User talk:Paulmcdonald/Archives/2022/February

Happy Paulmcdonald's Day!

User:Paulmcdonald has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, and therefore, I've officially declared today as Paulmcdonald's day! For being such a beautiful person and great Wikipedian, enjoy being the Star of the day, dear Paulmcdonald! Peace, Rlevse 00:04, 26 May 2010 (UTC) A record of your Day will always be kept here.

Awesome

Ten years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:07, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Cleanups

Yes, some people archive. I am not one of them. Please don't take offense: if you want to review an old discussion, feel free check out the page history (and yes, I only keep the stuff I wanna keep--hey, it's my talk page...). I do keep relevant discussions for as long as they are... well... relevant.--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:30, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Why I haven't archived Essentially it has been a combination of not knowing how and laziness. Maybe not laziness, because it seems that I'm always learning something new on Wikipedia. I guess I've had other interests and have been enthusiastic in other areas. I've not really seen the need to archive.

Lately I've gotten requests to begin archiving my talk pages. I'll look into it and figure out how to do that. If someone wants to show me, please do so.--Paul McDonald (talk) 11:35, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

(dead discussions removed) 21 Dec 2007--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:51, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

(dead discussions removed 9 Jan 2008)--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:59, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

(dead discussions removed 21 May 2008)--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:52, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

(dead discussions removed 25 August 2008)--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:36, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

(dead discussions removed 30 October 2008)--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:18, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

(dead discussions removed 12 December 2008) --Paul McDonald (talk) 16:30, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

(dead discussions removed 10 February 2010) --Paul McDonald (talk) 23:07, 10 February 2010 (UTC)-

(dead discussions removed 1 July 2010) --Paul McDonald (talk) 14:22, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

(dead discussions removed 20 July 2010) --Paul McDonald (talk) 21:30, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

(dead discussions removed 25 November 2010)--Paul McDonald (talk) 23:09, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

(dead discussions removed 12 January 2012)--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:36, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

(dead discussions removed 4 April 2012)--Paul McDonald (talk) 10:36, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

(dead discussions removed 23 February 2013)--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:04, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for March 6

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Nomination of A. W. Kjellstrand for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article A. W. Kjellstrand is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/A. W. Kjellstrand until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Eduemoni^↑talk↓ 04:41, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for March 14

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Harry Buck

If you're interested, Harry Buck has lots of Google hits and could be expanded. Harry Crowe Buck was the full name. – Connormah (talk) 04:40, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll look into it!--Paul McDonald (talk) 11:36, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Another one, Dewey King - he was the "DeWayne King" that coached at SJ State from 1970 to 1972...could you sort the infobox out when you get the time? – Connormah (talk) 05:32, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Continuing on with the Kansas coaches, I believe Charles Erickson and Dee Errikson were the same person as well... – Connormah (talk) 23:51, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Feel free to keep posting these ideas here for now. --Paul McDonald (talk) 01:18, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

DONE E. C. Gallagher is Edward C. Gallagher per http://bakertrack.wordpress.com/19-2/ – Connormah (talk) 06:11, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Notice of Edit warring noticeboard discussion

Hello. This message is being sent to inform you that there is currently a discussion involving you at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring regarding a possible violation of Wikipedia's policy on reliable sources. Thank you.--Natural Homes (talk) 12:36, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Coach bios, etc

Paul, I see you're back at creating more college football coach biographies. Good stuff. I want to point out a few items:

• In the name field of infoboxes, the subject's common name (i.e. article name minus any parenthetical disambiguation) should appear. Additional nicknames or initials should be omitted. The same is true in lists of coaches, in coach navboxes, and generally anywhere a given person is referenced. Pretty much always go by the common name. Full names, initials, and nicknames should indeed be noted in the lead of the subject's bio article.
• Your standard stub-out includes the phrase "...was an American football coach in the United States." I used to make the same sort of practice, but got some feedback from guys like Dirtlawyer1 and Cbl62 that this was redundant. At this point I agree with them. I think we can assume, unless otherwise noted, than any American football player or coach is an American citizen playing or coaching in the US. So the phrase "in the United States" can be dropped.
• The lead ought to also note head coaching tenures. Simply saying the guy was a football coach is a little sparse, even for an initial stub.
• Let's take a quick look at one of your standard sentences, e.g. "Turnbull was the first head college football coach for the Wheaton Thunder located in Wheaton, Illinois." There are couple problems here. First, the phrase "head college football coach" is stilted and overstated. Turnbull was the "first head football coach" at Wheaton. That's all you need. Wheaton is a college. They don't play high school or pro football. College football is all they have ever played. Second, the construction "Wheaton Thunder" is not good form. It's an over-packing of wikilinks. This should all read something like, "Turnbull was the first head football coach at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois." Then, after that, you could delve into more detail and work a link in directly to Wheaton Thunder football.
• In navboxes there's no need to use "{{PAGENAME}}" as sort key. Totally obsolete code.
• In general I think it's preferable to write endashes with wiki markup, rather than in the HTML code (–). This make things more efficient and cleaner in the edit view.
• It would also be great if you could use standard spacing in instance sof Template:Infobox college coach so that the equal signs all line up. Again, this make things much cleaner in the edit view.

Let me know if you have any thoughts or questions about stuff. Thanks again and all the best, Jweiss11 (talk) 03:08, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Great points all around. I've been getting ready to sit down and scrub up my tool that I use to create the templates. It might seem kind of corny, but I have an Excel workbook that I use to make a "skeleton article" and then go back and add details as I find them. It's really handy, but it isn't perfect. I really appreciate how you've batted clean-up for me on what I've been doing!--Paul McDonald (talk) 11:36, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, you mentioned the Excel template before. Not corny at all. I like the idea of efficiency. I'm pretty good with Excel, so let me know if I can help with that template. Jweiss11 (talk) 15:05, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm working on a new template and will start with List of Northern Colorado Bears head football coaches. I think I need to finish up Sterling and Wheaton with the current version.--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:27, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

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A barnstar for you!

		The Guidance Barnstar
		Paul, I was just looking through some of my earliest contributions for fun, and was surprised at how many times your name came up. I was truly clueless, and you were probably as patient as anyone could have been, and for that I realized I've never thanked you. Thanks to you, I try to return the favor to new users with whom I interact by embodying the same patience (admittedly though, I am not always as successful). You planted a seed in me, and did not give up on me. For that, I award you the guidance barnstar and sincerely thank you for yoru assistance. Forever grateful, Go Phightins! 02:37, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar? For me? Cool! This is ridiculous, everybody over to my place! Party time! And thank you much!--Paul McDonald (talk) 03:16, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Should I bring the booze!? NFLisAwesome ^{(ZappaOMati's alternate account)} 17:29, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

CompDude13

He's a serial sock under community ban and I've been reverting his edits on sight. (That's okay for banned users, and he's so prolific there's no way to assess every edit.) If you ever want to restore anything else of his that I've reverted, it'll be fine with me! JohnInDC (talk) 03:10, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

A friend of mine is fond of saying, "Even a blind squirrel can find a nut" -- the color changes for Pitt State are, to my untrained eye, much more accurate than the originals I selected. Thanks for heads-up thought!--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:39, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I was going to quote that exact aphorism but was typing on an iPad and didn't want to peck out an explanation that made it clear I wasn't somehow talking about you! Thanks for supplying it for me - JohnInDC (talk) 15:46, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

A question about the notability of E. R. Cowell

Good afternoon, Paulmcdonald. I see that you created the article for the college football coach, E. R. Cowell. Since you are the author of the article and since you are clearly an expert on the topic of college football, could you explain to me why Mr. Cowell is notable enough to be the subject of his own article? As of writing this, there are three reliable sources used as references for the article but none of them included non-trivial information about Mr. Cowell. It appears to me that this information would be more useful in the List of Sterling Warriors head football coaches and does not warrant its own article. Do you agree? Kind regards, Matt (talk) 02:11, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Generally we have found that head college football coaches at any level turn out to be notable, as outlined at the essay WP:CFBCOACH. But to provide a bit more detail, at the time (1926-1927) there were no "divisions" in sports so he was the head coach of a team at the highest level of college football. Further, the NFL was just in its infancy and was little more than a regional initiative. This was without a doubt the highest level of the expression of the sport at the time. It seems the server is down at the College Football Data Warehouse, so I don't have much reference at this moment to look up the teams that they played those years. It's likely that they played games against Kansas State Wildcats, Kansas Jayhawks, and possibly Oklahoma Sooners. College football was a much different beast back then.--Paul McDonald (talk) 02:20, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Good morning, Paulmcdonald. Thanks for getting back to me. And thank you for directing me to the essay about the notability of college football coaches. I'm going to read through various opinions about notability mentioned in the supplied pages and related AfD discussions and will/might get back to you. I can see that you are a strong proponent of the idea that all of these coaches are notable, but I am not convinced that these people meet the standard of having "significant coverage" about them. As I mentioned earlier, the only references of Mr. Cowell are trivial inclusions in statistical lists. I would not consider that to be "significant coverage". That being said, keep up the good work. Kind regards, Matt (talk) 21:23, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

You are welcome. I take no offense to notability discussions on articles I create. If you disagree with me, be bold and say so. I don't bite. I might snark from time to time... it's a personal fault...--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:41, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

The more I read, the more I disagree with you about the notability of Mr. Cowell. Haha. Is there any verifiable, non-trivial information about Mr. Cowell which is not already included in the list of Sterling Warriors head football coaches? Mr. Cowell does not appear to meet the standards of WP:GNG or WP:NSPORT. I should also mention that the reason why I started looking at Mr. Cowell's article was that I was trying to verify whether he was a living person for the sake of WP:BLP standards. Given the lack of non-trivial sources on the article, I still have not been able to confirm whether Mr. Cowell is alive or not. Kind regards, Matt (talk) 23:02, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

You may well end up being right, who knows? I've found that few college football coaches end up being truly not worthy of an article, and then we just put their details in the list article. It's been an adventure--I've had two college football coaches that turned out to be governors of their state. As the CFB team collaborates, we uncover more details--especially stuff that can't be found on the web. For example, Bennie Owen coached at nearby Bethany college and went on to the University of Oklahoma--but at the time (early 1900s), no one could figure out why he left a great program like Bethany to go to a crummy program like OU. Obviously the landscape has changed some!--Paul McDonald (talk) 11:40, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Good morning, Paulmcdonald. I certainly agree that there are some college football coaches who are notable. Mr. Owen is an excellent example. Mr. Owen appears to have received significant coverage in reliable, independent sources. I don't believe that this is true of Mr. Cowell. Would you object to me nominating E. R. Cowell for deletion? Kind regards, Matt (talk) 22:16, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I'd never mind it. I'd ask for a couple more days to run some research tho. Searching will get easier when I can reach the school and get his first name. If you tag it for notability first, that would be super-great--and then check again in a few days. If you PROD the deletion, I'll object (and that's fine, that's procedure). And if you want to go to AFD, that's reasonable as well. Do whatever you think is best. That's the way it's supposed to work!--Paul McDonald (talk) 23:34, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Good morning, Paulmcdonald. I tagged the article with {{notability|sports}} on Monday 8 April ([1]). I have no intention of nominating the article for AfD if you are interested in improving it in the near future. In particular, would you be able to find sources for the dates of birth and death of Mr. Cowell (and any other college football coaches, if possible)? This will allow me to confidently mark these articles as either being biographies of living people or not. Kind regards, Matt (talk) 21:28, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Just seeing this convo via my watchlist now - @Matt - I usually attempt to flesh out the articles of these coaches whenever I get the time - I enjoy the task of scavenging for info. Sometimes there's a story just waiting to be uncovered via some more thorough research on these coaches and I will definitely have a look regarding Mr. Cowell. You never know what you may find! – Connormah (talk) 02:52, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Though you two have probably noticed by now, I've done a bit of research and have expanded the article. I'm on the lookout for more though, never hurts to have more! It's those initials that leads to the assumption that there's no sourced I'd say - once I have a full name and alma mater, things do tend to look up in the sourcing and expansion aspect. – Connormah (talk) 20:38, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Destrehan High School football

More content has been added to the page. Please visit the page and go to deletion discussion to see more rational for keeping page. Thanks! User:spatms (User talk:spatms) 22:19, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

more college football AfDs

Hello. Just letting you that subsequent AfD nominations are posted at:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2011 Buffalo State Bengals football team
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2011 St. Norbert Green Knights football team
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2010 Buffalo State Bengals football team
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2010 St. Norbert Green Knights football team
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2009 Buffalo State Bengals football team
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2009 St. Norbert Green Knights football team
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2008 St. Norbert Green Knights football team

Edge3 (talk) 00:22, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

• • Thanks edge!--Paul McDonald (talk) 00:26, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:SEMI-PRO listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Wikipedia:SEMI-PRO. Since you had some involvement with the Wikipedia:SEMI-PRO redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion (if you have not already done so). Steel1943 (talk) 16:29, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Have you ever considered...

Paul, have you ever considered running for adminship? I think you would be a strong administrator; the kind of which we need more. You have a ton of experience at AfD, you are well-versed in our policies, you maintain a calm demeanor, you are helpful, you are a content creator, you have been here for more than six years and have over 30,000 edits, you've never been blocked, you are well-respected within the projects you participate, and the list goes on. I don't know why it took me this long to think of asking you, but I urge you to strongly consider it; I would nominate in a heartbeat as I'm sure would others. Thanks, Go Phightins! 02:12, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words! I will consider it. What has kept me back in the past is that I have felt that I have not had the time to allocate consistently to the project. I truly appreciate you and your support!--Paul McDonald (talk) 03:11, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Even if you aren't always around, you can still pitch in when you are around. A part-time admin is better than nothing :) Go Phightins! 03:15, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I have written a nomination statement should you decide to accept. No rush. Go Phightins! 03:59, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Any thoughts? Go Phightins! 19:41, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Go ahead and submit the nomination, I would accept it. Thanks for thinking of me!--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:55, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

All right. Let her rip! I will link here once I've created it. Go Phightins! 21:51, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Never mind. Screw the template. Here is the RFA. Once you have accepted, feel free to transclude, and then we are on! Go Phightins! 21:56, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

• Where does it get transcluded? I gotta run, can you handle that?--Paul McDonald (talk) 22:14, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Sure. Go Phightins! 22:35, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
    •  Done Good luck! Go Phightins! 22:43, 30 April 2013 (UTC)
      • So far so good. You are passing with over 90% thus far, so I like your chances, but us sports fans know that jinxing things is not good, so I'll shut up now, :) By the way, you have an email. Go Phightins! 02:53, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you for you note on Talk:List of the largest Protestant churches in the United States. I really don't have the time do the research needed as Many Chrurches of that type don't advertise their numbers. What do you think on my original point that naming it as "Meagchurches" rather than "largest protestant churches" would be better? That would solve the whole issue. >> M.P.Schneider,LC (parlemus • feci) 19:52, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• Always open to ideas! I personally think that the term "megachurch" may have negative connotations to it. Even if it doesn't, defining what is a "megachurch" seems to be somewhat arbitrary. It's certainly not a standard unit of measure. Also the term "megachurch" may be changed and fall out of favor in the indsutry. But if a church chooses not to publish its attendance and/or does not generate publicity through reliable sources, then I don't see how they would get an article in the first place. -- But above all, don't let me slow you down just because we disagree on this one point. I may not have the full understanding that you do!--20:03, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• I found this definiton which I think would be clear. >> M.P.Schneider,LC (parlemus • feci) 13:56, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free media (File:Freddy NoText R 3c194c123B.jpg)

Thanks for uploading File:Freddy NoText R 3c194c123B.jpg. The media description page currently specifies that it is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, it is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the media 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 will be useful. However, please note that media for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of 'file' pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that all non-free media not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Hazard-Bot (talk) 04:14, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

No objection. Someone else uploaded another logo that is also non-free. We should pick one and I have no preference.--Paul McDonald (talk) 11:33, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Trivial point

In your answer to question 9, you said "I doubt that if you went back to my first 250 AFDs you'd get the same results."

I assume this is missing a "don't".--SPhilbrick(Talk) 12:30, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Preemptive congratulations

You will surely be an administrator in short order. Congratulations on your promotion! Hope you find the tools handy. =) Kurtis ^(talk) 23:39, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

• Was coming here to say the same as it is just a matter of time now. Use the tools in good health. If I can help explain any of the shiny new buttons, feel free to ping me on my talk page. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 01:08, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Touchdown!

Congratulations on becoming an administrator; I trust that you will put your tools to good use (and be an admin I can bug when I need something done ). Go Phightins! 00:23, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Wouldn't have happened without you!--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:51, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Your RFA

Hi Paul, I have closed your RFA as successful — you are now an administrator. Please consider the guidance at Wikipedia:New admin school, it'll keep you from ending up here. Good luck! WilliamH (talk) 12:10, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Congrats, Paul! AutomaticStrikeout (T • C • Sign AAPT) 12:38, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Congrats! Good to see someone who hasn't fallen into OWN of policy make Admin. Never be afraid to seek advice, but remember that admins aren't the only ones who know what's going on. Sometimes input from outside the club can be just as valuable (if not more so) than feedback from other Admins. Intothatdarkness 13:31, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone! I'll be in New Admin School for a while, and I'm never afraid to ask for help!--Paul McDonald (talk)

Just don't order everything on the left side of the menu... I hear the food at Admin School is really awful. Intothatdarkness 15:55, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Congratulations on your RFA. Mkdw^talk 17:02, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Congratulations!! --j⚛e decker^talk 18:31, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Do we have a football team at New Admin School?--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:40, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Soccer maybe, but I doubt if they have 'Merican football. Intothatdarkness 19:42, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

The Admin-o-matic 9000

• Congrats! I've brought you your tools. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 12:37, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

'grats Paul! – Connormah (talk) 23:23, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

A cup of coffee for you!

Sorry that I missed your RfA, but I would have supported you. Bearian (talk) 16:44, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Admin's Barnstar
	Congrats on becoming one. Good luck. World Traveller101 19:04, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

May 2013

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Disambiguation link notification for May 28

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Help with the NFLPA Game article?

Hi there Paul, last month you replied to a message over at WP:CFB I'd left asking for some assistance in sorting out what was happening with the NFLPA Game article. After some discussion over at WP:NFL, I think we've figured it out. Just as you suggested, I've posted my recommendations over at Talk:NFLPA Game. If you have a chance, could you take a look at what I've proposed and see what you think? As I noted before, I do have a financial COI here, so if my suggestions look appropriate, I'd appreciate it if you'd consider implementing them. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 15:20, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Ara P.

Hello PaulMacdonald - Taking you up on your invitation to talk on the Ara Parseghian page, where comments on that topic are more appropriate. regards, Sensei48 (talk) 22:32, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Kansas Jayhawks Football: Head_Coaches

Could you please lend your opinion to the edits that Eodcarl is attempting to make on Kansas Jayhawks football; Head Coaches section? Thank you. Kmanblue (talk) 04:15, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Paulmcdonald. You have new messages at Griffith High School (Indiana)'s talk page.
Message added 04:58, 10 July 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Gtwfan52 (talk) 04:58, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

NAIA football season navboxes

You work a lot on NAIA football articles (mainly Kansas, but still). What are your thoughts on navboxes such as {{2005 NAIA Football Season}}? There are a handful of these, and I was thinking of TfDing them, but I'm not sure if they'd be worth keeping. Jrcla2 (talk) 13:21, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

It's a good idea. I've made a few already. I think that we would be more likely to build conference season articles if the templates were made, but I don't think we need to go crazy and make all of them until we have at least one season article for each conference. It might also be a good idea to start up a discussion page for NAIA football at the CFB project.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:01, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

A nice bologna sandwich for you!

	Wikipedia 2013 Bon Appetit Award!
	I enjoyed you comments at the VE feedback page. Please enjoy this nutritious bologna sandwich! Gandydancer (talk) 14:32, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Questions for you

Hi Paul,

I'm chasing down some stuff about the CentralNotice banners, which you said never displayed for you. I have the following questions for you:

• At Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets, do you have "Suppress display of the fundraiser banner" ticked? (It's third from the bottom under ==Browsing==.)
• In Universal Language Selector, did you pick another language, or are you using English? (It's the gear-shaped icon next to "Languages"; it makes standard parts of the interface, like "Edit", "Talk", "Preferences", "Watchlist", "Contributions", etc., display in whatever language you choose.)
• Do you have Javascript enabled?
• Do you remember seeing any banners (fundraising, editor survey, Board member elections) in the last few months?
• Have you ever (even accidentally or a long time ago) viewed the mobile version from the computer/browser you're currently using? (This may set—or at least did at some points in the past—a cookie to suppress all banners.)

Thanks, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:03, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Hallo... here's answers:

• "Supress display of the fundraiser banner" is not checked
• "Universal Language Selector" shows "English"
• Javascript is enabled
• I've seen banners for fundrasing and editor surveys in the past, but I don't recall how recent.
• I've not viewed the mobile version on this PC or any other that I use to my knowledge.

Hope that helps!--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:16, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Paul. It helps, but unfortunately in the direction of "ruling out all the easy answers". I appreciate the information. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:36, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you

		The Guidance Barnstar
		Thank you for this [[2]] — xaosflux Talk 20:07, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

--You are welcome! It's frustrating that some people have an agenda, isn't it?--Paul McDonald (talk) 01:43, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

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August 2013

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• one to do so across multiple seasons. Two coaches ended their tenures without a single win: [{Walter Miller (American football)|Walter Miller]] in 1928 and [[James Dotson]] in 2012. [[Kent Rogers]] coached the most games (150), the most wins

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Concordia, Kansas

1) Thanks for the photos, but Wikipedia is not a photo album of everything in a specific city. There are way too many photos in the gallery section for Concordia, Kansas, so I recommend that you thin it down to the most important items and/or best looking photos.

2) Please add "Category:Concordia, Kansas" wiki-links to all of your photos in Wikimedia Commons, so that way they will show up via the link in the "External links" section of Concordia, Kansas, Detroit, Kansas, and photos for other articles that you recently upload. See example at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sbmeirow/HowToUploadPhotosToWikipedia#Example_of_Body_Of_Article_for_photo

• Sbmeirow • Talk • 14:45, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Nomination of Tom Brosius for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Tom Brosius is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tom Brosius until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. ...William 20:51, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

1996 Texas Tech vs. Kansas State football game

Paul, is this game really notable enough on its own to warrant its own article? Jweiss11 (talk) 02:50, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

I think so, but only that it was the first game of the conference history. That gives it some historical significance.--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:25, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Should we have an article for every first game in conference history? Jweiss11 (talk) 14:10, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

I would be okay with it. First in Big 10, Pac-7, etc... yeah, I could see it. Others would see it as too much.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:58, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

(TPS) In this case I do think it's notable simply because it marked the end of the Big 8 and the beginning of the Big 12. That was a controversial expansion/merger at the time, so it's likely worth noting. Intothatdarkness 14:40, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Issues on Aaron Jack article

Paul, what are you talking about? After I was told not to delete I just started adding new material without deleting old material!!! I've done nothing wrong!--unsigned

• Discussion on User talk:Uscbubblegirl--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:31, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Sterling College Warriors athletic team logo.jpg

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No objection newer upload looks great!--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:15, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:University of Saint Mary Athletics.jpg

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No objection newer upload looks great!--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:15, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Kansas related articles

Hello. I hope I'm not repeating myself here, as I suspect that you also edit using this IP address: User talk:71.167.157.25. Categories of "People from..." and "Lists of people from..." for Kansas-related articles do not apply to the various pages that you have created and/or edited because the people on those lists do not hail from those places, they simply work there for a time. "People from..." and "Lists of people from..." categories are intended to be for where a person is born or raised unless the person spent a majority of his or her life in that place. Thank you.Hoops gza (talk) 00:37, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks. I always try to remember to sign in to edit. I have never consciously edited from IP address.--Paul McDonald (talk) 01:05, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

No troubles, take care.Hoops gza (talk) 01:29, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Books and Bytes: The Wikipedia Library Newsletter

Books and Bytes

Volume 1, Issue 1, October 2013

by The Interior (talk · contribs), Ocaasi (talk · contribs)

Greetings Wikipedia Library members! Welcome to the inaugural edition of Books and Bytes, TWL’s monthly newsletter. We're sending you the first edition of this opt-in newsletter, because you signed up, or applied for a free research account: HighBeam, Credo, Questia, JSTOR, or Cochrane. To receive future updates of Books and Bytes, please add your name to the subscriber's list. There's lots of news this month for the Wikipedia Library, including new accounts, upcoming events, and new ways to get involved...

New positions: Sign up to be a Wikipedia Visiting Scholar, or a Volunteer Wikipedia Librarian

Wikipedia Loves Libraries: Off to a roaring start this fall in the United States: 29 events are planned or have been hosted.

New subscription donations: Cochrane round 2; HighBeam round 8; Questia round 4... Can we partner with NY Times and Lexis-Nexis??

New ideas: OCLC innovations in the works; VisualEditor Reference Dialog Workshop; a photo contest idea emerges

News from the library world: Wikipedian joins the National Archives full time; the Getty Museum releases 4,500 images; CERN goes CC-BY

Announcing WikiProject Open: WikiProject Open kicked off in October, with several brainstorming and co-working sessions

New ways to get involved: Visiting scholar requirements; subject guides; room for library expansion and exploration

Read the full newsletter

Thanks for reading! All future newsletters will be opt-in only. Have an item for the next issue? Leave a note for the editor on the Suggestions page. --The Interior 21:21, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

October 2013

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• cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/coaching/alltime_coach_game_by_game.php?coachid=4510&year=1971|publisher=[[College Football Data Warehouse|first=David|last=DeLassus|title=Coaching Records Arthur T. "Art"

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College football player Prod

Hi, I wonder if you could look at Hunter Henry. I seconded the Prod purely because its an unreferenced BLP. He does have bio here, so the article doesn't appear to be a hoax. I don't have any experience with this kind of article, nor the time to try to rescue it tonight. I saw your name on a CFB player AFD, and you seem to be interested in the subject. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 09:03, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Grouped orphaned images

Orphaned non-free image File:McPherson College Bulldogs.jpg

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Orphaned non-free image File:Bethany College Terrible Swedes athletic logo.jpg

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Orphaned non-free image File:Kansas Wesleyan University Coyotes logo.jpg

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Orphaned non-free image File:OttawaUniversitySportLogo.jpg

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Orphaned non-free image File:Tabor Bluejays Athletics Logo.jpg

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Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Corkythehornetfan (talk) 22:37, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Response to above

No objection to removal. I'm sure they've been replaced by better-quality images.--Paul McDonald (talk) 01:49, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Elon Phoenix football coach navbox

Let me know if you ever get to filling in redlinks at Template:Elon Phoenix football coach navbox - I'll be able to add photos and possible DOBs. Thanks! – Connormah (talk) 02:17, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Looks like a suitable place for my next efforts!--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:22, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Another note - I believe Jerry Tolley went on to become the Mayor of Elon (he may still be serving now, in fact)... – Connormah (talk) 02:16, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

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Orphaned non-free image File:Haskell Indian Nations University color logo.jpg

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No objection to removal.--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:01, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Library Survey

As a subscriber to one of The Wikipedia Library's programs, we'd like to hear your thoughts about future donations and project activities in this brief survey. Thanks and cheers, Ocaasi ^{t | c} 15:35, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

John F. Condon

Another one - from what Ilve seen, the John F. Condon at Lindbergh kidnapping seems to be linked to the coach one. – Connormah (talk) 22:50, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Question

Hi, I read two articles today which are about two of Swedens most famous "scandal beauties" Carolina Gynning and Linda Thelenius and I had to remove huge parts of the articles that were unsourced or just in bad taste. I will a day or so after New Years Eve take time to re-write and expand those two articles. Do you think it would be possible for me to nominate them for DYK when I have completed the expansions or are the articles out of contention for that? Regards,--BabbaQ (talk) 12:53, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm not very familiar with the DYK nominations. However, I don't think there would be a problem if you "nominated" an article in good faith. If it doesn't qualify for one reason or another, the DYK team would figure that out. But I do recommend that you mention all of the details.--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:10, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi, funny situation. I actually wrote to the wrong Paul on Wikipedia. Did not mean to bother you but I appreciate your answer. Regards,--BabbaQ (talk) 21:28, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

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2013 Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver)

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Discussion at Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2014_January_2#Sydney_Uni_Lions

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2014_January_2#Sydney_Uni_Lions.  Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 02:22, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Victor Orsatti

After you cast your "delete" vote regarding Victor Orsatti, the article has been substantially updated and revised. Given the extensive coverage Orsatti received in the mainstream press over the years, it appears that he does, in fact, pass WP:GNG. This may or may not cause you to alter your view, but you may want to take a second look. Cbl62 (talk) 02:25, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

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File:Artists depiction of the National Forensic League logo.jpg listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Artists depiction of the National Forensic League logo.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. Stefan2 (talk) 18:10, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Methodist ministers

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion#Speedy_Deletion_of_category_for_Methodist_Ministers. – Fayenatic London 10:58, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Nobody weighed in with any advice there, so I have started a full discussion at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2014_January_16#Category:Methodist_clergy_by_denomination. Please comment there. – Fayenatic London 19:15, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

• Thank you for taking the action. Very civil of you!--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:34, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
  • You're welcome! I just asked a follow-up question there. – Fayenatic London 19:48, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

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NFL Draft section format

Hey, I saw that you're a contributor to college football articles, so could you leave your opinion here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject College football#NFL_Draft_section. I'm trying to get responses. Kobra98 (talk) 05:18, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

College football coach stubs

Paul, I see you're back at stubbing out college football coach bio articles. A few thoughts:

• For Infobox college coach, it would be great if you could use the clean spacing seen here: Template:Infobox college coach#Empty.
• I think it's also preferable to code endashes with the simple wiki symbol instead of the html code (–). This also makes the edit view a lot cleaner.
• The name field in the infobox should display the subject's primary name, that is the article name minus any parenthetical disambiguation. The same is true for tabular lists of coaches, like that found at List of Valparaiso Crusaders head football coaches. We need "Jake Christiansen", not "J. M. "Jake" Christiansen".
• There's never been any consensus about putting winning percentages in the infobox. I think it's best to leave them out as things can get really cluttered for coaches who worked multiple levels and/or multiple sports.
• I've gotten feedback from a number of other editors that the phrase "American football coach in the United States" is clunky and redundant. I think we can assume that an American football coach is or was working in the US unless otherwise stated, so "is/was an American football coach.' should suffice.
• The phase "was the head college football coach for the [X college team]" is clunky. Colleges only play college football. "was the head football coach for the [X college team]" is much better.
• The compound wiki-linking seen in instances like "Valparaiso Crusaders" is guilty of over-linking. There should be a link to either Valparaiso University or Valparaiso Crusaders football, not both, with the sentence phrased accordingly.
• I wonder about the value of sentences like "As of the conclusion of the 2013 season, this ranks him #15 at Valparaiso in total wins and #14 at the school in winning percentage (.143)." These facts seem not only trivial, but the entire sentence will go stale and potentially become inaccurate as soon as a year from now. I still come across similar passages that you added years ago talking about " As of the conclusion of the 2007 season".
• For coaches from the first half of the 20th-century, it's well worth checking to see if they coached other sports. Take Millard Anderson as an example. You can see that he's also listed at Template:Valparaiso Crusaders men's basketball coach navbox and Template:Valparaiso Crusaders baseball coach navbox. Another good place to check for coaching of other sports is here. These navboxes and related categories and basic content ought to be included in an initial stub-out.
• In general, I think it might be more effective to forgo your standard "Coaching career" section on a stub-out and instead make a more substantive lead section.
• When you tweak colors to navboxes such as Template:Valparaiso Crusaders football coach navbox, you should do the same for other sports navboxes of the same school so everything stays in sync.
• In the Persondata table, I don't think it makes sense to have wikilink brackets anywhere since they are not functional. I think titles in the alternative names field like "Coach Anderson" are unnecessary as well.
• On the talk page for new articles, I don't think we need the talk header banner by default, only when the subject or the discussion there has become contentious. The code "collapsed=no" for WikiProjectBannerShell can be left out. The shell is un-collapsed by default.

Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 16:18, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Great advice! I always take your notes and work to improve the system even more! I'll do my best to incorprate them before moving forward.--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:41, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Great. Let me know if I can help in any way. Jweiss11 (talk) 18:59, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Talkback

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Question about notability

Hi, I notice that you seem to know a bit about college sports. Would you consider that T. J. Johnson (American football) meets WP:NCOLLATH for his college football career? Hack (talk) 04:25, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

• In this encyclopedia, I would not. Offensive linemen in college football rarely gain the coverage required to surpass the general notability guideline and I don't see any coverage of note for this player. No question he's a great athlete, but Wikipedia is not an "athletic" encyclopedia. There would be other encyclopedias or online sports almanacs that would welcome an entry on this player. I won't go do it because you approached me (and something about that just doesn't seem fair), but I suspect that the article will get tagged relatively soon.--Paul McDonald (talk) 04:30, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

thank you

Thank you for writing Counting and sorting are not original research! This is a topic more misunderstood than any other on Wikipedia. Thank you again. — Robert Greer (talk) 16:47, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

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Arguments to avoid in deletion Discussions XFD

Look at your calendar, buddy. Smartyllama (talk) 23:52, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Nomination of The Courtland Journal for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article The Courtland Journal is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Courtland Journal until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

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Top 100 meter times by NFL players‎

[3] You are not the only person to protest the rushed, baseless and destructive decision by this Hahc21 administrator. You can see my protest ahead of yours was just taken as a personal attack and trashed. Can you say whitewash? I've seen some bad decisions before by other administrators but I think this is the most hasty and ill conceived decision to delete yet. Just a short time before closing and deleting the article, another deletionist challenged finding a source to show relevance of the subject--I added a dozen to the discussion with virtually no response. I consider that response asked and answered. And yet the subject gets deleted. Worse yet, against policy, this admin was counting "votes" (his own term). I don't know what further can be done about a bad administrator like this, but we sure don't need this kind of person around here. This is an embarrassment to wikipedia. Trackinfo (talk) 16:04, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

• I disagreed with the closure, but I don't think it was done in bad faith. Maybe in a hurry. I would have closed it No Consensus, but I was already involved. If you want to take it to Deletion Review, that would be the next move. However, it would be best if you remain civil about it. Anger and passion are real things, I get that. But they don't help in saving articles. I would support you on the Deletion Review if you choose to go that direction.--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:54, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Per "Counting and sorting are not original research"

Paul, how's it going? Per your essay, Wikipedia:Counting and sorting are not original research, I thought you might like to comment at Talk:Michigan Wolverines football#No-shutout streak. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 15:49, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

April 2014

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Userbox

Hello. I saw on your page that you completed additional course work at MWSU. So I thought you might be interested in this. Corkythehornetfan^(talk) 23:23, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

MWSUThis user is attends or attended
Missouri Western
State University.

Code: {{User Missouri Western State University}}

MfD nomination of Wikipedia:Discriminate vs indiscriminate information

Wikipedia:Discriminate vs indiscriminate information, a page you substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Discriminate vs indiscriminate information and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:Discriminate vs indiscriminate information during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Nerd in Texas (talk) 12:26, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

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Haskell football coaching records

Paul, How's it going? I've filled in some of the blanks in the chronology of coaches for Haskell with the additions of William Henry Dietz and Gus Welch; see Template:Haskell Indian Nations Fighting Indians football coach navbox. Looking at List of Haskell Indian Nations Fighting Indians head football coaches, I can't figure out where you got the won-loss records from. They don't appear to be in any of the cited sources. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 04:08, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Man that was eons ago I found that stuff... if it's not around, it's probably an old web page that's taken down from the school website.--Paul McDonald (talk) 04:39, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Happy Birthday, Old Man!

Cheers, Old McDonald. I hope it's a good one. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 04:10, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Stoney, Kansas

Hi Paul. I searched high and low to find anything about Stoney, Kansas, which you created. According to GNIS, no geographical feature called Stoney currently exists in Kansas and it does not appear on Google Maps. Perhaps it's a ghost town? Anyhow, that article needs some attention.- Gilliam (talk) 06:22, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

• Gosh, that was back in 2007 when I created that... My uncle used to be the county sherrif, but I don't think there's a notability guideline for "My uncle used to be the sherrif so it's notable" ...I'll look in some of my off-line sources to see what I can dig up, probably have something reasonable there.--Paul McDonald (talk) 10:13, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Question

Hello. I know that you have at least made some edits to the Emporia State Hornets, and I was wondering what you thought of me merging the article to Emporia State Hornets and Lady Hornets to reflect the name of the women's teams? I created a merge proposal on the talk page, as well. Just wanted at least one opinion. Corkythehornetfan^Talk 18:50, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football#An idea that could change HUNDREDS of article names

Hey, Paul, we need you to chime in on this. I've posted comments to each of these four Requested Move discussions identified on the WP:CFB talk page, by explaining, as clearly and succinctly as I know how, the established consensus naming conventions for college sports articles -- that is the university short name (e.g., "Florida State"), plus the university's varsity team's mascot (e.g., "Seminoles"), yields the sports team name (e.g., "Florida State Seminoles"), which is also the WP:COMMONNAME used by the mainstream media. This should be a slam dunk, but for the fact that these RM discussions have become hopelessly confused as to when it is appropriate to use the "Lady ___" construction in the article titles, and the inexperienced college sports editors who have been participating don't know the origins and reasons for our naming conventions. These discussions are being poked and prodded by a regular participant in WP:MOS and WP:AT to adopt a completely new nomenclature and naming scheme for American college sports articles. Unless more knowledgeable college sports editors participate in these discussions, we could wind up with four horrible precedents that could take months of additional wrangling to correct, leading to the inevitable instability in article titles as less knowledgeable editors start to implement what they perceive to be a new "consensus." Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:35, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Next round of proposed CFB "rivalry" articles for AfD review

@Paulmcdonald: Head's up: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football#Next round of proposed CFB "rivalry" articles for AfD review. Your input is requested. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:45, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Reusing content within Wikipedia

Hello, Paulmcdonald. :) I see that in October 2013, you merged content from the article South Shore into the article Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association in satisfying consensus of an AFD. While you indicated that it was a merge, I'm afraid that you did not indicate the origin of the text. Content on Wikipedia, like that on most of the web, is not public domain - it is simply liberally relicensed for use. In order to use it elsewhere, even elsewhere on Wikipedia, we must meet the terms of the license, or we forfeit permission to use it. The minimum required attribution is a link to the article from which it was taken. This permits contributors to look at the history of the original article and determine the authorship of the text and keeps the license intact. I have repaired the attribution for the copying at [4], but wanted to let you know about this legal requirement for future use, if you should have occasion to move text from one article to another again. You can read more about the procedures and the reasons they are required at Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. Please be sure to notify me if you have any questions about this so I'll be sure not to miss it. Thanks! --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 00:46, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Nomination of 1996 Texas Tech vs. Kansas State football game for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article 1996 Texas Tech vs. Kansas State football game is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1996 Texas Tech vs. Kansas State football game until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:36, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Want to reconsider this one?

Hey, Paul, I had this one (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barry J. Sanders) watch-listed, but I had not had a chance to do my own BEFORE homework yet. Carrite just linked four or five pretty solid mainstream news articles where Sanders, Jr. is the primary subject, and I thought you would want to look at them. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:31, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Inserting comments in the middle of another editor's comments

Paul, in the AfD for the 1996 Texas Tech vs. Kansas State game, you have inserted two comments in the middle of my multi-paragraph comment (see here). That's really bad form. Please place your comments at the end of mine. Doing otherwise disrupts the flow of my arguments and fractures the larger points that are being made. Thanks. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:50, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

• All I can say is "woops" and "I apologize" but you did have a big long block. My intent was to keep the responses closer together. Your preference is fine by me (and probably better in many ways).--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:52, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

• So . . . are you going to move your comments to the end of mine? I took the liberty of moving your comments once, and you put them back in the middle of mine. I don't like to refactor another editor's comments, as that is also bad form, but I do have one final point re ROUTINE, but I can't add it because you have scrambled the thread. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:12, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Nomination of Jake Trotter for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Jake Trotter is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jake Trotter until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

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Hmmm

Do you know this guy: Paul McDonald (American football)? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:12, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

• hey hey! I thought it was cool that some guy had the same name as me when I was a kid. I followed him through his years at USC and later at Cleveland and Dallas, but never met him nor saw him play live.--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:46, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Hey, P-Mac, while I've got you talking, have you seen the recently added "List of ____ starting quarterbacks" articles created by Cake and several other editors? You're a student of the game and its history -- how do we reconcile the fact that in creating a list of "starting quarterbacks" that the QB position in 1900 was not the same position in 1920, 1935 or 1955? College quarterbacks did not really become the on-the-field play-callers until the late 1920s or early 1930s, and did not become the principal passer until after World War II. We might as well have a list of starting backs in the 1920s, 1930s and early 1940s, as quarterbacks were often, if not usually interchangeable with passing halfbacks. I know for the great Gators teams of the late '20s, any of the offensive backs could line up at quarterback, halfback or fullback on any given play. Frankly, I hesitate to recognize any back as the "starting quarterback" before World War II. What's your reaction? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:58, 19 December 2014 (UTC) -I haven't seen the lists, but I think that would become unwieldy for many historical programs. I've seen attempts at navboxes from time to time and even that looks a little too much sometimes, maybe not so much for the NFL. Historically, the team captain called the plays and no plays were sent in for quite some time as substitution rules were very strict. This prompted Os Doenges at Oklahoma City to run a test with a "twelfth man" (hence his nickname "Dozen Doenges") to be on the field to only call plays. But for many years a "quarterback" was more like a tackle and never touched the ball but was used for blocking. Lists of starting quarterbacks? It's enthusiastic, I'll give them that. But upkeep and validation will be murder.--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:08, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Your input is requested . . . .

Paul, I'd like to get your opinion on this revised infobox template: [5]. Thanks. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:31, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Will do! I don't know much about infobox design, but maybe I have a couple of pointers.--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:36, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

PMc, we'll recruit a template editor to handle the coding for us. Right now, we're more interested in getting your opinion on which data points to include. Once we determine what we're adding and what we're deleting, then we'll work on the modified design. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:53, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Your input is requested

As you know I have initiated plans to move some of the season names. While I have held off on the NAIA pages per your concerns. I would like your opinion of a move on Talk:1973 college football season and Talk:1977 college football season. Thanks-UCO2009bluejay (talk) 05:34, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Disputed non-free use rationale for File:Ashley Martin Extra Point.jpg

Thank you for uploading File:Ashley Martin Extra Point.jpg. However, there is a concern that the rationale provided for using this file on Wikipedia may not meet the criteria required by Wikipedia:Non-free content. This can be corrected by going to the file description page and adding or clarifying the reason why the file qualifies under this policy. Adding and completing one of the templates available from Wikipedia:Non-free use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your file is in compliance with Wikipedia policy. Please be aware that a non-free use rationale is not the same as an image copyright tag; descriptions for files used under the non-free content policy require both a copyright tag and a non-free use rationale.

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Same issue for File:Heaston extra point 1997.jpg - while the image is not repeatable, there's no critical commentary of the image that makes it essential to the article. Mosmof (talk) 21:14, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

That was a long time ago and rules have changed/updated/migrated/clarified/etceraed themselves. Maybe it stays, maybe it doesn't... thank you for the notification!--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:19, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Stephen Hodge

I really don't understand why you proposed the deletion of Stephen Hodge (American football) he was a draft choice of the Dallas Cowboys (which is a good reason to historically document why he didn't make the team) and he was also an important player at Texas Chistian University leading the nation in sacks for a defensive back at a time and earning All-conference honors.Tecmo (talk) 17:22, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

I didn't.--Paul McDonald (talk) 22:10, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Assessment criteria for articles

Paul: your comment on the assessment of articles for Wikipedia Kansas Project articles on the project talk page was interesting. I am a member of the project, but have not seen any definite assessment criteria for the Kansas Project. I am also a member of the Wikipedia Military History Project and they have a very well organized system for assessments here: [6] Please check it out and let me know what you think about the criteria and whether it would work for the Kansas Project. You can reply here as I will "Watch" your talk page for a few days. Cuprum17 (talk) 18:09, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I love military handbooks! That's a great process! It might be a little much for the average editor, but that's not necessarily a "bad" thing...--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:16, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

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Color graphics for Infobox college football player

3-pixel accent with white text

Kansas State Wildcats

Paul, check this out: Template:Infobox college football player/testcases#Joe Cool (typical example). Ignore the datapoints for now, but what do you think of the colors, graphics, and layout and design -- the "college varsity stripe" graphics in particular? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:38, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

I like that a lot!--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:48, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Glad you like it, Paul. Somehow, I knew an old football hand like yourself was going to like the traditional varsity stripe. I'll ping you when we start the mini-RfC on the template talk page to make final decisions regarding the old parameters and links to be removed, and the new parameters and links to be added -- I expect to start the RfC sometime in the next couple of weeks, and it will be geared to yes/no !voting on each parameter and link. As the stands now, we have a reasonably attractive interim solution that will get better in the next couple of days when we're ready to implement the two-color varsity stripe graphics -- there are still some color scheme bugs for Frietjes and the other boffins to sort out before it goes live. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:11, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Followup discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football

You are invited to join the followup discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football#Infobox college football player and Infobox NFL player based on your participation in the earlier TfD at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2014 December 14#Template:Infobox college football player. Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 01:44, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Please comment pertaining to new school articles and categories

I began an important issue that will affect the college football, basketball, and baseball projects. You are a regular editor within any or all of these WikiProjects and your input is requested. Please weigh in at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College Basketball#University of Texas Rio Grande Valley athletics. Thank you! Jrcla2 (talk) 01:43, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

FSU football controversies: please join talk page discussion

Paul, please join the article talk page discussion here: Talk:Florida State Seminoles football#"Controversies" section problems. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:51, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Washington (University) Bears ?

Paul, you may want to take a look at this requested move: [7]. It involves the application of our naming conventions to the Division III sports program at Washington University in St. Louis. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:01, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Sam Patterson

The article Sam Patterson has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Unsourced BLP

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Disambiguation link notification for October 14

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Proposed deletion of N. H. Skyles

The article N. H. Skyles has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Tagged for notability for more than 4 years, no sources beyond databases and passing mentions apparently.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

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Nomination of N. H. Skyles for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article N. H. Skyles is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/N. H. Skyles until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

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Here's one for you . . . .

Bill Burgess (American football), head coach at Jacksonville State, won several national awards and gained lots of recognition for his his record with the Gamecocks. Burgess does not have an article. Found this by accident when I was moving the article title for British swimmer, Olympic medalist, and Channel swimmer Bill Burgess, and then looked at the "what links here" list to do the post-move clean-up and discovered a bunch of unexpected links to American football-related articles. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:47, 21 October 2015 (UTC) --Thanks, I'll look into it!--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:50, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

N. H. Skyles

What document gave you his initials? I am trying to find him in the census to connect to the Reverend, but I think I have all his children accounted for. BTW if you load the newspaper images to Wikimedia Commons your biographical information can be on the Commons category page for him. You might also want to migrate the article to Familypedia to preserve it. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 06:10, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Original source of the article idea came from the College Football Data Warehouse. Thanks for your interest!--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:38, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

They only list him as "Coach Skyles". I can't find the reference that uses "N. H." --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:01, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Interesting... perhaps it was CFReference.net then... or perhaps it is an error. The F&M college page doesn't even show a first name!--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:22, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Look over the references again, even for new ones. I have been adding in information to other ones in your list. It is a shame that the 1890 census was discarded, it would have given us the information we need. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 00:49, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Nomination of Bottom 10 for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Bottom 10 is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bottom 10 until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

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George Gardner (American football)

Hey Paulmcdonald! What do you think of moving George Gardner (American football) to George Gardner (coach)? It doesn't necessarily have to be (coach), but Gardner wasn't just an American football coach. He was a basketball coach for Washburn and later at Southwestern College according to the article. You're the page creator so I thought I'd ask you before actually moving it. Thanks. Corkythehornetfan 21:43, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Wouldn't bug me. I say go for it.--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:49, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Alrighty, just thought I'd check. thanks! Corkythehornetfan 10:13, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Dee Errickson (or Erickson)

Here is another question for you... aren't Charles Erickson and Dee Errikson the same person? This page has a picture that matches the picture on the 2015–16 Basketball media guide (pg. 133), as well as the one in the Charles Erickson article. The Athletics Dept. keeps spelling it Errikson, but the university spells it Erickson. The WU Hall of Fame shows Charles Errikson, as well as the Ottawa Football All-Time Coaching Records. If you use Newspapers.com, it does not find an Errikson, but does show several for the Erickson. This article shows "Charles 'Dee' Erickson". What's your thoughts? Corkythehornetfan 11:24, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Very possibly so. We should investigate. Propose a merge for discussion...--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:14, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for the delayed reply... somehow I didn't see your response, and forgot about it! I'll look some more, before I propose a merger. I'll ping you when that happens. Thanks! 🎄 Corkythehornetfan 🎄 01:57, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and proposed a merger [8]. 🎄 Corkythehornetfan 🎄 02:31, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!

Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current Arbitration Committee election. The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability 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, you are welcome to review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. For the Election committee, MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:19, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Best wishes

Merry Christmas to you and yours, Paul. Cheers. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:02, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

• Thank you!--Paul McDonald (talk) 13:35, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

File:1939 Waynesberg vs Fordham football game.jpg listed for discussion

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Nomination of Arizona Wildcats football series records and three others for deletion

Paulmcdonald, because of the interest you expressed in a closely related topic during the discussion @ Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Texas Longhorns football series records, I am notifying you that a new discussion is taking place as to whether the following articles are suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether they should be deleted:

1. Arizona Wildcats football series records;
2. Charlotte 49ers football series records;
3. Texas A&M Aggies football series records; and
4. UMass Minutemen football series records.

These articles will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arizona Wildcats football series records until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

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1923 Colgate Niagara

Thanks for creating this page. I updated it with some sources from my research. -nyrtfleury014

Nice! I remember reading about the game and starting the article. Even contacted Colgate to get some details. Your sources look good and really make the article better.--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:20, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Nomination of Iowa Hawkeyes football series records and three others for deletion

Paul, because of the interest you expressed in a closely related topic during the discussion @ Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Texas Longhorns football series records, I am notifying you that a new discussion is taking place as to whether the following articles are suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether they should be deleted:

1. Iowa Hawkeyes football series records;
2. Alabama Crimson Tide football series records;
3. Michigan Wolverines football series records; and
4. Michigan State Spartans football series records.

These articles will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Iowa Hawkeyes football series records until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the articles during the discussion, including to improve the articles to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the articles. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 10:03, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

File:Coach Gene Bissell.jpg listed for discussion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:Coach Gene Bissell.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for discussion. Please see the discussion to see why it has been listed (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry). Feel free to add your opinion on the matter below the nomination. Thank you. Peripitus (Talk) 07:57, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Question regarding citations

I saw your name pop up in Kansas Christian College (Overland Park). How might one go about addressing the issues listed at the top of the page? And how many sources should be used for this article? Littledj95 (talk) 03:51, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Good question. I'll take a look at it when I'm not quite so sleepy! But offhand, what is most needed is a few more "newsy-type" soucres (like KC Star or Christianity Today, just examples).--Paul McDonald (talk) 04:43, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't think that should be a problem to find. The school's been around since 1938; I'm sure I can find something. I'll start digging around. Littledj95 (talk) 17:12, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

MfD nomination of User:Paulmcdonald/List of college football rematch games

User:Paulmcdonald/List of college football rematch games, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Paulmcdonald/List of college football rematch games and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of User:Paulmcdonald/List of college football rematch games during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Legacypac (talk) 04:15, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Article on anon-notable subject

Proposed deletion of Leroy Moore

The article Leroy Moore has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

No evidence of notability. One reference doesn't mention him and the other one just gives him in a list of statistics.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. 80.168.198.116 (talk) 19:55, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Question about a couple of blocks

Hello, Paul. I have just come across a couple of blocks of yours which rather surprised me. I see that you blocked 71.86.50.161 for 72 hours for one vandalism edit, without any warnings. The one edit was a pretty unpleasant one, but to block for 3 days for one childish vandalism edit, without any warnings having been given, is unusual, to say the least. However, at least that one edit was a real BLP violation, and where to draw the line is a matter of judgement. However, I am much more surprised by your blocking Sroque37 for 48 hours for one edit, again without any warning, as that one edit was a really ordinary piece of vandalism, not a serious BLP violation or anything of the sort. An immediate 48 hour block is certainly well outside the usual range of actions. Do you have any reason for thinking that this case warranted esceptional action? The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 20:23, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

• My first reaction (after reading your comments) is that I may have overreached on one or both of the two blocks. On the second one, I should not have made the block myself as I have been involved in editing that particular article.--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:42, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Griffith High School - Image Message

Hi, Paul McDonald! I saw your conversation with John from Idegon, and I just wanted to say that I've been struggling with that user too. I think he means well, but I strongly think that he should look at WP:DOUBT and research articles before nominating them for deletion. I believe that accepting good-faith edits is something that needs to be put in to action on Wikipedia too. I was wondering if you would help me protect my page, Elgin Children's Chorus, which he is trying to delete. I believe that the nomination was faulty, and would love some help from a Wikipedian that's more experienced than I. Thanks! WikiConqueror (talk) 07:09, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! I've already commented on that discussion as a keep. I believe it passes WP:GNG.--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:10, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Thank you!!! I really appreciate it! WikiConqueror (talk) 22:40, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for June 10

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File permission problem with File:Chapman Elementary Tornado.jpg

Thanks for uploading File:Chapman Elementary Tornado.jpg. I noticed that while you provided a valid copyright licensing tag, there is no proof that the creator of the file has agreed to release it under the given license.

If you are the copyright holder for this media entirely yourself but have previously published it elsewhere (especially online), please either

• make a note permitting reuse under the CC-BY-SA or another acceptable free license (see this list) at the site of the original publication; or
• Send an email from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en@wikimedia.org, stating your ownership of the material and your intention to publish it under a free license. You can find a sample permission letter here. If you take this step, add {{OTRS pending}} to the file description page to prevent premature deletion.

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If you believe the media meets the criteria at Wikipedia:Non-free content, use a tag such as {{non-free fair use}} or one of the other tags listed at Wikipedia:File copyright tags#Fair use, and add a rationale justifying the file's use on the article or articles where it is included. See Wikipedia:File copyright tags for the full list of copyright tags that you can use.

If you have uploaded other files, consider checking that you have provided evidence that their copyright owners have agreed to license their works under the tags you supplied, too. You can find a list of files you have created in your upload log. Files lacking evidence of permission may be deleted one week after they have been tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. You may wish to read Wikipedia's image use policy. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you. Kelly ^hi! 21:28, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

• Wow, that was a long time ago... anyone interested can check comments on the image talk page where I replied.--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:47, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for WP:CONFUSESTUB. You may find this discussion (an RfC) of interest: [9] . Montanabw^(talk) 21:45, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Request for help at Grace University

After reviewing WP:EXTERNALREL, I believe I would be allowed to edit this page. I will readily admit that I am a student at Grace University. Obviously, this is a significant connection to the subject matter, but I can assure you I am not paid (quite the contrary). Anyway, I was hoping for my fellow Wikipedians to comment on what could be done to improve this page with the goal of removing the advertisement tags. Also, if I would be allowed to edit this page. I am tagging User:Paulmcdonald to help jumpstart this editing as you appear to be an experienced editor.

I tried to tag you, but I think I just made a link to your user page. Sorry about that. Littledj95 (talk) 06:37, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alexis Railsback (3rd nomination)

Given your comments at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alexis Railsback (3rd nomination) you may be interested in this ANI discussion. Apologies if you've already seen it. --- PageantUpdater (talk) 00:03, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Wow, what a mess! We went through the same thing at the College Football Project a few years back. Check WP:CFBWEST for results.--Paul McDonald (talk) 00:15, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Extended confirmed protection

Hello, Paulmcdonald. This message is intended to notify administrators of important changes to the protection policy.

Extended confirmed protection (also known as "30/500 protection") is a new level of page protection that only allows edits from accounts at least 30 days old and with 500 edits. The automatically assigned "extended confirmed" user right was created for this purpose. The protection level was created following this community discussion with the primary intention of enforcing various arbitration remedies that prohibited editors under the "30 days/500 edits" threshold to edit certain topic areas.

In July and August 2016, a request for comment established consensus for community use of the new protection level. Administrators are authorized to apply extended confirmed protection to combat any form of disruption (e.g. vandalism, sock puppetry, edit warring, etc.) on any topic, subject to the following conditions:

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Proposed deletion of Joel Wiens Stadium

The article Joel Wiens Stadium has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Non-notable stadium; appears to fail WP:GNG and WP:GEOFEAT.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 19:21, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Notability question

Hey! So I noticed you removed my PROD on Joel Wiens Stadium, which is alright, but I wondered what all stadiums are usually presumed to be notable. Is it only stadiums actively used by colleges, or can it extend to ones formerly used by colleges, such as Salina Stadium? FWIW, the reason I didn't PROD Salina Stadium is having grown up in Salina I know there've been a fair amount of articles in the local newspaper over upgrades to the stadium over the years (especially the artificial turf, which if I remember right was paid for by alum Terence Newman). But would other stadiums used only by high school teams be potential candidates for deletion, or are they generally presumed to be notable as well? Thanks, Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 20:43, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

• Good questions and first you should know that there are those who disagree on this issue. Many of us at the College Football Project have found that pretty much any college football stadium at any level generates enough coverage to fulfill the requirements of WP:GNG. Salina Stadium, for example, had many years of existence with both Kansas Wesleyan and the Salina school system (I believe also Sacred Heart and St. John's Military may have used the stadium for a period of time). If one were to agree that it met notability then (which most would) then we reference another idea: notability is not temporary. Once notability is achieved, it's notable. Active college football stadiums today tend to generate enough press that even the newer ones (or re-named old ones) get coverage enough. Generally high school stadiums are not considered notable although there are exceptions such as Great Bend High School Memorial Stadium which was the site of the Wheat Bowl for a number of years. There's also some fields in Texas that qualify. Barrow High School is a candidate for a notable high school field because it is the only known football stadium north of the Arctic Circle.--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:05, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I know there's a discussion about me

I'm no sock puppet. I didn't even know what that was until 3 days ago. Good luck with your sacred decision.--J. M. Pearson (talk) 15:57, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject United States/The 50,000 Challenge

You are invited to participate in the 50,000 Challenge, aiming for 50,000 article improvements and creations for articles relating to the United States. This effort began on November 1, 2016 and to reach our goal, we will need editors like you to participate, expand, and create. See more here!

--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 02:39, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins

Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:34, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

A new user right for New Page Patrollers

Hi Paulmcdonald/Archives/2022.

A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.

It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.

If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins).MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:48, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, Paulmcdonald. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

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 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

List of college football coaches with 200 wins

Paul, please observe the editing note at List of college football coaches with 200 wins. Updating one or two coaches one happens to care about, in piece-meal fashion, undermines the integrity of the list. If you want to update this article, please take the time to update every single active coach on the list and adjusted the dates accordingly. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 06:22, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:CoachJosephBanks.jpg

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:CoachJosephBanks.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).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 18:35, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter - February 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2017). This first issue is being sent out to all administrators, if you wish to keep receiving it please subscribe. Your feedback is welcomed.

Administrator changes

NinjaRobotPirate • Schwede66 • K6ka • Ealdgyth • Ferret • Cyberpower678 • Mz7 • Primefac • Dodger67

Briangotts • JeremyA • BU Rob13

Guideline and policy news

• A discussion to workshop proposals to amend the administrator inactivity policy at Wikipedia talk:Administrators has been in process since late December 2016.
• Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2016 closed with no consensus for implementing Pending changes level 2 with new criteria for use.
• Following an RfC, an activity requirement is now in place for bots and bot operators.

Technical news

• When performing some administrative actions the reason field briefly gave suggestions as text was typed. This change has since been reverted so that issues with the implementation can be addressed. (T34950)
• Following the latest RfC concluding that Pending Changes 2 should not be used on the English Wikipedia, an RfC closed with consensus to remove the options for using it from the page protection interface, a change which has now been made. (T156448)
• The Foundation has announced a new community health initiative to combat harassment. This should bring numerous improvements to tools for admins and CheckUsers in 2017.

Arbitration

• The Arbitration Committee released a response to the Wikimedia Foundation's statement on paid editing and outing.

Obituaries

• JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Wikipedia seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.

---

Discuss this newsletter • Subscribe • Archive

13:38, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:BillDotson.jpg

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Thanks for uploading File:BillDotson.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).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 18:13, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Steve Gatena

Hi, speedy deletion does not apply because the article that stands is markedly different than the article that went through afd. Please remove the tag. --JumpLike23 (talk) 04:48, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

You're invited...

 Note: You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football#Navigation boxes in coaching articles (again) regarding the issue of whether or not the navboxes in coaching articles should be collapsed or stay as is. Please comment there and not here. Thanks, Corkythehornetfan (ping me) 22:44, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Happy Adminship

Wishing Paulmcdonald/Archives/2022/February a very happy adminship anniversary on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! DoABarrelRoll.dev(Constable of the WikiPolice) 00:13, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Sorry

Trying to view ANI on my iPad by clicking on my watchlist I inadvertently removed a post of yours, now reinstated. Doug Weller talk 20:20, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

No worries, thank you!--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:52, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Earl Scott

The article Earl Scott has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Not notable

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 19:16, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

Invitation to Admin confidence survey

Hello,

Beginning in September 2017, the Wikimedia Foundation Anti-harassment tool team will be conducting a survey to gauge how well tools, training, and information exists to assist English Wikipedia administrators in recognizing and mitigating things like sockpuppetry, vandalism, and harassment.

The survey should only take 5 minutes, and your individual response will not be made public. This survey will be integral for our team to determine how to better support administrators.

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For the Anti-harassment tools team, SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 19:52, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks!

Hi Paul, thank you for your comments at my RfA. Your support is much appreciated! ansh666 22:20, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Spacing

Paul, I saw your recent edits like the one at Willie J. Slater. What's the point of that extra space before the stub tag? Do we need it? Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 21:02, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

I was running a test of the AWB, and I think there's a problem with it. It's a default setting and it looks like the extra spaces like the one there are unnecessary. I stopped the test of their default template after a time.--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:04, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for explaining. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:22, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for cleaning up my mess.--Paul McDonald (talk) 03:08, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Nomination of Holly Neher for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Holly Neher is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Holly Neher (2nd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:19, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Nomination of Katie Kindelan for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Katie Kindelan is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Katie Kindelan until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Bearcat (talk) 01:36, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Notice of noticeboard discussion

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Drmies (talk) 21:35, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

RfA

Hi. I found it odd you supported an RfA candidate on the basis of "good faith enthusiasm and a willingness to learn." You passed your RfA in May of 2013 so I'm confused as to your philosophy on this point. I always thought the broader interpretations of acceptability came from admins in the 2004-2007 era. Chris Troutman (talk) 03:19, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

• Yeah, I'm a little different.--Paul McDonald (talk) 03:22, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your support on my RfA!

I appreciate that you were my single "support" vote. I am indeed very willing to learn - and see the logic behind the other commentators' responses. I now see several ways that I can contribute without being an admin that I didn't know about before (or realize how important they can be). So thanks for the support, and I hope to see you around in the future! = paul2520 (talk) 15:03, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

• you are welcome!--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:22, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

ANI Experiences survey

Beginning on November 28, 2017, the Wikimedia Foundation Community health initiative (Safety and Support and Anti-Harassment Tools team) will be conducting a survey to en.wikipedia contributors on their experience and satisfaction level with the Administrator’s Noticeboard/Incidents. This survey will be integral to gathering information about how this noticeboard works - which problems it deals with well, and which problems it struggles with.

The survey should take 10-20 minutes to answer, and your individual responses will not be made public. The survey is delivered through Google Forms. The privacy policy for the survey describes how and when Wikimedia collects, uses, and shares the information we receive from survey participants and can be found here:

• https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2017_AN/Incidents_Survey_Privacy_Statement

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• Sign up here to receive a link to a survey

Thank you on behalf of the Support & Safety and Anti-Harassment Tools Teams, Patrick Earley (WMF) talk 21:12, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, Paulmcdonald. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 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 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Nomination of J. Arthur Baird for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article J. Arthur Baird is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/J. Arthur Baird until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. - Mnnlaxer | talk | stalk 03:27, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Nomination of Richard S. Lyon for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Richard S. Lyon is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Richard S. Lyon until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Joeykai (talk) 09:16, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Sidebar to J. Arthur Baird

Hi Paul,

I think we're writing too much on Baird's AfD page. We can continue here if you like, but I've said all I need to. I had one clarification for you. Carthage has never played the University of Illinois according to their media guide. Page 131 here: [10]. Were you thinking of another school? - Mnnlaxer | talk | stalk 17:15, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

You are correct about Illinois, I had misunderstood what I read in the schedule--they played "Illinois College" which is a different school. I have made corrections on the discussion page. Thanks for bringing that up.--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:28, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Great. Would you like to see if you can find sources for Ben Mathis? - Mnnlaxer | talk | stalk 19:44, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Happy holidays!

What better way to celebrate the holidays (and bowl season) than "Touchdown Jesus"!
Best wishes for a happy and healthy 2018!
Cbl62 (talk) 18:00, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Cogent arguments

Great cogent arguments at the AFD of J. Arthur Baird, I just reread them because they were so well articulated. --RAN (talk) 22:48, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Invitation to WikiProject Portals

The Portals WikiProject has been rebooted.

You are invited to join, and participate in the effort to revitalize and improve the Portal system and all the portals in it.

There are sections on the WikiProject page dedicated to tasks (including WikiGnome tasks too), and areas on the talk page for discussing the improvement and automation of the various features of portals.

Many complaints have been lodged in the RfC to delete all portals, pointing out their various problems. They say that many portals are not maintained, or have fallen out of date, are useless, etc. Many of the !votes indicate that the editors who posted them simply don't believe in the potential of portals anymore.

It's time to change all that. Let's give them reasons to believe in portals, by revitalizing them.

The best response to a deletion nomination is to fix the page that was nominated. The further underway the effort is to improve portals by the time the RfC has run its course, the more of the reasons against portals will no longer apply. RfCs typically run 30 days. There are 19 days left in this one. Let's see how many portals we can update and improve before the RfC is closed, and beyond.

A healthy WikiProject dedicated to supporting and maintaining portals may be the strongest argument of all not to delete.

We may even surprise ourselves and exceed all expectations. Who knows what we will be able to accomplish in what may become the biggest Wikicollaboration in years.

Let's do this.

See ya at the WikiProject!

Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   10:23, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update, April 22, 2018

Thank you for joining the Portals WikiProject.

Here's our first project-wide update. I hope you enjoy it...

Reboot

The WikiProject reboot has been a success: the new re-envisioned project is up and running, with new members, ongoing discussions about automation, design, and upkeep; maintained task queques; and updates to members, like this, the very first one!

The RfC

As you know, there's a proposal to delete all portals. It started out looking pretty dismal for portals, with primarily posts supporting their demise. It turned out that the proposer didn't post a deletion notice on the very pages being nominated for deletion (a requirement for all deletion discussions). Once that was done, a flood of opposition came in and has apparently turned the tide.

RfCs generally run for 30 days. It started April 8th, and so it has about 14 more days to run its course.

The more work we can do during that time on the portals, the stronger the reasons for keeping them will be. And the more prepared we will be for any MfDs that follow the closing of the RfC.

AWB?

You may be wondering why we asked for AWB experience in the member-sign-up list.

We are gearing up to do maintenance runs on the entire set of portals, and the more people we have who can use AWB, the better.

But we're not quite ready to start this yet.

To be able to use AWB on the portals, we first need to know what the end result needs to be. Like on the news sections, do we comment out the out-of-date ones, or do we place the code to activate the newsbot on those pages? That would require an assessment of WikiNews and its news generating performance (areas covered, volume in each area), etc.

You can help us figure this out at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals#Discussions about news sections.

Another area we're gearing up for, to do passes with AWB, are upgrades to the intro sections of portals. Many of these have static (copied/pasted) excerpts that go stale over time.

We're trying to figure out how to make self-updating excerpts to replace the existing static excerpts that are on many portals, and once this is done, AWB will be used to place the new code. See the discussion on this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals#Discussions about selective transclusion in intros.

"What can I do?"

There are 3 major areas of activity right now:

Update the main portal list at Portal:Contents/Portals

There are a few hundred existing portals that are missing from this list.

The list of missing entries, and instructions on what to do, can be found at Portal talk:Contents/Portals#These are not listed yet.

We need everybody's help on this. It's a big chore for one persons. But, many hands make light work. Please help chip away at this chore as much as you can. A little each day, form all of us, will get this done pretty quick.

Familiarize yourself with the portal system

In addition to browsing the portals in the 2 lists mentioned in the section above, you should take a look at the portal name space itself and what is in it.

That can be done at Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Watchlist.

Join in on the discussions

There are discussions on many aspects of the WikiProject's operations, with more to come.

Such as about the purposes and functions of portals, design discussions, and so on.

There's even a automated design discussion over at Village Pump Technical, on selective transclusion.

I hope to see you on the talk page.

What's coming?

In addition to the automation efforts mentioned above, we will be looking into how to automate the selection and display of alternating excerpts, and alternating pictures, for the various portal sections.

Watch for these discussions on the Wikiproject's talk page.

Summing up...

Get ready, get set, go!    — The Transhumanist   22:54, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

P.S.: The main example given at the RfC of the problems of portals was Portal:Cricket. Therefore, it's the top priority portal to update. Please lend a hand. - TT

Portals WikiProject heads up, April 27, 2018

We now have 52 members, and more are joining daily.

New and easier way to handle excerpts

Attention portal maintainers!

There's a new template to improve existing and new portals, called {{Transclude lead excerpt}}.

It is a lot easier to use than copying and pasting text from articles, as it displays the paragraphs you specify automatically for you.

It makes excerpts so that they are always current and never go stale or fork.

It is more powerful than it looks, because it has the Lua Module:Excerpt supporting it.

Be careful, as it is alpha software. Please notify the WikiProject talkpage of any problems you come across.

To give you a sense of the reaction this template is generating, here is an excerpt of a discussion thread from the WikiProject's talk page:

• This new template is fantastic. I've added it to the intro sections of the portals on Australian cities (eg P:PER) and it works brilliantly. My compliments to its creators. It can probably also be used in other sections of many portals (eg "Selected article" and "Selected biography"), and, for that reason, will probably make the task of maintaining portals a great deal easier. Bahnfrend (talk) 09:02, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

  Thank you for being so brave. Portal:Adelaide/Intro just got a lot simpler! Certes (talk) 10:43, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Kudos on a wonderful template.    — The Transhumanist   03:27, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

This is amazing stuff. I'm going to get to work on using it on the selected content at most of these portals very soon. WaggersTALK 13:40, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

The RfC

I wrote a comment in the the April 26 section of the RfC explaining what we are up to. I liked the excerpt above so much, that I went back to my RfC posting, and inserted it.

Please add Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals to your watchlist

Wish list

What's this? An old oil lamp. It's so dirty, I think I'll polish it...

*poof*

Whoa! Are you a WikiGenie? In that case, I get 3 wishes!

I wish...

1. ...that Portal:Contents/Portals becomes up-to-date.   (The missing entries are listed on the talk page, with instructions).
2. ...the WikiProject to have Article Alerts.   ({{WikiProject Portals}} templates have already been placed on all portal talk pages).
3. ...that Portal:Cricket becomes a shining example of portal excellence.   (It was the main example of a crappy and unmaintained portal at the RfC).

Please make my wishes come true. See you around the portals!    — The Transhumanist   08:02, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference logo.png

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference logo.png. 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).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Corky 18:16, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject Portals Overview, May 04, 2018

Thank you for being a member of the Portals WikiProject, and thank you for all the work you have all been doing on the portal namespace. To see the activity, check out the watchlist.

This is our 3rd issue, see previous issues at the Newsletter archive.

Top priority: Main list of portals needs updating

The top, and one of the most visible parts, of the portal system is Portal:Contents/Portals, which is intended to list all (completed) portals on Wikipedia.

About half of the missing existing portals have been added since this WikiProject's reboot (April 17th). Thank you to RockMagnetist, TriNitrobrick, Polyamorph, PratyushSinha101, Ganesha811, Bermicourt, Javert2113, Noyster, Ɱ, Lepricavark, XOR'easter, and Emir of Wikipedia, for working on this.

We are half-way to completion with this. We need everyone to chip in until it is done. Instructions, and the list of missing entries are at Portal talk:Contents/Portals#These are not listed yet.

I hope you'll join me there. ("Many hands make light work").

Thank you.

Membership

We're at 66 members, with more joining daily. We even have 6 WikiGnomes!

Special thanks

I have awarded Certes with a portals barnstar on his talk page for his work on the new excerpt templates that are revolutionizing the portal system (Template:Transclude lead excerpt & Template:Transclude random excerpt). If you'd like to show your appreciation, please feel free to stop by his talk page and add your signature to the barnstar itself.

Thank you Certes. You are enabling this WikiProject to get the right things done, fast.

By the way, the templates have already gone international. After being told about the templates, Mossab wrote:

Thanks You very much!. Those are fantastic and great templates! I transferred them to Arabic Wikipedia and they do a magic great job. I worked to improve portal anatomy here and i do every thing i can to improve it and i am very sad for the nomination for deletion of portals :(. I am glad to be member on WikiProject Portals and i added my name with pleasure. Kind regards

RFC

As you know, the (April 8th) proposal to delete all portals and the portal namespace inspired the reboot of this WikiProject. RfCs typically run for 30 days, which means there are 5 days left including today, before the RfC will be closed. The !votes are predominantly "oppose", but many editors have shared their disappointment with the portal system. We have our work cut out for us in correcting the problems of the portals to address their concerns. Complaints ranged from being out of date and lacking maintenance, to taking up the time of editors that they felt (due to low traffic) would be better spent improving articles.

Anti-WikiProject drama

This past week has been somewhat stressful for me, with more than a little conflict...

It culminated with my being reported at the Administrator's Noticeboard "for spamming and canvassing". This is the second time I've been reported there during the RfC; the first one was for posting notices of the deletion discussion (the RfC) at the top of all portal pages.

The accusations were 1) Posting notices of the deletion discussion (the RfC) at the top of all portal pages, 2) Adding an Article alerts section to the Portals WikiProject page, and 3) posting notices (invitations) about this WikiProject on user talk and portal talk pages.

None of which fall under the Wikipedia definitions of spamming or canvassing.

Thank you, Lionelt and Lepricavark, for coming to my rescue. I don't know how the discussion would have turned out if you had not spoken up.

The discussion was closed as "no action necessary".

After that, the person responsible posted their thoughts to my talk page. Here they are, with my response:

Congratulations, it appears your relentless targeted advertising of the RFC, your beating the RFC Supporters with a stick by posting countless times there, your dishonest insistence that Current Events was on the chopping block, and your obstruction of clean up efforts at MfD are paying dividends. Have fun playing with Portal space where no one will read your work. I'm sure someone will eventually clean up the mess when your interest wanes. Cheers. Legacypac

Thank you. I accept your congratulations on behalf of Wikiproject Portals and the portal-loving community – it was a team effort. In addition, I'd like to clarify some things about your claims above...

1. Each page nominated for deletion must have a notice at the top of its page, per the deletion guideline. Not to have one there, would be unfair to those who use such pages, and would constitute a secret deletion tribunal. We don't do things that way on Wikipedia.
2. As new facts became available (e.g., a motivated and thriving WikiProject to support the portals, new building blocks, etc.), it was appropriate to post the developments to the RfC, to support informed decision making.
3. Proposals are literal, not figurative. The proposal specified "all portals". All means all.
4. The fact is, the rebooted WikiProject is cleaning up the mess, rather rapidly. By updating and upgrading the portals, rather than getting rid of them.
5. I think I'll be hanging around for awhile, but the project is more than likely to achieve critical mass and may outlive us all, due in part to the development of tools to assist editors in building, upgrading, and maintaining portals that are fully dynamic and self-updating.

Portals are more fun to work with than ever. Thank you for your role in making this happen. You made us try even harder, and inspired us to pull together as a team. You'll have a warm place in our hearts, forever. The Transhumanist

Automatically refreshed excerpts

The main advancement we've made so far is applying selective transclusion Transclusion is template technology, showing a page on another page. Selective transclusion shows only part of that page. We use it to show excerpts that always match the source. The two templates we have so far, are Template:Transclude lead excerpt and Template:Transclude random excerpt.

Obsoleting subpages

Excerpts are migrating toward the base page of each portal, and where this is done, a subpage is no longer needed.

Template:Transclude lead excerpt will be able to be used to put the intro excerpt directly on the portal page, rather than on an intro subpage, once we adapt a portal design to accommodate this.

Template:Transclude random excerpt is currently being used on 1st-level subpages, and eliminates the need for 2nd-level subpages. (Many portals have 2 levels of subpages).

There are about 1500 portals, but there are around 148,000 subpages in portal space. Further discussions are needed to develop designs and components that do not require them.

It is my hope that the portal of the future will be a single page, or close to it, pulling in excerpts from specified dynamic sources (like category pages), filtered by ratings. This would obviate the need for subpages at all (except for maybe the header and footer subpages, which store a portal's settings). A more likely near-term solution would be subpages with a list maintained by a bot, or editors using semi-automatic tools.

New portals

Since the reboot, a new portal has been created:

Portal:Limited recognition

Please watchlist these pages

Some central pages in the portal system. The more eyes on them, the better.

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals
• User:The Transhumanist (there's a fair amount of portal project traffic on my talk page these days)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Portal/List of all portals/Page 1
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Portal/List of all portals/Page 2
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Portal/List of all portals/Page 3
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Portal/List of all portals/Page 4
• Wikipedia:Portal:Portal Example portal. And funny.
• Portal:Contents/Portals
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Culture and the arts
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Geography and places
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Health and fitness
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/History and events
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Infobox
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Intro
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Mathematics and logic
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Natural and physical sciences
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/People and self
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Philosophy and thinking
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Portal nav footer
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Reference
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Religion and belief systems
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Society and social sciences
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Technology and applied sciences
  • Portal:Contents/Portals/Topic

Wrapping up...

There's more in the works, like a rating system, further redesigns, etc. Keep an eye on the discussions on the project's talk page. They should start showing up there soon.

Hope to see you there. Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   06:23, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject Portals update, 11 May 2018

We've grown to 73 members, and morale is high. Thank you for joining. Here is some news, and some tasks...

The RfC will be closed soon...

2018-05-11: preparations are being made to close the RfC. See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure#Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/RfC: Ending the system of portals.

When there, be sure to notice the consultation link.

We're trying to get a prototypical single-page portal developed in time to show the RfC closers before they make their final decision. You can help. It's Portal:Humanism. So far, we've applied selective transclusion (automation) to excerpts, and have made the following sections without subpages: intro, selected article, selected biography, categories, related portals, wikiprojects, things to do, and wikimedia. Eight down, 4 to go, plus 2 formatting subpages (not sure we can migrate those). Automating every section, would also be nice.

Main objectives

Our main objectives currently, are:

1. Replace static excerpts with selective transclusions, so that the excerpts always stay fresh (that is, match the source content). We are now doing this on the portal base page as much as possible, to reduce the number of subpages that are needed. See #2...
2. Migrate the functions of subpages to the portal base pages. There are around 150,000 subpages in portal space. We aim to make these obsolete by using templates and other calls from the portal base pages.
3. Improve portal design to make portals self-update. Semi-dynamic sections update from a static list, as used in {{Transclude random excerpt}}. Fully-dynamic sections would update from a list maintained elsewhere on Wikipedia, like a category. We haven't found a way to do this yet, other than to create a bot (which we will probably need to do).

Maintenance pass #1: Upgrading the intro section

The intro section of many portals transcludes an "Intro" subpage that has an excerpt in it.

We're replacing that with a selective transclusion directly in the intro section, bypassing the subpage. Though, there's a little more to it...

For instructions, see: Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Transclude intro excerpt directly on the portal base page.

Please skip Portal:American Civil War, as that is specifically being maintained by hand.

Maintenance pass #2: Obsoleting the Wikimedia subpages

One of the sections on many portals links to sister projects on the subject. This needlessly takes a subpage. The subpage can be made obsolete by using the template {{Wikimedia for portals}} directly on the portal base page.

This has been done for several hundred portals so far.

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Obsolete a Wikimedia subpage for instructions.

Maintenance pass #3: calling the category tree from the portal base page

Certes figured out how...

{{subst:Text|<category|tree>}}{{subst:PAGENAME}}{{subst:Text|</categorytree>}}

For more information, see the thread Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Rendering PAGENAME inside categorytree tag doesn't work (it does now).

More to come...

In the meantime, see ya around the portals!    — The Transhumanist   15:55, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update, 15 May 2018

We are at 74 members. If you know anyone who might find this WikiProject interesting, please invite them.

The RfC has ended

The RfC was closed May 11th, and a closing statement was posted May 12th which says "There exists a strong consensus against deleting or even deprecating portals at this time."

Ongoing tasks

Some major activities that we are in the middle of include:

• Adding the missing existing portals to the main portals list at Portal:Contents/Portals. Instructions are on the talk page. There are about 125 portals left to be processed. (There were 400). Keep up the good work!
• Development discussions on how to migrate the subpages to the base pages. There are around 150,000 subpages in portal space, associated with the various sections on a typical portal. We are trying to obsolete them section type by section type. Currently, we're working on obsoleting the intro subpages and the "selected articles" subpages. Please join in.

Other tasks

• The list of portals not ready to be listed on the main list can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#These are not listed yet (scroll down to see them - they are marked Not ready). They are incomplete. If you want a specific portal to work on, please consider choosing one from that list.
• Over the years, some incomplete portals (portals under construction) got added to Portal:Contents/Portals. Therefore, every portal listed there needs to be inspected, and any that are incomplete should be removed from that list and added to the not ready list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#These are not listed yet (scroll down to see it). On Portal:Contents/Portals, I'm already almost done inspecting the portals in the culture section, and so you can skip those. The types of things to look for are empty sections (most will have a redlinked subpage), lack of "selected" sections, portal stubs with just an intro and end sections, and very poor layout (like seriously unbalanced columns).

Portal-building resources

During his work on portals, Broter found a quote randomizer. It is {{Random quotation}}.

Trailblazer: approaching the one-page portal

Broter has transformed the Portal:Community of Christ so it is comprised of only 3 pages in portal space: the base page, its box-header subpage, and its box-footer subpage. Its other other subpages are now obsolete and are waiting for deletion. Nice job, Broter!

Well, that's all for now. See ya around the portals.    — The Transhumanist   06:39, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

AGF

Hi, I wasn't joking in my latest comment at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gustavus Zesch. If you continue using that argument in future AfDs and I spot it, I will be proposing some sort of restriction on participation. It is crazy. - Sitush (talk) 08:09, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

• I am sorry that we disagree, but I don't believe you will find any support in placing a "topic ban" on someone because they disagree with you. I take your threat at your word, but before you go out on a limb with such a proposal, perhaps you could explain why you believe it's wrong to assume good faith.--Paul McDonald (talk) 11:57, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

James Paronto

The only source is dead.Xx236 (talk) 11:54, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update, 25 May 2018

We have grown to 79 members.

Please provide a warm welcome to our latest additions, Wpgbrown, Cactus.man, JLJ001, and Wumbolo.

A lot is going on, much of it on the WikiProject's talk page, so be sure to go there and join in on any of the many discussions taking place there.

Elsewhere around the portal project, or related to portals, the following is happening...

New news template ready for testing

Evad37 has created a new template, with supporting lua module, to handle news in portals...

{{Transclude selected current events}} is ready to be tested in some actual portals. Let Evad37 know if you need help with the search patterns.

Noyster commented that "This is the best portal innovation since sliced bread!"

See the relevant discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals#Alternative to Wikinews.

Thank you, Evad.

Coming soon: Automatic article alerts (but there is a glitch)

Our WikiProject is now subscribed to the bot that makes automatic article alerts, but the subpage where they are posted has not been added to our WikiProject page yet because of a weird problem...

Featured portal nominations from two years ago keep popping up on there.

Please check Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals/Article alerts to see if you can figure out how to fix this.

Once that is remedied, it will be posted on our WikiProject page.

Thank you.

Note that, this will only track base pages, because to track the rest, we'd have to create over 140,000 talk pages for the subpages, and that just isn't worthwhile (as we're trying to remove the subpages anyways). Therefore, any alerts for subpages will still need to be posted manually.

New portal, still needs work

• Portal:Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, courtesy of Mozart834428196. See also, the discussion.

Drafting a new portals guideline

Your input/editing is welcome on the draft-in-progress of a new guideline for portals.

See or work on the draft at User:Cesdeva/sandbox11.

See also the discussion at: Wikipedia talk:Portal guidelines#RfC on new portal guidelines

RfC on new TOC layout for main portal list

There is a proposal to change the look of the table of contents at Portal:Contents/Portals.

See: Portal talk:Contents/Portals#RFC on layout update.

Deletion discussion survivors

Thank you to those who have participated in portal deletion discussions. There are still some editors out there who despise portals, and this comes across in their argumentation style. Wow. Such negativity. But, there is some good news...

• Portal:Quidditch survived its 2nd deletion nomination
• Portal:Prehistory of Antarctica did the same

Current deletion discussions are posted on our WikiProject page.

Portal space clean up

While portal detractors are trying to get rid of portals via MfD, we have deleted many of them via speedy deletion (per {{Db-p1}} or {{Db-p2}}). Essentially, they were bare skeletons, with maybe a little meat on them. The plus here is that speedy deletion is without prejudice to re-creating the portals. They can easily be restarted from scratch without getting approval, or be undeleted by request by someone willing to work on them. We have kept track of these, for when someone wants to rebuild them. They are listed at Portal talk:Contents/Portals#These are not listed yet.

We are also removing subpages, the functions of which have been migrated to portal base pages. To see which ones have been removed, look for the redlinks in our watchlist.

There is also an MfD concerning some of these at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Redundant subpages of the Cornwall portal.

For subpages that need to be deleted, you can conveniently place this speedy deletion template at the top of each of them:

{{Db-g6|rationale=of subpage clean up – this subpage's function has been migrated to the portal base page and is no longer needed}}

Then an admin will come along and delete them.

Please help list the unlisted portals!

There are still 100 existing portals not yet presented on the main portal list at Portal:Contents/Portals. There were 400, so we've come a long way. Thank you! But we are not done yet...

Please list a couple of them. Every little bit helps. If each member of this project listed one more, it would almost all be done. Many hands make light work.

The list of missings, and instructions, are to be found at Portal talk:Contents/Portals#These are not listed yet.

I hope to see you there!

Wrapping up

These developments make up just the tip of the iceberg. I'll have more to report in the next update, soon.    — The Transhumanist   00:32, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Whoa, I missed one...

There's an article about the Portals WikiProject in the new issue of Signpost:

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-05-24/WikiProject report

Enjoy.

P.S.: We now have 80 members. Evad37 just joined!    — The Transhumanist   01:37, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #007, 31 May 2018

We have grown to 89 members.

This is the seventh issue of this newsletter. For previous issues, see our newsletter archive.

Welcome

A warm welcome to our nearly one dozen new members...

Our new members include:

• Evad37
• Checkingfax
• Grey Wanderer
• Voceditenore
• TestPAKISTAN
• Godsy
• Greatedits1
• Charlesdrakew
• Ww2censor
• Simon Burchell
• TheGridExe

Be sure to say "hi" and welcome them to the team.

The portal set has shrunk

There were 1515 portals, but now we have 1475, because we speedy deleted a bunch of incompleted portals that had been sitting around for ages, that were empty shells or had very little content. Because they were speedied, they can be rebuilt from scratch without acquiring approval from WP:DRV.

Maintenance runs on the portals set have begun

This is what we have been gearing up for: upgrading the portals en masse, using AWB.

More than half of the Associated Wikimedia sections have been converted to no longer use a subpage. This chore will probably be completed over the next week or two. Many thanks to the WikiGnome Squad, who have added an Associated Wikimedia section to the many geography-related portals that lacked one. The rest of the subjects await. :)

The next maintenance drive will be on the intro sections. Notices have gone out to the WikiProjects for which one or more portals fall within their subject scope. Once enough time has elapsed for them to respond (1 week), AWB processing of intro sections will begin.

Thank you, you

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your part in the RfC. I went back and reread much of it. I believe your enthusiasm played a major part in turning the tide on there. I'm proud of all of you.

Why reread that mess, you ask?

To harvest ideas, and to keep the problems that need to be fixed firmly in mind. But, also to keep in touch. See below...

Thank yous all around

I've contacted all of the other opposers of the RfC proposal to delete portals, to thank them for their support, and to assure them that their decision was not made in vain. I updated them on our activities, provided the link to the interviews about this project in the Signpost, pointed out our newsletter archive so they can keep up-to-date with what we are doing, and I invited them all to come and have a look-see at our operations (on our talk page).

Sockpuppet, and reverting his work

It so happened that one of our members was a sockpuppet: JLJ001. According to the admin who blocked him, he was a particularly tricky long term abuser. This is a weird situation, since the user was quite helpful. He will be missed.

This has been somewhat disruptive, because admins are doing routine deletions of the pages (portals, templates, etc.) he created, and reversion of his edits (I don't know if they will be reverting all of them). Please bear with them, as they are only doing what is best in the long run.

The following pages have been deleted by the admins so far, that I know of:

• Portal:Plymouth
• Portal:Bedfordshire
• Portal:Suffolk
• Portal:Norfolk
• User:JLJ001/tag
• Template:Non-standard portal flag
• Template:Portal flag

Automation so far, section by section...

• Intro – {{Transclude lead excerpt}}
• Selected article – {{Transclude random excerpt}}
• In the news – {{Transclude selected current events}}
• Associated Wikimedia – {{Wikimedia for portals|species=no|voy=no}}
• Categories – {{#tag:categorytree|{{PAGENAME}}}}

Automatic article alerts is up and running

Automatic article alerts are now featured on the project page.

Some super out-of-date entries kept showing up on there, so posting it on the Project page was delayed. Thanks to Evad37 and AfroThundr for providing solutions on this one. Evad37 adjusted the workflow settings per Wikipedia:Article alerts/Subscribing#Choosing workflows, to make sure only the appropriate page types show up. AfroThundr removed the tags from the old entries that caused them to keep showing up in the article alerts.

Other things that could use some automation

Noyster pointed out that it would be nice to automate the updating of the portals section at the Community bulletin board.

Another major component of the portal system is the main list of portals, at Portal:Contents/Portals. How would we go about automating the updating of that?

Please post your ideas on the WikiProject's talk page. Thank you.

Deletion discussion survivors

Keep in mind that we have already speedy deleted almost all of the nearly empty portals, which can be rebuilt without approval whenever it is convenient to do so. Other portals should be completed if at all possible rather than delete them through MfD (which requires approval from Deletion review to rebuild).

• Portal:Juanes – see the discussion

(Current deletion discussions are posted on our WikiProject page).

Portals needing repair

• Portal:Toys

Wrapping up

There's still more, but it will have to wait until next issue.

Until then, see ya around the project.    — The Transhumanist   12:02, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Nomination of 1939 Nebraska vs. Kansas State football game for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article 1939 Nebraska vs. Kansas State football game is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1939 Nebraska vs. Kansas State football game until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. ...William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 12:30, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #008, 7 June 2018

The WikiProject now has 92 participants, including 16 admins.

Welcome

A warm welcome to the newest members of the team:

• Keith D
• RL0919

Be sure to say hi.

Congrats

Pbsouthwood has just gotten through the grueling RfA process to become a Wikipedia administrator. Be sure to congratulate him.

The reason he went for it was: "For some time I expect to be busy with subpage deletion for Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals as mentioned above. The amount of work is expected to keep me busy for some time. I am primarly a content creator and contributor to policy discussions, but would be willing to consider other admin work on request, providing that I feel that my involvement would be appropriate and not too far outside my comfort zone."

New feature: Picture slideshow

Picture slideshow

• 
  Old Town Sacramento, the capital as it looked like in 19th century
• 
  Tower Bridge
• 
  State Capitol Building
• 
  US Bank Tower
• 
  Sacramento Memorial Auditorium
• 
  Capitol Mall, seen from the Capitol
• 
  Pocket Sacramento Canal
• 
  Sacramento from near the Sacramento River

Evad37 has figured out a way to let the user flip through pictures without purging the page. Purging is awkward because there is an intermediary confirmation screen that you have to click on "yes". In the new picture slideshow section, all you have to do is click on the > to go to the next picture or < to instantly show the previous feature. The feature also shuffles the pictures when the page is initiated, so that they are shown in a different order each time the user visits the page (or purges it).

It is featured in Portal:Sacramento, California. Check it out to the right.

Keep in mind that the feature is a beta version. Please share your comments on how to refine this feature, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals#Refining the Picture slideshow.

The one-page portal has been achieved

We now have a one-page portal design. It isn't fully automated, nor is it even fully semi-automated, as there are still some manually filled-in areas. But it no longer requires any subpages in portal space, and that is a huge improvement. For example, Portal:Sacramento, California utilizes the one-page design concept. While is employs heavy use of templates, it does not have any subpages of its own.

I commend you for your teamwork

This is the most cooperative team I've ever seen. With a strong spirit of working together to get an important job done. Kudos to you.

In conclusion...

There's more. A lot more. But it will have to wait until next issue, but you don't have to wait. See what's going on at the WikiProject's talk page.    — The Transhumanist   02:10, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #009, 15 June 2018

(Article slideshow prototype)
Selected animals

• 

  

  
  

  

  
  The cat (Felis catus), commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat, is a small domesticated carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species of the family Felidae. Recent advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that the domestication of the cat occurred in the Near East around 7500 BC. It is commonly kept as a house pet and farm cat, but also ranges freely as a feral cat avoiding human contact. It is valued by humans for companionship and its ability to kill vermin. Its retractable claws are adapted to killing small prey like mice and rats. It has a strong, flexible body, quick reflexes, sharp teeth, and its night vision and sense of smell are well developed. It is a social species, but a solitary hunter and a crepuscular predator. Cat communication includes vocalizations like meowing, purring, trilling, hissing, growling, and grunting as well as cat body language. It can hear sounds too faint or too high in frequency for human ears, such as those made by small mammals. It also secretes and perceives pheromones.
  
  Female domestic cats can have kittens from spring to late autumn in temperate zones and throughout the year in equatorial regions, with litter sizes often ranging from two to five kittens. Domestic cats are bred and shown at events as registered pedigreed cats, a hobby known as cat fancy. Animal population control of cats may be achieved by spaying and neutering, but their proliferation and the abandonment of pets has resulted in large numbers of feral cats worldwide, contributing to the extinction of bird, mammal and reptile species.
  
  the domestic cat was the second most popular pet in the United States, with 95.6 million cats owned and around 42 million households owning at least one cat. In the United Kingdom, 26% of adults have a cat, with an estimated population of 10.9 million pet cats there were an estimated 220 million owned and 480 million stray cats in the world. (Full article...)
• 

  

  House mouse (Mus musculus)

  
  A mouse (<abbr title="
  '"`UNIQ--nowiki-00000024-QINU`"'
  ">pl.: mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (Mus musculus). Mice are also popular as pets. In some places, certain kinds of field mice are locally common. They are known to invade homes for food and shelter.
  
  Mice are typically distinguished from rats by their size. Generally, when a muroid rodent is discovered, its common name includes the term mouse if it is smaller, or rat if it is larger. The common terms rat and mouse are not taxonomically specific. Typical mice are classified in the genus Mus, but the term mouse is not confined to members of Mus and can also apply to species from other genera such as the deer mouse (Peromyscus).
  
  Domestic mice sold as pets often differ substantially in size from the common house mouse. This is attributable to breeding and different conditions in the wild. The best-known strain of mouse is the white lab mouse. It has more uniform traits that are appropriate to its use in research. (Full article...)
• 

  

  
  The horse (Equus ferus caballus) is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, close to Eohippus, into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began domesticating horses around 4000 BCE, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BCE. Horses in the subspecies caballus are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. These feral populations are not true wild horses, which are horses that never have been domesticated and historically linked to the megafauna category of species. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, size, colors, markings, breeds, locomotion, and behavior.
  
  Horses are adapted to run, allowing them to quickly escape predators, and possess an good sense of balance and a strong fight-or-flight response. Related to this need to flee from predators in the wild is an unusual trait: horses are able to sleep both standing up and lying down, with younger horses tending to sleep significantly more than adults. Female horses, called mares, carry their young for approximately 11 months and a young horse, called a foal, can stand and run shortly following birth. Most domesticated horses begin training under a saddle or in a harness between the ages of two and four. They reach full adult development by age five, and have an average lifespan of between 25 and 30 years.
  
  Horse breeds are loosely divided into three categories based on general temperament: spirited "hot bloods" with speed and endurance; "cold bloods", such as draft horses and some ponies, suitable for slow, heavy work; and "warmbloods", developed from crosses between hot bloods and cold bloods, often focusing on creating breeds for specific riding purposes, particularly in Europe. There are more than 300 breeds of horse in the world today, developed for many different uses. (Full article...)
• 

  

  
  

  

  
  The dog (Canis familiaris or Canis lupus familiaris) is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is derived from extinct gray wolves, and the gray wolf is the dog's closest living relative. The dog was the first species to be domesticated by humans. Experts estimate that hunter-gatherers domesticated dogs more than 15,000 years ago, which was before the development of agriculture. Due to their long association with humans, dogs have expanded to a large number of domestic individuals and gained the ability to thrive on a starch-rich diet that would be inadequate for other canids.
  
  The dog has been selectively bred over millennia for various behaviors, sensory capabilities, and physical attributes. Dog breeds vary widely in shape, size, and color. They perform many roles for humans, such as hunting, herding, pulling loads, protection, assisting police and the military, companionship, therapy, and aiding disabled people. Over the millennia, dogs became uniquely adapted to human behavior, and the human–canine bond has been a topic of frequent study. This influence on human society has given them the sobriquet of "man's best friend". (Full article...)

Don't mind that box to the right. We'll be talking about that later, below.

Almost done...

With the portals upgrades?

No. :)

What is almost done is the updating of the main list of portals!

There are 23 portals left to be listed.

Kudos to the WikiGnome Squadron, for spearheading this.

Once it is fully updated, we need to keep it up to date. When you complete a portal, remember to add it to Portal:Contents/Portals.

Concerning portal upgrades, we are working on those section-by-section...

Associated Wikimedia section conversion task complete

The Associated Wikimedia sections of the entire set of portals have been upgraded. These are now handled on each portal base page (bypassing the previously used corresponding subpages), using the {{Wikimedia for portals}} template rather than reiterated copied/pasted code.

So, to be more accurate on reporting upgrade progress, that's one section down (for the whole set of portals), with (about) nine sections to go. (Skipping curated portals, regarding custom content sections, of course).

Further section conversions (using AWB)

Work is underway on converting Portals' introduction sections, and the categories sections.

If you would like to help, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Upgrade introduction sections and Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#AWB task: Convert category sections

Further section conversions (by hand)

Work has also started with converting selected picture sections to picture slideshow sections. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Install picture slideshows.

Quality rating system for portals under development

Currently, there is no quality rating for portals: in the Portals WikiProject box on each portals' talk page, it just says "Portal". But times are a changin'. Quality assessment is on the way, and you can help. See the discussion.

What's coming: excerpt slideshows

Evad37 has figured out a way to apply the picture slideshow feature to displaying article excerpts (now you can check out the provided box above). :) This allows us to bypass page purging to see the next selection, and you can even click through them rather quickly. Currently, the wikicode for doing this for article excerpts is a bit eye-boggling, and so we are looking into simplifying it. A streamlined version may be just around the corner.

Note that this is a prototype, not ready for widespread use. Click on the box in between the lesser than and greater than signs, to see what I mean. It was meant for pictures, and so the thumbnail feature doesn't apply to article prose very well. I've presented it even though it isn't ready, to show the direction portal development is heading. See the discussion.

Wow

I'm amazed at how rapidly portals are evolving. And we're still within a single generation of portal technological evolution. Imagine what they might be in 2 or 3 more generations of developments. Pretty soon, portals will be able to shake your hand. :)    — The Transhumanist   11:05, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Orphaned non-free image File:1939 Nebraska vs Kansas State football game.gif

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:1939 Nebraska vs Kansas State football game.gif. 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).

Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described in section F5 of the criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. --B-bot (talk) 17:05, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #010, 30 June 2018

We've grown to 94 participants.

A warm welcome to dcljr and Kpgjhpjm.

Rating system for portals

We are in the process of developing a rating system specifically for portals, as the quality assessment scheme for articles does not apply to portals. It is coming along nicely. Your input would be very helpful. See the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/General#Proposed new quality class assessments.

Better than a barnstar

One of our participants got involved with this WikiProject through interest in how the new generation of portals would be handled in WP's MOS (Manual of Style). It didn't take long before he got sucked in deeper. This has given him an opportunity to look around, and so, he has made an assessment of this WikiProject's operations:

I'm quite frankly really impressed and inspired by what's happening here. If you'd asked me a year ago if I thought portals should just be scrapped as a failed, dragged-out experiment, I would have said "yes". This planning and the progress toward making it all practical is exemplary of the wiki spirit, in particular of a happy service-to-readers puppy properly wagging its technological and editorial tail instead of the other way around, and without "drama". It's also one of the few examples I've seen in a long time of a new wikiproject actually doing something useful and fomenting constructive activity (instead of acting as a barrier to participation, and a canvassing/ownership farm for PoV pushers). Kudos all around. — SMcCandlish

Congratulations, everyone. Keep up the great work.

Slideshow development

We've run into a glitch with slideshows: they don't work on mobile devices.

Initially, we will need to explore options that allow portals to have slideshows without adversely affecting mobile viewers. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design#Mobile view support.

Eventually, we may need another way to do slideshows. If we do go this route, and I don't see why we wouldn't, then (user configurable) automatic slideshows also become a possibility.

TemplateStyles RfC passed

Once implemented, this will allow editors to create and edit cascading style sheets for use with templates. This will expand what we can do with portals. For more detail, see mw:Extension:TemplateStyles and Wikipedia:TemplateStyles.

Automation effort

We've run into an obstacle using Lua-based selective transclusion: Lua is incapable (on Wikipedia) of reading in article names from categories. Because of this, we'll need to seek other approaches for fully automating the Selected article section. We are exploring sources other than categories, and other technologies besides Lua.

Speaking of using other sources, the template {{Transclude list item excerpt}} collects list items from a specified page, or from a section of that page, and transcludes the lead from a randomly selected link from that list. Courtesy of Certes. So, if you use this in a portal, and if the template specifies a page or section serviced by JL-Bot, you've now got yourself an automatically updated section in the portal. JL-Bot provides links to featured content and good articles, by subject.

What is "fully automated"? When you create a portal using a creation template, and the portal works thereafter without editor intervention, the portal is fully automated. That is, the portal is supported by features that fetch new content. If you have to add new article names every so often for it to display new content, then it is only semi-automated.

Currently, the Selected article section is semi-automated, because it requires that an editor supplies the names of the various articles for which excerpts are (automatically) displayed. For examples, look at the wikisource code of Portal:Reptiles, Portal:Ancient Tamil civilization, and Portal:Reference works.

So far, 3 sections are fully automatable: the introduction section, the categories section, and the Associated Wikimedia section.

Where is all this heading?

Henry.

Or some other name.

Eventually, the portal department will be a software program. And we won't have to do anything (unless we want to). Not even tell it what portals to create (unless we want to). It will just do it all (plus whatever else we want it to do). And we will of course give it good manners, and a name.

But, that is a few years off.

Until then, building portals is still (partially) up to us.    — The Transhumanist   13:33, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

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Portals WikiProject update #011, 10 July 2018

We now have 97 participants.

Be sure to welcome our newest members, BrantleyIzMe, Coffeeandcrumbs, and Nolan Perry, with warm regards.

Work is proceeding apace. We have 2 major thrusts right now: converting the intro sections of portals, and building the components of the one-page automated model...

Converting the intro sections

We need everybody, except those building software components, to work on converting intros. If you have AWB, definitely use that. If not, then work on them manually. Even one a day, or as often as you can muster, will help a lot. There are only about 1,000 of them left to go, so if everyone chips in, it will go pretty quickly. Remember, there are 97 of us!

The intros for most of the portals starting with A through F have already been converted to use the {{Transclude lead excerpt}} template.

The standard wikicode for the automated intro that we want to put into place looks like this:

{{/box-header|Introduction|noedit=yes|}}
{{Transclude lead excerpt | {{PAGENAME}} | paragraphs=1-2 | files=1}}
{{Box-footer|[[{{PAGENAME}}|Read more...]]}}

That works for most portals, but not all. For some portals it requires some tweaking, and for others, we may have to use a different or more customized approach. Remember to visually inspect each portal you work on and make sure that it works before moving on to the next one.

Be sure to skip user-maintained portals. They are listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Portals#Specific_portal_maintainers.

AWB tips

I've started an AWB tips page, for those of you feeling a bit overwhelmed by that power user tool. Feel free to add to it and/or improve it.

Portal automation

We have some very talented Lua programmers, who are pushing the limits of what we can do in gathering data from Wikipedia's various namespaces and presenting it in portals. Due to their efforts, Lua is powering the selective transclusion core of our emerging automated portal design, in the form of selected article sections that rotate content, and slideshows.

To go beyond Lua's limits, to take full advantage of Mediawiki's API, we are in the midst of adding another programming language to the resources we shall be making use of: JavaScript. The ways that JavaScript can help us edit portals to boost the power of our Lua solutions, are being explored, which will likely make the two languages synergistic if not symbiotic. Research is under way on how we can use JavaScript to make some of the portal semi-automated features fully automatically self-updating, in ways that Lua cannot. Like gathering random members from a category and inserting them into a portal's templates as parameters. Once the parameters are in place, Lua does the rest.

If you would like to get involved with design efforts, or just keep up on them, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design.

When should we start building new portals?

Well, not at the present time, because building portals is quite time consuming. The good news is that we are working on a design that will be fully automated, or as close to that as we can get. And the new design is being implemented in the portal department's main portal creation template. This means, that not only will portals update themselves, their creation will be highly automated as well. That's the nature of templates. You put them in place, and they just... work.

What I'm getting at here, is that it would be better to wait to build lots of new portals until after the new design is completed. Because with it, instead of taking hours to create a new portal, it will likely take minutes.

That does not mean we should be idle in the meantime. The main reason most of us are here is because it became apparent that portals were largely unmaintained and had grown out-of-date. This had become so apparent that a proposal was made to delete all the portals and the portal namespace to boot. That makes our main objective in the short term to improve all the existing portals so that the community will want to keep them—forever.

Building lots of new portals comes later. Let's fix up the ones we have first. ;)

And on that note, I bid you adieu. Until next newsletter, see ya 'round the WikiProject.    — The Transhumanist   12:32, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #012, 15 July 2018

We have 97 participants.

Getting faster

Automation makes things go faster, even portal creation. One of the components Certes made was {{Transclude list item excerpt}}. I became curious about its possible applications.

So I worked out a portal design using it, the initial prototypes being Portal:Kyoto (without a "Selected pictures" section), and Portal:Dubai (with a "Selected pictures" section). Then I used Portal:Dubai as the basis for further portals of this type...

I was able to revamp Portal:Munich from start to finish in less than 22 minutes.

Portal:Dresden took about 19 minutes.

Portal:Athens took less than 17 minutes.

Did Portal:Florence in about 13 minutes.

Portal:Stockholm also in about 13.

Portal:Palermo approx. 12 minutes.

Why?

To see, and to show, what may become feasible via automation.

It now looks highly feasible that we could get portal construction time down to a few minutes, or maybe even down to a few seconds.

The singularity is just around the corner. :)

Slideshows

When using the {{Random slideshow}} template to display pictures, be sure to use the plural tense in the section title: "Selected pictures". That's because slideshows don't show up on many mobile devices. Instead the whole set of pictures is shown, hence the section title "Selected pictures", as it fits both situations.

In case you are curious, here is a list of the portals so far that have a slideshow:

• Algae
• Amphibians
• Anatomy
• Ancient Tamil civilization
• Athens
• Bangladesh.
• Berkshire
• Birds
• Buckinghamshire
• Cenozoic
• Dresden
• Dubai
• East Sussex
• Fish
• Florence
• Florida

• Genocide
• Gilgit-Baltistan
• H. P. Lovecraft
• Hampshire
• Human body
• Humanism
• Isle of Wight
• Kent
• London transport
• Mammals
• Milan
• Munich
• Oxfordshire
• Palermo
• Prague
• Reference works
• Reptiles

• Sacramento
• Saint Petersburg
• Salem
• Scottish Islands
• South East England
• Stockholm
• Surrey
• Sydney
• Tamil People
• Telephones (empty – please add some pictures)
• Turin
• Underwater diving
• Vienna
• West Sussex

Progress on intro conversions

The intros for most of the portals up through the letter "O" have been converted, using this wikicode:

{{/box-header|Introduction|noedit=yes|}}
{{Transclude lead excerpt | {{PAGENAME}} | paragraphs=1-2 | files=1}}
{{Box-footer|[[{{PAGENAME}}|Read more...]]}}

Where the pagename didn't match the article title for the subject, the title was typed in.

Most of the portals that do not contain {{/intro}} or {{{{FULLPGENAME}}/Intro}} have not yet been processed.

About a thousand portals use the method of selective transclusion for the intro section. That's about two-thirds. That means we have one-third of the way to go on the intro section conversions.

Much more to come...

So much has been happening with portals that I can't keep up with it. (That's good). Which means, more in the upcoming issue. Until then, see ya 'round the project. Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   08:46, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #013, 18 July 2018

I got overwhelmed IRL (in real life) during the production of issue #12. So, here is a catch-up issue, to help bring you (and me) up to speed on what is happening with portals...

By the way, we still have 97 participants. (Tell all your friends about this WikiProject, and have them join!)

Panoramas!

One cool feature of some of the geographical portals is a panoramic picture at the top of the intro section.

Check these out:

• Portal:Kyoto
• Portal:Miami
• Portal:Seattle
• Portal:Houston
• Portal:Tokyo
• Portal:New Orleans
• Portal:Brisbane
• Portal:Calgary
• Portal:Moscow

The Portals WikiGnome squadron is busy adding panoramas to geographical portals that don't yet have one. Feel free to join in on the fun. See task details at Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Add a panorama or skyline to a geographic portal.

Caveat: avoid super-huge pics, as they can cause portal scripts to time-out. Please try to keep picture size down below 2 megabytes. Thank you.

Auto-populated slideshows

Speaking of pictures...

We now have two slideshow templates. You may be familiar with {{Random slideshow}}, in which the editor types in (or copies/pastes) a list of pictures he or she wants it to display.

Well, now we have another template, courtesy of Evad37, which accepts one or more page names instead, and displays a random image off of the listed pages. So instead of listing dozens of files by hand, you can include a title or three to be scanned automatically. It even lets you specify particular sections.

The new slideshow template is {{Transclude files as random slideshow}}.

Here's a sample, that grabs images from a single page:

Selected motorcycle or motorcycling pictures

• 
  Brough Superior SS 100 1925 (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  FIM Motocross World Championship, taking place at Mallory Park, England (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  Honda CB750 inline four, the first to be called a 'superbike', and the archetypal Universal Japanese Motorcycle (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  Honda Super Cub, the archetypal underbone and the world's best-selling motor vehicle (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  Logo of the British Motorcyclists Federation (BMF) (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  Lucius Copeland 1894 (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  A 1969 Harley-Davidson chopper, a replica of the 'Captain America' bike from Easy Rider (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  A 1954 Triumph T110 (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  Ernesto 'Che' Guevara (left) holding the handlebars of his 500 cc single cylinder Norton motorcycle (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  BMW's first motorcycle, the 1923-1925 R32 (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  Joey Dunlop on his Honda RC30 ready for the Senior TT (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)
• 
  2015 BMW R1200RT Sport Touring Motorcycle (from Outline of motorcycles and motorcycling)

New Template:Box-header colour

Speaking of new templates, here's another one!

Also from Evad37, we have a new component for starting section boxes, that is color configurable, and that bypasses the need for box-header subpages altogether. It is {{Box-header colour}}.

For color support, see Web colors.

For the discussion in which this was inspired, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Tasks#Colour combinations for accessibility.

(In case you didn't notice, the slideshow box above uses this new template).

BTW, don't forget to close your box with {{Box-footer}}.

Where are we on the redesign?

The answer to this question is quite involved, and would fill this page to overflowing. Therefore, this subject, including a complete update on where we are at and where we are going with portal design, is covered at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design.

Where are we on portal conversion?

An AWB pass to convert intros on the portals has been completed. The pass couldn't convert them all (due to various formatting configurations, etc.).

All but about 170 portals now have introductions selectively transcluded on the base page. Not counting manually maintained portals, that leaves about 70 portals that either need their intros converted, or they need an intro.

Next, we'll be converting the categories sections!

What's the plan, man?

The course of action we have been taking goes something like this, with all steps being pursued simultaeneously...

1) Design a one-page automated portal model

2) Convert existing portals to that design (except those being manually maintained)

3) Remove subpages no longer needed

4) Develop further tools to empower editors working on portals

Later, when the tools are up to the task, filling in the gaps in coverage (with new portals) will also become practical.

Are we caught up yet?

Probably not.

Who knows what our programmers and editors have dreamed up while I was writing this.

See ya again soon,    — The Transhumanist   11:08, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #014, 27 July 2018

Development of design continues, full speed ahead...

Excerpt slideshows are here!

Can you say "paradigm shift"?

Now, in addition to picture slideshows, we have slideshows that can display excerpts. Portals are not just for topic tasting anymore. Now they can be made useful for surveying Wikipedia's coverage of entire subjects. This gives a deeper meaning to their name. Hmmm. "Portals"... Doorways to knowledge.

Portal:Lithuania was redesigned using excerpt slideshows. Check it out.

For those of you who cannot wait to test out these new toys...

We have not one, but three excerpt slideshow components to pick from:

{{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow}}

For this one, you specify the page names where the excerpts are to be extracted from.

{{Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow}}

This one accepts source pages from where the page names are gathered from list items. Then an excerpt from one of those pages is displayed. The selection of what is included in the slide show can be limited to a specific number from the collection (of the page names gathered), and that selection is renewed from scratch each time the page is purged.

For example, if you specify Template:World Heritage Sites in Spain as a source page, the slideshow will cycle through those sites. Now you don't have to type them in one-by-one. This greatly reduces portal creation time.

{{Transclude linked excerpts as random slideshow}}

Same as above, but gathers links instead of just linked list items.

Panoramic banners

{{Portal image banner}} displays a panoramic picture the width of the page, and adjusts its size, so it stays that way even if the user changes page view size. And it accepts multiple file names, so that the picture displayed randomizes between them each time the page is visited/purged.

Give resizing the page a try:

Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.

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Reptile types

• 
  
  

  

  Turtles from different families; clockwise from top-left: Red-bellied short-necked turtle, Indian flapshell turtle, Hawksbill sea turtle, and Galápagos tortoise

  
  Turtles, or testudines, are reptiles of the order Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked turtles), which differ in the way the head retracts. There are 360 living and recently extinct species of turtles, including land-dwelling tortoises and freshwater terrapins. They are found on most continents, some islands and, in the case of sea turtles, much of the ocean. Like other amniotes (reptiles, birds, and mammals) they breathe air and do not lay eggs underwater, although many species live in or around water. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Pope's pit viper (Trimeresurus popeiorum)

  
  Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (/sɜːrˈpɛntiːz/). Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads (cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have independently evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs at least twenty-five times via convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of legless lizards. These resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, although this rule is not universal (see Amphisbaenia, Dibamidae, and Pygopodidae). (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Northern tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus punctatus)

  
  The tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus) is a species of reptile endemic to New Zealand. Despite its close resemblance to lizards, it is part of a distinct lineage, the order Rhynchocephalia. The name tuatara is derived from the Māori language and means "peaks on the back". (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Male gharial

  
  The gharial (Gavialis gangeticus), also known as gavial or fish-eating crocodile, is a crocodilian in the family Gavialidae and among the longest of all living crocodilians. Mature females are 2.6 to 4.5 m (8 ft 6 in to 14 ft 9 in) long, and males 3 to 6 m (9 ft 10 in to 19 ft 8 in). Adult males have a distinct boss at the end of the snout, which resembles an earthenware pot known as a ghara, hence the name "gharial". The gharial is well adapted to catching fish because of its long, narrow snout and 110 sharp, interlocking teeth. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Clockwise from top left: veiled chameleon (Chamaeleo calyptratus), rock monitor (Varanus albigularis), common blue-tongued skink (Tiliqua scincoides), Italian wall lizard (Podarcis sicula), giant leaf-tailed gecko (Uroplatus fimbriatus), and legless lizard (Anelytropsis papillosus)

  
  Lizard is the common name used for all squamate reptiles other than snakes (and to a lesser extent amphisbaenians), encompassing over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The grouping is paraphyletic as some lizards are more closely related to snakes than they are to other lizards. Lizards range in size from chameleons and geckos a few centimeters long to the 3-meter-long Komodo dragon. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Blanus cinereus, Spain

  
  Amphisbaenia /æmfɪsˈbiːniə/ (called amphisbaenians or worm lizards) is a group of typically legless lizards, comprising over 200 extant species. Amphisbaenians are characterized by their long bodies, the reduction or loss of the limbs, and rudimentary eyes. As many species have a pink body and scales arranged in rings, they have a superficial resemblance to earthworms. While the genus Bipes retains forelimbs, all other genera are limbless. Phylogenetic studies suggest that they are nested within Lacertoidea, closely related to the lizard family Lacertidae. Amphisbaenians are widely distributed, occurring in North America, Europe, Africa, South America, Western Asia and the Caribbean. Most species are less than 6 inches (15 cm) long. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Yacare caiman, Caiman yacare

  
  A caiman (/ˈkeɪmən/; also cayman as a variant spelling from Taíno kaiman) is an alligatorid belonging to the subfamily Caimaninae, one of two primary lineages within the Alligatoridae family, the other being alligators. Caimans inhabit Mexico and Central and South America from marshes and swamps to mangrove rivers and lakes. They have scaly skin and live a fairly nocturnal existence. They are relatively small-sized crocodilians with an average maximum weight of 6 to 40 kg (13 to 88 lb) depending on species, with the exception of the black caiman (Melanosuchus niger), which can grow more than 4 m (13 ft) in length and weigh in excess of 1,000 kg (2,200 Ib). The black caiman is the largest caiman species in the world and is found in the slow-moving rivers and lakes that surround the Amazon basin. The smallest species is the Cuvier's dwarf caiman (Paleosuchus palpebrosus), which grows to 1.2 to 1.5 m (3.9 to 4.9 ft) long. There are six different species of caiman found throughout the watery jungle habitats of Central and Southern America. The average length for most of the other caiman species is about 2 to 2.5 m (6.6 to 8.2 ft) long. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  An American alligator (top) and a Chinese alligator

  
  An alligator, or colloquially gator, is a large reptile in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae of the order Crocodilia. The two extant species are the American alligator (A. mississippiensis) and the Chinese alligator (A. sinensis). Additionally, several extinct species of alligator are known from fossil remains. Alligators first appeared during the late Eocene epoch about 37 million years ago. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus)

  
  Crocodiles (family Crocodylidae) or true crocodiles are large semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term crocodile is sometimes used even more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia, which includes the alligators and caimans (family Alligatoridae), the gharial and false gharial (family Gavialidae) among other extinct taxa. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Aldabra giant tortoise
  (Aldabrachelys gigantea)

  
  Tortoises (/ˈtɔːr.təs.ɪz/) are reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order Testudines (Latin for "tortoise"). Like other turtles, tortoises have a shell to protect from predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, and like other members of the suborder Cryptodira, they retract their necks and heads directly backward into the shell to protect them. (Full article...)

Amphibian types

• 
  
  

  

  Various types of frog

  
  A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (ἀνούρα, literally without tail in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" Triadobatrachus is known from the Early Triassic of Madagascar, but molecular clock dating suggests their split from other amphibians may extend further back to the Permian, 265 million years ago. Frogs are widely distributed, ranging from the tropics to subarctic regions, but the greatest concentration of species diversity is in tropical rainforest. Frogs account for around 88% of extant amphibian species. They are also one of the five most diverse vertebrate orders. Warty frog species tend to be called toads, but the distinction between frogs and toads is informal, not from taxonomy or evolutionary history.
  
  An adult frog has a stout body, protruding eyes, anteriorly-attached tongue, limbs folded underneath, and no tail (the tail of tailed frogs is an extension of the male cloaca). Frogs have glandular skin, with secretions ranging from distasteful to toxic. Their skin varies in colour from well-camouflaged dappled brown, grey and green to vivid patterns of bright red or yellow and black to show toxicity and ward off predators. Adult frogs live in fresh water and on dry land; some species are adapted for living underground or in trees.
  
  Frogs typically lay their eggs in water. The eggs hatch into aquatic larvae called tadpoles that have tails and internal gills. They have highly specialized rasping mouth parts suitable for herbivorous, omnivorous or planktivorous diets. The life cycle is completed when they metamorphose into adults. A few species deposit eggs on land or bypass the tadpole stage. Adult frogs generally have a carnivorous diet consisting of small invertebrates, but omnivorous species exist and a few feed on plant matter. Frog skin has a rich microbiome which is important to their health. Frogs are extremely efficient at converting what they eat into body mass. They are an important food source for predators and part of the food web dynamics of many of the world's ecosystems. The skin is semi-permeable, making them susceptible to dehydration, so they either live in moist places or have special adaptations to deal with dry habitats. Frogs produce a wide range of vocalizations, particularly in their breeding season, and exhibit many different kinds of complex behaviors to attract mates, to fend off predators and to generally survive. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  European fire-bellied toad (Bombina bombina), a member of the family Bombinatoridae

  
  Toad is a common name for certain frogs, especially of the family Bufonidae, that are characterized by dry, leathery skin, short legs, and large bumps covering the parotoid glands.
  
  A distinction between frogs and toads is not made in scientific taxonomy, but is common in popular culture (folk taxonomy), in which toads are associated with drier, rougher skin and more terrestrial habitats. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Spotted salamander, Ambystoma maculatum

  
  Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All ten extant salamander families are grouped together under the order Urodela from the group Caudata. Salamander diversity is highest in eastern North America, especially in the Appalachian Mountains; most species are found in the Holarctic realm, with some species present in the Neotropical realm.
  
  Salamanders never have more than four toes on their front legs and five on their rear legs, but some species have fewer digits and others lack hind limbs. Their permeable skin usually makes them reliant on habitats in or near water or other cool, damp places. Some salamander species are fully aquatic throughout their lives, some take to the water intermittently, and others are entirely terrestrial as adults.
  
  This group of amphibians is capable of regenerating lost limbs as well as other damaged parts of their bodies. Researchers hope to reverse engineer the regenerative processes for potential human medical applications, such as brain and spinal cord injury treatment or preventing harmful scarring during heart surgery recovery. The remarkable ability of salamanders to regenerate is not just limited to limbs but extends to vital organs such as the heart, jaw, and parts of the spinal cord, showing their uniqueness compared to different types of vertebrates. ⁤⁤This ability is most remarkable for occurring without any type of scarring. ⁤⁤This has made salamanders an invaluable model organism in scientific research aimed at understanding and achieving regenerative processes for medical advancements in human and animal biology. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Oscaecilia ochrocephala (Caeciliidae)

  
  Caecilians (/sɪˈsɪliən/; New Latin for 'blind ones') are a group of limbless, vermiform (worm-shaped) or serpentine (snake-shaped) amphibians with small or sometimes nonexistent eyes. They mostly live hidden in soil or in streambeds, and this cryptic lifestyle renders caecilians among the least familiar amphibians. Modern caecilians live in the tropics of South and Central America, Africa, and southern Asia. Caecilians feed on small subterranean creatures such as earthworms. The body is cylindrical and often darkly coloured, and the skull is bullet-shaped and strongly built. Caecilian heads have several unique adaptations, including fused cranial and jaw bones, a two-part system of jaw muscles, and a chemosensory tentacle in front of the eye. The skin is slimy and bears ringlike markings or grooves and may contain scales.
  
  Modern caecilians are a clade, the order Gymnophiona /ˌdʒɪmnəˈfaɪənə/ (or Apoda /ˈæpədə/), one of the three living amphibian groups alongside Anura (frogs) and Urodela (salamanders). Gymnophiona is a crown group, encompassing all modern caecilians and all descendants of their last common ancestor. There are more than 220 living species of caecilian classified in 10 families. Gymnophionomorpha is a recently coined name for the corresponding total group which includes Gymnophiona as well as a few extinct stem-group caecilians (extinct amphibians whose closest living relatives are caecilians but are not descended from any caecilian). Some palaeontologists have used the name Gymnophiona for the total group and the old name Apoda for the crown group'. However, Apoda has other even older uses, including as the name of a genus of Butterfly making its use potentially confusing and best avoided. 'Gymnophiona' derives from the Greek words γυμνος / gymnos (Ancient Greek for 'naked') and οφις / ophis (Ancient Greek for 'snake'), as the caecilians were originally thought to be related to snakes and to lack scales.
  
  The study of caecilian evolution is complicated by their poor fossil record and specialized anatomy. Genetic evidence and some anatomical details (such as pedicellate teeth) support the idea that frogs, salamanders, and caecilians (collectively known as lissamphibians) are each others' closest relatives. Frogs and salamanders show many similarities to dissorophoids, a group of extinct amphibians in the order Temnospondyli. Caecilians are more controversial; many studies extend dissorophoid ancestry to caecilians. Some studies have instead argued that caecilians descend from extinct lepospondyl or stereospondyl amphibians, contradicting evidence for lissamphibian monophyly (common ancestry). Rare fossils of early gymnophionans such as Eocaecilia and Funcusvermis have helped to test the various conflicting hypotheses for the relationships between caecilians and other living and extinct amphibians. ('Full article...)

After:

Reptile types

• 
  
  

  

  Clockwise from top left: veiled chameleon (Chamaeleo calyptratus), rock monitor (Varanus albigularis), common blue-tongued skink (Tiliqua scincoides), Italian wall lizard (Podarcis sicula), giant leaf-tailed gecko (Uroplatus fimbriatus), and legless lizard (Anelytropsis papillosus)

  
  Lizard is the common name used for all squamate reptiles other than snakes (and to a lesser extent amphisbaenians), encompassing over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The grouping is paraphyletic as some lizards are more closely related to snakes than they are to other lizards. Lizards range in size from chameleons and geckos a few centimeters long to the 3-meter-long Komodo dragon. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus)

  
  Crocodiles (family Crocodylidae) or true crocodiles are large semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term crocodile is sometimes used even more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia, which includes the alligators and caimans (family Alligatoridae), the gharial and false gharial (family Gavialidae) among other extinct taxa. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Turtles from different families; clockwise from top-left: Red-bellied short-necked turtle, Indian flapshell turtle, Hawksbill sea turtle, and Galápagos tortoise

  
  Turtles, or testudines, are reptiles of the order Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked turtles), which differ in the way the head retracts. There are 360 living and recently extinct species of turtles, including land-dwelling tortoises and freshwater terrapins. They are found on most continents, some islands and, in the case of sea turtles, much of the ocean. Like other amniotes (reptiles, birds, and mammals) they breathe air and do not lay eggs underwater, although many species live in or around water. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Northern tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus punctatus)

  
  The tuatara (Sphenodon punctatus) is a species of reptile endemic to New Zealand. Despite its close resemblance to lizards, it is part of a distinct lineage, the order Rhynchocephalia. The name tuatara is derived from the Māori language and means "peaks on the back". (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Male gharial

  
  The gharial (Gavialis gangeticus), also known as gavial or fish-eating crocodile, is a crocodilian in the family Gavialidae and among the longest of all living crocodilians. Mature females are 2.6 to 4.5 m (8 ft 6 in to 14 ft 9 in) long, and males 3 to 6 m (9 ft 10 in to 19 ft 8 in). Adult males have a distinct boss at the end of the snout, which resembles an earthenware pot known as a ghara, hence the name "gharial". The gharial is well adapted to catching fish because of its long, narrow snout and 110 sharp, interlocking teeth. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Blanus cinereus, Spain

  
  Amphisbaenia /æmfɪsˈbiːniə/ (called amphisbaenians or worm lizards) is a group of typically legless lizards, comprising over 200 extant species. Amphisbaenians are characterized by their long bodies, the reduction or loss of the limbs, and rudimentary eyes. As many species have a pink body and scales arranged in rings, they have a superficial resemblance to earthworms. While the genus Bipes retains forelimbs, all other genera are limbless. Phylogenetic studies suggest that they are nested within Lacertoidea, closely related to the lizard family Lacertidae. Amphisbaenians are widely distributed, occurring in North America, Europe, Africa, South America, Western Asia and the Caribbean. Most species are less than 6 inches (15 cm) long. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Pope's pit viper (Trimeresurus popeiorum)

  
  Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (/sɜːrˈpɛntiːz/). Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads (cranial kinesis). To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs (such as kidneys) appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have independently evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs at least twenty-five times via convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of legless lizards. These resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, although this rule is not universal (see Amphisbaenia, Dibamidae, and Pygopodidae). (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Yacare caiman, Caiman yacare

  
  A caiman (/ˈkeɪmən/; also cayman as a variant spelling from Taíno kaiman) is an alligatorid belonging to the subfamily Caimaninae, one of two primary lineages within the Alligatoridae family, the other being alligators. Caimans inhabit Mexico and Central and South America from marshes and swamps to mangrove rivers and lakes. They have scaly skin and live a fairly nocturnal existence. They are relatively small-sized crocodilians with an average maximum weight of 6 to 40 kg (13 to 88 lb) depending on species, with the exception of the black caiman (Melanosuchus niger), which can grow more than 4 m (13 ft) in length and weigh in excess of 1,000 kg (2,200 Ib). The black caiman is the largest caiman species in the world and is found in the slow-moving rivers and lakes that surround the Amazon basin. The smallest species is the Cuvier's dwarf caiman (Paleosuchus palpebrosus), which grows to 1.2 to 1.5 m (3.9 to 4.9 ft) long. There are six different species of caiman found throughout the watery jungle habitats of Central and Southern America. The average length for most of the other caiman species is about 2 to 2.5 m (6.6 to 8.2 ft) long. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  An American alligator (top) and a Chinese alligator

  
  An alligator, or colloquially gator, is a large reptile in the genus Alligator of the family Alligatoridae of the order Crocodilia. The two extant species are the American alligator (A. mississippiensis) and the Chinese alligator (A. sinensis). Additionally, several extinct species of alligator are known from fossil remains. Alligators first appeared during the late Eocene epoch about 37 million years ago. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Aldabra giant tortoise
  (Aldabrachelys gigantea)

  
  Tortoises (/ˈtɔːr.təs.ɪz/) are reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order Testudines (Latin for "tortoise"). Like other turtles, tortoises have a shell to protect from predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, and like other members of the suborder Cryptodira, they retract their necks and heads directly backward into the shell to protect them. (Full article...)

Amphibian types

• 
  
  

  

  Spotted salamander, Ambystoma maculatum

  
  Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All ten extant salamander families are grouped together under the order Urodela from the group Caudata. Salamander diversity is highest in eastern North America, especially in the Appalachian Mountains; most species are found in the Holarctic realm, with some species present in the Neotropical realm.
  
  Salamanders never have more than four toes on their front legs and five on their rear legs, but some species have fewer digits and others lack hind limbs. Their permeable skin usually makes them reliant on habitats in or near water or other cool, damp places. Some salamander species are fully aquatic throughout their lives, some take to the water intermittently, and others are entirely terrestrial as adults.
  
  This group of amphibians is capable of regenerating lost limbs as well as other damaged parts of their bodies. Researchers hope to reverse engineer the regenerative processes for potential human medical applications, such as brain and spinal cord injury treatment or preventing harmful scarring during heart surgery recovery. The remarkable ability of salamanders to regenerate is not just limited to limbs but extends to vital organs such as the heart, jaw, and parts of the spinal cord, showing their uniqueness compared to different types of vertebrates. ⁤⁤This ability is most remarkable for occurring without any type of scarring. ⁤⁤This has made salamanders an invaluable model organism in scientific research aimed at understanding and achieving regenerative processes for medical advancements in human and animal biology. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Various types of frog

  
  A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (ἀνούρα, literally without tail in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" Triadobatrachus is known from the Early Triassic of Madagascar, but molecular clock dating suggests their split from other amphibians may extend further back to the Permian, 265 million years ago. Frogs are widely distributed, ranging from the tropics to subarctic regions, but the greatest concentration of species diversity is in tropical rainforest. Frogs account for around 88% of extant amphibian species. They are also one of the five most diverse vertebrate orders. Warty frog species tend to be called toads, but the distinction between frogs and toads is informal, not from taxonomy or evolutionary history.
  
  An adult frog has a stout body, protruding eyes, anteriorly-attached tongue, limbs folded underneath, and no tail (the tail of tailed frogs is an extension of the male cloaca). Frogs have glandular skin, with secretions ranging from distasteful to toxic. Their skin varies in colour from well-camouflaged dappled brown, grey and green to vivid patterns of bright red or yellow and black to show toxicity and ward off predators. Adult frogs live in fresh water and on dry land; some species are adapted for living underground or in trees.
  
  Frogs typically lay their eggs in water. The eggs hatch into aquatic larvae called tadpoles that have tails and internal gills. They have highly specialized rasping mouth parts suitable for herbivorous, omnivorous or planktivorous diets. The life cycle is completed when they metamorphose into adults. A few species deposit eggs on land or bypass the tadpole stage. Adult frogs generally have a carnivorous diet consisting of small invertebrates, but omnivorous species exist and a few feed on plant matter. Frog skin has a rich microbiome which is important to their health. Frogs are extremely efficient at converting what they eat into body mass. They are an important food source for predators and part of the food web dynamics of many of the world's ecosystems. The skin is semi-permeable, making them susceptible to dehydration, so they either live in moist places or have special adaptations to deal with dry habitats. Frogs produce a wide range of vocalizations, particularly in their breeding season, and exhibit many different kinds of complex behaviors to attract mates, to fend off predators and to generally survive. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Oscaecilia ochrocephala (Caeciliidae)

  
  Caecilians (/sɪˈsɪliən/; New Latin for 'blind ones') are a group of limbless, vermiform (worm-shaped) or serpentine (snake-shaped) amphibians with small or sometimes nonexistent eyes. They mostly live hidden in soil or in streambeds, and this cryptic lifestyle renders caecilians among the least familiar amphibians. Modern caecilians live in the tropics of South and Central America, Africa, and southern Asia. Caecilians feed on small subterranean creatures such as earthworms. The body is cylindrical and often darkly coloured, and the skull is bullet-shaped and strongly built. Caecilian heads have several unique adaptations, including fused cranial and jaw bones, a two-part system of jaw muscles, and a chemosensory tentacle in front of the eye. The skin is slimy and bears ringlike markings or grooves and may contain scales.
  
  Modern caecilians are a clade, the order Gymnophiona /ˌdʒɪmnəˈfaɪənə/ (or Apoda /ˈæpədə/), one of the three living amphibian groups alongside Anura (frogs) and Urodela (salamanders). Gymnophiona is a crown group, encompassing all modern caecilians and all descendants of their last common ancestor. There are more than 220 living species of caecilian classified in 10 families. Gymnophionomorpha is a recently coined name for the corresponding total group which includes Gymnophiona as well as a few extinct stem-group caecilians (extinct amphibians whose closest living relatives are caecilians but are not descended from any caecilian). Some palaeontologists have used the name Gymnophiona for the total group and the old name Apoda for the crown group'. However, Apoda has other even older uses, including as the name of a genus of Butterfly making its use potentially confusing and best avoided. 'Gymnophiona' derives from the Greek words γυμνος / gymnos (Ancient Greek for 'naked') and οφις / ophis (Ancient Greek for 'snake'), as the caecilians were originally thought to be related to snakes and to lack scales.
  
  The study of caecilian evolution is complicated by their poor fossil record and specialized anatomy. Genetic evidence and some anatomical details (such as pedicellate teeth) support the idea that frogs, salamanders, and caecilians (collectively known as lissamphibians) are each others' closest relatives. Frogs and salamanders show many similarities to dissorophoids, a group of extinct amphibians in the order Temnospondyli. Caecilians are more controversial; many studies extend dissorophoid ancestry to caecilians. Some studies have instead argued that caecilians descend from extinct lepospondyl or stereospondyl amphibians, contradicting evidence for lissamphibian monophyly (common ancestry). Rare fossils of early gymnophionans such as Eocaecilia and Funcusvermis have helped to test the various conflicting hypotheses for the relationships between caecilians and other living and extinct amphibians. ('Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  European fire-bellied toad (Bombina bombina), a member of the family Bombinatoridae

  
  Toad is a common name for certain frogs, especially of the family Bufonidae, that are characterized by dry, leathery skin, short legs, and large bumps covering the parotoid glands.
  
  A distinction between frogs and toads is not made in scientific taxonomy, but is common in popular culture (folk taxonomy), in which toads are associated with drier, rougher skin and more terrestrial habitats. (Full article...)

Notice how the box bottoms line up. That readjusts even if you click the slideshow buttons.

The template used for this is {{Flex columns}}.

By the way, when you include more than one box in a column, any left over whitespace in that column is divided between them.

Box-header colour

You may have noticed the new {{Box-header colour}} template used above. It lets you pick the color locally (right on the same page). Before, this was handled on a subpage somewhere.

Testing, testing

Now that we have lots of toys to play with for making cool portals...

Don't forget, that the majority of views of Wikipedia these days are from mobile devices. We need to make certain that portals display well on those. So, remember to check your work on portals in mobile view mode...

To see a portal in mobile view mode, insert a ".m" into a portal's url, after "en", like this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Reptile

If you discover problems in a portal you can't fix, report them on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design.

Until next time...

Have fun.    — The Transhumanist   00:59, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Portals tasks requests: presented in the newsletter below...

Portals WikiProject update #015, 31 July 2018

Now that we have lots of toys to play with, it's play time!

Here are some fun activities to use our new toys on...

Fun activity #1: put the improved panorama template to use

Would you like to travel around the world? Well, this may be the next best thing...

Here's another fun toy to play with: {{Portal image banner}}

To see what it looks like, check out the panoramas at the tops of the following portals:

• Portal:India
• Portal:Melbourne
• Portal:Perth
• Portal:Monaco
• Portal:South Sudan
• Portal:Thiruvananthapuram
• Portal:Lithuania
• Portal:Brisbane
• Portal:Abu Dhabi
• Portal:Athens
• Portal:Barcelona
• Portal:Calgary
• Portal:Dhaka
• Portal:Dresden
• Portal:Edinburgh
• Portal:Florence
• Portal:Houston
• Portal:Miami
• Portal:Milan
• Portal:Moscow
• Portal:Munich
• Portal:Seattle
• Portal:Stockholm
• Portal:Turin
• Portal:Bermuda

The task: There are many geography portals that lack panoramas. Please add some. Please keep the file size down below 2 megabytes, and keep in mind that you may find quality banners at commons: at less than 200K (.2 megabytes). Good search terms to include with the place name are "banner", "cityscape", "skyline", "panorama", "landscape", etc.

Related task: There are also lots of geography portals that have panoramas used as gaudy banners (with print or icons splattered across them) or that display them in some random location on the page. In many cases, those pages would be improved by displaying the panorama as a clean picture at the top of the intro section, like on the examples above. This works best with banner-like panoramas. Please fix such pages when you come across them, if you believe it would improve the look of the page.

Taller images might be better suited displayed further down the page, or in the "Selected images" section.

Note that {{Portal image banner}} supports multiple images, and displays one at random upon the first visit, and each time the page is purged.

Fun activity #2: install "Selected images" sections

That is, image slideshows!

Over 200 have been installed so far. Just 1200 to go. (Be sure not to install them on portals with active maintainers, unless they want you to).

The title "Selected images" reflects the fact that not all images on Wikipedia are pictures, and encompasses maps, graphs, diagrams, sketches, paintings, pictures, and so on.

The toys we have to work with for this are:

{{Random slideshow}}

and

{{Transclude files as random slideshow}}

The task: Using one of the above templates directly on a portal's base page, replace static "Selected picture" sections, with a section like one of these:

Selected images

• 
  A discus (Symphysodon discus) is guarding its eggs. As for most cichlids, brood care is highly developed with both the parents caring for the young. Additionally, adult discus produce a secretion through their skin, off which the larvae live during their first few days.
• 
  Salmon fry hatching (Salmo salar) - the larva has grown around the remains of the yolk - visible are the arteries spinning around the yolk and little oildrops, also the gut, the spine, the main caudal blood vessel, the bladder and the arcs of the gills.
• 
  Koi are ornamental domesticated varieties of the common carp Cyprinus carpio, originated from China and widely spread in Japan. They are very closely related to goldfish. The word "koi" comes from Japanese meaning "carp".
• 
  The red lionfish (Pterois volitans) is a venomous coral reef fish from the Indian and western Pacific Oceans. The red lionfish is also found off the east coast of the United States, and was likely first introduced off the Florida coast in the early to mid 1990s.

Selected images

• 
  Old-growth forest in the Opal Creek Wilderness, a wilderness area located in the Willamette National Forest in the U.S. state of Oregon, on the border of Mount Hood National Forest. It has the largest uncut watershed in Oregon. (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Downed wood replenishes topsoil as it decays. (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  A wildfire in Venezuela during a drought (from Wildfire)
• 
  Wildland firefighter working a brush fire in Hopkinton, New Hampshire, US (from Wildfire)
• 
  Wildfire burning in the Kaibab National Forest, Arizona, United States, in 2020. The Mangum Fire burned more than 70,000 acres (280 km²) of forest. (from Wildfire)
• 
  A thin transverse section showing the internal structure of conifer wood (from Conifer)
• 
  Fire Propagation Model (from Wildfire)
• 
  Charred shrubland in suburban Sydney (2019–20 Australian bushfires). (from Wildfire)
• 
  A surface fire in the western desert of Utah, United States (from Wildfire)
• 
  Globosa, a cultivar of Pinus sylvestris, a northern European species, in the North American Red Butte Garden (from Conifer)
• 
  Wildfire smoke in atmosphere off the U.S. West Coast in 2020 (from Wildfire)
• 
  In Abies grandis (grand fir), and many other species with spirally arranged leaves, leaf bases are twisted to flatten their arrangement and maximize light capture. (from Conifer)
• 
  Aerial view of deliberate wildfires on the Khun Tan Range, Thailand. These fires are lit by local farmers every year to promote the growth of a certain mushroom. (from Wildfire)
• 
  Forest fires visible from a distance in Dajti National Park, Tirana, Albania (from Wildfire)
• 
  Antarctic beech old-growth in Lamington National Park, Queensland, Australia (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Phylogeny of the Pinophyta based on cladistic analysis of molecular data. (from Conifer)
• 
  Dry Mountain Fire Lookout in the Ochoco National Forest, Oregon, US circa 1930 (from Wildfire)
• 
  First growth or virgin forest near Mount Rainier, 1914 (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Tāne Mahuta, the biggest kauri (Agathis australis) tree alive, in the Waipoua Forest of the Northland Region of New Zealand. (from Conifer)
• 
  Old-growth European beech forest in Biogradska Gora National Park, Montenegro (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Eucalyptus regnans forest in Tasmania, Australia (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Elk Bath, an award-winning photograph of elk avoiding a wildfire in Montana (from Wildfire)
• 
  A Monterey pine forest in Sydney, Australia (from Conifer)
• 
  National map of groundwater and soil moisture in the United States. It shows the very low soil moisture associated with the 2011 fire season in Texas. (from Wildfire)
• 
  Pinaceae: unopened female cones of subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa) (from Conifer)
• 
  2003 Canberra bushfires, visible from Parliament House (from Wildfire)
• 
  The narrow conical shape of northern conifers, and their downward-drooping limbs, help them shed snow. (from Conifer)
• 
  Animation of diaphragmatic breathing with the diaphragm shown in green (from Wildfire)
• 
  Wildfire near Yosemite National Park, United States, in 2013. The Rim Fire burned more than 250,000 acres (1,000 km²) of forest. (from Wildfire)
• 
  A coniferous forest pictured in the coat of arms of the Kainuu region in Finland (from Conifer)
• 
  Redwood tree in northern California redwood forest: According to the National Park Service, "96 percent of the original old-growth coast redwoods have been logged." (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Fungus Climacocystis borealis on a tree stump in the Białowieża Forest, one of the last largely intact primeval forests in Central Europe (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  A Russian firefighter extinguishing a wildfire (from Wildfire)
• 
  Old-growth red cedar stump near Port Renfrew, British Columbia (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Virgin forest about 2500 m above sea level in Shennongjia Forestry District, Hubei, China (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Charred landscape following a crown fire in the North Cascades, United States (from Wildfire)
• 
  Smoke from the 2020 California wildfires settles over San Francisco (from Wildfire)
• 
  Araucariaceae: awl-like leaves of Cook pine (Araucaria columnaris) (from Conifer)
• 
  A prescribed burn in a Pinus nigra stand in Portugal (from Wildfire)
• 
  Avatar Grove near Port Renfrew, British Columbia: Giant Douglas firs (left) and red cedars (right) fill the grove. (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Global fires during the year 2008 for the months of August (top image) and February (bottom image), as detected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite. (from Wildfire)
• 
  Cool temperate rainforest in Tasmania, Australia (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  Sediment off the Yucatán Peninsula (from Wildfire)
• 
  Lightning-sparked wildfires are frequent occurrences during the dry summer season in Nevada. (from Wildfire)
• 
  Pinaceae: needle-like leaves and vegetative buds of Coast Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii) (from Conifer)
• 
  The northern spotted owl primarily inhabits old-growth forests in the northern part of its range (Canada to southern Oregon) and landscapes with a mix of old and younger forest types in the southern part of its range (the Klamath region and California). (from Old-growth forest)
• 
  A dirt road acted as a fire barrier in South Africa. The effects of the barrier can clearly be seen on the unburnt (left) and burnt (right) sides of the road. (from Wildfire)
• 
  Ecological succession after a wildfire in a boreal pine forest next to Hara Bog, Lahemaa National Park, Estonia. The pictures were taken one and two years after the fire. (from Wildfire)
• 
  Cupressaceae: scale leaves of Lawson's cypress (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana); scale in mm (from Conifer)

The one on the left uses {{Random slideshow}} (which accepts file names), and the one on the right uses {{Transclude files as random slideshow}} (which accepts source pages from which the filenames are gathered).

The above section formatting is used on many of the pages you will come across, but not all. In those cases, use whatever section formatting matches the rest of the page.

Note that you may come across "Selected picture" sections done with {{Random portal component}} templates. That template call is the entire section. Replace it with a section that matches the other sections on the page, and put the new slideshow inside that.

For example, in Portal:California, this code:

{{Random portal component|max=21|seed=27|header=Selected picture|subpage=Selected picture}}

was replaced with this code:

{{/box-header|Selected images|noedit=yes}}
{{Transclude files as random slideshow
| {{PAGENAME}}
| Culture of {{PAGENAME}}
}}
{{Box-footer}}

And the new section blended right in with the formatting of the rest of the page. Note the use of the {{PAGENAME}} magic word. Plain article titles also work. Don't feel limited to one or two page names. But be sure to test each slideshow before installing the next one. (Or if you prefer, in batches - just don't leave them hanging). Report technical problems at the Portal design talk page.

Fun activity #3: upgrade "Selected article" sections

These sections, where unmaintained, have gone stale. That's because 1) the excerpts are static, having been manually copied and pasted, and 2) because they lack automatic addition of new entries.

They can be upgraded with:

{{Transclude random excerpt}}

or

{{Transclude list item excerpt}}

or

{{Transclude linked excerpt}}

All three of these will provide excerpts that won't go stale. The latter two can provide excerpt collections that won't go stale, by providing new entries over time. The key is to select source pages or source sections that are frequently updated, such as root article sections, mainstream lists, or navigation templates.

Where will this put us?

When the above tasks are completed for the entire collection of portals (except the ones with specific maintainers), we'll be more than half-way done with the portal system upgrade.

Keep up the great work.    — The Transhumanist   19:15, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #016, 15 Aug 2018

Future portal tool

Discussions are underway on the design of a portal tool (user script) that will hopefully have features for modifying portals at the click of a menu item, to make editing them easier. It might do things like change the color for you, add to a selection, add a new section, move a section, and so on.

If you'd like to be involved and suggest features for the tool, please join us at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design#What would you want a portal tool to be able to do?.

Progress report: upgrade of portals

As new portal components are built by our Lua gurus, those components are being used to upgrade portals. Each component automates a section of a portal in a particular way.

The sections that are mostly upgraded so far are the Intro, and the Associated Wikimedia section.

The sections currently undergoing upgrade are: Selected image, Categories, and the Intro.

The Intro? Isn't that done already?

Yes, and no.

The upgrade of the excerpt in intros is mostly complete (there are about 70 non-standard portals that still need it).

Now we are doing another upgrade of intros in the form of adding a panoramic picture at the top of the intro, on portals for which such a picture is available on Commons:. Dozens of panoramas have been added so far, and they are really starting to affect the look of portals — the portals that have them look really good.

Regions are the most likely subjects to have panoramas, but a surprising number of other subjects have banner-shaped pictures too. Some examples of non-geographic portals that they have been added to are:

• Portal:Underwater diving
• Portal:Sharks
• Portal:Reptiles
• Portal:Meat
• Portal:Cheese
• Portal:Cereals
• Portal:Tea
• Portal:Milk
• Portal:Wheat
• Portal:Rice
• Portal:Clothing

Speaking of pictures, several hundred Selected image sections have been upgraded to include image slideshows.

Progress report: design

The push for automation continues, with new components under continuous testing in the field. As problems are spotted, they are reported to our programmers, who have done a fantastic job of keeping up with bug reports and fixing the relevant Lua modules fast. I am highly impressed.

Construction time on new portals is now down to as little as a minute or less. Though not in general. If you are lucky enough to spot portals that fit the profile of the new tools (their strengths), then a portal can be complete almost as soon as it is created, with the added time it takes to find and add a panorama. Source page titles are not generally standardized, and so it source pages in many cases must be entered manually. Where source page titles follow a standard naming convention, portal creation for those subjects goes quickly.

So, we still have some hurdles, but the outlook on portals is very good. New features, and many improvements to features are on the horizon. I'll be sure to report them when they become available.

What will the portal of the future look like? That is up to you!

See you on the project's talk pages.

Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   21:08, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #017, 22 Aug 2018

This issue is about portal creation...

Creating new portals

Myself and others have been testing and experimenting with the new components in upgrading existing portals and in building new portals. They have now been applied in hundreds of portals.

The templates are ready for general use for portal creation.

They are still a bit buggy, but the only way we are going to work the rest of the bugs out is by using them and reporting the bugs as we come across them.

I look forward to seeing what new portals you create!

Be sure to report bugs at WT:WPPORTD.

The main portal creation template is {{box portal skeleton}}.

Portal creation tips

After starting a portal using {{box portal skeleton}}...

1. Placing a panorama (banner picture) at the top of the intro section is a nice touch, and really makes a portal look good. {{box portal skeleton}} doesn't automatically insert panoramas. So, you will need to do that by hand. They can be found at Commons:. For some examples, check out Portal:Sharks, Portal:Cheese, and Portal:Florence
2. The search term provided in the Did you know? and In the news sections is very basic and rarely matches anything. It is best to replace that term with multiple search arguments, if possible (separate each argument with a pipe character). For example, in Portal:Capital punishment, see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Capital_punishment&diff=855255361&oldid=855137403 Searches in templates use Lua search notation.
3. Check the In the news and Did you know? sections for mismatches. That is, sometimes entries come up that shouldn't be displayed. If there are any, refine the search strings further, so they don't return such results.
4. Finish each portal you've created before creating a new one. We don't want unfinished portals sitting around.

Need a laugh?

Check out the Did you know? section on Portal:Determinism.    — The Transhumanist   02:23, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Ron Simonson

The article Ron Simonson has been proposed for deletion because it appears to have no references. Under Wikipedia policy, this biography of a living person will be deleted after seven days unless it has at least one reference to a reliable source that directly supports material in the article.

If you created the article, please don't be offended. Instead, consider improving the article. For help on inserting references, see Referencing for beginners, or ask at the help desk. Once you have provided at least one reliable source, you may remove the {{prod blp/dated}} tag. Please do not remove the tag unless the article is sourced. If you cannot provide such a source within seven days, the article may be deleted, but you can request that it be undeleted when you are ready to add one. Natureium (talk) 14:13, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #018, 04 Sept 2018

Bug hunt!

As you know, portals are now supported by a number of new templates, which are in turn supported by some new Lua modules.

Those templates and modules are being put to the test, in the new portals that have been created since this WikiProject rebooted, plus a number of existing portals that have been revamped.

The new portals, and revamped ones, can be found at Category:Single-page portals.

Please browse the new portals at your leisure, and report any and all problems that you spot. Post bug and other portal problem reports at WT:WPPORTD. Please report bugs, quirks, awkward aspects, or anything weird or off that you notice. Compliments and suggestions are also welcome. :)

When you report a bug, please indicate the portal's name, the section that the problem appeared in, and the name of the article appearing (first) in the section with the problem. Most problems will likely be encountered in the Selected general articles" section, due to quirks in a displayed article's wikicode that the lua modules don't handle yet. Your help in spotting those is of utmost value. Thank you.

Don't delete portal subpages just yet

For portals that have been converted to the single-page design, we are not deleting their subpages at this time, because we are working on ways to harvest the data from those pages. For example, the Selected picture subpages include filenames and captions that would be valuable for the image slideshows. Please don't delete portal subpages, for now. They'll be slated for d-batch speedy deletion after harvesting. Thank you.

Development notes

We are currently testing a feature added to {{Transclude files as random slideshow}} that allows it to accept both sourcepages and filenames. Courtesy of Evad37. This will pave the way for harvesting files and their captions from portal subpages, for use in image slideshows.

We need your help

The bulk of the work is being done by a handful of editors. But we can't do it all. We need help with spotting bugs, refining the search parameters in new/revamped portals (in the "Did you know..." and "In the news" sections), adding images to slideshows for a broader selection (they default to showing the images on the root article page but are capable of showing so much more), adding panoramic pictures at the top of the intro section of region portals (cities, counties, states, provinces, countries, continents, and other regions), to name but a few task types.

It is rewarding to be a part of the growing portal phenomenon. And you get to see its expansion and refinement up close.

Feel free to join in on the fun. ;)

Thank you,    — The Transhumanist   06:56, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for September 17

An automated process has detected that when you recently edited 2018 Kansas State Wildcats football team, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Nick Fitzgerald (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver).

(Opt-out instructions.) --DPL bot (talk) 09:37, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #019, 22 Sept 2018

Portals progress report

Don't blink. You might miss something.

As of a few days ago, portals had doubled in about a month and a half.

Also, there were 98 incompleted portals in Category:Portals under construction. Now there are just 43.

The WikiProject page has been thoroughly revised

The goals, plans, and task sections have all been updated.

Orphaned portals need a home...

Many new portals are still orphans, and need links pointing to them:

1. A portal link at the bottom of corresponding navigation footer template. E.g., Template:Machines for Portal:Machines. See examples of a portals link at the bottom of Template:Robotics and Template:Forestry.
2. A {{Portal}} box in the See also section of the corresponding root article for each portal. If there is no See also section, create one and place the portal template in that. (Rather than placing them in an external links section -- they're not external links).
3. A {{Portal}} template placed at the top of the category page corresponding to each portal.

All new and revamped portals can be found at Category:Single-page portals.

Portal:Contents/Portals

This is the main list of portals.

Nearly 2,000 of the new portals need to be listed here.

They can be found at Portal talk:Contents/Portals#These are not listed yet. Instructions are included there.

Customized Portal Rating system is now in place

Portals now have a new rating system of their own designed specifically to support portal evaluation! We were trying to use the standard assessment system for articles, but that doesn't fit portals very well.

Many thanks to Evad37, Waggers, AfroThundr3007730, SMcCandlish, Tom, BrendonTheWizard, and Pbsouthwood for their work and input on this.

The new system can be found at the top of all portal talk pages, in the WikiProject portals box. Those with "???" ratings need to be assessed, which makes up most of the older portals.

Most of the new portals were started out with an initial "Low" level of importance when their talk pages were created. Those deserving higher importance should be promoted as you come across them.

Improving the new portals

The starting point for new portals included minimal parameters and content, in the form of default values in the template(s) used for their creation.

Embellishing embedded search strings

So, for the search strings in the "Did you know..." and "In the news" sections, this was the magic word {{PAGENAME}}, which represents the portal's name. Unfortunately, the resulting term is alway capitalized, which limits its effectiveness as a search string for anything but proper nouns. Results for those two sections can be improved, by replacing the "PAGENAME" magic word with multiple search strings, and search strings that begin with lower case letters. There is no inherent limit as to how many search parameters may be included. Lua search notation is used. The more general the subject, the more subtopic search terms you may want to include. For example, on Portal:Avengers (comics), {{PAGENAME}} turned up nothing. But, when more parameters were added, as in the wikicode below...

{{Transclude selected recent additions | {{PAGENAME}} | Iron Man | Spiderman | Antman | Hawkeye | The Hulk | Incredible Hulk | David Banner | Captain America | Scarlet Witch | Black Widow | Tony Stark | Nick Fury | Age of Ultron | Infinity War | months=36 | header={{Box-header colour|Did you know... }}|max=6}}

... that returned several results in the portal's DYK section.

Be sure you make the improvements to both the DYK section and the "In the news" section, as they both require the search strings.

Expanding the slideshow contents

The default starting selection for the image slideshow in most new portals is whatever images happen to be in the corresponding root article (via the PAGENAME magic word). You can improve image slideshows by adding more sourcepages and filenames as parameters in the "Selected images" section of portals.

See Template:Transclude files as random slideshow/doc for instructions.

More exciting things are to come...

Portals used to take about 6 hours or more to create. Now, for subjects that have particular navigation support, we've got that down to about one minute each, with even more content displayed than ever. True, that means the new portals pick you, rather than the other way around. Creating a specific portal that doesn't happen to have the requisite navigation support is still pretty time consuming. But, we are working on extending our reach beyond the low-hanging fruit.

And efforts are ongoing to keep shaving time off of the creation process. Eventually, we may get it down to seconds each.

In addition to improving automation, we're always looking for new features and improvements that we can add to portals, and there is plenty of potential to expand on the standard design so that new portals are even better right out of the starting gate. Additional designs are also possible.

On the horizon, there are many more portals waiting to be created. And we can expect to see at least a few more section types emerge. I never expected slideshows, for example, especially not for excerpts. Who knows where innovation will take us next?

Keep up the great work everyone.

Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   07:09, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Portals WikiProject update #020, 12 Oct 2018

Whew, a lot has been happening.

A bit of defending of the portals has been needed. But, most activity recently has been directed upon maintenance and development of existing portals.

The majority of portals now use the new design, about 2400 of them, leaving around 1200 portals that still employ the old style.

Newest portals

• Aceh
• Aegean Sea
• Arthur Wellesley
• Azores
• Bashkortostan
• Birmingham
• Black Sea
• Canary Islands
• Carpathian Mountains
• Caucasus
• Columbia River
• Davao City
• Dnieper
• Easter Island
• Exploration
• Galápagos Islands
• Glasgow
• Great Wall of China
• Guangdong
• Kaliningrad Oblast
• Kanpur
• Kigali
• Kuril Islands
• Kuwait City
• Leeds
• Lhasa
• Loire Valley
• Lucknow
• Lviv
• Map projections
• Marseille
• Midwestern United States
• Missouri River
• Multan
• Mysore
• Niger River
• Northeast India
• Odessa
• Orchestras
• Panama Canal
• Peshawar
• Polynesia
• Poznań
• Pretoria
• Rat Pack
• Sammy Davis Jr.
• Shandong
• South China Sea
• Southern United States
• Suez Canal
• Svalbard
• Tatarstan
• Tigris River
• Visakhapatnam
• Volga River
• Western Ghats
• Western United States
• Yellowstone National Park
• Yosemite National Park

Please inspect these portals, and report problems or suggest improvements at WT:WPPORTD. Thank you.

MfDs

Since the last issue of this newsletter, Nineteen portals were nominated for deletion. All posted by the same person.

Two portals were deleted.

One resolved as "no consensus".

Sixteen resolved as "keep".

Links to the archived discussions are provided below:

1. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Air France
2. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Alexander Korda
3. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:August Derleth
4. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Average White Band
5. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Bee-eaters
6. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Ben E. King
7. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Benny Goodman
8. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Bill Bryson
9. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Billy Idol
10. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Billy Ocean
11. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Bob Hope
12. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Bobbie Rosenfeld Award
13. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Body piercing
14. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Canton, Michigan
15. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Compostela Group of Universities
16. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Diplo
17. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Diversity of fish
18. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Pebble Beach
19. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Peter, Paul and Mary

Many thanks to those who participated in the discussions.

To watch for future MfD's, keep in mind that the Portals WikiProject is supported by automatic alerts. You can see them at: Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals#Article alerts: portals for deletion at MfD

Creation criteria

There was also some discussion of creation criteria for portals. The result was that one of the participants in the discussion reverted the portal guidelines to the old version, which has the minimum number of articles for a portal included in there: "about 20 articles", a guideline that was in place since 2009.

Many of the portals that existed prior to April 2018 do not have that many (being limited to however many subpages the portal creator created), and therefore, these portals need to be upgraded to the new design (which automatically provides many articles for display). Using the new design, exceeding 20 articles for display is very easy.

Linking to the new portals

Efforts have been underway to place links to new portals (all 2200 of them created since April).

1. Link (portal button) from corresponding category pages.  Done
2. Link from See also section on corresponding root articles. Partially implemented
3. Link from bottom of corresponding templates. Partially implemented
4. Link for each portal on Portal:Contents/Portals. Partially implemented

Your help is needed. It is easy to access the page mentioned in #1, #2, & #3 from the portals themselves.

AWBers could do these tasks even faster (that's how the category pages were done), except #4...

Item #4 above pretty much has to be done by hand. (If you can find a way to speed that up, I would be very impressed). The links needing placement can be found at Portal talk:Contents/Portals#These are not listed yet. Instructions are included there.

The conversion effort: news sections

There are still around 1200 old-style portals that have only undergone partial conversion to the new design concepts, still relying on subpages with copied/pasted excerpts that have been going stale for years, out of date (manually posted) news entries, etc.

The section currently being tackled on these is news. You can help by deleting any news section on the old-style portals that has news entries that are years old (that is the dead giveaway to a manual news section). Be sure not to delete the news sections of portals that have up-to-date news, or active maintainers. For maintainers, look at the portal's categories, and/or check the participants list at WP:WPPORT.

Eventually, conditional news sections (that appear only when news items are available for display) will be added using AWB to all portals without a news section.

News items (and even the news sections themselves) are automatically generated for portals that were created using the Basic portal start page. On those portals, there is a hidden comment at the top of the page (that you can see in the edit window), that says this:

<!-- This portal was created using subst:Basic portal start page -->

Design development

Presently, we are in the process of implementing the new design features, creating new portals with them, and installing them in existing portals.

But, what about development of new new design features?

We have a wish department.

Post your wishes at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design#Discussions about possible cool new features, and they might come true. Many have already, and for many of those, this is where they were posted.

Cascade effect

A resource that has been elusive so far will be obtained eventually: categories. That is, the ability to pull category member links to populate a page.

Rather than populate portals directly with such links, it may be more beneficial to the encyclopedia to utilize them in navigation footers, because portals already have the ability to generate themselves based on those.

So, this would create a cascade effect: auto-gathering entries from categories, would enable the construction of new navigation footers, that would in turn support the development of new portals.

The cascade effect would also be felt by existing portals, as existing navigation footers could be expanded using the category harvesting methods, which would in turn expand the coverage of portals that access those navigation footers.

You can help by providing leads about any potential category harvesting methods. Please report anything you know about harvesting categories at WT:WPPORTD. Thank you.

Looking into the future: the quantum portal?

One idea that has been floating around is the concept of a pageless portal. That is, a portal that isn't stored anywhere, instead being generated when you click on a menu item or button.

Many of the new portals were generated by a single click, and then saved via a second click.

Therefore, it seems likely that the portals of the future will employ the one-click concept.

Because of the need for customization by users, this concept would need to be augmented with a way to integrate user contributions. This could be done in at least two ways: posting an existing portal, autogenerating one from scratch if such does not yet exist, or have a special data page for user contributions that is folded into the auto-generated portal.

How soon? That is up to you. All that is needed are persons to implement it.

Until next time...

Keep up the good work on portals. They are improving daily. Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   04:24, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Wikipedia:Liar Liar Pants on Fire

Wikipedia:Liar Liar Pants on Fire, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Liar Liar Pants on Fire and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:Liar Liar Pants on Fire during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Adam9007 (talk) 19:19, 21 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

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:

• Portal:Blueberries
• Portal:Olives
• Portal:Bananas
• Portal:Bone fractures
• Portal:Carbohydrates
• Portal:Cherries
• Portal:Coconuts
• Portal:Hartford Whalers
• Portal:Integumentary system
• Portal:Exercise
• Portal:Fatty acids

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   11:45, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

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Copyright problem on 2018 Kansas State Wildcats football team

Content you added to the above article appears to have been copied from https://www.tri-cityherald.com/sports/article221849460.html or elsewhere online. Copying text directly from a source is a violation of Wikipedia's copyright policy. Unfortunately, for copyright reasons, the content had to be removed. Content you add to Wikipedia should be written in your own words. Please leave a message on my talk page if you have any questions. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 18:05, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

I've reviewed the changes and I do not see any copyright violation myself. I will transfer the discussion to your talk page.--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:12, 24 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:

1. Advanced Micro Devices
2. Aqua Teen Hunger Force
3. Aquatic ecosystems
4. Blackberries
5. Blade
6. Blake and Mortimer
7. Climate
8. Democratic Party
9. Dua Lipa
10. Eels
11. Eggs
12. Emmy Awards
13. Fallout
14. Flutes and whistles
15. Geophysics
16. Ghost
17. Hartford Whalers
18. HBO
19. Hot sauces
20. International System of Units
21. Jawaharlal Nehru
22. Kendrick Lamar
23. KFC
24. Kingdom of England
25. M.I.A.
26. Marvel Comics
27. Marvel Entertainment
28. Minerals
29. Mixed martial arts
30. Money
31. MTV
32. Museums
33. National Hockey League
34. Natural resources
35. Nature
36. NBC
37. Nehru–Gandhi family
38. Orthoptera
39. PATH
40. Pears
41. Physiology
42. Ponds
43. Pope Francis
44. Potatoes
45. Presidents of the United States
46. Republican Party
47. Salad dressings
48. Santiago
49. Six Flags
50. Stan Lee
51. Starbucks
52. Stem cells
53. Systems of measurement
54. SZA
55. The West Wing
56. Tintin
57. Tomato sauces
58. Tove Lo
59. Viticulture
60. Waffles
61. Wendy's
62. White House
63. Will Smith
64. Winemaking

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   07:25, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

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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?

Keep 'em coming!

And I'll see you next issue.

Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   08:11, 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:

1. The new portals need to be linked to from the encyclopedia.
2. 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.
3. A Recognized content section needs to be added to each portal that has a corresponding WikiProject.
4. Addition of a category on those portals that lack a subject category.
5. Implement the portal category system, adding the appropriate categories to each portal.
6. 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).
7. Find and fix the remaining bugs in the underlying lua modules.
8. Build portal tools (scripts) to assist in the creation, development, and maintenance of portals.
9. Build a script to help build navbox footer templates, via the harvesting of categories, amongst other methods.
10. Update the portal building instructions.
11. Update the portal guideline.
12. Refine the programming of the portals to reduce their load time.
13. 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!

Paulmcdonald/Archives/2022, thank you for your contributions to the Portals Project, and have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year.

Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   12:04, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

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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:

• Emoteplump
• Pakieditor
• CASSIOPEIA
• Venomous Sniper
• DannyS712

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

1. Academic publishing
2. Accounting
3. Adam and Eve
4. African Great Lakes
5. Al Green
6. Alternative views
7. America's Next Top Model
8. Andaman and Nicobar Islands
9. Angles
10. Applied mathematics
11. Arabic
12. Areas of mathematics
13. Atlanta metropolitan area
14. Atlantic Ocean
15. Big Bash League
16. Bijelo Dugme
17. Bill Cosby
18. Boats
19. Bombardier Aerospace
20. Bruce Willis
21. Canadian law
22. Cannons
23. Caribbean American
24. Chinese American
25. Chinese Canadians
26. Chinese gardens
27. Chris Brown
28. City
29. Common law
30. Criminal law
31. Czechoslovakia
32. Data
33. Data warehouses
34. DC Comics
35. Deities
36. DeKalb County
37. Destiny's Child
38. Differential equations
39. Discrete geometry
40. East Asia
41. Economy of China
42. Economy of India
43. Economy of Malaysia
44. Economy of the United Kingdom
45. Ellen DeGeneres
46. Email clients
47. E
48. Equations
49. European Americans
50. Filipino Americans
51. Football in Algeria
52. Fox Corporation
53. Fractions and ratios
54. Functional analysis
55. Game theory
56. Girlguiding
57. Gloucestershire
58. Grazhdanskaya Oborona
59. Greek diaspora
60. Habsburg Monarchy
61. Hilbert's problems
62. Hoodoo Gurus
63. Hyundai Motor Company
64. Iggy Azalea
65. Indian Ocean
66. Infinity
67. Information theory
68. Integrals
69. Irish diaspora
70. Irrational numbers
71. Italian diaspora
72. Japanese diaspora
73. J. Cole
74. Jennifer Lopez
75. Jessica Lange
76. John Fogerty
77. Kehlani
78. Kiev
79. K. Michelle
80. Knot theory
81. Kool & the Gang
82. Lakes in China
83. Lake Van
84. Leonardo DiCaprio
85. Limerick
86. Literary composition
87. Long Island Rail Road
88. Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority
89. Lukas Graham
90. Mathematical optimization
91. Matt Damon
92. Merchant ships
93. Metallic means
94. Metro-North Railroad
95. Microsoft Windows
96. Military of India
97. Miss America
98. Modulation
99. Moon landing
100. Mozilla
101. Music of Ireland
102. Narratives
103. Nashville
104. Nassau County
105. Norfolk
106. Nottinghamshire
107. One Life to Live
108. Overseas Chinese
109. Percentages
110. Probability distributions
111. Public Broadcasting Service
112. Quezon City
113. Raven-Symoné
114. R. Kelly
115. Rodeo
116. RuneScape
117. Sarah Silverman
118. Saturn rockets
119. Science and technology
120. Sesame Street
121. Seth MacFarlane
122. Ships
123. Shipwrecks
124. Shropshire
125. Spaceports
126. Space suits
127. Spanish diaspora
128. Steam locomotives
129. Suffolk
130. Suzuki
131. Tanks
132. Tensors
133. The CW
134. Thomas Aquinas
135. T.I.
136. TISM
137. Tom Cruise
138. Toni Braxton
139. Toyota
140. Transportation in the Philippines
141. True Blood
142. Violin
143. Virgin Group
144. Vladimir Putin
145. Volkswagen
146. Volume
147. Warner Bros.
148. Warships
149. Warwickshire
150. Washington D.C.
151. [[Portal:Watercraft|
152. Web syndication
153. Wikis
154. Witchcraft
155. Women's sports
156. World of Warcraft

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   08:38, 20 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:

1. Portal:Arts
2. Portal:Biography
3. Portal:Geography
4. Portal:History
5. Portal:Mathematics
6. Portal:Science
7. Portal:Society
8. Portal:Technology

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

• Accomack County
• Adair County
• Adair County
• Adams County
• Adidas
• Airbus
• Americas
• Bangladesh Armed Forces
• Bedfordshire
• Bicycles
• Boeing
• Chester County
• Conspiracy theories
• Corals
• County Durham
• Culture of the United States
• DC Universe
• Dragons
• Economy of Pakistan
• Electricity
• Ethnic groups
• European Union law
• Fatimid Caliphate
• Flanders
• Frederick County
• Fujian
• German language
• Global issues
• Greek mathematics
• Grisons
• Guangxi
• Hebei
• Henan
• Herefordshire
• History of North America
• Hollywood
• Hubei
• Hunan
• Hybrid
• Inner Mongolia
• Jet engines
• Jiangsu
• Johor
• Johor Bahru
• Julius Caesar
• Kuala Lumpur
• Lake Constance
• Lee Kuan Yew
• Lufthansa
• Lunar eclipses
• Magnetism
• Menstrual cycle
• Mustelids
• Mutations
• New York University
• Nord-du-Québec
• North Africa
• PepsiCo
• Pitcairn Islands
• Podcasting
• Quantum electrodynamics
• Quantum mechanics
• Rawalpindi
• Réunion
• Roads in Pakistan
• Rockefeller Center
• Sichuan
• St. Gallen
• State University of New York
• Temperature
• Tsunamis
• Veterinary medicine
• Vorarlberg
• Walgreens
• Walmart
• Weasels
• Xinjiang
• Yunnan

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   13:14, 28 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:

• Portal:Adidas
• Portal:AFC Asian Cup
• Portal:Airbus
• Portal:Anhui
• Portal:Bicycles
• Portal:Blue Cheese
• Portal:Boeing
• Portal:British Airways
• Portal:Carcinogen
• Portal:ComfortDelGro
• Portal:Construction
• Portal:Corals
• Portal:Cross-Strait relations
• Portal:Derry
• Portal:Duke University
• Portal:Electricity
• Portal:Ethnic groups
• Portal:Extraterrestrial life
• Portal:Flanders
• Portal:Fujian
• Portal:Gansu
• Portal:German language
• Portal:Gordon Ramsay
• Portal:Government of Australia
• Portal:Government of Canada
• Portal:Government of Hong Kong
• Portal:Government of Indonesia
• Portal:Government of Ireland
• Portal:Government of Japan
• Portal:Government of Malaysia
• Portal:Government of Russia
• Portal:Government of Singapore
• Portal:Government of Spain
• Portal:Government of Thailand
• Portal:Government of the United Kingdom
• Portal:Government of Ukraine
• Portal:Grapes
• Portal:Guangxi
• Portal:Guizhou
• Portal:Hasbro
• Portal:Hebei
• Portal:Heilongjiang
• Portal:Henan
• Portal:Hillary Clinton
• Portal:History of art
• Portal:History of North America
• Portal:History of Thailand
• Portal:Hollywood
• Portal:Hubei
• Portal:Hunan
• Portal:Hybrid (biology)
• Portal:Hydrogen
• Portal:Imperial College London
• Portal:Inner Mongolia
• Portal:Japan Airlines
• Portal:Jet engines
• Portal:Jet Engines
• Portal:Jiangsu
• Portal:Jiangxi
• Portal:Jilin
• Portal:Johor Bahru
• Portal:Julius Caesar
• Portal:JYP Entertainment
• Portal:Kedah
• Portal:Kelantan
• Portal:Kuala Lumpur
• Portal:Labuan
• Portal:Lee Kuan Yew
• Portal:Liaoning
• Portal:Lufthansa
• Portal:Magnetism
• Portal:McLaren
• Portal:Menstrual cycle
• Portal:Monash University
• Portal:Mutations
• Portal:Nanyang Technological University
• Portal:National University of Singapore
• Portal:Negeri Sembilan
• Portal:Nestlé
• Portal:Nike, Inc.
• Portal:Ningxia
• Portal:Nissan
• Portal:North Africa
• Portal:North Pole
• Portal:Pahang
• Portal:Penang
• Portal:PepsiCo
• Portal:Perak
• Portal:Perlis
• Portal:Qinghai
• Portal:Quantum electrodynamics
• Portal:Quantum mechanics
• Portal:S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Portal:Selangor
• Portal:Shanxi
• Portal:Sichuan
• Portal:SM Entertainment
• Portal:South Pole
• Portal:Subway (restaurant)
• Portal:Temperature
• Portal:Terengganu
• Portal:Uber
• Portal:Veterinary medicine
• Portal:Volvo Buses
• Portal:Walgreens
• Portal:Walmart
• Portal:Xinjiang
• Portal:Yahoo!
• Portal:Yale University
• Portal:YG Entertainment
• Portal:Yunnan
• Portal:Zhejiang

And the corresponding talk pages:

• Portal talk:Adidas
• Portal talk:Airbus
• Portal talk:Bicycles
• Portal talk:Boeing
• Portal talk:Carcinogen
• Portal talk:Corals
• Portal talk:Duke University
• Portal talk:Electricity
• Portal talk:Ethnic groups
• Portal talk:Flanders
• Portal talk:Fujian
• Portal talk:German language
• Portal talk:Girls' Generation
• Portal talk:Government of Australia
• Portal talk:Government of Canada
• Portal talk:Government of Hong Kong
• Portal talk:Government of Indonesia
• Portal talk:Government of Ireland
• Portal talk:Government of Japan
• Portal talk:Government of Malaysia
• Portal talk:Government of Russia
• Portal talk:Government of Singapore
• Portal talk:Government of Spain
• Portal talk:Government of Thailand
• Portal talk:Government of the United Kingdom
• Portal talk:Government of Ukraine
• Portal talk:Grapes
• Portal talk:Guangxi
• Portal talk:Hebei
• Portal talk:Henan
• Portal talk:Hillary Clinton
• Portal talk:History of art
• Portal talk:Hollywood
• Portal talk:Hubei
• Portal talk:Hunan
• Portal talk:Hybrid (biology)
• Portal talk:Imperial College London
• Portal talk:Inner Mongolia
• Portal talk:Jet engines
• Portal talk:Jet Engines
• Portal talk:Jiangsu
• Portal talk:Johor Bahru
• Portal talk:Julius Caesar
• Portal talk:JYP Entertainment
• Portal talk:Kuala Lumpur
• Portal talk:Lee Kuan Yew
• Portal talk:Lufthansa
• Portal talk:Magnetism
• Portal talk:Menstrual cycle
• Portal talk:Monash University
• Portal talk:Mutations
• Portal talk:Nanyang Technological University
• Portal talk:National University of Singapore
• Portal talk:Nike, Inc.
• Portal talk:North Africa
• Portal talk:PepsiCo
• Portal talk:Quantum electrodynamics
• Portal talk:Quantum mechanics
• Portal talk:Sichuan
• Portal talk:SM Entertainment
• Portal talk:Subway (restaurant)
• Portal talk:Temperature
• Portal talk:Veterinary medicine
• Portal talk:Walgreens
• Portal talk:Walmart
• Portal talk:Xinjiang
• Portal talk:Yale University
• Portal talk:YG Entertainment
• Portal talk:Yunnan

New portals since the last issue

• Portal:American_Horror_Story
• Portal:Bad_Religion
• Portal:Bicycles
• Portal:British_Airways
• Portal:Campania
• Portal:Ciara
• Portal:Derry
• Portal:Extraterrestrial_life
• Portal:Fujian
• Portal:Guangxi
• Portal:Imperial_College_London
• Portal:Islamic_Golden_Age
• Portal:Ivy_Queen
• Portal:Japan_Airlines
• Portal:Japanese_language
• Portal:Kate_Ceberano
• Portal:Labuan
• Portal:LL_Cool_J
• Portal:New_York_City_Police_Department
• Portal:Penang
• Portal:PepsiCo
• Portal:Perak
• Portal:Perlis
• Portal:Politics_of_Ukraine
• Portal:Quantum_mechanics
• Portal:Salads
• Portal:Selangor
• Portal:Shaquille_O'Neal
• Portal:South_Pole
• Portal:Supermarket
• Portal:Temperature
• Portal:Terengganu
• Portal:The_Fairly_OddParents
• Portal:The_Incredibles
• Portal:Vassar_College
• Portal:Voivod_(band)
• Portal:Yu-Gi-Oh!

Keep up the great work

Until next time,    — The Transhumanist   09:03, 4 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

1. Portal:Abitibi-Témiscamingue
2. Portal:Ahold Delhaize
3. Portal:AKB48
4. Portal:Åland Islands
5. Portal:Alaska Airlines
6. Portal:Albanian Civil War
7. Portal:Albertsons
8. Portal:Alevism
9. Portal:All in the Family
10. Portal:Alternative metal
11. Portal:Ambient music
12. Portal:Ancient Near East mythology
13. Portal:Ancient Roman religion
14. Portal:Andrew Cuomo
15. Portal:Anti-consumerism
16. Portal:Antimatter
17. Portal:Arameans
18. Portal:Arianism
19. Portal:Australian Crawl
20. Portal:Bali
21. Portal:Banten
22. Portal:Bengkulu
23. Portal:Black Lives Matter
24. Portal:Bluegrass music
25. Portal:Bonnie Tyler
26. Portal:Breakbeat
27. Portal:Calypso music
28. Portal:Cambridgeshire
29. Portal:Camila Cabello
30. Portal:Capcom
31. Portal:Capsicum
32. Portal:Celtic music
33. Portal:Central American music
34. Portal:Central Java
35. Portal:Central Kalimantan
36. Portal:Central Sulawesi
37. Portal:Chanel
38. Portal:Cinema of Australia
39. Portal:Cognitive psychology
40. Portal:Communication studies
41. Portal:Conservatism in the United States
42. Portal:Cortina d'Ampezzo
43. Portal:Cross-Strait relations
44. Portal:Cryptozoology
45. Portal:Danish folk music
46. Portal:Disco
47. Portal:Dyslexia
48. Portal:East Java
49. Portal:East Kalimantan
50. Portal:East Nusa Tenggara
51. Portal:Easy listening
52. Portal:Ed Sheeran
53. Portal:Ehime
54. Portal:Electricity
55. Portal:Electronica
56. Portal:Electronic rock
57. Portal:English folk music
58. Portal:Environmental technology
59. Portal:Experimental music
60. Portal:Extreme metal
61. Portal:Fall Out Boy
62. Portal:Finnish Defence Forces
63. Portal:Finnish folk music
64. Portal:Football in Croatia
65. Portal:Football in Jordan
66. Portal:Funk
67. Portal:Gamelan
68. Portal:General Mills
69. Portal:Germanic languages
70. Portal:German language
71. Portal:Government of Canada
72. Portal:Government of Hong Kong
73. Portal:Government of Indonesia
74. Portal:Government of Ireland
75. Portal:Government of Malaysia
76. Portal:Government of Russia
77. Portal:Government of Singapore
78. Portal:Government of Spain
79. Portal:Government of Thailand
80. Portal:Grapes
81. Portal:Green Party of the United States
82. Portal:Grinspoon
83. Portal:Gwen Stefani
84. Portal:Hardcore punk
85. Portal:Hardcore techno
86. Portal:Haskell (programming language)
87. Portal:History of art
88. Portal:History of North America
89. Portal:History of Thailand
90. Portal:Hollywood
91. Portal:Hotels
92. Portal:House music
93. Portal:Hungarian folk music
94. Portal:Hunters & Collectors
95. Portal:Hydrogen
96. Portal:Icelandic folk music
97. Portal:Indigenous music of North America
98. Portal:Insomniac Games
99. Portal:International field hockey
100. Portal:International trade
101. Portal:Iranian music
102. Portal:Islamophobia
103. Portal:Jambi
104. Portal:Jet engines
105. Portal:Jordin Sparks
106. Portal:Julius Caesar
107. Portal:Kannur
108. Portal:Kansas City Spurs
109. Portal:Kelly Rowland
110. Portal:Kirby
111. Portal:Kraft Heinz
112. Portal:Krasnoyarsk Krai
113. Portal:Kroger
114. Portal:Kuala Lumpur
115. Portal:Lampung
116. Portal:Larry Kramer
117. Portal:LeBron James
118. Portal:Lehigh Valley
119. Portal:Leicestershire
120. Portal:Liège
121. Portal:Liguria
122. Portal:Los Angeles Aztecs
123. Portal:Los Angeles Wolves
124. Portal:Macedonian language
125. Portal:Magnetism
126. Portal:Maithripala Sirisena
127. Portal:Maluku (province)
128. Portal:Mangoes
129. Portal:Marco Pierre White
130. Portal:McLaren
131. Portal:Menstrual cycle
132. Portal:Metalcore
133. Portal:Miami FC
134. Portal:Microblogging
135. Portal:Microtonal music
136. Portal:Midnight Oil
137. Portal:Minnesota Kicks
138. Portal:Mission: Impossible
139. Portal:Modernism (music)
140. Portal:Moheener Ghoraguli
141. Portal:Mondelez International
142. Portal:Music genres
143. Portal:Music of Bangladesh
144. Portal:Music of India
145. Portal:Music of Italy
146. Portal:Music of Japan
147. Portal:Music of Korea
148. Portal:Music of Latin America
149. Portal:Music of Micronesia
150. Portal:Music of North Africa
151. Portal:Music of Pakistan
152. Portal:Music of Serbia
153. Portal:Music of the Philippines
154. Portal:Music of the United States
155. Portal:Mutations
156. Portal:National Rugby League
157. Portal:Neoclassicism (music)
158. Portal:Netball
159. Portal:New York City Fire Department
160. Portal:Nick Jr.
161. Portal:Nobility
162. Portal:Nordic countries
163. Portal:North Africa
164. Portal:North Kalimantan
165. Portal:North Maluku
166. Portal:North Pole
167. Portal:North Queensland
168. Portal:North Sulawesi
169. Portal:North Sumatra
170. Portal:Norwegian folk music
171. Portal:Papua (province)
172. Portal:Peaches
173. Portal:Politics of Abkhazia
174. Portal:Politics of Afghanistan
175. Portal:Politics of Albania
176. Portal:Politics of Algeria
177. Portal:Politics of Andorra
178. Portal:Politics of Angola
179. Portal:Politics of Antigua and Barbuda
180. Portal:Politics of Argentina
181. Portal:Politics of Artsakh
182. Portal:Politics of Bahrain
183. Portal:Politics of Bangladesh
184. Portal:Politics of Bavaria
185. Portal:Politics of Belarus
186. Portal:Politics of Belgium
187. Portal:Politics of Belize
188. Portal:Politics of Benin
189. Portal:Politics of Bhutan
190. Portal:Politics of Bosnia and Herzegovina
191. Portal:Politics of Botswana
192. Portal:Politics of Brazil
193. Portal:Politics of Brunei
194. Portal:Politics of Bulgaria
195. Portal:Politics of Burkina Faso
196. Portal:Politics of Burundi
197. Portal:Politics of Cambodia
198. Portal:Politics of Cameroon
199. Portal:Politics of China
200. Portal:Politics of São Tomé and Príncipe
201. Portal:Politics of South Sudan
202. Portal:Politics of Sudan
203. Portal:Politics of Tanzania
204. Portal:Politics of the Republic of the Congo
205. Portal:Politics of Togo
206. Portal:Politics of Tunisia
207. Portal:Politics of Uganda
208. Portal:Pop rock
209. Portal:Rap rock
210. Portal:Ras Al Khaimah
211. Portal:Riau
212. Portal:Riau Islands
213. Portal:Ricky Martin
214. Portal:Royal Canadian Air Force
215. Portal:Rutland
216. Portal:Saxophones
217. Portal:Semiotics
218. Portal:Ska
219. Portal:Soca music
220. Portal:Soul music
221. Portal:Sound sculptures
222. Portal:Southeast Sulawesi
223. Portal:South Kalimantan
224. Portal:South Sulawesi
225. Portal:South Sumatra
226. Portal:Space: 1999
227. Portal:Special Region of Yogyakarta
228. Portal:Swedish folk music
229. Portal:Tamil language
230. Portal:Techno
231. Portal:Terry Brooks
232. Portal:The Living End
233. Portal:Thrissur
234. Portal:Trance music
235. Portal:Tyrant flycatchers
236. Portal:Veterinary medicine
237. Portal:Wayanad
238. Portal:Welsh folk music
239. Portal:West Champaran district
240. Portal:Western dress codes
241. Portal:West Flanders
242. Portal:West Java
243. Portal:West Kalimantan
244. Portal:West Nusa Tenggara
245. Portal:West Papua (province)
246. Portal:West Sulawesi
247. Portal:West Sumatra
248. Portal:Wildlife of India
249. Portal:Wildlife of Nepal
250. Portal:Windows 10
251. Portal:Winter War
252. Portal:Woodpeckers
253. Portal:Worcestershire
254. Portal:World economy
255. Portal:World Ocean
256. Portal:World Rally Championship
257. Portal:World views
258. Portal:XTC
259. Portal:Yahoo!
260. Portal:Yoruba people
261. Portal:You Am I
262. Portal:Young Wizards
263. Portal:Yugoslavs

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:

1. Create new portals
2. Expand existing portals, such as with new sections like Recognized content
3. Convert or restart old-style portals into automated single-page portals
4. Link to new portals from the encyclopedia
5. 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   10:25, 14 February 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:

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

Individual Nominations:

1. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Circles Deleted
2. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Fruits Deleted
3. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:E (mathematical constant) Deleted
4. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Burger King Deleted
5. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Cotingas Deleted
6. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Prostitution in Canada Deleted
7. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Agoura Hills, California Deleted
8. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Urinary system Deleted
9. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:You Am I Deleted
10. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Cannabis (2nd nomination) Reverted to non-Automated version
11. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Intermodal containers Deleted
12. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Adventure travel Deleted
13. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Adam Ant Deleted
14. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Benito Juárez, Mexico City Deleted
15. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Spaghetti Deleted
16. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Wikiatlas Deleted
17. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Greek alphabet Deleted
18. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Deleted
19. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Accounting Deleted G7
20. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Lents, Portland, Oregon Deleted P2
21. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Ankaran Deleted
22. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Jiu-jitsu Deleted G8
23. Portal:University of Nebraska Speedy Deleted P1/A10 exactly the same as Portal:University of Nebraska–Lincoln also created by the TTH

Related WikiProject:

1. 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   03:54, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WEAK listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Wikipedia:WEAK. Since you had some involvement with the Wikipedia:WEAK redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:55, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Long-neglected season articles

I've started in the past couple weeks building out some long-neglected historic season articles for Fairmount/Wichita (1903, 1908, 1911, 1932-1933, 1937-1938, 1944, 1947, 1954-1955, 1960), Creighton (1927, 1932, 1938, 1940), Washington University (1905, 1918-1919, 1927, 1930, 1934-1935, 1938-1939), Saint Louis (1906-1908, 1937-1938, 1945-1948), and Marquette (1907, 1911, 1917-1960). Since these are in your region of interest, and since teamwork helps motivate the effort, let me know if you'd like to collaborate on building out season articles for any of these teams (or another). Cbl62 (talk) 02:27, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

• I'll help all I can!--Paul McDonald (talk) 12:31, 11 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   00:40, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom 2019 special circular

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This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 02:38, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)

ArbCom would like to apologise and correct our previous mass message in light of the response from the community.

Since November 2018, six administrator accounts have been compromised and temporarily desysopped. In an effort to help improve account security, our intention was to remind administrators of existing policies on account security — that they are required to "have strong passwords and follow appropriate personal security practices." We have updated our procedures to ensure that we enforce these policies more strictly in the future. The policies themselves have not changed. In particular, two-factor authentication remains an optional means of adding extra security to your account. The choice not to enable 2FA will not be considered when deciding to restore sysop privileges to administrator accounts that were compromised.

We are sorry for the wording of our previous message, which did not accurately convey this, and deeply regret the tone in which it was delivered.

For the Arbitration Committee, -Cameron11598 21:04, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of File:Georgehodges.jpg

The file File:Georgehodges.jpg has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

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This bot DID NOT nominate any file(s) for deletion; please refer to the page history of each individual file for details. Thanks, FastilyBot (talk) 01:00, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

• No objection to deletion, I originally uploaded the image. A better one is available at File:Portrait of George H. Hodges.jpg that is essentially the same thing.--Paul McDonald (talk) 02:53, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of David Bolstorff

The article David Bolstorff has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

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NPOV issues

Thanks for your thoughts on my Abbie Hodgson article (so far I'm the only editor who's contributed to it, but it's very new.) I read through the NPOV guidelines and I'm not clear about what part or parts you think can or should be improved. I hope that you might address that directly. I think the most notable thing she's done was to stand up regarding the behavior of the legislators from both sides of the aisle when they were taking advantage of student interns and worse. I was aware that legislators had been having students drive them home from parties after they had been drinking. That meant that the students were being required to attend these socials, not as guests, but as intended designated drivers. I was not aware at the time (I don't live in KS), but those demands made by some even included some expectations of sex. I've long had an interest regarding political and business whistleblowers (i.e., the Fat Leonard scandal where I've contributed most of the article over a period of years) and Hodgson's demands for a public airing of the problems, her criticism of her minority leader boss, who got very defensive, and her demands for changes in the behaviors of those who had been taking advantage is quite remarkable. I'd be surprised if it doesn't cost her some otherwise anticipated party support for her candidacy. Frankly, I've seen Mother Theresa get worse press than Hodgson. Activist (talk) 14:13, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

NPOV is tough sometimes and I don't always get it right myself. What seemed to me was the heavy weighting on the subject matter toward one issue--that makes the article about the issue and not the person -- the issue is good content, but the article needs more "broad-based" information to be about the person. That the individual was engaged in one particular issue lends it to being written from one point of view. Keep up your enthusiasm!--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:26, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions notice for American politics since 1932

This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.

You have shown interest in post-1932 politics of the United States and closely related people. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.

For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.

Doug Weller talk 18:11, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Are you discussing any of your edits at Andy Ngo with Jweiss?

Because if you are that would be considered proxying for a topic based editor, and that obviously is a bad idea. Doug Weller talk 19:22, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

No. I didn't realize it was still an issue.--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:24, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

FYI--I have made zero edits to the article Andy Ngo. I just checked to verify.--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:30, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

I know, but he's banned from the talk page also, thus my question. Doug Weller talk 19:35, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

That would be a violation of the policy on sock puppetry. No, I am not violating that policy or any other. As to the talk page, it looks like my last edit there was five days ago and it is recorded in that page history. If you believe that there has been a violation of any kind, please be sure to report it according to Wikipedia policy or guidelines.--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:47, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Expanding a KS stub

You and I have edited some of the same articles and I'm a KS Wikiproject member, I think. I just tried to flesh out the Wink Hartman article a bit and noticed that you'd been its most active editor. If I had time I'd write another article on another Wichita pol, Michael Capps (politician) but am hugely jammed for time. Capps once again has managed to get himself a considerable round of press, this time in a Wichita mayoral race in which he's not a candidate. The party is urging him again to resign his state house seat. Activist (talk) 11:04, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Random Constructive Edit Award

	The Random Constructive Man's Award
	Congratulations! I have caught you successfully editing a page constructively! This was the specific edit: [11]

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Nomination of M. O. Smith for deletion

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Nomination of F. P. Reed for deletion

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Nomination of John Lyman (American football) for deletion

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Nomination of F. W. Sweeney for deletion

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Nomination of S. L. Mains for deletion

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Nomination of Harold Hughs for deletion

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Nomination for deletion of Template:Mount Ida Mustangs football coach navbox

Template:Mount Ida Mustangs football coach navbox has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Eagles 24/7 (C) 05:31, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Hodgson

Here's an in-depth source on Paul A. Hodgson if you care to use: obit part 1/obit part 2. Cbl62 (talk) 05:20, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

See also this and this, this. Cbl62 (talk) 05:27, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Nomination of Ron Lynch (American football) for deletion

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Deletion review for Reginald Bachus

An editor has asked for a deletion review of Reginald Bachus. Because you were interested in the page, you might want to participate in the deletion review. Epiphyllumlover (talk) 02:33, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Muppet Night Football

I wasn't talking about showing three years' worth of impact for Muppet Night Football, I was saying that the lasting impact of the Minneapolis Miracle was demonstrated within a couple of days of the game happening. That is not the case with Muppet Night Football, which is why the article didn't survive the AfD process. While the result was surprising, there was nothing especially memorable about the result or any of the plays, hence the lack of immediate reaction suggesting it might go down as an all-time classic, as was the case with the Minneapolis Miracle. – PeeJay 16:15, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Gregg Baker

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Nomination of B. Griffith for deletion

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SportingFlyer T·C 22:54, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

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"Delay (game)" listed at Redirects for discussion

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WikiProject Scouting Newsletter: October 2021

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Nomination of List of wineries in Missouri for deletion

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Skyerise (talk) 17:42, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks!

Hello! I just wanted to drop in and say thank you for your comment on the AfD page I made for this. I'm still new to this, so the distinction that certain policies don't negate others does help me in this regard. I graduated from Shepherd, so I won't be upset if the article stays (in fact, I'll seek guidance in creating a page for 2015 when they made the DII National Championship,) but I nominated that article because it didn't seem to meet WP:NSEASONS since they didn't actually make the big game, but your comment on the page is more than helpful, so I just wanted to express appreciation for that. In the future I'll observe other AfD pages and familiarize myself with the policies better. Thanks again! Spf121188 (talk) 20:10, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

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Nomination of List of college football coaches who coached games in stadiums named after themselves for deletion

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Reywas92^Talk 05:06, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I did a full history export of your article

Yesterday I did a full history export of your article to the list wikia/fandom. https://list.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_college_football_coaches_who_coached_games_in_stadiums_named_after_themselves

There is surely a fandom for American football also you can put the article at. Dream Focus 17:01, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of DeValois Stadium

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Generic campus athletic field does not show notability with substantive independent sources

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Proposed deletion of Abel Stadium

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Proposed deletion of Henry Canine

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Nomination of Abel Stadium for deletion

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Reywas92^Talk 01:56, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Nomination of Henry Canine for deletion

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Reywas92^Talk 02:00, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Nomination of R. C. Garrison for deletion

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Reywas92^Talk 03:05, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Administrators will no longer be autopatrolled

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Nomination of Shyster (fishing lure) for deletion

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Reywas92^Talk 21:48, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

you can save your article by moving it to the fishing fandom

You can save your article by moving it to https://fishing.fandom.com/wiki/Fishing_Wiki

No one is active there so you click to the link on that page at the top to adopt it, then you can add in all the information about fishing related things you want.

You can go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Export to export your article, then import it there, or just copy and paste everything over since you wrote all the content anyway. You can also delete articles someone started that aren't related to fishing, not sure why they'd do that. Create an article for everything you can think of and add to it over time, and more people will find their way there to help you. Dream Focus 00:35, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you! --Paul McDonald (talk) 22:49, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Merchandise giveaway nomination

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How we will see unregistered users

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Congratulations on > 19 million page views

The Userviews tool shows that articles you created on Wikipedia have received 19,361,065 views since 7/1/2015 (the earliest date when data is available). Here are your top 25 most-viewed creations:

Rank	Title	Date created	Total views	Views per day
1	2016 College Football Playoff National Championship	2/3/2014	3,490,850	1,464
2	Jennifer Welter	2/17/2014	684,300	287
3	List of female American football players	5/15/2011	619,000	260
4	Orphan Train	9/17/2007	600,325	252
5	Jerry Kill	12/11/2007	456,860	192
6	Elizabeth MacDonough	4/12/2014	427,791	179
7	Eastern Illinois Panthers football	8/9/2008	386,881	162
8	Dave Clawson	1/8/2008	347,052	146
9	List of women's firsts	5/13/2011	317,101	133
10	1869 New Jersey vs. Rutgers football game	4/11/2011	303,025	127
11	Grambling State Tigers football	8/9/2008	292,293	123
12	Samantha Gordon	11/9/2012	243,948	102
13	Wichita State Shockers football	8/10/2008	236,193	99
14	List of NAIA football programs	11/15/2007	218,649	92
15	List of college football venues with non-traditional field colors	10/1/2012	194,827	82
16	List of historically significant college football games	4/4/2011	190,574	80
17	Penalty flag	11/3/2008	185,633	78
18	List of college football coaches with a .750 winning percentage	7/19/2010	177,184	74
19	Graceland Yellowjackets	8/27/2011	153,247	64
20	List of Pittsburgh Panthers head football coaches	2/16/2011	125,087	52
21	Sip-and-puff	1/9/2007	116,956	49
22	Western Illinois Leathernecks football	8/10/2008	105,624	44
23	Chris Creighton	3/17/2008	104,790	44
24	Ellis Johnson (American football coach)	2/26/2008	102,744	43
25	Brad Long (actor)	8/23/2010	99,350	42

If you're interested in the complete list, it can be seen here. Cbl62 (talk) 10:30, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Nate Duffy

The article Nate Duffy has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

Non-notable subject

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion.

(Sorry about the condescending stuff in the template text.) _signed, Willondon (talk) 18:08, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

No worries about the template. You may be right, but I'd prefer this go through AFD so other editors can comment and research.--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:47, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Nate Duffy

A Nate Duffy does have enough press to replace the stub (he's a businessman and actor). Would it be wise to replace the stub? 2601:19A:8380:1780:FC98:C652:E239:9795 (talk) 12:58, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) In short, no. If the businessman/actor meets guidelines for inclusion a new article must be created. See Wikipedia:Article hijack and Wikipedia:Article creation for more information. You may also find Wikipedia:New contributors' help page useful. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 13:50, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Kansas Conservatory of Music

Hi, I see that you created & have often edited the List of defunct colleges and universities in Kansas.

I am working on improving Nettie Craig Asberry. There are a number of sources that indicate she earned her Doctorate of Music from the Kansas Conservatory of Music and Elocution in Leavenworth, Kansas in 1883. I did find a newspaper article describing her as graduating that year, although it did not mention what academic degree.

I have found a mention of the Kansas Conservatory of Music as early as 1879:

• "Bismark Grove, August 20". The Leavenworth Times. August 21, 1879. p. 1 – via Newspapers.com.

I thought you might want to learn more about the institution, if nothing else, to determine if it granted degrees. I know nothing about whether anything was accredited during those years. If applicable, maybe it should go into the List of defunct colleges and universities in Kansas or get an article in its own right. Peaceray (talk) 06:34, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

• That looks very interesting and is quite a find! I don't have time to research it now myself, but I hope to in the near future. Good job!--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:08, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

something going on in the deletion of Sarah Azhari...it is me?

Hi, i am working to improve Sarah Azhari regarding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Sarah_Azhari however since the first moment of the deletion page discussion i felt disrespected, left alone and i detected a Forum shopping, admin shopping, and spin-doctoring plus different accusation from various editors including the incident reported on my talk page, and someone working beyond my back to just have this article deleted when imho the sources are not any different from other indonesian actors and actresses. I was accused of COI, undisclosed payment and even sockpuppeting by some users ... i'd like to have an admin opinion about it if possible and i know that maybe falls in admin shopping myself but i dont see a reason why these editors can do that without me seeking for help. i saw some editors were involved in forum shopping before...thank you for your attention Amoeba69th (talk) 05:08, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the ask. I'm going to refrain from commenting there for now. It looks like it started out as a simple discussion but turned into a terrible experience for everyone. I've been in a few discussions like that myself--sometimes those are my fault. In this case, I'm not so interested in assigning "blame" as helping figure out what to do next. It's difficult when one puts in work on an article and others don't see the same value in it. Please remember that we're here to build an encyclopedia. Sometimes in Wikipedia (and in the "real world") we bring good ideas to the "boss" and it gets rejected. In this discussion I presume some of the complication is sourced in differences of culture and language. That's tough. But then, multiple editors pick sides and it's unfortunately common to "pile on" with groupthink. That can lead to heightened emotions and unfortunately uncivil behavior.

MY SUGGESTION is to let it go. Move the article to your userspace (you can ask for that in the AFD and the closer will do that). Then you can continue to work on it, brush it up, and address some of the concerns. As the article improves and you add more sources that are more in line with what many editors expect, it's likely that it will be moved back in. Taking this approach allows 100% of the focus to be on the subject and the article while 0% is on wikipedia editor opinions. You'll be happier too!--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:02, 29 January 2022 (UTC)