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

Here's a quicky status report:

Old-style portals: 1,018

Single-page portals: 4,367

Total portals: 5,385

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

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

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

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

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

Get ready...

Get set...

Go!

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

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

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

And the corresponding talk pages:

Until next time,    — The Transhumanist   09:04, 4 February 2019 (UTC)__DTREPLYBUTTONSCONTENT__-->__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2019-02-04T09:04:00.000Z","author":"The Transhumanist","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-The_Transhumanist-2019-02-04T09:04:00.000Z-Keep_up_the_great_work","replies":[]}}-->

AnomieBOT finds deletion sorting pages to process by looking at pages linked from Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Compact. I see the deletion sorting page you were asking about is not listed there. You should add it. Anomie⚔ 12:42, 5 February 2019 (UTC)__DTREPLYBUTTONSCONTENT__-->__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2019-02-05T12:42:00.000Z","author":"Anomie","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-Anomie-2019-02-05T12:42:00.000Z-Re:_Your_email_about_AnomieBOT_deletion_sorting_archiving","replies":[]}}-->

I have added citations from new pages and other online media sites for Vini Viswa Lal. http://www.newindianexpress.com/entertainment/malayalam/2018/aug/14/theevandi-is-not-a-dark-or-preachy-film-vini-vishwa-lal-1857385.html https://in.bookmyshow.com/person/vini-vishwa-lal/28367 https://www.manoramaonline.com/style/yuva/2018/05/31/vini-viswa-lal-on-smoking.html Along with IMDB sites for movies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rajishev (talk • contribs) 07:44, 14 February 2019 (UTC)__DTREPLYBUTTONSCONTENT__-->__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2019-02-14T07:44:00.000Z","author":"Rajishev","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-Rajishev-2019-02-14T07:44:00.000Z-Articles_for_deletion\/Vini_Viswa_Lal","replies":[]}}-->

Where we are at:

Single-page portals: 4,704

Total portals: 5,705

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

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

Here's a link to the dramatic discussion:

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

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

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

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

We're at 5,705 portals and counting.

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

There are 5 drives for portal development:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are two approaches here:

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

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

Or "portal deorphanization"...

Dreamy Jazz Bot is purring along.

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

See below...

Saved portals, are portals with a saved page.

What is the next stage in the evolutionary progression?

Quantum portals.

What are quantum portals?

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

Or, as Pbsouthwood put it:

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

Introducing...

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

...'til next time,    — The Transhumanist   10:27, 14 February 2019 (UTC)__DTREPLYBUTTONSCONTENT__-->__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2019-02-14T10:27:00.000Z","author":"The Transhumanist","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-The_Transhumanist-2019-02-14T10:27:00.000Z-Keep_on_keepin'_on","replies":[]}}-->

dear sir, the word terrorist is fit in that article so why you deleting this word? Indiamerijaan2001 (talk) 11:35, 20 February 2019 (UTC)__DTREPLYBUTTONSCONTENT__-->__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2019-02-20T11:35:00.000Z","author":"Indiamerijaan2001","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-Indiamerijaan2001-2019-02-20T11:35:00.000Z-about_article","replies":["c-Samee-2019-02-20T18:09:00.000Z-Indiamerijaan2001-2019-02-20T11:35:00.000Z"]}}-->

Indiamerijaan2001, I mentioned it in edit summary but you did not while reinstating. Your similar edit was also reverted here for not conforming to Wikipedia norms.  samee  converse  18:09, 20 February 2019 (UTC)__DTREPLYBUTTONSCONTENT__-->__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2019-02-20T18:09:00.000Z","author":"Samee","type":"comment","level":2,"id":"c-Samee-2019-02-20T18:09:00.000Z-Indiamerijaan2001-2019-02-20T11:35:00.000Z","replies":[]}}-->

Hi Samee. I was surprised to see that the suggested move from Sinhalese script to Sinhala script was declined. My understanding is that comments are not votes, and that arguments should be considered on their merits.

From Wikipedia:Requested moves#Requesting controversial and potentially controversial moves:

The discussion process is used for potentially controversial moves. The move is potentially controversial if any of the following apply:

• There is an existing article (not just a redirect) at the target title;
• There has been any past debate about the best title for the page;
• Someone could reasonably disagree with the move.

[...]

Requesting a single page move

[...]

Note: Unlike other request processes on Wikipedia, such as RfC, nominations need not be neutral. Make your point as best you can; use evidence (such as Ngrams and pageview statistics) and refer to applicable policies and guidelines, especially our article titling policy and the guideline on disambiguation and primary topic.

Points 2 & 3 apply here. The article has previously been called each of "Sinhala alphabet", "Sinhala script", "Sinhalese alphabet", and "Sinhalese script".

My evidence was drawn from aggregate data on Google's Ngrams. The oppose views were based on personal preference, anecdotal evidence, and selective data, e.g. using a single page from Encyclopaedia Britannica, when the aggregate data from Encyclopaedia Britannica does not support the argument.

From Wikipedia:Requested moves#Commenting in a requested move:

When participating, please consider the following:

• Editors should make themselves familiar with the article titling policy at Wikipedia:Article titles.
• Other important guidelines that set forth community norms for article titles include Wikipedia:Disambiguation, specific naming conventions, and the manual of style.
• The debate is not a vote; please do not make recommendations that are not sustained by arguments.
• Explain how the proposed article title meets or contravenes policy and guidelines rather than merely stating that it does so.

The debate is not a vote; many users did not "explain how the proposed article title meets or contravenes policy and guidelines rather than merely stating that it does so".

From Wikipedia:Article titles#English-language titles:

On the English Wikipedia, article titles are written using the English language. However, it must be remembered that the English language contains many loan words and phrases taken from other languages. If a word or phrase (originally taken from some other language) is commonly used by English language sources, it can be considered to be an English language word or phrase (example: coup d'état).

The English language names of some topics may differ according to how names are anglicized from other languages, or according to different varieties of English (e.g. American English, British English, Australian English, etc.).

Foreign names and anglicization

Shortcuts

• WP:UE
• WP:TRANSLITERATE

Further information: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)

The choice between anglicized and local spellings should follow English-language usage, e.g. the non-anglicized titles Besançon, Søren Kierkegaard, and Göttingen are used because they predominate in English language reliable sources, whereas for the same reason the anglicized title forms Nuremberg, Delicatessen, and Florence are used (as opposed to Nürnberg, Delikatessen, and Firenze, respectively).

The word "Sinhala" is "commonly used by English language sources", so "it can be considered to be an English language word". The non-anglicized "Sinhala" also "predominates in English language reliable sources".

From Wikipedia:Article titles#Considering changes:

Changing one controversial title to another without a discussion that leads to consensus is strongly discouraged. If an article title has been stable for a long time, and there is no good reason to change it, it should not be changed. Consensus among editors determines if there does exist a good reason to change the title. If it has never been stable, or it has been unstable for a long time, and no consensus can be reached on what the title should be, default to the title used by the first major contributor after the article ceased to be a stub.

It was called "Sinhala alphabet" first and has been "Sinhala alphabet" longer than any other name, and the consensus from a previous move request was that "script" is more appropriate than "alphabet". No consensus was reached, so it should have defaulted to "Sinhala alphabet", and then by the previous consensus to "Sinhala script".

Danielklein (talk) 06:44, 24 February 2019 (UTC)__DTREPLYBUTTONSCONTENT__-->__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2019-02-24T06:44:00.000Z","author":"Danielklein","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-Danielklein-2019-02-24T06:44:00.000Z-Closure_of_suggested_move","replies":["c-Samee-2019-02-26T12:44:00.000Z-Danielklein-2019-02-24T06:44:00.000Z"]}}-->

@Danielklein: You may file a review at WP:MR but I see you've started another move discussion at Sinhalese language.  samee  converse  12:44, 26 February 2019 (UTC)__DTREPLYBUTTONSCONTENT__-->__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2019-02-26T12:44:00.000Z","author":"Samee","type":"comment","level":2,"id":"c-Samee-2019-02-26T12:44:00.000Z-Danielklein-2019-02-24T06:44:00.000Z","replies":["c-Danielklein-2019-02-27T03:12:00.000Z-Samee-2019-02-26T12:44:00.000Z"]}}-->

The only legitimate reason I could see for declining the move request was because it didn't also cover Sinhala language, so I started another move request covering both articles. I'm now wondering if there should be a naming policy for the Sinhala language (and Sinhalese people), as random users have in the past bypassed the discussion phase and changed the article names without consultation and going against the decision of the previous consensus. Danielklein (talk) 03:12, 27 February 2019 (UTC)__DTREPLYBUTTONSCONTENT__-->__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2019-02-27T03:12:00.000Z","author":"Danielklein","type":"comment","level":3,"id":"c-Danielklein-2019-02-27T03:12:00.000Z-Samee-2019-02-26T12:44:00.000Z","replies":[]}}-->

February

The Hidden Valley, Negev
... with thanks from QAI

Thank you for article improvements in February! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:32, 28 February 2019 (UTC)__DTREPLYBUTTONSCONTENT__-->__DTELLIPSISBUTTON__{"threadItem":{"timestamp":"2019-02-28T13:32:00.000Z","author":"Gerda Arendt","type":"comment","level":1,"id":"c-Gerda_Arendt-2019-02-28T13:32:00.000Z-we_thank_you","replies":[]}}-->