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ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, Cactus.man. 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)

Administrators' newsletter – December 2018

News and updates for administrators from the past month (November 2018).

Administrator changes

readded Al Ameer sonRandykittySpartaz
removed BosonDaniel J. LeivickEfeEsanchez7587Fred BauderGarzoMartijn HoekstraOrangemike

Interface administrator changes

removedDeryck Chan

Guideline and policy news

  • Following a request for comment, the Mediation Committee is now closed and will no longer be accepting case requests.
  • A request for comment is in progress to determine whether members of the Bot Approvals Group should satisfy activity requirements in order to remain in that role.
  • A request for comment is in progress regarding whether to change the administrator inactivity policy, such that administrators "who have made no logged administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped". Currently, the policy states that administrators "who have made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least 12 months may be desysopped".
  • A proposal has been made to temporarily restrict editing of the Main Page to interface administrators in order to mitigate the impact of compromised accounts.

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • In late November, an attacker compromised multiple accounts, including at least four administrator accounts, and used them to vandalize Wikipedia. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. Sharing the same password across multiple websites makes your account vulnerable, especially if your password was used on a website that suffered a data breach. As these incidents have shown, these concerns are not pure fantasies.
  • Wikipedia policy requires administrators to have strong passwords. To further reinforce security, administrators should also consider enabling two-factor authentication. A committed identity can be used to verify that you are the true account owner in the event that your account is compromised and/or you are unable to log in.

Obituaries


Disputed non-free use rationale for File:Henri Huet, Cole.jpg

Thank you for uploading File:Henri Huet, Cole.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.

If it is determined that the file does not qualify under the non-free content policy, it might be deleted by an administrator seven days after the file was tagged in accordance with section F7 of the criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions, please ask them at the media copyright questions page. Thank you. -- Marchjuly (talk) 07:00, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – January 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (December 2018).

Guideline and policy news

  1. G14 (new): Disambiguation pages that disambiguate only zero or one existing pages are now covered under the new G14 criterion (discussion). This is {{db-disambig}}; the text is unchanged and candidates may be found in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as unnecessary disambiguation pages.
  2. R4 (new): Redirects in the file namespace (and no file links) that have the same name as a file or redirect at Commons are now covered under the new R4 criterion (discussion). This is {{db-redircom}}; the text is unchanged.
  3. G13 (expanded): Userspace drafts containing only the default Article Wizard text are now covered under G13 along with other drafts (discussion). Such blank drafts are now eligible after six months rather than one year, and taggers continue to use {{db-blankdraft}}.

Technical news

  • Starting on December 13, the Wikimedia Foundation security team implemented new password policy and requirements. Privileged accounts (administrators, bureaucrats, checkusers, oversighters, interface administrators, bots, edit filter managers/helpers, template editors, et al.) must have a password at least 10 characters in length. All accounts must have a password:
  1. At least 8 characters in length
  2. Not in the 100,000 most popular passwords (defined by the Password Blacklist library)
  3. Different from their username
User accounts not meeting these requirements will be prompted to update their password accordingly. More information is available on MediaWiki.org.
  • Blocked administrators may now block the administrator that blocked them. This was done to mitigate the possibility that a compromised administrator account would block all other active administrators, complementing the removal of the ability to unblock oneself outside of self-imposed blocks. A request for comment is currently in progress to determine whether the blocking policy should be updated regarding this change.
  • {{Copyvio-revdel}} now has a link to open the history with the RevDel checkboxes already filled in.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • Accounts continue to be compromised on a regular basis. Evidence shows this is entirely due to the accounts having the same password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately.
  • Around 22% of admins have enabled two-factor authentication, up from 20% in June 2018. If you haven't already enabled it, please consider doing so. Regardless of whether you use 2FA, please practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.

HUH?? What on earth caused you to do this https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Portal:Scotland&oldid=879623268 ??? Converting a maintained and well populated Portal into barely a stub of little relevant content that you then felt compelled to add Category:Portals with errors in need of immediate attention to (https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Portal:Scotland&direction=next&oldid=879623268). I'll put my good faith hat on and assume it was an error, but in the meantime I have restored the Portal to the last good version. -- Cactus.man 03:54, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

This is the Starship Enterprise calling Ceti Alpha V. Sorry, we thought you were Ceti Alpha VI. Oops. Didn't mean to destroy your living ecosystem. The planet (uh, portal) was targeted for regenesis, zeroing in on your transponder transmitting demolition code "box portal skeleton", indicating outmoded civilization slated for recolonization via the Genesis Device. But you've already revitalized, using alien technology. Very nice. Good thing you had the time reversion Degenesis Device. I've removed the demolition code, so the portal will be safe from evolutionary reboot in the future. Kirk out.    — The Transhumanist   06:05, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
P.S.: The error is known as a "truncation bug", and we're in the process of tracking down this rendering glitch that mysteriously cuts portals short, making them appear like stubs.
P.P.S.: Nice hat.
Thanks for the explanation, err Kirk, and I'm glad you like my hat. I try to wear it as often as possible. I had no idea that still having "box portal skeleton" code in the Portal would mean it was targetted for a "restart" along no sub-page guidelines. Maybe there's been an announcement somewhere, possibly the newsletter and I've just missed it, But if not then perhaps there should be something hightly visible; after all to go from 44,673 bytes to 3,002 bytes with an edit summary of "restart portal" is somewhat of a shock to the sytem of an unexpecting editor, more "degenesis" rather than "regenesis". Good luck with defeating the euphemistically named "truncation bug" BTW. -- Cactus.man 14:43, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
I assumed all the "pox bortal keletons" had subpages. My bad. Will run a comparison against the "maintained" cats and specific portal maintainers list at wpport next time. Matter o' fact, should retro the batch this time. Thanks for the convo. Helped get the mental juices flowin'.    — The Transhumanist   15:37, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – February 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2019).

Administrator changes

added EnterpriseyJJMC89
readded BorgQueen
removed Harro5Jenks24GraftR. Baley

Interface administrator changes

removedEnterprisey

Guideline and policy news

  • A request for comment is currently open to reevaluate the activity requirements for administrators.
  • Administrators who are blocked have the technical ability to block the administrator who blocked their own account. A recent request for comment has amended the blocking policy to clarify that this ability should only be used in exceptional circumstances, such as account compromises, where there is a clear and immediate need.
  • A request for comment closed with a consensus in favor of deprecating The Sun as a permissible reference, and creating an edit filter to warn users who attempt to cite it.

Technical news

  • A discussion regarding an overhaul of the format and appearance of Wikipedia:Requests for page protection is in progress (permalink). The proposed changes will make it easier to create requests for those who are not using Twinkle. The workflow for administrators at this venue will largely be unchanged. Additionally, there are plans to archive requests similar to how it is done at WP:PERM, where historical records are kept so that prior requests can more easily be searched for.

Miscellaneous

  • Voting in the 2019 Steward elections will begin on 08 February 2019, 14:00 (UTC) and end on 28 February 2019, 13:59 (UTC). The confirmation process of current stewards is being held in parallel. You can automatically check your eligibility to vote.
  • A new IRC bot is available that allows you to subscribe to notifications when specific filters are tripped. This requires that your IRC handle be identified.

Administrators' newsletter – March 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (February 2019).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • A new tool is available to help determine if a given IP is an open proxy/VPN/webhost/compromised host.

Arbitration

  • The Arbitration Committee announced two new OTRS queues. Both are meant solely for cases involving private information; other cases will continue to be handled at the appropriate venues (e.g., WP:COIN or WP:SPI).
    • paid-en-wp@wikipedia.org has been set up to receive private evidence related to abusive paid editing.
    • checkuser-en-wp@wikipedia.org has been set up to receive private requests for CheckUser. For instance, requests for IP block exemption for anonymous proxy editing should now be sent to this address instead of the functionaries-en list.

Miscellaneous


Administrators' newsletter – April 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (March 2019).

Technical news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • Two more administrator accounts were compromised. Evidence has shown that these attacks, like previous incidents, were due to reusing a password that was used on another website that suffered a data breach. If you have ever used your current password on any other website, you should change it immediately. All admins are strongly encouraged to enable two-factor authentication, please consider doing so. Please always practice appropriate account security by ensuring your password is secure and unique to Wikimedia.
  • As a reminder, according to WP:NOQUORUM, administrators looking to close or relist an AfD should evaluate a nomination that has received few or no comments as if it were a proposed deletion (PROD) prior to determining whether it should be relisted.

Be careful with categories for awards like Quality Image or Featured Picture. The crop isn't a featured picture so shouldn't be included in those categories. I've fixed it. -- Colin (talk) 12:04, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your message re the above file. That was my mistake, I forgot to check the categories after upload, so thanks for fixing them. I was making a header banner panorama image for en:Portal:Scottish islands when I saw your original image. It was perfect, both lending itself well to a 7:1 panorama ratio and in subject matter (what's more iconic to island life in the Inner Hebrides than a ferry sailing past your local lighthouse?). --Cactus.man 17:30, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

ArbCom 2019 special circular

Icon of a white exclamation mark within a black triangle
Administrators must secure their accounts

The Arbitration Committee may require a new RfA if your account is compromised.

View additional information

This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 02:27, 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 21:03, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – May 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (April 2019).

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • XTools Admin Stats, a tool to list admins by administrative actions, has been revamped to support more types of log entries such as AbuseFilter changes. Two additional tools have been integrated into it as well: Steward Stats and Patroller Stats.

Arbitration

  • In response to the continuing compromise of administrator accounts, the Arbitration Committee passed a motion amending the procedures for return of permissions (diff). In such cases, the committee will review all available information to determine whether the administrator followed "appropriate personal security practices" before restoring permissions; administrators found failing to have adequately done so will not be resysopped automatically. All current administrators have been notified of this change.
  • Following a formal ratification process, the arbitration policy has been amended (diff). Specifically, the two-thirds majority required to remove or suspend an arbitrator now excludes (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 methods of communication.

Miscellaneous


Administrators' newsletter – June 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (May 2019).

Administrator changes

removed AndonicConsumed CrustaceanEnigmamanEuryalusEWS23HereToHelpNv8200paPeripitusStringTheory11Vejvančický

CheckUser changes

removed Ivanvector

Guideline and policy news

  • An RfC seeks to clarify whether WP:OUTING should include information on just the English Wikipedia or any Wikimedia project.
  • An RfC on WT:RfA concluded that Requests for adminship and bureaucratship are discussions seeking to build consensus.
  • An RfC proposal to make the templates for discussion (TfD) process more like the requested moves (RM) process, i.e. "as a clearinghouse of template discussions", was closed as successful.

Technical news

  • The CSD feature of Twinkle now allows admins to notify page creators of deletion if the page had not been tagged. The default behavior matches that of tagging notifications, and replaces the ability to open the user talk page upon deletion. You can customize which criteria receive notifications in your Twinkle preferences: look for Notify page creator when deleting under these criteria.
  • Twinkle's d-batch (batch delete) feature now supports deleting subpages (and related redirects and talk pages) of each page. The pages will be listed first but use with caution! The und-batch (batch undelete) option can now also restore talk pages.

Miscellaneous


Administrators' newsletter – July 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2019).

Administrator changes

removed 28bytesAd OrientemAnsh666BeeblebroxBoing! said ZebedeeBU Rob13Dennis BrownDeorDoRDFloquenbeam1Flyguy649Fram2GadfiumGB fanJonathunderKusmaLectonarMoinkMSGJNickOd MishehuRamaSpartazSyrthissTheDJWJBscribe
1Floquenbeam's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.
2Fram's access was removed, then restored, then removed again.

Guideline and policy news

  • In a related matter, the account throttle has been restored to six creations per day as the mitigation activity completed.

Technical news

  • The Wikimedia Foundation's Community health initiative plans to design and build a new user reporting system to make it easier for people experiencing harassment and other forms of abuse to provide accurate information to the appropriate channel for action to be taken. Community feedback is invited.

Miscellaneous


Converting portals to more transclusion

I had largely avoided the portal controversies, though lately have tried to make a reasonable case that many of the currently extant portals could and should be kept. With some automation many deserving candidates could be maintained even by a small group of interested users, while we sort out what the thresholds should be. I am pleased with how Portal:Scotland came out and was wondering if you could provide a brief description (possibly with diffs) explaining your procedure. I can figure out the template use but the Lua list confuses me a bit. Would you be willing to provide some guidance as to the steps you took? BusterD (talk) 19:19, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

Keeping focused discussion at TfD

In your original comment in the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2019 July 9#Template:Featured portal, you said the following:

The conclusion of the nomination is blatantly incorrect and I'm surprised that this nomination from a very experienced editor (well familiar with templates) would conclude such.
And when did the nominator have such concern that our readers would be "misled" and become confused? She's spent the last 4 months or more on an anti-Portal crusade screaming from the rooftops, that readership numbers are extremely low, categorising them variously as virtually non-existent or risible. Oh well it looks like a "risible" number of readers will be "misled", or in truth rather better informed. The template is in Portals for a purpose and was designed accordingly to be informative for readers without having to navigate away from the Portal. Therefore, absolutely no need to delete it, and I'm sorry to say this BHG, but this is more part of the WP:JDL agenda of the crusade to delete anything and everything "Portal", cherry picking arguments and moving goalposts around to suit.

I ask that you please refrain from making comments like this at WP:Templates for discussion. We should not need to stoop to ad hominem attacks to refute arguments that we disagree with, and doing so leads to off-track discussions. I also request that you strike this part of your comment as a commitment to productive discussion.

I understand that that BHG escalatated this, but that doesn't excuse your original comments. I have made a similar request to BHG to strike comments, so I am not "taking sides".

If you think this is unreasonable, I would be happy to discuss this further (I'd prefer to keep the discussion here, so it will all be in the same place, but you are welcome to reply on my talk page if you really want to). Retro (talk | contribs) 16:18, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your message Retro. I agree with what you say and I'm glad to see you've also collapsed the latest exchange. I'm not proud of what I wrote, but I find BHG to be the most infuriating editor I've ever had the misfortune to interact with, mainly because of her compulsive need to respond negatively to EVERY opposing comment (just view any of her MfD or CfD nominations and you'll see what I mean). I just get so frustrated, especially with the name calling and her "flexible" portrayal of "facts" judiciously plucked in a quote and twisted to make it look as if the opponent is being unreasonable and she is somehow a victim. So far we've had around 4 months of MfD's where The Transhumanist was constantly referred to as "the portal spammer, TTH". I asked her to consider dropping that in future nominations, because I felt it was disrespectful and not language becoming of an experienced admin. I don't think it went down too well, and from that point onwards its been a bonfire everytime our paths cross.
So far I've been called "Mr Longspeech Cactus", been labelled a "portaleer" (part of the "portal Platoon"), a "perma-rage editor" and more. I've also been accused of "ranting" in almost anything I post in connection with the whole Portal saga. Well, eventually if you fire enough shit, often it sticks, and the accusation becomes reality. I know I should keep calm and rise above it, but my perception is that BHG is just doing it to get me to respond in such a way, so she can say "Look everybody, Mr Bad Man Cactus .... I told you so". That's why I even suggested a voluntary mutual IBAN to her but she probably hasn't seen it - I think it was in one of the exchanges you, very wisely, collapsed. Anyway, I'm off to do something soothing now - I'll try to keep calmer.
Thanks for the intervention and trying your best to smooth things over. Best wishes. --Cactus.man 17:38, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2019).

Guideline and policy news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • Following a research project on masking IP addresses, the Foundation is starting a new project to improve the privacy of IP editors. The result of this project may significantly change administrative and counter-vandalism workflows. The project is in the very early stages of discussions and there is no concrete plan yet. Admins and the broader community are encouraged to leave feedback on the talk page.
  • The new page reviewer right is bundled with the admin tool set. Many admins regularly help out at Special:NewPagesFeed, but they may not be aware of improvements, changes, and new tools for the Curation system. Stay up to date by subscribing here to the NPP newsletter that appears every two months, and/or putting the reviewers' talk page on your watchlist.

    Since the introduction of temporary user rights, it is becoming more usual to accord the New Page Reviewer right on a probationary period of 3 to 6 months in the first instance. This avoids rights removal for inactivity at a later stage and enables a review of their work before according the right on a permanent basis.


Population of Ukraine

Can you edit population of Ukraine in infobox and leave only crimea and 42 millon to be clear and fine? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a01:111f:e1a:a400:d520:c7a1:1efd:adb1 (talkcontribs) 08:28, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Hello, this is an article content issue. Please raise the issue on the article talk page and seek a consensus for your suggested change. Please also be aware that Ukraine falls within the discretionary sanctions restrictions authorised by the Arbitration Commitee placed on Eastern Europe articles. I would advise you to familiarise yourself with the guidance for editors in relation to this matter before you make any edits to the Ukraine page. --Cactus.man 19:12, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Talk

Would you be willing to remove the part in parentheses you left in your post at my talk page? It is based upon a series of tendentious subjectivity that was said earlier by a user who I have since made a truce with. I don't want to see it anymore. North America1000 20:39, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – September 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (August 2019).

Administrator changes

added BradvChetsfordIzno
readded FloquenbeamLectonar
removed DESiegelJake WartenbergRjanagTopbanana

CheckUser changes

removed CallaneccLFaraoneThere'sNoTime

Oversight changes

removed CallaneccFoxHJ MitchellLFaraoneThere'sNoTime

Technical news

  • Editors using the mobile website on Wikipedia can opt-in to new advanced features via your settings page. This will give access to more interface links, special pages, and tools.
  • The advanced version of the edit review pages (recent changes, watchlist, and related changes) now includes two new filters. These filters are for "All contents" and "All discussions". They will filter the view to just those namespaces.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous


Administrators' newsletter – October 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (September 2019).

Guideline and policy news

  • Following a discussion, a new criterion for speedy category renaming was added: C2F: One eponymous article, which applies if the category contains only an eponymous article or media file, provided that the category has not otherwise been emptied shortly before the nomination. The default outcome is an upmerge to the parent categories.

Technical news

  • As previously noted, tighter password requirements for Administrators were put in place last year. Wikipedia should now alert you if your password is less than 10 characters long and thus too short.

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • The Community Tech team has been working on a system for temporarily watching pages, and welcomes feedback.

Portal Templates

Hi Certes, thanks for agreeing to have a look at my request for possible improvements to Portal templates/modules as I mentioned on Northamerica1000's talk page. Apologies for the delay in responding, but real life got in the way (as it tends to do), and also for the long post, but I want to explain it clearly. Thanks also for the enlightening link to ongoing discussions and collaborations between "Deletioneers" in the "Portal Deletion Squadron" (PDT - what's wrong with hurling back a pejorative term or two when they're launched at Portal defenders relentlessly and usually at random?). The PDT seems to consist of four primary operatives now, BHG, RMcL, NewsH and MarkS, all equally committed to the cause and zealously parroting the standard "party line", of rigorously quoting verbatim the POG sentences about broad topics, large numbers of readers and maintainers, and treating this like they are statements of imperatives: of absolute requirements, whilst conveniently ignoring the obvious ambiguity of the actual wording of "should be" and "likely to". I think I'll stop there or I'll get over-exasperated about the continual misrepresentations and false allegations by the squadron members. I'll probably post a separate set of observations about that issue in due course, or on some portal discussion, at the risk of being labelled a "Portalista", a fantasist, a mendacious dissembler, a purveyor of FUD, a defender of abandoned crud, a user lacking in comprehension skills, a user of Humpty Dumpty English, as only working on portal because they are fun, etc, etc, etc .... Grrr ....

I hope you're still open to having a look at the technical issue as I see it with the Portal Templates. If so, it might be informative to have a look at Portal: Scotland (P:SCO) as I've currently restructured it. Basically it always had a large number of Selected articles, Selected Pictures, Selected quotes etc which were developed or "maintained" over a number of years from approx 2007 - 2012. Then real life took over, as is the way, and upon returning to editing, I was horrified to find WP:ENDPORTALS was in full swing. Then TTH seemed to take up the largely dormant WP:PORT and came up with many interesting ideas, which seemed to have some merit. It was about that time that I first interacted with you ( and came to the observation that you are indeed a "template/Lua guru", despite your modesty). You were most helpful in resolving some of my technical queries. Anyway, long story short, TTH just went berserk with the automated tools and the rest is history. Mass MFD's and a subsequent drip feed of individual ones.

It seemed to me that several common themes, on technical issues, emerged from those discussions:

  • 2. The sheer number of sub-pages and long term maintenance implications;
  • 3. The frequent and numerous appearance of the dreaded "Lua script timeout" error, rendering the Portal in question virtually unusable;
  • 4. Inflexibility of the "purge" mechanism to refresh content. (a two step process every time);


At the time of completion of the two Mega-MFD's by BHG, it was obvious to me that P:SCO suffered from most (if not all) of the above problems. So I resolved to solve them, each in turn:

*1 was relatively easy to solve via use of the Portal Transclusion Templates;
*2. See Later, where the crux of my query lies ...
*3 At the time of starting to re-construct / re-vamp the Portal (approx Feb 2019, I think), I had approx 105 Selected articles, Over 80 Selected pictures, 95 Selected biographies ( I had added these in to ensure "broad" coverage of scope) and 107 Selected Quotes. There was also the addition of 23 panorama header images (rotating capability). for added scope. Needless to say it was a usability nightmare; Error Script central erupted and that was with me using a pretty fast PC with cache cleared between re-loads. Totally unusable for readers. The problem was solved by resorting to a tabbed layout and splitting content equally between tabs. Less than ideal, but workable enough.
*4 I decided to experiment with the random "slideshow mode" of presentation of individual sub-boxes (much the same as was developed for "random Slideshow"). This would obviate the need for a two stage "purge" process, which is very clunky and counter intuitive for new users, who Portals are supposed to cater for. The problem as I saw it was the need for flexibility (in a carefully considered, hand curated set of articles/ images etc). That seemed to be a major theme of the MFD's .The articles I was dealing with ranged from 1-2 line lede sections to pretty comprehensive discussions of the topic (eg Holyrood Palace and the Scottish Reformation and often, images that I felt could be improved upon. The usual method of invoking the template (with selected defined parameters), followed by a list of articles to apply those parameters to ensures that all articles in the list follow the selection of parameters. This results in a selection of unevenly sized article intro's and, often, less than optimal images.

I ended up using transcluded article content on many sub-pages (not ideal, but an improvement). The subpage transclusions specify the paragraph numbers and chosen image individually, to suit the selected article / biography. The wiki mark-up is much along the lines of:

     {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow| paragraphs=| files=| more= 
        | Portal: Scotland/Selected articles/1  
        | Portal: Scotland/Selected articles/2   
        | Portal: Scotland/Selected articles/3
        ETC
        ETC
     }}

What would be useful in my view would be a situation where the relevant parameters can be applied individually to the articles in the list, rather than collectively. In other words picking up the parameters individually from the list of items e.g.: That way the transclusions are directly into the Portal thus eliminating the need for subpages, and each item in the portal-boxes can be equally balanced for size of content and image choice can be more appropriate, rather than a default article one. The wiki mark-up would be much along the lines of:

     {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow| paragraphs=| files=| more= 
        | Scottish Reformation | paragraphs=1-2 | files= SomeNewImage.jpg| more=
        | Doune Castle | paragraphs=2-4 | files=1 |more=
        | Falkirk Wheel | paragraphs=1-3 | files= SomeOtherNewImage.jpg |more=
        ETC
        ETC
     }}

I'm not sure if any of this is possible, but it would be very flexible if it is. I hope that I've explained things clearly, but if not drop me a note and I'll try to clarify. Anything you can do would be greatly appreciated. --Cactus.man 00:04, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for all the hard work, Cactus.man. That's a very clear explanation of the remaining problems.
You've already found the best way to deal with both numerous subpages and vulnerable content forks. (Unfortunately, many portals fixed in that way were reverted on the grounds that they selected topics with the help of a template or category, and most such cases then sailed through MfD with the rationale that the ancient version the nominator just resurrected was junk.) We should avoid cases where someone has hand-crafted a summary that is better than the lead and is diligently maintaining it, but they are few in number and can probably go through the bold-revert-apologise process.
Lua timeouts occur on the Wikimedia server. Browsing on a better PC won't help. One solution involves creating a handful of subpages, as you've already done with Portal:Scotland/Tabs, etc. The subpages are normally generated along with the main page, giving no benefit. However, we can prepare a complex subpage in advance to contain only simply text which can be transcluded quickly. This development is in progress. See Wikipedia:Bot_requests/Archive_79#A_Bot_to_update_Portal's_In_the_news_section, which has applications beyond ITN.
You can add a one-click purge here (Appearance section; third item) but that's a per-user setting. {{Purge box}} appears to flash up a confirmation dialog which goes away without me clicking Yes (and presumably does the purge). If it does the same for you, rather than obeying some clever confirm=no option I set years ago and forgot about, then that could be a way forward.
And finally, on to the meat of your query. Originally we had just {{Transclude lead excerpt}} which displays one article and only needs one set of files=, paragraphs=, etc. Now that multi-article templates use the same module, I agree that one set of parameters may not fit all articles. It should be easy to implement in the module but the template syntax is tricky. I think the example above could be made to work but I don't know of an existing template which handles multiple parameters with identical names, distinguishing them by position, and that technique might well be frowned upon. We also need to distinguish between files= which should apply to all articles (current usage) and files= which should apply only to the last article. One answer is files1= etc. but that involves some counting if only the 37th article needs special treatment and is an accident waiting to happen when someone deletes article 13 without changing the numbers below. The best compromise I can think of is to use an escaped parameter separator within parameters:
     {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow | paragraphs=1-5 | files=1 <!-- defaults apply where not overridden below -->
        | Scottish Reformation{{!}}paragraphs=1-2
        | Doune Castle{{!}}paragraphs=2-4{{!}}files=1
        | Falkirk Wheel{{!}}more=go round again
        | Edinburgh
        | Glasgow
     }}
A less conventional alternative is a single character that can't appear in article titles: one of # < > [ ] | { }. "#" is in use for transcluding a section, angles appear in more=<br> etc., "|" delimits the real parameter and "[" introduces an external link, so reluctantly we're left with "]":
        | Doune Castle]paragraphs=2-4]files=1
That's more concise but totally unintuitive. Better suggestions welcome.
By the way, files= only accepts numbers. Accepting filenames would be a separate enhancement.
Hope that helps, Certes (talk) 10:25, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the detailed reply Certes.
As usual, very helpful and informative. I'll start experimenting with your suggestions and hopefully can get a suitable outcome to eliminate the sub-pages I've just got some further questions / comments:
  • I already have the "one-click purge" set in my preferences, but it has no effect. I still have to manually click the purge button on the rsultant screen. I'm using Firefox and I suspect there's some conflict with one of my extensions, Can't be bothered to troubleshoot to find which one is the culprit (it's normally one that I'm not prepared to do without anyway!).
  • The use of the | escape character looks promising, and I agree that it's preferable to using ]. A quick test suggests to me that the pipe character needs to be included or the template just bypasses the desired listed file. I also seem to be unable to get the articles to accept the alternative escaped parameter. See User:Cactus.man/Sandbox/P-Sco where the following wikitext produces the non-desired results:
          {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow| paragraphs=1-3| files=1| more=
              | Scottish Reformation|{{!}}paragraphs=1
              | Picts|{{!}}files=2
              | Edinburgh{{!}}paragraphs=1
              | Doune Castle
          }}
Scottish reformation still produces paragraphs 1-3, rather than just para 1.
Picts shows file1, rather than 2.
Edinburgh is bypassed completely due to the missing pipe character before the escape character.
Doune displays correctly per the default parameters set in line 1.
Am I making some horrendous schoolboy error, or have I misunderstood your suggestion?
  • Is it correct to assume that the template for file numbers traverses no further than the lede section?. If so, is it possible to search in further sections for images? As an aside, I've been having trouble to select any images at all. The parameter files=1should select the image in the infobox but doesn't. I seem to remember there was some discussion about this on the Wikiproject pages some time ago, but I can't recall the details or what the solution was. Any comments would be helpful.
All the best. --Cactus.man 19:14, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
@Cactus.man: The only mistake you're making is assuming that the Lua code already handles this new syntax, when at the moment it's just an incomplete proposal. Adding {{!}} now breaks things, because the module naively looks for an article called "Scottish Reformation|paragraphs=1", but it's the right syntax and should work later. I'm working on the changes in the sandbox but they're not ready to test yet.
Yes, the template for file numbers traverses no further than the lede section (or whatever section is specified with the Article#Section syntax). Originally the module only supported {{Transclude lead excerpt}}, which does exactly what it says. With some work we could look further for files. For the many pages that currently use a blanket |files=1 and often show no file, that would make new images appear, which may or may not be helpful. Certes (talk) 19:32, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for that, I suspected it would be some sort of cock up on my part. I'll leave you to work on it in peace. Cheers --Cactus.man 19:54, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
@Cactus.man: It's hard to test this change with the slideshow templates, because their /sandbox versions invoke the sandbox version of another module but the original version of the module I'm working on. If you want to look at what I've done so far, you can use the "Transclude ... excerpt/sandbox" templates, e.g.
	{{Transclude selected excerpt/sandbox| paragraphs=1-3| files=1| more=Click here| selected=2
	| 1=Scottish Reformation{{!}}paragraphs=1
	| 2=Picts{{!}}files=2
	| 3=Edinburgh{{!}}paragraphs=1{{!}}more=
	| 4=Doune Castle{{!}}more=Mair...
	}}
in which |selected=2 picks the Picts because it's the second article. The other articles will be ignored unless you change that number.
I've found one limitation of the syntax. |more= resets the "click here for more" text to the default of "Read more...". There's no way to make it disappear only for this article. We can probably live with that. Certes (talk) 20:08, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
The parameter overriding seems to work well - bravo! Hopefully, transferring it to the slideshow version template will be a straightforward exercise. The |more= limitation that you mention won't be an issue for me, I always have it set to the default "Read more" anyway. Keep up the good work :) --Cactus.man 22:03, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
@Cactus.man: I've released the changes. There's one more gotcha: I used |1= etc. in my example above, because I got no output with unnamed parameters. I realised what I was doing wrong: the = in the page option was making them into named parameters, e.g. a parameter called "Scottish Reformation|paragraphs" with value 1. Unnamed parameters do work but you'll need to escape the = signs:
	{{Transclude selected excerpt/sandbox| paragraphs=1-3| files=1| more=Click here| selected=2
	 | Scottish Reformation{{!}}paragraphs{{=}}1
	 | Picts{{!}}files{{=}}2
	 | Edinburgh{{!}}paragraphs{{=}}1{{!}}more{{=}}
	 | Doune Castle{{!}}more{{=}}Mair...
	}}
I've documented the changes in Template:Transclude lead excerpt/doc#Page options etc. but I haven't changed the slideshow documentation: that's another layer that other editors have added on top of the underlying code that I wrote. I hope that does at least some of what you need and will be useful for others. Certes (talk) 11:44, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
@Certes: Thanks so much for doing all this. I think I've got the gist of what needs to be done now - off to experiment. At least I'll be able to transclude articles/ biographies directly into the portal now, maintaining a balanced size of text excerpts and removing the need for sub-pages. I can live with the occasional less than ideal (IMHO) image, so I'll start converting the body of the portal shortly. Hopefully that's even less ammunition for the deletioneers to pounce upon.
As an aside, and not wishing to burden you further, if you have any ideas about how to pass in a named image parameter as opposed to a number, that would be superb. I wont even bother you with my half-baked ideas (all based on a primitive and cringeworthy, rudimentary understanding of programming). Thanks again for all your hard work on this. --Cactus.man 12:30, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
@Cactus.man: I've now added support for a named image parameter. Because a list would be difficult to parse (image names can contain commas, etc.) you can only have one named image file, but it's compatible with the previous enhancement so you can vary it per article with Article{{!}}files{{=}}Myimage.jpg. I'll add that to the documentation. Certes (talk) 13:31, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks Certes, impressively quick work :) Will give it a go. --Cactus.man 16:09, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
@Certes: A quick query: using a custom image works brilliantly, and it places it inside a thumbnail "box" as expected, but there's no caption. Is there any way to add a bespoke caption for custom images too? Thanks. --Cactus.man 19:19, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
@Cactus.man: Yes, though the coding gets a bit intricate. See this demo. Certes (talk) 19:48, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

@Certes:, I've been working through the alternative markup you developed for customising the random slideshow templates for selecting paragraph numbers, custom images and image captions, and things appear to be working pretty well. The only issue I have found is in trying to incorporate internal wikilinks in the custom captions. I've been following the 'Two Banana' flavour for the coding using the caption text as the value of the fileargs parameter. The following code works fine:

    {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow| paragraphs=1-3| files=1| more=
        | Dundee{{!}}files{{=}}The Dundee Law - geograph.org.uk - 63200 (lighter ground).jpg{{!}}fileargs{{=}}The Dundee Law
    }}

But, when I try introducing a wikilink for "Dundee Law" using square brackets, it breaks with an error : Lua error: Unmatched close-bracket at pattern character 22.

Per the code below:

    {{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow| paragraphs=1-3| files=1| more=
        | Dundee{{!}}files{{=}}The Dundee Law - geograph.org.uk - 63200 (lighter ground).jpg{{!}}fileargs{{=}}The [[Dundee Law]]
    }}

Do the square brackets for the link need to be escaped in some way, or is there a simple fix for this? Or have I made another embarrassing Schoolboy error? Any help in these troubled times would be appreciated. I hope you can devote some attention to this, I know it's disheartening when you get continually bad-mouthed as I see has happened again in your case at the recent Proposal_to_delete_Portal_space. Keep up the good work, some of us do appreciate it. --Cactus.man 12:01, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your support. To be honest I only really read the first insult from each editor; I think further attacks say more about them than about me.
[[article]] and [[article|text]] get interpreted before reaching the caption. Like the pipe, they need to be escaped twice: {{((}}!(({{))}}article{{((}}!)){{))}} and {{((}}!(({{))}}article{{((}}!{{))}}text{{((}}!)){{))}}. See {{!((}} for the templates involved. I wonder if we should produce simpler templates for these: something like {{escaped link|article|text}}. Example written out in full:

An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (Malus spp., among them the domestic or orchard apple; Malus domestica). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus Malus. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, Malus sieversii, is still found. Apples have been grown for thousands of years in Eurasia and were introduced to North America by European colonists. Apples have religious and mythological significance in many cultures, including Norse, Greek, and European Christian tradition. (Full article...)

@Certes: WOW! Great stuff, but yes, the coding is becoming very complex. Once I've got my head around the complexity and am comfortable using it, I'll start to introduce it.The only lurking problem I can foresee is that it's in danger of becoming a new rationale for deletion: (Delete overly complex code, likely to discourage possible maintainers from volunteering, leading to future maintenance problems and early abandonment. Yet further evidence that the Portalista's treat Portals as a personal play ground, likely to ultimately lead to another sea of abandoned, crud). God knows, it's likely to make it's way "magically" into WP:POG as a requirement that code should be simple vanilla wiki markup! So I think your suggestion of producing a simpler template is a sound idea. --Cactus.man 21:43, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
@Cactus.man: Good points. I've just knocked together {{Doubly escaped wikilink}}, which simplifies the above example to (edit to see source):

An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (Malus spp., among them the domestic or orchard apple; Malus domestica). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus Malus. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, Malus sieversii, is still found. Apples have been grown for thousands of years in Eurasia and were introduced to North America by European colonists. Apples have religious and mythological significance in many cultures, including Norse, Greek, and European Christian tradition. (Full article...)

Certes (talk) 22:17, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

@Certes: Thanks for this, makes life a lot simpler I think.
Just FYI I amended the template to include a missing parameter 2 of "Yellow fruit" in the example given in Template:Doubly_escaped_wikilink/doc. I think I've understood correctly and the example should read:
{{Doubly escaped wikilink|Banana|Yellow fruit}} → {{!((}}Banana{{!}}Yellow fruit{{!))}} ([[Banana|Yellow fruit]])
Perhaps you should cast an eye over it to make sure It's correct. Thanks --Cactus.man 22:59, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Viewpoints

Greetings Cactus.man: I notice POG still being utilized in various areas of Wikipedia as though if it's still a guideline, after it was demoted as a guideline. Here is my 2 cents:

  • In the event you were not aware of it, this discussion, which was closed on 26 September 2019 (UTC), is specifically what led to POG being demoted from being a guideline. At the discussion, it was determined that "there is clear consensus that the "Portal guidelines" are not, in fact, official guidelines."
  • Below is detailed information regarding why POG was never valid as a guideline in the first place (in my words). I have posted it in collapsed form to keep your talk page tidy.
  • I am surprised to see users on Wikipedia in various areas still referring to it as though if it is a guideline, when in fact, it was never valid as one in the first place.
POG notes
  • At its inception, the page never received actual formal discussion to be enacted as a real English Wikipedia guideline page. There are many reasons why:
  • The gist of the lead for the portal was added subjectively and unilaterally by one user in 2006 (diff), and no discussion appears to have actually occurred about it until relatively recently. Guidelines should be decided upon via consensus, not by a unilateral addition of content from one user. Meantime, the page has been treated as an actual guideline, despite the content being based solely upon one person's opinion, which furthermore, was added to the page at its infancy.
  • Furthermore, the page was shortly thereafter marked as historical (diff), with an edit summary stating, "{{historical}}, not an active proposal per lack of talk page activity; suspect lack of advertisement".
  • After this, and importantly, the historical template was removed (diff), with an edit summary stating, "removed historical tag; this was not intended as a proposed Wikipedia Guideline, but merely guidelines as in advice for portal creators." (Underline emphasis mine).
  • Per the diffs, the page was not even intended as a proposed guideline from the start, and no consensus was ever formed for the content therein. The page was intended from the start as an information page. It's actually rather a farce that the page was somehow converted to a guideline page, because there doesn't appear to be any meaningful discussion leading to that change. It's like someone just slapped the Guideline page template page on it and it just simply stuck thereafter, sans any consensus.
  • Furthermore, the lead of the present WP:POG page is worded as an illogical and bizarre syllogism. Some users have been stating that if a portal does not receive what they deem to be adequate page views or maintenance, then the topic itself is somehow not broad enough. Of course, this standard could not be used anywhere else on Wikipedia, because people would reject this as absurd. For example, the Music article does not receive a great deal of page maintenance, yet the topic itself is obviously broad in scope, both in terms of the topic itself and in terms of the amount of related content available on English Wikipedia. The manner in which this syllogism is worded on the page is subjective and inferior, and has been misused to define topical scope as based upon page views and page maintainers, rather than upon the actual scope of a given topic.

Anyway, just my 2 cents. Any ideas from you regarding the matter would be appreciated, as I appreciate learning from the viewpoints of others. Also, check out my user page for more general portal information and observations, if you'd like. Thanks for your work on Wikipedia. North America1000 18:51, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Greeeeetings back at ya Northamerica1000, thanks for the note.
Yes, I was aware that WP:POG was declared a failed Guideline and of the closure discussion, and that it's never been a valid guideline all along. That's something I've highlighted in my postings to Portal_talk:Australia. It's a view I've held for sometime, an had always believed that the Portal opponents were dishonestly pushing the wording of the guideline as though they were mandatory requirements (repeatedly quoting the key passage word for word, vebatim, as though they were policy). If there's been any "sneakiness" in this whole squalid debacle, that's it right there.
In my view, that wording has always been capable of valid interpretation that large numbers of readers and maintainers is a desirable state, rather than a necessary state, for a Portal to exist. It's a statement of desirability, rather than of imperatives. A Broad subject area can be read into the statement as being an imperative, but not large numbers of readers or maintainers.
It does say after all: " .... should be about a broad subject area, likely to lead to large numbers of ....", and not: " .... a broad subject area, which must lead to large numbers of ....". That's where I would argue, ironically, that it's BHG who has the comprehension deficiency. It could be a reasonable argument to deploy in any deletion review, but the likely success of such a tactic would depend on the strength of any other deletion arguments. I wouldn't bet my house on the outcome of any review. Those are just my initial thoughts, I'll post anything further if it springs to mind.
Anyway, it's good to see that you seem to be hanging on in there, keep up the good work. --Cactus.man 20:15, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

New message from Northamerica1000

Hello, Cactus.man. You have new messages at Portal talk:Australia.
Message added 20:40, 3 November 2019 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

North America1000 20:40, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

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Workshop for the creation of new Portal Guidelines

Hello Cactus.man. There is currently a workshop going on about the creation of a new Portal Guideline: User talk:Scottywong/Portal guideline workspace. Your insights and ideas would be appreciated. --Hecato (talk) 16:32, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

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                                                 Happy holidays

Happy New Year!
Cactus.man,
Have a great 2020 and thanks for your continued contributions to Wikipedia.


   – 2020 is a leap yearnews article.
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Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year 2020}} to user talk pages.

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