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FYI

 – A link to this discussion has been posted on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Categories. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 14:23, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Removal of portal links has been taking place, even when the topic of the portal is relevant to the category. Peter coxhead has requested discussion and I propose this the place for this. Thanks, Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 15:52, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Pinging @Evad37:, @The Transhumanist:, @Plantdrew:, @Pbsouthwood:, @AfroThundr3007730: Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 15:56, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

My concern is, initially anyway, with putting portal links on category pages. I see no point in putting a portal link on a category page: the category exists to list articles which have a given defining characteristic. Text is there to assist editors and readers to understand what articles should be placed in the category. A portal contains a mass of material most of which is simply irrelevant to this purpose. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:59, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: I agree with you on your point, but would argue that portals are not placed there to help the user understand what the category is or what pages / articles should be in it, but are there to provide a broader / wider perspective on the characteristic (or a parent of the characteristic). I have stopped reverting these edits (and won't until the discussion has finished). Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 16:05, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Then you are agreeing that they should not be there. A category page is not an article. ((Main)) is all that is needed where there is an obvious article. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:08, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: Not really. I would reiterate that I would want portal links on categories, as a user may want to get a broader overview on a topic (in a more graphical way) without having to go into an article to find the link. Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 16:10, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Why would a reader look at a category to get an overview of a topic? That's not the purpose of categories. I repeat that any text is just there to explain how the category is used. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:01, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: I was delighted last year when a medical student told me that Wikipedia categories are brilliant, and he uses them to do exactly that! – Fayenatic London 15:15, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

It doesn't really help if one group of people starts doing work and the other undoes that work again. Categories have had portals since ages, and while that may be different for the various subjects we have here, there is no reason not to have them. Same with links to commons. Categories, when properly maintained, are the ideal way to search for information and portals compile that information in a more visual manner. The inclusion of portals in categories, and categories in portals, as is the case too, allows users to either start categorizing better (there is a lot to do still) or simply get a better feel for what the topic is about. A statement "the purpose of categories is not X" is condescending the reader in his/her ways of browsing the encyclopedia. Categories are also a great tool to show what is there now in Wikipedia, while lists (much worse to maintain than categories) are ideal to show what isn't (if people stop avoiding having red links that is). Why does it bother you so much Peter, that other people can browse further on portals? Don't you see how much effort the various contributors have put in this project? Tisquesusa (talk) 17:16, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Please folks, we are all here to build the encyclopedia, Categories and portals have very different functions. Peter coxhead is correct in his assertion that in most of those cases portals are not appropriate members of the categories from which they were removed. A properly maintained category contains only the list of articles in that category, preferably not also those in subcategories as well, though an article may be a member through more than one branch of subcategory. The explanatory text/category definition is there to ensure that people can decide what belongs in the category, no more, and no less. Categories are not catalogues, they are not there to search for information, they are there to show how the information is related to other information. They are tools to help us build better portals. A topic should never be in a deeper category than the content covers. Plant belongs in category:Plants, not in category:Grasses, Vehicle should not be in category:Cars. Portal:Plants should go in Category:Plants, and not in any other more specic subcategory of plants. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 17:40, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

For those who may not fully understand the concept and purpose of categorisation, there are fairly explicit guidelines at Wikipedia:Categorization, and quite a bit on the philosophy and principles elsewhere in Wikipedia. There may even be enough for a portal on the topic. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 17:56, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

"Categories are not catalogues, they are not there to search for information, they ere there to show how the information is related to other information." Why do you think you have the right to define what categories are (used) for? "Categories are not catalogues", saywhut? They are catalogues as they compile the articles, lists and templates related to a specific subject. Also to you; why does it bother you so much there are links to portals, that are useful for other readers who have a different idea from "what categories" are than you? Tisquesusa (talk) 18:23, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Tisquesusa, What makes you think that is my definition?

Have these other readers who have a different idea from "what categories" are than you read the explanations on what categories are in Wikipedia, as described in the relevant guidance?

My description above does not define what categories may be used for, it explains what they should be, and the purposes they are intended to fulfil. Any further uses that do not conflict with their intended purpose are entirely optional. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 18:55, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

It does not particularly bother me, but what was done boldly, has been reverted, and we are now in the discussion stage, as is custoary and accepted practice. I don't see that adding portal links to category pages is particularly appropriate. If you do, then you now have the opportunity to covince me with evidence, logical argument and reasoning. This is a far reaching change that affects many pages, and needs a general consensus. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 19:20, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Tisquesusa, You assert that Categories have had portals since ages. How long are these ages? How many categories? If this is a widespread and long standing practice it makes a difference regarding precedence. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 19:39, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Categories have had portals for many years, e.g. Category:Australia since 2011[1], Category:Councils of governments since 2012[2], Category:Hurricane Hazel since 2013[3], Category:Artists from Northern Ireland since 2010[4] (via ((Fooers from Northern Ireland))[5]). There are many tens of thousands of ((portal)) transclusions in the category namespace: [6] (or perhaps even hundreds of thousands; Special:WhatLinksHere only shows 5000 at a time, but you can keep clicking "next 5000" for ages without finding the end of the list) - Evad37 [talk] 03:52, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Evad37, that does support the claim of long term use and widespread use. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:46, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Is there an easy way of finding out how many were present in a given year? say 2013 (five years ago)? That would give an indication of widespread and long term use.

I 100% support including portal templates in categories since the whole point of a category is to help users find content relevant to the subject of the category, which may very well include one or more portals. Abyssal (talk) 20:08, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

If Category:Foobar contains a link to Portal:Foobar then that doesn't do much harm, but category pages shouldn't be cluttered with multiple portal links - e.g. currently 4 at Category:Spider-Man. DexDor ^(talk) 21:27, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

I would agree with DexDor. I think that portals that directly relate to the category should be there, but I think that portals and categories go hand-in-hand, so where appropriate links to relevant portals should really be kept. However, I do agree that many categories have too many portals listed on them and this number should be reduced. Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 21:35, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Also on the claim of Categories have had portals since ages by Tisquesusa, I can see after looking at a few categories that the links were added in 2016 and 2017 (but I have not looked at a sizeable number of categories). Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 21:42, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm also in the "yes to portals, but don't overdo it" camp. As to the "purpose" of categories vs what they're used for, some may be interested in WP:CLNT. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 22:21, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

In the end it all boils down to the eternal schism between editors; that between inclusionists and exclusionists. The problem is that exclusionists withhold access to information or other areas (as portals), while inclusionists offer that to the "client" (the reader). Of course it needs to be sensible, and when multiple portals are overlapping (as in the case of Spider Man -why is it called "Spider-Man"?), it can be trimmed down. But there is quite some grey area between "not at all, no way, I don't want to see any portal links in categories" and "let's just dump every portal that roughly corresponds to this category in there".

What the latest portal revitalization provides is for any interested reader to actually become an editor. Yes, we have the WikiProjects, but they are mostly for already active editors. Portals, apart from other areas, function as the connection between "what is there" (represented by proper categories) and "what is missing" (shown in "articles needed" sections on portals). Readers have different interests and may come from different angles and with multiple (no not every) portals linked, the chance is higher an interested reader who misses information in those categories starts to become an editor. And maybe one day a FA or GA reviewer, as that is another area where hands are needed I see following my Watchlist. Oh and Dreamy Jazz, indeed, many portals were added in recent years, but would anyone want to go through the effort of reverting all that work? Why? What is so bad about having portals in categories, if they serve a purpose? Tisquesusa (talk) 22:47, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

While I agree that there are some editors who can reasnably be labelled inclusionists and exclusionists, they are the extreme ends of the spectrum, and like many extremists, tend to make a disproportionate amount of noise. Most of us probably prefer to think of ourselves as niether, and like to think we take a more balanced view that some material is apprpriate and some is not. Both in the encyclopedia, and where it goes in the encyclopedia. A sudden upkick in the rate of addition of portal links to category pages is likely to be noticed, specially if semi-automated. Getting noticed is the first step to getting reacted upon. When the benefits of a mass change are not obvious, some people will revert. It happens. B-R-D. It is up to those mass-adding the material to show that there is a net gain. Just a purpose is not enough. Even just a useful purpose is not enough. The usefulness must outweigh any undesirable side effects. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:17, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

I can only speak for my own additions, but a category "Cretaceous Argentina" would have the portals "Cretaceous" and "Prehistory of South America" as a minimum. Probably also Geology as the generic portal. The first helps the reader to understand more of the Cretaceous geology and paleontology without having to browse through hundreds of categories, or the main article which can never be so complete that different geographic regions are served. The Prehistory of South America portal serves as the entry for other (Cretaceous) formations or fossils on the continent and while SA is obviously small in countries, for Europe or Africa that would be a lot of clicking through to other countries. The case presented (Spiderman) has overlapping portals listed, in such a case it would be good to trim down to the ones most relevant. I don't see any "undesirable side effects", on the contrary; the portal is the place where new editors are invited to take part (as a first step, once they get to know Wikipedia better, they may become part of a WikiProject), but those are only found through Talk pages which I am sure most readers will not visit, especially not if they don't have any questions or comments. Tisquesusa (talk) 17:13, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Tisquesusa, What about Portal:Argentina, Portal:South America, Portal:Paleontology, Portal:Earth sciences, Portal:Earth, and possibly others that dont come to mind at the moment? Do they all get a link, or do you draw the line somewhere? What happens when someone creates Portal:Cretaceous Argentina, do all the others stay or fall away as redundant? · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:12, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Why would we go out of our way to limit access to infomation.....let's readers choose what way they wish to view overviews of topics.....some will like one way other another way. Don't be righteous and choose for them.... do what is best for different readers.--Moxy (talk) 01:32, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

There is a difference between providing access and flooding with irrelevance and unwanted information (also known as spamming). For efficient information provision it has to be limited to what is relevant for the context. Letting readers choose their route of discovery is good in principle, but we must take care not to bombard them with information that is not what they are looking for at the time, as that can hinder them from finding what they are really looking for. How do we know what is best for different readers? We could find out what they are looking for through a survey, which may have been done, but probably has not been done yet. What is best for different readers is a seperate question and far more difficult to answer, we must avoid making judgements of what is best for other readers based on what we like best for our own use. There are different ways of approaching this problem. Loudly claiming that our way is right without supporting evidence is not a good one. It is not enough that a purpose is served, that purpose must be sufficient to outweigh the potential disadvantages. We must keep in mind that as members of the WikiProject:Portals, we are probably, on aveage, biased towards inclusion of portal links (and will be assumed to have that bias whether or not it exists). Members of WikiProject Categories would be biased towards keeping categories functional, and perhaps biased against inclusion of what might be considered irrelevant clutter. To get a wider range of opinions, this discussion would have to be open to the wider community, and that still would not guarantee a correct (optimum for the reader) conclusion. Bear in mind that there is probably still significant hostility towards the continued existance of portals in the wider community, and there is a significant possibility of a backlash from them.

With these considerations in mind, I suggest that we get a solid proposal together with supportng evidence before going site-wide with an RfC, and until that is done, declare a moratorium on both adding and deleting portal links to category pages. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:35, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

@Pbsouthwood: what would you want to propose in a site-wide RfC? If it's that "Category:X" and only "Category:X" can have a link to "Portal:X", then this is a compromise I could perhaps support. If it's that "Portal:X" can be added to any subcategory of the main category for "X", then I certainly wouldn't – for all the reasons well explained above (in particular a topic should never be in a deeper category than the content covers). Can you clarify? Peter coxhead (talk) 08:46, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

The general consensus here seems to be along the lines of the former, i.e. that a portal link is suitable if all the following criteria are met:

1. the portal and the category are directly related to one another, i.e. their "main article" would be the same article
2. the portal does not cover a wider topic than the category
3. the category does not cover a wider topic than the portal

I'm just wondering what kind of proposal this should be - are we proposing a change to a specific policy or guideline? WaggersTALK 10:30, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Peter coxhead, I don't have any particularly strong suggestions, probably whatever we come up with here that looks like a good idea. This is a very limited conversation, I don't consider any local consensus would be binding on the whole encyclopedia, but if we come up with something that we think is good, with good reasons, and agreement from the category project, then we can take it to the general community with a reasonable chance of agreement.

Waggers, I am thinking more of a guideline. I am not aware of a specific policy that goes into this in any detail. Wikipedia:Categorization#Creating category pages (a guideline) is a likely pace for it to go. Your analysis above looks like a reasonable oproposal. I was thinking of adding that the Portal link should be to the most specific portal available, but your conditions already cover that adequately.

There is a possible argument that in some cases two or more portals may appear equally relevant, but in most of those cases it probably just means that a more specific portal would be useful, and any reasonably large category is probably justification for a portal covering the same material. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:03, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

[ec]In many cases a category should have a portal, but probably not in all cases. Similarly, in most cases I would expect there to be a category where a portal exists, but there may be cases where this does not work. Sometimes the category just has not been created yet, other times it may be an indication that the topic is not broad enough to justify a portal. This is somewhat speculative at this stage, I would expect some of these details to become clearer with a bit more experience or a bit more discussion. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:26, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Well, if it were agreed that a portal can be added to a category page if it meets the criteria suggested above, Wikipedia:Categorization#Creating category pages would seem a good place to say that this is allowed. Several fixes would be needed; for example a category page should not have external links, but adding a portal would add them, albeit indirectly, so it would need to be clarified that this is acceptable. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:15, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, if one considers a portal link to be an external link. If they are specifically allowed, that would be a moot point. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:26, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

@Pbsouthwood: I actually meant all the external links in portals, hence the "indirectly". Peter coxhead (talk) 16:48, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Peter coxhead, Which external links would those be, and how would they differ from any external links that might be indirectly linked via any article in the category? Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:01, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

@Pbsouthwood: sorry, I was editing on a tablet, which encourages brevity at the expense of clarity. I'll start again. My concern is with the function of text included on a category page. It's supposed to be to explain to editors and readers the purpose of the category and so explain the nature of the list of pages that appear in the category. Properly written, the text should be meaningful in and of itself; wikilinks in the text provide a gloss or further clarification of a term that may not be clear to readers. They are not an end in themselves and certainly not there to provide indirect onward links. By contrast a portal link is not part of the explanatory text, and is of no use whatsoever unless a reader clicks on it. Its purpose is not just to explain a topic, but to provide onward links, both on and off wiki. In summary, there's a difference between wikilinks in legitimate explanatory text that go to a page that happens to contain external links, and a link to a portal, whose purpose includes the provision of such links. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:35, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Peter coxhead, Ok, that makes more sense. As it happens, that is also my understanding of the purpose of text on a category page, and the main reason why I think this has to go to the whole community for consideration if we come to an agreement here - this would be a change that could affect thousands of category pages. The other side of the issue is that there would be no conflict with any policy that I am aware of to extend the use of the text section of category pages to include other things that can be shown to be helpful to the editors and/or users of the encyclopedia. My suggestion is that we try to consider the options here, and if it looks like we can come up with a workable proposal that clearly does more good than harm (preferably no harm at all), we polish it up and support it with logic and facts, then present it as a Wikipedia-wide RfC. That way it is more likely to succeed to everyone's satisfaction, and less likely to incur widespread time-wasting and drama. As an aside, one of the definitions of a good compromise is that all sides are equally unhappy with the result, but we can hope for better. However, and this is quite important, the precedent for portal links on category pages appears to be fairly well established, both in duration and numbers, and there is no record of this causing any real problems. Establishing a reasonable standard of good practice which would provide guidance to suit most cases would allow all users to minimise conflict, which would allow those of us who are here to build an encyclopedia to get on with it in relative peace. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 11:07, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Portals are a part of Category:Wikipedia navigation, and complement categories in providing another way to explore related content within the encyclopedia. :MOS:CAT is a dormant proposal from 2012 for a Manual of Style guide for category pages; it did include portals, to be shown at the very top of category pages.

For the record, editors including User:BrownHairedGirl and I, being satisfied enough that they are useful, have been have been automating links to portals from entire hierarchies of categories, including chronology categories e.g. Category:1990s establishments in Ireland, by adding portal links into category header templates. – Fayenatic London 15:07, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Fayenatic london, Could you describe the scope of this automated portal link addition and how one amends it when a new portal is created that is more specific than the ones in the automated system? · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:50, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

@Pbsouthwood: as you can see, the category given above uses ((EstcatCountryDecade)), which has included some portals for years, but (since a few months ago) that template now includes the ((YearInCountryPortalBox)). That's a new template by BrownHairedGirl, which she has not yet got around to documenting, but it has a sub-page that brings in multiple portals where appropriate. For example, if the country is Puerto Rico, it always links to Portal:Puerto Rico, Portal:History and Portal:Years, but in the case of years before 1898 it additionally links to Portal:New Spain. That sub-page also substitutes broader entities where there is currently no portal, e.g. chronology categories for French West Africa display Portal:France and Portal:Africa. That page could be edited to link to more specific portals if they are created; e.g. if a new portal for French West Africa was created, we could display that portal instead of France and Africa, or that portal plus France and/or Africa. – Fayenatic London 21:21, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

At what point do we stop adding portals to a category page? If there is a portal with the identical or near identical title, does that supersede all other portals, or do they accumulate if arguably relevant?

I suggest, as a discussion point, that if there is a portal with the identical or near identical topic/name, then only that portal is appropriate for link inclusion on a category page. All other portals which tangentially relate may be considered as noise and a distraction from the most relevant one.

When there is no directly corresponding portal, those portals which are sufficiently relevant may be linked. Sufficient relevance may be more difficult to define, but generally the title of the category and the category definition text should help. When all else fails, B-R-D with local consensus by talk page discussion will probably be necessary, but that is often a time-sink, and to be avoided.

This is open for support or rebuttal, based on rational argument, logic and evidence. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:05, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

I support placing a portal button on the matching category page, or category page that matches the portal's subject (sometimes their titles are not identical). Categories are classified indexes, to show the pages about its specific subject. I don't see the need for putting buttons to parent portals, or even parent articles on there, since the purpose of categories is to gather everything on the subject in the title of the category. The category's classification. To go up the hierarchy of subjects, all you have to do is go to the bottom margin of the page, where the category's parent topics are posted. On those categories you should be able to find the corresponding parent article, portal, etc. Because they pertain to that category's subject. ;) A button to the bird portal is unnecessary to have on all bird categories, because it isn't about those specific bird types. We should make a corresponding portal to place at those various categories. They are much easier to make than they used to be. Then you'll have a portal that lets the user browse the very subject he or she is interested in within slideshows. If users are looking for a specific class of bird, say owls, give them more information on and pictures of owls, not just any kind of bird. That's categorization.    — The Transhumanist   21:47, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Selected policy and guidance that may be relevant

(Add here and refer when using a quote to support an argument, or if it just looks particularly relevant.)

1. From Wikipedia:Categorization#Creating_category_page 5th paragraph: The description can also contain links to other Wikipedia pages, in particular to other related categories which do not appear directly as subcategories or parent categories, and to relevant categories at sister projects, such as Commons. This does not mention portals, but the words in particular imply that possibilities other than those listed may be considered.

   But it says "the description" can contain these links; my contention is that including a portal link is not part of any description, so is excluded by these words. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:56, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

   I suppose that depends on what is meant by the description. My interpretation is that there are three parts to a category page:

   1. The description, which is everything added manually by editors at the top of the page, so description refers to the section, as well as the primary function of the section, but not necessarily the only function of the section, and this is supported by the long term and widespread existence of portal and sister project links in the description section,
   2. The category list, which is not manually editable, and
   3. The page categories, which are the parent categories to which the category represented by the page is allocated by editors.

      Under this interpretation, adding a portal link is not specifically prohibited. The interpretation that the description may only describe the scope of the category is far mote exclusive. Allowing links to sister projects suggests that this may not be the intention, as categories at sister projects do not necessarily describe the scope of the category. This is something that might have to be tested by site-wide RfC.

   If the description means the section, then these links may go in that section. If description is to be taken literally, then as long term precedent accepts the presence of portal and sister project links, the guidance is self contradictory. Policy generally follows accepted practice, and the established presence of portal links over several years and in large numbers indicates accepted practice. To overturn established practice is possible, but generally requires an RfC. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:55, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

   Established practice obviously varies by the topic/WikiProject. I've worked extensively on various kinds of categories that WP:PLANTS articles are placed in, and it's absolutely not the case that adding portals is "established practice". Peter coxhead (talk) 16:26, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

   This may well be so. Do you have any convenient evidence to support this assertion? · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 14:10, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

2. From Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates § Overlapping categories, lists and navigation templates are not considered duplicative: It is neither improper nor uncommon to simultaneously have a category, a list, and a navigation template which all cover the same topic. These systems of organizing information are considered to be complementary, not inappropriately duplicative. in conjunction with Wikipedia:Portal guidelines § Purpose of portals (trimming and emphasis mine):

   Each portal on Wikipedia acts as an alternative entrance to a subject. Portals supplement the encyclopedia. They support their subjects in various ways, including but not limited to:

   1. Providing a variety of sample content of subtopics ("topic tasters") ...
   2. Aiding navigation - portals are one of Wikipedia's navigation subsystems, designed to help users find their way around the vast amount of knowledge on Wikipedia to material within a particular subject. ...
   3. Providing bridges between reading and editing, and between the encyclopedia proper and the Wikipedia community ...

Portals also serve as a navigation system, alongside categories, lists, and navboxes. They work together to help the reader explore a topic. This is mostly for any still arguing that portal links have no place in categories at all. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 15:03, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

@Dreamy Jazz, Peter coxhead, Fayenatic london, Tisquesusa, Pbsouthwood, Abyssal, DexDor, and Moxy:

This link shows that the practice of placing portal links has been established on tens of thousands of category pages: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AWhatLinksHere&limit=5000&target=Template%3APortal&namespace=14 (Click through 5,000 at a time, to see what I mean.)    — The Transhumanist   10:52, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

A portal that is maintained by an active Wikiproject, placed on the corresponding main category, may perhaps be of some use (although I doubt it). A portal on a biology topic with no corresponding active set of editors will soon become out of date and of little value. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:59, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

I clicked through enough for about 300 000, so actually hundreds of thousands. Any idea of the number of categories? · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 12:40, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Many portals now update automatically and are less likely to become out of date, even where no editor is active. We shouldn't unlink portals purely on the grounds that they might decay in future, though of course any links that are of little value for other reasons should still go. Certes (talk) 12:17, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Certes on this point. My opinion is that if there is a portal where the scope of the portal matches the scope of the category quite closely, as would be implied by an almost identical title, then that portal alone is necessary and sufficient for that category. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 12:40, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

IMHO it is also useful to link to broader portals for topics that intersect at the category, e.g. for Category:1940s in rail transport to link to portals for Rail transport, Years and 1940s. – Fayenatic London 20:13, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

A lot of new portals have been created recently. Most, if not all, of them appear not yet to have been added to the list on the Portal:Contents/Portals page.

Could an effort please be made to keep that list up to date, before we lose track of all the newly created portals? Bahnfrend (talk) 07:56, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

@Bahnfrend: Hello, the The_Transhumanist has created a list of portals to be added. It can be found at Portal_talk:Contents/Portals#These_are_not_listed_yet, however, the list is not being processed very fast or at all. I will try to lend a hand when I can. Thanks, Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 10:58, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

@Bahnfrend: To keep track of portals, we have Category:All portals and Category:Single-page portals.    — The Transhumanist   11:14, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Moved to WT:PORTG § Notability Discussion: Revived

 – — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 04:22, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Greetings. I am confused regarding what appears as conflicting instructions on ((Portal category)), a category header template. The upper blue box says "This category (including subcategories) is meant to contain pages in Wikipedia's portal namespace. It should not be used to categorize articles or pages in other namespaces." Directly below, the white box says "A standard way to link an article to this portal is to add ((portal|...)) at the start of the article's "See also" section. ..." which of course are pages in the main namespace. I feel this should be clarified and the verbiage commensurately changed. I have two questions: 1) what are the instructions endeavoring to say?, and 2) what is the best way to say it? Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 23:08, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

The instructions aren't necessarily conflicting, just awkwardly worded. The second message is referring to how one would link an article to the portal that the portal category aligns to. Linking the article will not categorize the article in the portal category. See Category:Germany portal as an example of this when used properly. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 23:52, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Ah yes, I see. Perhaps the second box should say something akin to "A standard way to link an article to this portal without categorizing it is to add ((portal|...)) at the start of the article's "See also" section. ..." This, or some such, would proactively preempt the potential for confusion which I affirm is possible. Thank you for your reply.--John Cline (talk) 00:25, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Editors in this WikiProject may be interested in the featured quality source review RFC that has been ongoing. It would change the featured article candidate process (FAC) so that source reviews would need to occur prior to any other reviews for FAC. Your comments are appreciated. --IznoRepeat (talk) 21:49, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

I propose an experiment with new portals, to place their links in the main list in the See also section rather than as a button in the right margin. I ignore the margin down there, out of sheer habit and I suspect a lot if not most editors do too. So, it would be a regular link in See also, perhaps with a little puzzle-piece icon in front of it.    — The Transhumanist   00:02, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

• Support – as proposer.    — The Transhumanist   00:02, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
• Comment We should still use ((Portal)) for placing these in See Also sections. Only experienced editors end up training themselves to ignore the chrome and focus on the article. Readers most likely still see them just fine. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 00:07, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Looks like an ad, and many people ignore ads. An experiment might show a difference in traffic. Is it worth finding out?    — The Transhumanist   00:21, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
    • Is there a way of gathering statistics about which links are used? · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 07:59, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
      • I wish. It's just page visits, as far as I know. See https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews    — The Transhumanist   10:22, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
        • In that case it may not show much, but I have no objection to giving it a try. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 14:19, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
• Support - I think this could work well. For some reason ((Portal)) doesn't render particularly well when I'm looking at it - that might be down to custom css/js or the fact I use the Timeless skin, or some combination thereof - but a simple list item in See Also makes a lot of sense in articles. I think ((Portal)) still works well for categories though. WaggersTALK 13:40, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
  • As a change that will affect mainspace, even this would likely need an RfC, or at least a discussion on the Village Pump. Reversion is likely otherwise, since that is what the template is for. We should also investigate other ways to make the template more noticeable, yet still unobtrusive (not the gaudy buttons proposed months ago). — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 01:16, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. In case people are referred to this discussion for a purported consensus to use ((Portal-inline)) where ((Portal)) has hitherto been used, there is no such consensus. The community has preferred ((Portal)) for a long, long time with absolutely no problems. Both Wikipedia:Portal#How to add portal links to articles and the doc at ((Portal-inline)) make it clear that inline is to be used only when there is a layout problem with the otherwise preferred ((Portal)). – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:35, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
• Support there is already a lot of sidebox clutter; an inline entry is easier to use and keeps formatting consistent. --Tom (LT) (talk) 01:21, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose I generally prefer the ((portal bar)) because we try not to have See also sections. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:03, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Standardize ((Portals browsebar)) as the only navigation template at the top of portals, excluding others such as Template: Religion portals browsebar, Template: Sports portals browsebar, Template: Politics browsebar etc. These templates that can be expanded to infinity, cluttering the header of the portals. What do you think?Guilherme Burn (talk) 12:35, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Disagree in the case of Portal:Basketball/Basketball portal browsebar, which is a tight set and relevant to each other.—Bagumba (talk) 17:22, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

I agree with the proposal, because most of the links are off-topic, leading to parent or sibling topics. In the case where they are subtopics, they are normally provided in the the Topics section, while subportals would normally be placed in a subportals section.    — The Transhumanist   06:43, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

We can discuss individually:

• Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2018 November 21#Template:Science portalbar
• Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2018 November 21#Template:Sports portals browsebar
• Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2018 November 21#Template:Military portals browsebar

The inclusion of subcategories on the ((Portals browsebar)) could also be discussed. Guilherme Burn (talk) 12:35, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

A major problem is that a lot of the new portals that have been recently mass-produced are entirely orphaned, lacking even a portal link on their main pages in the See also sections. They also often lack a portal link on the template pages.

Without links to the portals, nobody is going to visit them, because nobody will know about them, defeating their purpose entirely.

I have been adding links, but it takes time, and I don't foresee being able to add links for all of the new portals that have been created by myself. Below is a basic list of what should be done when a new portal is created, at the very least.

• Add a portal link to the portal's main topic page. This is typically done using the ((Portal)) template, and when content spills into the See also or other sections, then ((portal-inline)) or ((portalbar)) can be used.

• Add a portal link to the article's template (e.g. Template:Cajun cuisine). I typically also add the category if one is not present. This works well using: ((portal-inline|size=tiny|TOPIC NAME))((•)) ((category-inline|CATEGORY NAME))

• Add a related portals template to the portal when applicable, such as for food and cuisine portals. (((Cuisine portal links horizontal)), ((Cuisine portal links horizontal))). This has a benefit of immediately linking several related portals.

• Add a link to the new portal on related portals templates (e.g. adding a link for a new portal onto (((Cuisine portal links horizontal)))

• Add relevant categories, when applicable (e.g. such as Category:Food and drink portals to food-related portals and Category:Cuisine portals to cuisine-related portals)

• Bottom line, with no links leading to the new portals, they just won't be used. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 22:14, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

I agree that orphan portals are not very useful. I started adding portal links to article templates (e.g. making ((Burger King)) link to Portal:Burger King) but the edits were undone and I was warned to stop. Please beware that such changes may meet opposition. Certes (talk) 22:38, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Certes: Thanks for replying. Well, the warning was for adding a link to Commons, it being an external website (see WP:NAV-WITHIN, "Navigation templates do not provide external links to other websites"), but the user just removed everything. I restored all except the Commons link. So, as long as we omit links to external websites, all should be fine, hopefully. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 22:54, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

I've been working on these in batches, except for related portal links, which simply are not automatable/scalable. So far, I've placed links on the corresponding category pages to almost all of the new portals. And I have processed several hundred see also sections. Both using WP:AWB. I've also been placing more links at the time of creation.

I'm in the process of working on a script to place links leading to a portal at the time the portal is created. But it is a very tricky process to automate, requiring tracking via localstorage items, and may take me some time to figure out.

But, for existing portals...

(see next section).    — The Transhumanist   21:13, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

I think that linking to portals should be considered an integral part of creating them, ie. A portal is not finished until it has links from at least some, possibly all of the articles that it features and the category. Not sure how that would be done, so this would depend on if and how it can be done. Perhaps a job for a bot?· · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:19, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

@Pbsouthwood: Considering the articles that it features, those are all usually listed on the same navigation template, the usual place upon which to place a portal link is at the bottom of the template. The navigation template is usually placed at the bottom of all the articles listed upon it, and so, a template link can be located on all those pages by virtue of being on the template.

The main places to list portals are eponymous with their titles. A portal should have a link placed on the corresponding template, on the corresponding category page, and on the corresponding article (in the See also section).    — The Transhumanist   11:40, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Mass linking to portals

To coincide with producing lots of portals, there are techniques for linking to lots of portals.

The main one is WP:AWB. The easiest portal links to place with AWB are on the corresponding category pages, as you can generally get them all in one pass. The others take multiple passes to get them all (due to missing see alsos, etc.).

Another method that works fairly well is multi-tab. First, make a list of portals that need links to them, then edit the list to be root articles or template names or category page title (don't forget the preceding colon). Then ctrl-click on them to make a tab for each. Then process each tab.

A quick way to place the links to a particular portal is, with the portal displayed, Ctrl-click on the article link, the template edit link, and the category link to open in tabs the 3 main pages that need links to the portal. Edit each page as needed. After links are placed on those, go to Portal:Contents/Portals to list it there too.

I hope these tips help speed up the process.

Keep up the great work!    — The Transhumanist   21:13, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

Excluding links to broken portals

A question at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Making_links_conditional_on_target_status has established that it would be possible to add code into Module:Portal so that ((Portal)) would omit links to broken portals, e.g. if tagged with ((Portal maintenance status|broken=major)) (or =serious or =yes).

There are currently between 70 and 80 portals with that assessment, which places them in Category:Portals with errors in need of immediate attention.

Is there consensus here that it would be desirable to add that code? – Fayenatic London 09:19, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I would support this. Majorly broken portals need to be fixed first before they are to be widely seen. Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 10:45, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

I would go along with that too. If easy to fix they should be fixed. If not, hide, or if sufficiently broken, rebuild from scratch, sometimes the easier option. Linking to broken portals does not do portals any good.· · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:07, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

• Query: I assume that if there is more than one portal in the template, the not-broken ones would display normal links, and if there are only broken portals the template would not display anything? · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:07, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes to the first point. If there are only broken portals, the template would display an error message, "No portals specified: please specify at least one portal". However. IMHO this (i) is highly unlikely, and (ii) would draw attention to get the problem fixed fairly quickly. – Fayenatic London 12:06, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
    • The quickest solution being to remove the portal button displaying the error message, which would be another example of disappearing links.    — The Transhumanist   02:07, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
      • @The Transhumanist: please clarify what point you are making. – Fayenatic London 11:33, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

• Politely oppose – Portals have features that may acquire regular readers who return to portals or regularly click on portal links for their news, DYKs, automatically updating content, and automatically added content. Having links disappear could be disruptive to those readers. If a portal becomes broken and its link disappears, regular readers may not know how to contact the right people to fix it. With a link to a broken portal in place, they would see the problem, and would have the opportunity to go to the portal's talk page to report it, or even collaborate with others to fix it. On the portal's talk page, they would see our link to the WikiProject, and could go there to report the problem as well. With no link, they lose those options. For veterans like us, that's no big deal. But for new Wikipedians, or readers who have limited editing experience, that could leave them almost helpless, scratching their heads. Having links disappear may also have other ramifications that we are not yet aware of. We don't want to hide the problems, we want to fix them, and we want anybody on the scene to be able to do it. A link to a broken portal should also be a route to the instructions on how to fix it, such as having a link to the portal instruction page on every portal's talk page. We need to enable people who use portals to be able to help maintain them, rather than remove the option to do so.    — The Transhumanist   01:06, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment – a portal that becomes slightly broken, may still be helpful to readers, such as if its news feature is still working. Why remove access to that news if the image slideshow all of a sudden becomes empty because images were removed from the root article from where they were displayed? This creates a domino effect. We need to be careful not to fall into an all-or-nothing mindset. A partially functioning portal is still useful, especially to regular visitors of the portal system.    — The Transhumanist   01:15, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
    • The suggestion is to exclude links to portals assessed as broken=yes, major or serious. The proposal would not remove links for portals with broken=minor etc. – Fayenatic London 12:15, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
      • My concern is about portals that become broken, rather than start out that way. If a perfectly fine portal all of a sudden gets an error, then its link disappears. That is not a good scenario, for reasons I explained above. Once a portal link is in place, it should not disappear unless the portal is deleted.    — The Transhumanist   01:59, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment – I checked 3 portals at random listed at Category:Portals with errors in need of immediate attention, and they had no problems. We wouldn't want to hide those. Somebody needs to go trough that list. It is making the problem look bigger than it really is. ;)    — The Transhumanist   01:28, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
    • If you disagree with the assessments by user:Dreamy Jazz or other editors that placed the codes, please take it up with them. Meanwhile I noticed that you have edited other portals within the category and have not replaced the assessments, so presumably you accept that there are significant problems there. – Fayenatic London 12:15, 8 November 2018 (UTC)
      • It is not that I disagree with anyone's assessments, but there is a problem with reports that no longer apply because someone else came along and fixed them (like me). It didn't dawn on me that the assessments were even there to be updated. On the vast majority of portals, those parameters are blank, and so I stopped looking at them. It was not a feature I paid much attention to in the first place, as I have been focusing on automated features and semi-automated processing of the portals, and have been using other ways to find errors. Going over 4,100+ portals manually looking for errors, and then manually reporting them, is a monumental investment of time. We need methods for automatic reporting, to reduce this tremendous labor cost, and so that stale manual alerts don't misreport errors (that are no longer there). Here are a couple tools for scanning portals for problems:

• PetScan query for listing portals with Lua errors (courtesy of Certes).
• WP search to find portals that "spew" excerpts all at once rather than one per click of the slideshow controls (courtesy of Certes)

We need more tools like this to find the rest of the error types that come up from time to time. But we don't need disappearing links. That just makes a portal's problems worse. By the way, reporting errors manually on the portals themselves seems a lot like tag placement, my attitude toward which is that many errors can be fixed in almost as little time as it takes to report them (manually), so why not just fix them instead? Just my two cents' worth.    — The Transhumanist   01:59, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

P.S.: @Fayenatic london: (ping)

@The Transhumanist: Just like any other Wikipedia assessment, e.g. the ((unreferenced)) banner on an article, it's acceptable (and desirable) to remove or update the assessment yourself when you fix a problem. Now that they have been drawn to your attention, it should not take long to review those among the remaining 74 Portals with errors in need of immediate attention that you have fixed. – Fayenatic London 10:10, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

@Fayenatic london: They were not as quick as you suggested. It appears a few of them were fixed inadvertently during an AWB conversion pass. I however, don't know which ones. Therefore, I just fixed a bunch arbitrarily, regardless of their problems. Got it down to 47.    — The Transhumanist   11:33, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: OK. I did some minor fixes on Portal:1930s & Portal:1940s, and downgraded their assessments to broken=minor. I used #ifexist, so please review these in case you have a neater templated way to achieve the same result.

In contrast, Portal:1910s is markedly not ready for use. Over 3,000 categories have links to it, and if readers click them they only find a page under construction. Do you still oppose removing links to portals like that? – Fayenatic London 10:28, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes. While they probably shouldn't have been put in place to begin with, those links would be difficult and time consuming to restore once removed (like, who would keep track of them so they could be put back?). It's far better to fix the portal than remove the links to it. One of those links might bring an editor willing to fix the portal, or willing to report it (like you). Portals are very easy to work on these days. They used to take hours to build, and now they take minutes. For most of the portals I've created recently, I've found that it takes more time to place the links to a portal than it took to build the portal. I'll take a look at the 1910s portal, to see what I can do.    — The Transhumanist   13:52, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Portal:1910s  Fixed    — The Transhumanist   15:09, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Is there a way to stop non-free files from being transcluded into portals. I've been noticing this happening more than usual lately when checking on files flag for WP:NFCC#9 violations and it seems to have something to do with the syntax being used for portals. The latest example I've come across is Portal:University of New Hampshire and File:UNewHampshire seal.png. The portal is calling up the infobox to University of New Hampshire and was transcluding the infobox image. I think I fixed things by adding "noinclude" syntax for the image, but that might just be a work-around for the time being.

Was there some recent change to the general syntax generally used for portal pages which now makes transcluding non-free content more common? There is a single mention about non-free images and portals in Wikipedia:Portal guidelines, but it's buried in the middle and most likely not many people bother to read that far anyway; some may even think that transcluding the file is OK because technically they haven't added any files directly to the portal. I guess it's also possible that there's something about the wikidata of these files which is telling the system that they are not non-free, so the system treats them as a free image. Anyway, I'm just curious about this. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:16, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

@Marchjuly: Portal:University of New Hampshire uses Module:Excerpt, which prevents non-free files from appearing in other, similar portals. It checks for the Lua pattern "[Nn]on%-free" in the file description, which should match this file's use of ((Non-free school logo)). I can't test this particular case now that University of New Hampshire has changed (and I know that reinstating the logo temporarily would upset some editors). Do you know of an unfixed example where a non-free image actually appears? Certes (talk) 11:57, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi Certes. I think if you wanted to go back and test that particular file by removing the "noinclude" tags for just a really short time, it would probably OK as long as you didn't lave things so that the file stays transcluded into that particular portal. However, File:Flag of Winnipeg fair.svg, File:Tehran Logo.png and File:Mississauga coat arms.png seem to be being transcluded into Template:Portal/doc/all, so maybe you can figure things out looking at that page. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:09, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

@Marchjuly:I've removed the noinclude tags from University of New Hampshire and I still don't see the non-free seal after purging and null-editing Portal:University of New Hampshire. Do you?

The flag of Winnipeg is listed in Module:Portal/images/w as the image to be shown with links to that portal. We probably shouldn't be using non-free images for that purpose, and someone should check the licensing of the images listed there. Certes (talk) 01:19, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't see it now, but yesterday the entire infobox (image included) for the university's article was being transcluded; so, maybe it has sorted itself out. If it pops up again, I'll ping you.

As for the Winnipeg file in Module:Portal/images/w, I can't directly edit that page, but it looks like it was added here by WOSlinker. I'm not sure why that was done, but it shouldn't be being done for non-free files. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:45, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

I usually check this but missed them when adding a few at the sametime. I've now removed it. -- WOSlinker (talk) 08:17, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that. Can you also remove File:Mississauga coat arms.png from Module:Portal/images/m. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:22, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi again Certes. File:Ondine (ballet).jpg is being used in Portal:Frederick Ashton. It looks like its being transcluded into the "Selected general articles". Any ideas as to why this is happening or how to fix it? i searched the portal's markup, but was unable to find any files. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:33, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

@Marchjuly:  Fixed. The excerpt module was mistaking the manually-formatted hatnote for the start of the lead of Ondine (ballet), which was causing it to transclude the entire infobox including the non-free image. - Evad37 [talk] 03:22, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for checking on this and fixing it Evad37. -- Marchjuly (talk) 03:57, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Evad! The last line of function cleanupText catches DIY hatnotes with a single colon, but I hadn't considered multiple colons. Certes (talk) 09:44, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

@Certes and Evad37: File:Advance to Boardwalk box lid.jpg and File:Jilin University logo.png have been flagged for showing up in Portal:Monopoly and Portal:Changchun respectively. Not sure if this is the same problem as above, but the files appear to be trandscluded by some template and not directly added to the portal pages. Both of these portals also appear to be fairly new. Is there guidance somewhere about non-free image use for those creating a new portal? If not, then may something could be added along the lines of WP:UP#Non-free files or WP:UBX#Caution about image use. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:26, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Evad: any thoughts on Monopoly? ((Transclude lead excerpt|Advance to Boardwalk)) successfully removes the non-free image but it is appearing in the portal.

I've fixed the Jilin University article, which had the infobox in an odd position where it avoided detection. We should probably enhance the module to handle the old version.

Portals do get created quickly these days, but it's still important not to sacrifice quality for quantity. The Transhumanist is the main force behind portal creation and its guidelines. Can you add non-free images to a list of things to check for when previewing a new portal? I realise that they may not appear in preview if that article is randomly not selected. Certes (talk) 10:42, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

What is the problem with a copyrighted image showing up in a portal on that precise subject? It is a page specifically about that subject in exactly the same way that an article page is about the subject.    — The Transhumanist   10:53, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Portals are supposed to showcase Wikipedia's best work, and some people (me for example) believe that this should mean free content only. Non-free content is not something we should show proudly, if we show it at all. —Kusma (t·c) 12:50, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

From a WP:NFCC viewpoint, WP:NFCC#9 limits the use of non-free content to articles (i.e., the article namespace) and WP:NFCC#10c requires that a separate specific non-free use rationale be provided for each use. This appears to have been policy for quite some time now and I'm not aware of any exemptions being made for portals. I guess you could attempt to write a non-free use rationale for a portal page, but then you'd have to be able to satisfy the remaining non-free content use criteria as well. I'm not really seeing how it be possible to justify using a non-free use of a file in portal per WP:NFCC#1, WP:NFCC#3 and WP:NFCC#8 even if NFCC#9 wasn't an issue. Non-free content use is pretty restrictive and generally the default seems to be to use free content whenever possible, and limit non-free content use as much as possible. -- Marchjuly (talk) 14:37, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

@Certes: If you add the |files=1 parameter then the image did show up. This reason it was appearing is that the file description page didn't include the words "non-free", so the module allowed it to be displayed. I edited ((Non-free board game cover)) to link to Wikipedia:Non-free content instead of the redirect Wikipedia:Fair use, which fixed it. - Evad37 [talk] 06:01, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Here's three more non-free files being used in portals: File:$ (movie poster).jpg in Portal:Richard Brooks, File:Aschbeg in op.19.mid in Portal:Arnold Schoenberg, and File:Gods of the Plague film poster.jpg in Portal:Rainer Werner Fassbinder. @Transhumanist: As explained above, non-free content is is only allowed in the article namespace per WP:NFCC#9. If you think that an exemption to WP:NFCC should be made for portals, then you should propose such a thing at WT:NFCC; otherwise, the files are going to keep being flagged for removal as a NFCC#9 violation. WP:NFCC is a community-wide policy and it's been in place for quite awhile; so, it can't be superseded by a WikiProject consensus or preference. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:45, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

More corner cases.

• Dollars (film) began with a stray orphan HTML tag, which I've removed.
• File:Aschbeg in op.19.mid is embedded within a File: caption, which is something that we'd not considered.
• Gods of the Plague had the infobox within the lead, which is unusual; I've reformatted it.

We could probably handle these cases but we're playing whack-a-mole with weird text formats that each occur in 1 of maybe 10,000 transcluded articles. There's a limit to how closely a single-purpose module can be expected to replicate the complex wikitext parser. The Hollywood tail is very much wagging the Wikipedia dog here, and I regret to say that I have run out of patience in helping a cause I do not support. The only way to guarantee that no non-free file will ever appear is to delete the entire portal namespace, and I'll leave others to decide which is more important to us. Certes (talk) 11:11, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

There is only so much we can do in the module. The best solution for weird edge cases is probably just adding <noinclude>...</noinclude> tags in the article, which I did here to fix  File:Aschbeg in op.19.mid. Its still worth seeing if we can do something to stop the infobox spewing when there's no gap from the lead sentence, which is undesireable regardless of whether or not there's a non-free image. I've just come across another case with Pierrot Lunaire in Portal:Arnold Schoenberg - Evad37 [talk] 01:01, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

I have just set up my bot to go through Category:Portal templates with redlinked portals and Category:Portal templates with all redlinked portals, extract the redlinked portals and then display them in a list. It's not perfect yet (for some reason one blue linked portal is always on the list), but should help see what portals are wanted. It is at User:Dreamy Jazz/WantedPortals. (kept it in my userspace as I would need to go to the BAG. I may do that later, but only if the tool is wanted by other editors). Happy editing, Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 17:02, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

@Dreamy Jazz: That's awesome! I think this would be very useful to have around. @The Transhumanist: come take a peek. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 13:21, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

@AfroThundr3007730: Ok. I'll open a BRFA on this task. Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 13:25, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

It'll help us ensure we don't leave redlinks in our wake while we're going ham on the namespace. Looks like Portal:Construction is very popular. Also errors like the links to [[Portal:]] are nice to track. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 13:29, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

@AfroThundr3007730: The BRFA will mean we would move the output from the bot to a subpage of the WikiProject. Do have any ideas for what name and location of the page? It could be Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals/RedlinkedPortals, but am open to suggestions. That way it would be integrated into the project space. Thanks, Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 13:33, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Well Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals/Wanted portals (or similar) sounds fine to me, sort of like Special:WantedPages and similar. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 14:18, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

@Dreamy Jazz, Evad37, Certes, and FR30799386: This bot is a fantastic idea -- please keep working on it. To help in this regard, I spotted a number of problems. First, the categories are misnamed. They say they are of templates, but they list multiple page types (articles, and even category pages) with portal calls which have redlinked portal parameters in them. The categories should be simplified/renamed to "Pages with redlinked portals". Second, none of the entries in Category:Portal templates with redlinked portals appear to have any redlinked portals on them at all (I did a random sampling). Third, we don't have a way to quickly make a portal on any subject, and so the redlinks should probably be removed altogether, rather than merely listed as "portals wanted". Fourth, it isn't clear how the categories you mentioned are populated, nor if they actually include all the redlinks. It might be better to work off of "What links here" to check all instances of ((Portal)) for redlinks. I would wait to open a BRFA until the underlying system works as intended, and the bot does the whole job (finds all portal redlinks). Going beyond this, by removing the redlinks would make this an even more incredible bot that would save much editor labor. Thoughts?    — The Transhumanist   18:14, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

P.S.: @AfroThundr3007730: (ping).

In answer to above: the pages are added to categories if a portal is redlinked. I would oppose outright removing them from the template as if the portal is then created it would be automatically linked to by relevant articles. The not seems to work (except on one blue link, but this may be a configuration issue on the page in question not the bot). I think the hiding of portals, which is what is happening is what you want, so the system is fine. If you do rename the categories please tell me, otherwise my bot will break! Separately we could look for all redlinked (so redlinks not through ((Portal)) and the like. I think we could try this through SQL and quarry? I am unsure currently, but if this is wanted I'll be happy to implement if possible. I think all redlinked should be covered anyway because it is unlikely on articles to link directly without the template. Thanks, Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 18:43, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification in the subsection below. Wow. The portal template/module hides the redlinks, which serves as well as deletion, with the benefit of activating them later once the portals get built. That works for me. Nice innovation. Keep zooming us into the future!    — The Transhumanist   10:47, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

@AfroThundr3007730 and The Transhumanist: Do you think that the bot's updates to the page should be seen in watchlists? need to know for whether my bot gets the bot flag Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 08:18, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Yes: transparency is generally a good thing.    — The Transhumanist   10:47, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

The bot flag wouldn't really make it less transparent though. The flag would give people who don't care about bot edits the ability to suppress them, but those who do care can still show bot edits. And couldn't you just not apply the bot flag for specific edits you wanted shown anyway? — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 13:16, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

@AfroThundr3007730 and The Transhumanist: Bot has been speedy approved, without the bot flag. Output page is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals/Wanted portals. Running the job manually now to find any errors in the change I made to update the page. Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 18:27, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Where is the category coming from?

This edit, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Ambassadors_to_the_Federated_States_of_Micronesia&diff=816540830&oldid=588131874, appears to have placed the category Category:Portal templates with redlinked portals (see the bottom of the page), but it doesn't show up in the diff.

Where is it coming from?    — The Transhumanist   18:14, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Removed. << FR 18:17, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: the category is added via modules so you won't see it in the diff. The category is named that way as it is inline with the other category which were already there. Neither will you see redlined portals unless specifically configured too: I changed the module to hide redlined portals by default, but this behaviour can be changed with consensus. There was a consensus for this on the talk page between two admins (and I then implemented this). Happy editing, Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 18:32, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Hidden redlinks. Cool. Along with your list building bot, that could be a very useful planning tool. Keep up the excellent work!    — The Transhumanist   10:47, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Several single page portals, keep their subpages and requests posted on Tasks were ignored. Guilherme Burn (talk) 13:26, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

@Guilherme Burn: Before deleting them, we need to determine if there is anything that is worth harvesting for the new portal, like pictures with customized captions, customized sections, etc. The subpages should sit there until all harvesting is completed. We're waiting on a software tool for the harvesting.    — The Transhumanist   19:52, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

So for now, better not list the subpages on Taks Talk page.Guilherme Burn (talk) 11:04, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Is there anyway to exert infoboxes along with text and images using the new codes for the portal system. Kind Regards, Pakieditor (talk) 12:07, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

@Pakieditor: Not with the current software. We could add a new option to keep the infobox but I think it would lead to several unpredictable errors, because infobox templates aren't designed with transcluded pages in mind. For example, a link to "Government of ((PAGENAME))" might pick up the portal name rather than the excerpt name. Many infobox templates also have side effects, such as making the article title italic or adding the page to a category, which we don't want repeated in the portal. I wonder if we could achieve what you want in some other way. Certes (talk) 12:36, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

@Certes: Thanks for the information. Now I can understand that why the new codes can not have this feature supported for now. Pakieditor (talk) 12:57, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

I opened a discussion at the Village pump, Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Hiatus_on_mass_creation_of_Portals. UnitedStatesian (talk) 14:35, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm impressed with the work which has gone into new portal designs and the image carousels. However the number of images and hence the amount of data being transferred is huge for some of these. Examples of some portals linked from the Main Page:

Portal:Arts

231 images, total 6.8 MB

Portal:Geography

375 images, total 11.8 MB

Portal:History

124 images, total 6.9 MB

Portal:Science

139 images, total 13.6 MB

Portal:Technology

136 images, total 7.7 MB

This is problematic especially for users on low-bandwidth or data capped connections. For comparison the Main Page currently clocks in at 310 kB for HTML and images combined. Is there any way to reduce the number of images which are initially loaded? the wub "?!" 00:06, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

@The wub: due to WikiText and Lua limitations, I don't believe we can do any dynamic loading of images on the page. If we could, the image slideshows could be expanded to encompass more images without fear of chewing up the readers' computer resources. Such an ability would require at least JavaScript though, so we try to compromise between keeping portals adequately "stocked" with content, and keeping the total size manageable. @Evad37 and Certes: If you have any ideas in this area, feel free to chime in. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 02:38, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

This is probably something that should be done by the MediaWiki software, to fix it for all slideshows on all wikis. I don't know if it is even possible to do with JavaScript that loads after the page itself loads like gadgets and site wide common.js (without a big messy hack that would break things for users without JavaScript) - Evad37 [talk] 03:04, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

To be honest, we're using wikitext for something it was never intended to do. If we were writing a website we'd probably load images on demand with JavaScript. The only suggestions I have are the obvious ones of lower resolution images or fewer images. One way to reduce the number of images would be to load just one high resolution image and to move the full gallery to a subpage. The simple way to do this is to have the subpage contain only the images, and to replace the "previous/next image" arrow buttons by a wikilink to it. The wikitext experts may have ways to make this look less clunky. Certes (talk) 11:31, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

You could just load a random selection of the images and have a carousel with at most 10 at a time? Alternatively, go back to the old way of loading only one image/article and petition MediaWiki developers to add a slideshow feature. —Kusma (t·c) 16:47, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

That's what's happening except that Module:Excerpt slideshow sets the default limit is 50, which is sometimes too high. Certes (talk) 17:00, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Can we reduce that limit then? Even bringing it down to 20 or 25 would be an improvement. the wub "?!" 23:04, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

When you go into a portal and "simplify" everything, please make sure you keep the portal colors the same or similar (unless they are unreadable). In most cases (such as with Portal:Studio Ghibli), the colors were chosen for a reason. Thank you! ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 23:09, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Please do make sure that colors meet the contrast standards at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility#Color though. I'm glad to say that Portal:Studio Ghibli looks fine :) the wub "?!" 23:29, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

@Nihonjoe: The ((Box-header colour)) template that was used on Portal:Studio Ghibli selected the color automatically based on a hash of the page title. We felt that would be suitable for the majority of portals where there wasn't a particular theme or reason for the color scheme. We could probably work to better determine when such a scheme is in place and preserve it though. @The wub: For the same reason, the color scheme is also ensured to be WCAG 2.0 compliant at at least the AA level. If you find cases where it is not, please let us know! — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 02:34, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

@AfroThundr3007730: In this case, the portal had a specific set of colors in use, and Transhumanist didn't bother to keep it. This is just another example of this project steamrolling over the efforts of others without much thought. Please try to avoid this in the future. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 20:00, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Module:Box-header ensures that automatically-selected colours are accessible, and adds a tracking category if manually selected colours are not compliant - Evad37 [talk] 02:39, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Oh, that's really cool. I haven't been involved with Module development much, it's great to see what is possible with them now! the wub "?!" 23:09, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Have you noticed problems with portals? Noticed stuff that got removed from them? Feel like the pictures aren't the best they can be? If so, help fix the problems at the Portal Cleanup Task Force. — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 23:16, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Those cleaning up portals should be careful that if they do revert to an earlier version, they check that version doesn't have its own substantial problems, like article blurbs that are either so out of date, or otherwise problematic (e.g. not NPOV), they are effectively content forks. This was one of the big problems with old style portals – especially for those without maintainers, which would be the case for most or all of the portals that got converted. (Note: I'm not advocating for full-automation, see my comments at WT:PORTG#Portal creation and deletion criteria proposal 6 re the appropriate use of semi-automation) - Evad37 [talk] 01:53, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Also, formatting or Lua errors can sometimes be easily fixed – they can be reported at WT:WPPORT/D - Evad37 [talk] 02:20, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the tips. — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 23:03, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Several portals are up for deletion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Alhambra, California. They are for smaller cities and communities, mostly in the US. ɱ (talk) 16:36, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Several threaded discussions are occurring at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard § Thousands of Portals, which includes a discussion about potentially mass-deleting thousands of portals via speedy deletion, at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard § Proposal 4: Provide for CSD criterion X3. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 17:48, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

A discussion is taking place at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion § Update P2 proposed regarding making changes to the WP:P2 criteria for speedy deletion for underpopulated portals. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 17:48, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

With thousands of portals being recently nominated for deletion at MfD, has WP:MFD become a runaround to the WP:ENDPORTALS debate, which closed as, "There exists a strong consensus against deleting or even deprecating portals at this time"? Thoughts, comments and discussion from all users regarding this matter is welcomed. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 18:52, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

That does seem to be the case.--Auric talk 19:06, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

The 2018 RfC stated that there were 1500 portals. We now have 1558, of which 228 are at MfD. The namespace is now of similar size to that we decided to keep, with (I hope) the worst old portals replaced by the best new ones. That feels like a good point to wrap up the deletion effort as a job well done, and concentrate future efforts on improving rather than removing the remaining portals. Certes (talk) 19:22, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

The portals RfC can only be taken to have approved of those portals that were in existence at the time that it occurred, and by extension others broadly similar. There's a lot of debate about what the consensus actually was, but IMO in no way did it suggest a several-fold expansion of portal space, nor the willy-nilly use of automation to create portals that weren't all properly checked after creation by a human editor. I agree with Certes that now we're back broadly to square one, perhaps the focus should move from removing the weeds to nurturing the plants – without prejudice to the occasional necessary bit of weeding. Espresso Addict (talk) 22:57, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Sigh. Yet another blast of @Northamerica1000's barrage of toxic ABF, which continues to poison all these discussions.

I have made over 100 MFD nominations for portals, all after detailed research. I have made it very clear that my aim is to remove portals which are broken, abandoned, or pointless forks, or based on narrow topics. I have repeatedly opposed MFD nominations which fall outside that scope, and also nominations based on false, incomplete or misleading assertions of fact. And I will continue to do so.

I estimate that there are likely to be about 100 more which have not be taken to MFD but should be. but that's only an estimate. I will continue to nominate at MFD any portals which fit those criteria, for as long as I find any, whatever the number is ... because I do not have a numerical target.

For the record, I will restate for the umpteenth time that I accept the outcome of WP:ENDPORTALS, which did indeed reach a consensus not to delete all portals. It would also be helpful if others would acknowledge that ENDPORTALS also gives no license to deprecate or restrain the community's ongoing maintenance process, or keep portals which fail the relevant policies.

I understand that this is uncomfortable for those who edit portals. So I again urge all those who want to improve portals to:

1. prioritise portals on whatever scale you agree
2. urgently build some process for systematically assessing and grading all remaining portals. If you continue to leave that task only to those of us who are clearing out crud like MFD:Portal Taipei, you will continue to be surprised.

And I also hope that you will vigorously oppose the blatantly ABF, counterfactual efforts by NA1K to frame the ongoing cleanup effort as runaround to the WP:ENDPORTALS debate. That sort of malign falsehood poisons the atmosphere.

And please, do try to restrain the WP:POINTy efforts of NA1K to sabotage the tracking category Category:All portals. That sort of disruption impedes the work of anyone interested in portals, whatever their perspective. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:03, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• Again, the same ugly, absurd accusations of "sabotage" as above at Collaboration – Country and major geographical Portals. Well, I already addressed this above, so I'll repost some of it here, so my post above isn't missed. I've worked hard to accurately restore automated portals to their pre-automated state. Any notion that this was done to thwart tracking tools is absolute nonsense. How on earth could one even think that the process of going through revisions, restoring to a stable, non-automated page, then fixing page layout issues, updating subpage links, requesting refunds at requests for undeletion, then waiting, then copy editing subpages, then fact checking, and then double checking to make everything is in order, could be so ignorantly misinterpreted as some sort of guise of "efforts to sabotage basic tracking tools". Absolutely ridiculous. You're wrong on every level here. You're also still trying to derail my post here to solicit assistance on a public noticeboard in hopes to improve portals, and hence, the encyclopedia. It seems that you're trying to saturate my post with negative notions, to discourage people from actually discussing improving portals. Being accused of "sabotage" for work to improve the encyclopedia, and in such a careless manner, is absolutely wrong. You seem to only assume bad faith with anyone that even moderately disagrees with you. It's unlikely that anything I say will convince you to moderate your attacks against my character, so perhaps I should just ignore them. We've never even met, yet you seem to enjoy smearing me and others. I am a valuable editor, an honest person, and an upstanding human being, and the truth is, you don't even know me. Stop making personal attacks against people on Wikipedia. Stop casting aspersions. Stop badgering. You seem to enjoy being able to say whatever you want since it's on the internet, but I live in the real world, where integrity and reputation matters. Apparently you have some sort of agenda, but your subjective opinions about supposed sabotage has no place here. Something is very, very wrong when a good-faith editor cannot make a single post at a public noticeboard on Wikipedia without being immediately being followed, hounded and even accused of sabotage by BrownHairedGirl. It needs to stop. Really, you need to allow others to respond, rather than trying to take over every discussion that I initiate with your badmouthing, WP:BAITING and WP:ASPERSIONS. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 20:24, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

NAIK, this is not complicated. You have chosen to engage in badmouthing, WP:BAITING and WP:ASPERSIONS, and also to actively sabotage monitoring tools. If you don't want to be challenged on that, then cleanup your act.

You based this whole section on a question which is basically "is everyone I disagree with about deletion acting in bad faith"? You got a suitable response, so cut the injured-innocent shtick, and cut the gaslighting game of claiming that its bad faith to call you out on it.

Your launching a collective smear and then complaining about being badgered is a thoroughly dishonest technique.

Indeed, I don't even know you. But I do know what you have been doing here today, and that's what I am criticising. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:03, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• So, is MfD being used as a runaround to WP:ENDPORTALS? Discussion about the actual notion of the initial post is welcomed. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 20:26, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
  • That repetition does not remove the blatant smear inherent in the question, which poses a malign interpretation of the conduct of others without even having the integrity to own the suggestion.

Discussion of the sleazy disingenuousness of this smear tactic is welcomed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:10, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks for the timely reminder that the deletion process should end with roughly what we had, rather than removing most traditional portals, and that we're close to that point. Going much further might constitute a runaround but, as long as that does not happen, we should assume good faith. I think that sending a final 100 or so pages to MfD sounds reasonable, and I trust BHG to nominate only portals with a strong case for deletion. I do feel that a few other editors have been over-eager at times but, with the main beaver no longer active, I hope that we are approaching a stable situation from which to improve. Certes (talk) 20:50, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• Given that a good number of the MfD discussions have closed as keep, I don't think a fear that MfD will lead to overturning of WP:ENDPORTALS is at all justified. UnitedStatesian (talk) 22:00, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• The post below is from my talk page. It's a couple of weeks old, but it serves to illustrate some matters regarding Portals on Wikipedia that are worthy of community notice. Posting here for posterity and final commentary, before I archive it at my talk page. Feel free to disagree, agree, whatever. It's subjective opinion. Maybe I should move it to an essay page and add a ((essay)) template atop the page. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 19:26, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Portal dilemma and vicious circle

A strange and unfortunate vicious circle exists regarding Wikipedia's portals at this time. At MfD, it has become apparent that fully-automated portals are not desired by many, as demonstrated by the hundreds of delete !votes for them there and deletions that have been occurring. A serious problem is that literally thousands of older, non-automated portal subpages were tagged en masse with this notice as being qualifiable per WP:G6 housekeeping speedy deletion based upon the premise that the pages were outdated per the existence of the newer automated portals that were created, which are now being deleted. So now, both new and old are all tagged up for deletion or potential deletion.

The G6 tagging jeopardizes the reversion of the disliked automated portals to previous, curated/manually created versions, because then users have the extra steps figuring out which pages were deleted, denoting it, requesting WP:REFUNDs for the deleted pages, waiting for the undeletion to occur, and then going back to the portal to make sure it works out and/or make corrections. It's a real time sink. The G6 notices also lack any <noinclude> markup, so when restoring a portal back to a non-automated state, the notice appears throughout the portal, even on the box-header and box-footer areas. Removing the notices is time-consuming, and some users may not understand how to access the transcluded subpages to remove the notices.

There seems to be some sort of bandwagon effect occurring, and some have become so excited about getting portal pages deleted, wherever they may be, that they may not be thinking matters through or performing research first. So, now hundreds of automated portals have been nominated for deletion, and meantime, thousands of portal subpages are marked for potential speedy deletion, which hinders the preservation of thousands and thousands of hours of editors' work in portal namespace. It's literally ass-backward. It goes to show that when overly an WP:EAGER, rampant desire for deletion on Wikipedia occurs, it can lead to real problems.

There are way too many discussions on too many various pages occurring about portals simultaneously, to the point that it's highly disorganized and nobody is in touch with what others are doing or discussing. Said discussions should all occur in one area, such as the Village Pump. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 00:54, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

That needs a response. So here it is.

• You really should read, understand and adhere to WP:AVOIDYOU. Yeah, I will get around to adding a category to portals, but how can I do so while still having to spend time here defending my character against your deletion agenda? Maybe you should ask people nicely, rather than smearing them, ordering them, and then smearing them again when they don't engage after first being smeared. Calm down, and drop the stick, already. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 21:03, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• I've been adding Category:All portals to portals I have been working on, but the funny thing is, the category was not present before I worked on them. It's unclear how I could have removed something from a page that was never there in the first place. BrownHairedGirl, could you provide diffs to any pages where I may have inadvertently removed the category? You're scolding me for removing categories via the process of reversion to non-automated portals, but in cross-checking, it was never there to begin with. Also, in the process of adding the cats that I didn't remove, I noticed that you added a tag to the Middle East portal, but it broke the entire portal in the process (diff). Could you please fix this, or should I fix it for you? North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 21:14, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• BrownHairedGirl: It appears that you prefer the category to be added using the ((Portal maintenance status)) template, but in the process, it is breaking portals, such as what occurred at Portal:Middle East when you added it (diff). It was fine before your addition (diff). The portal remains broken at this time after your addition. So, what's the problem with just adding the category manually (e.g. via hotcat), rather than using a template that is breaking portal layout? Is this a solution? Really, I want to do the right thing, but doing it your way is breaking portals, which also has an unfortunate effect of making them then more likely to be subsequently nominated for deletion per having errors. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 21:26, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• BrownHairedGirl: I tried re-doing the template at Portal:Middle East, but it is still breaking the portal. You stated repeatedly above about my supposedly "sabotaging" the categorization, but you're just entirely wrong. I actually don't mind adding the cat, but errors are occurring that ruin the page. The value of having an intact page is obviously much higher than adding a template to populate a category when doing so breaks the entire page. Not sure what to do about it for now. I will be logging off soon, so I'll check back later. Keep in mind that if you want to work with me constructively, I'm not against that, and I'm here to improve the encyclopedia. We may disagree about some matters, but I'm still willing to work in unison to improve Wikipedia. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 21:40, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

  I think the breakage is caused by <templatestyles src = "Portal styles/styles.css"/> which is the guts of ((Portal styles)) which appears near the end of ((Portal maintenance status)). This CSS imposes a two-column format, which works for the typical new automated portal but not for many traditional portals. Certes (talk) 21:47, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• (ec) I wonder if the ((Portal maintenance status)) template is becoming dysfunctional per the portals being reverted to older wiki-markup. As per discussion atop on this page, I and other editors have been reverting automated portals to their pre-automated versions, which is normative and functional. BHG has grossly misinterpreted this matter as being intentional "sabotage" on my part, "And please, do try to restrain the WP:POINTy efforts of NA1K to sabotage the tracking category Category:All portals"), but this is entirely wrong, and injust. I didn't notice the matter until it was brought up here. It can take a lot of work to restore a portal, and I am very disappointed at the repeated personal attacks above stating that problems with categorization after reversions were deliberate and "sabotage". It's really, really wrong, and really ugly to be falsely accused in such a grossly inappropriate manner. However, I can let it go. So, as per the above, regarding pages becoming broken, what can be done? North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 21:52, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• So per, "I think the breakage is caused by <code><templatestyles src = "Portal styles/styles.css"/>", am I to be blamed for somehow predicting this would occur, using some sort of psychic prediction about the matter, to then "sabotage" a simple portal category in the process of working to improve Wikipedia's portal pages? Really now. Absolute poppycock. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 22:04, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• Just to note, I added Category:All portals to portals per the above. BHG then quickly removed them, stating that the template should be used. Then, when the template didn't work right, BHG has now added the category back to the page (diff). I've been accused of sabotaging categorization per all of this bullshit, like that was the intent when restoring portals to pre-automated versions. Good faith editors working in sincere efforts to improve the encyclopedia should never have to face such bad faith accusations. The intent is to improve Wikipedia's portals, not to goof around with some category. The aspersions above against me on this page should be struck or redacted. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 22:16, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• On reflection, I was unfair to ((Portal styles)) which works well elsewhere. Oddly, the Middle East portal used <div class="portal-column-left"> and its right-side equivalent but all appeared as one column. When the CSS was added, it did as asked and created an almost blank second column. I've changed the portal not to request left and right columns. Now all the elements can work together harmoniously without splitting into two sides. (Here's hoping that the Middle East and the portal project can do so too.) I'm not attempting to allocate blame. Assumptions which are perfectly reasonable in isolation can conflict when they meet unexpectedly. Certes (talk) 22:23, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• I've been adding ((Portal maintenance status |<!-- ((subst:DATE)) --> |subpages= |nonstandard= |broken= |incomplete= |upgrade= |manual= |maintainer1= |maintainer2= |maintainer3= |maintainer4= |note=)) to portals I've been working on. Hopefully I won't be accused of sabotage if the template later causes problems. Certes, it was added to Portal:Oman by BrownHairedGirl (diff), and it has broken this portal as well. I guess BHG isn't checking their work afterwards, leaving portals broken, which is in its own way "sabotaging" portals in a much more serious, toxic manner. Is the category placement using the template worth having a bunch of broken portals around afterward? North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 22:42, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• I'll look at Oman. This is clearly a good-faith attempt to classify the portal rather than a (somewhat ineffective) act of sabotage. Certes (talk) 22:47, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

  A portal which is not in Category:All portals is broken, per WP:POG. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:30, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

• I'd say imperfect rather than broken. Most pages on Wikipedia are imperfect. If someone writes about a French jazz pianist without adding them to Category:French jazz pianists, we quietly add the missing category rather than dragging the creator off to impose sanctions. Certes (talk) 01:03, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

But I would say "broken", even if the deletion is accidental. Tracking categories must track. If it were a content category, as Category:French jazz pianists, I would agree. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:25, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

I feel that most portals about countries of the world and those about major geographical topics pass Wikipedia:Portal/Guidelines to qualify for standalone portals. Some of these portals need updating, checking for errors and correcting them when found, expansion with more content, and reversion to pre-automated versions when feasible. I have started a list below of portals I have recently worked on; feel free to further improve them if interested.

Please feel free to add to this list (along with your signature), in hopes to promote collaboration for the improvement of portals that clearly pass portal guidelines. When people work together, vast improvements are more easily realized. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 06:45, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• Portal:Afghanistan
• Portal:Jordan
• Portal:Middle East
• Portal:Nepal
• Portal:Northern Ireland
• Portal:Oman

– I have reverted almost all of these to pre-automated versions (except Portal:Jordan, which has been converted by other means), afterward working to expand and improve them. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 06:45, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

@Northamerica1000, please note that in the last 4 of that list, you left the portal without a ((Portal maintenance status)) tag. That has the very bad effect of removing the portal from Category:All portals. Last week, I ran an AWB check through your portalspace contribs list, and found several dozen portals which had been left without this template. In each case, I added a blank tag as below. I then used various techniques to find over 200 other portals which had no Portal maintenance status, and added it in each case.

Please can all editors check that this template is present on any portal they encounter? Just look at the bottom of the page, and if it's not in Category:All portals, just add ((Portal maintenance status |<!-- ((subst:DATE)) --> |subpages= |nonstandard= |broken= |incomplete= |upgrade= |manual= |maintainer1= |maintainer2= |maintainer3= |maintainer4= |note=)). Better still, fill in some of the assessment fields, if you have time.

Thanks. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:03, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• I've actually considered nominating ((Portal maintenance status)) for deletion at WP:TFD. For starters, the notion of demanding a "maintainer" for any Wikipedia content goes squarely against WP:NOTCOMPULSORY, a crucial part of the Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not policy. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 14:59, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• Wow. On stilts. Not only an inversion of policy, but a mooted WP:POINTy TFD in pursuit of the misreading. Even if you weren't so completely wrong about the policy, it would still be a quite spectacular act of disruption to empty Category:All portals plus about 5 other tracking cats, which would be one of the effects of deleting ((Portal maintenance status)).

Right now this project badly needs a lot more tracking tracking and triaging of portals. You you propose to empty about 6 tracking categories. I only wish that I could say it was unbelievable. And you wonder why I and so others are so highly critical of the portal project and portal fans???

Meanwhile, just for the record, @Northamerica1000, please clarify whether you removed ((Portal maintenance status)) frlom these pages because:

1. You don't like it, and thought that undisclosed removal was a step towards your goal, or
2. Because you didn't bother to check the unintended side-effects of your reverts on portal categorisation.

While you are at it, you could also explain your removal from Category:Redirect targets of redirected portals with existing subpages of Portal:Greater Los Angeles, and Portal:Ancient Egypt, and your removal of Category:Unredirected portals with existing subpages from Portal:Ancient Rome ... those being just the latest three of several dozen pages where you have reverted my recent edits which added similar tracking categories and explicitly noted that in the edit summary. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:56, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• This thread is about soliciting assistance to improve portals. You seem angry here, intent on derailing my notion of discussing improving portals, and rather than discussing improving portals, your're instead hammering away making demands for explanations. It's a unique appeal to emotion saying in bold "Wow" and that you're "on stilts", but it doesn't address the notion of actually improving portals, the thesis of this thread. Please, consider dropping the stick already. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 16:09, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• Y'know what, @Northamerica1000, I am a bit angry. And with good reason.

You have moaned all over MFD about how those nominating portals are not being constructive. Yet where we have one of the many ways a case in which I have spent a lot of time construcyively assisting all interested parties to track portals, only to find that you have not only been stealthily undoing my work, but are mulling demolishing the framework on which this tracking is built.

So yes, you do owe me and the wider community an explanation.

And cut all that appeal-to-emotion hand-wringing. You know perfectly well that it is the intro to a very substantive point about the community';s ability to track portals. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:11, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

I've added the cats back to the portals you stated above. I'll also watch for this in the future. It was overlooked, but not done intentionally. Could you please consider adding information to the new category pages you have created, such as these. It's rather ambiguous what they're being used for. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 00:30, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Collaboration – Country and major geographical Portals (2.0)

Per the hopeful prospect to encourage Wikipedia:Collaborations, I look forward to the notion of people discussing ways to improve portals here, now below. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 16:31, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

One crucial step on the path to improving portals would be for NA1K to stop removing portals from tracking categories, esp from Category:All portals. Please will you do that, NA1K? And fix those which you have already removed?

It's crucial because editors will find it hard to improve portals whose existence they are unaware of after you delist them.

Small thing, but it would be a huge help. I do hope that you can be constructive about this. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:15, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Well, Category:All portals isn't necessary when portals are categorized in more specific categories. Why is a generic cat even required, when cats are meant to be specific? Anyway, I'm more focused on macro matters, rather than micromanagement. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 17:31, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

If you want to propose the deletion of Category:All portals, then WP:CFD is thataway. If you want to start that discussion, then I will explain why the Category:All portals is an important tracking category, and I am sure others will do likewise.

Unless and until it is deleted by consensus, deliberately depopulating it is a form of disruption, which significantly impedes the work of other editors who are engaged in macro matters.

And I simply don't believe that you are being either sincere or honest in your claim that you are more focused on macro matters, rather than micromanagement. You have done nothing to propose or promote any measure towards broad consensus on categories, or to assist in analysis of them. On the contrary you post at length in multiple MFDs on marginal portals; you chose below to attack me for posting a link to statistics which were requested by another editor which help form part of the macro picture; and you glibly dismsiss requests that you cease and desist your disruption of the only place which give sthe single most most important all macro info: the list oaf all currently extant categories.

It's time for you to stop playing games, and stop your tendentious editing. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:46, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

You make many assumptions above, but the process of converting portals back to their non-automated state may at times omit some content from them on a temporary basis. Albeit, still not impressed by the notion of having to add an oversimplified, generic cat to further the agenda of "portal deletion enthusiasts". Seems like the cat is just being used as as a deletion directory, rather than to actually enable WP:READERS to find portals. It's hard to have a meaningful discussion when someone on the internet says "I don't believe you're being honest". After all, this is supposed to be a collaborative, congenial environment. That's a shame. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 18:04, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

@Northamerica1000, for clarity, I will do this as numbered points:

1. Transition back to non-automated state may have a more than temporary ill-effect. It will permanent negative effect on quality unless there is some solution to the long-term systemic problems that huge numbers of manual portals have not been maintained; some have been abandoned for a decade. I have repeatedly asked you and other to point for any attempt to eve work towards a framework for resolving that structural problem, but you have identified nothing. If you have anything to say on that, I'm listening.
2. If you visited Category:All portals, or even had the basic courtesy to read what I wrote before replying to me, you would be aware that Category:All portals a tracking category. That means that it is hidden from readers, and is for the use only of editors who have chosen to enable view-hidden-cats. So it never was any part of its purpose to assist readers; it was created
3. There are many more specific categories for tracking portals, e.g, the 20 automatically-populated subcats of Category:Automated portal pages tracking which I created. However, the single list has multiple uses both in the analysis of portals and in the simple task of providing an answer to the very basic question "what portals currently exist".
4. Like all tracking categories, Category:All portals may be used in many different ways. It helps identify gaps in coverage, identify new portals, track changes, and compile stats, and yes it is one of the many tools used by those looking junk categories which should be proposed for deletion. It was created in 2017 by Evad37.
5. By your refusals to fix the damage you have caused, you have now made it very clear that you are wilfully sabotaging the completeness of that category in order to impede the work of good faith editors who propose the deletion of portals. In doing so you are also sabotaging the work of editors who maintain, create and improve portals. That is classic WP:POINT conduct. Obviously, you or any other editor is free to open a CFD nomination, but if I find one further instance of you removing a portal from that category, I will seek sanctions on you.

But, please, do try actually being constructive. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:32, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• Nb. Users interested in Collaboration to improve portals can still communicate here, despite the off-topic discourse above. When people get together to improve Wikipedia content, it tends to improve rapidly. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 18:27, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
  • NB Editors interested in Collaboration to improve portals should read the discussion above, and take note of @Northamerica1000's efforts to sabotage basic tracking tools. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:34, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• Absurd. I've worked hard to accurately restore automated portals to their pre-automated state. Any notion that this was done to thwart tracking tools is absolute nonsense. How on earth could one even think that the process of going through revisions, restoring to a stable, non-automated page, then fixing page layout issues, updating subpage links, requesting refunds at requests for undeletion, then waiting, then copy editing subpages, then fact checking, and then double checking to make everything is in order, could be so ignorantly misinterpreted as some sort of guise of "efforts to sabotage basic tracking tools". Absolutely ridiculous. You're wrong on every level here. You're also still trying to derail my post here to solicit assistance on a public noticeboard in hopes to improve portals, and hence, the encyclopedia. It seems that you're trying to saturate my post with negative notions, to discourage people from actually discussing improving portals. Being accused of "sabotage" for work to improve the encyclopedia, and in such a careless manner, is absolutely wrong. You seem to only assume bad faith with anyone that even moderately disagrees with you. It's unlikely that anything I say will convince you to moderate your attacks against my character, so perhaps I should just ignore them. We've never even met, yet you seem to enjoy smearing me and others. I am a valuable editor, an honest person, and an upstanding human being, and the truth is, you don't even know me. Stop making personal attacks against people on Wikipedia. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 19:43, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• Nb. I've added the cats back to the portals you stated above. I'll also watch for this in the future. It was overlooked, but not done intentionally. Please try to assume good faith. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 01:08, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

• Important comment – BrownHairedGirl: Regarding the notion above stating, "if I find one further instance of you removing a portal from that category, I will seek sanctions on you", please keep in mind that when performing a reversion to a page that does not have the ((Portal maintenance status)) template or the All portals category present, there will be a short time when the categorization is not present, as per the reversion. I'll be sure to add the template, but only when it does not break portals, otherwise, I will manually add Category:All portals to the page. For example, in a post below, I have already found two instances where your addition of the template broke portals badly (diff, diff) which others are addressing. In the future, please check your work to ensure that the addition of a template to categorize a page does not break the entire page in the process.

I will again reiterate, when a reversion occurs, there will be a short time when the All portals category is not present. I hope you can moderate yourself to understand how this works, and can allow time for edits to set the category to actually occur. Also, if my internet connection goes out after I perform a reversion, and I cannot get the category in place, and if you then somehow just happen to notice this, perhaps you can add the template or category. Lastly, I feel that you have a significant conflict of interest if you plan on policing my work to improve portals, just waiting for one error to occur, and that your doing so would be quite inappropriate. I perform work to improve portals, whereas you perform lots of work to get portals deleted. You've demonstrated a disdain for portal editors, routinely referring to them in derogatory terms such as "the portal lovers", "defenders of portalspam", "portalspammers", etc. at various times. As such, your conflict of interest is apparent; those improving portals appear to go against your philosophy of working to get portals deleted. It's for you to understand right away that I won't be walking on eggshells worrying if BHG will report me because a category is missing on a portal page for awhile while I'm in the process of editing a portal, or if my internet connection goes out. That wouldn't be right at all, and goes against the very grain of Wikipedia's purpose. Hopefully you can take these notions into serious account. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 00:06, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Collaboration – Country and major geographical Portals (3.0)

Ways to improve portals can still be discussed here, now below. Thanks, and I look forward to the prospect of working with interested editors to improve the portals! North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 20:02, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

• The following topics meet WP:POG to qualify for standalone portals, but were recently deleted at MfD. I had reverted both to non-automated versions and was planning on expanding them, but both were nominated for deletion shortly thereafter, just hours after I performed the reversions. Of course, this left me no time to perform research, update and create portal subpages, adjust portal layout, etc. So, new portals would have to be made from scratch at this time. Per this, I will be adding the ((Under construction)) template to portals I will be working on in the future, to allow myself and others enough time to perform updating and maintenance. If anyone's interested in creating a new portal from scratch, below are two opportunities.

• Portal:Angola
• Portal:Myanmar

– North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 00:56, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

The Proposal 4: Provide for CSD criterion X3 proposal at the Administrators' noticeboard to create a speedy deletion criteria X3 for the deletion of automated portals created by User:The Transhumanist between April 2018 and March 2019 was closed as no consensus (permanent link). As such, the criteria was not added to Wikipedia's Criteria for speedy deletion page. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:55, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

A discussion is taking place as to whether 1,426 portal are suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether they should be deleted.

The pages will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Mass-created portals based on a single navbox until a consensus is reached, and anyone 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 pages during the discussion, including to improve the pages to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notices from the top of the pages. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 21:11, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

• Note. A further batch of portals has been added to this nomination. The total number of portals now included in this nomination is 2,698. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:57, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  • I have withdrawn the additional portals from the nomination. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:04, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.

– Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)