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Thank you for joining the Portals WikiProject.
Here's our first project-wide update. I hope you enjoy it...
The WikiProject reboot has been a success: the new re-envisioned project is up and running, with new members, ongoing discussions about automation, design, and upkeep; maintained task queques; and updates to members, like this, the very first one!
As you know, there's a proposal to delete all portals. It started out looking pretty dismal for portals, with primarily posts supporting their demise. It turned out that the proposer didn't post a deletion notice on the very pages being nominated for deletion (a requirement for all deletion discussions). Once that was done, a flood of opposition came in and has apparently turned the tide.
RfCs generally run for 30 days. It started April 8th, and so it has about 14 more days to run its course.
The more work we can do during that time on the portals, the stronger the reasons for keeping them will be. And the more prepared we will be for any MfDs that follow the closing of the RfC.
You may be wondering why we asked for AWB experience in the member-sign-up list.
We are gearing up to do maintenance runs on the entire set of portals, and the more people we have who can use AWB, the better.
But we're not quite ready to start this yet.
To be able to use AWB on the portals, we first need to know what the end result needs to be. Like on the news sections, do we comment out the out-of-date ones, or do we place the code to activate the newsbot on those pages? That would require an assessment of WikiNews and its news generating performance (areas covered, volume in each area), etc.
You can help us figure this out at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals#Discussions about news sections.
Another area we're gearing up for, to do passes with AWB, are upgrades to the intro sections of portals. Many of these have static (copied/pasted) excerpts that go stale over time.
We're trying to figure out how to make self-updating excerpts to replace the existing static excerpts that are on many portals, and once this is done, AWB will be used to place the new code. See the discussion on this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals#Discussions about selective transclusion in intros.
There are 3 major areas of activity right now:
There are a few hundred existing portals that are missing from this list.
The list of missing entries, and instructions on what to do, can be found at Portal talk:Contents/Portals#These are not listed yet.
We need everybody's help on this. It's a big chore for one persons. But, many hands make light work. Please help chip away at this chore as much as you can. A little each day, form all of us, will get this done pretty quick.
In addition to browsing the portals in the 2 lists mentioned in the section above, you should take a look at the portal name space itself and what is in it.
That can be done at Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Watchlist.
There are discussions on many aspects of the WikiProject's operations, with more to come.
Such as about the purposes and functions of portals, design discussions, and so on.
There's even a automated design discussion over at Village Pump Technical, on selective transclusion.
I hope to see you on the talk page.
In addition to the automation efforts mentioned above, we will be looking into how to automate the selection and display of alternating excerpts, and alternating pictures, for the various portal sections.
Watch for these discussions on the Wikiproject's talk page.
Get ready, get set, go! — The Transhumanist 22:54, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
P.S.: The main example given at the RfC of the problems of portals was Portal:Cricket. Therefore, it's the top priority portal to update. Please lend a hand. - TT
We now have 52 members, and more are joining daily.
Attention portal maintainers!
There's a new template to improve existing and new portals, called ((Transclude lead excerpt)).
It is a lot easier to use than copying and pasting text from articles, as it displays the paragraphs you specify automatically for you.
It makes excerpts so that they are always current and never go stale or fork.
It is more powerful than it looks, because it has the Lua Module:Excerpt supporting it.
Be careful, as it is alpha software. Please notify the WikiProject talkpage of any problems you come across.
To give you a sense of the reaction this template is generating, here is an excerpt of a discussion thread from the WikiProject's talk page:
I wrote a comment in the the April 26 section of the RfC explaining what we are up to. I liked the excerpt above so much, that I went back to my RfC posting, and inserted it.
What's this? An old oil lamp. It's so dirty, I think I'll polish it...
*poof*
Whoa! Are you a WikiGenie? In that case, I get 3 wishes!
I wish...
Please make my wishes come true. See you around the portals! — The Transhumanist 07:57, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
Category:Kannada film scores by A. R. Rahman, which you created, has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. --woodensuperman 13:09, 3 May 2018 (UTC)
Thank you for being a member of the Portals WikiProject, and thank you for all the work you have all been doing on the portal namespace. To see the activity, check out the watchlist.
This is our 3rd issue, see previous issues at the Newsletter archive.
The top, and one of the most visible parts, of the portal system is Portal:Contents/Portals, which is intended to list all (completed) portals on Wikipedia.
About half of the missing existing portals have been added since this WikiProject's reboot (April 17th). Thank you to RockMagnetist, TriNitrobrick, Polyamorph, PratyushSinha101, Ganesha811, Bermicourt, Javert2113, Noyster, Ɱ, Lepricavark, XOR'easter, and Emir of Wikipedia, for working on this.
We are half-way to completion with this. We need everyone to chip in until it is done. Instructions, and the list of missing entries are at Portal talk:Contents/Portals#These are not listed yet.
I hope you'll join me there. ("Many hands make light work").
Thank you.
We're at 66 members, with more joining daily. We even have 6 WikiGnomes!
I have awarded Certes with a portals barnstar on his talk page for his work on the new excerpt templates that are revolutionizing the portal system (Template:Transclude lead excerpt & Template:Transclude random excerpt). If you'd like to show your appreciation, please feel free to stop by his talk page and add your signature to the barnstar itself.
Thank you Certes. You are enabling this WikiProject to get the right things done, fast.
By the way, the templates have already gone international. After being told about the templates, Mossab wrote:
Thanks You very much!. Those are fantastic and great templates! I transferred them to Arabic Wikipedia and they do a magic great job. I worked to improve portal anatomy here and i do every thing i can to improve it and i am very sad for the nomination for deletion of portals :(. I am glad to be member on WikiProject Portals and i added my name with pleasure. Kind regards
As you know, the (April 8th) proposal to delete all portals and the portal namespace inspired the reboot of this WikiProject. RfCs typically run for 30 days, which means there are 5 days left including today, before the RfC will be closed. The !votes are predominantly "oppose", but many editors have shared their disappointment with the portal system. We have our work cut out for us in correcting the problems of the portals to address their concerns. Complaints ranged from being out of date and lacking maintenance, to taking up the time of editors that they felt (due to low traffic) would be better spent improving articles.
This past week has been somewhat stressful for me, with more than a little conflict...
It culminated with my being reported at the Administrator's Noticeboard "for spamming and canvassing". This is the second time I've been reported there during the RfC; the first one was for posting notices of the deletion discussion (the RfC) at the top of all portal pages.
The accusations were 1) Posting notices of the deletion discussion (the RfC) at the top of all portal pages, 2) Adding an Article alerts section to the Portals WikiProject page, and 3) posting notices (invitations) about this WikiProject on user talk and portal talk pages.
None of which fall under the Wikipedia definitions of spamming or canvassing.
Thank you, Lionelt and Lepricavark, for coming to my rescue. I don't know how the discussion would have turned out if you had not spoken up.
The discussion was closed as "no action necessary".
After that, the person responsible posted their thoughts to my talk page. Here they are, with my response:
Congratulations, it appears your relentless targeted advertising of the RFC, your beating the RFC Supporters with a stick by posting countless times there, your dishonest insistence that Current Events was on the chopping block, and your obstruction of clean up efforts at MfD are paying dividends. Have fun playing with Portal space where no one will read your work. I'm sure someone will eventually clean up the mess when your interest wanes. Cheers. Legacypac
The main advancement we've made so far is applying selective transclusion Transclusion is template technology, showing a page on another page. Selective transclusion shows only part of that page. We use it to show excerpts that always match the source. The two templates we have so far, are Template:Transclude lead excerpt and Template:Transclude random excerpt.
Excerpts are migrating toward the base page of each portal, and where this is done, a subpage is no longer needed.
Template:Transclude lead excerpt will be able to be used to put the intro excerpt directly on the portal page, rather than on an intro subpage, once we adapt a portal design to accommodate this.
Template:Transclude random excerpt is currently being used on 1st-level subpages, and eliminates the need for 2nd-level subpages. (Many portals have 2 levels of subpages).
There are about 1500 portals, but there are around 148,000 subpages in portal space. Further discussions are needed to develop designs and components that do not require them.
It is my hope that the portal of the future will be a single page, or close to it, pulling in excerpts from specified dynamic sources (like category pages), filtered by ratings. This would obviate the need for subpages at all (except for maybe the header and footer subpages, which store a portal's settings). A more likely near-term solution would be subpages with a list maintained by a bot, or editors using semi-automatic tools.
Since the reboot, a new portal has been created:
Some central pages in the portal system. The more eyes on them, the better.
There's more in the works, like a rating system, further redesigns, etc. Keep an eye on the discussions on the project's talk page. They should start showing up there soon.
Hope to see you there. Sincerely, — The Transhumanist 06:21, 4 May 2018 (UTC)
We've grown to 73 members, and morale is high. Thank you for joining. Here is some news, and some tasks...
2018-05-11: preparations are being made to close the RfC. See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure#Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/RfC: Ending the system of portals.
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.
Our main objectives currently, are:
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: Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Transclude intro excerpt directly on the portal base page.
Please skip Portal:American Civil War, as that is specifically being maintained by hand.
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 Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Obsolete a Wikimedia subpage for instructions.
Certes figured out how...
((subst:Text|<category|tree>))((subst:PAGENAME))((subst:Text|</categorytree>))
For more information, see the thread Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Rendering PAGENAME inside categorytree tag doesn't work (it does now).
In the meantime, see ya around the portals! — The Transhumanist 15:21, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
We are at 74 members. If you know anyone who might find this WikiProject interesting, please invite them.
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."
Some major activities that we are in the middle of include:
During his work on portals, Broter found a quote randomizer. It is ((Random quotation)).
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. — The Transhumanist 06:37, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
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...
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#Alternative to Wikinews.
Thank you, Evad.
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 Wikipedia: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.
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 portal guidelines
There is a proposal to change the look of the table of contents at Portal:Contents/Portals.
See: Portal talk:Contents/Portals#RFC on layout update.
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...
Current deletion discussions are posted on our WikiProject page.
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#These are not listed yet.
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 Wikipedia: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:
((Db-g6|rationale=of subpage clean up – this subpage's function has been migrated to the portal base page and is no longer needed))
Then an admin will come along and delete them.
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#These are not listed yet.
I hope to see you there!
These developments make up just the tip of the iceberg. I'll have more to report in the next update, soon. — The Transhumanist 00:31, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
There's an article about the Portals WikiProject in the new issue of Signpost:
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-05-24/WikiProject report
Enjoy.
P.S.: We now have 80 members. Evad37 just joined! — The Transhumanist 01:35, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
We have grown to 89 members.
This is the seventh issue of this newsletter. For previous issues, see our newsletter archive.
A warm welcome to our nearly one dozen new members...
Our new members include:
Be sure to say "hi" and welcome them to the team.
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.
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.
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...
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).
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:
((Wikimedia for portals|species=no|voy=no))
((#tag:categorytree|((PAGENAME))))
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 Wikipedia:Article alerts/Subscribing#Choosing workflows, 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.
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.
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).
(Current deletion discussions are posted on our WikiProject page).
There's still more, but it will have to wait until next issue.
Until then, see ya around the project. — The Transhumanist 12:00, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
The WikiProject now has 92 participants, including 16 admins.
A warm welcome to the newest members of the team:
Be sure to say hi.
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."
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#Refining the Picture slideshow.
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.
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.
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. — The Transhumanist 02:07, 7 June 2018 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 15 | ← | Archive 17 | Archive 18 | Archive 19 | Archive 20 | Archive 21 | → | Archive 25 |