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November 2018

Editing News #2—2018

Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter • Subscription list on the English Wikipedia

Did you know?

Did you know that you can use the visual editor on a mobile device?

Tap on the pencil icon to start editing. The page will probably open in the wikitext editor.

You will see another pencil icon in the toolbar. Tap on that pencil icon to the switch between visual editing and wikitext editing.

Remember to publish your changes when you're done.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has wrapped up most of their work on the 2017 wikitext editor and the visual diff tool. The team has begun investigating the needs of editors who use mobile devices. Their work board is available in Phabricator. Their current priorities are fixing bugs and improving mobile editing.

Recent changes

• The Editing team has published an initial report about mobile editing.
• The Editing team has begun a design study of visual editing on the mobile website. New editors have trouble doing basic tasks on a smartphone, such as adding links to Wikipedia articles. You can read the report.
• The Reading team is working on a separate mobile-based contributions project.
• The 2006 wikitext editor is no longer supported. If you used that toolbar, then you will no longer see any toolbar. You may choose another editing tool in your editing preferences, local gadgets, or beta features.
• The Editing team described the history and status of VisualEditor in this recorded public presentation (starting at 29 minutes, 30 seconds).
• The Language team released a new version of Content Translation (CX2) last month, on International Translation Day. It integrates the visual editor to support templates, tables, and images. It also produces better wikitext when the translated article is published. [1]

Let's work together

• The Editing team wants to improve visual editing on the mobile website. Please read their ideas and tell the team what you think would help editors who use the mobile site.
• The Community Wishlist Survey begins next week.
• If you aren't reading this in your preferred language, then please help us with translations! Subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly. We will notify you when the next issue is ready for translation. Thank you!

— Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:12, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Ahem!

You've been AWOL for some time now. Any reason you can't resume your duties here? EEng 05:41, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Oddly, I just did, this very same day. You must be psychic. Or maybe it's a conspiracy!  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:34, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi Stanton, glad to see you back. Although I can't say we always agree, I missed your input from time to time, particularly at that World Heritage SsSsite brouhaha. I hope you'll stay around for a while. Take care ;). No such user (talk) 13:14, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Thankee. I did just now-ish chime in on that one. Rather late to the RM/re-RM/re-re-RM/MR party, but oh well. As for not always agreeing, when does anyone? Ha ha. I don't take it personally; most of the time I don't even remember who I disagree with about what, unless they engage in some kind of months- or years-long WP:GREATWRONGS mission and start giving me high blood pressure. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:46, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Ron Stallworth

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Ron Stallworth. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Your perspective is needed

Dear SMcCandlish,

Things are moving forward very fast.

Due to your particular interest in the progress being made by the portals project, I have a special request for you...

I need to know if there are any major factors or tasks, or opportunities, that I have missed concerning the long-term viability of this project.

Please survey or scan as much of the project as you have time for, at your leisure, and give me your assessment.

Any and all ideas, observations, or questions are welcome.

Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   00:35, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: Sorry, I was on a lengthy wikibreak; still catching up. My immediate take is that I can't think of any "missed, viability" stuff. I think it all developed well, and with quite a bit of community input and activity. I think the real challenge, as with any project, will be to keep people involved and to get new people in, as some wander away. I'll try to re-inject myself in there after I get my wiki-head back on, and wade through 70+ piled up demands for attention. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:54, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm glad you are back and well rested. It looks like you need an update...

A lot has happened in the past 2 months. The WikiProject withstood a storm, especially me in particular, that lasted about 3 weeks, in the form of a particular editor high up on the WP:NOE list. There were 19 MfDs, of which we survived 17. And a lengthy flame war on the project's main talk page. The storm subsided about 5 weeks ago, and the weather has been calm ever since.

Having all the portals watchlisted shows plenty of activity, from project members and from the WP community-at-large. There are now over 4,100 portals, many of which still need links leading to them.

Lua programming has slowed down. Evad disappeared from WP Oct 18. Like with you, I'm hoping it is just a wikibreak. Meanwhile, Certes has pulled back from the project (even removing his name from the participants list), citing the project's opposition as the cause of his discouragement (though he didn't use that particular word). He is willing to work on bugs in the programs we already have, but not on creating any new features. Courtesy of Certes, we now have tools (in the form of creative urls) for tracking down most of the portals that have bugs:

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

These show that, when compared to the total number of portals, that the number that have bugs isn't very high. What a relief.

The Lua slowdown has inspired me to jump in to creating a new Lua module to keep progress moving forward. It allows section headers and section contents (fed by subpages) on old portals to be upgraded independently while matching heading colors with the rest of the portal (otherwise you wind up with headers of 2 different colors). It solves the problem caused by Template:Random portal component, which buried the headers (and control of their colors) inside the underlying Lua module. A real pain in the ass. In short, once installed on a portal (via template), the new Lua module allows that portal to be upgraded one-section-at-a-time rather than only all at once. It has been installed on about a fourth of the old portals so far, generating only a couple alerts, which were easily accommodated. This breaks a major bottleneck in portal conversion.

Feedback from the WP community on the portal system has been good. I receive plenty of thank yous and alerts via WP's notification system, indicating that the new and improved portal system is definitely getting noticed and being appreciated.

Discussion of the guideline has resumed.

We get about as many people adding their names to the project's participants list as those who remove themselves from it.

The areas we have backlogs are:

• The search parameters on new portals need attention (the default parameters are inadequate, but we have found no way to improve this as of yet, which requires manual editing to improve results in the Did you know and In the news sections).
• Placement of links in the encyclopedia, on navigation templates, and on category pages, to new portals.
• Adding portal titles to Portal:Contents/Portals.
• Bug fixes.
• Upgrading of portals of the old design.
• Updating of Category:Portals needing attention (remove false positives).
• Inspection of portals listed at Category:Portals under construction (remove false positives).
• Placement of recognized content sections on portals that don't yet have one.
• Placement of a panoramic picture in the introduction section of portals that don't yet have one.
• Adding more pictures to the image slideshows that only have a few in there.
• Placement of a Selected biographies section on portals that don't yet have one.
• Creating new portal capabilities from the wish list of desired features on the project's design talk page.
• Creation of missing navigation templates, to support construction of portals to fill gaps in the system. As new portals are powered by navigation templates, we need a tool for creating missing navigation templates.

User script development has stalled. I've run into a brick wall trying to create a feature that recognizes when a portal has been created/upgraded as opposed to merely previewed, to determine whether or not to initiate the sequence for checking target pages for incoming links. This sounds subtle, but the program's link placement functions do not work without it. I'm stuck.

The main bottlenecks to progress right now are lack of the capabilities to automatically pull entries out of categories, out of sections on navbox templates, and out of specified columns in tables. Continuing to come across these juicy resources without being able to access them is extremely frustrating. In the meantime, we are limited to powering just the Selected articles section in portals, from navigation templates. This limits the auto-creation of other selected item sections, and limits portals to only the subjects supported by navbox footers (rather than by subjects covered by other resources).

In other words, the project's status is "business as usual".

Any assistance you could provide to push or pull the project forward, would be most appreciated. As always, any and all quesitons, observations, and suggestions are welcome.

Cheers,    — The Transhumanist   01:02, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

@The Transhumanist: I'm kind of glad I missed the shitstorm. I'll go over this detailed update when I get a chance, and see what in it looks like something for me to roll up my sleeves about, though honestly I'm not terribly involved in portals at all. I was mostly impressed by the community resolve to save and repurpose them, and interested in helping with a MoS for them. Kind of like wanting to help build a community basketball court for the youths, but not being into playing the game personally. Still, I probably really should go through the process of both creating a new-style portal, and converting an existing one, just so I'm fully familiar with the process and its "guts". As template-editor, I'm always happy to help with that kind of stuff, where I'm competed to do so, regardless of topic.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:24, 11 November 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   11:02, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

hello there, from a fellow Wikipedian

hi there! just came across your great user page. I have a few things of my own that I hope to work on. hope to be in touch, occasionally. thanks! --Sm8900 (talk) 18:14, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Feel free to crib any formatting you like. :-) Honestly, I would not advise basing a barnstar table on mine; it has turned out to be a big hassle to maintain.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:52, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Merge proposal

 Done

Hi, Mac - see Irish Bull Terrier - there’s a merge proposal you may be interested in. ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 13:59, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Yep. See also the Tazy merge thing, too (at WT:DOGS).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:00, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

NPR Newsletter No.15 16 November 2018

Chart of the New Pages Patrol backlog for the past 6 months.

Hello SMcCandlish,

Community Wishlist Survey – NPP needs you – Vote NOW

• Community Wishlist Voting takes place 16 to 30 November for the Page Curation and New Pages Feed improvements, and other software requests. The NPP community is hoping for a good turnout in support of the requests to Santa for the tools we need. This is very important as we have been asking the Foundation for these upgrades for 4 years.

If this proposal does not make it into the top ten, it is likely that the tools will be given no support at all for the foreseeable future. So please put in a vote today.

We are counting on significant support not only from our own ranks, but from everyone who is concerned with maintaining a Wikipedia that is free of vandalism, promotion, flagrant financial exploitation and other pollution.

With all 650 reviewers voting for these urgently needed improvements, our requests would be unlikely to fail. See also The Signpost Special report: 'NPP: This could be heaven or this could be hell for new users – and for the reviewers', and if you are not sure what the wish list is all about, take a sneak peek at an article in this month's upcoming issue of The Signpost which unfortunately due to staff holidays and an impending US holiday will probably not be published until after voting has closed.

Go here to remove your name if you wish to opt-out of future mailings. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)}18:37, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fred Bauder

You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fred Bauder. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fred Bauder/Evidence. Please add your evidence by November 27, 2018, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fred Bauder/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ ^(Talk) 21:07, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Re your email

Hi, thanks for your email earlier, that was much appreciated. I'll reply tomorrow as it's getting late here and I've been busy all evening. Cheers!  — Amakuru (talk) 23:12, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

No worries. I realized that the "debate persona" stuff on a website can start to feel more real and personal and "who's yelling in my living room?" the longer it goes on. :-) Honestly, I forgot that you opened the MR under discussion (I wasn't actually motivated by that discussion in particular to open the AT thread; it's been on my mind for years, and a week of "RM crap" just inspired me to get on with it.) So, I ended up recycling some arguments with you on two pages, which was probably annoying.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:40, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Doria Ragland

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Doria Ragland. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Hello

Moved to Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Beyond My Ken

I just wanted to drop you a note to let you know that you are banned from posting comments on my talk page, unless, of course, you are required to by Wikipedia policy. If you are required to post a notice on my talk page, please clearly indicate in the edit summary what policy you are doing so under. Any other posted comments will be deleted without being read.

Please note that this ban also applies to pinging me. Thanks. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:34, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

I have no idea what this is in reference to. Feel free to explain. BTW, the likelihood of me remembering your personal talk-page preferences for more than a day or two at most is very close to 0%.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:46, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Oh, I see. You received a routine alert template ({{Ds/alert}}) from me, exactly the kind you say you don't mind receiving (ArbCom requires this template to be delivered under particular conditions, which you met, and ArbCom is empowered by policy to issue such requirements). PS: There is no policy or guideline under which you can "ban" people from using the ping function, nor truly ban people from using your talk page. It's customary for people involved in a protracted dispute to honor each other's demands in that latter regard (it helps avoid things like an interaction ban) but we are not involved in such a dispute. You are one of a zillion editors I interact with and a few days from now I will not even remember your username. Just a fact.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:52, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

PS: While I recognize your username, I was still drawing a blank. I just checked the Editor Interaction Analyzer, and the only pattern I see emerging is infobox-related. If you are habitually in infobox-related disputes (which I try to moderate, being neutral on the matter), and you're venting at me because of some perceived infobox-related slight, then I was extra-right to leave you that Ds/alert, since infoboxes are also within the same discretionary sanctions case about which you were notified. Any kind of years-long grudge about a style matter like that transgresses both that ArbCom case and WP:NOT#BATTLEGROUND more broadly. I also note that despite be me being here for about 13 years, you have ten times the frequency of participation at WP:ANI. This strongly suggests an unconstructive addiction to WP:DRAMA-mongering, which is consistent with your strange hissy-fit on my talk page.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:07, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

FYI (no action required): WP:ANI#Beyond My Ken Kendall-K1 (talk) 21:32, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Arbcom

Just for the record, your Arbcom nomination may have been a "joke" but I lost a lot of money when I had to buy pizzas for the 593 folks who voted for me, and you got more supporters than four of those Arbs who were elected. Funny old election system! The Rambling Man (talk) 19:55, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

@The Rambling Man: Yeah, the old "ArbCom Curse" was that no one who is not a sitting admin could be elected, but that got broken last year. The new one is that no one associated in any way with MOS/AT/RM/DAB can be elected ... until that eventually happens. Heh. I only lost because of people pissed off about some MoS thing they didn't get their way on (which is lots of people, since everyone wants to inject some peeve into MoS). Thus I got more opposes than those four others. I posted about this, back in the day over at that place. PS: Damn, I should've got in on that – I do love me some pepperoni!  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:15, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, it's a load of corrupt incestuous bollocks. Mates with mates. I have no mates (although more than good ol' Joseph) and you had a few more mates than me, just a few haters. I wonder where else in the world they run a voting system where you hate on people? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:18, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

It's definitely weird, unhelpful, and inconsistent with policy (or with the intent of policy, like AGF, CIVIL, BATTLEGROUND, NPA, etc.). I'm all for discarding the simplistic Ancient Greek voting system for something better, but this isn't better. We should be using a tiered preferential ballot (rank your choices in order). This works well all over the world. As for ArbCom, I didn't actually want to be Arb at all, I just decided to grit my teeth and volunteer to do it. I knew it would be a hassle and a big time commitment, but there were specific (ArbCom-connected) issues I wanted to get resolved for the community. My Ds/alert bot proposal at VPPRO forced ArbCom to deal with one, and that was enough progress that I decided not to run again. I have little incentive when other processes external to ArbCom can be used to get ArbCom to fix things. And I also have less available time now.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:07, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Well indeed. I've noted that this last year, Arbcom has become almost invisible (which is optimal) and the only decent elected member resigned within moments. We're getting "more of the same" this time round, and despite my misgivings, an invisible Arbcom is precisely what is needed. A couple of years ago it was all about how they run the place, which was tail wagging dog. I think we've now got a reasonable balance. But in any case, to call your candidacy a "joke" is a little too much. In other voting systems, you'd have been there, fair and square, and with a fair margin. This "hate-fuelled" voting system is pretty much unique in a civilised society. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:16, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Agreed with all of that. Oh, I only just now (fresh from the ANI that's open) realized how any of this relates to the thread above it. Heh. Part of why I resigned as an editor for an entire year (aside from very rare pop-in when someone e-mailed me about someone trying to XfD my work, or foul-mouthing me in public) was that "old ArbCom" attitude you describe, in particular its refusal to deal with bad admin behavior and wikilawyering in defense of it, because the admins and ArbCom were brothers in arms against all this peon rabble. I'm glad that shit is, for now, a thing of the past. However, it could come back; it all depends on who's filling the seats and how much crap other people will tolerate. I really do like that ArbCom is being low-key now.

I would still like to see one serious problem resolved, namely WP:ARBATC. It's not ArbCom's job as our judiciary to set limits on how our extremely distributed legislative branch (i.e, everyone) hashes out policy discussions; that's a separation-of-powers problem. I do not believe that if that case had gone to the current ArbCom that it would have imposed discretionary sanctions on AT and MOS discussions (and they limited it last year to a narrower scope than the original). But they're not willing to just shut those DS down. (I filed an ARCA asking them to.) I'll use those DS in the interim if I have to, but they really should just go away. DS were created for things like "your ethnicity/religion/political party/country versus mine" content disputes, not debate about WP:P&G writing and interpretation.

And they've been useless as applied to the MOS/AT scope. It took eight fucking years and something like 6 noticeboard drama festivals to eject the most disruptive MoS editor of all time, and even then it actually happened on the basis of the editor's overreaction to and pestering of admins (i.e., pissing off particular individuals with a Block Now button), not based on the substance of other editors' complaints about their behavior at policy pages. The ARBATC DS have principally been employed for nothing but hassling MoS regulars, by people who regularly verbally attack them without any repercussions at all. Virtually no admin will do anything about it, unless it's MoS regulars being accused; there's a thick knot of anti-MoS admins. (Who shouldn't be admins, since accepting that WP has policies and guidelines, and following them, and protecting them from disruption is part of the admin "job" description.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:32, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

@The Rambling Man: I opened an initial "feeler" thread about the hate-based nature of our voting system. Won't change anything in the location it's at, but might be good for getting some ideas and such before doing a WP:VPPOL or something. The ongoing election can't be changed mis-flow, anyway, but there's no reason we can't have a better one next year (other than perpetual Wikipedian fear of change).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:41, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

I saw that. If it gets any traction, I came up with it. I don't follow Floquenbeam's smiley. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:45, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Oh, I can credit you now. Just didn't want to associate you with it without letting you know first.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:15, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Well, memetically speaking, the "hate" bit just didn't work. It triggered accusations of hyperbole, so I'm glad I test-ran this at a page where it doesn't matter much. For the "official" 2019 vote RfC page, it should be re-done with a different angle of approach.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:02, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

 Done

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

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

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

Sérgio Moro

 Declined

 – Outside my areas of interest or experience; seems to be being handled anyway.

Please check: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=S%C3%A9rgio_Moro&action=history

The section being removed is terribly biased as it ignores all of Moro's highly popular and praised merits in leading the Operation Car Wash, even ignores his most famous case in which he convicted Lula, and instead focuses entirely on leftist rhetoric and on disqualifying him over criticism that comes exclusively from biased editorials. I've got my account blocked because of this so could you please give a throughout check? The section they want to keep clearly violate NPOV and doesn't give its due weight. Besides, it's not even in the Portuguese Wikipedia. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.181.144.250 (talk) 02:17, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't know anything about this topic. I see someone got blocked, and the page is protected against anonymous edits for now. That should give time for things to settle down and people familiar with the topic to check the sources and such.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:10, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Halves

😂 ("though "Bifid dog" doesn't make sense; that would mean a dog split in two"). Ooops - I forgot to put "nose" in that last sentence. I researched sources to see if we have enough to write a good article about that topic. So far, I've found this, this one which also verifies the Pachón Navarro as a breed, possibly this news article cited by UC Davis pg 19, this one of a collie pup, one about a Retriever and so it goes. I'm thinking we have the RS needed to create either Double-nosed dogs (common name) and in the lead or infobox use the scientific reference "bifid nose". The article can explain the anomaly, provide info about the sourced cases, debunk the myth of the "Andean tiger hound" and so on. (sidebar note: not to get too far off track, but I found this study which may be worth asking one of our med editors about adding to Cleft lip and cleft palate - just a thought.) ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 21:00, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

@Atsme: If we went the separate article route, I would use Bifid nose (canine) (the other convention is "[Condition] in dogs", but "Bifid nose in dogs" is hard to parse) as the real article title. Then redirect other phrases, since there are several, and they are generally misnomers. We permit some misnomer titles, but not for medical topics (veterinary counts as medical). Will need an entry at List of dog diseases (which has a scope of all diseases and other medical conditions in canines). However, it could actually just exists as an entry there, and not its own page unless there's sufficient material. See, e.g., the hypothyroidism entry at that list: it serves as the equivalent of Hypothyroidism (canine) and Hypothyroidism in dogs, which should redirect there (I just fixed that, since both were red links). There's no stand-alone article for it, and the material is short enough we don't need one; the generic article on the condition also only mentions dogs briefly. Anyway, WP:Summary style info about bifid-nosed dogs probably does also belong in Cleft lip and cleft palate (which should probably be renamed to Cleft lip and palate per WP:CONCISE). I wouldn't add it to Dog health, since it's uncommon (and rare outside of particular breeds).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:49, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Yep...I have a busy holiday week ahead, and a few more articles to wrap-up before I can start another one, but I agree with you for the most part. We can revisit when things settle down a bit. Thanks for all you do, Mac!! ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 01:43, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

@Atsme: And you! I have the luxury of sorts of not having to host anyone or go anywhere for [American] Thanksgiving (though I will also lack getting stuffed with food other people cooked, yet also not have to put up with drunk relatives that don't like each other. I think it balances out, ha ha). Anyway: I don't object to a separate article, of course. If there's stufficient sufficient [I clearly have turkey stuffing on the brain] coverage that bifid noses in dogs passes GNG, then it can of course have its own page. I just tend to discourage split perma-stubs as a maintenance hassle (especially given that WP:DOGS went moribund and had to be rebooted and has slipped into near inactivity again, and the med projects devote nearly zero time to veterinary stuff).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:33, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Heads up

SMcCandlish,

Here are some very recent links on portals perspectives I thought you might be interested in reading...

Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Are portals being made automatically with an automated system?

User talk:Moxy#What's up?

Cheers.

   — The Transhumanist   00:36, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Talk:Race (human categorization)/Archive 33

 Fixed

Starting at Talk:Race (human categorization)/Archive 33#Nice image of global genetic variation or above it, something has made it so that the entire archive is struck through. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:06, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Our HTML parser is now stricter than it used to be. Problems like this show up in a lot of archive pages, most often caused by a) missing end tags on an HTML element, often a <font> in a sig without a corresponding </font>; b) mis-nested tags, e.g. an order like <strong><em>...</strong></em>; or c) attempting to wrap block elements in an inline element (like putting a span, or an inline-only "effect" tag like <s>...</s>, around something like multiple paragraphs, a block quotation, or a list. Each block element (each list item, etc.) has to individually have such markup inside it, to strike an entire complicated posted by a sockpuppet. Feel free to report more of these if you find them and can't work out what the fix is.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:42, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. I seen this type of thing before and have fixed it before. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:21, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Succession boxes need to be added back

Moved to User talk:RugratsFan2003#"Capaigning" about succession boxes [2]

I had no idea that there was an RfC to remove the succession boxes. Had I of known about it, I would have voted to keep them. Succession boxes make Wikipedia easier to navigate. I have no idea who in their right mind would think that removing them is a good idea. Succession boxes need to be added back and I will not rest until I get exactly what I want. RugratsFan2003 (talk) 03:29, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

@RugratsFan2003: New talk page comments go at the bottom (on all talk pages). Succession boxes aren't something I've paid much attention to (and I did not notice their absence, which suggests they were of low utility). Successions (in royalty, elected officialdom, sports championships, releases of singles and albums, etc., etc.) are almost always already a feature of infoboxes, so I would surmise that the separate succession box nav templates were deemed redundant. A calm proposal to re-introduce them might go over well, but a declaration like "I will not rest until I get exactly what I want" will rapidly lead to a topic ban, as a campaigning, battlegrounding, and tendentiousness problem, or could possibly just result in an outright indefinite block, as a competence failure at collaborative edting and a not-here-for-the-right-reasons problem. I can't warn you strongly enough away from taking such a stance, or it will not end well (but will end quickly). PS: I'm not sure why you're telling me in particular that you miss succession boxes; I don't recall being very involved in them. I do notice that Template:Succession box still exists and "is used on approximately 110,000 pages"; it may have been removed from certain classes of pages (again, likely because of redundancy with succession lines in the infobox).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:43, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

You commented at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Record_charts#Succession_boxes on the prospect of an RFC about succession boxes for top songs and albums. The subsequent RFC was unanimous on wanting to avoid them. Dicklyon (talk) 00:54, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Oh, jeebus. I should have known this was yet another pop-culture squabble. I didn't even participate in the RfC; a classic case of "shoot the messenger".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:04, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Mohammad bin Salman

 Done

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Mohammad bin Salman. Legobot (talk) 04:23, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals update #023, 25 Nov 2018

There are now 4,180 portals.

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

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

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

Happy Holidays

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

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

Jingling along

The following portals have been created since the last issue:

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   08:02, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Talk:Social Liberal Party (Brazil)

Hi SMcCandlish. It appears that someone is trying to impersonate you at Talk:Social Liberal Party (Brazil). There's been a lot of WP:SOCK and WP:EVADE going on at that article, and it seems as this was a deliberate attempt to try and avoid detection. If I'm mistaken, then my apologies. -- Marchjuly (talk) 12:09, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I've incremented my "been impersonated X times" count. Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:25, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Odd MOS question

Hi SMcC, I have an odd MOS question and no idea where to go for the answers. I've run across a user who appears to be using emoticons as ref names, as per this diff. They show up in several other articles the user has edited, including Sadid-1. Is this a quirk of my browser (Amazon Silk, based on Android Chrome), or possibly the user's computer? I don't want to raise a stink with the user without knowing if it's actually an issue or not. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 03:37, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

@BilCat: I see it in chrome on a Mac, too. The editor is using emoji Unicode characters, which are valid strings within a ref tag's name= attribute, I suppose (at the software parsing level, I mean), but this obviously is not helpful for editors, or for readers who see it should they look in the page code. Even at the editorial level it makes it harder to cite the source (who actually knows how to generate such characters except on a cell phone or in an IM client?). MOS:ICONS also applies to emoji, dingbats, etc.: don't use cutesy pictures for no encyclopedic reason. Also, the user's markup (at least in that diff) is wrong anyway; <ref name="whatever> requires a closing quotation mark.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:31, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Your disgraceful behaviour

Moved to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Best known for IP

I recently reported a user for breaking the 3RR. You took it upon yourself to attack me for reporting this rule violation, and to enthusiastically defend the rule breaker, even going so far as to invent some reasons why they might have broken the rules. My report was closed with not a single word of any kind having been directed at the rule breaker, but multiple insults and attacks launched against me. And then you added a final insult, by saying after the discussion had closed that "it's worth clarifying that I imply no actual wrongdoing on Bil's part". They broke the 3RR. There was unmistakable wrongdoing on their part.

So either you don't understand the 3RR, or you believe certain users are exempt from it. Which is it? 46.208.152.45 (talk) 23:28, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

@46.208.152.45:Neither. I just remember that WP:IAR is a policy, and we do not enforce 3RR as if it's a Holy Law handed down by God. My comment about wrongdoing was in reference to Bil's understanding of MoS (i.e., I had thought he had claimed that the phrases must be boldfaced in the body sections not just the lead, because a thread at WT:MOS implied this was his position, but on second look, at his actual edits, this turned out not to be true). Whether Bil also transgressed 3RR wasn't a question I examined or commented on. "I imply no actual wrongdoing on Bil's part" can only logically refer to my own statements, not to the report you made, since the report you made contains nothing that "I [SMcCandlish] imply". I.e., you're misreading my statement, though I concede that it wasn't as clear as it possibly could have been. My comment was also posted as a self-clarification after the discussion was already closed as no action, so it had no impact of any kind on the result; it was just a courtesy to BilCat, a retraction of my suggestion that he was misapplying MoS.

Anyway, the gist of your complaint appears to be that Bil clearly violated 3RR and should have been punished for it. But we routinely grant an exemption to 3RR for reverting edits that clearly transgress our WP:P&G. I'm not sure how far the community en toto is willing to go to make such a concession when the P&G in question are MoS matters, since people can subjectively disagree over them, but my inclination is toward clemency, especially when the editwarring has already stopped. Per WP:BLOCK policy, blocks are issued as preventative measures, not punitive ones. Ergo, a 3RR report need not, and often does not, result in a block if the dispute has already become stale. Not also that hostile editwarring, while ignoring others' rationales for reverting you, is also editwarring and also sanctionable, even if you don't reach the 3RR point. You actually were lucky to not have received a boomerang block instead of or in addition to BilCat getting a 3RR block. Only one editor in that silly dustup over style trivia was being a WP:JERK, and it wasn't BilCat

Moving on, I don't agree with your hyperbolic characterization of what I posted there in the first place. "You took it upon yourself" is a nonsensical bit of argument to emotion. Every single thing that editors ever do on Wikipedia is something they took upon themselves, since none of us are here as our job, our patriotic duty, or our court-ordered sentence. We're all volunteers. Second, nothing I posted is an attack on you, in any way. I didn't mention you at all other than disagreeing with your MoS interpretation, and suggesting ways to stay out of trouble, such as not falsely calling people trolls. I forgot to mention not making false claims that they are attacking you, so I make that recommendation here and now: don't do it, or it will be treated as incivility that people can use as evidence against you. I'll repeat my advice to absorb the material at WP:HOTHEADS; it's very helpful. Next, I did not "enthusiastically defend" BilCat. I was initially (though incorrectly) critical, then corrected myself and noted that his MoS interpretation wasn't the wrong one I thought it was after. That's a self-correction not a defense, and I offered no defense of his editwarring at all.

In closing, I'm not going to re-read the entire thread to see whether there really were "multiple insults and attacks launched against [you]" but I recall none when I originally read it, and your entire tone strongly suggests that you interpret all disagreement with you as "insults and attacks", while you clearly actually engage in actual ones yourself [3] (and see your own section heading here; exaggeratory and combative histrionics seem to be your continual modus operandi. I didn't have that impression when your 3RR report was first opened, but the more I look the more I see this impression confirmed. Continuing this vein is a WP:CIR failure that will definitely eventually get you indefinitely blocked or community banned, as temperamentally unsuited to work collaboratively on Wikipedia. Which is why I keep pointing you to WP:HOTHEADS. See especially the section "You cannot argue Wikipedia into capitulation", which quite directly addresses this: Any time you get the feeling that you did not get "justice" because people turned against you simply due to your tone and attitude and stopped listening to the facts you're presenting, you are probably correct, and it's your own fault. It took me several years to really learn that, and it's why I wrote that essay – to save others, including you, the difficulty.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:58, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

I see a blocking admin has sussed out that two of your IPs are actually socks of WP:Long-term abuse/Best known for IP; I've reported the rest of them to WP:SPI.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:17, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

So you respond with more personal attacks and lies. What a twisted mind you must have, to behave this way against someone endeavouring to improve the encyclopaedia.

• Whether Bil also transgressed 3RR wasn't a question I examined or commented on - so why the hell were you commenting on a 3RR report?
• a courtesy to BilCat - and a discourtesy to me
• we routinely grant an exemption to 3RR for reverting edits that clearly transgress our WP:P&G - my edits did not do that, and no exemption is routinely granted for that. See WP:NOT3RR and you will find no such rule
• Only one editor in that silly dustup over style trivia was being a WP:JERK, and it wasn't BilCat - so, who was it?
• nothing I posted is an attack on you - haha, sure. See previous point.
• hostile editwarring, while ignoring others' rationales for reverting you, is also editwarring and also sanctionable - no rationale was presented to me, and the user simply ignored the clear rationale I presented to them.
• I offered no defense of his editwarring at all - except when you said on the 3RR report it's worth clarifying that I imply no actual wrongdoing on Bil's part, attacked me, ignored the 3RR violation, etc etc.
• the gist of your complaint appears to be that Bil clearly violated 3RR and should have been punished for it. - yes, I made a 3RR report because they violated the 3RR. Well done for your impressive comprehension thus far. But from where did you interpret the second part?

And then you concoct some utterly absurd accusation of abuse against me. Really amazing what it got me to point out a violation of rules, isn't it?

Someone broke the 3RR and you decided to attack the person who reported them. I hope you found that fun. Seems to me Wikipedia's a game of some kind for you, in which you win points by being sanctimonious. I edit to make the encyclopaedia better; you clearly long since lost sight of that goal. 46.208.152.45 (talk) 01:35, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

I decline to continue this here. This is now a noticeboard matter at WP:SPI. I don't see anything substantive to respond to anyway; it's just more "I'm angry and am gonna rant until I'm tired out" stuff.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:41, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm angry at pointlessly shitty behaviour. You should stop engaging in pointlessly shitty behaviour and remember that you're here to build an encyclopaedia. Enjoy your "noticeboard". 46.208.152.45 (talk) 01:58, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

I've given you a detailed and reasoned response, with good advice in it. If you are not really a sock of Best known for IP, take that up at SPI. You're shooting the messenger. Someone else, an admin, IDed you as Best known for IP, then blocked two of your IPs. I just noted at SPI what the rest of them are, for completeness of process. Either you are Best known for IP socking, or you're not, and SPI is the place to hash that out. You're definitely the same person at all these IPs though, whether the Best Known for IP identification was correct or not, and you are being disruptive, who ever you are. Protesting on my talk page is a waste of time (both about that, and about a 3RR report that was closed before I even made the comment that you're still misreading even after being told why and how you're misreading it). Disagreeing with you and your behavior is not "pointless shitty behavior", it's an attempt to keep you from getting blocked, if you are a legit editor rather than someone evading a site ban. I'm trying to work on the encyclopedia, and you are distracting me from that with your venty ranting (at the wrong person for the wrong reasons). What you're doing isn't building the encyclopedia, nor was what you were doing earlier, editwarring with people over boldfacing that MOS:BOLDSYN clearly indicates should be actually be used. And don't try to re-argue that here, either; there's a whole thread about this open at WT:MOS#Bolding of titles, and titles of redirects. Seriously, let us be done here. I have better things to do than go around in circles with you.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:03, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for your help in exposing this sock, SMcC. My gut said this was a sock from the very beginning, and my actions re: 3RR were intended to smoke it out. I'm glad it worked. :) - BilCat (talk) 09:25, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

What can I say? It's laundry day. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:26, 1 December 2018 (UTC)