User talk:Vermont/Archive 10

This is an archive of past discussions with User:Vermont. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 5

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Archive 8

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The map of Poland

You wrote "there's already a density-related map, and also that doesn't have any labeling on it or a source". Where, i didn't see?LandRussia (talk) 09:48, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

@LandRussia: Actually, it seems I was wrong. The map I saw was the fertility rate map. Anyways, if you have a density-related map and data that actually have labels and a verifiable source, then add it. Otherwise, keep it off the article. The image you recently added isn't good enough. Vermont (talk) 09:51, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Please, an you help me. A lot of people ask me the questions and the charges. I can't answer for everybody, it's dificult. I don't understand what a problem with map of UK. They wrote like "Remove meaningless chart". I don't understand. About information - i took it from wikipedia. How can i indicate the sourceб if it's wikipedia. Wikipedia don't show, where took itLandRussia (talk) 09:56, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

LandRussia, the map you added stated it was information as of 2017, which is impossible as there is no 2017 census. The current map is okay. Your source for information should never be Wikipedia, as Wikipedia isn't a reliable source. Rather, you can get the image from Wikimedia Commons, and find a source to support it (not Wikipedia). Anyways you're probably going to end up blocked since you violated WP:3RR, so I strongly recommend you don't re-add any maps that have been reverted. Vermont (talk) 09:59, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Can i disscus only with you about Poland and UK. I will change all problem, but i should understand. I don't understand the messages like "Remove meaningless chart". I made a lot of maps for different wikipedias - russian, romanian. And i didn't have problem 09:59, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

But it's information frome every district. You want to say in wikipedia information about of population of every district is incorrect? So what about when i open any district in UK and information about population on 2017. What is it?LandRussia (talk) 10:05, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

I don't know if the UK one is incorrect; I just know that it isn't from 2017, which you claim. The Poland one has no markings on it (it says >70 in some areas. >70 what?), and you didn't specify what its source is. Please do not re-add any maps. Vermont (talk) 10:06, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Why you think it isn't from 2017. You can see density any part and compare with map. I don't pecify what its source is, becuse i finded the man, with who i can have talk. >70 what? pep / km2 of course. You want to say it's first time, when you see map without information inside?LandRussia (talk) 10:11, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

LandRussia, the UK one isn't from 2017 because there was no government survey/census in 2017. There was a 2017 population estimate, but that isn't what is stated. Vermont (talk) 10:21, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject 2010 US Census

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject 2010 US Census. Legobot (talk) 04:24, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Norman Hammond

Hi Vermont

I wasn't sure how I broke BLP rules by putting the Sackler lecture controversy onto this webpage? It was fully cited, I thought. Was the problem that the level of citation was still insufficient? I can provide plenty more. What level of evidence would you like to see? Also I see similar edits to Leonardo Lopez Lujan.

The Sackler philanthropy is attracting increasing concern. I can understand your wish to avoid personal bias and I am happy to take advice on how to make this more neutral. But I think the Sackler issue is something that should be flagged on the pages of those who are supporting the Sackler lecture series.

Bazzil1 (talk) 21:52, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Bazzil1, the controversy isn't mentioned in the sources. Wikipedia isn't a place to voice your concerns about a person, or bring about complaints or allegations. Being a BLP, or about BLP's (in the case of the article about the town), controversial and possibly defamatory information must be cited very well, and is sometimes kept off the article even then (for example, WP:BLPCRIME). Please do not re-add the information without secondary, reliable sources that say and support every claim you make in the article. Vermont (talk) 21:59, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

okay will do, thanks for quick response and guidance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.16.54.101 (talk) 22:42, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

Pacifism in Germany

Hello Vermont, all the claims made in the article are supported by the sources referenced. I can't remeber what was said about the original research and essay-like writing, is that what I need to improve? Declan Stack (talk) 00:07, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Declan Stack, it's less what you need to improve and more what your class needs to improve. I checked by clicking on a few random users in your class page, and there are many problems that should have been addressed by the instructor prior to sending y'all out to write. After a more thorough read of your content in Pacifism in Germany, I'm actually quite pleased by it. Although it only uses 4 sources (it should have many more, since it's such a broad concept, to encompass views from different historians and authors as all historians are inherently affected by biases, and that must be accounted for by including many different historians' writings and sources to contribute to the encyclopedic text), it's well written and seems to me to be generally accurate, albeit needing more sources. It does need copyediting and a bit of rewording for tone and tense, as one must remember that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and should not use words like "recently" and other words that refer to the present time, as it should transcend time. For example, you wrote "In more recent times Germany has consolidated its economic and political power over Europe, making the impact of their foreign policy significant." This does need rewording to not say "In more recent times...", perhaps you could replace it with "From 1970s (or whatever time it is, idk I didn't read those books) onward, Germany has consolidated..." Although with this specific sentence I would probably remove it entirely, as it's very vague. Your content does need copyediting for encyclopedic value and to ensure it's not original research, but from an averagely-thorough read it seems to be good. Vermont (talk) 00:16, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Saudi Arabia

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Saudi Arabia. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #021, 24 Oct 2018

Portals have passed the 4,000 mark.

More new portals...

Here's a list of portals created since the last issue

List of new portals

Please inspect these portals, report problems or suggest improvements at WT:WPPORTD, or develop them further (see below). Thank you.

What's next?

There is still lots to do...

There are many subject gaps that need to be filled. This can be done by creating new portals, or by adding Selected article sections to existing portals. To create a new portal, simply place {{subst:Basic portal start page}} on an empty portal page, and click "Preview". If the portal is complete, click "Save". After you try it, come share your experience and excitement at WT:WPPORTD.

Each new portal is just a starting point. Each portal of the new design can be further developed by:

refining the search parameters to improve the results displayed in the Did you know and In the news sections.
adding more specific Selected articles sections, like Selected biographies.
inserting a Recognized content section.
adding more pictures to the image slideshow.
placing a panoramic picture at the top of the intro section (especially for geographic portals).

Besides the new portals, there are still about 1200 portals of the old design that need to be converted to the new design.

Many portals need to be de-orphaned, by placing links to them (in the See also section of the corresponding root articles, at the bottom of the corresponding navigation footer templates, and on the corresponding category pages).

Many of the new portals still need to be listed at Portal:Contents/Portals.

Bugs keep popping up in portals. These need to be tracked down and reported at WT:WPPORTD.

Tools are needed to make developing and maintaining portals quicker and easier.

Dreaming up new features and capabilities. Innovation needs to continue, to design the portal of tomorrow, and the portal development-maintenance-system of the future. Automation!

So, if you find yourself with a little (or a lot) of free time, pick an area (or more) above and...

...dive in! — The Transhumanist 07:05, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #022, 11 Nov 2018

Welcome AmericanAir88

Give a hearty welcome to AmericanAir88, who has adopted working on portals as one of his main purposes on Wikipedia. So far, he has created the following portals:

Way to go!

Where's Evad?

Evad disappeared from Wikipedia on October 18.

He has been, and will continue to be, sorely missed.

Hopefully, he is okay, on a Caribbean cruise or something.

The conversion continues

Portals of the old design, are slowly but surely being converted to the new single-page design.

One factor that has slowed things down is that for many sections, the section header call and section contents call are integrated into a template and buried in a lua module, locking them in on each portal. They have been that way for years.

This means that these sections can't be directly edited like the other sections on the same portal. So, search/replaces affect all the sections except those. So, upgrading headers on these portals, for example, misses the integrated sections and inadvertently results in 2 different header colors.

Before we can continue with the upgrade of these portals, the headers and section contents calls need to be restored to each portal, so that those can be edited in concert with the other sections on the portal, and worked on independently of each other.

This is underway, with a solution implemented on about 1/4 of the affected portals so far. Around 300 of them. The remaining 900 should be done within a couple weeks or so.

Going wide...

We now have banner-shaped pictures included in the introduction sections of 180 portals. The rarity of such pictures has made it difficult to find suitably narrow images for display across the tops of portals.

We have a solution for this, courtesy of FR30799386...

Most pictures are not banner-shaped. But, you can still use them as banners. Here's how:

{{Portal image banner|File:Blueberries .jpg |maxheight=120px |overflow=Hidden }}

Using both maxheight=120px and overflow=Hidden produces this:

Project's status

There are now 4,140 portals, with more being created almost daily. Prior to this project's reboot, portals were created at about the rate of 80 per year. Since April of this year, we've created about 2,600 new portals, or 32.5 years' worth at the old rate.

Of those new portals, about 3/4 of them need links leading to them. Almost all of them are linked to from the category system, but they still need links in article see also sections, at the bottom of navigation templates, and on the main portals list at Portal:Contents/Portals.

Of the 1500 portals created before the reboot, about 300 have been completely converted to the new design so far. About 1100 more have been partially converted, with intros, image slideshows, and associated wikimedia sections getting the most attention.

Discussion has resumed on the portal guidelines.

Until next issue...

See ya round the portal system! — The Transhumanist 11:47, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CLI, November 2018

Your Military History Newsletter

Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results
Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content
Book review: Peacemaker67 looks at the Sydney Wars
Op-ed: TomStar81 on the end of World War I
Timeline: This month in World War I

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 09:40, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, Vermont. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Your question

If you look at the userpage of the account, it's pretty clear.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:44, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Bbb23, thank you. I realize my question wasn’t really phrased well: are they unrelated to Binod Basnet? Thank you, Vermont (talk) 20:47, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

The account is unrelated to Binod Basnet.--Bbb23 (talk) 20:51, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Dispute Resolution Regarding Copyright Violation

Vermont, Regarding the subject of copyright violation, I have initiated a Dispute Resolution. Please visit the Dispute Resolution Notice Board, and provide a statement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#User_talk:MichaelPeiper0331

Thank you, Michael — Preceding unsigned comment added by MichaelPeiper0331 (talk • contribs) 00:22, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

CVU training

Hi Vermont, I requested Mz7 to train me but he said that he is busy now he can be available in the end of December. Can you enroll me as your student.Denim11 (talk) 09:01, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Denim11, I am also busy. Sorry. Vermont (talk) 12:10, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Ok Vermont then I shall wait till December for Mz7.Denim11 (talk) 12:12, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #023, 25 Nov 2018

There are now 4,180 portals.

Will we break 5,000 by the end of the year?

I know we can. But, that is up to you!

( New portals are created with {{subst:Basic portal start page}} or {{subst:bpsp}} )

Happy Holidays

Hello everyone! Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice (if it's occurring in your area of the world), and thanks for your work in maintaining, improving, and expanding portals. Cheers, — The Transhumanist 06:51, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove; use {{subst:Season's Greetings}} to send this message

Jingling along

The following portals have been created since the last issue:

Keep 'em coming!

By the way, the above list was generated using this Petscan query. It can be easily modified by changing the date. The data page (under the Output tab) also has options for receiving the data in CSV or tabbed format, which some operating systems automatically load into a spreadsheet program for ease of use, such as copying and pasting the desired column (like page names).

In closing

We'll keep it short this issue.

Expect a flood next time. Or the one after that.

Cheerio, — The Transhumanist 07:29, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

CVU training

Hello, I would like to enroll in your counter vandalism training. A 10 fireplane (talk) 00:06, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

A 10 fireplane, I’ll be mostly unavailable until Monday. If you haven’t enrolled with a trainer by then, I will gladly take you on as a student. Thanks, Vermont (talk) 00:18, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, Mondays great

A 10 fireplane (talk) 00:28, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

A 10 fireplane, please see User:Vermont/CVUA/A 10 fireplane. Thanks, Vermont (talk) 01:32, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Recent editorial request

Thank you for restoring the picture of Jim Parsley and his children. Another editor came in afterward and cropped out the children. Was this done in order to comply with wikipedia rules? The children wanted their pictures or at least their names to be included in the bio - but I do not know the rules around this. thanks again 108.48.40.53 (talk) 23:03, 27 November 2018 (UTC)Robert Barrett108.48.40.53 (talk) 23:03, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

It was done in order to comply with Wikipedia's guidelines. I changed the image in the Personal life section back, as it fits well in that section. If you have a reliable source for the children's names, please add them and cite that source. Thank you, Vermont (talk) 23:10, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your response and for fixing the one picture. I am the source of the childrens' names as one of them - Becky - is my wife so I don't know the proper way to source that. Jim is Becky's brother (he was in the top picture). These two are the only biological children of James Parsley. He was married several times and so all of that was intentionally left out by me including the most recent marriage to Judy whose daughter Kelly is the one who made changes to include her family and delete the biological children. That change was undone by someone - I don't know who. I assume Kelly will do it again if and when she becomes aware of this latest activity. In my original article I was keeping it simple by only including the two biological children. This was my first attempt at authoring a wikipedia article so I do not know all of the rules and guidelines. Thanks again for your help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.204.16.83 (talk) 15:00, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

A source would need to be something that you can cite, like a news article mentioning his children’s names, not a person. Thanks, Vermont (talk) 15:50, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Thank you ))))) MichaelPeiper0331 (talk) 01:24, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Draft:Junglee Pictures

Hi, Vermont. The draft page for Junglee Pictures was declined due to its promotional tone and puffery. I've recently given it a copy-edit to remove such language, and would appreciate it if you could move it to mainspace. Cheers! Krimuk2.0 (talk) 07:52, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Nominations now open for "Military historian of the year" and "Military history newcomer of the year" awards

Nominations for our annual Military historian of the year and Military history newcomer of the year awards are open until 23:59 (GMT) on 15 December 2018. Why don't you nominate the editors who you believe have made a real difference to the project in 2018? MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:26, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Special Barnstar
	Thank You Nithin Danday! (talk) 06:19, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Thank you

Nithin Danday! (talk) 06:21, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

trademark issue/legal threats for hackers.mu

Hi Vermont, Please delete the page due to legal threats/trademark issues

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers.mu Wedgeantilles0 (talk) 11:52, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Wedgeantilles0, what legal threats/trademark issues? Vermont (talk) 12:01, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Owner of trademark is threatening to legally sue the use of "hackers.mu" by wikipedia contributors based in Mauritius where the trademark was registered. Wedgeantilles0 (talk) 12:07, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Replied on IRC. Vermont (talk) 12:18, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

It appears this editor is attempting to delete this article via an incorrectly filed AfD. I've asked for more information at their talk page before noticing their conversation here. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hackers.mu. The assumed trademark owner has also replied there. If I can be of any assistance please feel free to let me know. -- Longhair\^talk 13:06, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I have already informed the legal department of wikipedia regarding the legal threats Wedgeantilles0 (talk) 13:48, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

@Wedgeantilles0: The problem has been solved, legal threats aside. The other editor is over at my talk page with his version of the issue if you'd care to add your side. If the legal threat was directed at you, why would Wikipedia intervene anyway? -- Longhair\^talk 13:51, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

CVAU Training

Yes, I would like to continue my CVAU training. I'm sorry that I had no activity for quite a while. I have been super busy for a while now. I wont be able to be on every day, but I will try to be on at least a few times a week. Thanks!  GreyPage (talk) 00:05, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Also, what is the chat system you use for CVAU training? I changed computers, and I lost the bookmark. GreyPage (talk) 00:21, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

GreyPage, I believe I helped you get an IRCCloud (irccloud.com) account. Is that what you're referring to? Vermont (talk) 00:28, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

yes, Thanks GreyPage (talk) 00:31, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

GreyPage, If you login to it, please come onto Freenode (probably your default) and do "/msg Vermont [something]" without the quotes.

The Bugle: Issue CLII, December 2018

Your Military History Newsletter

Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results
Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content
Book review: Recent external reviews
Op-ed: Indy beetle looks at military newspapers in East Africa

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 10:34, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Counter Vanalism Training

Could you train me in Counter Vandalism, I see you have your name on the Counter Vandalism page. Thank you. Pablothepenguin (talk) 19:31, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

@Vermont:

Sure! I'll make a page for you tonight or tomorrow. Vermont (talk) 19:28, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Sorry about the crap typing. Pablothepenguin (talk) 19:31, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

What about me?

I saw you name in Counter Vandalism Unit, your the only one with open slots, however I live in california which is in the PST time zone. Is this an issue? Thanks you. Nithin Danday! (talk) 05:29, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Nithin.danday, it shouldn’t be an issue. I’ll make a CVUA page for you tonight (EST). Vermont (talk) 10:05, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

I know that I am a little late to the party, but can you train me in the Counter Vandalism? Thank you. XtHybrid (talk) 15:24, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

XtHybrid, sure. I’ll make a page for you tonight or tomorrow. Vermont (talk) 15:28, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

Counter Vandalism Academy

Hello Vermont. I see that you are one of the trainers for the [Unit]. I am interested in joining the academy and being trained in fighting vandalism. Would you be able to help me with this? Sei Noelle (talk) 00:26, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Sei Noelle, sure. I’ll be at my desk in about an hour and 20 minutes, and then will be able to make a page for you (and address my queue of other work to do). Thanks, Vermont (talk) 00:28, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I will wait for you to set things up. Sei Noelle (talk) 00:30, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Sei Noelle, created. Please see User:Vermont/CVUA/Sei Noelle. Thanks, Vermont (talk) 02:09, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. I have completed the survey. Sei Noelle (talk) 02:30, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

I was wondering, do you think we should hold off on more training until the stewards see my notice on Meta and resolve it? Or continue with the course? I'd like to keep going, but I thought I would see what you thought. Sei Noelle (talk) 14:09, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Sei Noelle, I’m going to hold off on continuing until the issue is resolved. Vermont (talk) 14:43, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

That makes sense. I'll just wait and see what happens then. Sei Noelle (talk) 15:03, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Voting now open for "Military historian of the year" and "Military history newcomer of the year" awards

Voting for our annual Military historian of the year and Military history newcomer of the year awards is open until 23:59 (GMT) on 30 December 2018. Why don't you vote for the editors who you believe have made a real difference to Wikipedia's coverage of military history in 2018? MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:17, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Ocasio-Cortez and her comments on Israel

Thank you for undoing Tsumikiria's revert of my addition to the Ocasio-Cortez page. Tsumikiria's given reason for removing my content seemed to boil down to his having anti-Semitic beliefs. Well, he's back at it, and my very lousy computer skills make me a poor candidate to respond appropriately to him. (I still haven't mastered the fine art of reversion, really.) Can to please return to the Ocasio-Cortez page and add the information back in? Perhaps ask Tsumikiria not to use anti-Semitism as a basis for editing as well?

Thank you, Vcuttolo (talk) 18:56, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Vcuttolo, I don’t see too much of an issue with it in it’s present state. If you wish to re-phrase it, please stick to what the sources explicitly say. Also, please note that referring to someone as an anti-Semite could be construed as a personal attack, so it’s best to refrain from doing so. Thank you, Vermont (talk) 19:16, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

I did not accuse him of being an anti-Semite, I said that the reason he provided for removing the edits I entered was, essentially, anti-Semitism.

 "we know Israeli media criticize anyone criticizing israel" (sic)

Take that as you wish, I would take that to mean he shouldn't be editing articles related to Israel and the Palestinians. And now he has been edit warring with everyone at the AOC page, removing any hint of negativity there. If you take a look, I believe you could help rein him in, and we can have a better Wikipedia.

Thank you, Vcuttolo (talk) 07:55, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Vcuttolo, please provide a diff of where that quote was said. Thanks, Vermont (talk) 10:03, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't know what a "diff" is. Tusimikiria reverted me two days ago on the AOC page, and used the above quote as part of his reasoning (along with false charges against me). It's about 30 edits ago on the AOC page, definitely well within the first 50 most recent edits.

Vcuttolo (talk) 10:09, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Seasonal Greetings

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2019!

Hello Vermont, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2019.
Happy editing,
Everedux (talk) 14:56, 25 December 2018 (UTC)

Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #024, 26 Dec 2018

Last issue, I mentioned there would be a flood, and so, here it is...

Portals status

We now have 4,620 portals.

And the race to pass 5,000 by year's end is on...

Can we make it?

The New Year, and the 5,001st portal, await.

( New portals are created with {{subst:Basic portal start page}} or {{subst:bpsp}} )

Evad is back!

After disappearing in mid-thread, Evad37 has returned from a longer than expected wikibreak.

Be sure to welcome him back.

Improved cropping is coming to Portal image banner

User:FR30799386 is working on making {{Portal image banner}} even better by enabling it to chop the top off an image as well as the bottom.

Many pictures aren't suitable for banners because they are too tall. Therefor, User:FR30799386 added cropping to this template, so that an editor could specify part of a picture to be used rather than the whole thing.

Upgrade of flagship portals is underway

Work has begun on upgrading Wikipedia's flagship portals (those listed at the top of the Main page).

So far, Portal:Geography, Portal:History, and Portal:Technology have been revamped. Of course, you are welcome to improve them further.

Work continues on the other five. Feel free to join in on the fun.

Spotting missing portals that are redirects

In place of many missing portals, there is a redirect that leads to "the next best topic", such as a parent topic.

Most of these were created before we had the tools to easily create portals (they used to take 6 hours or more to create, because it was all done manually). Rather than leave a portal link red, some editors thought it was best that those titles led somewhere.

The subjects that have sufficient coverage should have their own portals rather than a redirect to some other subject.

Unfortunately, being blue like all other live links, redirects are harder to spot than redlinks.

To spot redirects easily, you can make them all appear green.

What's new in portal space?

Here are the new portals since the last issue:

Keep 'em coming!

And I'll see you next issue.

Sincerely, — The Transhumanist 08:15, 26 December 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #025, 30 Dec 2018

We can now crop the tops of pics to make banners

Before, we could only cut off the bottom of pics.

User:FR30799386 has pulled it off, and made the upgrade to {{Portal image banner}}...

So, this:

Niagara falls, from the Canadian side

Becomes this:

Niagara falls, from the Canadian side

Here's the code for the above banner:

{{Portal image banner|File:American Falls from Canadian side in winter.jpg | [[Niagara falls]], from the Canadian side |maxheight=175px |overflow=Hidden|croptop=10}}

To see it employed in a portal, check out Portal:Niagara Falls.

About that end of the year goal...

We were racing against time to create 5,000 portals by the end of the year (just for the heck of it).

We made it. We've passed the 5,000 portals mark, with time to spare!

And the 5,000th portal is Portal:Major League Baseball, by Happypillsjr.

Congratulations!

What's next?

The 10,000th portal mark. But...

...there is plenty else to do in addition to building new portals:

The new portals need to be linked to from the encyclopedia.
On those portals about subjects that are not typically capitalized, the search parameters need to be refined/expanded, to maximize the chances of Did you know and In the news items being found and displayed.
A Recognized content section needs to be added to each portal that has a corresponding WikiProject.
Addition of a category on those portals that lack a subject category.
Implement the portal category system, adding the appropriate categories to each portal.
Upgrade, and complete (as per the tasks enumerated above), the old-style portals that are not regularly maintained, which have not been converted yet (about 1,100 of them).
Find and fix the remaining bugs in the underlying lua modules.
Build portal tools (scripts) to assist in the creation, development, and maintenance of portals.
Build a script to help build navbox footer templates, via the harvesting of categories, amongst other methods.
Update the portal building instructions.
Update the portal guideline.
Refine the programming of the portals to reduce their load time.
Design and develop the next generation of portals and portal components.

And whatever else you can dream up.

But most of all, have a...

Happy New Year!

Vermont, thank you for your contributions to the Portals Project, and have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year.

Sincerely, — The Transhumanist 12:11, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CLIII, January 2019

Your Military History Newsletter

Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results
Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content
Book review: Nick-D looks at Albert Speer
Op-ed: Factotem on common problems affecting infoboxes
Timeline: This month in World War I

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 23:58, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Norman Hammond page

Hello Vermont

I imagine you will remember the debate we had at the end of last year about Norman Hammond webpage. I wondered if I could ask you to review your decision to remove all mention of the Sackler lecture from his webpage. As you will see in the following link, this named lecture is ongoing and high profile. https://www.mcdonald.cam.ac.uk/events/sackler5

I understand you have to be very careful with BLP pages and generally give the benefit of the doubt to the subject of the website. But Wikipedia BLP pages shouldnt just be marketing pages or hagiography for individuals. Sackler philanthropy is an important and growing issue. I am sure you will have seen the reports of mass litigation which has emerged since we last discussed this. (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/19/sackler-family-members-face-mass-litigation-criminal-investigations-over-opioids-crisis).

Professor Hammond is clearly embarrassed by his links to the Sackler family and is very keen for all mentions to be removed from his website. But embarrassment is not sufficient reason to remove a factual statement on a BLP website. It is incontestable that there is a named lecture in his honor in Boston and another one in Cambridge. Other similar named Sackler lecturers are listed in Wikipedia so I am not sure why Norman Hammond objects so strongly to a simple statement of fact on his website. I would be grateful if you could review the decision to remove the Sackler sentence, and perhaps let me know if there is an appeal process.

207.37.196.254 (talk) 16:45, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm perfectly okay with a neutral sentence on, for example, Norman Hammond's page saying something along the lines of "One of the Sackler lectures was named for Norman Hammond." in the career section (or comparable area) of his article provided you have a reliable source to back it up. What is not okay is the paragraph you added to about a half dozen BLP's in it's own section, which was a clear BLP policy violation and an issue with WP:UNDUE. His ties to the Sackler family are, as far as verifiable sources are concerned, basically nonexistent. Wikipedia isn't a place to try and influence change. Thanks, Vermont (talk) 16:54, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Okay thanks will do this. bw L — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.37.196.254 (talk) 16:52, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Your draft article, Draft:Hannah Heaton

Hello, Vermont. It has been over six months since you last edited the Articles for Creation submission or Draft page you started, "Hannah Heaton".

In accordance with our policy that Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace, the draft has been nominated for deletion. If you plan on working on it further, or editing it to address the issues raised if it was declined, simply edit the submission and remove the {{db-afc}}, {{db-draft}}, or {{db-g13}} code.

If your submission has already been deleted by the time you get there, and you wish to retrieve it, you can request its undeletion by following the instructions at this link. An administrator will, in most cases, restore the submission so you can continue to work on it.

Thanks for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. Dolotta (talk) 14:04, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #026, 20 Jan 2019

Well, here's the first issue of the new year. Enjoy...

New participants

A hearty welcome to new arrivals to the portals department:

Harvesting categories tool prototype

DannyS712 has created a user script prototype, User:DannyS712/Cat links, that can pull members from a category, a functionality we've been after since the project's revamp last Spring. Now, it's a matter of applying this technique to scripts that will place the items where needed, such as with a section starter script and/or portal builder script.

New portals since last issue

What else is going on

There have been some discussions at Wikipedia talk:Portal guidelines.

DreamyJazz is working on a bot to place links to portals on root articles, category pages, and navigation footer templates.

Portal bugs are getting dealt with soon after they are reported.

Lots of wikignome activity (using Hotcat, etc.).

Keep up the good work. — The Transhumanist 09:05, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Vandalism

I like to learn how to revert vandalism. I currently use Twinkle to do the job. I would like to learn new techniques when I revert vandalism. Can I become a student of yours? Mstrojny (talk) 11:57, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Mstrojny, please ask one of the other trainers. I’m currently at capacity. Thanks, Vermont (talk) 12:04, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Vermont, you are the only one that is in my time zone. Would it be OK if I ask Operator873, even though he is one time zone behind me? Mstrojny (talk) 13:35, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Mstrojny, yes. Vermont (talk) 13:37, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #027, 28 Jan 2019

Portal styles

For a visually intensive portal, see Portal:Hummingbirds.

If you find any other portals that stand out, please send me the links so I can include them in the next issue. Thank you.

Conversion continues

There are about 1100 portals left in the old style, with subpages and static excerpts. As those are very labor intensive to maintain (because their maintenance is manual), all those except the ones with active maintainers (about 100) are slated for upgrade = approximately 1000. We started with 1500, and so over a quarter of them have been processed so far. That's good, but at this rate, conversion will take another 3 years. So, some automation (AWB?) is in order. We just need to keep at it, and push down on the gas pedal a bit harder.

You can find the old-style portals with an insource search of "box portal skeleton".

Flagship portals: the portals on the Main Page

Speaking of upgrades...

The following portals are listed in the header at the top of Wikipedia's Main Page, and get far more traffic than all other portals:

Of those, all but one have been revamped to an automated self-updating single-page design.

The remaining one, Portal:Mathematics has manual maintainers, and has been partially upgraded.

As these are our flagship fleet, they need to be kept in top-notch condition.

Check 'em out, and improve them if you can.

And be sure they are on your watchlist.

New portals since last issue

Keep 'em coming!

Deorphanizing the new portals

As you know, thousands of the new portals are orphans, that is, having no links to them from article space. For all practical purposes, that means they are not part of the encyclopedia yet, and readers will be unlikely to find them.

What is needed are links to these portals from the See also sections of the corresponding root articles.

Dreamy Jazz to the rescue...

Dreamy Jazz has created a bot to place the corresponding category link to the end of each portal (if it is missing), and place a link to each portal in the See also section of the corresponding root articles.

That bot, named User:Dreamy Jazz Bot, is currently in its trial period performing the above described edits!

To take a look at the edits it has made so far, see Special:Contributions/Dreamy_Jazz_Bot.

It shouldn't be long before the bot is processing the entire set of new portals.

Good news indeed.

Way to go, Dreamy Jazz!

And, that's a wrap

That's all I have to report this time around.

No doubt there will be more to tell soon.

Until then, — The Transhumanist 13:17, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

The reply-link newsletter, issue 1

Hi! Welcome to the new reply-link newsletter, which I made because the ol' list on the reply-link talk page was unwieldy. In case you haven't been following development recently, I've sent out some new updates that should let it reply basically anywhere, even in transcluded pages or under hatted discussions (two locations people have been wanting for a while). Reliability has also gone way up, as I've implemented a couple of sanity checks that help prevent the script from responding to the wrong message. Unfortunately, that means the script fails a bit more often. Anyway, try it out if you haven't done so in a while, and let me know what you think! I always appreciate feature requests or bug reports on the talk page. Happy replying! (Signup list/Unsubscribe) MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:23, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #028, 04 Feb 2019

Here's a quicky status report:

Old-style portals: 1,018

Single-page portals: 4,367

Total portals: 5,385

But of course, there has been more going on than just that...

Dreamy Jazz Bot is up and running!

Dreamy Jazz Bot has been approved and is now up and running.

What it does is places missing links to orphaned portals. It places a link in the See also section of the corresponding root article, and it puts one at the top of the corresponding category page.

We have thousands of new portals that have yet to be added to the encyclopedia proper, just waiting to go live.

When they do go live, over the coming days or weeks, due to Dreamy Jazz Bot, it will be like an explosion of new portals on the scene. We should expect an increase in awareness and interest in the portals project. Perhaps even new participants.

Get ready...

Get set...

Go!

Another sockpuppet infiltrator has been discovered

User:Emoteplump, a recent contributor to the portals project, was discovered to be a sockpuppet account of an indefinitely blocked user.

When that happens, admins endeavor to eradicate everything the editor contributed. This aftermath has left a wake of destruction throughout the portals department, again.

The following portals which have been speedy deleted, are in the process of being re-created. Please feel free to help to turn these blue again:

And the corresponding talk pages:

New portals since the last issue

Keep up the great work

Until next time, — The Transhumanist 09:06, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Ah ha

I was right. It was User:Alec Smithson. GMG ^talk 17:49, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

GreenMeansGo, master detective work there! I’ll read over their LTA page so I’ll be more familiar with their pattern, especially considering some of their accounts have a lot of xwiki edits. Vermont (talk) 18:15, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CLIV, February 2019

Your Military History Newsletter

Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results
Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content
Book review: Recent external reviews
Review essay: Nick-D on the Japanese battleship Mikasa

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
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Draft article

Hello, Could you please look at Draft:Abbey of Saints Cornelius and Cyprian to see whether could be a proper article again. It is an almost complete translation of the lead of the French WP on the topic; the French and Dutch articles on the subject are good evidence of notability.--Johnsoniensis (talk) 10:26, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Johnsoniensis, it looks notable to me, although I would recommend leaving a message on the talk page of the original reviewer to ask if their concerns were addressed. Vermont (talk) 10:56, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #029, 13 Feb 2019

Where we are at:

Single-page portals: 4,704

Total portals: 5,705

The Ref desks survived the proposal to shut them down

You might be familiar with the Ref desks, by their link on every new portal. They are a place you can go to ask volunteers almost any knowledge-related question, and have been a feature of Wikipedia since August of 2005 (or perhaps earlier). They were linked to from portals in an effort to improve their visibility, and to provide a bridge from the encyclopedia proper to project space (the Wikipedia community).

Well, somebody proposed that we get rid of them, and the community decided that that was not going to happen. Thank you for defending the Ref desks!

Here's a link to the dramatic discussion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Indefinitely_semiprotecting_the_refdesk#Proposal_II:_Shut_down_the_Ref_Desks

The cleanup after sockpuppet Emoteplump continues...

The wake of disruption left by Emoteplump and the admins who reverted many (but not all) of his/her edits is still undergoing cleanup. We could use all the help we can get on this task...

Almost all of the speedy deleted portals have been rebuilt from scratch.

For the portals he/she restarted (many of which were done mistakenly, overwriting restarts and further development that had already been done), and/or tagged as the maintainer, see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Emoteplump&oldid=881568794#Additional_Portals_under_my_watch

10,000 portals, here we come...

We're at 5,705 portals and counting.

New portals since issue #28

Prior to 2018, for the previous 14 years, portal creation was at about 80 portals per year on average. We did over 3 times that in just the past 9 days. At this rate, we'll hit the 10,000 portal mark in 5 months. But, I'm sure we can do it sooner than that.

What's next for portal pages?

There are 5 drives for portal development:

Create new portals
Expand existing portals, such as with new sections like Recognized content
Convert or restart old-style portals into automated single-page portals
Link to new portals from the encyclopedia
Pageless portals

Let's take a closer look at these...

1: Creating new portals

Portal creation, for subjects that happen to have the necessary support structures already in place, is down to about a minute per portal. The creation part, which is automated, takes about 10 seconds. The other 50 seconds is taken up by manual activities, such as finding candidate subjects, inspecting generated portals, and selecting the portal creation template to be used according to the resources available. Tools are under development to automate these activities as much as possible, to pare portal creation time down even more. Ten seconds each is the goal.

Eventually, we are going to run out of navigation templates to base portals off of. Though there are still thousands to go. But, when they do run out, we'll need an easy way to create more. A nav footer creation script.

Meanwhile, other resources are being explored and developed, such as categories, and methods to harvest the links they contain.

2: Expanding existing portals

The portal collection is growing, not only by the addition of new portals, but by further developing the ones we already have, by...

Improving and/or adding search parameters to better power the Did you know and In the news sections.
Adding more selected content sections, like Selected biographies.
Adding and maintaining Recognized content sections, via JL-Bot.
Adding pictures to the image slideshow.
Adding panoramic pics.
Categorizing portals.

More features will be added as we dream them up and design them. So, don't be shy, make a wish.

3: Converting old portals

By far the hardest and most time-consuming task we have been working on is updating the old portals, the very reason we revamped this WikiProject in the first place.

There are two approaches here:

A) Restart a portal from scratch, using our automated tools. For basic no-frills portals, that works find. But, for more elaborate portals, as that tends to lose content and features, the following approach is being tried...

B) Upgrade a portal section by section, so little to nothing is lost in the process.

4: Linking to new portals

Or "portal deorphanization"...

Dreamy Jazz Bot is purring along.

And a tool in the form of a script is under development for linking to portals at the time they are created, or shortly thereafter.

5...

See below...

New WikiProject for the post-saved-portal phase of operations...

Saved portals, are portals with a saved page.

What is the next stage in the evolutionary progression?

Quantum portals.

What are quantum portals?

Portals that come into existence when you click on the portal button, and which disappear when you leave the page.

Or, as Pbsouthwood put it:

...portals that exist only as a probability function (algorithm) until you collapse the wave form by observing through the portal button (run the script), and disappear again after use...

Introducing...

Wikipedia:WikiProject Quantum portals (see it's talk page).

Keep on keepin' on

...'til next time, — The Transhumanist 10:28, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi Vermont

@Vermont: Hi, it has been a little awhile, and I'm sorry about that. Hopefully we're both catched up. This week, I intend to pick back up my work here.

I wanted to take my time and understand MOS so I could contribute better.

Sincerely, User: Zanygenius(talk page) 15:38, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Zanygenius, sounds great! Vermont (talk) 18:02, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! I hope I can get into a pattern of improving here. Unfortanatley now, I won't be available during the most of the mornings or afternoons, so 02:00-04:00 UTC is generally when I'll do my most stuff on Wikipedia. But hopefully, I can still make a positive impact here, and that you could still guide me. I have some Projects that I might do to open the door to editing again. Thank you again, Sincerely, User: Zanygenius(talk page) 19:10, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Counter-Vandalism Academy

Hi, i want you to train me, please. I want to have more experience reverting vandalism edits.

Se by 15 41 21:14, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Seby1541, sure. Give me a few minutes to make a page for ya. Vermont (talk) 21:15, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Seby1541, done, see User:Vermont/CVUA/Seby1541, thanks. Vermont (talk) 21:39, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CLV, March 2019

Your Military History Newsletter

Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results
Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content
Book review: Hawkeye7 on US Navy aviation safety and Australian war crimes trials

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 11:00, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Please participate to the talk pages consultation

Hello

Our team at the Wikimedia Foundation is working on a project to improve the ease-of-use and productivity of wiki talk pages. As a Teahouse host, I can imagine you’ve run into challenges explaining talk pages to first-time participants.

We want all contributors to be able to talk to each other on the wikis – to ask questions, to resolve differences, to organize projects and to make decisions. Communication is essential for the depth and quality of our content, and the health of our communities. We're currently leading a global consultation on how to improve talk pages, and we're looking for people that can report on their experiences using (or helping other people to use) wiki talk pages. We'd like to invite you to participate in the consultation, and invite new users to join too.

We thank you in advance for your participation and your help.

Trizek (WMF), 08:37, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Please participate to the talk pages consultation - link update

The previous message about the talk pages consultation has a broken link.

The correct link has been misinterpreted by the MassMessage tool. Please use the following link: Wikipedia:Talk pages consultation 2019.

Sorry for the inconvenience, Trizek (WMF), 08:48, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #030, 17 Mar 2019

Previous issue:

Single-page portals: 4,704

Total portals: 5,705

This issue:

Single-page portals: 4,562

Total portals: 5,578

The collection of portals has shrunk

All Portals closed at WP:MfD during 2019

Grouped Nominations total 127 Portals:

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/US County Portals Deleted 64 portals
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Districts of India Portals Deleted 30 Portals
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portals for Portland, Oregon neighborhoods Deleted 23 Portals
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Allen Park, Michigan Deleted 6 Portals
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Cryptocurrency Deleted 2 Portals
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:North Pole Deleted 2 Portals

Individual Nominations:

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Circles Deleted
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Fruits Deleted
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:E (mathematical constant) Deleted
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Burger King Deleted
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Cotingas Deleted
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Prostitution in Canada Deleted
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Agoura Hills, California Deleted
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Urinary system Deleted
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:You Am I Deleted
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Cannabis (2nd nomination) Reverted to non-Automated version
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Intermodal containers Deleted
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Adventure travel Deleted
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Adam Ant Deleted
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Benito Juárez, Mexico City Deleted
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Spaghetti Deleted
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Wikiatlas Deleted
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Greek alphabet Deleted
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Deleted
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Accounting Deleted G7
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Lents, Portland, Oregon Deleted P2
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Ankaran Deleted
Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Jiu-jitsu Deleted G8
Portal:University of Nebraska Speedy Deleted P1/A10 exactly the same as Portal:University of Nebraska–Lincoln also created by the TTH

Related WikiProject:

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Quantum portals Demoted

(Attribution: Copied from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Portal MfD Results)

WikiProject Quantum portals

This was a spin-off from WikiProject Portals, for the purpose of developing zero-page portals (portals generated on-the-screen at the push of a button, with no stored pages).

It has been merged back into WikiProject Portals. In the MfD the vote was "demote". See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Quantum portals.

Hiatus on mass creation of Portals

At WP:VPR, mass creation of Portals using semi-automated tools has been put on hold until clearer community consensus is established.

See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Hiatus on mass creation of Portals.

The Transhumanist banned from creating new portals for 3 months

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Proposal 1: Interim Topic-Ban on New Portals.

Until next issue...

Keep on keepin' on. — The Transhumanist 09:29, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

My signature

Hi Vermont, I have been trying to catch everything up latley and I noticed that you wrote about my signature (unfortunately I was off of Wikipedia at the time) so today I fixed it. (See below) Sincerely, Zanygenius_{(talk to me!)(email me!)} 15:09, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

It's a great signature! Anything you'd like me to help you with, just leave a message here or pm me on IRC. Vermont (talk) 15:27, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, Vermont, and I'll let you know. Do you think I am ready to edit Wikipedia on my own (especially considering I was gone for so long) or should I still take some lessons? Zanygenius_{(talk to me!)(email me!)} 20:49, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

What do you want to edit? Of course, you can edit whatever you want (save for undisclosed paid editing and protected pages) whenever, but I'll be happy to help you in whatever field of editing you wish to engage in. Thanks, Vermont (talk) 21:38, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm currently working on projects like the TAFI and March 2019 North American blizzard. Although I have begun a draft. I might need help on the draft.Thanks for asking, Zanygenius_{(talk to me!)(email me!)} 22:32, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Good idea?

Hi @Vermont:, the calendar is getting closer to April first, and it has been getting me thinking about WP:FOOLS, and maybe getting in on it. However, I want to be cautious so that I can maintain a good account standing so I can still contribute helpfully. If I were to do any jokes, I would likely pretend to warn someone that they vandalized Wikipedia, or perhaps play around with Infinite Loop. Still, I don't want to go over the top. What do you think? Thank you, Zanygenius_{(talk to me!)(email me!)} 14:06, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Zanygenius, I have an idea you may find interesting. Come onto IRC and pm me. Vermont (talk) 14:27, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

I will soon, appearantly I need to renew my IRC since I wasn't on for a while. Zanygenius_{(talk to me!)(email me!)} 23:55, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Don't pay for IRCCloud; the free version works just as well. Vermont (talk) 23:58, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Week 14 TAFI

Hi, Vermont the next few TAFI's are "Story of the Negro" April 8th, "Dairy Product" April 15th. Should I work on either of these, or would they not be within my range, like Gym? Zanygenius_{(talk to me!)(email me!)} 18:17, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Zanygenius, edit whatever you want! If you’re interested in helping improve any article, it’s always good. :) Vermont (talk) 19:54, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Vermont, I'll get on those soon. (And you wasn't too worried/mad about IRC? :D)

The Bugle: Issue CLVI, April 2019

Your Military History Newsletter

Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results
Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content
Book review: Peacemaker67, Nick-D and Hawkeye7 look at three books focussing on the World Wars
Op-ed: Indy Beetle on the fall of Idi Amin

The Bugle is published by the Military history WikiProject. To receive it on your talk page, please join the project or sign up here.
If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 22:00, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar

Thanks for help on IRC! Thekidn1 (talk) 11:34, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Your account on Vikidia

Hi. I now have 2 Vermont's on Vikidia. I have Vermont and ActualVermont. For the sake clarity can you please tell me which one is you? One is claiming the other is a sock of JaySmith123. Thanks. Dane|Geld 19:14, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

DaneGeld, I’m ActualVermont. Thanks for checking with me. I was sad to see that you decided to leave Vikidia and decided to make an account, and noticed that JRS had made an account there impersonating me (as in many other non-WMF wikis). Thanks, Vermont (talk) 19:32, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Ok no problem. For the record, the administration there look like they've rejected the idea of taking my rights away, although to be fair with the way I've behaved, they should. I'm going to unblock Thewinrat myself and explain why to my colleagues, and then explain here. The reason his account was reblocked is that administrators are not supposed to revert administrator edits without discussion.

I know the truth of him now, so I'll also apologise to Phil Bridger and others here. Thanks for keeping in touch, feel free to ping me and talk if you want, either here or there. Dane|Geld 23:54, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #031, 01 May 2019

Back to the drawing board

Implementation of the new portal design has been culled back almost completely, and the cull is still ongoing. The cull has also affected portals that existed before the development of the automated design.

Some of the reasons for the purge are:

Portals receive insufficient traffic, making it a waste of editor resources to maintain them, especially for narrow-scope or "micro" portals
The default {{bpsp}} portals are redundant with the corresponding articles, being based primarily on the corresponding navigation footer displayed on each of those articles, and therefore not worth separate pages to do so
They were mass created

Most of the deletions have been made without prejudice to recreation of curated portals, so that approval does not need to be sought at Deletion Review in those cases.

In addition to new portals being deleted, most of the portals that were converted to an automated design have been reverted.

Which puts us back to portals with manually selected content, that need to be maintained by hand, for the most part, for the time being, and back facing some of the same problems we had when we were at this crossroads before:

Manually maintained portals are not scalable (they are labor intensive, and there aren't very many editors available to maintain them)
The builders/maintainers tend to eventually abandon them
Untended handcrafted portals go stale and fall into disrepair over time

These and other concepts require further discussion. See you at WT:POG.

However, after the purge/reversion is completed, some of the single-page portals might be left, due to having acceptable characteristics (their design varied some). If so, then those could possibly be used as a model to convert and/or build more, after the discussions on portal creation and design guidelines have reached a community consensus on what is and is not acceptable for a portal.

See you at WT:POG.

Curation

A major theme in the deletion discussions was the need for portals to be curated, that is, each one having a dedicated maintainer.

There are currently around 100 curated portals. Based on the predominant reasoning at MfD, it seems likely that all the other portals may be subject to deletion.

See you at WT:POG.

Traffic

An observation and argument that arose again and again during the WP:ENDPORTALS RfC and the ongoing deletion drive of {{bpsp}} default portals, was that portals simply do not get much traffic. Typically, they get a tiny fraction of what the corresponding like-titled articles get.

And while this isn't generally considered a good rationale for creation or deletion of articles, portals are not articles, and portal critics insist that traffic is a key factor in the utility of portals.

The implication is that portals won't be seen much, so wouldn't it be better to develop pages that are?

And since such development isn't limited to editing, almost anything is possible. If we can't bring readers to portals, we could bring portal features, or even better features, to the readers (i.e., to articles)...

Some potential future directions of development

Quantum portals?

An approach that has received some brainstorming is "quantum portals", meaning portals generated on-the-fly and presented directly on the view screen without any saved portal pages. This could be done by script or as a MediaWiki program feature, but would initially be done by script. The main benefits of this is that it would be opt-in (only those who wanted it would install it), and the resultant generated pages wouldn't be saved, so that there wouldn't be anything to maintain except the script itself.

Non-portal integrated components

Another approach would be to focus on implementing specific features independently, and provide them somewhere highly visible in a non-portal presentation context (that is, on a page that wasn't a portal that has lots of traffic, i.e., articles). Such as inserted directly into an article's HTML, as a pop-up there, or as a temporary page. There are scripts that use these approaches (providing unrelated features), and so these approaches have been proven to be feasible.

What kind of features could this be done with?

The various components of the automated portal design are transcluded excerpts, news, did you know, image slideshows, excerpt slideshows, and so on.

Some of the features, such as navigation footers and links to sister projects are already included on article pages. And some already have interface counterparts (such as image slideshows). Some of the rest may be able to be integrated directly via script, but may need further development before they are perfected. Fortunately, scripts are used on an opt-in basis, and therefore wouldn't affect readers-in-general and editors-at-large during the development process (except for those who wanted to be beta testers and installed the scripts).

The development of such scripts falls under the scope of the Javascript-WikiProject/Userscript-department, and will likely be listed on Wikipedia:User scripts/List when completed enough for beta-testing. Be sure to watchlist that page.

Where would that leave curated portals?

Being curated. At least for the time being.

New encyclopedia program features will likely eventually render most portals obsolete. For example, the pop-up feature of MediaWiki provides much the same functionality as excerpts in portals already, and there is also a slideshow feature to view all the images on the current page (just click on any image, and that activates the slideshow). Future features could also overlap portal features, until there is nothing that portals provide that isn't provided elsewhere or as part of Wikipedia's interface.

But, that may be a ways off. Perhaps months or years. It depends on how rapidly programmers develop them.

Keep on keepin' on

The features of Wikipedia and its articles will continue to evolve, even if Portals go by the wayside. Most, if not all of portals' functionality, or functions very similar, will likely be made available in some form or other.

And who knows what else?

No worries.

Until next issue... — The Transhumanist 00:54, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Do not delete my article again

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhruv_Rathee

I created a page on the Simple wikipedia, based on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhruv_Rathee

@Dhruv Rathee: The relevant deletion policy permits this under G4. Please do not submit the article again. The community has made clear it does not want the page there. Furthermore, you have not stated any reason at all justifying the page being kept. Hiàn (talk)_{editing on mobile account.} 14:26, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CLVII, May 2019

Your Military History Newsletter

Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results
Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content
Book review: Hawkeye7 on Australia's leadership and medical services in World War II and Peacemaker67 on Israel's targeted assassinations
Op-ed: TomStar81 looks at the fate of the German fleet at Scapa Flow

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If you are a project member who does not want delivery, please remove your name from this page. Your editors, Ian Rose (talk) and Nick-D (talk) 11:04, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

The Bugle: Issue CLVIII, June 2019

Your Military History Newsletter

Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results
Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content
Book review: Nick-D looks at the Dambusters, and Hawkeye7 at Allied code breakers and Australia in New Guinea and Vietnam
Op-ed: TomStar81 on the treaty that ended World War I

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The Bugle: Issue CLIX, July 2019

Your Military History Newsletter

Project news: From the editors; awards and honours; contest results
Articles: Last month's new featured and A-class content
Book review: Haweye7, Peacemaker67 and Nick-D on recent books covering the world wars

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A cookie for you!

Thanks for your work to improve Portal:Vermont. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 08:41, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Walking away

You don't know me, but I was genuinely upset to read your message on my talk page. I'm sure you sent in good faith but I feel hurt, and combined with what else is going on my life make me want to just walk away from the project; however I have a GA review to finish. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 18:20, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

@Ritchie333: I sincerely apologize that you interpreted my message that way. I highly respect you as an editor and administrator, and hope you remain active. However, I felt it necessary to comment about the issue that seemed to be developing between you and Praxidicae, another editor I respect. I understand it may be construed that my comment was harsh, but it does seem to me like you have been following Praxidicae around a bit and it's evident that it has caused them distress. Thank you for contacting me about this, and I hope this issue ends here. Best regards, Vermont (talk) 18:26, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

It might appear to be so superficially, but it really isn't; it's just me regularly reviewing CAT:CSD as I said I would do way back at my RfA, and I sometimes decline speedy tags instead of deleting, as admins reviewing that backlog category generally do. That's pretty much it. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 16:07, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I'll add an uninvited voice and say that I've long respected the work that both of you do, and I've long hoped you would find a way to get along better than you often seem to. GMG ^talk 21:57, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm always attempting to find ways to get on with people, even after a heated debate, as Oshwah and yourself can probably testify. Heck, I'm sure I've grumped at Gerda Arendt before but I'm still willing to help with DYKs .... if I ever remember about them. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 16:32, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, Ritchie, no idea what "grumped" even means. You can help with a DYK for Johann Münzberg whose birthday is 3 August. - You could also say that Brigitte Kronauer deserves an entry for recent deaths. - Grumped: if you mean the DS notice for the one topic I will not forgot that it's hot (although I have no idea why), I laugh about it if I may. Got me some nice kittens below, one from the first person who called me disruptive, only to make the edit in question some years later. If I learned one thing here, it's patience. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:47, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

It happens; nobody is perfect. :-) ~Oshwah~^{(talk) (contribs)} 21:07, 26 July 2019 (UTC)