the future look like? That is up to you!

See you on the project's talk pages.

Sincerely,   &mdash; The Transhumanist   21:08, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #017, 22 Aug 2018
This issue is about portal creation...

Creating new portals
Myself and others have been testing and experimenting with the new components in upgrading existing portals and in building new portals. They have now been applied in hundreds of portals.

The templates are ready for general use for portal creation.

They are still a bit buggy, but the only way we are going to work the rest of the bugs out is by using them and reporting the bugs as we come across them.

I look forward to seeing what new portals you create!

Be sure to report bugs at WT:WPPORTD.

The main portal creation template is box portal skeleton.

Portal creation tips
After starting a portal using box portal skeleton...
 * 1) Placing a panorama (banner picture) at the top of the intro section is a nice touch, and really makes a portal look good. box portal skeleton doesn't automatically insert panoramas. So, you will need to do that by hand. They can be found at . For some examples, check out Portal:Sharks, Portal:Cheese, and Portal:Florence
 * 2) The search term provided in the Did you know? and In the news sections is very basic and rarely matches anything. It is best to replace that term with multiple search arguments, if possible (separate each argument with a pipe character). For example, in Portal:Capital punishment, see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Capital_punishment&diff=855255361&oldid=855137403 Searches in templates use Lua search notation.
 * 3) Check the In the news and Did you know? sections for mismatches. That is, sometimes entries come up that shouldn't be displayed. If there are any, refine the search strings further, so they don't return such results.
 * 4) Finish each portal you've created before creating a new one. We don't want unfinished portals sitting around.

Need a laugh?
Check out the Did you know? section on Portal:Determinism. &mdash; The Transhumanist  02:23, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2018). Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg None
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Asterion • Crisco 1492 • KF • Kudpung • Liz • Randykitty • Spartaz
 * Pictogram voting rename.png →

Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Amorymeltzer • Mr. Stradivarius • MusikAnimal • MSGJ • TheDJ • Xaosflux

Guideline and policy news
 * Following a "stop-gap" discussion, six users have temporarily been made interface administrators while discussion is ongoing for a more permanent process for assigning the permission. Interface administrators are now the only editors allowed to edit sitewide CSS and JavaScript pages, as well as CSS/JS pages in another user's userspace. Previously, all administrators had this ability. The right can be granted and revoked by bureaucrats.

Technical news
 * Because of a data centre test you will be able to read but not edit the wikis for up to an hour on 12 September and 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time. The time when you can't edit might be shorter than an hour.
 * Some abuse filter variables have changed. They are now easier to understand for non-experts. The old variables will still work but filter editors are encouraged to replace them with the new ones. You can find the list of changed variables on mediawiki.org. They have a note which says . An example is   which is now.
 * Abuse filters can now use how old a page is. The variable is.

Arbitration
 * The Arbitration Committee has resolved to perform a round of Checkuser and Oversight appointments. The usernames of all applicants will be shared with the Functionaries team, and they will be requested to assist in the vetting process. The deadline to submit an application is 23:59 UTC, 12 September, and the candidates that move forward will be published on-wiki for community comments on 18 September.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:23, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Bug hunt!
As you know, portals are now supported by a number of new templates, which are in turn supported by some new Lua modules.

Those templates and modules are being put to the test, in the new portals that have been created since this WikiProject rebooted, plus a number of existing portals that have been revamped.

The new portals, and revamped ones, can be found at Category:Single-page portals.

Please browse the new portals at your leisure, and report any and all problems that you spot. Post bug and other portal problem reports at WT:WPPORTD. Please report bugs, quirks, awkward aspects, or anything weird or off that you notice. Compliments and suggestions are also welcome. :)

When you report a bug, please indicate the portal's name, the section that the problem appeared in, and the name of the article appearing (first) in the section with the problem. Most problems will likely be encountered in the ''Selected general articles" section, due to quirks in a displayed article's wikicode that the lua modules don't handle yet. Your help in spotting those is of utmost value. Thank you.

Don't delete portal subpages just yet
For portals that have been converted to the single-page design, we are not deleting their subpages at this time, because we are working on ways to harvest the data from those pages. For example, the Selected picture subpages include filenames and captions that would be valuable for the image slideshows. Please don't delete portal subpages, for now. They'll be slated for d-batch speedy deletion after harvesting. Thank you.

Development notes
We are currently testing a feature added to Transclude files as random slideshow that allows it to accept both sourcepages and filenames. Courtesy of Evad37. This will pave the way for harvesting files and their captions from portal subpages, for use in image slideshows.

We need your help
The bulk of the work is being done by a handful of editors. But we can't do it all. We need help with spotting bugs, refining the search parameters in new/revamped portals (in the "Did you know..." and "In the news" sections), adding images to slideshows for a broader selection (they default to showing the images on the root article page but are capable of showing so much more), adding panoramic pictures at the top of the intro section of region portals (cities, counties, states, provinces, countries, continents, and other regions), to name but a few task types.

It is rewarding to be a part of the growing portal phenomenon. And you get to see its expansion and refinement up close.

Feel free to join in on the fun. ;)

Thank you,   &mdash; The Transhumanist   06:54, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Portals progress report
Don't blink. You might miss something.

As of a few days ago, portals had doubled in about a month and a half.

Also, there were 98 incompleted portals in Category:Portals under construction. Now there are just 43.

The WikiProject page has been thoroughly revised
The goals, plans, and task sections have all been updated.

Orphaned portals need a home...
Many new portals are still orphans, and need links pointing to them:


 * 1) A portal link at the bottom of corresponding navigation footer template. E.g., Template:Machines for Portal:Machines. See examples of a portals link at the bottom of Template:Robotics and Template:Forestry.
 * 2) A Portal box in the See also section of the corresponding root article for each portal. If there is no See also section, create one and place the portal template in that. (Rather than placing them in an external links section -- they're not external links).
 * 3) A Portal template placed at the top of the category page corresponding to each portal.

All new and revamped portals can be found at Category:Single-page portals.

Portal:Contents/Portals
This is the main list of portals.

Nearly 2,000 of the new portals need to be listed here.

They can be found at Portal talk:Contents/Portals. Instructions are included there.

Customized Portal Rating system is now in place
Portals now have a new rating system of their own designed specifically to support portal evaluation! We were trying to use the standard assessment system for articles, but that doesn't fit portals very well.

Many thanks to Evad37, Waggers, AfroThundr3007730, SMcCandlish, Tom, BrendonTheWizard, and Pbsouthwood for their work and input on this.

The new system can be found at the top of all portal talk pages, in the WikiProject portals box. Those with "???" ratings need to be assessed, which makes up most of the older portals.

Most of the new portals were started out with an initial "Low" level of importance when their talk pages were created. Those deserving higher importance should be promoted as you come across them.

Improving the new portals
The starting point for new portals included minimal parameters and content, in the form of default values in the template(s) used for their creation.

Embellishing embedded search strings
So, for the search strings in the "Did you know..." and "In the news" sections, this was the magic word, which represents the portal's name. Unfortunately, the resulting term is alway capitalized, which limits its effectiveness as a search string for anything but proper nouns. Results for those two sections can be improved, by replacing the "PAGENAME" magic word with multiple search strings, and search strings that begin with lower case letters. There is no inherent limit as to how many search parameters may be included. Lua search notation is used. The more general the subject, the more subtopic search terms you may want to include. For example, on Portal:Avengers (comics),  turned up nothing. But, when more parameters were added, as in the wikicode below...

... that returned several results in the portal's DYK section.

Be sure you make the improvements to both the DYK section and the "In the news" section, as they both require the search strings.

Expanding the slideshow contents
The default starting selection for the image slideshow in most new portals is whatever images happen to be in the corresponding root article (via the PAGENAME magic word). You can improve image slideshows by adding more sourcepages and filenames as parameters in the "Selected images" section of portals.

See Template:Transclude files as random slideshow/doc for instructions.

More exciting things are to come...
Portals used to take about 6 hours or more to create. Now, for subjects that have particular navigation support, we've got that down to about one minute each, with even more content displayed than ever. True, that means the new portals pick you, rather than the other way around. Creating a specific portal that doesn't happen to have the requisite navigation support is still pretty time consuming. But, we are working on extending our reach beyond the low-hanging fruit.

And efforts are ongoing to keep shaving time off of the creation process. Eventually, we may get it down to seconds each.

In addition to improving automation, we're always looking for new features and improvements that we can add to portals, and there is plenty of potential to expand on the standard design so that new portals are even better right out of the starting gate. Additional designs are also possible.

On the horizon, there are many more portals waiting to be created. And we can expect to see at least a few more section types emerge. I never expected slideshows, for example, especially not for excerpts. Who knows where innovation will take us next?

Keep up the great work everyone.

Sincerely,   &mdash; The Transhumanist   07:08, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Results from global Wikimedia survey 2018 are published
Hello! A few months ago the Wikimedia Foundation invited you to take a survey about your experiences on Wikipedia. You signed up to receive the results. The report is now published on Meta-Wiki! We asked contributors 170 questions across many different topics like diversity, harassment, paid editing, Wikimedia events and many others.

Read the report or watch the presentation, which is available only in English. Add your thoughts and comments to the report talk page. Feel free to share the report on Wikipedia/Wikimedia or on your favorite social media. Thanks!

-- EGalvez (WMF) 19:25, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – October 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2018). Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Justlettersandnumbers • L235
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Bgwhite • HorsePunchKid • J Greb • KillerChihuahua • Rami R • Winhunter

Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-add.svg Cyberpower678 • Deryck Chan • Oshwah • Pharos • Ragesoss • Ritchie333

Oversight changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Guerillero • NativeForeigner •  Snowolf • Xeno

Guideline and policy news
 * Following a request for comment, the process for appointing interface administrators has been established. Currently only existing admins can request these rights, while a new RfC has begun on whether it should be available to non-admins.
 * There is an open request for comment on Meta regarding the creation a new user group for global edit filter management.

Technical news
 * Partial blocks should be available for testing in October on the Test Wikipedia and the Beta-Cluster. This new feature allows admins to block users from editing specific pages and in the near-future, namespaces and uploading files. You can expect more updates and an invitation to help with testing once it is available.
 * The Foundations' Anti-Harassment Tools team is currently looking for input on how to measure the effectiveness of blocks. This is in particular related to how they will measure the success of the aforementioned partial blocks.
 * Because of a data centre test, you will be able to read but not edit the Wikimedia projects for up to an hour on 10 October. This will start at 14:00 (UTC). You might lose edits if you try to save during this time.

Arbitration
 * The Arbitration Committee has, by motion, amended the procedure on functionary inactivity.
 * The community consultation for 2018 CheckUser and Oversight appointments has concluded. Appointments will be made by October 11.
 * Following a request for comment, the size of the Arbitration Committee will be decreased to 13 arbitrators, starting in 2019. Additionally, the minimum support percentage required to be appointed to a two-year term on ArbCom has been increased to 60%. ArbCom candidates who receive between 50% and 60% support will be appointed to one-year terms instead.
 * Nominations for the 2018 Arbitration Committee Electoral Commission are being accepted until 12 October. These are the editors who help run the ArbCom election smoothly. If you are interested in volunteering for this role, please consider nominating yourself.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:13, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #020, 12 Oct 2018
Whew, a lot has been happening.

A bit of defending of the portals has been needed. But, most activity recently has been directed upon maintenance and development of existing portals.

The majority of portals now use the new design, about 2400 of them, leaving around 1200 portals that still employ the old style.

Newest portals

 * Aceh
 * Aegean Sea
 * Arthur Wellesley
 * Azores
 * Bashkortostan
 * Birmingham
 * Black Sea
 * Canary Islands
 * Carpathian Mountains
 * Caucasus
 * Columbia River
 * Davao City
 * Dnieper
 * Easter Island
 * Exploration
 * Galápagos Islands
 * Glasgow
 * Great Wall of China
 * Guangdong
 * Kaliningrad Oblast
 * Kanpur
 * Kigali
 * Kuril Islands
 * Kuwait City
 * Leeds
 * Lhasa
 * Loire Valley
 * Lucknow
 * Lviv
 * Map projections
 * Marseille
 * Midwestern United States
 * Missouri River
 * Multan
 * Mysore
 * Niger River
 * Northeast India
 * Odessa
 * Orchestras
 * Panama Canal
 * Peshawar
 * Polynesia
 * Poznań
 * Pretoria
 * Rat Pack
 * Sammy Davis Jr.
 * Shandong
 * South China Sea
 * Southern United States
 * Suez Canal
 * Svalbard
 * Tatarstan
 * Tigris River
 * Visakhapatnam
 * Volga River
 * Western Ghats
 * Western United States
 * Yellowstone National Park
 * Yosemite National Park

Please inspect these portals, and report problems or suggest improvements at WT:WPPORTD. Thank you.

MfDs
Since the last issue of this newsletter, Nineteen portals were nominated for deletion. All posted by the same person.

Two portals were deleted.

One resolved as "no consensus".

Sixteen resolved as "keep".

Links to the archived discussions are provided below:


 * 1) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Air France
 * 2) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Alexander Korda
 * 3) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:August Derleth
 * 4) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Average White Band
 * 5) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Bee-eaters
 * 6) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Ben E. King
 * 7) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Benny Goodman
 * 8) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Bill Bryson
 * 9) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Billy Idol
 * 10) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Billy Ocean
 * 11) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Bob Hope
 * 12) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Bobbie Rosenfeld Award
 * 13) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Body piercing
 * 14) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Canton, Michigan
 * 15) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Compostela Group of Universities
 * 16) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Diplo
 * 17) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Diversity of fish
 * 18) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Pebble Beach
 * 19) Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Peter, Paul and Mary

Many thanks to those who participated in the discussions.

To watch for future MfD's, keep in mind that the Portals WikiProject is supported by automatic alerts. You can see them at: WikiProject Portals

Creation criteria
There was also some discussion of creation criteria for portals. The result was that one of the participants in the discussion reverted the portal guidelines to the old version, which has the minimum number of articles for a portal included in there: "about 20 articles", a guideline that was in place since 2009.

Many of the portals that existed prior to April 2018 do not have that many (being limited to however many subpages the portal creator created), and therefore, these portals need to be upgraded to the new design (which automatically provides many articles for display). Using the new design, exceeding 20 articles for display is very easy.

Linking to the new portals
Efforts have been underway to place links to new portals (all 2200 of them created since April).


 * 1) Link (portal button) from corresponding category pages. ✅
 * 2) Link from See also section on corresponding root articles. ✅
 * 3) Link from bottom of corresponding templates. ✅
 * 4) Link for each portal on Portal:Contents/Portals. ✅

Your help is needed. It is easy to access the page mentioned in #1, #2, & #3 from the portals themselves.

AWBers could do these tasks even faster (that's how the category pages were done), except #4...

Item #4 above pretty much has to be done by hand. (If you can find a way to speed that up, I would be very impressed). The links needing placement can be found at Portal talk:Contents/Portals. Instructions are included there.

The conversion effort: news sections
There are still around 1200 old-style portals that have only undergone partial conversion to the new design concepts, still relying on subpages with copied/pasted excerpts that have been going stale for years, out of date (manually posted) news entries, etc.

The section currently being tackled on these is news. You can help by deleting any news section on the old-style portals that has news entries that are years old (that is the dead giveaway to a manual news section). Be sure not to delete the news sections of portals that have up-to-date news, or active maintainers. For maintainers, look at the portal's categories, and/or check the participants list at WP:WPPORT.

Eventually, conditional news sections (that appear only when news items are available for display) will be added using AWB to all portals without a news section.

News items (and even the news sections themselves) are automatically generated for portals that were created using the Basic portal start page. On those portals, there is a hidden comment at the top of the page (that you can see in the edit window), that says this:

Design development
Presently, we are in the process of implementing the new design features, creating new portals with them, and installing them in existing portals.

But, what about development of new new design features?

We have a wish department.

Post your wishes at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design, and they might come true. Many have already, and for many of those, this is where they were posted.

Cascade effect
A resource that has been elusive so far will be obtained eventually: categories. That is, the ability to pull category member links to populate a page.

Rather than populate portals directly with such links, it may be more beneficial to the encyclopedia to utilize them in navigation footers, because portals already have the ability to generate themselves based on those.

So, this would create a cascade effect: auto-gathering entries from categories, would enable the construction of new navigation footers, that would in turn support the development of new portals.

The cascade effect would also be felt by existing portals, as existing navigation footers could be expanded using the category harvesting methods, which would in turn expand the coverage of portals that access those navigation footers.

You can help by providing leads about any potential category harvesting methods. Please report anything you know about harvesting categories at WT:WPPORTD. Thank you.

Looking into the future: the quantum portal?
One idea that has been floating around is the concept of a pageless portal. That is, a portal that isn't stored anywhere, instead being generated when you click on a menu item or button.

Many of the new portals were generated by a single click, and then saved via a second click.

Therefore, it seems likely that the portals of the future will employ the one-click concept.

Because of the need for customization by users, this concept would need to be augmented with a way to integrate user contributions. This could be done in at least two ways: posting an existing portal, autogenerating one from scratch if such does not yet exist, or have a special data page for user contributions that is folded into the auto-generated portal.

How soon? That is up to you. All that is needed are persons to implement it.

Until next time...
Keep up the good work on portals. They are improving daily. Thank you. &mdash; The Transhumanist  04:24, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Halloween cheer!


Happy Halloween!

Hello OhanaUnited: Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Halloween!   –  — usernamekiran (talk)   12:06, 15 October 2018 (UTC) Send Halloween cheer by adding {{subst:Happy Halloween}} to user talk pages with a friendly message.

Portals WikiProject update #021, 24 Oct 2018
Portals have passed the 4,000 mark.

More new portals...
Here's a list of portals created since the last issue


 * Abbott and Costello
 * Acura
 * Adventure travel
 * AFL
 * African cuisine
 * Agatha Christie
 * AHL
 * Aikido
 * Albert Gleizes
 * Albrecht Dürer
 * Alkaloids
 * American Express
 * American Hockey League
 * Analgesics
 * Ancient Olympic Games
 * Andrea Mantegna
 * Antiarrhythmic agents
 * Anticonvulsants
 * Antidepressants
 * Antipsychotics
 * Apollo program
 * Apostles
 * Aquariums
 * Arab Spring
 * Architecture of England
 * Architecture of Greece
 * Architecture of India
 * Architecture of Portugal
 * Arthur Conan Doyle
 * Asterix
 * Austin Powers
 * Australian Football League
 * Ayn Rand
 * Back to the Future
 * Barbecue
 * Bartending
 * BBC Television
 * BDSM
 * Beef
 * Berkshire Hathaway
 * Beverly Hills Cop
 * Blackjack
 * Blizzard Entertainment
 * BMW
 * Bodybuilding
 * Bosnian War
 * Boston College
 * Buick
 * Bullfighting
 * Butter
 * Cadillac
 * Cakes
 * California State University
 * Cannabinoids
 * Cannes Film Festival
 * Capoeira
 * Caravaggio
 * Care Bears
 * Carnivorous plants
 * Caspar David Friedrich
 * CBS
 * CBS Sports
 * Chatham Islands
 * Cheese dishes
 * Chevrolet
 * Chinese Civil War
 * Chinese martial arts
 * Chrysler
 * Citigroup
 * Coagulation
 * Coca-Cola
 * Cocktails
 * Coldplay
 * Compass direction
 * Concrete
 * Condiments
 * Confidence tricks
 * Connective tissues
 * Corticosteroids
 * Cranial nerves
 * CSI: Miami
 * Cue sports
 * Daft Punk
 * Dance Dance Revolution
 * Dante Gabriel Rossetti
 * David Cronenberg
 * David Lynch
 * David Mamet
 * Desserts
 * Developmental biology
 * Devo
 * Diabetes
 * Dietary supplements
 * Disneyland
 * Doctor Dolittle
 * Doughnuts
 * Dow Chemical Company
 * DreamWorks Animation
 * Drexel University
 * Édouard Manet
 * Electromagnetic spectrum
 * Elizabeth II
 * Energy drinks
 * English law
 * Enzymes
 * Fallacies
 * Fandom
 * Fast food
 * Female reproductive system
 * Fiat
 * FIFA World Cup
 * Filmmaking
 * Flatbreads
 * Florida Keys
 * Food preservation
 * Food science
 * Football in France
 * Football in Greece
 * Football in Iran
 * Football in Italy
 * Football in Japan
 * Football in Mexico
 * Football in Portugal
 * Football in South Africa
 * Football in Spain
 * Football in Sweden
 * Ford Motor Company
 * Francisco Goya
 * Frans Hals
 * Fred Frith
 * Freight cars
 * Fuel cells
 * Furry fandom
 * Garden tools
 * Gene expression
 * General Dynamics
 * General Electric
 * General Hospital
 * General Motors
 * Ghost in the Shell
 * Gilligan's Island
 * Giovanni Bellini
 * GMC
 * Golden Raspberry Awards
 * Gothic architecture
 * Grand Theft Auto
 * Hallucinogens
 * Ham
 * Hand tools
 * Hapkido
 * Health care
 * Henri Matisse
 * Hieronymus Bosch
 * High-speed rail
 * Hindu festivals
 * History of Oklahoma
 * Holden
 * Honda
 * Hormones
 * Hosiery
 * Human impact on the environment
 * Human-powered transport
 * Hyundai
 * IBM
 * Ice cream
 * Industries
 * Infiniti
 * Instant foods
 * Intel
 * Internet access
 * Islamic art
 * Islands of Cape Verde
 * Isuzu
 * Ivy League
 * J. M. W. Turner
 * Jacob van Ruisdael
 * Jacques-Louis David
 * Jaguar Cars
 * Japanese martial arts
 * Jet Propulsion Laboratory
 * Johannes Vermeer
 * John Grisham
 * John Singer Sargent
 * Johnson & Johnson
 * Joints
 * Joss Whedon
 * Judo
 * Juice
 * Ken Burns
 * Kenneth Branagh
 * Kia
 * Kid Rock
 * Korean diaspora
 * Korean martial arts
 * Kurt Vonnegut
 * Lancaster University
 * Land Rover
 * Las Vegas Strip
 * Lincoln Motor Company
 * Linear algebra
 * Living Dead
 * Lobbying in the United States
 * Local anesthetics
 * Lymphatic system
 * M. C. Escher
 * Macross
 * Mad Max
 * Male reproductive system
 * Mandy Moore
 * Mazda
 * Mega Man
 * Mercedes-Benz
 * Mexican cuisine
 * Microorganisms
 * Missiles
 * Model organisms
 * Modern architecture
 * Muscle tissue
 * Newport
 * Nicolas Poussin
 * Nobel Prize
 * Norman Rockwell
 * Nucleic acids
 * Nuremberg trials
 * Organs
 * Packaging
 * Paralympic Games
 * Pasta
 * Patterns in nature
 * Paul Gauguin
 * Pearl Jam
 * Pens
 * Phenethylamines
 * Philippine cuisine
 * Phylogenetics
 * Pie
 * Pierre-Auguste Renoir
 * Pies
 * Pieter de Hooch
 * Pigs
 * Pizza
 * Playboy
 * Poker
 * Pope Benedict XVI
 * Pope John Paul II
 * Population
 * Population genetics
 * Porgy and Bess
 * Positivism
 * Power Rangers
 * Power tools
 * Procter & Gamble
 * Propaganda
 * Prostitution in Canada
 * Prostitution in India
 * Prostitution in Japan
 * Psalms
 * Qigong
 * Radiohead
 * Railway electrification
 * Ramones
 * Real estate developments
 * Redwall
 * Religious persecution
 * Renault
 * René Magritte
 * Republics of the Soviet Union
 * Resident Evil
 * Respiration
 * Respiratory physiology
 * Richard Brooks
 * Ridley Scott
 * Robert Altman
 * Robert Zemeckis
 * Robotech
 * Rodents
 * Roller coasters
 * Romanian cuisine
 * Rooms
 * Rowing
 * Roy Lichtenstein
 * Rubik's Cube
 * Rugby World Cup
 * Running
 * Saab Automobile
 * Sails
 * Samuel Beckett
 * Sandro Botticelli
 * Sausages
 * Scale modeling
 * Scale models
 * Scandinavian folklore
 * Sewing
 * Sex Pistols
 * Sexual fetishism
 * Sexual revolution
 * Shrek
 * Skyscrapers
 * Soft drinks
 * Soy
 * Stick-fighting
 * Super Bowl
 * Surfing
 * Table tennis
 * Tarot
 * Tells
 * Tetris
 * The Coca-Cola Company
 * Titian
 * Urinary system
 * Vale of Glamorgan
 * Veganism
 * Volvo
 * War on Terror
 * Waste
 * Wastewater
 * Water polo
 * Web search engines
 * Whisky
 * William Blake
 * William Hogarth
 * Winslow Homer
 * Portal:World Series
 * Xenophon
 * Yogurts
 * Zoophilia

Please inspect these portals, report problems or suggest improvements at WT:WPPORTD, or develop them further (see below). Thank you.

What's next?
There is still lots to do...

There are many subject gaps that need to be filled. This can be done by creating new portals, or by adding Selected article sections to existing portals. To create a new portal, simply place   on an empty portal page, and click "Preview". If the portal is complete, click "Save". After you try it, come share your experience and excitement at WT:WPPORTD.

Each new portal is just a starting point. Each portal of the new design can be further developed by:
 * refining the search parameters to improve the results displayed in the Did you know and In the news sections.
 * adding more specific Selected articles sections, like Selected biographies.
 * inserting a Recognized content section.
 * adding more pictures to the image slideshow.
 * placing a panoramic picture at the top of the intro section (especially for geographic portals).

Besides the new portals, there are still about 1200 portals of the old design that need to be converted to the new design.

Many portals need to be de-orphaned, by placing links to them (in the See also section of the corresponding root articles, at the bottom of the corresponding navigation footer templates, and on the corresponding category pages).

Many of the new portals still need to be listed at Portal:Contents/Portals.

Bugs keep popping up in portals. These need to be tracked down and reported at WT:WPPORTD.

Tools are needed to make developing and maintaining portals quicker and easier.

Dreaming up new features and capabilities. Innovation needs to continue, to design the portal of tomorrow, and the portal development-maintenance-system of the future. Automation!

So, if you find yourself with a little (or a lot) of free time, pick an area (or more) above and...

...dive in! &mdash; The Transhumanist  07:05, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

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) 07:19, 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  11:44, 11 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   07:24, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Precious
--Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:24, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018
News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2018). Administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-view-refresh.svg Al Ameer son • Randykitty • Spartaz
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svg Boson • Daniel J. Leivick • Efe • Esanchez7587 • Fred Bauder • Garzo • Martijn Hoekstra • Orangemike

Interface administrator changes
 * Gnome-colors-list-remove.svgk Chan

Guideline and policy news
 * Following a request for comment, the Mediation Committee is now closed and will no longer be accepting case requests.
 * A request for comment is in progress to determine whether members of the Bot Approvals Group should satisfy activity requirements in order to remain in that role.
 * A request for comment is in progress regarding whether to change the administrator inactivity policy, such that administrators "who have made no logged administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped". Currently, the policy states that administrators "who have made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped".
 * A proposal has been made to temporarily restrict editing of the Main Page to interface administrators in order to mitigate the impact of compromised accounts.

Technical news
 * Administrators and bureaucrats can no longer unblock themselves unless they placed the block initially. This change has been implemented globally. See also this ongoing village pump discussion (permalink).
 * To complement the aforementioned change, blocked administrators will soon have the ability to block the administrator that placed their block to mitigate the possibility of a compromised administrator account blocking all other active administrators.
 * Since deployment of Partial blocks on Test Wikipedia, several bugs were identified. Most of them are now fixed. Administrators are encouraged to test the new deployment and report new bugs on Phabricator or leave feedback on the Project's talk page. You can request administrator access on the Test Wiki here.

Arbitration
 * Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee Elections is open to eligible editors until Monday 23:59, 3 December 2018. Please review the candidates and, if you wish to do so, submit your choices on the voting page.

Miscellaneous
 * In late November, an attacker compromised multiple accounts, including at least four administrator accounts, and used them to vandalize Wikipedia. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. Sharing the same password across multiple websites makes your account vulnerable, especially if your password was used on a website that suffered a data breach. As these incidents have shown, these concerns are not pure fantasies.
 * Wikipedia policy requires administrators to have strong passwords. To further reinforce security, administrators should also consider enabling two-factor authentication. A committed identity can be used to verify that you are the true account owner in the event that your account is compromised and/or you are unable to log in.

Obituaries
 * (Raymond Arritt) passed away on 14 November 2018. Boris joined Wikipedia as on 8 May 2006 and was an administrator from 30 July 2007 to 2 June 2008.

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Archive Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:36, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject Portals update #024, 26 Dec 2018
Last issue, I mentioned there would be a flood, and so, here it is...

Portals status
We now have 4,620 portals.

And the race to pass 5,000 by year's end is on...

Can we make it?

The New Year, and the 5,001st portal, await.

( New portals are created with  or   )

Evad is back!
After disappearing in mid-thread, Evad37 has returned from a longer than expected wikibreak.

Be sure to welcome him back.

Improved cropping is coming to Portal image banner
User:FR30799386 is working on making Portal image banner even better by enabling it to chop the top off an image as well as the bottom.

Many pictures aren't suitable for banners because they are too tall. Therefor, User:FR30799386 added cropping to this template, so that an editor could specify part of a picture to be used rather than the whole thing.

Upgrade of flagship portals is underway
Work has begun on upgrading Wikipedia's flagship portals (those listed at the top of the Main page).

So far, Portal:Geography, Portal:History, and Portal:Technology have been revamped. Of course, you are welcome to improve them further.

Work continues on the other five. Feel free to join in on the fun.

Spotting missing portals that are redirects
In place of many missing portals, there is a redirect that leads to "the next best topic", such as a parent topic.

Most of these were created before we had the tools to easily create portals (they used to take 6 hours or more to create, because it was all done manually). Rather than leave a portal link red, some editors thought it was best that those titles led somewhere.

The subjects that have sufficient coverage should have their own portals rather than a redirect to some other subject.

Unfortunately, being blue like all other live links, redirects are harder to spot than redlinks.

To spot redirects easily, you can make them all appear green.

What's new in portal space?

 * 1) Portal:17th century
 * 2) Portal:18th century
 * 3) Portal:Absinthe
 * 4) Portal:Abuse
 * 5) Portal:Academic degrees
 * 6) Portal:Acari
 * 7) Portal:Acipenseriformes
 * 8) Portal:Actas
 * 9) Portal:Actinopterygii
 * 10) Portal:Activision
 * 11) Portal:Aerobatics
 * 12) Portal:Aeroflot
 * 13) Portal:Aesop
 * 14) Portal:Afrosoricida
 * 15) Portal:Aichi
 * 16) Portal:Airlines
 * 17) Portal:Air traffic control
 * 18) Portal:Akon
 * 19) Portal:Alan Turing
 * 20) Portal:Alfred Nobel
 * 21) Portal:Alice Paul
 * 22) Portal:Allahabad
 * 23) Portal:Allgemeine-SS
 * 24) Portal:Allium
 * 25) Portal:Aluminium
 * 26) Portal:Alvarezsauroidea
 * 27) Portal:Alveolata
 * 28) Portal:Amazon
 * 29) Portal:Amino acids
 * 30) Portal:Ancient Greek philosophy
 * 31) Portal:Andalusia
 * 32) Portal:Andes
 * 33) Portal:Animax
 * 34) Portal:Antennas
 * 35) Portal:Anthrax (American band)
 * 36) Portal:Antibiotics
 * 37) Portal:Antidotes
 * 38) Portal:Antifungals
 * 39) Portal:Antimony
 * 40) Portal:Antivirus software
 * 41) Portal:Aquifers
 * 42) Portal:Arachnids
 * 43) Portal:Armadillos
 * 44) Portal:Armour
 * 45) Portal:Art movements
 * 46) Portal:Arvicolinae
 * 47) Portal:Asanas
 * 48) Portal:Association of Southeast Asian Nations
 * 49) Portal:AstraZeneca
 * 50) Portal:Asturias
 * 51) Portal:Asus
 * 52) Portal:Atoms
 * 53) Portal:Automation
 * 54) Portal:Aylesbury
 * 55) Portal:Aztecs
 * 56) Portal:Bags
 * 57) Portal:Banks
 * 58) Portal:Basalt
 * 59) Portal:Batgirl
 * 60) Portal:Bats
 * 61) Portal:Bay Area Rapid Transit
 * 62) Portal:Beijing Subway
 * 63) Portal:Belo Horizonte
 * 64) Portal:Ben Affleck
 * 65) Portal:Binondo
 * 66) Portal:Biodiversity of Colombia
 * 67) Portal:Biomes
 * 68) Portal:Blue Origin
 * 69) Portal:Board games
 * 70) Portal:Boca Raton, Florida
 * 71) Portal:Bruno Mars
 * 72) Portal:Budapest Metro
 * 73) Portal:Buffalo, New York
 * 74) Portal:Bullying
 * 75) Portal:Busan Metro
 * 76) Portal:Buteoninae
 * 77) Portal:C++
 * 78) Portal:Cairo Metro
 * 79) Portal:Canadian art
 * 80) Portal:Character encoding
 * 81) Portal:Character encodings
 * 82) Portal:Charity
 * 83) Portal:Chemical engineering
 * 84) Portal:Chemical synthesis
 * 85) Portal:Chickenpox
 * 86) Portal:Chili peppers
 * 87) Portal:Chongqing Rail Transit
 * 88) Portal:Climate
 * 89) Portal:Communication
 * 90) Portal:Community of Madrid
 * 91) Portal:Computer files
 * 92) Portal:Concurrent computing
 * 93) Portal:Conservation biology
 * 94) Portal:Containers
 * 95) Portal:Contract bridge
 * 96) Portal:Convicts in Australia
 * 97) Portal:Copenhagen Metro
 * 98) Portal:Crochet
 * 99) Portal:Cucurbita
 * 100) Portal:Culture of Albania
 * 101) Portal:Culture of Argentina
 * 102) Portal:Culture of Armenia
 * 103) Portal:Culture of Assam
 * 104) Portal:Culture of Australia
 * 105) Portal:Culture of Austria
 * 106) Portal:Culture of Azerbaijan
 * 107) Portal:Culture of Bahrain
 * 108) Portal:Culture of Bangladesh
 * 109) Portal:Culture of Belarus
 * 110) Portal:Culture of Belgium
 * 111) Portal:Culture of Belize
 * 112) Portal:Culture of Bengal
 * 113) Portal:Culture of Cornwall
 * 114) Portal:Culture of Djibouti
 * 115) Portal:Culture of England
 * 116) Portal:Culture of Kerala
 * 117) Portal:Culture of Somalia
 * 118) Portal:Culture of West Bengal
 * 119) Portal:Curitiba
 * 120) Portal:Databases
 * 121) Portal:Data mining
 * 122) Portal:Data storage
 * 123) Portal:Deforestation and desertification
 * 124) Portal:Delta Air Lines
 * 125) Portal:Demi Lovato
 * 126) Portal:Demography
 * 127) Portal:Desalination
 * 128) Portal:Development of the human body
 * 129) Portal:Disease
 * 130) Portal:Disney Princess
 * 131) Portal:Dmitri Mendeleev
 * 132) Portal:Dublin
 * 133) Portal:DVD
 * 134) Portal:Eating
 * 135) Portal:Electronic components
 * 136) Portal:Elizabeth Cady Stanton
 * 137) Portal:Elizabeth I of England
 * 138) Portal:Ellie Goulding
 * 139) Portal:Embedded systems
 * 140) Portal:Embroidery
 * 141) Portal:Emmeline Pankhurst
 * 142) Portal:Emmy Awards
 * 143) Portal:Enugu
 * 144) Portal:Euro
 * 145) Portal:Eurostar
 * 146) Portal:Even-toed ungulates
 * 147) Portal:Executables
 * 148) Portal:Experimental aircraft
 * 149) Portal:Falkland Islands
 * 150) Portal:Fibers
 * 151) Portal:File sharing
 * 152) Portal:File systems
 * 153) Portal:Frankfurt
 * 154) Portal:Gaels
 * 155) Portal:Galicia (Spain)
 * 156) Portal:Gardens
 * 157) Portal:Gemstones
 * 158) Portal:Geotechnical engineering
 * 159) Portal:Geothermal power
 * 160) Portal:Glass
 * 161) Portal:Glass production
 * 162) Portal:GLONASS
 * 163) Portal:Guangzhou Metro
 * 164) Portal:Habitats
 * 165) Portal:Hall of Fame for Great Americans
 * 166) Portal:Helicopters
 * 167) Portal:Helmets
 * 168) Portal:Helsinki
 * 169) Portal:Hilary Duff
 * 170) Portal:Hiroshima
 * 171) Portal:History of computing
 * 172) Portal:Honey bees
 * 173) Portal:Honolulu County, Hawaii
 * 174) Portal:Hubble Space Telescope
 * 175) Portal:Hummingbirds
 * 176) Portal:HVAC
 * 177) Portal:Hymenoptera
 * 178) Portal:Intermodal containers
 * 179) Portal:International Council for Science
 * 180) Portal:International Space Station
 * 181) Portal:Interstate Highway System
 * 182) Portal:IOS
 * 183) Portal:IPv6
 * 184) Portal:Ithaca, New York
 * 185) Portal:James Webb Space Telescope
 * 186) Portal:Jammu and Kashmir
 * 187) Portal:JavaScript
 * 188) Portal:Jay-Z
 * 189) Portal:John Major
 * 190) Portal:Kabul
 * 191) Portal:KFC
 * 192) Portal:Khuzestan Province
 * 193) Portal:Launch vehicles
 * 194) Portal:Laundry
 * 195) Portal:Lenovo
 * 196) Portal:Leo Tolstoy
 * 197) Portal:Library classification systems
 * 198) Portal:Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II
 * 199) Portal:Longevity
 * 200) Portal:Los Angeles International Airport
 * 201) Portal:Love
 * 202) Portal:Lyra (constellation)
 * 203) Portal:MacOS
 * 204) Portal:Macroeconomics
 * 205) Portal:Madrid
 * 206) Portal:Mail
 * 207) Portal:Malaria
 * 208) Portal:Malware
 * 209) Portal:Manhattan Project
 * 210) Portal:Mao Zedong
 * 211) Portal:Marrakesh
 * 212) Portal:Mathematics and art
 * 213) Portal:Mattel
 * 214) Portal:Mayotte
 * 215) Portal:Media culture
 * 216) Portal:Media manipulation
 * 217) Portal:Medications
 * 218) Portal:Men
 * 219) Portal:Metalworking
 * 220) Portal:Metropolitan Transportation Authority
 * 221) Portal:Michael Faraday
 * 222) Portal:Microeconomics
 * 223) Portal:Milan Metro
 * 224) Portal:Military aircraft
 * 225) Portal:Military deception
 * 226) Portal:Mixed reality
 * 227) Portal:Modern history
 * 228) Portal:Mood disorders
 * 229) Portal:Morpeth, Northumberland
 * 230) Portal:Moscow Metro
 * 231) Portal:MPEG
 * 232) Portal:MTR
 * 233) Portal:Multihulls
 * 234) Portal:Museums
 * 235) Portal:Music of Scotland
 * 236) Portal:NASA
 * 237) Portal:National anthems
 * 238) Portal:Natural language processing
 * 239) Portal:Neoplasms
 * 240) Portal:New Delhi
 * 241) Portal:Northern Cyprus
 * 242) Portal:Nuclear weapons
 * 243) Portal:Nuts
 * 244) Portal:Odd-toed ungulates
 * 245) Portal:Ores
 * 246) Portal:Organ transplantation
 * 247) Portal:Orthoptera
 * 248) Portal:Oslo
 * 249) Portal:Palmyra
 * 250) Portal:Pan-Africanism
 * 251) Portal:Panasonic
 * 252) Portal:Parrots
 * 253) Portal:Parties
 * 254) Portal:Peanuts
 * 255) Portal:Peanuts (comic strip)
 * 256) Portal:Perl
 * 257) Portal:Permaculture
 * 258) Portal:Pesticides
 * 259) Portal:Physical fitness
 * 260) Portal:Physiology
 * 261) Portal:Plant nutrition
 * 262) Portal:Porcelain
 * 263) Portal:Ports and harbors
 * 264) Portal:Pre-Columbian era
 * 265) Portal:Prehistoric Scotland
 * 266) Portal:Private transport
 * 267) Portal:Programming languages
 * 268) Portal:Programming paradigms
 * 269) Portal:Prostitution
 * 270) Portal:Protests
 * 271) Portal:Psychological manipulation
 * 272) Portal:P. T. Barnum
 * 273) Portal:Public housing in the United Kingdom
 * 274) Portal:Public transport in Helsinki
 * 275) Portal:Public transport in Istanbul
 * 276) Portal:Pueblos
 * 277) Portal:Pune
 * 278) Portal:Quilting
 * 279) Portal:Racing
 * 280) Portal:Radiation
 * 281) Portal:RAID
 * 282) Portal:Rail transport in Argentina
 * 283) Portal:Rail transport in Finland
 * 284) Portal:Rail transport in Germany
 * 285) Portal:Rail transport in Israel
 * 286) Portal:Rail transport in Malaysia
 * 287) Portal:Rail transport in Norway
 * 288) Portal:Rail transport in Singapore
 * 289) Portal:Rail transport in Spain
 * 290) Portal:Rail transport in Sri Lanka
 * 291) Portal:Rail transport in Thailand
 * 292) Portal:Rail transport in the United Arab Emirates
 * 293) Portal:Realism (arts)
 * 294) Portal:Recycling
 * 295) Portal:Religion in China
 * 296) Portal:Religion in Egypt
 * 297) Portal:Religion in Iran
 * 298) Portal:Religion in Israel
 * 299) Portal:Religion in Mexico
 * 300) Portal:Religion in Mozambique
 * 301) Portal:Religion in Myanmar
 * 302) Portal:Religion in Norway
 * 303) Portal:Religion in Pakistan
 * 304) Portal:Religion in Poland
 * 305) Portal:Religion in Portugal
 * 306) Portal:Religion in Romania
 * 307) Portal:Religion in Scotland
 * 308) Portal:Religion in South Africa
 * 309) Portal:Religion in Sweden
 * 310) Portal:Religion in Thailand
 * 311) Portal:Religion in Turkey
 * 312) Portal:Religion in Zimbabwe
 * 313) Portal:Republic of Artsakh
 * 314) Portal:Revolutions
 * 315) Portal:Reykjavík
 * 316) Portal:Rhythm
 * 317) Portal:Rocket engines
 * 318) Portal:Rodenticides
 * 319) Portal:Roofs
 * 320) Portal:Roscosmos
 * 321) Portal:Roses
 * 322) Portal:Rowing
 * 323) Portal:RuPaul
 * 324) Portal:Saint Helena
 * 325) Portal:Sales
 * 326) Portal:San Juan, Puerto Rico
 * 327) Portal:San Marino
 * 328) Portal:São Paulo
 * 329) Portal:Scottish art
 * 330) Portal:Scottish clans
 * 331) Portal:Sex work
 * 332) Portal:Shinkansen
 * 333) Portal:Shipbuilding
 * 334) Portal:Silk
 * 335) Portal:Simple living
 * 336) Portal:SkyTrain (Vancouver)
 * 337) Portal:South Ossetia
 * 338) Portal:Space Shuttles
 * 339) Portal:SpaceX
 * 340) Portal:Spike Lee
 * 341) Portal:SQL
 * 342) Portal:Starbucks
 * 343) Portal:Statue of Liberty
 * 344) Portal:Stem cells
 * 345) Portal:Stonehenge
 * 346) Portal:Street newspapers
 * 347) Portal:Stuttgart
 * 348) Portal:Submarines
 * 349) Portal:Suffragettes
 * 350) Portal:Susan B. Anthony
 * 351) Portal:Systems
 * 352) Portal:Tallinn
 * 353) Portal:Tashkent
 * 354) Portal:Telephony
 * 355) Portal:Tents
 * 356) Portal:Tigers
 * 357) Portal:Tobacco
 * 358) Portal:Tomatoes
 * 359) Portal:Toronto Transit Commission
 * 360) Portal:Tortoises
 * 361) Portal:Transnistria
 * 362) Portal:Transport in Afghanistan
 * 363) Portal:Transport in Barcelona
 * 364) Portal:Transport in Belgium
 * 365) Portal:Transport in Bristol
 * 366) Portal:Transport in Bucharest
 * 367) Portal:Transport in Buckinghamshire
 * 368) Portal:Transport in Cardiff
 * 369) Portal:Transport in Chennai
 * 370) Portal:Transport in China
 * 371) Portal:Transport in Edinburgh
 * 372) Portal:Transport in Glasgow
 * 373) Portal:Transport in Guyana
 * 374) Portal:Transport in Hong Kong
 * 375) Portal:Transport in India
 * 376) Portal:Transport in Ireland
 * 377) Portal:Transport in Israel
 * 378) Portal:Transport in Kiev
 * 379) Portal:Transport in London
 * 380) Portal:Transport in Somerset
 * 381) Portal:Transport in Tamil Nadu
 * 382) Portal:Transport in Tiruchirappalli
 * 383) Portal:Transport in Vietnam
 * 384) Portal:Transport in Warsaw
 * 385) Portal:Tuberculosis
 * 386) Portal:Twitter
 * 387) Portal:Umayyad Caliphate
 * 388) Portal:United States Armed Forces
 * 389) Portal:United States Congress
 * 390) Portal:USB
 * 391) Portal:Valencian Community
 * 392) Portal:Vijayawada
 * 393) Portal:Voting
 * 394) Portal:Washington Metro
 * 395) Portal:Waterfalls
 * 396) Portal:Weapons
 * 397) Portal:Weaving
 * 398) Portal:Web browsers
 * 399) Portal:Websites
 * 400) Portal:Wendy's
 * 401) Portal:Women's prisons in the United States
 * 402) Portal:Woodworking
 * 403) Portal:World Chess Championships
 * 404) Portal:Yangtze

Keep 'em coming!
And I'll see you next issue.

Sincerely,  &mdash; The Transhumanist   08:10, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

We can now crop the tops of pics to make banners
Before, we could only cut off the bottom of pics.

User:FR30799386 has pulled it off, and made the upgrade to Portal image banner...

So, this:

Becomes this:

Here's the code for the above banner:

To see it employed in a portal, check out Portal:Niagara Falls.

About that end of the year goal...
We were racing against time to create 5,000 portals by the end of the year (just for the heck of it).

We made it. We've passed the 5,000 portals mark, with time to spare!

And the 5,000th portal is Portal:Major League Baseball, by Happypillsjr.

Congratulations!

What's next?
The 10,000th portal mark. But...

...there is plenty else to do in addition to building new portals:


 * 1) The new portals need to be linked to from the encyclopedia.
 * 2) On those portals about subjects that are not typically capitalized, the search parameters need to be refined/expanded, to maximize the chances of Did you know and In the news items being found and displayed.
 * 3) A Recognized content section needs to be added to each portal that has a corresponding WikiProject.
 * 4) Addition of a category on those portals that lack a subject category.
 * 5) Implement the portal category system, adding the appropriate categories to each portal.
 * 6) Upgrade, and complete (as per the tasks enumerated above), the old-style portals that are not regularly maintained, which have not been converted yet (about 1,100 of them).
 * 7) Find and fix the remaining bugs in the underlying lua modules.
 * 8) Build portal tools (scripts) to assist in the creation, development, and maintenance of portals.
 * 9) Build a script to help build navbox footer templates, via the harvesting of categories, amongst other methods.
 * 10) Update the portal building instructions.
 * 11) Update the portal guideline.
 * 12) Refine the programming of the portals to reduce their load time.
 * 13) Design and develop the next generation of portals and portal components.

And whatever else you can dream up.

But most of all, have a...



Happy New Year! , thank you for your contributions to the Portals Project, and have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year.

Sincerely,  &mdash; The Transhumanist   12:04, 30 December 2018 (UTC)