Portal talk:Geography

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This talk page is for the Portal about Geography. Ensure this portal's details are listed in the Portal directory.
For discussion about Portals generally, please see the WikiProject on Portals.
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[edit] To do

  • Put in every country.
  • Put in a stub geography articles section.
Other languages This portal has been identified as having a featured counter-part at the French language Wikipedia. You may be able to improve this article with information from fr:Portail:Géographie.

Contents

[edit] New start page

As you can all see I added the portal.. Do you think this is a good idea? I quite like it, with the warning at the top, makes the page more interesting. Otherwise it's just a bunch of topics with a definition of geography at the top. Obviously it still needs quite a bit of work and we can learn from all the other portals. I recommend that we scout around and find the best features of others and then try to copy them in improving the portal. --komencanto 08:26, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wrong Greek word

The alternative word for γη is not γεια (which is the equivalent of "hello" in Greek) but γαια. Would someone with authority in this portal be as kind as to correct it?--Bill the Greek 07:42, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Done - --komencanto 11:33, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Revamped

In order to get the edit buttons in I used a different template on top of this one. It's easier to work with anyway. --komencanto 13:49, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Formatting

Most of the sections are on one side with a big blank on the other side. Why is it formatted this way? Brianjd | Why restrict HTML? | 09:32, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree, the width of this portal is too wide for most screens and doesn't fit as well as the others. I can't see what on the right hand side is forcing the right-hand column to not fit into its allocated space. Davidbod 22:37, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Brian was commenting on a previous version of this portal. I reformatted it in late December. I'm not sure what you meant by your first sentence, however. --cj | talk 07:55, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Broken language links

Two language links that used to look OK now just have question marks. Brianjd | Why restrict HTML? | 09:45, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Link to Geography Project

Should this be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_WikiProjects#Geography?

[edit] Template:Geography portal/Where to start

While looking for something else in the Template namespace, I found Template:Geography portal/Where to start. It is is unused, it should be deleted (probably through WP:TFD). BlankVerse 12:11, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

== Iron catastrophe needs improvement ==

[edit] Wikipedia:Science collaboration of the week

Physical oceanography is a current candidate on the Science collaboration. Vote for it if you want to see this article improved. --Fenice 07:18, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Core topics

Hello. I'm part of Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Core topics working toward a release version of Wikipedia (on paper or CD).

If you're interested in helping, these are some related articles we plan to include:

Antarctica is a Featured Article candidate.

If you think these are ready, please let us know. You can see our proposed initial quality standards or learn more about the overall project.

Thanks.

[edit] Portal:Oceania

I've put down some thoughts about this proposed portal at Portal talk:Oceania. Please come and comment.-gadfium 03:17, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I created Category:Portal:Oceania to match the subcategorization of the other geography portals. —Doug Bell talk•contrib 00:38, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Portal:Central Valley

I've begun work on this portal and would like feedback, especially regarding standards for geography portals. Thanks so much. Elijahmeeks 01:07, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I renamed the portal to Portal:California Central Valley because Central Valley was too ambiguous (this also now matches the article California Central Valley.) —Doug Bell talk•contrib 08:27, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
I noticed that. The difficulty, of course, with referring to it as the California Central Valley is that no one who lives there does so. It is referred to as 'The Central Valley' or 'The Great Central Valley' or one of the two specific valleys that make it up. I didn't want to do harm, as it were, to the locals by calling it the "California Central Valley" but there needed to be some kind of disambiguation done. Thanks for that and, especially, for the IE6 formatting. Elijahmeeks 17:11, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
You can change the name to something else if you like, but I have to warn you that renaming a portal page is a pain because you have to rename all the subpages. I was originally going to name it Portal:Central Valley in California, but decided to go with the name on the current article, assuming that that name must have consensus. But despite living in California (in San Diego), when I saw the name "Central Valley" I had to look at the portal to tell for certain if it was the California Central Valley—the page name really needs to include "California" to establish context. And no problem with the IE6 fix—I've fixed about 100 portal pages already since the problem was in the template used to create the pages. There's probably about 100 left to fix. —Doug Bell talk•contrib 19:44, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I don't believe this portal should exist at all. It is far too narrow a topic for a portal to cover. Rather, the Central Valley could/should be covered under a Portal:California. That state actually needs a portal when you consider that there are portals for Texas and even Utah.--cj | talk 00:25, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree about the need for a Portal:California, but a key requirement for a portal page is someone willing to take responsibility for creating and maintaining it. I don't see a problem with having the Portal:California Central Valley portal and hopefully at somepoint it will become a subportal for Portal:California. Certainly, given that there are portals on individual cities, having a portal cover the Central Valley, an area larger than many states, doesn't seem to be too narrowly focused. —Doug Bell talk•contrib 00:35, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggest deleting Category:Portal:Americas and reorganizing

I think Category:Portal:Americas should be removed from the hierarchy and replaced with Category:Portal:North America and Category:Portal:South America. This is the only place in the geography portal hierarchy where two continents are grouped into a subcategory. It's also the only top-level geography portal category without a main portal page, and I'm not sure it makes sense to create Portal:Americas.

Doing this would require the following:

  • Move the North American countries in Category:Portal:Latin America into Category:Portal:North America and adding these countries to Portal:North America.
  • Rename Category:Portal:Latin America to Category:Portal:South America (including moving the portals to the new category name).
  • Put Portal:Caribbean in Category:Portal:North America.
  • Put Portal:Latin America in both Category:Portal:North America and Category:Portal:South America.
  • Create Portal:South America and Category:Portal:South America.
  • Delete Category:Portal:Americas and Category:Portal:Latin America.
  • Add Category:Americas to both Category:Portal:North America and Category:Portal:South America.
  • Add Category:South America to Category:Portal:South America.

Doing this stays with the geographic basis for organization rather than using a socio-political basis.

One option when doing this would be to keep Category:Portal:Latin America in addition to the above, but I would recommend against this.

—Doug Bell talk•contrib 22:40, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I've begun going through portals, looking at ones that seems no one is regularly maintaining, and making updates. With the portals now linked prominently on the main page, it's important that they be useful as a topic-oriented guide to topics with subportal, category, and article links, as well as featured content. With that in mind, I recently spent some time on Portal:North America and added links to all North American countries and territories, including those in the Caribbean and some that are in Latin America. Your suggested changes are all consistent with what I'm doing and I fully support your proposal. -Aude (talk | contribs) 22:47, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Version 1.0 project

I've started a page to work toward advancing geography entries for an eventual release version. It's at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Geography. Maurreen 03:04, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Place-specific collaborations

These might be worthing putting on the portal page.

Geography and places:

Maurreen 18:43, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Featured picture

I have set up the featured picture to rotate new pictures each week now, and queued them up through the end of June. The pictures are at Portal:Geography/Featured picture archive. The next step is to set up a queue for featured articles. -Aude (talk | contribs) 18:41, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Featured items & GAs

I have listed all the geography featured items & GAs at Wikipedia Gazetteer. Maurreen 08:15, 9 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] This page has won an award

This was recieved on OTRS (ticket #2006071410015971) Raul654 02:23, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

From: "Mr Raven-Ellison" (email address removed)
To: Jimbo Wales (email address removed)
Cc: (email address removed)
Subject: Excellence Award for Wikipedia
Created: 07/14/2006 23:30:37

Dear Mr Wales,

We are delighted to write to tell you that Wikipedia has been nominated for and awarded a 'Giving Geography its Place' Award.

This award is given only to those companies and organisations that recognise the value of geography and use its language and concepts within the promotion and marketing of goods and services. The award is given in recognition of best practice in the use and promotion of geography. In the case of Wikipedia it is for the excellent Geography Portal.

Who receives an award and permission to display the 'Giving Geography its Place' logo is decided by professional geographers who are involved in the grassroots 'Give Geography its Place' (G.G.i.P.) Campaign. The purpose of this campaign is to encourage the media to label geography programmes and articles, employ commissioning editors for geography as they do in other subject areas and to recognise the value of geography in the national curriculum. You can find out more about the campaign at www.passion4geography.co.uk and we would like to encourage you to promote this website. If you are interested in supporting the campaign financially please do contact us with your thoughts. We are also developing a list of high profile people and companies that support and value geography education. If you would like to join this list please let us know.

The understanding of modern geography is vital to the stable and sustainable development of our communities and the environments in which we live. Many of the most pressing issues of the day including sustainable development, climate change, trade, poverty, migration, aging populations, water shortages, happiness and conservation to name a few, are best understood through the study of geography. It is for this reason that the campaign is especially pleased that Wikipedia has been given this award.

We would be grateful if you would contact us with an email address to which we can send you copies of the G.G.i.P. Award logo suitable for web and print publication. In the meantime I would like to congratulate you again and encourage you to keep using, promoting and spreading the word for geography.


Yours faithfully,

Daniel Raven-Ellison
David Rayner
Campaign Founder & Head of Geography Campaign Founder & Head of Geography

[edit] formatting to match other main portals

I think the outside border of this portal should be removed, so that all the browsbar portals are consistent. When surfing from portal to portal with the browsebar, this is the only portal that downshifts the browsebar, and it is slightly jarring.--ragesoss 02:15, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

OK with me. Maurreen 04:41, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

you could reduce the border a bit.

[edit] Portal:Atlas

please note Portal:Atlas and my concerns about it. dab (ᛏ) 11:20, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes it's redundant with Commons:Atlas. --de:Benutzer:Kolossos

[edit] Wikipedia-World

Hello, please take a look at: de:Wikipedia:WikiProjekt_Georeferenzierung/Wikipedia-World/en there we have also a international map (around Tokio)

I hope we can found on this way a contact to the english community. Greeting de:Benutzer:Kolossos

[edit] GFDL

Would any contributors to Geography articles be willing to send DMCA takedown notices for Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks? Creekin.net is violating the GFDL. There's more information at that link, but it would be great if one of you could send a takedown and log it there. We have a template for this at Wikipedia:Standard_GFDL_violation_letter#PD_DMCA_takedown_notices. Let me know if you have questions. Superm401 - Talk 00:49, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cities of the world

Is there any interest here to include a list of the world's capitol cities? I am currently trying to prioritize improving them all on WikiProject Cities Alan.ca 23:42, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dominican Republic

Hello. Just wanted to ask if there is some new administrative division of the Dominican Republic or edits like this: [1] from this user [2] is just sneaky vandalism. Thank you. - Darwinek 10:18, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Underwater Lake

This is a question I hope some Marine Oceanographer might know. Awhile back I saw a documentary about the top ten most amazing ocean discoveries and one of them had to do with an underwater lake discovered. I'm not 100% sure but I think it was discovered in a tropical climate (I'm positive it is in the ocean and not a lake with in a lake). This 'underwater lake' was comprised of a different chemical more dense than water. The most fascinating part of it was that it had shores with tidal activity. Along its shores was a variety of marine life. I found an article about Carbon Dioxide Lakes but its not it. Does anyone know more about this 'underwater lake', where I might be able to find out more about it, and ideally some pictures? Thanks a bunch, I know its kind of vague but I think you guys can do it! Mkdwtalk

[edit] Recent policy changes limiting primary sources

There have been recent changes in the merging of WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:RS into WP:ATT, along with related changes at WP:N. One thing that may affect geographic projects is the tightening of the requirement for multiple secondary sources for all articles. Many geographic articles are created from a single primary source like census data or topo maps. Technically, this would subject these articles to deletion. If you have not checked these policies lately, you should. And be sure to check the supporting discussions. Remember WP policies and guidelines are supposed to incorporate a broad consensus. Dhaluza 20:22, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't see anything at Wikipedia:Attribution that prevents an article from referencing only primary sources. Anyway, it is trivial to find a commercial map that shows the place (most location articles already have several such maps linked in the external links), so the "threat" has no teeth. --NE2 21:35, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Also look at WT:ATT and WT:N and check the edit histories to see what people are trying to include, particularly the recent WP:N edit war prior to protection. Dhaluza 21:53, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm not looking at notability, since that's not a policy, but attribution explicitly allows "descriptive claims that can be checked by anyone without specialist knowledge" from primary sources. --NE2 22:07, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
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