This is an archive of past discussions with User:Northamerica1000. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
@Certes, Hecato, and ToThAc:: I'm considering editing less in portal-space. There's not much point in working to improve Wikipedia's portals, only to have the work erased from public view after a few delete "!votes" occur at the under-advertised MfD discussions. WP:POG is not even an actual guideline at this time (see commentary above), yet it continues to be treated as such. It's all good. Maybe portals are actually not that important? North America100017:00, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
I don't want to discourage anyone from editing but nor would I want an editor to become disillusioned with Wikipedia by concentrating on an area where their efforts are wasted. We're now down to 660 portals and still losing over 200 a month so (assuming no one puts up more portals to be knocked down) it will all be over by Christmas, and we can start to salvage the remnants next year. One recent development is that, whilst most of the long-term deletion supporters have faded away, they have been replaced by a new intake who don't remember the times when we bothered to !vote keep. They are acting in good faith, because they genuinely believe that POG is uncontroversial, that deletion has near-unanimous support and that their actions are unambiguously helping Wikipedia. Certes (talk) 18:07, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
(talk page stalker) I want to encourage you to keep doing your good work in the portalspace. While there is always a possibility of a sequel to WP:ENDPORTALS, I think we can see the group of portals that are likely to be kept when all is said and done, and your efforts on those portals would be tremendously valuable and not wasted. This may require a shift in effort: instead of focusing on borderline portals to try to save them from an MfD nom., consider focusing instead on making the best portals even better? UnitedStatesian (talk) 18:13, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
"I am sad to hear that, but I understand how you feel. Regardless of what you do in the future, I want to thank you for your work on the project and portals specifically" is what I said to User:Bermicourt and the same goes for you and Certes. In the end you must decide for yourself how much work (and sanity) you want to spend on portals given the current climate. I certainly will not hold it against you.
Well, as far as I'm concerned, I will continue editing the portals I have adopted. Simply because I promised that I would. Though as things are going at the moment they will also be deleted eventually. I currently do not see much of a point in working on other portal related matters since I appear be rather alone at this point. --Hecato (talk) 18:40, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks all for the quick and much-appreciated responses. Wow. Well, my guess is to wait until 1st quarter 2020 and then work on what remains, as per User:Certes' prediction above. A problem remains, though, of a potential that the rest may eventually be nixed as well, afterwards. Maybe it's time to quit, to hell with it, and work on other stuff. North America100018:57, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
Maybe someone can make a mock/faux "Portal Wars" logo, in the style of the Star Wars logo, and we can display it for years to come! See below for a rudimentary example. North America100019:34, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
— Portal Wars — – The Truth: a non-guideline opinion page treated as a guideline nevertheless. It's all good. Whatever.
– The fundamental problem of WP:POG's lede being decided upon by a single user –
At its inception, WP:POG never received actual formal discussion to be enacted as a real English Wikipedia guideline page. Instead, label Wikipedia:Portal/Guidelines as an information page using the {{information page}} template. There are many reasons why.
The gist of the lead for the portal was added ambiguously and unilaterally by one user in 2006 (diff), and no discussion appears to have actually occurred about it until relatively recently. Guidelines should be decided upon via consensus, not by a unilateral addition of content from one user. Meantime, the page has been treated as an actual guideline, despite the content being based solely upon one person's opinion, which furthermore, was added to the page at its infancy.
Furthermore, the page was shortly thereafter marked as historical (diff), with an edit summary stating, "{{historical}}, not an active proposal per lack of talk page activity; suspect lack of advertisement".
After this, and importantly, the historical template was removed (diff), with an edit summary stating, "removed historical tag; this was not intended as a proposed Wikipedia Guideline, but merely guidelines as in advice for portal creators." (Underline emphasis mine).
Per the diffs, the page was not even intended as a proposed guideline from the start, and no consensus was ever formed for the content therein. The page was intended from the start as an information page. It's actually rather a farce that the page was somehow converted to a guideline page, because there doesn't appear to be any meaningful discussion leading to that change. It's like someone just slapped the Guideline page template page on it and it just simply stuck thereafter, sans any consensus.
Furthermore, the lead of the present WP:POG page is worded as an illogical and bizarre syllogism. Some users have been stating that if a portal does not receive what they deem to be adequate page views or maintenance, then the topic itself is somehow not broad enough. Of course, this standard could not be used anywhere else on Wikipedia, because people would reject this as absurd. For example, the Physics article does not receive a great deal of page maintenance, yet the topic itself is obviously broad in scope, both in terms of the topic itself and in terms of the amount of related content available on English Wikipedia. The manner in which this syllogism is worded on the page is subjective and inferior, and has been misused to define topical scope as based upon page views and page maintainers, rather than upon the actual scope of a given topic.
Hi, I've noticed that you've began maintaining Portal:Ivory Coast. Do you have a long-term plan on how to draw in editors and maintainers alike? (Average daily pageviews in the first half of 2019 are 10 for the portal versus 2898 for the parent article.) If not, then I'm afraid I'll have to nominate the portal at MfD within a week or two. ToThAc (talk) 23:46, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
@ToThAc: The first step was to update the portals with fresh content, using transclusions, so the most up-to-date content is displayed for the reader. The addition of new entries that were previously nonexistent is a part of this process. Then, outdated content was removed or updated, oftentimes replaced with new information. It's a process that takes time.
A very likely reason for low page views is that readers would likely go to portals such as these, realize that there is not much content there, and then not go back. For whatever reasons at MfD, people have not been considering this possibility. A portal with a decent amount of content is more likely to receive return visitors, in my opinion.
Another matter is the presence or lack thereof of visible links to portals. If visible links are not abundant, then people are unlikely to visit them. Since updating the portals, it is hoped that more page views will subsequently transpire as time goes by.
Of course, if these are nominated for deletion, based upon the previous page views and states that the portals were previously in prior to being significantly updated, then this potential will never have a chance to be realized. I think the rush to deletion that has been occurring at times is overly hasty and WP:EAGER in some cases, particularly in instances where portals have been updated as I have described herein.
My plan is to update portals that I have improved from time-to-time, adding new content periodically and rotating content when this would be functional. It seems that some at MfD feel that portals must be updated every day, for hours a day, or something like that, which is unlikely to occur for any Wikipedia content. North America100003:33, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
Regarding your second point, any improved recreation of a portal that was previously deleted at MfD that clearly takes into account the failures of many portals can always be taken to DRV. I believe Robert McClenon usually says this preemptively during deletion discussions involving portals. I'll comment on some of your other points later. ToThAc (talk) 05:26, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
I have until recently been noting that proposals to re-create deleted portals should be taken to DRV. That is my opinion, and I think that is a check on frivolous re-creations (and there have in the past been frivolous re-creations, which result in zombie portals). Another editor disagrees, and doesn't think that new portal designs are the sort of new information that can go to DRV. There is discussion at the Miscellany for Deletion talk page. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:56, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
Regarding your fifth point, I don't necessarily think portals have to be updated on a daily basis; in fact, I think monthly maintenance would be fine enough. Even if the vast majority of maintainers become inactive for months at a time and the portal is deleted because of that, it can still be taken to DRV if people decide to maintain the portal.
@Hecato: I'd say update the selected article count to reflect on the current number of GAs and FAs in the topic area for one, and maybe update the DYKs as well to reflect current information. ToThAc (talk) 16:08, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
@ToThAc: Not all portals have hand-selected articles and you could transclude a random article from the current GAs and FAs, which would make updating those unnecessary. I guess you could update DYKs assuming there are any new relevant ones, thought not all portals have a DYK section in the first place. Hand selecting too much content is generally ill-advised because it has a negative effect on portal load time. Sorry, but the demand for monthly updates seems artificial to me. Some portals need frequent updates, some do not. --Hecato (talk) 16:56, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
Someone should review the portal regularly, and fix anything that has become outdated. That raises the question of what to do if the maintainer confirms that Ivory Coast is still a country located on the south coast of West Africa and no update is necessary. Is there then a requirement to make change for change's sake, just to renew the page's status as a Valid Portal? A lot of the good work that goes on at Wikipedia consists of checking which, unless it reveals a problem, doesn't show up in page histories or user contributions. Certes (talk) 17:08, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
Africa-related articles and content on English Wikipedia suffer from Wikipedia:Systemic bias, whereby editors do not seem to spend as much time working on these topics compared to other topics. This is part of the reason why there are so few GA and FA articles for Côte d'Ivoire (see below). Perhaps some sort of drive should occur to encourage more work on Africa-related articles. North America100019:16, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
Hello Northamerica1000, Greetings!
Just recalling our prev. discussion here; Article Opinion polling... is accepted from draft in AfC whose status is 'unreviewed' in New pages feed(as on 20-Sep-2019). If AfC reviewer is autopatrolled then the article is auto-reviewed, or is there any other technicality? --Gpkp[u • t • c]17:59, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
Hi Hecato: The discussions were auto-archived by User:lowercase sigmabot III. I feel that these discussions certainly deserve formal closures. I hesitate to restore them myself, because I have contributed there, and I know that you have too. The way forward, in my opinion, would be to post at WP:AN requesting for an uninvolved admin to restore the discussions to the Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) page, along with adding something from Template:Bump to prevent future auto-archiving from occurring until formal closures occur. If you would like to handle posting a request at WP:AN, please let me know. North America100000:24, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
Sure, I can make that request if you want. I would post something like:
That request for closure was also archived without closure. Funny how that goes. Should the request be moved back from the archive? --Hecato (talk) 15:37, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
Hecato: Yeah, that's definitely an inferior way for the RfC to end. I view the matter at "RFC: Formalize Standing of Portal Guidelines as a Guideline (18 July 2019)" with an overall consensus there, based upon the overall merits/weight of the arguments presented, is for the page to not be an actual WP:GUIDELINE page (see my commentary and links in the hatted area below), and that a formal closure from a non-involved admin would be best. As I have already contributed to the discussion, I hesitate to become involved in restoring discussions.
It is a bit concerning that those who are typically for the deletion of portals at MfD have not acknowledged that WP:POG in it's present state is not an actual guideline page (permanent link), and that it is still tagged with the {{Under discussion}} template, stating, "The status of this page as a policy or guideline is the subject of a current discussion. Please feel free to join in. This doesn't mean that you may not be bold in editing this page, but that it would be a good idea to check the discussion first." An inconvenient truth, I suppose. Fact is, though, is that admins continue to delete portals without commenting about the RfC matter at all in their closures, also treating the page as an actual guideline when again, in it's present state, it really isn't. Perhaps this notion is based upon overall precedent regarding the page being treated as a guideline, despite the fact that its key points were added ambiguously back in 2006. North America100016:02, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
– The fundamental problem of WP:POG's lede being decided upon by a single user –
At its inception, WP:POG never received actual formal discussion to be enacted as a real English Wikipedia guideline page. Instead, label Wikipedia:Portal/Guidelines as an information page using the {{information page}} template. There are many reasons why.
The gist of the lead for the portal was added ambiguously and unilaterally by one user in 2006 (diff), and no discussion appears to have actually occurred about it until relatively recently. Guidelines should be decided upon via consensus, not by a unilateral addition of content from one user. Meantime, the page has been treated as an actual guideline, despite the content being based solely upon one person's opinion, which furthermore, was added to the page at its infancy.
Furthermore, the page was shortly thereafter marked as historical (diff), with an edit summary stating, "{{historical}}, not an active proposal per lack of talk page activity; suspect lack of advertisement".
After this, and importantly, the historical template was removed (diff), with an edit summary stating, "removed historical tag; this was not intended as a proposed Wikipedia Guideline, but merely guidelines as in advice for portal creators." (Underline emphasis mine).
Per the diffs, the page was not even intended as a proposed guideline from the start, and no consensus was ever formed for the content therein. The page was intended from the start as an information page. It's actually rather a farce that the page was somehow converted to a guideline page, because there doesn't appear to be any meaningful discussion leading to that change. It's like someone just slapped the Guideline page template page on it and it just simply stuck thereafter, sans any consensus.
Furthermore, the lead of the present WP:POG page is worded as an illogical and bizarre syllogism. Some users have been stating that if a portal does not receive what they deem to be adequate page views or maintenance, then the topic itself is somehow not broad enough. Of course, this standard could not be used anywhere else on Wikipedia, because people would reject this as absurd. For example, the Physics article does not receive a great deal of page maintenance, yet the topic itself is obviously broad in scope, both in terms of the topic itself and in terms of the amount of related content available on English Wikipedia. The manner in which this syllogism is worded on the page is subjective and inferior, and has been misused to define topical scope as based upon page views and page maintainers, rather than upon the actual scope of a given topic.
I certainly share your concerns. Well, it needs formal closure. Can I as a non-admin restore that archived request for closure at AN? The rules of that Administrator's noticeboard are a bit opaque to me. I would add that bump template as well. --Hecato (talk) 16:21, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
I leave it up to you. You also contributed to the discussion, so a potential exists that someone could complain that since you restored the discussion, you are then then therefore somehow biased, after the fact, since you contributed there. I've been losing some faith in portal matters, because some of those that are typically for deletion of portals have shown an unfortunate tendency at times to continuously berate those that are interested in improving portals, in what has transpired into a sort of bandwagon effect at times.
At any rate, I may edit in portalspace less, like User:Certes has said here before. There's not much point in working to improve Wikipedia's portal content, only to watch it erased from public view after a few delete "!votes" occur at the under-advertised MfD discussions. North America100016:37, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
I also share those feelings. And without trying to sound too paranoid I think that the demoralization of people who are interested in maintaining and improving portals is very much done on purpose on the part of certain users. I did not join Wikipedia to deal with the kind of vitriol and bullying that comes from those users. And I must admit I am slowly losing my temper and started to respond in kind. I guess their bullying was successful since it appears nobody is left to oppose the mass-deletion.
Hecato: Thanks for handling that. It is just and proper for such a contentious matter to receive a formal, admin closure. Otherwise, the page's status remains in limbo, lacking any grounding about whether or not it has any validity from the start. North America100019:57, 19 September 2019 (UTC)
Animation illustrating the discovery history of satellite galaxies of the Milky Way over the last 100 years. The classical satellite galaxies are in blue (labeled with their names), SDSS-discoveries are in red, and more recent discoveries (mostly with DES) are in green.
Hello and welcome to the September newsletter, a brief update of Guild activities since June 2019.
June election: Reidgreg was chosen as lead coordinator, and is being assisted by Baffle gab1978, Miniapolis, Tdslk, and first-time coordinator Twofingered Typist. Jonesey95 took a respite after serving for six years. Thanks to everyone who participated!
June Blitz: From 16 to 22 June, we copy edited articles on the themes of nature and the environment along with requests. 12 participating editors completed 35 copy edits. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.
July Drive: The year's fourth backlog-elimination drive was a great success, clearing all articles tagged in January and February, and bringing the copy-editing backlog to a low of five months and a record low of 585 articles while also completing 48 requests. Of the 30 people who signed up, 29 copyedited at least one article, a participation level last matched in May 2015. Final results and awards are listed here.
August Blitz: From 18 to 24 August, we copy edited articles tagged in March 2019 and requests. 12 participating editors completed 26 copy edits on the blitz. Final results, including barnstars awarded, are available here.
Progress report: As of 03:00, 23 September 2019 (UTC), GOCE copyeditors had processed 413 requests since 1 January. The backlog of tagged articles stood at 599 articles, close to our record month-end low of 585.
Requests page: We are experimenting with automated archiving of copy edit requests; a discussion on REQ Talk (permalinked) initiated by Bobbychan193 has resulted in Zhuyifei1999 writing a bot script for the Guild. Testing is now underway and is expected to be completed by 3 October; for this reason, no manual archiving of requests should be done until the testing period is over. We will then assess the bot's performance and discuss whether to make this arrangement permanent.
September Drive: Our current backlog-elimination drive is open until 23:59 on 30 September (UTC) and is open to all copy editors. Sign up today!
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Thanks for uploading File:Lao Gan Ma Flavoured Tofu chili sauce.jpg. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
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Last week's Tech News had delivery problems. Some did not get the newsletter. Some got it more than one time. The problem where some pages got it three times should now be fixed. [1]
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The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 October. It will be on all wikis from 3 October (calendar).
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Special:Contributions will get the standard OOUI look. This makes it easier to use on mobile and makes it look like other Special: pages. There is a script you can use to make the form smaller if you want to. [2]
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
There is a problem in the visual editor when you copy or delete text with footnotes. It will be fixed soon. [4]
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The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 8 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 9 October. It will be on all wikis from 10 October (calendar).
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The Community Wishlist Survey has a new format. It will focus on wikis that typically get less support. It will probably go back to the normal format next year. It is not decided exactly how it will work this year. You can leave feedback.
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Following a discussion, a new criterion for speedy category renaming was added: C2F: One eponymous article, which applies if the category contains only an eponymous article or media file, provided that the category has not otherwise been emptied shortly before the nomination. The default outcome is an upmerge to the parent categories.
Technical news
As previously noted, tighter password requirements for Administrators were put in place last year. Wikipedia should now alert you if your password is less than 10 characters long and thus too short.
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Part of it is that I just don't have as much time lately to investigate rather technical queries such as this, at least in a manner to provide an exacting, absolutely correct answer. Folks at the discussion you linked above have worked hard to find an answer, but it still appears to be a grey area. I've been busier in real life, and also busy on-wiki with various other matters. North America100013:47, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
By the way thank you for your time Northamerica1000. My purpose of queries is not to point out loop-holes, but just to better-understand functionality: the sync between AFC-acceptance and New page patrol. --Gpkp[u • t • c]14:10, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
Northamerica1000, one more thing of concern is that once an article is nominated for deletion in AfD, its marked as reviewed. Its most probably happening soon after the usage of Twinkle (not sure). Example is article: Kartiki Gonsalves. I saw an other article too few days ago. Can you please correct me if I am wrong here? --Gpkp[u • t • c]16:52, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
Not sure offhand. For example, I went to a presently un-patrolled page, May Leiba, and when using Twinkle to select Tag the page with a maintenance template, a box exists that is pre-checked, stating, "Mark the page as patrolled". However, when going to the XfD button on Twinkle, such box is nonexistent. I suggest you present this question at Wikipedia talk:Twinkle or at the ongoing discussion that you linked above. North America100007:49, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
A feature of Page Curation Tool was discussed in Reviewers talk page, as to be reinstated. I was informed to refer it, while I posted a query there. I will post this one, once if I find a solution to the existing one which is queued there. --Gpkp[u • t • c]12:34, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
Portal:Minnesota
Greetings, Northamerica1000. Can you please explain the newest changes to Portal:Minnesota? What is your objective? I am happy to see your interest but befuddled to find a new system today. Thank you. -SusanLesch (talk) 14:48, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi SusanLesch: Previously (link) the portal was in a partly static state, only listing one entry for some content, such as the Selected bio section, even when people purge the page. I updated the Minnesota portal using the Random portal component, so readers can shuffle to view different content.
For more context regarding, take a look at WP:MFD and the recent U.S. state portals that have been recently nominated for deletion there. There have been complaints of portals lacking content, and even though there are various selected bios, people could miss this, since only one was loading. Additional concerns at MfD is regarding portal subpages having errors. This is not a notice to encourage you to participate at MfD, but since you're interested in this U.S. State portal, it is fair to notify you of this relative to your message here (WP:APPNOTE).
I recommend the use of transclusions to post article content, which presents readers with the most up-to-date content, that which is in the articles right now. Many portals at MfD have been deleted, in part per having outdated content and errors in their subpages, such as listing subjects as still alive who are deceased, or companies that are defunct as still active, etc. North America100014:59, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
I'm aware that all portals were considered for deletion, and that Wikipedia decided to keep all the portals. I'm sorry I am trying but I do not understand the benefit of your changes. We had five sections randomized:
Introduction
Did you know...
Selected community
Selected picture
Scenic Minnesota
plus I manually updated the biography each month (not like clockwork but every month).
I dislike the orange and blue color scheme that doesn't relate to the state, and I find myself unable to add new biographies. Is it possible that Minnesota got caught in your net search for portals that lack new content? -SusanLesch (talk) 18:09, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
Hello again SusanLesch: Thanks for the input. I went ahead and reverted the recent changes I made, putting the portal back into the state it was in on 18:06, 18 August 2019 (diff). Some notes below:
The new coloration was based upon the state's flag colors. See this link. However, I have no problem with the reversion back to the colors that were already in place.
Notice how the selected biography selection is now entirely static, only showing the entry for "Joseph Ray Watkins", even when purging multiple times, per the monthly updating-only that is now occurring. Portal:Minnesota/Selected biography has 108 listings, but readers are never going to see them; in its present state that I reverted to after I made the changes, there is not not even a link to the Selected biography page. The value was in enabling readers to purge to see different entries.
If you'd like, I can restore the Random portal component just for the Selected biography section, so readers can see other entries when purging, without restoring any of the other changes I made. This alone would vastly improve the section, in my opinion.
I strongly recommend adding links to the subpages, and recommend removing the Suggest and Nominate links on the page, which nobody is really using except yourself. Such information could be consolidated on the talk page in one area.
Not sure why you are unable to add more Selected biographies. Is it an issue with the subpage? Could you elaborate?
The entry for Minnesota at Wikipedia:US State Portal Metrics (a page I did not create), states in the comments section, "Originator inactive since 2018." Perhaps you could update the entry there to add more information that more accurately describes the portal's maintenance. North America100023:06, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi.
Please don't rely on Wikipedia:US State Portal Metrics. I don't know who made that page but it is not accurate. I edited Minnesota there.
If I added a new biography, then it would have a 1 in 100+ chance of showing up. Is that correct? Mr. Watkins was important enough that I am going to wait until November to add a new one.
SusanLesch I'm not sure of the exact probability of one article showing up out of the bunch using the Random portal component. One would assume that it would be one out of the number of selected biographies available on the subpage, but I could be incorrect. I'd have to look into it more to provide an exact answer. At any rate, no worries, and thanks for your input. North America100019:09, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
The U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser USS Josephus Daniels (CG-27) maneuvers around an island as it passes through the Strait of Magellan en route to Punte Arenas, Chile, on 1 July 1990, during exercise "Unitas XXXI", a combined exercise involving the naval forces of the United States and nine South American nations.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
You can now use more advanced editing tools on the mobile web. You can turn them on and off in your preferences in the mobile version. [5]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 15 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 16 October. It will be on all wikis from 17 October (calendar).
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You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 16 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
Internet Explorer 6 and 7 are no longer supported. This means the browsers might start looking a bit weird. They will not get security support. You can't read Wikimedia wikis in Internet Explorer on Windows XP or Windows versions that are older than Windows XP. This is because almost no one uses the browsers anymore. Supporting them made the wikis less secure for everyone else. [6]
In the future section headings might have a share link. This is to make it easier to link to the section. You can read more and discuss.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
The API sandbox and help pages now show more clearly when API modules are marked as internal. API modules marked as internal were probably internal before. It was easier to miss. You should look for non-internal alternatives. [7]
Problems
There is a translation tool we use on wikis with more than one language. For a few days it did not create pages for new languages when someone translated a page. The languages did not show in the language bar. This has been fixed. [8]
The history and diffs can show wrong content. This is because of a cache problem. It will soon be fixed. [9]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 22 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 23 October. It will be on all wikis from 24 October (calendar).
Reference Previews will be a beta feature on all Wikipedias and some Wikivoyages. It shows you a preview of the footnote when you hover over or click on the number. It has been a beta feature on German and Arabic Wikipedia since April.
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You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 23 October. See how to join.
Mole Day is an unofficial holiday celebrated among chemists, chemistry students and chemistry enthusiasts on October 23, between 6:02 a.m. and 6:02 p.m. This date is derived from the Avogadro number, which is approximately 6.022×1023, and the day is named after scientist Amedeo Avogadro.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
You can post proposals for the Community Wishlist Survey. The survey decides what the Community Tech team will work on. You can post proposals until 11 November. You can vote on proposals from 20 November to 2 December. This year the wishlist will focus on Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikispecies, Wikivoyage and Wikinews. You can read more about the format for this year.
Mobile users now have a specific design for their Watchlist. [10][11]
You can share feedback and ideas on the Desktop Improvements project. The goal is to make the interface easier to use for readers and editors without removing any functionality. The Foundation's Readers Web team will work on this over the next two years.
OOUI now allows using px (pixels) instead of em (em) for some specific cases. [12][13]
Changes later this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 29 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 30 October. It will be on all wikis from 31 October (calendar).
Meetings
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 30 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Future changes
There will be no software changes from 19 December to 2 January. The first MediaWiki version next year will come the week of 6 January. [14]
Gadgets and user scripts can access variables about the current page in JavaScript. In 2015, this information was moved from global variables named wg* to mw.config. The old global variables will be removed later this year. You can know more about it and tell the developers if you want to try this out on your wiki first.
Not sure why Brown would go out of there why to stifel portal improvements (simply a hatred of them is the only logical reason for reverting good faith edit). What can be done when an admin goes off the wall like this.--Moxy🍁16:14, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
I think this may have happened before, but I want to make sure of my facts before saying so. If it's ethical, an admin could list my deleted contributions to Portal: namespace on 1 May 2019 to get a list of relevant titles. I seem to recall that in many cases the process went:
Helpful editor modernises an outdated portal
I make further minor improvements such as tweaking the DYKs
Portal is rolled back to outdated version
Portal is sent to MfD for being outdated and unmaintained
It's quite possible that I have misremembered or that steps 3 and 4 involved editors not part of the current discussion, and I wouldn't want to be a liar! Certes (talk) 13:25, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi Certes: I really want to take a break from the portal discussions for a bit. It took me some time just to gather the data and provide the table, portal list and commentary/analysis at the ANI discussion. It's time I would have rather spent performing other things, rather than explaining why another user's mass reversions such as this are inappropriate and disruptive. It is tiring to spend several hours of my time performing such analysis of a user's actions that simply involved their pressing a button a bunch of times to revert all edits, one after another. I will say that the reverts that occurred against my work undid all other helpful improvements as well as the article additions, which of course, does not improve the encyclopedia. Also, since I'm involved at the ANI discusion, it would be best for an uninvolved admin to potentially list your deleted contributions. North America100013:54, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
I missed most of this because I was busy with real-life work. What a mess indeed. I laughed when I read that closing statement: Closed with no result because of too many walls of text. Apparently if you ever need a "get out of jail free" card, just write a ten thousand word response to every point of contention. --Hecato (talk) 17:42, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
A bowl of strawberries for you!
Thanks a lot for your continued participation on the AfDs. I had pinged you here based on your earlier participation on the same AfD.
I am concerned to see the semi retirement tag, hope you will deal with it and recover. It will be a great loss for Wikipedia to have an admin like you go away. DBigXrayᗙ08:18, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Let me add another strawberry to your bowl. I'm also concerned both about the potential loss to Wikipedia and more importantly about any negative effects on you personally. You are seeing oncoming headlights on a one-way street but it's only one driver; the rest of us are moving in the same direction as you. I am now also getting regular jibes about being deceptive, lacking judgement, etc. but only from one source. I know that editor's opinion of me, I know it's not shared by others, so I just skip to the signature and read the next contribution. At least please wait for the outcome of the current discussion which I hope will bring some reassurance. Certes (talk) 08:53, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
The Barnstar of Diligence
I know we dont come across each other often...but hope to see you around. I understand harassment is very distressing especially when it involves malicious blanking. Moxy🍁08:41, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Why did you delete the NeoReach page? Please elaborate and let me know how we can discuss restoring the page for information purposes to benefit the general public on the company.
Revisiting 2016 no-decision on deletion of Mark Kritzman page. With enough context (see references) the page appears to be soft marketing for Windham Capital.
An editor has asked for a deletion review of Mark Kritzman. Because you closed the deletion discussion for this page, speedily deleted it, or otherwise were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. Calebu2 (talk) 12:20, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Was browsing wikipedia and noticed there was a page on Mark Kritzman. I also noted that somebody had (correctly in my opinion) identified that it was soft-marketing and marked it for deletion in 2016. The result was a no-decision.
Kritzman's work is well cited in practitioner circles, largely ignored by academics but critically is no more compelling than hundreds of other risk professionals in the space whom are not notable academics nor notable business people.
As most of the material on the site is directly lifted from the Windham Capital Management bio page[1], I think this is a soft-marketing piece produced by someone close to Windham.
The Portal Barnstar is awarded to Wikipedians who have made significant contributions to topic portals. Thank you for updating/maintaining multiple portals. Your efforts are greatly appreciated. Jerm (talk) 00:29, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
Furthermore, please do not retire or semi. I've been watching the ANI discussion for sometime now. You've done no harm or any wrong doing. As noted by multiple editors at ANI, BHG's actions and behavior are obviously unacceptable. Her reverts were unnecessary and a complete contradiction towards the ideal of improving Wikipedia. If no action is taken against her, you still shouldn't retire. Because of the situation she has put herself into, she has harmed her own reputation both as a regular editor and administrator. Many editors now and after ANI are not going to trust her and that's her fault. If you do retire, it will be a loss for the entire community...knowing that a positive and productive admin has left. So please do everyone a favor and don't retire, and restore your user page. The current version looks hideous. Happy editing and Cheers! Jerm (talk) 00:29, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
I have no idea what this is all about. But I do know from personal experience that we all have our tolerance levels and sometimes when the BS meter gets pegged out we need to take that mental health break. So by all means take some time off and when your stress level is back to manageable levels I look forward to seeing you around again. Until then, you will be missed. -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:53, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
@Northamerica1000: It looks much better. I've read the message on your user page concerning the whole portal situation. I note that the ANI discussion was quickly archived (swept under the rug) or is that just me? I personally think many of the portals you've worked on are eventually going get deleted. BHG probably wants all the portals deleted. Seeing how you updated those portals, she wasn't too happy (obviously) that you've hindered her intentions. Anyway, I think you should do the same and sweep the whole ideal of portals seeing how the situation was left unresolved. If I were in your position right now, I would take this negative situation as a new opportunity. Work with new editors and collab with editors who've recently became admins. Jerm (talk) 14:20, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks to all well-wishers here
Hello one and all: My reasons for considering semi-retirement are mostly due to real-life matters and obligations, rather than on-wiki matters. Other minor variables are in play as well, but I digress from going into them here. I've considered the semi-retirement thing from time-to-time, and may try it out if I become much more busier than I have already become in real-life. Life changes sometimes, and change is good; life goes on, it's a journey. Bottom line: Thanks to those who choose to be collegial and friendly on Wikipedia, because it matters. North America100014:02, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
Very true. If we do lose you to semi-retirement, I think your friendliness, open mindedness & helpfulness will be missed even more than your colossal amount of high quality edits. Best of luck with any RL busy-ness that may come up. FeydHuxtable (talk) 17:45, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
Thank you for this. It is your choice and I will support everything you do. You have helped me so much over time and I hope we don't lose you. I don't want to lose a Wiki-Friend, someone who guided me, collaborated with me, and even nominated me for RfA. I hope everything in real life gets better. I'll always be there for you. My user page has a message dedicated to you. AmericanAir88(talk)19:32, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
NA1K, I have spent several times on very enjoyable AfD threads with you (still have Beer Chips on the watch list and happy to have played my part!), and appreciated your approach, and learned a lot from you. I know the portal area has become draining for all, however, if you were staying around, or come back, I would love to share some views with you on it. While there are trends in portals that I think will be hard to stop (and maybe should not be stopped), however, there are structural gaps emerging that I believe will need to be filled, and, regardless of how Wikipedia pans out, will have more longevity, regardless of participation. However, just wanted to wish you well in all cases, and echo the sentiments above. Britishfinance (talk) 19:59, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
Historical
I noticed that you added {{Historical}} to some Portal namespace items, and I have questions. You added the template to Portal:Morocco/Featured article with edit summary + {{Historical}} Article entries are now being transcluded directly on the main portal page. But on the main portal page Portal:Morocco, this template shines right through under the heading "Selected article". Is this what you intended? If not, are there other errors like this that should be addressed? A more complicated problem that might be unrelated to this template: Portal:North America/Header generates a Table tag that should be deleted lint error. I am wondering if this could be related to your insertion of {{Historical}} in Portal:North America/Tab1 or a related template-like portal item, and if it would make sense to move {{Historical}} inside the <noinclude></noinclude> already present in such template-like portals items. —Anomalocaris (talk) 17:30, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi Anomalocaris: I recently expanded, updated, and cleaned-up the Morocco portal, but unfortunately, the work I performed was reverted by another user in a series of rapid, drive-by edits where the user reverted dozens of hours of work I have performed on portals over the course of months, all in one day. The articles added to the Morocco portal included a diverse array that were directly aligned with WP:POG, the now non-guideline, failed proposal page, where it states, "A portal helps to browse on a particular subject, hence the subject of a portal should be broad so that it presents a diversified content."
When the user performed the reversion, they left an edit summary stating, "Revert undiscused change of format; unexplained, sneaky addition of dozens of articles which are neither listed anywhere visible nor disclosed in edit summaries, let alone discussed" (diff), but prior to the reversion I had already posted a comment at Portal talk:Morocco regarding the changes and also included a list of Good articles added to the portal there, again, prior to the reversion. The additions were not "sneaky", they were not "neither listed anywhere visible", and clear edit summaries were left that content was added to the portal. They were listed right on the talk page, where matters regarding portals are discussed. The articles that I added were previously in place directly on the portal as transclusions (link), and were removed when the reversion occurred.
The reversion even left the {{Under construction}} template atop the portal afterward, it does not appear that the user scrolled down to check the results of the reversion, and it does not appear that the talk page was checked first to see if any notification or discussion had occurred regarding my changes.
Portal:Ontario provides another example. The portal was tagged as needing updating on 14 August 2019, with an initial note stating, "update=yes|note=No maintenance since 2014" in the Portal maintenance status template atop the page (diff). The edit didn't take as expected, so the user then added the {{Update}} template directly (diff). So, I performed updates to the portal in August and October 2019. All of the work was then erased with one drive-by edit (diff). Now, the update template is back on the portal, after it was already carefully, thoughtfully and significantly updated. Many of the additions had been in place for almost two months, and the portal receives a decent number of daily page views, so people were seeing it, and there were no concerns posted on the talk page whatsoever about the portal. Update templates can only work when the actual updates that occur are not rapidly removed in a series of mass reversions.
Ordinarily, I would perform fixes to correct the errors that the reverting user left in their wake. However, it seems quite possible that the user may then accuse me of edit warring if I were to do so. At the recent ANI discussion regarding the matter, now located at Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1020 § Portal updates reverted, I posted lists of broken portals and errors that occurred from the mass reversions that needed to be corrected, in hopes that the matter would be addressed by other users, but I didn't get a chance to get through the rest of the list of portals that were reverted before the discussion was closed.
In my view, it is apparent, that the overall consensus at the ANI discussion in the "Should the mass portal reversions be reverted, to restore portal improvements that occurred?" section was for the mass rapid reversions to be undone, but then the discussion was abruptly closed".
Regarding your question herein, "are there other errors like this that should be addressed?", yes there very likely are. See the list below for a rundown of portals that were mass reverted. North America100018:34, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
A user's mass rapid reversions of portal improvements
Portal name
Reversion diff
Reversion time
Portal's state prior to reversion
Did NA1K leave a note on the talk page denoting changes prior to the reversion?
It will take some study in order for me to decide whether and how I want to deal with portals involved in this reversion dispute. Meanwhile, do you have any thoughts on this part of my original message: Portal:North America/Header generates a Table tag that should be deleted lint error. I am wondering if this could be related to your insertion of {{Historical}} in Portal:North America/Tab1 or a related template-like portal item, and if it would make sense to move {{Historical}} inside the <noinclude></noinclude> already present in such template-like portals items. —Anomalocaris (talk) 21:18, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
Anomalocaris: It's not really a dispute, it's a lockdown. After the reversions, the user did not leave messages on talk pages to discuss matters, for almost all of the portals listed above. So, I would then have to start the BRD process for almost all of these, which would be extremely time-consuming, particularly compared to the ease in which the reversions were performed, whereby a copy/pasted edit summary was left and the user then clicked on a blue button. Not sure if I want to waste more of my lifespan on portals in this type of manner.
I am familiar with lint errors but not highly technical in them. It would be my guess that removing the historical template may correct the problem, and if not, then try moving it into noinclude parameters as you have mentioned. Would you like to try this out? Feel free to do so, no worries. North America100021:31, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
It turned out that {{Historical}} had nothing to do with the lint errors I was trying to fix. The fix was actually in Portal:North America/TabsTop, changing
@Anomalocaris: Just to be up front, if you or any other users choose to become involved in editing the portals that were reverted, this is solely your choice. I am not soliciting you or encouraging you to perform any behaviors. The choice to become involved or remain uninvolved in performing any edits is solely your choice. I say this because I want it to be crystal clear up front about this entire matter. Otherwise, users who may potentially skim-read this discussion could potentially make assumptions that are inaccurate.
As I stated above, I may not become further involved regarding these portals. It is a time sink, and work to fix them could just be reverted again, for whatever arbitrary reasons someone may devise. I've already presented my viewpoints at the recent ANI and here, and the portals nevertheless remain in a very dumbed-down, inferior state after the reversions occurred. I left talk page messages clearly denoting work was performed in most cases prior to the reversions, and added lists of articles that were added to portals on talk pages as well in many instances. I left accurate edit summaries clearly stating that content was being added and also denoted other changes in those summaries. I'd rather not waste any more of my time on discussion boards and elsewhere having to continuously defend my fine work, potentially having to continually explain what has been already explained at the ANI and here.
At MfD, an unfortunate vicious circle now exists amongst some users who are typically for the deletion of portals, in which a lack of maintenance is cited as a rationale for portal deletion, and when said maintenance is performed prior to a portal being nominated, or after a first MfD discussion is closed with an end result of a portal being retained, the edits are eagerly reverted in a rapid, drive-by fashion, hypocritically preventing any maintenance from occurring in the first place, and thus further qualifying them for deletion.
The second example in the paragraph above occurred in the case of Portal:Language, in which the discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Language was closed with a no consensus result. At the discussion, the reverter opined for deletion, stated in part that the portal was lacking in articles and maintenance. Afterward, I performed maintenance edits to address this matter, and then the opiner at the MfD reverted that work (diff), with an edit summary stating, "Revert undiscused change of format; unexplained, sneaky addition of dozens of articles which are neither listed anywhere visible nor disclosed in edit summaries, let alone discussed", despite that a detailed message was posted at Portal talk:Languageprior to the reversion. Furthermore, clear edit summaries were left stating the changes that had occurred, and a list of articles is easily viewed by selecting the "edit" link on the page and simply scrolling down.
The user who performed these mass portal reversions stated at the ANI discussion that they may nominate some of these portals for deletion at some time. If this occurs, for the sake of equity, hopefully MfD participants will at least be informed about the previous state of the portals prior to their reversions.
It is also my view that some portals are being deleted for the sake of deletion itself, simply because it's fun for some users to spend their time trying to get the work of others deleted. Essentially, deletion for the sake of it, as an enjoyable pastime. North America100008:32, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
Fixed. Thanks for the heads up. North America1000 06:35, 20 September 2019 (UTC)
FA
GA
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from 1 October. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis and some Wikipedias from 2 October. It will be on all wikis from 3 October (calendar).
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting will be on 2 October at 15:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Guideline and policy news
Technical news
Arbitration
Miscellaneous
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There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Moxy 🍁 18:13, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
Also, you have got mail. Hope to hear from you. AmericanAir88(talk) 23:41, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
