Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)

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New proposals are discussed here. Before submitting:

• Check to see whether your proposal is already described at Perennial proposals. You may also wish to search the FAQ.
• Consider developing your proposal at Village pump (idea lab).
• Proposed software changes should be filed at Phabricator (configuration changes should have gained a consensus).
• Proposed policy changes belong at Village pump (policy).
• Proposed WikiProjects or task forces may be submitted at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals.
• Proposed new wikis belong at meta:Proposals for new projects.
• Proposed new articles belong at Wikipedia:Requested articles.

« Archives, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213

Descriptive IP Welcomes

Hello all, I'd like to copy the 'problem user welcome templates' in twinkle and make versions that can be used for IP users as they're quite limited.

Does anyone have any ideas or want to help on them?

I'd start by copying the user ones to my sandbox then add the needed information about creating accounts etc.

Pinging @Amorymeltzer: so you can advise on adding them to Twinkle. Thanks, RhinosF1^(chat)_{(status)(contribs)} 18:30, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

• RhinosF1, funny you mention that because I literally just created one last night for this exact reason. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 20:24, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

  MJL, I'm happy for anyone to but at some point (tommorow), I'll create a list of welcome templates for users that we have and compare it to IP ones. If you want to start the use User:RhinosF1/Welcome/list to create it. RhinosF1^(chat)_{(status)(contribs)} 20:27, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

• I've started a project page at User:RhinosF1/Welcome RhinosF1^(chat)_{(status)(contribs)} 20:33, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

   Added to page. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 21:26, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

  MJL - I've changed to a Templateable so we can track templates easier that need to be done. RhinosF1^(chat)_{(status)(contribs)} 21:34, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

• I'm sure that any such welcome message, whether to a registered or unregistered editor, would be much more likely to have its desired effect if it was actually written by a human being addressing the particular concerns about the edit in question rather than done by template. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:02, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

  There's some truth there but a template also contains carefully crafted prose which convey a message better than I have the time or skill to do every time I use it. Often I expand the template then customise its output to get the best of both worlds. Could we do anything to make that process easier and more attractive? Certes (talk) 21:19, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

  WP:TW allows use to add custom messages at the end Certes. RhinosF1^(chat)_{(status)(contribs)} 21:23, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

I've now looked through the templates, I'd appreciate if anyone offered to help out with them. There's 2 Registered user ones missing and 8 IP ones to create and there's also 8 templates that exisit but are not in twinkle per my list RhinosF1^(chat)_{(status)(contribs)} 16:40, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Hello, When creating User:RhinosF1/Welcome/list for the above thread, I noticed an inconsistency in naming formats for the registered user welcome templates. Which format is preferred? How should they be capitalised? - answer poll using both letter and number RhinosF1^(chat)_{(status)(contribs)} 17:04, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

• A) all one word no spaces - Example: welcomelaws
• B) Dashes between words -Example: welcome-laws
• C) Spaces in between words- Example: welcome laws
• 1) Capital at start
• 2) Each Word Capitalised
• 3) all lowercase

Poll

• B and 1 - To match anon ones and seems to be most used. Excluding for abbreviations (like COI) where they should remain capitalised. RhinosF1^(chat)_{(status)(contribs)} 17:09, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
• D and 4 - allow all. There is no need for consistency. It’s the links that matter, not the style in which they are formatted. Blueboar (talk) 18:57, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

  Blueboar, I'm mainly suggesting this so they're easy to remember and find. RhinosF1^(chat)_{(status)(contribs)} 19:03, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose We do not need to vote on this. Natureium (talk) 20:32, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

  Natureium, As I said above having consistency will make it easier to locate templates. RhinosF1^(chat)_{(status)(contribs)} 20:57, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

• B3. This is actually quite helpful as it would end the guessing game around welcome templates when using them manually. As a technical matter 1 and 3 are the same though. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 13:29, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Discussion (Descriptive IP Welcomes)

Why do we need separate templates for IP editors and registered users? Couldn't the template code itself detect where it is being used? Let's not create a copy of each template if there is a more elegant solution. Updating copies of essentially the same content is tedious and error-prone. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 02:52, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Article on ages which famous people would be today?

Someone noted to me today that if Bruce Lee had not died age 32 he’d be 78 now. Would it be okay to have an article listing ages which famous people who died young would be today? Seem to recall seeing this sort of thing reported in the news from time to time. And such an article in a book of lists. Hyperbolick (talk) 16:11, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Most of the coverage is trivial. I wouldn't have an article on such a list. --Izno (talk) 16:20, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Because the people may still be alive, this was done at List of people who disappeared mysteriously: post-1970 - the code to keep the ages (somewhat) accurate may be of interest, in case you want to create a list somewhere of favorite people. I don't think it should be a mainspace article. -- GreenC 16:54, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

We haven’t even got an article on dying young. Hyperbolick (talk) 16:57, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Would that include everyone person for whom we have an article? A list full of thousands of names? It seems a terrible idea and I don't see how it could meet our notability criteria. Doug Weller talk 10:52, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Ponce de León would be 397 (and may well be). Randy Kryn (talk) 03:22, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

I would agree this wouldn't seem very appropriate for an article; as @Doug Weller: notes, the numbers are potentially very large. For what it's worth, there are approximately 10-11,000 people who a) have English Wikipedia articles; b) were born in or after 1940 (so would be no older than 80 now); c) died at 40 or younger. Even skimming that down to just "particularly notable" people, however defined, would be a lot... Andrew Gray (talk) 18:37, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Without commenting on the value or otherwise of the concept, from a technical standpoint it could be implemented via collapsible multi-column lists by birth year? Anothersignalman (talk) 03:11, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

How old would Methuselah be now? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:49, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

• OPPOSE anything like this. It's trivia, trivial, and non-encyclopedic. GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 09:38, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
• We already have the "on this day" section of the mainpage. I don't see a problem in having some birth centenaries there. ϢereSpielChequers 10:59, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:INDISCRIMINATE. MarnetteD|Talk 18:51, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose as irrelevant to the goal of the encyclopaedia. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^Bori! 00:19, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
• I found this idea to be very weird and strange in many respects. It should probably be archived at Wikipedia:Unusual requests. – Ammarpad (talk) 16:04, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose for dead people - your age is only relevant in any way during your lifetime. The "age" of a dead person at any time after his/her death is trivia, not encyclopedic. Current ages should only be reported for people who we consider to possibly be alive. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:28, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Multi-tier referencing

Hi all,

I'm wondering if it would be possible to implement multi-tier referencing in articles, using reflist for the important/major facts and, say, "refminor/reflist-minor" for the other items? As an example, the article List of bus routes in Melbourne should include a lot more references. Noting operators should be fairly easy with grouped listings (i.e. routes X/Y/Z are all operated by A, and so on), but the claims specific to each route should also be referenced to specific pages. However, if that was done currently the reference list would probably balloon out from 32 to about a thousand, and finding information quickly would be a lot harder.

Thoughts?

Anothersignalman (talk) 02:56, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Are you familiar with {{sfn}} template? Ruslik_Zero 12:43, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

See Shortened footnotes. As an example, Live and Let Die (novel) (which is TFA today) uses them, albeit not exclusively. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:40, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Bring back Wikipedia:Featured portals?

Should we Bring back Wikipedia:Featured portals that ended in 2017? as I think it would be a good idea to feature portals that are high quality and it may help improve the quality of portals Abote2 (talk) 11:23, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

• I would be open to this idea as a motivation for people to improve portals. See Wikipedia_talk:Featured_portals#Tagged_as_historical for why it was marked historical; it seems this bold tagging was not without opposition but no formal proposal was made. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 13:03, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
• If you can demonstrate that there are significant numbers of portals that meet the Featured Portal Criteria and are not already listed at Wikipedia:Featured portals I would support re-starting the project. However, the project was moribund when closed in 2017; as explained then, it had been a year since any new FP was proposed; which means that at this point it will have been 3 years since any portal has met the standards. That's a long-ass time. Also, I will note, that while undiscussed, the lack of objection in the 2 years since it happened speaks volumes. If it went away and no one noticed that means it was a good decision, if it went away, people noticed, but no one cared, that also means it was a good decision. I think if we revisit the FP concept, we would need to demonstrate first that there are unpromoted portals that need to be added to the list. --Jayron32 14:12, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
• Rather pro froma to so-called 'end it'. It's like 'ending' other extra things on Wikipedia, either a group decides they want to do it or group does not (see, eg. Signpost where the only thing that keeps it going is some people want to do it). If there is a group, there is nothing preventing them from saying, such and such portal meets such and such criteria. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:22, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Honestly I’m amazed the Signpost is still alive (and that’s coming from someone who’s been writing it for a year now). I suppose you’re right—where there’s a will, there’s a way. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 16:30, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Proposed amendment to the arbitration policy

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

Pursuant to the arbitration policy's section on "Ratification and amendment", the Arbitration Committee resolves that the following change to the arbitration policy will be submitted for formal ratification by community referendum:

The final paragraph of the "Conduct of arbitrators" section of the arbitration policy is amended as follows:

Any arbitrator who repeatedly or grossly fails to meet the expectations outlined above may be suspended or removed by Committee resolution supported by two-thirds of all arbitrators excluding:

1. The arbitrator facing suspension or removal, and;
2. Any inactive arbitrator who does not respond within 30 days to attempts to solicit their feedback on the resolution through all known mediums of communication.

This amendment to the arbitration policy will enter into force once it receives majority support, with at least one hundred editors voting in favour of adopting it. Until this amendment is ratified, the existing arbitration policy remains in effect.

The ratification process has begun at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy/Proposed amendment (April 2019). Your participation is welcomed. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 02:22, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Display links to core content policies in editing interface

I think the editing interface should display a reminder about our core content policies on mainspace and draftspace articles. The editing notice MediaWiki:Editpage-head-copy-warn already has a reminder about verifiability, but (1) doesn't link to WP:Verifiability itself and (2) omits the other key content policies. As a result, it's easy to forget that all three content policies apply and should be interpreted together, and that they are the core policies. As I have suggested here, this could be achieved by adding a banner to Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Main.

Do you agree that a core content policies banner should be displayed on all mainspace and draftspace pages? If so, what should the banner look like? Qzekrom 💬 ^they_them 19:54, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Banner blindness already prevents most casual editors from reading them. The non-casual editors already know them. --Izno (talk) 20:46, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Proposal: remove "reupload-own" from non-confirmed users

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I'd like to proposal that non-confirmed users not have the reupload-own right. This right allows users to Overwrite existing files uploaded by oneself. It should be removed because non-confirmed users don't have the upload right. It is useless to be able to overwrite files uploaded by oneself if no such files can be uploaded. Thoughts? --DannyS712 (talk) 20:36, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

And this matters because ... * Pppery * _survives 21:38, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

... because its confusing to be have a right that you will never be able to use. --DannyS712 (talk) 21:51, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

@DannyS712: - can you demonstrate some cases where new editors have found this issue confusing? I seriously doubt more than a handful ever spot they have the right while still unconfirmed. This seems like a solution in search of an issue. Nosebagbear (talk) 22:35, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

@Nosebagbear: I mean I was confused when I first joined (I've used mediawiki software elsewhere before, so when I couldn't create a page in the main namespace I went to go look at the rights I had and was confused). I get your point though - this was just a suggestion, and it'll probably only impact a few users. --DannyS712 (talk) 22:37, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

No, this isn't worth touching the configuration for. And there is an existing use case for it:

1. Non confirmed user wants to upload something
2. Someone manually confirms the user
3. The manual confirmation is removed or expires, but the user hasn't been autoconfirmed yet
4. The user wants to refresh their own upload

So it could be possible to have this rare edge case used, and the configuration causes no issues how it is. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:39, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Okay. I see that there is a benefit to this right that I hadn't realized, so nevermind. --DannyS712 (talk) 22:43, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wikidata links for non-notable people

I've proposed that we limit the use of the {{Interlanguage link}} template for creating Wikidata-only links for non-notable people. If you have an opinion, please express it at Template talk:Interlanguage link#Lots of wikidata links for non-notable people (not here). Thanks! Kaldari (talk) 01:30, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Proposal: Halt the mass deletion of non-spam portals and focus on achieving consensus on portal guidelines

In response to WP:ENDPORTALS the community demonstrated that "there exists a strong consensus against deleting or even deprecating portals at this time." Despite this, there are currently dozens of portals being put up for deletion with repetitive, often quite subjective and thin justification at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion which seems to fly in the face of the community's intent for portals. These are not the 1500 or so portals, mass-created by The Transhumanist that are subject to an ongoing discussion, but include portals manually created and manually maintained by dedicated editors working under the relevant Wiki project. The current portal guidelines are not useful since they have been amended and counter-amended without consensus by editors with strong views for and against.

My proposal is that, having agreed in principle to keep portals, the community should halt further deletion of portals (with the exception of those mass-created by TTH for which agreement appears likely) and, instead, seeks consensus on portal guidelines including those covering the approval process and criteria for new portals, maintenance standards and criteria for deletion (which may just be the inverse of criteria for creation). Bermicourt (talk) 08:14, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Please identify a couple of portals that are believed worth saving and where the portals are or have been at MfD. Johnuniq (talk) 09:49, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

First, there is no mass deletion of older portals. There is some long overdue cleanup going on of old narrow scope and/or unmaintained portals

Second, he is annoyed a couple of his German region portals were brought to MfD and is now posting various places to stop the clean up.

Check out WP:MFD So far over 1100 portals have been deleted and around 1900 are being discussed for deletion now. The vast majority are the mass created variety usually based on a nav box, which offer no benefits and many disadvantages to the reader who is better served by the article.

The MFDs are applying the very permissive existing WP:POG that the portal spammers modified but ignored. While WP:ENDPORTALS did not delete the entire space there was a pretty clear message that clean up was required. Instead of cleanup on the 1400+ portals they had, the WikiProject fought deletion of even the worst ones. Then they added 4200 more portals on all kinds of random and WP:POG breaching topics. Whenever some portal was brought for discussion the portal fans cried the same story "we need time to develop new guidelines". That story no longer holds water. Anyone is welcome to propose an RFC for new guideline but I suggest it tighten the existing guidelines given the way the MFDs are going. Anyone is welcome to check out the completed debates under Feb, March and April here [1] Legacypac (talk) 11:55, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

• Here is a shortlist of legacy portals up for deletion by in the last 36 hours:

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Halo (2nd nomination)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Stamford (2nd nomination)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Prehistory of Antarctica (3rd nomination)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Prehistory of North America

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:The Beach Boys

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Prehistory of South America

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Mitt Romney

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Glee

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Green Day

• No. There's still a lot of crud in portal namespace that needs to go. CoolSkittle (talk) 16:47, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

It's a bit disconcerting for me to read that User:Legacypac doesn't think there's a mass deletion going on. That user has put by my count about 84 portals up for deletion themselves--since Friday. That user is historically opposed to all portals ("Portals are so 15 years ago, the internet moved on a long time ago.") so he or she is nominating them all, one by one. Other users are also nominating large numbers too: for example User:BrownHairedGirl ("My ideal solution would be too keep about 20 major portals(art/science/etc plus continents), and delete the rest. But given the unhelpful binary nature of this proposal, I'd prefer outright deletion to either keeping them all or to having 1500 MfD debates."). These users didn't get their way in the RFC so now they seem to be using this moment to accomplish their objective. BusterD (talk) 14:37, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Sorry I've been falling down on the job. Spent time with the family this weekend. I'll do some more bundles soon. Rationals for deletion are posted on each nom - please go vote there. Legacypac (talk) 19:26, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

• Meanwhile, over at WikiProject:Portals, we're having some discussions about reverting the automation and trying to figure out a way to keep many of these. We don't normally delete pagespace because it's a stub, isn't maintained or is getting low page views. We expect that we have adequate server space for things to move forward eventually. I feel like these mass deletions of legacy portals are being forced down our throats by editors largely opposed to the concept of portals. BusterD (talk) 14:47, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Calm down, @BusterD. 8 portals out of the ~1500 which predate the portalspamning is not mass deletion. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:43, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

I am completely calm. I offered a shortlist, not an exhaustive one. On the other hand one editor nominating 84 pages for deletion since Friday would be considered way out of line for normal AfD, and that's not counting the dozens BrownHairedGirl has put up in this recent period. There's a mass deletion going on. 184 items up for deletion as of this datestamp, mostly legacy portals. BusterD (talk) 14:54, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

@BusterD - I can't track your numbers. We had about 1899 portals up for deletion last I looked and only a few were old titles, many of them restarted with nothing from the old portal preserved.You can see what is up for deletion at Category:MFD Legacypac (talk) 19:26, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

@BusterD, for the last year, the portals project did nothing to even stop the flood of portalspam unleashed by The Transhumanist. Several other editors also created significant numbers of the useless automated portals.

Project members and outsiders who dissented were brushed aside and/or shouted down. The whole thing spiralled until it escalated into a shitstorm.

In the aftermath of that, several editors have begun doing what the portals project itself should have been doing: opening MFD discussions to delete the spam. Overwhelmingly, the outcome is to delete them. And it also notable that the work of both analysis and MFD nomination is overwhelmingly being done by editors who were not part of the Portals Project.

Along the way, the scrutiny is casting more eyes on many other portals, which predate the spam. It turns out that as noted at the ENDPORTALS RFC, many of the pre-spam portals are abysmal: narrow topics, unused, ill-maintained, all contrary to the long-term guidance at WP:POG, that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers". So those are now being nominated for deletion too, and unsurprisingly many of them are being deleted.

I have not changed my view expressed at ENDPORTALS that there should be many fewer portals. However, I accept that the delete-all proposal has been clearly rejected, and the community has not made a decision on whether to adopt my goal of having only few dozen major portals. So I am not trying to pre-empt any discussion on that. I am just working within the existing guidance at WP:POG.

The removal of portals which do not meet that core WP:PG requirement should have been an ongoing maintenance task of the Portal Project. Instead, the crud was left to pile up and rot, with the inevitable result that it is now coming under scrutiny by outsiders ... and years of backlog of crud is finally being tackled.

BusterD refers to the the dozens BrownHairedGirl has put up in this recent period, i.e. nominated at MFD. So I have checked through my WP+space contribs list to create a full list of all my MFD nominations in the past 7 days. Note how they are all carefully researched; some of them took hours to prepare.

BHG's MFD nominations in the last 7 days
aka The Outrage Which hath caused much grief and despair unto User:BusterD

Sat 13 April

• MFD:Portal:Stamford single old-style portal, way too narrow a scope
• MFD:Portal:Magic: The Gathering: old-style portal on a narrow topic, unmaintained, almost unused.
• MFD:Some two-navbox automated portals: Nine of the 32 pages in Category:Automated portals with article list built solely from two templates, after about ten hours of careful research in which I discarded over 20 of the set as not a clearcut problem

Fri 12 April

• MFD:Portal:Ahmedabad Portal on a second-rank Indian city, with extremely low page views

Wed 10 April

• MFD:Glorified navbox microportals for universities 41 automated portals each based on a single navbox about a narrow topic. Again, several hours research involved on more drive-by creations by the topic-banned spammer @The Transhumanist

Tue 9 April

• MFD:Los Angeles glorified navbox microportals 16 absurdly narrow-topic automate portals which duplicate navbox. Again, several hours research involved on more drive-by creations by the topic-banned spammer @The Transhumanist

Sun 7 April

• MFD:Mass-created portals based on a single navbox 1390 portals based on a single navbox. That one took me about 20 hours of research, all on more drive-by creations by the topic-banned spammer @The Transhumanist. About 70 editors have commented, and last time I checked, support for deletion was running at ~7:1

So come on, BusterD. Please tell me which of those nominations is so outrageous that you have to come to a drama board to complain about it?

And then tell me what you and the other portals fans are doing to clean up the mountain of portalspam by TTH and his assistants? Or to clear out the pile of abandoned unused, narrow-topic portals which has built up over years of neglect the portals project?

It's long past time for the portals fans to stop whining and sniping and maligning and obstructing, and to actually help in the cleanup. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:54, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Please remember that nominating a page for discussion at MFD is not an actual deletion... it is only a discussion about whether the page should be deleted. If you don’t think a nominated page should be deleted, go to MFD and explain why you feel that way. Blueboar (talk) 15:28, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm not interested in discussing the merits of individual nominations on this talk page. Like the OP, I am interested in the remarkable number of portals nominated in the recent period. So many and so quickly that a reasonable conversation can't be had by editors with any sort of life AFK. This resembles a bum's rush and gives the appearance of coordination. I think the OP makes a valid point. BusterD (talk) 16:05, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

@On the contrary, BusterD, you specifically singled me out as a miscreant creator of too many MFDs. I have shown above why I believe that is false: please have to courtesy to read and respond to m]y reply.

You have now escalated to an unsubstantiated allegation of co-ordination. All the discussions I have had about this have been on Wikipedia, apart from the harassing emails I received a month ago from SMcC.

I have posted at WP:AN, WP:ANI, at WP:WPPORT, and the only userpage discussions I have participated in have been at User talk:Legacypac#Please_stop_adding_portal_pages_to_MfD_nominations_opened_by_others and some sections below. There is no plot.

I am getting very sick of all these bad faith, unfounded allegations from portal fans. Instead of helping tackle the real substantive problems, they are making unevidenced smears like this one, or telling outright lies such as the one I rebutted today at an MFD[2].

It's long past time for BusterD and others to accept that it is very easy for any editor to see the widespread problems in portalspace, and to understand that no conspiracy is needed for editors to apply basic policies and guidelines and help in the cleanup. -BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:34, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

• Second batch. Note that WP:Miscellany for deletion/Mass-created portals based on a single navbox has been closed[3] as delete.

I am therefore preparing the second batch. I am still list-naming, but it looks likely to be over 1100 pages. That's less than the 1,308 in the second set which in added to the first nomination and the withdrew, because some of the set have already been taken to MFD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:57, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

• • Second mass nomination now live: WP:Miscellany for deletion/Second batch of mass-created portals based on a single navbox. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:02, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
• The suggestion this cleanup is happening in secret or without discussion is laughable. There is so much discussion from so many editors we keep breaking MfD. Wikipedia_talk:Miscellany_for_deletion#Some_discussions_showing_as_links_only? Legacypac (talk) 19:26, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Oppose this proposal. The key words in the WP:ENDPORTALS closing statement are at this time. We are no longer at this time: this is a new time, and between then and now no one, in my opinion, did anything that improved the set of portals: no substantive changes to the guideline, no work on community consensus building, nothing. These deletion discussions are not WP:ENDPORT2; they are topic-by-topic, open, guideline-based discussions, a good number of which have closed as keep. I also object to "These users didn't get their way in the RFC so now they seem to be using this moment to accomplish their objective"; seems like a failure to WP:AGF, and I for one did not participate in the RfC, don't yet believe Portals should be ended, and resent being tarred with any brush. UnitedStatesian (talk) 00:29, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

• • Comment. Who says a so-called "new time" has started? Just you? And, as you yourself say your WP:POV is that "no one did anything to improve portals" but that flies in the face of reality. A huge amount of work was done to improve portals - new tools were created and new systems of monitoring portals were developed. Unfortunately the good was balanced by the bad; along with their enthusiasm to improve portals, the portaleers also discovered they could create portals with no human intervention, so hundreds of low-quality unhelpful portals were created. That had to be halted and I have supported that. With regard to your comment that there "no work on community consensus building" that's also untrue. One effort that I was involved in was work with @BrownHairedGirl: to try and frame a question that sought consensus from the community about portal numbers and standards. That didn't in the end materialise, but there was a will from editors representing a spectrum of views to take this forward in a constructive way. As for the deletion discussion being guideline based, the guidelines are past it; WP:ENDPORTALS demonstrated that. In any case, they are far too vague - allowing editors to choose what "broad subject areas" means. They also ignore valid points raised by editors during the discussion that portals are not just another article that is justified by pageviews - firstly they are not in mainspace and secondly if that were the sole justification for them then half the articles on Wikipedia wouldn't qualify either. So if you want good, balanced coverage of a topic, properly curated portals are a tremendous aid. The reason there are so many blue links on decent, manually maintained portals is that editors actively use them to create many of the articles. In my case I've created over 5,000 new articles on Wikipedia and have used portals extensively to shape priorities and achieve balanced coverage of a topic. By contrast, the recent mass of auto-created portals doesn't meet that remit at all and I am a strong supporter of deleting them. They are of limited utility and only do a disservice to other, decently created and maintained portals, which are earning their pay. Of course, there's always more to do, but we don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Yes, bin the auto-created portals that took no effort to create, but let's not wilfully destroy human-maintained portals that serve a purpose while there is still no agreement on what constitutes an acceptable portal. HTH.Bermicourt (talk) 16:53, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

The 'WikiReporter Barnstar'

Hi All,

I believe there should be a specific barnstar for those who do excellent reporting on a live event. I understand the a minor barnstar is a de facto form of this however I believe that this is worthy of its own reward. The logo could be something along the lines of a red barnstar saying 'BREAKING NEWS'.

Its just an idea but I think it's worth it.

Thanks, Muffington (talk) 19:39, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia African Month

Hello,

For information, a Wikipedia African Month was launched on Wikipedia in French. If you also want to organize this event, I suggest you to contact @Ле Лой: for the tool (tools.wmflabs) and @Furfur: for the logo. In addition, we have set the African month in May for the Africa Day.

Thank you & best wishes, 16:23, 16 April 2019 (UTC)~. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aabbccddeeffabcdef (talk • contribs) 16:23, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Ping Ле Лой and Furfur --DannyS712 (talk) 23:44, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Rewrite of Template:Bar chart

I am proposing to upgrade the template Bar chart, to use an Lua script at Module:Bar chart. The script uses graphs instead of the divs which are used now. The script gets rid of data limitations, enabling users to use as many bars as they like. The module is coded to work in the same way as the old template. I have changed the sandbox to use the template. Testcases can be seen at Template:Bar chart/testcases.

Template:Bar chart/bar will become obsolete with this change. I am proposing this here, since the talk page of the template does not have enough watchers.--Snaevar (talk) 09:49, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

You might like to post at WT:WikiProject Templates or WT:Lua (the latter if wanting help with the module). Have you seen Module:Chart? Johnuniq (talk) 10:54, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

... and Module:Graph (used by Template:Graph:Chart). It would make more sense to merge some of those modules instead of creating even more. * Pppery * _{has returned} 12:40, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Further discussion of recent RfC on organisation vs organization

I note the recently closed "RfC" on organization vs organisation. I dispute this as a settled Wikipedia policy. There has been minimal promotion of this discussion which has a limited number of editors commenting on what can be a huge change. It is being now used as a settled policy, where it suddenly adversely affects a lot of wikipedia, and strikes me as potentially thought of cultural vandalism. It feels like someone has tried to sneak quite a major change through the back door, and that if this needs to be done properly we should just poll every active editor on wikipedia for usage. My personal preference is to have no standardisation, however forcing everyone to use "-ize", is not fair on a lot (and perhaps the majority) of English users where "-ise" is the proper variant. I have cross-posted to the Village pump policy section. - Master Of Ninja (talk) 15:36, 17 April 2019 (UTC)