Portal talk:Tropical cyclones

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This talk page is for the Portal about Tropical cyclones. Ensure this portal's details are listed in the Portal directory. For discussion about Portals generally, please see the WikiProject on Portals.

The Tropical cyclones Portal is a featured portal, which means it has been identified as one of the best portals on Wikipedia. If you see a way this portal can be updated or improved without compromising previous work, please feel free to contribute.

	This page is within the scope of WikiProject Tropical cyclones, which collaborates on tropical cyclones and related subjects on Wikipedia. To participate, help improve this article or visit the project page for details.
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Subpages: Selected article, Selected picture, Anniversaries

Contents 1 Beginnings... 2 Inter-linking 3 Sections 3.1 Intro 3.2 Selected articles 3.3 Selected picture 3.4 News 3.5 Things you can do 3.6 Categories 3.7 Wikiprojects 3.8 Tropical Cyclone Coloboration of the Week? 4 Move to Portal:Tropical cyclones? 5 Suggestion 6 TC Clare updating 7 Featured 8 Featured article editing 9 Selected picture 10 DYK template 11 Template:Infobox_hurricane 12 Dvorak Technique 13 Rapid deepening 14 Selected Articles/Pictures 15 Importance 16 Suggestion for the Categories box 17 Some suggestions for "Did you know" section 18 Anniversaries? 19 Pictures on this page 20 Merger of news and active cyclones

[edit] Beginnings...

So how does this work? What goes in each place and how do we decide on it? Hurricanehink 16:19, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

The sections are fairly self-explanatory. Essentially, this works like the Wiki main page except only dealing with tropical cyclones. - Cuivienen 20:49, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I filled it out with some sensible info; surely more work could be done. I also removed the "Did you know" and "How can I help" sections for now since I didn't have anything for them, and moved the categories from the left to the right box. In summary, the portal should now be functional! Jdorje 02:35, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

What about links (somewhere) to the active seasons i the different bassins?

Indeed. I added this to the "Active systems" section. Jdorje 18:25, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Inter-linking

It seems to me that {{tcportal}} should be included in the "See also" sections of most or all TC articles. I started by adding it to 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, and it fits in pretty well. Jdorje 05:37, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Go ahead, only that I would prefer if you used {{portalpar|Tropical Cyclones}}, since it seems less "vain". Titoxd^{(?!? - did you read this?)} 05:51, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, {{tcportal}} is just a wrapper for it...but I thought it would be useful to be able to see the articles that link to it, and potentially someday to change the icon (I'm not sure if the {{portalpar}} icon somehow signals a portal, but it means nothing to me). Jdorje 06:04, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Or if we decide to rename it to Portal:Tropical cyclones! Jdorje 00:28, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sections

[edit] Intro

The intro now contains the exact text from the summary for the tropical cyclone article. Jdorje 05:37, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Selected articles

The Selected article section was moved here. Hurricanehink (talk) 00:36, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Selected picture

The selected picture section was moved here. Hurricanehink (talk) 00:36, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] News

Having a look at the Astronomy Portal's News page, I see that they offer a Current events-like display. Perhaps we should do something like that too? Titoxd^{(?!? - did you read this?)} 02:59, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Curiously, I too wasjust looking at the Astronomy Portal. However I think their News and Events lists should be separate boxes - as I have made our Active Storms and News sections. We'll have to see if the news section evolves to be more "news" or "events" - currently I added only the end of the AHS which is really a bit of both. Jdorje 03:16, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, if 2006 ends up being like this year, then it probably will be more of an "event" section. Titoxd^{(?!? - did you read this?)} 03:18, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Things you can do

I think the "Things you can do" section should be moved into the wikiproject. The portal should be for readers, not editors. Jdorje 03:26, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

True, but on the main page, the readers (who can also be editors) can see what articles can be made. I just based it off another Portal I watch, The Simpsons. Hurricanehink 03:35, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Whenever a new article is created and moved off of the "requests" list, it should probably be moved onto the copyedit list. In fact, there are a lot of articles that should go onto the copyedit list. Jdorje 19:22, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Copyedited Nova Scotia Cyclone of 1873 and removed it from To Do. DavidH 03:17, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Categories

I restructured the categories a bit, and filled out the "categories" part of the portal. I think it should be fairly useful for browsing...and the categories themselves are surprisingly complete. Jdorje 05:37, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikiprojects

IMO this box is too small to be useful. It should be merged into (or replace) "Things you can do". Jdorje 05:37, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Tropical Cyclone Coloboration of the Week?

Should there be a coloboration of the week, sort of like the real one? I am doing this on my own, but we could make it a bigger project. So far, Floyd has been an example of this. Compare the current version of that verses this version before Jdorje and I worked on it. Given that it took a month long, perhaps it could be bi-weekly. Anyone interested? Hurricanehink 19:29, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move to Portal:Tropical cyclones?

Why is the "C" capitalized? Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Lowercase second and subsequent words says that it shouldn't be. My recommendation is to move it to Portal:Tropical cyclones. Portal:Artificial intelligence doesn't have the "I" capitalized, and note that our WP article on this is at Tropical cyclone and not Tropical Cyclone (which is a redirect). If there's no dissent, I'll be bold and do it myself. Blackcap (talk) 00:47, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Basically the C is capitalized to match Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical Cyclones. If one is to be changed, they both should be...and there will be a lot of redirecting to fix (fortunately we make heavy use of templates, like {{tcportal}}, so it won't be as much as it otherwise would). Don't change it unless you're willing to change it ALL. Jdorje 00:50, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm willing. I'd best wait a wee bit to get more opinions, though. Blackcap (talk) 00:53, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm going to go post on the WikiProject page to see what they have to say. Blackcap (talk) 00:54, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

O.K., I'm a-moving it now. Blackcap (talk) ^{(vandalfighters, take a look)} 00:31, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

O.K.! It's been moved, the templates have been changed, the infoboxes have been moved, it's been de-capitalized, and there are no double redirects according to Special:Whatlinkshere/Portal:Tropical cyclones. If I've not done something or I've done domething wrong, please tell me: AFAIK, though, it's all taken care of. Blackcap (talk) ^{(vandalfighters, take a look)} 01:19, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion

I think that tropical cyclones are too narrow a subject for a portal, which is, after all, supposed to be about a 'broad topic area'. Might the maintainers of this portal consider broadening it to a meteorology portal? We don't have one of those, and I think it would appeal to a much larger audience. Worldtraveller 19:48, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I think a meteorology portal might be a good idea, but I don't think tropical cyclones is too narrow. There's a portal on Pokemon. ;) --Patteroast 18:01, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I think that a portal should cover a subject area, not a specific phenomenon. For example, portal:astronomy is good, portal:solar eclipses would be bad. I don't think there should be a Pokemon portal either - in fact, probably half of the currently existing portals should never have been created. A meteorology portal would be much more useful than a tropical cyclones portal, I have to say. Worldtraveller 23:53, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

There are many hundreds of articles about tropical cyclones on wikipedia. I don't think a portal is too narrow. That said, I have nothing against a meteorology portal, and if one were created this portal might eventually merge with it. Jdorje 20:24, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Very true. There is tropical cyclone data dating back centuries, and there is still plenty of room to expand. This is broad enough for all realms of the tropics, though a portal on meteorology couldn't hurt. Hurricanehink 20:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I just stumbled across the weather portal, so there is one, but it unfortunately has no link to Hurricane/Tropical cyclone articles. (?). On the subject of whether tropical cylone is a broad enough tropic for a portal, I say yes. To millions of people on the east and gulf coasts of the U.S., the Caribbean, Mexico, etc., this subject area is 10 billion times more important than solar eclipses and astronomy. DavidH 12:51, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] TC Clare updating

I'm having trouble getting the Active storms section to say Tropical Cyclone Clare under the 2005-02 SHTCS heading. Could someone help? Thanks. -- Sarsaparilla39 06:34, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Nevermind, it works. :D -- Sarsaparilla39 06:41, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Featured

From the What is a featured portal:

Start Copying:

A featured portal should have the following attributes:

1. It should exemplify our very best work, representing Wikipedia's unique qualities on the Internet.
2. It should showcase the best of Wikipedia's content for a particular area and encourage contribution to that area.
3. It should be useful, attractive, ergonomical, and well-maintained:
   • Useful: A useful portal is one which covers a topic area which is both broad and of interest to users of Wikipedia. Portals that cover only minor topic areas are hindered in their usefulness because the content they can cover is usually limited. A featured portal should cover an area that is broad and prominent enough to justify the portal as an entry-point. As portals should promote the best of Wikipedia's content, featured portals should be selective in what they display. They should showcase only high quality content, which should preferably be already featured. Content does not have to be featured, but it must be high quality.
   • Attractive: An attractive portal is one which displays Wikipedia content in an æsthetically pleasing manner. Colours should be coherent and complimentary, and should not detract from the content. Featured portals must not have formatting faults. Red links must be restricted to only contribution-encouraging aspects, and limited at that.
   • Ergonomical: An ergonomical portal is a one which is coherently constructed, so as to display Wikipedia content in a logical and effective manner. To this extent, featured portals should be structured in a way that, as well as being logical, should enhance its usefulness and attractiveness. The display of Wikipedia content should be a featured portals foremost aim, and encouraging contribution secondary.
   • Well-maintained: A well-maintained portal is one which is updated regularly so that the portal can be utilised to display different aspects of Wikipedia content within a particular topic area. For this reason, featured portals may be designed to reduce the frequency with which a portal needs to be updated. However, featured portals may also be designed to have a higher turn-over of content with structures to ensure regular updates (ie, WikiProjects). Any featured portal that requires maintenance and that is not updated for three or more months will be summarily demoted.
4. It should adhere to the standards set out in the Manual of Style and relevant WikiProjects. This includes conventions on naming, spellings and styles.
5. It should have images where appropriate, with good captions and acceptable copyright status.
6. It should not be self-referential. This means that a featured portal should not speak of itself beyond (if at all) a welcome note. Aspects of portal which encourage content may be self-referential.

End Copying

Perhaps we should try to get this portal featured? Well maintained is to be determined, BTW. Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 19:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that we have a great chance. It's going to become very-well maintained after the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season starts, and interest picks up again. I'd suggest nominating it, but looking at Portal:Cricket as an example of what the portal should be. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 05:27, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I was a bit bold and added a new color scheme. The only thing that we're "missing" is an article tree, like Portal:Weather/Articles, but we're fine outside of that. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 00:20, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the categories provide a perfectly satisfactory article tree. Jdorje 01:07, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

So, do you want to try to make it the first Featured science portal? Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 21:26, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Let us try! Siva1979^{Talk to me} 19:38, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Featured article editing

When one clicks the "edit" thingy on the featured article heading bar, it takes one to the editing page for Hurricane Floyd, when the current Portal FA is the '94 Hurricane Gordon. Why is it so, and can someone fix it? I merely mention because the bolded Gordon link goes to a disambiguation page when it is clear this is not intended. Thanks. -- Sarsaparilla39 10:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Oops, I forgot to manually update the link. That has been fixed now. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 02:47, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Selected picture

This portal needs one for March ASAP.--cj | talk 09:46, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Help! I tried doing it, but I messed up. The link is to here. Any help would be appreciated, as it is needed now. Hurricanehink 13:54, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean you want to put it as the portal's featured image? Funnybunny 21:14, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry, the problem is over. Hurricanehink 21:19, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DYK template

I have created a template for the articles in the DYK column. I thought we needed it to have the articles be recognized after being removed from the column. It can be viewed at User:Icelandic Hurricane/Sandbox until it has the ok to be used. Please give me your opinions on this. Icelandic Hurricane #12 22:06, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Infobox_hurricane

...is broken. It is adding all articles including it to the category "Incomplete Hurricane Infoboxes". I have looked at it for a long time and cannot see what is broke. TimL 23:19, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

The break was in {{Hurricane status}}, which Infobox Hurricane depends on. It's fixed now.--Nilfanion (talk) 23:33, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dvorak Technique

I created an article for the Dvorak technique. Have a look. Fix my mistakes. :) TimL 03:37, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rapid deepening

I see that article in the copyedit list, please see my comments on the talk page there. TimL 15:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Selected Articles/Pictures

The nomination section above is starting to get awkward to follow and will only get worse as time goes on. I think we should create a subpage for that.--Nilfanion (talk) 17:13, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I got it. Hurricanehink (talk) 00:36, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Importance

I assigned the portal a No-class importance. Its either that or Top-class; I'm not sure which makes more sense. Any ideas?--Nilfanion (talk) 10:47, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Do portals get importance ratings? If they do, this is surely Top-class. --Coredesat talk. o.o;; 18:56, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Now that I've had a few months, I've removed the importance rating. Only articles get importance ratings - portals aren't articles. --Coredesat 02:31, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion for the Categories box

An update to MediaWiki has allowed this - <categorytree>Tropical cyclones</categorytree>, which produces:

Just suggesting an update to your portal, but I won't make such an update myself, since I'm not involved here. - Trevor MacInnis (Contribs) 15:03, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some suggestions for "Did you know" section

I know I'm new here so I don't want to be too bold. However, I do have some thoughts. We should have a Did you know archive so that we can keep track of factoids which have dropped off so we don't repeat the same thing twice(or maybe perhaps we want to 'recycle' periodically so that we have a fresh supply rotating into the mix. I have created the page here and will be going through the history section of the archive in the next couple of days and populating it based on "old" entries. Also why only 4 Dyk factoids at once ? There's all that room on the left side and we're saving it for ...blank space ? I suggest increasing it to maybe 6, perhaps more. I know whenever I browse Portals, the first thing I usually go to is the "Did you know..." section (I'm a trivial geek). Maybe even lengthen the factoids. Each one doesn't have to be a long article, but 4 or 5 lines is not overkill. Jcam 16:16, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Interesting idea, but currently we only put new articles on the DYK. What does everyone think? Should we include random trivia from articles in here, or just reserve it for new articles like the main page? Hurricanehink (talk) 16:18, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Right now it's only updated with bits that pass the main DYK (and make it to the front page). I think all WPTC nominations for DYK, regardless of whether they make it to the front pagee, should go here. With our current rate of new articles it shouldn't be difficult to get three to four new DYKs here a month. – Chacor 16:21, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

What are your thoughts on increasing the number of Dyk bits from 4 to 6 ? Jcam 16:42, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anniversaries?

Many of the sections in the portal are similar to those on Wikipedia's main page. The one significant absence is the On this day section. However, we could add that - August 29 giving Katrina for example. We may struggle to find interesting facts for every day, but does it sound like a good idea?--Nilfanion (talk) 19:46, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Great idea. I started a subpage, as it would be very long if it was on here. Hurricanehink (talk) 20:24, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

If we struggle to find interesting facts for each day, perhaps we should do an "This week in hurricane history" section instead? Doing it for the each day would result in a dis-proportionate number of Atlantic anniversaries. Doing a week might make it easier (and we can of course have more than one). Miss Madeline | Talk to Madeline 00:45, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I think I know a good way to do this - but we need more points. As for the Atlantic bias, thats inevitable as the Atlantic is the most monitored basin and has the most complete records. We should make an effort to look for Typhoons of note though (this exercise may give us ideas for articles...)--Nilfanion (talk) 17:11, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I've done the first pass. There are 211/366 done, this includes just about all significant TCs and any storm with an article (including recent Atl TSs). There are many, many free dates still and as most off-season Atlantic storms get articles, these will mainly be non-Atlantic storms - I don't think it will be biased.--Nilfanion (talk) 01:07, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

And now its up and running. It gives the anniversary for the current date and the 4 previous days, with a picture for today's event if available and auto-updates at 0000 UTC. Many of the events are not particularly significant, but if you find a more significant event feel free to change it; a minor event is better than nothing. Comments?--Nilfanion (talk) 19:41, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Good work. Hurricanehink (talk) 19:43, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I will help find some storms for months between December and March, particularly Southern Hemisphere storms. Is that okay with you? RaNdOm26 15:22, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, most of the dates are filled out now; check the subpage. Its better to have a minor storm with a mention on wikipedia than a retired one without it. But then... the more added to the subpages the better (thats nasty work).--Nilfanion (talk) 23:42, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures on this page

It seems to me that the pictures here are very mundane, including only satellite pictures of tropical cyclones. It should have some variety, maybe damage pictures or in-storm photography or even radar imagery. Just a thought. -Runningonbrains 19:57, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The portal header has a picture of a cyclone thats reasonable. The anniversaries have pics when possible - and satellite pictures are generally avoided when possible there. The picture for the selected article should be of the storm itself (when its a storm article); it is probably preferential to use a radar pic there simply to give a bit of variety. The only real location we can use a different variety of pic given the bias towards storm articles at the higher quality grades. I've raised it before on the picture talk and suceeded in stopping the satellite pics for a while, but we are back to them again :( Constantly having pics of tropical cyclones here devalues this page imo.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:54, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Find some damage pictures that show more than just a tree fallen over or a few leaves blown across the grass. Not easy. Good kitty 13:17, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merger of news and active cyclones

These two segments are poorly maintained segments of the portal; which cover similar stuff. I propose we merge the two (any active cyclones will have a mention in the news after all).--Nilfanion (talk) 00:02, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Strongly agreed. Hurricanehink (talk) 03:13, 3 February 2007 (UTC)