Discussions about WikiProject tasks

For discussions regarding ongoing WikiProject maintenance tasks in the portal namespace.

Right now, the highest-impact activities we can work on right now are:

1) Converting intro sections using ((Transclude lead excerpt)) on the portal base page. (So far, we've done the portals up through those starting with a "C"). This task can be done by hand, or with AWB.

2) Design automated selected article component. Specifically, we need a way that an editor can specify sources (such as categories), and have the articles that are listed there included as parameters in a selective transclusion template. For example, JL-Bot reads instructions posted by an editor, and then posts the desired entries at that location. We need to do almost the same thing, but the location of posting would be inside a template's wikicode, and instead of a list bullet, each entry would be preceded by a pipe.

3) Refining the slideshow component to work out the glitches.

All help on these would be most appreciated. Feel free to add further tasks of importance to this list. Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   18:49, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

For 2), ((Transclude list item excerpt)) can produce an excerpt from a list on a subpage populated by ((User:JL-Bot/Project content)). Certes (talk) 20:20, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm finding it highly useful for pulling links off of sections in outlines.    — The Transhumanist   05:22, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Update: We're converted the intros for most of the portals up through the S's.    — The Transhumanist   05:22, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I have converted Portal:Anatomy and Portal:Human body (about a hundred subpages, mostly duplicated templates) into single page portals, with many thanks to Pbsouthwood, مصعب, and The Transhumanist. The picture slideshow developed by Evad37 has been very useful. The benefits of single page portals have been spelt out before but in particular they are MUCH easier to edit and maintain (less pages, less cross-dependencies, and less need for manually intensive repetitive editing), and also much easier to ask other editors to collaborate on. Well done to this WikiProject. --Tom (LT) (talk) 09:06, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: Is it possible to update the 'List of all portals' list? It might be worth archiving the old one (for historical reference), although keeping older lists may become problematic in terms of size. Wpgbrown ^{talk | contribs} 11:45, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Updating Portal:Contents/Portals, which is intended to list all completed portals, from Portal talk:Contents/Portals#These are not listed yet, is one of our main ongoing tasks. It started out with 400 portals missing from the list, and now we're down to about 100 that still need to be added to it. Please work on it as much as you can. If those are not the lists you were referring to, please provide links, so we know what pages you are referring to.    — The Transhumanist   19:06, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: Sorry should have been clearer. I mean the lists on the WikiProject page in the watchlist section. All subpages under Wikipedia:WikiProject_Portal/List_of_all_portals. Wpgbrown ^{talk | contribs} 19:13, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

@Wpgbrown: Thank you for the clarification. Yes, and note that it would be beneficial to keep the redlinks, so we can visually track progress on the portal space clean up. It is from those pages that I get the number of pages that were deleted for my reports in the newsletter. New pages should definitely be added. Also, we need watchlist pages for tracking the talk pages, which are not currently included. If someone wants to tackle this, that would be great. I won't be able to get to it until my task list for this project gets whittled down a bit, and that could take another week or two.    — The Transhumanist   21:40, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: Thanks for the reply. I think that may be a good idea to have a list for talk pages. Also it may be worth to update the list every so often (could be every month or 2 months). Perhaps this could be done automatically by a bot (although that may be more trouble than it is worth)? Wpgbrown ^{talk | contribs} 21:43, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist and Wpgbrown: With the addition of the |incomplete= flag to ((portal maintenance status)), we can just tag the 'not ready' portals with the template to populate Category:Portals under construction, also killing two birds with one stone, since we need to tag all portals anyway. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 01:38, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

@AfroThundr3007730: For my edits it is easier to see one long list, as you can see easily any orphaned subpages and also see if there are still any introduction, category etc. subpages. Wpgbrown ^{talk | contribs} 06:44, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

This one pertains to all portals for which this section has not yet been converted.

Most portals show the categories by transcluding a subpage, like this or with some other code:

((/Categories))

All portals need to be converted to this code:

((#tag:categorytree|((PAGENAME))))

That will obsolete each portal's category subpage.

It won't work on absolutely every portal, and so ((PAGENAME)) will have to be replaced with an actual category name for those.

The header lines that start with ((/box-header also need to be changed. The second parameter configures the section edit link and currently specifies the subpage to edit. That needs to be changed to:

noedit=yes|

Important: note that it ends in a pipe. Without that, we've been getting weird results.

For the potals that use ((Box-header)), the second parameter should be left blank. That will cause no edit link to be displayed.

If the instructions above are confusing, or you have any other questions, please feel free to comment and ask questions. Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   20:51, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: Could we please have a list of portals where the categories have been upgraded?

Some portals may have custom category pages and/or multiple categories in the category section. These pages should be upgraded with caution, so to keep these category lists.

Also do not upgrade any maintained portals

 Comment: It may be worth making a list of pages that have /Categories pages that only have one cat list for the current portal name and then only upgrade the "basic" ones. Wpgbrown ^{talk | contribs} 22:06, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Most of the portals still present their intro by transcluding a subpage with a static excerpt in it. These (the subpage and the static excerpt) need to be replaced with a selective transclusion on the portal base page.

Since this task deals with subject content, rather than standard content like Associated Wikimedia, we need to skip curated portals (portals listed in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Specific portal maintainers list).

For most portals, this line will work:

((Transclude lead excerpt| ((PAGENAME)) | paragraphs=1-3 | files=1))

For some portals, the excerpt will not reside in the lead of an article sharing the same name with the portal. In those cases, the page name needs to be entered in manually as a parameter to the template.

But, there's more to this task than just the content line. The rest of the section box needs to be adjusted as well, the header because it contains an edit link to the subpage (that needs to be shut off), and the footer so that it contains the "Read more..." link).

For portals that use the /box-header in its intro section, its header line needs to be changed to this:

((/box-header|Introduction|noedit=yes|))

And we need to change the ((Box-footer)) line (of the intro box section only, to look like this:

((Box-footer|[[((PAGENAME))|Read more...]]))

That will place a "Read more..." link at the bottom of the section.

Good luck, have fun.    — The Transhumanist   06:44, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: Please could we have a list of pages that have been upgraded as quite a few of them may need to be marked for deletion (they will only be deleted if the introduction on those pages is similar enough to the introduction for the linked article).

Not all pages will have a 'linked article' and they may be customised to suit the portals needs. In the case that the introduction is not more or less the same, then please upgrade them with caution.

If the introduction on the 'linked article' is heavily different from the current introduction and you still plan to change it, mark the obsolete subpage as ((Historical)).

Also ensure that you do not upgrade any maintained portals.

Thanks Wpgbrown ^{talk | contribs} 22:00, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

@Dreamy Jazz: It will be easier to do this after the task is complete, that way, the list will only have to be created once (it'll require a pre-parse mode pass with AWB, no sense in doing multiple passes of this type if we don't have too - they are time consuming). See below...    — The Transhumanist   08:27, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Continuing work on intro sections

@Cesdeva, Checkingfax, Dan Koehl, Dreamy Jazz, Emir of Wikipedia, Mhhossein, Nick Moyes, Pbsouthwood, Robertgombos, Samee, TheGridExe, Vermont, Ɱ, and مصعب:

A few hundred of these have been done, using AWB. I think we are up through the D's. Twenty-two letters of the alphabet to go. Be sure to skip the manually maintained portals.

It's definitely an involved AWB task, as it requires many regexes, written as you go (every time the program stops without making a change), and multiple passes with the program.

Other than those working on the automation effort, this is where the main focus of everyone who can use AWB should be. We really need your help on this.

Please pick away at this task the best you can. Every little bit helps.    — The Transhumanist   08:00, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Where is the list of what has/has not been done? · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:03, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

@Pbsouthwood: For AWB tasks, we don't keep that kind of list, because AWB includes a powerful list maker, and because AWB includes powerful list processing features. So, we generate the list using its Make list feature at the beginning of the task. Then we filter and/or pre-parse the list to narrow it down before we start the main processing task.

For this task, you start with a list of all portals, and then whittle that down using various techniques, before you begin the actual search/replace task...

The work left to be done is in continuous flux, especially with multiple editors working on it (just like in the encyclopedia-at-large for most AWB tasks), and so, that is what "Skip" is for.

But, the best approach is to pre-process your list in AWB using pre-parse mode (in the Options menu) in conjunction with Skip. The way to do that is to first pull in a list of all portals (using "Links on page (only bluelinks)"), and then use the filter to get rid of any non-portal pages and portal subpages from the list. Then set "contains" under the Skip tab to ((Transclude lead excerpt. After you turn pre-parse mode on, hit Start, and AWB will strip from the list all of the pages that already have that template in them. That will leave you with a list of portals for which the intro section has not yet been processed.

Though you could just have Skip work while you process the whole list. But, that is time-consuming - you have to sit there waiting for the skips, which adds a lot of time to the task. Pre-parse mode, on the other hand, allows you to get up, stretch, and go heat up a meal while it does all the skipping all at once. But, remember to turn pre-parse mode off after you've used it to hone down the list!

Even though you turn off pre-parse mode to do the task, keep skip on, just in case someone else has completed the task on some of the pages. Otherwise, you'll have to skip them manually (by clicking on the "Skip" button).

I hope these instructions help. If you get lost or stuck, post your questions, and I'll gladly answer them.    — The Transhumanist   12:59, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't know how to do those things yet, so will continue with manual fixes as I find them. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:41, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

For manual editors, we'll definitely need a list. I'll have one for you soon.    — The Transhumanist   00:42, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

I'll also see if I can work up an easier-to-follow set of step-by-step AWB instructions. We need our AWB'ers to get up to speed. That learning curve can be a doozy.    — The Transhumanist   00:42, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: Could we create a category of portal pages that have opted in to automated maintenance? If so we could just load that category whenever we need to do an AWB task instead of having to mess around making a list each time we need a task doing. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 17:11, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

We could, but you'd still have to hone the list down, because not all of the portals on the list would need the edits. It adds up to extra work, because it does not get a particular problem: to make sure you got all the portals that haven't been added to the category but should have, you'd need to make a list of all portals and then remove the manually maintained ones from it (using AWB's list compare feature) anyways. You can't escape the core AWB procedure, which is to make a list, and then process it.

Once you get used to the make list features, it becomes second nature. You'll wonder how you could edit without them.    — The Transhumanist   00:42, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

If the portals did not need the edits they could simply be skipped, but I am saying could we make a category that excludes the manually maintained portals? --Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:09, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Problem cases

Portals without a proper root article: At least some of these cases seem to be quite appropriate portals, but I think the root articles should be created for them.

• An unusual problem: Portal:Ancient Germanic culture does not have a root article. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 18:39, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
• Portal:Medieval Britain has a stub root article, which is really an index list of related articles. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 08:25, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
• Portal:History of Imperial China does not have a root article · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:20, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
• Portal:Molecular and cellular biology does not have a root article with the same title (title is used for the eponymous publication) · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 12:43, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Other types of problem:

• Portal:Current events/Sports is listed as a portal in Portal:Contents/Portals, but it is a subpage. Is this intentional? · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 08:54, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
• Portal:Atmospheric sciences does not have an introduction section at all. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 17:21, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

The WP:Manual of Style/Portals draft guideline needs a lot of work. Presently it has a few tips/pointers, but they are mostly generalities, and many not be accounting for all of the current plans and what the output of them will be (e.g. due to automation). I've made a few more specific comments about this over at the portal assessment thread: [1].  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:12, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Discussions about WikiProject communications

For discussions related to the WikiProject and project communications.

@The Transhumanist, Cesdeva, Evad37, Wpgbrown, Pbsouthwood, Certes, and Waggers: and others. You probably already noticed, but I've been reorganizing all the things. Try as we might, no amount of manual curating is going to keep up with this massive talkpage. If we wanted to keep the size to a (relatively) reasonable sub-150k, we'd end up having to archive discussions older than 3 days. Not exactly conductive to healthy discussion. So as several people (myself included) have proposed, I'm prepping this page for splitting into a WP:VP style of subpage organization. The overall idea is to have the main talk page empty sans navigation template and explanatory help text, like the WP:VP main page, and move all discussion threads to topic-specific subpages. If necessary, we could fork the ((Village pump)) template, since most of the needed functionality is already there.

Please see this sandbox for an early alpha mockup of what the talk navigation header will eventually look like. I welcome your inputs and improvements to this as I'm not a template guru (although I'm getting there), and I'd also like your inputs on which sections should go where. The number of subpages isn't set in stone; we can use however many (or few) we need for efficient and effective WikiProject talk organization. For those that still want all the discussion on one page, we can also add an "all topics" subpage that transcludes all the other subpages for consolidated viewing as well, same as WP:VPA does.

As always, looking forward to your input and suggestions. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 03:11, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

PS: The contents of the main talk page archives 4 and 5 would also be migrated to their topic-specific subpage archives (or un-archived, if they're still relevant). Archives 1-3 would stay as-is, since they precede the project reboot. Also, the main page doesn't have to be a discussion no-man's land. It can be used to triage new discussions from incoming editors, if necessary. Although, if the template does it's job, they should know where to go. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 03:21, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

The sandbox content looks like a reasonable proposal. No obvious problems. This page is kind of difficult to navigate, so the need exists. Early archiving would be problematic and should be avoided. The proposed structure looks quite usable to me. but there may be prefences and counterproposals from others. I would suport using a structure recognisably similar to the familiar arrangements at Village Pump, GA or FA. Re-use existing templates if they work. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:26, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Agree with above. However, we will want to ensure that any new editor who wants to help/join this WikiProject can navigate through the proposed talk page with relative ease. Forking the village pump template may be a good idea. Wpgbrown (talk) 07:32, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you; that needed doing. The sandbox looks good to me, but the exact layout is less urgent than getting the content divided. Certes (talk) 09:28, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

@Wpgbrown: For new editors, a triage section on the main talk page to the effect of

If you know what topic you're discussing please post it on the relevant subpage. If you're not sure, you can post it here and it will be moved for you.

would do fine for helping any incoming new editors. @Pbsouthwood: Alternative proposals on structure are welcome, of course. Although I do believe it will end up looking similar to the Village Pump anyway. To that effect, I'll fork the Village Pump template and start from there. @Cesdeva: Indeed, I mainly want to get the subpage divisions and scopes ironed out before implementing, to prevent additional moves and reorganization from disrupting the discussions. If we can agree on the subpage scheme, I can move the conversations now, and just use a few links for navigation until the template is ready. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 11:52, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Talk page migration: Feedback Requested

@The Transhumanist, Cesdeva, Evad37, Wpgbrown, Pbsouthwood, Certes, and Waggers: I have polished up my fork of the village pump template. You can take a look at it here: ((WikiProject Portals talk navigation)) From there, you can see that all of the linked subpages have been created and are ready for discussion transplanting. All that remains is to actually move the conversations and place the template on this talk page. Before that goes live, I wanted to get a few more eyes on the template and the subpages setup. See this mockup which lists the tentative destinations for the current and future discussion areas. Let me know if you see something that can be improved or fixed. Also, I still haven't settled on a final button layout for the template. See this edit for the variants I was considering. As always, your questions, comments, and suggestions on this is appreciated. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 03:51, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Nice job with the VP template transform. Concerning the scope of the categories, with most of portal development being about automation, doesn't that make technical discussion and portal development discussion the same thing?    — The Transhumanist   04:57, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Looks good. I see no immediately obvious problems. I think there will be overlap between the intuitive scope for technical and development, but quite a bit that would be conveniently separated, so worth testing. If there is a mostly overlap they could be merged. I dont think this will happen, as there is a lot of potential development that is not directly technical, and a lot of technical that is quite specialised. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 05:13, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Sorry I've come to this late - the mockup looks really good and I certainly have no major objection to the idea. Having said that I'm not entirely sure it's necessary - I think this talk page is seeing quite a flurry of activity during the "rebirth" of the project, and while the various templates etc. are devised, but once that's done and we have a general way forward I think the talk page activity will slow right down.

I just wish en.wiki had adopted WP:FLOW, it would have made this kind of thing much easier - but that's not a discussion for here. WaggersTALK 09:08, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Seems alright to me. I'm not sure we need quite so many subpages though, I don't think we'e quite as busy the VP is. I would suggest starting with three subpages, and see how it goes from there:

1. Project administration, tasks, and policy discussions (since policy matters don't come up as much, and are often pointers to discussions elsewhere)
2. Portal development, ideas, and technical matters (since technical matters naturally flow on from portal ideas or problems. And per The Transhumanist sometimes there isn't always a distinct line, with technical developments inspiring new ideas)
3. General – everything else

But I'm also willing to try the proposed subpages, and see what happens - Evad37 [talk] 01:07, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/General

 – (pre discussion split and migration)

@AfroThundr3007730: Paginae quae nos volo ut satus project per haec nunc? Cesdeva ^(talk) 17:09, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Lol, thanks Google Translate. Yeah, now that I'm not busy with work, I'll begin the transplant of the top-level topics to their assigned subpages. That is, as long as nobody else has problems with the proposed layout. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 19:52, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

OK, cheers. Ya i used Google Translate too. Cesdeva ^(talk) 20:56, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Talk page migration: Aftermath

@The Transhumanist, Cesdeva, Evad37, Wpgbrown, Pbsouthwood, Certes, and Waggers: Well as everyone can see, the pages have been split. A page size of 350k was a bit on the heavy side, if you ask me. There is still some minor cleanup to be done. For one, the contents of main page archives 4 and 5 should be sorted to their topic specific subpages, and if no longer relevant, archived on their respective subpages. Please let me know of any questions or concerns you may have about the new layout. There's still room for tweaking, and we'll probably be doing that for a while until everything is settled the way we want it. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 22:12, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for the good work and making my (and others) lives easier! Wpgbrown ^{talk | contribs} 22:13, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: If I'd known you'd archive 90% of the discussions with extreme prejudice, I could've left them all on one page. In any case, I think the contents of WikiProject Portals/Archive 4 and WikiProject Portals/Archive 5 should be migrated to their final homes in the subpage archives. That would leave the original archives for the old project in place. Any objections? — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 00:39, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. By the way, the subpaging is good. Nice job. Provides room to grow.    — The Transhumanist   01:02, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: We don't really need to archive all the stale conversations right away unless they no longer hold relevance here. Part of the reason for the split was so we would be able to keep relevant threads up longer (around 30 days max, ideally) for those who don't check in as often. I know many are less inclined to check the archives before starting a duplicate discussion (despite the very prominent search box) so keeping the older threads up for a while would be useful.

Also since some of our current conventions, pseudo-guidelines, and other errata developed in these discussions haven't been properly documented elsewhere yet, these discussions serve as an interim guide. That, and it doesn't hurt to let them collect more passing comments that might contribute something useful. I'm also thinking manual archiving might be unnecessary at this point, since the bot should be able to handle H2 sections just fine. Though immediate archival might make sense for threads that were completely resolved and now hold only historical relevance. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 04:18, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Here's a WikiAd (created by Wpgbrown) that you could place on your talk page and/or user page to help get editors to join this WikiProject:

Wikipedia ads	file info – #267

When I'm not distracted by that, I'm a JavaScript programmer interested in learning the entire JavaScript ecosystem and applying it to writing user scripts.

We could use all the help we can get.

Cheers.    — The Transhumanist   23:24, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Discussions about cleanup of WP:SOCK aftermath

Section for discussing the JLJ001 cleanup.

Based on the list provide by AfroThundr (talk · contribs) at Wikipedia:Requests_for_undeletion#Undeletion_of_pages_that_User:JLJ001_was_attached_to, I have undeleted the following templates which seemed the most useful to me:

• ((Portal selected quote layout))
• ((Dead simple portal))
• ((Modern portal))

Undeletion of ((Portal:Contents/Portals)) failed because of a title blacklist entry: <errmsg=titleblacklist-custom-repeated-namespace-prefix> I'd be happy to make the wikicode available to any interested party who can develop it further without namespace errors. I'd also be willing to consider further undeletions if a compelling case can be made for their usefulness. Cactus.man ✍ 20:18, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

• @Cactus.man: Thank you. If nothing else seems useful then that's the job done. If Portal:Contents/Portal was the one with the gallery of buttons then it did show promise. We could resurrect it with a temporary title, or someone with more artistic talent than me (i.e. anyone) could start from scratch. I still fancy Portal:Portal (also blacklisted for the same reason) as a page title! Certes (talk) 21:28, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

From recollection, the buttons were a separate template named 'Portal button 2' or 3. They were stripped down versions of ((PortalButton)) which wasn't stable enough at the time.

The main two challenges are creating new icons and getting the layout to work for narrow screens (which at least needs media queries). Cesdeva ^(talk) 22:28, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

So do we still need the deleted buttons, or are we good with the current template? — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 22:43, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm 75% sure the current template will work for that. JLJ was using really small icons, which as a use hasn't received a lot of testing. If you look here for instance, you'll see they behave at a large size at least. They don't normally look like circles, that's just something I was testing. I believe the current portal contents icons/images are varying dimensions, which also makes things trickier. That's one reason we need new icons. Cesdeva ^(talk) 22:56, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

• @Cactus.man: First off, thanks for that. I would like to ask, however that the related pages to those templates be restored as well. All of them should have a documentation and a talk page, which weren't restored yet (see the full list of deleted pages in the collapsed section above this one for reference). There are also a few others on the list I posted that I would like to restore as well, if you're willing.

I can't exactly assess the usefulness of the portal flag templates in their current state, as I don't know how far JLJ001 got, and I can't see the wikicode of the template pages (being deleted and all). I can say that their intended use upon completion was for tagging multiple metadata about portals so we could take that data into account when we do maintenance runs, see #New Markers for details on that. As for the pages hitting a title blacklist, if you could provide the wikicode, we'll deal with it manually. Thanks for your help in this matter. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 22:33, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Actually, a wikicode dump of all the remaining templates (and pages in general) would be useful. We can then restore any further pages manually if they're still useful. If I could pull the wikitext of nonexistent pages, we could sort this ourselves and wouldn't need to keep bugging you. Thanks again for your help. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 22:41, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

@ AfroThundr - I'll get to work on that tomorrow and probably post it to one of my User Subpages and announce here when it's all done. Cactus.man ✍ 23:33, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

OK, the first batch is complete, comprising the wikitext from most recent usable versions of deleted templates and associated talkpages. This can be seen at User:Cactus.man/WPPORT/Deleted/Templates. I think I've covered all the ones listed in the log shown in the collapsible link above, but let me know if I missed any. I'll get to work on the general portal items and miscellaneous others tomorrow, Cactus.man ✍ 21:04, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Now complete for general portal items and miscellaneous others I think. As before, let me know if I missed any out. The final contents are split over 3 pages at:User:Cactus.man/WPPORT/Deleted/Other_Page1, User:Cactus.man/WPPORT/Deleted/Other_Page2 and User:Cactus.man/WPPORT/Deleted/Other_Page3. Cactus.man ✍ 12:17, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks a bunch for this! Now we can go through and restore anything else we might need. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 22:59, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist, Certes, Evad37, Cesdeva, and Wpgbrown: Now that Cactus.man has helpfully provided the wikitext of the deleted pages for us, we should go through them and decide what we want to restore. I notice several portals in the list that should probably get restored, along with the templates they depend on, several of which I've restored already (see blue links in page list above). What are your thoughts on this? — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 06:19, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

We could recreate the portal's that were deleted, but to ensure that they are no longer eligible for G5 (because they were still technically JLJ001's work), someone would need to edit them significantly enough so that the pages have 'substantial edits by others'. Wpgbrown (talk) 14:06, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Portal undeletion request

@Ancheta Wis, Andrewa, Cactus.man, Hiding, Keith D, and Nihonjoe: @Northamerica1000, OhanaUnited, Paulmcdonald, Pbsouthwood, and RockMagnetist: @RL0919, Slambo, and Waggers:

Portal:Suffolk was deleted, because it was created by a sock puppet. What is of interest to me is that the user applied an interactive map using the Kartographer extension.

We need this portal undeleted, for 2 reasons: 1) so we don't have to rebuild it from scratch, and 2) to see how the map was done. The comments of the deleting admin concerning undos are to be found at User talk:Ansh666/Archive 9#. There, he stated "Sorry, I am not going to restore the illicit work of an effectively globally banned LTA. Perhaps someone else will, but not me." (LTA stands for "long-term abuser").    — The Transhumanist   23:15, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

It is best if this is handled via consensus, so, please discuss the relevant issues below, and come to a decision on how best to proceed (should it be undeleted?, remain deleted?, etc.). [edit conflict] In case it becomes relevant, a record of the user's deleted pages is reported here: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Admin/Archive 1#JLJ001 Pages from deletion log.    — The Transhumanist   00:20, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

In the original restoration thread (restored above), Cactus.man provided the wikitext dumps of all the deleted pages. Some of them (templates mostly) I've already restored. The portal pagess I left unrestored pending further discussion here. It should be relatively straightforward to recreate those portals from their original content, with any template changes added in. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 00:12, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

If you just want a interactive mapframe (Kartographer) map, you can use ((maplink)) with |frame=yes (and whatever other parameters are required) - Evad37 [talk] 00:30, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

I was hoping to see an example.    — The Transhumanist   01:04, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Requests for Admin assistance

@Primefac, Amorymeltzer, Pbsouthwood, and Waggers:

The Associated Wikimedia sections on the portals have been upgraded to no longer need subpages. Below is a list of the wikimedia subpages of portals. Please speedy delete them.

If deleting any of these creates a redlink on a portal, I'll be happy to replace such with an appropriate template call using ((Wikimedia for portals)). That would be easier and more to the point than undeleting a subpage.

Without further ado, here's the list (generated using SearchSuite and wikEd):

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   12:27, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

 Done I spot-checked maybe 150-200 of these, only found three being used (Portal:Water sports, Portal:Rugby union, and Portal:Tennessee/Tabs) so this seems fine. LMK if I screwed it all up, I'll keep checking for others. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:45, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I've gone through WhatLinksHere for all of these, and replaced any transclusions with ((Wikimedia for portals)); counting the above, there were 22 uses. Most weren't on the main portal page, but rather on a separate tab or sandbox page. ((Education)) had a link as well, which was weird. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 15:53, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. You've been a big help in the portal namespace clean up effort. Only 140,000 more subpages to go. :)    — The Transhumanist   02:46, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

@Primefac, Amorymeltzer, Pbsouthwood, and Waggers:

Portal:Bangladesh Selected Picture section has been replaced with a slideshow. Please help delete:Portal:Bangladesh/Selected picture/n, where n = 1 to 26. Arman ^(Talk) 12:50, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

 Done ~ Amory (u • t • c) 00:59, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. Arman ^(Talk) 11:41, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

@Primefac, Amorymeltzer, Pbsouthwood, and Waggers:

Portal:Tamil civilization has been converted to a one-page design, and no longer makes use of subpages. Please speedy delete the following subpages per WP:G6 (Portal maintenance).

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   17:42, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

 Done ~ Amory (u • t • c) 01:33, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

The portal base pages for these no longer use them:

Note that the DYK subpages for Portal:Amphibians are not included, because they are still being used.

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   18:12, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

 Done Portal:Amphibians/DYK had a use of Portal:Amphibians/box-header so I took care of that. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 01:21, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't suppose we can use quarry to find all top-level portals pages with ((Portal maintenance status|subpages=single)) and pull all of their subpages? Or maybe a userscript would work for this. They should also be populating Category:Single-page portals, so we might be able to do subpage searches on each of its members. — AfroThundr ^{(U · T · C)} 07:44, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

@AfroThundr3007730: Is this list what you mean? Certes (talk) 11:08, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that's handy. Thanks. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 14:20, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Is there anywhere to list orphan subpages for future batches? For example, I just made Portal:The Big Bang Theory/Intro redundant. Certes (talk) 00:41, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

@Certes: Ok I see what you mean now. I had thought you were talking about subpages of single-page portals. AFAIK they were just listing them on this talk page and pinging an admin, though maybe we should setup a better method. Wpgbrown has a neat setup User:Wpgbrown/Portal Pages to Delete along with a tag you can use for the doomed subpages. Maybe we should go with that? — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 14:20, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

@Certes and AfroThundr3007730: For one time requests, it may be better using this talk page, but if you plan to be active in this way, then I would advise you to set up your own user subpage, so that an admin can see that only you have been adding to your deletion list. Wpgbrown ^{talk | contribs} 14:28, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Should we maybe setup a subpage for all of these in a central location (a project-space SfD)? Then the admins can have a canonical location from which to process the subpages awaiting deletion. This would also allow other project members to the list monitor and check them as well, and would also solve the problem of one-off requests and avoid unnecessary pollution of the tasks subpage. Essentially, this would formalize and adopt your process for this WikiProject. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 15:39, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

@AfroThundr3007730: We could, however, I would be wary of one big list, as it may be hard to check that all the pages are actually for deletion. We could have it where my tag populates a category, which an admin could cross reference, when deleting, although that could become complicated easily. Wpgbrown ^{talk | contribs} 21:20, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

The new project newsletter has a bunch of "newsbites" about various cool stuff. I went from "Yeah, yeah, more portal foo; I'm here for maintenance/integration/policy/guideline/gnome stuff" to, "Ooh, I want to add this to several portals right now."

The main page is a bit bewildering from this perspective, and is mostly a mixture of what's going on in the project – a workboard – and "how to set up a new, modern portal" stuff.

It would be mega-handy if there were a subpage on upgrading existing portals. More of a step-by-step or a cheatsheet than a FAQ per se. That is, documentation for topical editors who are coming here to work on a portal, rather than docs for people working on the project and "new portals" technology. In a sense, a portal for portal maintainers, if you will. :-)
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:48, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

PS: For that matter, a page on "how to set up an all-new modern portal" would also be of use, if that process would be significantly different (which seems likely - the newsletter mentioned some auto-templated portal creation kind of stuff, if I was reading it right). I would try this out, too. The only reason there's no Portal:Cue sports, for example, is lack of sufficient editors and editorial time to make it practical, but the increasing automation sounds like it might make it viable.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:52, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

You may be interested in Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals/Components, which demonstrates all of the templates in a mock-up. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 19:34, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Basic pointers - new portals

@SMcCandlish: To create new portals, see: Wikipedia:Portal/Instructions, which essentially says "add this to your portal page: ((subst:portal box skeleton)), Save, and then fill it in".

However, keep in mind, that we're not "there" yet. That is, we aren't done designing the all-new-modern-portal. ((Portal box skeleton)) is the template we're upgrading, but it is only about half automated so far.

I did an experiment and created some fresh portals to see how long it takes to make a portal using that template in its current state. From one to three hours each. That's down from 6 to 8 hours using the old methods. Though, if you get sucked into tinkering with a portal, you could still get lost in the activity for days.

When the template is done being upgraded, it will likely take about 10 minutes to create a new portal.

Basic points - converting existing portals

To modernize existing portals, just pull the components you need out of ((portal box skeleton)).

For guidance on what sections to include in a portal, see Wikipedia: Portal guidelines.

I hope the above pointers help. Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   07:36, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

P.S.: There's more (see sections, below)...

Another conversion approach

@SMcCandlish:

If the new portal is going to be more extensive than the old one, one option is to just start over from scratch. Simply blank the page and substitute the template ((Portal box skeleton)) onto the page, and fill in the blank arguments (page names and filenames, mostly). Save, and adjust the new portal as needed. I wouldn't do this unless you plan to complete the portal in a single session. The typical subject takes 1 to 3 hours using this template. Hope this helps. Have fun. ;)    — The Transhumanist   06:56, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

I might try that at some point, but as the process for just creating a new cue sports one. For something like the cats portal, other people care about it, and might object strenuously to a TNT approach. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:21, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Would you like to look before you leap?

Using SearchSuite.js, on the advanced search page with just the portals box checkmarked, search for insource="Random slideshow"

In the tools menu on the sidebar, click on SR Details (turn off) to get a straight list. Click SR Sort (turn on) and the list will be automatically sorted alphabetically. If you want to insert that list as links onto a page for later reference, preformat it by clicking SR Wikify (turn on). Once you've clicked a setting, it will stay in that mode for all your searches until you click on it again. Enjoy.

You can do the same thing to find examples of the other new tools being applied.

Or, you could use examples of portals that use the latest techniques, and copy and paste what you need out of them. Be aware that the Associated Wikimedia section is adjusted by subject (non-places get voy=no , while non-animals get species=no; but keep in mind DO NOT USE "=yes", as that will look up places named "yes" in WikiVoyage, and will look up species named "yes" in WikiSpecies).

• Portal:Algae
• Portal:Amphibians
• Portal:Ancient Tamil civilization
• Portal:Reference works
• Portal:Reptiles
• Portal:Sacramento
• Portal:Telephones (empty slideshow – please add some pictures)

I hope you find these tips useful.    — The Transhumanist   07:36, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for all the above. I'll try to dig into it soon, but am in the midst of an article overhaul.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:18, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

@Primefac, Amorymeltzer, Pbsouthwood, and Waggers:

I converted several city portals to the one-page model, obsoleting their subpages. Here's a list of the subpages that need to be deleted:

• Portal:Dubai/Categories
• Portal:Dubai/Did you know
• Portal:Dubai/Dubai news/Wikinews
• Portal:Dubai/In the news
• Portal:Dubai/Intro
• Portal:Dubai/Related
• Portal:Dubai/Related portals
• Portal:Dubai/Selected article/1
• Portal:Dubai/Selected article/2
• Portal:Dubai/Selected article/7
• Portal:Dubai/Selected biography/1
• Portal:Dubai/Selected panorama/1
• Portal:Dubai/Selected panorama/Layout
• Portal:Dubai/Selected picture/1
• Portal:Dubai/Topics
• Portal:Dubai/box-header
• Portal:Milan/Categories
• Portal:Milan/Did you know
• Portal:Milan/Related portals
• Portal:Milan/Selected article
• Portal:Milan/Selected picture
• Portal:Milan/Things you can do
• Portal:Milan/box-header
• Portal:Milan/introduction
• Portal:Munich/Anniversaries/November
• Portal:Munich/Categories
• Portal:Munich/Did you know
• Portal:Munich/Intro
• Portal:Munich/Munich news
• Portal:Munich/Picture of the Month
• Portal:Munich/Related portals
• Portal:Munich/Selected article/2009/February
• Portal:Munich/Selected article/2009/January
• Portal:Munich/Selected article/2009/March
• Portal:Munich/Selected picture/2009/February
• Portal:Munich/Selected picture/2009/January
• Portal:Munich/Selected picture/2009/March
• Portal:Munich/Things you can do
• Portal:Munich/Topics
• Portal:Munich/box-footer
• Portal:Munich/box-header
• Portal:Milano
• Portal:Prague/Categories
• Portal:Prague/Did you know
• Portal:Prague/Intro
• Portal:Prague/Prague events
• Portal:Prague/Prague news
• Portal:Prague/Selected article
• Portal:Prague/Selected picture
• Portal:Prague/Things you can do
• Portal:Prague/box-header
• Portal:Vienna/Categories
• Portal:Vienna/Did you know
• Portal:Vienna/Intro
• Portal:Vienna/News
• Portal:Vienna/Opentask
• Portal:Vienna/Projects
• Portal:Vienna/Related portals
• Portal:Vienna/Selected article
• Portal:Vienna/Selected article/1
• Portal:Vienna/Selected article/2
• Portal:Vienna/Selected biography
• Portal:Vienna/Selected biography/1
• Portal:Vienna/Selected biography/2
• Portal:Vienna/Selected biography/3
• Portal:Vienna/Selected biography/4
• Portal:Vienna/Selected picture
• Portal:Vienna/Selected picture/1
• Portal:Vienna/Selected picture/2
• Portal:Vienna/Selected picture/3
• Portal:Vienna/Selected picture/4
• Portal:Vienna/Selected picture/5
• Portal:Vienna/Selected picture/6
• Portal:Vienna/Selected picture/7
• Portal:Vienna/Topics
• Portal:Vienna/box-footer
• Portal:Vienna/box-header

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   06:18, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

 Done · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:45, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

RfC Announcements

Section for RfC and other discussions requiring wider community input.

Not a formal RfC, but comment are wanted at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Making_widely-used_icons_consistent_and_modern.

The idea is to update icons with newer "material design" icons, and it has been identified that this includes portals. JLJ001 (talk) 19:46, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

 In progress

 – Started by JLJ001 (talk) on 19:46, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Discussions about portal namespace organization

For discussions regarding cleanup and organization of the portal namespace.

Discussions about new portals or specific portals

For non-technical discussions about new portal creations, or specific existing portals.

Portal:Reptiles, a page relevant to this WikiProject, has been nominated for deletion. Opinions on the matter are welcome; interested editors may participate in the discussion by adding comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Reptiles and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). Feel free to edit the content of Portal:Reptiles during the discussion but do not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 03:46, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

The result was keep.    — The Transhumanist   08:16, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Category:Bplus-Class articles, which is within the scope of this wikiproject, has been nominated for deletion. A discussion is taking place to see if it abides with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:41, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

These colour combinations are recommended as minimum acceptable contrast for portal box headers. It would be good practice to comply with this in terms of MOS:ACCESSIBILITY

First 5 columns and table syntax taken from User:RexxS/AAAcolour. Rest of table from User:EvergreenFir/sandbox1

Linked text is blue, so if there will be links in the box-eader, you need to check whether the background is compliant when the foreground colour is #0645AD. (unvisited links)

Should we put this up somewhere in the guidance for portal building? This is not the whole story, but we can add additional cases as we develop them. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 20:24, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

There is a tool for testing at Snook's Colour Contrast Check · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 20:27, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

What we should do is check the Box-header color palette versions, since they are what we're recommending for modern/single-page portals – but note that box headings use a large font size (approx 19 to 21px in most skins), so would have a larger range of acceptable colours. Portals using other colour schemes would still need to be checked individually, unless both the foreground and background colours exactly match the chart, so it's probably better to just have a link to the tool, or to MOS:COLOR which itself link to multiple tools (including Snook's). - Evad37 [talk] 00:44, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Seems like a reasonable plan. I will look into it. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:19, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

I assume we will be deprecating the use of /Box-header subpages in favour of direct use of the numbered box headers? I also see that the palette does not include dark colours which would use white foreground. Should we add an extra colour to each set which is dark enough to use white foreground?

I have added a demonstration white on dark option at H180 for ((Box-header/22W)) that is AAA compliant, as I intend to use it and the existing H180 box headers in Portal:Underwater diving. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 09:53, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, those subpages should be deprecated. But rather than creating more and more color palette versions, it may be better to create a template/Lua module that chooses appropriate colours, calculated automatically based on either a colour name (e.g. 'red', 'green', etc) or a hue value (0 to 359), as well as a description (e.g. 'normal', 'light', 'dark'). That would allow for a huge amount of customisation while keeping the content accessible, and without needing dozens of very similar templates. - Evad37 [talk] 10:14, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

@Evad37: I like the sound of this. Do you have a prototype we can play with yet? :)    — The Transhumanist   02:13, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

A much better solution. Go for it. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:06, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist and Pbsouthwood: I've got a prototype version at Module:Sandbox/Evad37/Box-header and ((User:Evad37/Template:Box-header colour)). The template has parameters:

• |colour= or |color= which can be the hue as a number (between 0 and 359), or a colour name (like aqua), or a hex triplet (like #92c or #6956D7)
• |mode= optional; either lightest, light, normal, dark, or darkest

as well as the usual Box-header/## parameters

• |1= for the title
• |2= optional; edit page link

At the moment the module simply calls ((box-header)) with appropriate values, but I am thinking of implementing the whole thing in Lua - Evad37 [talk] 13:42, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

See User:Evad37/Sandbox 2 for some examples - Evad37 [talk] 14:23, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Nice toy tool! · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 14:54, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

I like this a lot. Once the wrinkles are ironed out, we should consider upgrading ((Box-header)) with this version. Then we can purge the /box-header subpages with extreme prejudice careful and judicial editing. Maybe even configure the new version with tracking categories for pages using the old syntax too. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 00:32, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't know if it would be practicable to recode ((Box-header)) this way, as it is in use in a lot of places with manually coded colour schemes, and there may be legitimate uses for some of them. Much as I like the idea of ensuring accessibility, there are accessible combinations that will not be available through the current code, and I see no reason to complicate the code excessively to deal with all possible cases. This template should be good for most cases as it stands - I don't know the algorithm for testing AAA accessibility, but trust that Evad37 has got it right for the limited case of black or white text, which should be enough for box headers for portals. Getting it to happen is more important that tweaking for edge cases that may not be needed. Perfect is the enemy of good enough, and this is already much more than good enough. The new template will need a name. ((Box-header colour)) or ((Portal box-header)) seem easy enough to remember, and available, or there may be a better name I have not thought of. The existing default border colour looks good to me. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:02, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

AfroThundr3007730, what do you mean by configure the new version with tracking categories for pages using the old syntax? · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:06, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

I meant if we were only going to allow the accessibility compliant schemes, manually specifying the individual colors would be deprecated, since the module would be handling them. If this version were to replace the existing template, we'd need to track pages still using the older syntax. Of course, if this is going to remain a separate template, that wouldn't really be necessary, since we can just pull a list all pages using the original template. I don't suppose we have any tools available to automatically assess specific template color combinations to ensure they're properly accessible? That would make it easier to only target the pages with problematic combinations. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 13:43, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist, Pbsouthwood, and AfroThundr3007730: I've moved it out of my userspace, so it's now at Module:Box-header and ((box-header colour)), and should be ready for use in portals. As for doing colour checks in the main Box-header template, that's a good idea, and is possible with the module... but rather than make changes to the actual template straight away, I've created a Lua version at ((Box-header/lua)) (which takes the same parameters) so that it can be tested on a smaller scale, and we'll have a chance to fix any bugs fixed before affecting the more than 8500 transclusions of ((Box-header)). Pages using the new template with bad colour combinations will be tracked in Category:Box-header with insufficient title contrast and Category:Box-header_with_insufficient_body_contrast - Evad37 [talk] 06:59, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Evad37, I will try it out immediately on Portal:Underwater diving and get back with feedback. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 08:16, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Evad37, I found and reported one bug at the template talk page. It does not look too bad. The edit button seems to give a URL with an extraneous trailing pipe. Have only tested on one portal, and only one use has an edit button, so just a small test. Otherwise seems good, and I will probably convert another portal soon as another check. I like this a lot, it is easy and intuitive to use and does a great job. A worthy addition to the toolbox. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:19, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I have a few ideas for new portals I'd like to create, but I'm a little tentative doing so as I'm aware we don't really have a portal equivalent of WP:N. I seem to recall there was some discussion about this before - I think I even commented on it - but can't easily find it; did we establish any agreement around what makes a topic suitable or otherwise for a portal? WaggersTALK 15:36, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Notability criteria was discussed at some point on one of these talk pages, or on that Portal RfC (see WP:ENDPORTALS#Notability for Portal). I'm not sure that the issue has been visited formally for inclusion in the portal guidelines yet. If it's not in the guidelines already, we should probably start another discussion to iron out the criteria, then add them. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 16:42, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks AfroThundr, good to know I wasn't imagining it! WaggersTALK 11:46, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

@Waggers and AfroThundr3007730: WP:N applies the same to portals, via pass-through. Therefore, we don't want to touch notability, which ties in with verifiability and the requirement of providing reference citations. We should continue to rely on pass-through for those (that is, as portals contain only copies, the establishment of notability and verifiability at their destination links should be considered sufficient).

However, building portals also includes consideration of scope, that is, how much coverage there is on a subject. Portals are doorways. Doorways to what? Wikipedia's coverage of the respective subjects. If there was only one article on a subject, obviously, there would be no point in having a portal for that subject.

The bar, and how low it can go, has started to be tested at MfD, which is where this issue will be decided, regardless of what we put in a guideline. So far, Portal:Juanes pulled through with 45 article excerpts, Portal:Quidditch with 33 excerpts. My guess is, as long as there are half-a-dozen on-topic excerpts or pictures to populate a portal's various "Selected" sections, that justifies having a portal to improve presentation and navigation of the subject's material. Two or three just doesn't seem like enough, and one definitely isn't. A portal with just one excerpt per section isn't differentiated from being a regular article, and enters undesirable WP:CFORK territory.

That being said, I think for now, we should focus on converting the existing portals, rather than creating new ones. For 2 main reasons:

1) Fixing our existing portals is our biggest priority right now, and the main point of the RfC and the WikiProject revamp (that our portals have become unmaintained and out-of-date). We shouldn't spread ourselves thin. True, some new portals are being built to test the new technology, to see how long it takes to build portals with the new tools. Other than that, our present main goal is to convert current portals to a low maintenance mode. If we don't keep up the pace on this activity, the community may become restless and wonder why enough progress isn't being made upon their concerns.

2) We are in the midst of automating portals, including portal creation. When we are done, portals will take 10 minutes or less to create, rather than hours. So far, we have 3 sections automated. By Halloween, we should have most of the rest done. This is worth waiting for, for the sake of efficiency. Spend 5 hours creating a single portal now, or spend your time on #1 above until those 5 hours can create 30 portals. That's worth waiting for.

Thoughts?    — The Transhumanist   01:58, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Sounds very reasonable and sensible to me. Definitely worth keeping an eye on MfD to see what kind of conventions emerge.

I must confess to being a little reluctant to wade into existing portals (other than ones I was maintaining already) for fear of stepping on other users' toes. But the increasing use of ((Portal maintenance status)) should help with that. WaggersTALK 12:48, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

As a start, if the portal can comply with all the recommendations of Wikipedia:Portal_guidelines#Strongly_recommended, it is probably OK. There may be good reasons to differ, but explain them or be prepared for a challenge. More is usually better. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:38, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Is there a tool to automate or semi-automate the removing transclusions of deleted portals from articles? Daask (talk) 18:40, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Do you mean detecting and fixing cases where a portal attempts to transclude an article which doesn't exist? Transclusion templates could detect this and add the portal to Category:Excerpts from missing pages or similar. However, recording the identity of the missing page might be a challenge, especially where a portal picks randomly from 50 pages that exist and one that doesn't. Certes (talk) 22:41, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

I wonder how expensive it would be for the template to check if each entry exists and return an error and the index of any offending entries. This could also occur during preview, like the cite templates do, so the issue can be fixed before saving. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 03:39, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

There is no tool designed specifically to remove portal templates from articles. The main task would be to find them. You could do that using WP:INSOURCE.    — The Transhumanist   01:31, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

@Primefac, Amorymeltzer, Pbsouthwood, and Waggers:

Portal:Lithuania has been upgraded. The following list of subpages is no longer needed.    — The Transhumanist   00:24, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

• Portal:Lithuania/Categories
• Portal:Lithuania/Featured article
• Portal:Lithuania/Featured picture
• Portal:Lithuania/Intro
• Portal:Lithuania/Quality content
• Portal:Lithuania/Related portals
• Portal:Lithuania/Things you can do
• Portal:Lithuania/Topics
• Portal:Lithuania/WikiProjects
• Portal:Lithuania/Wikiprojects
• Portal:Lithuania/box-header
  •  Done. Primefac (talk) 00:56, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

What is the easiest way to find orphaned portal subpages?    — The Transhumanist   07:12, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

quarry:query/25128 has a list but it includes some false positives due to random selection. For example, Portal:1910s/Selected_picture/1 has no current incoming links but will appear in place of the current ...picture/3 at some point. Certes (talk) 12:51, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Or more specifically its talk page. I realize this territory covered a third of the US, but do we really need every affected state's WP banner listed here? I'm thinking there shouldn't be more than a half dozen listed, where this is actually relevant and significant. Or just mirror the banners used on the root article. @The Transhumanist: Thoughts? — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 23:40, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

@AfroThundr3007730: Perhaps check the histories of each of the states listed. If they include New France as part of their history, then the subject certainly falls within the scope of the states' respective WikiProjects. I checked History of Alabama and History of Mississippi, and New France is covered there.    — The Transhumanist   00:32, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

I collapsed the list of Wikiprojects. I wouldn't remove any banners without asking the affected project first, unless it is obviously wrong, since projects are allowed to decide for themselves whether a page is within their scope (WP:PROJSCOPE) - Evad37 [talk] 01:28, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I'll leave it be then. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 01:47, 26 July 2018 (UTC)