Neologisms are words and terms that have recently been "coined" and generally do not appear in any dictionary. Avoid using neologisms when creating articles on Wikipedia unless they are part of the subject being covered and need to be explained; in such a case, be sure to define the new words! Neologisms include words made up on the spot and these should never be used in a Wikipedia article. Wikipedia relies on established English to explain its subjects. It is important that every word in Wikipedia can be understood by those who read it. This ensures that Wikipedia always conveys accessible and meaningful knowledge.
Hi Transhumanist. If you have time, could you possibly have a look at the Selected Articles part of Portal:Banks as I can't seem to make it work and don't know what I should do to it either... Thanks a lot, Gazamp (talk) 19:12, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello again! In connecting some new portals to their corresponding articles, I couldn't find a way to change this icon, , to something more relevant... How would I go about changing it? Thanks, Gazamp (talk) 18:36, 30 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Gazamp: Thank you for helping out so much on the portals. Glad to have you as part of the team. As for your question, I pulled this answer off of Template:Portal/doc:
The portal image names are stored in subpages of Module:Portal/images, organised by the first letter of the portal name. For example, the first letter of Portal:Fishing is "F", so the image name is stored at Module:Portal/images/f. If there is an entry for a portal on the correct page then the corresponding image will be shown next to the portal link. If no image is found then File:Portal-puzzle.svg will be shown instead.
It is also possible to specify aliases for portal images. For example, the code {{Portal|Detroit}} produces the same image as the code {{Portal|Metro Detroit}}. The "Detroit" alias is found on the page Module:Portal/images/aliases.
The image-detection algorithm is case-insensitive. For example, the code {{Portal|Detroit}} will produce the same image as the code {{Portal|detroit}} (although the portal links will be different). Portal names are stored in lower case in the image subpages, and input is converted to lower case before being checked.
To add new images to the list, please make a protected edit request at Template talk:Portal to get an administrator to edit the correct subpage for you. Portal images must be either in the public domain or available under a free license that allows commercial reuse and derivative works; fair-use images are not acceptable. The template {{Portal icon demonstration}} may be of use when deciding whether an image is suitable for use as a portal icon; it formats an image using the same size and style that the {{Portal}} template uses by default.
The blanket adding of portals to all navboxes is possibly not a good idea, and should probably be discussed. They are controversial, and there has been discussion about validity of non-mainspace links in navboxes in the past. I think some consensus should be sought before this task is undertaken. I think an RFC at WP:WikiProject Templates would be the best forum. At the very least, it should be weighed up whether there is some benefit on a case-by-case basis. --woodensuperman14:50, 13 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that adding portal links to all navboxes would be inappropriate. The baseball portal shouldn't be included on Template:Babe Ruth. I also agree with the standard of adding the matching portal link, outline link, and category link to the bottom margin of navbox footer templates, that has been practiced for well over ten years. The link at the bottom of the Babe Ruth footer, that says "Portal", leads to Portal:Babe Ruth, as it should. — The Transhumanist06:34, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, and thanks for your comments at the discussion. I think there have been a couple of overzealous editors not only adding relevant portals to the templates, but also tangential portals, commons, wikiquote, wikisource and even wikivoyage links with poor wikimarkup and making a bit of a mess! I made a comment to one of them here - hopefully if they add any more, they will do so in a more orderly manner. --woodensuperman09:25, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Woodensuperman, A navbox that is the basis of a portal should in most, possibly all, cases have a portal link to that portal. I do not see any obvious reason why links to any other portals would be appropriate, but I am open to reasoned argument. As far as I know the usual place to put the portal link is in the navbox footer along with links to the appropriate category, index, outline, glossary etc. if such exists. If you start an RfC on this, please notify me. Cheers · · · Peter (Southwood)(talk): 11:39, 14 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I see you've begun editing one of our redirects to Portal:Library and information science into a portal page of its own. While I welcome your efforts and interest, I do wonder why you feel a separate page is necessary, and what your plans for this and other pages may be. I am currently involved in a project of trying to revive the WikiProject Libraries. While the members page currently lists 46 "active" members, most are former members who remain active on Wikipedia, but not in the WikiProject, itself. In fact, there are only a couple of us actively working on the project. I've been concentrating my efforts on dusting off the project site, fixing broken tools, and cleaning up the infrastructure of the site. I certainly welcome additional people who have an interest in helping, but it would be good to coordinate our efforts. This is the main reason why WikiProjects exist. Please join us. I know there are still a few cobwebs on our project site, and it's not exactly warm and welcoming. But I have cleaned out much of the decay and rot, and gotten most of the machinery to (somewhat) run again. This is certainly a good time to join, because you're on the ground floor of a major rebuild. We can use the help. I just want to make sure we're all working in the same direction, and not wind up undoing each other's work, and making the site less cohesive instead of more. Thanks again for your interest, and I look forward to working with you. LibraryGeek (talk) 03:17, 22 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the invite, and though I would really love to be able to take on another project as interesting as this one sounds, I am neck deep in the system-wide portals revamp, and must decline.
In answer to your query about Portal:Library and information science, that is actually a subtopic of the broader subject of libraries. As a subject for a portal, "Libraries" is a natural, with plenty of material on them specifically, which leaves the Library and information science portal to focus on the organization of collections and information for lending out. It is best to divide such broad subjects into multiple portals. Note that Wikpedia's coverage of the British Library is so extensive, that it has it own portal. Others are sure to follow. — The Transhumanist03:50, 22 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I understand you're looking at things from a Portal perspective, but we do overlap, and we seem to have a rather big misunderstanding. You see Library Science as a subtopic of Libraries. I see it the exact opposite. "Libraries" are specific individual instutions, of which the British Library is an example. "Librarians" are the people who work in those institutions, and "Library Science" is the profession as a whole. Do you intend to create a portal for Librarians? How about Archives / Archivists / Archival Science? Let's co-ordinate or work rather than trying to confuse the issue further. LibraryGeek (talk) 04:03, 22 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
No worries. I believe in collaboration and consensus building. Feel free to edit the portals I've created as you see fit (it's the wiki-way). I've checked Dewey and LOC, and Library Science is indeed presented as the parent. That being agreed upon, keep in mind that Wikipedia's navigation systems aren't strictly hierarchical, they are networks, and so, subjects may have multiple classifications. For example, libraries are infrastructure, while library science is not. There is still lots of structure to be put in place...
Speaking of which, you might want to take a look at the relationship between library science and libraries in the category system, as you may wish to establish one. Also, public libraries are missing from Category:Government buildings. How other types of libraries, and libraries in general, fit under the infrastructure tree also needs to be looked at.
Concerning the creation of portals, the current main approach is to find subjects with adequate support resources, and create portals for those. When the right resources are in place for a subject, portal creation for that subject takes less than a minute. Otherwise, it could take hours. (Developing a portal beyond the basics could also take hours. See Portal:History, for example). To start a new portal, the resources I typically look for are a matching article, navbox footer template, and category. I use lists, prefix swapping, and redlinks stripping to identify subjects with all three, then build portals that match the titles of each page set. Another approach is to populate portals from the topics listed in corresponding outlines. Thus, I generally follow and reinforce the classification structure (implemented as titles) that is already in place. I hope you've found this explanation helpful. — The Transhumanist12:58, 22 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your reply. My concern about building a new portal at this time is that I'm in the middle of a major restructing of the WikiProject Libraries category structure and project pages. I am not really well-read on portals, knowing them only as an old failed attempt at creating new "front pages" to topics, and long since abandoned. I understand and applaud your effort to get the portal concept re-started. Likewise, many WikiProjects have stalled, and the infrastructure supporting them has shown the wear and tear of disuse. I wasn't kidding about clearing out the cobwebs ... the category structure in particular needs much work to be made complete, comprehensive and consistent. You mention the use of navboxes. I found an ugly and decrepit navbox that needs to be rebuilt, after the category structure is complete to support it. There are a number of lists ... also worn with age. So if you're trying to build off of the existing "resources", my biggest concern is it's a wasted effort at this time. I hate to see you build something, only to have to completely rebuild it from scratch because it was built on a clearly defective foundation. I would love to work with you and use your expertise in perhaps a couple months or so, if that's possible, so we can make the place presentable, and have a good, solid and well-thought out foundation to build on. You wouldn't believe some of the things I found here when I started.
As for working in a new subject area, it would be very helpful if you would find the related WikiProject and introduce yourself and your own project to them, first. In some places, the only response you may get is crickets. In others, a reply from a user or two, and in others a wave of support and interest. The response you get should give you an indication of how well-supported that subject area is, and how current (or not) the category structure, etc. really is. Or you may get, as in our case, a response that major work is being done behind the scenes in preparation for a major re-launch ... just like your own project! I would really hate to see the concept re-launched, and have them built on badly outdated / broken subject areas ... and giving your entire effort a bad reputation ... or perhaps a continuation of its existing reputation. I think you'd rather build portals on highly active and well-supported subjects, and have the re-launch be a smashing success, and have people lining up to have you do their subject next. It's also a bit startling to be in the middle of a major re-build, to have someone pop up by surprise and start building things without even saying hello. Imagine a contractor gutting out an old home, only to have the occupants show up mid way through, asking what the heck you're doing to their home? Your intent may be good, but communication and cooperation is key.
Certainly, let's keep in touch. I expect to make some good progress over the holidays, and may well be in a better position to work with you in a couple months. I certainly wouldn't mind learning a few new tricks when I'm in a position to do so. You may even make a portal fan out of me. But right now, I'm still clearing out deadwood and rot, ripping out moldy wallpaper and crumbled plaster, and I'm really not certain if the entire ceiling needs to come down. But I'm looking forward to getting the place cleared out, fixed up, and looking good again, soon. Certainly, having a brand new portal that works hand in hand with the work that's been done here could be a big feature of our re-launch.
@LibraryGeek: I'm happy to learn that library science has someone dedicated to its overall improvement.
Unfortunately, the portals project doesn't have the manpower to conduct one-on-one contact with all of the other WikiProjects. What we do have are flexible portals. The beauty part about portals of the new design "working off of existing resources", is that, if you revamp those resources, the lua module-powered portals will automatically reflect the changes. Another nice thing about portals these days, is that it takes little more than a click or three to create a basic one.
We also have fairly good error reporting, so if something (like a sourcepage deletion) breaks one of these portals, our error queries will pick it up, so we can adjust the portals to accommodate any infrastructure changes that were made.
You may like to speak with Pbsouthwood. He is your counterpart in the underwater diving subject area. He has undertaken the construction and integration of the entire navigation network for that subject, with spectacular results. Good starting points include Outline of underwater diving and Portal:Underwater diving.
What do we include in the section parts? Is it just pages about the 18th-century about certain topics of things that happened in the 18th century?
eg: Great Northern War, Russo-Turkish War, War of the Polish Succession, War of the Austrian Succession, First Carnatic War, Second Carnatic War, French and Indian War, Great Upheaval, Seven Years' War
@Venomous Sniper:ACategory tree, yes. The articles from a category, not yet. Though category trees can be made to include article links. A programming method to pull the article links from a category is on our wish list. In the meantime, you could use ViewAsOutline-Category.js – it reformats categories to be ready to copy and paste right from the screen. Though, I haven't figured out how to get rid of the extraneous blank lines. — The Transhumanist05:48, 24 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. Recently, I discovered a passion for created and understanding user scripts on wikipedia, and am planning to create a monthly newsletter about new scripts and related projects (created by anyone, not for simply promoting my own), as well as currently pending user script requests, Wikipedia-related JavaScript tips/tricks, and other related information. This message was sent to you because you are listed as a member of the user script developers category. If you would like to subscribe to this upcoming newsletter, please go to User:DannyS712/subscribe to scripts and add yourself. If you have any questions, please reach out and talk to me。 --DannyS712 (talk) 05:22, 23 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Happy holidays and thanks for your work on portals![edit]
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[edit]
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.
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.
Hi The Transhumanist: I noticed that you have created many new portals, and have included the {{Under construction}} on many of them (e.g. see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Transnistria&action=history). A problem is that the template should only be used for a few days, rather than weeks. I have removed the template from a few portals you created, but it appears to be on many of them, and I don't have time to remove them all. Another matter is that you could be inadvertently providing a rationale for deletion by leaving the template in place. At MfD, some portals have been deleted for being perpetually under construction, or incomplete. Food for thought. North America100011:56, 26 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Northamerica1000: Please send me a list of the ones you removed the tag from. Please do not remove any more of them. I need to track those, as they need to be processed for placement of incoming links. What do you suggest the tags be replaced with so they can still be tracked? — The Transhumanist12:09, 26 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A search of the portal namespace, using the insource parameter and wp:SearchSuite will generate a list of them. As can WP:AWB. It would probably be more productive to just place the links, which would entail removing the tag anyways. I'll get to it as soon as I can -- I've been working on a script to handle link placement, and now that Evad is back, it might be possible to complete it. — The Transhumanist13:39, 26 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That's cool. It's just a heads up. Ultimately, we really don't want the under construction template on portals for a long period of time, as per my original above message. Hopefully it can all get sorted out without being too much of a tedious pain. North America100015:00, 26 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
{{Portal image banner|File:American Falls from Canadian side in winter.jpg | [[Niagara falls]], from the Canadian side |maxheight=175px |overflow=Hidden|croptop=10}}
...there is plenty else to do in addition to building new portals:
The new portals need to be linked to from the encyclopedia.
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.
ARecognized content section needs to be added to each portal that has a corresponding WikiProject.
Addition of a category on those portals that lack a subject category.
Implement the portal category system, adding the appropriate categories to each portal.
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).
Find and fix the remaining bugs in the underlying lua modules.
Build portal tools (scripts) to assist in the creation, development, and maintenance of portals.
Build a script to help build navbox footer templates, via the harvesting of categories, amongst other methods.
Update the portal building instructions.
Update the portal guideline.
Refine the programming of the portals to reduce their load time.
Design and develop the next generation of portals and portal components.
@Dthomsen8: I'm glad you asked. We need different specific types of links at 3 different locations for each portal: at the top of each portal's corresponding category page, in the See also section of the corresponding main article, and at the bottom of the corresponding navigation footer template. It's easy, but there are a lot of them. Please do as many as you can when you find spare moments. Here's how...
Place the portal box using the code {{Portal|{{subst:PAGENAME}}}} at the top of the portal's corresponding category page. If the category title does not match the portal's title, type in the portal's title into the portal box so that it shows up instead. If there are any other portal boxes there, remove them, as they are off-topic for the category.
Place * {{Portal-inline|size=tiny|{{subst:PAGENAME}}}} in the "See also" section of the portal's corresponding main article, at the top of the list of entries presented there. If there isn't a "See also" section, make one. Don't forget the asterisk - it makes it into a list item. If there are columns of items there, include it in the columns. Remove any portal boxes, as they are off-topic, and we wish to keep portal navigation well-focused.
Place {{icon|Portal}} '''[[Portal:{{subst:PAGENAME}}|Portal]]''' in the below = section at the bottom of the portal's corresponding navbox footer. If the link shows up red, that means the titles did not match exactly. In such a case, replace the pagename with the portal's actual title. If there isn't a below = section, make one. For an example, see Template:Computer science.
To learn about "magic words", like the PAGENAME variable, see Help:Magic words.
Doing all the above by hand is rather time-consuming, so I'm working on a script called P-link.js that will make the placement of portal links easier. The only menu item that works so far is "P link on category". But, until I figure out how to make it work in 1 click, you have to click on it up to 3 separate times (one per page), depending what kind of page you start on. It is designed to be used from the portal you want to provide links to, or from any of the target pages with matching title.
So, clicking on it from a matching non-category page will take you to the category page. Clicking on it while on the category page will bring up the editing page. And clicking on it from the category's editing page will place the code on the page to be ready to save.
I'm having trouble figuring out how to use local memory to isolate each page type, so that the script can go from one to the other automatically without getting them mixed up (otherwise it goes into an endless loop). Therefore, for now, the user has to do all the clicks personally.
The other 2 menu items don't do anything yet.
Let me know if you find the script useful.
I started a category of portals that need links to them. See Category:Portals needing placement of incoming links. (The category was automatically added at the time the portals were created). There are lots more than that, but at least this provides a partial list.
I hope the above instructions help. And of course, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask.
Good work to fully explain how to Deorphanize portals on my talk page. It is after midnight here, too late at night to do something unfamiliar and a bit tricky. Much beter in the AM before a big cup of tea.--Dthomsen8 (talk) 05:31, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hello! This is a generic message created and copied to all editors using scripts that I have created. As I have recently changed my username from "User:AlexTheWhovian" to "User:Alex 21", any scripts that I have created that are listed at your common.js page may, at the moment, no longer be working. To fix this, simply update all occurrences of "User:AlexTheWhovian" to "User:Alex 21"; see here for an example. All the best! -- /Alex/2111:07, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If you place the code {{subst:bpsp}} on the blank page at Portal:Woodpeckers and click Preview, a portal will appear, as if by magic. In that portal, you will see that the Selected general articles section shows up with an error message, meaning the subject doesn't have a navigation footer for the portal's templates to work off of. Which means, a new footer template using {{navbox}} is needed to be built by someone, or the page could be finished by supplying a list of topics to the Selected general articles section as parameters using {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow}}. A book could also be used as the source for links, as the parameter for {{Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow}}, but there doesn't yet appear to be one called Book:Woodpeckers. Building a book is easier to build than a navigation template: simply add a bullet list of article links. — The Transhumanist21:34, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
DannyS712 has created a user script prototype, User:DannyS712/Cat links, that can pull members from a category, a functionality we've been after since the project's revamp last Spring. Now, it's a matter of applying this technique to scripts that will place the items where needed, such as with a section starter script and/or portal builder script.
Hi. A new version of catlinks is out (version 3). If you just import my script normally, you should have automatically been switched over. It now has a graphical interface and some other great functions. Hope you enjoy --DannyS712 (talk) 20:16, 24 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
This is the Starship Enterprise calling Ceti Alpha V. Sorry, we thought you were Ceti Alpha VI. Oops. Didn't mean to destroy your living ecosystem. The planet (uh, portal) was targeted for regenesis, zeroing in on your transponder transmitting demolition code "box portal skeleton", indicating outmoded civilization slated for recolonization via the Genesis Device. But you've already revitalized, using alien technology. Very nice. Good thing you had the time reversion Degenesis Device. I've removed the demolition code, so the portal will be safe from evolutionary reboot in the future. Kirk out. — The Transhumanist06:05, 25 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
P.S.: The error is known as a "truncation bug", and we're in the process of tracking down this rendering glitch that mysteriously cuts portals short, making them appear like stubs.
P.P.S.: Nice hat.
Thanks for the explanation, err Kirk, and I'm glad you like my hat. I try to wear it as often as possible. I had no idea that still having "box portal skeleton" code in the Portal would mean it was targetted for a "restart" along no sub-page guidelines. Maybe there's been an announcement somewhere, possibly the newsletter and I've just missed it, But if not then perhaps there should be something hightly visible; after all to go from 44,673 bytes to 3,002 bytes with an edit summary of "restart portal" is somewhat of a shock to the sytem of an unexpecting editor, more "degenesis" rather than "regenesis". Good luck with defeating the euphemistically named "truncation bug" BTW. -- Cactus.man✍14:43, 25 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I assumed all the "pox bortal keletons" had subpages. My bad. Will run a comparison against the "maintained" cats and specific portal maintainers list at wpport next time. Matter o' fact, should retro the batch this time. Thanks for the convo. Helped get the mental juices flowin'. — The Transhumanist15:36, 25 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I've hard coded the general articles section of Portal:History of North America as the is a Lua error when using Template:{{PAGENAME}}. Would be glad if you could give me some pointers on how to fix it as I've tried several ways to address the issues but to no avail. Its late now (in my timezone), so I'll try to fix it tommorrow if possible. ⊂Emoteplump (Contributions) (Talk)15:53, 27 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
There was a recent village pump thread about either Enterprisey'sorEquazcion's "Script Installer" tool becoming a gadget. It wasn't officially closed, and so far neither has become a gadget. Stay tuned for updates.
There are about 1100 portals left in the old style, with subpages and static excerpts. As those are very labor intensive to maintain (because their maintenance is manual), all those except the ones with active maintainers (about 100) are slated for upgrade = approximately 1000. We started with 1500, and so over a quarter of them have been processed so far. That's good, but at this rate, conversion will take another 3 years. So, some automation (AWB?) is in order. We just need to keep at it, and push down on the gas pedal a bit harder.
You can find the old-style portals with an insource search of "box portal skeleton".
Flagship portals: the portals on the Main Page[edit]
Speaking of upgrades...
The following portals are listed in the header at the top of Wikipedia's Main Page, and get far more traffic than all other portals:
As you know, thousands of the new portals are orphans, that is, having no links to them from article space. For all practical purposes, that means they are not part of the encyclopedia yet, and readers will be unlikely to find them.
What is needed are links to these portals from the See also sections of the corresponding root articles.
Dreamy Jazz to the rescue...
Dreamy Jazz has created a bot to place the corresponding category link to the end of each portal (if it is missing), and place a link to each portal in the See also section of the corresponding root articles.
That bot, named User:Dreamy Jazz Bot, is currently in its trial period performing the above described edits!
Hi, you responded on my talk page, but you must have missed my reply there. Yes, I would like to receive just a link. Please stop transcluding entire updates on my talk page. Thanks. — Kpalion(talk)23:59, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
You did not attempt to communicate with me before you reset a portal I created, H. P. Lovecraft, despite the warning on the talk page "This portal is manually maintained by Auric. Please contact these user(s) when you plan to make significant changes." A portal reset and deletion of subpages would seem to be a significant change. Why did you not check with me?--Aurictalk10:36, 3 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Piling on: yes, please let's be careful out there. The quick automatic generation system is for missing portals and for bad portals that need to be replaced, not for existing good portals or for niche topics that don't justify a portal. Those classifications are all matters of opinion with vague boundaries, but the portal namespace does allow more flair and individuality than articles. Let's keep anything that's not obviously rubbish, even (or perhaps "especially") if it's a bit quirky and doesn't follow the standard pattern. Certes (talk) 11:23, 3 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I know what you mean. Several of my restarts, ones which I put a lot of work into, were in turn restarted. Sorry for the oversight, not sure how I overlooked the maintained status. Keep in mind that I didn't request the deletion of the subpages, and a reset is easily reverted. I generally leave the subpages intact until later, in case there is valuable data to mine, such as the filenames and captions from a nice picture collection. Also, in case reversion is needed.
Dreamy Jazz Bot has been approved and is now up and running.
What it does is places missing links to orphaned portals. It places a link in the See also section of the corresponding root article, and it puts one at the top of the corresponding category page.
We have thousands of new portals that have yet to be added to the encyclopedia proper, just waiting to go live.
When they do go live, over the coming days or weeks, due to Dreamy Jazz Bot, it will be like an explosion of new portals on the scene. We should expect an increase in awareness and interest in the portals project. Perhaps even new participants.
Get ready...
Get set...
Go!
Another sockpuppet infiltrator has been discovered[edit]
User:Emoteplump, a recent contributor to the portals project, was discovered to be a sockpuppet account of an indefinitely blocked user.
When that happens, admins endeavor to eradicate everything the editor contributed. This aftermath has left a wake of destruction throughout the portals department, again.
The following portals which have been speedy deleted, are in the process of being re-created. Please feel free to help to turn these blue again:
I was thinking about 5 to 6 specific portals - and the country whose name that I dont necessarily put on my talk page for reasons of justifiable paranoia - I only wish to converse about offline - if you wish to do it onwiki, great! but sorry, I am not interested in pursuing, but thanks for your interest in clarifications - that is appreciated. JarrahTree10:28, 4 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hello The Transhumanist: An invitation for you to check out the Sustainability Initiative, which aims to reduce the environmental impact of the Wikimedia projects. If you're interested, please consider adding your name to the list of supporters, which serves to express and denote the community's support of the initiative. Thanks for your consideration! North America100009:45, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Catfurball: The subject doesn't have a corresponding nav footer, and therefore, will not autogenerate to completeness. If there is a species list (with links) somewhere, other than a table, we may be able to point to that in the portal creation template: {{bpsp}}. — The Transhumanist20:45, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oooops! Thank you for that - needed time and head space - which hadnt eventuated yet - and you have done it instead - thank you !!! JarrahTree23:19, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
{{Transclude linked excerpts as random slideshow | paragraphs=1-2 | files=1 | more=
| List of tyrant flycatchers#List
|
}}
That pulls all links rather than just bullet items. Does not work well on tables that have links in more than one column. Fortunately, this one doesn't. — The Transhumanist00:35, 14 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The Ref desks survived the proposal to shut them down[edit]
You might be familiar with the Ref desks, by their link on every new portal. They are a place you can go to ask volunteers almost any knowledge-related question, and have been a feature of Wikipedia since August of 2005 (or perhaps earlier). They were linked to from portals in an effort to improve their visibility, and to provide a bridge from the encyclopedia proper to project space (the Wikipedia community).
Well, somebody proposed that we get rid of them, and the community decided that that was not going to happen. Thank you for defending the Ref desks!
The cleanup after sockpuppet Emoteplump continues...[edit]
The wake of disruption left by Emoteplump and the admins who reverted many (but not all) of his/her edits is still undergoing cleanup. We could use all the help we can get on this task...
Almost all of the speedy deleted portals have been rebuilt from scratch.
Prior to 2018, for the previous 14 years, portal creation was at about 80 portals per year on average. We did over 3 times that in just the past 9 days. At this rate, we'll hit the 10,000 portal mark in 5 months. But, I'm sure we can do it sooner than that.
Portal creation, for subjects that happen to have the necessary support structures already in place, is down to about a minute per portal. The creation part, which is automated, takes about 10 seconds. The other 50 seconds is taken up by manual activities, such as finding candidate subjects, inspecting generated portals, and selecting the portal creation template to be used according to the resources available. Tools are under development to automate these activities as much as possible, to pare portal creation time down even more. Ten seconds each is the goal.
Eventually, we are going to run out of navigation templates to base portals off of. Though there are still thousands to go. But, when they do run out, we'll need an easy way to create more. A nav footer creation script.
Meanwhile, other resources are being explored and developed, such as categories, and methods to harvest the links they contain.
By far the hardest and most time-consuming task we have been working on is updating the old portals, the very reason we revamped this WikiProject in the first place.
There are two approaches here:
A) Restart a portal from scratch, using our automated tools. For basic no-frills portals, that works find. But, for more elaborate portals, as that tends to lose content and features, the following approach is being tried...
B) Upgrade a portal section by section, so little to nothing is lost in the process.
New WikiProject for the post-saved-portal phase of operations...[edit]
Saved portals, are portals with a saved page.
What is the next stage in the evolutionary progression?
Quantum portals.
What are quantum portals?
Portals that come into existence when you click on the portal button, and which disappear when you leave the page.
Or, as Pbsouthwood put it:
...portals that exist only as a probability function (algorithm) until you collapse the wave form by observing through the portal button (run the script), and disappear again after use...
@Catfurball: Unfortunately, there is no Template:FalconsorTemplate:Falconidae, and List of Falconidae is a table with links in multiple columns. That will put non-falcon entries, mostly countries, in the Selected general articles section of the portal. We don't currently have a Lua script that can harvest specific table columns, and our programmers are not confident that it can be done. What we need is a navbox footer or a list that is not a table. — The Transhumanist06:41, 15 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hi The Transhumanist, Greetings to you. I have put my name up for helping portal creation but yet to start to create any at this point. I read bit and pieces of info and and wonder would you provide me the link on how to create portal step by step and few tips what to be included in it so I would start helping up. Thanks in advance. CASSIOPEIA(talk)10:22, 20 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Transhumanist, Thank your for your message. I was expect a few links here and there so I would read up but you sent a comprehensive info over - thank you very much. I will read up and once again thank you. CASSIOPEIA(talk)01:43, 21 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Transhumanist, Good day. I have created a portal - Portal:Jiu-jitsu and trying to understand the insctructions given by you below and I am not sure how to fix and defining the parameter. Is there a page in Wikipedia or on internet the teaches such thing so I may learn? Thank you. CASSIOPEIA(talk)03:09, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
"Refining the portal's internal search parameters (in the DYK and ITN sections – that is, the "Did you know" & "In the news" sections), to get better matches. {{Bpsp}} by its very nature only provides the capitalized version of the title for the internal searches. You may want to decapitalize that, and/or provide further terms. Separate additional search strings with a pipe character (|).
"Adding sections for specific types of articles, for example, a Selected biographies section. To do that, copy/paste the Selected general articles section and edit its title and template parameters."
Here is some documentation for you to read:
Help:Template (pagenames incuded within double curly brackets, are templates).
The reason I sent you examples, was so that you could see first hand how portals are configured. All the necessary code is in there. To see how search entries are done, look at the wikisource code for the portals listed under User talk:CASSIOPEIA#Portals with modified search parameters.
Search parameters are phrases that you want to match. Like "flower". Here's how to do a "Did you know" section with that search term:
<!--CONDITIONAL DID YOU KNOW? SECTION - ONLY SHOWS UP WHEN THERE ARE ENTRIES TO DISPLAY-->
{{Transclude selected recent additions | flower | months=36 | header={{Box-header colour|Did you know... }}|max=6}}
<!--END OF DID YOU KNOW? SECTION-->
Which looks like this:
Did you know...
... that when Seattle sandwich restaurant Paseo abruptly closed, fans left flowers and lit candles?
... that in 1887, after spending three nights on the summit of Mont Blanc, scientist Joseph Vallot and his party were greeted with flowers by the mayor and all the inhabitants of Chamonix?
... that to reflect the neighbourhood's heritage as a songbird-watching community, Singapore's Mayflower MRT station is decorated with 22 bird sculptures?
... that though poisonweed, Delphinium geyeri, is highly toxic, it is less poisonous after it starts flowering?
@Pbsouthwood: Yep: Box-header and its variants turn off section editing and the TOC by default. To turn them back on, it is necessary to include the parameters TOC=YES and EDIT=YES. SPAN=YES is also necessary when one or both of those don't work for some mysterious reason. — The Transhumanist15:13, 23 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
You can jump to the search box from anywhere on a page, which is especially useful on long articles, so you do not have to scroll up to get to it. To do this, press ⇧ Shift+Alt+F (this works on most systems). The F stands for "find" or "focus".
For a search box in which the cursor is already focused, use www.wikipedia.org. You can drag-and-drop this link onto your browser's toolbar, and click on it anytime for immediate access.
— The Transhumanist 13:39, 26 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello! This is a generic message created and copied to all editors using scripts that I have created. As I have recently changed my username from "User:AlexTheWhovian" to "User:Alex 21", any scripts that I have created that are listed at your common.js page may, at the moment, no longer be working. To fix this, simply update all occurrences of "User:AlexTheWhovian" to "User:Alex 21"; see here for an example. All the best! -- /Alex/21 11:07, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Miscellaneous
Done The subject doesn't have a corresponding nav footer, but I found a species list at tyrant flycatcher#Systematics, and pointed to that. — The Transhumanist 20:42, 13 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed The problem was on the template itself. I removed the inactive status process call from the template. It looks like you are good to go. — The Transhumanist 16:58, 17 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
