Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Northern Ireland

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[edit] Portal:Northern Ireland

This portal has been running now for some months, and the content is reasonably complete. Despite the small number of participants, the portal is reasonably well managed and updated, with more people contributing to it as time passes. Previous issues have been resolved, and the portal has become a useful tool in helping maintain and create articles relating to the subject matter. --Mal 03:00, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

• Object:
  • Archives should be created for all sections that rotate content.
  • A box giving an overview of major topics should be created.
  • Redlinks should be removed from the "Lists" box; it may be worthwhile to merge this into the topic box as well.
  • The "Northern Ireland on Wikipedia" box is self-referential in a rather tacky sort of way; I would suggest removing it entirely.
  • Most importantly, I fail to see any evidence that the content is being rotated to any significant degree. Kirill Lokshin 04:45, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, thanks for your analysis Kirill. I'd like to address your points one-by-one if I may.

• • Archives should be created for all sections that rotate content.

I have now done this.

• • A box giving an overview of major topics should be created.

This was already done, but wasn't included in the Portal. I had used other portals as a guide - specifically those portals relating to the British Isles in order to maintain some level of consistency between these portals. I have now added the topics template to the portal though.

• • Redlinks should be removed from the "Lists" box; it may be worthwhile to merge this into the topic box as well.

There was only one redlink. This was a pending task due to the CfD/AfD of the 3rd of April this year. That redlink is now fixed.

• • The "Northern Ireland on Wikipedia" box is self-referential in a rather tacky sort of way; I would suggest removing it entirely.

I took this idea directly from the Scottish Portal. I thought it was interesting and could possibly be added to. However, the fact that it is self-referring is a good point. I'd like to see other opinions on this.

• • Most importantly, I fail to see any evidence that the content is being rotated to any significant degree.

Besides the point about the 'Northern Ireland on Wiki' box, this remains your only outstanding issue regarding the portal. I'd like to say a few words about that below.

Northern Ireland is a small region, but not one without a lot of history and potential (and already existing) articles. The Wikipedia only has a small number of contributors in comparison to other themes/regions/topics. The Northern Ireland Portal has only a small percentage of that number. While other users have contributed to it, and articles have benefitted from it and from the Northern Irish Wikipedians' notice board (and hopefully will also benefit from the more recently created Northern Irish articles Project), I have been almost solely responsible for the maintainence of the Portal.

This is an almost stupendous task, considering the number of articles and the scope of the portal. And yet this portal seems better maintained, aesthetically pleasing and useful than many other portals.

My recent addition of voting pages and archive pages (taken from the London Portal, and prompted by your own suggestion) should hopefully make it easier to have consistant rotation of material. However, I have decided that the rotation period should be increased from monthly to quarterly, considering the (current) low level of input to the portal.

Hopefully you will reconsider your last point given this explaination of the background of the Portal to date, and that you will also reconsider your objection to making this portal a featured portal, given that other, successful, featured portals appear to be of similar standards. --Mal 20:32, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

From the featured portal criteria: "Any featured portal that requires maintenance and that is not updated for three or more months will be summarily demoted." In my opinion, a portal that cannot effect a change in content any more often than once every three months does not represent Wikipedia's best work, and really shouldn't be featured.

I fail to see, incidentally, why the low level of outside input should be a concern; there's absolutely nothing wrong with just picking the selected articles by fiat. Is it that difficult to find twelve decent articles related to Northern Ireland to use for a rudimentary content rotation? Kirill Lokshin 01:35, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I do think that the featured portal criteria should probably be guidelines more than anything. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then surely it is a duck.

The reason that I think the rotated featured articles cannot be updated any more than once every quarter is because I am the only user who has rotated any content, and I am not always 'active' in Wikipedia for extended periods.

You mention "twelve decent articles". Do you mean that the same twelve should, or could (within the context of featured status), be repeated every year? --Mal 23:01, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

In theory, yes. At the very least, it would give you a year to find more people to help with the updates ;-) ::I would suggest queueing up a few months worth of articles at a one-a-month rate (using subpages); you can consider the issue again once those run out. Kirill Lokshin 00:10, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I can certainly pledge more time to concentrate on NI specific issues, and I see no problem at all in rotating the content every month. A list of articles on the talk page would mean that even if the article chosen every month is not done by vote, people can raise objections to any of the articles at any time, and add their own candidates. Thus, people who only drop by once every so often can still have their say.

I would suggest having a trawl through articles on NI and finding some contributors; there are quite a lot of people who contribute regularly to NI based articles, but who don't seem to be involved in either the NI notice board, or the portal. Dropping them a line on their talk page might be a good idea. This is something I can help with (if anyone else thinks it's the way to go). Martin 15:36, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

The title is almost unreadable against the header color.--ragesoss 22:40, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• Comments -
  • The colors are alittle hard, but I guess that's northern Ireland's colors, green and red, right?
  • I agree, the Northern Ireland on Wikipedia part is to self-refferential.
  • And there doesn't seem to be alot of content available, or accessable. "Potential", yes. But if you can make a tighter update schedule, then it should be ok. Joe I 08:43, 14 July 2006 (UTC)