Portal talk:Disasters

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Featured portal The Disasters 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.
December 30, 2006 Featured portal candidate Promoted
This talk page is for discussing improvements to the Portal about Disasters; content disputes should take place on the appropriate article's talk page.

Please ensure this portal's details are listed in the Portal directory and its status is assessed.

For discussion about Portals generally, please see the WikiProject on Portals.
This portal is within the scope of WikiProject Disaster Management.
To-do list for Portal:Disasters: edit · history · watch · refresh
Recommendations to improve page to featured portal status

List includes recommendations with replies/status.

  • Change color scheme.
    • Done.
  • Even up columns.
    • Done.
  • Add suggest for DYK.
    • Done.
  • Fix up Things you can do.
    • Done.
  • Fix WikiProjects.
    • Done.
  • Fix up Disasters topics.
    • Done.
  • Fix up categories.
    • Done.
  • Caption for image.
    • Done.
  • Expand introduction.
    • Done.
  • Add image to Selected Quotes section.
    • Done.
  • Fix portal layout.
    • Done.

Contents

[edit] Nice portal

This portal looks good. Glad to see the disaster articles on Wikipedia getting their own portal. Is it possible to have a picture section anywhere? Carcharoth 15:51, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Oops. It was right there all along. Ignore that "picture" comment! :-) Carcharoth 15:52, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Hehe, I put a good two days a work into making the portal. Hopefully, in a few months, I can bring it up to FP status. Nishkid64 17:28, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] General Portal Tips

Well, I don't know if people would let a portal that's only been here for less than three months to get to FP status, but I would still like some tips on how I can improve this portal. Nishkid64 22:20, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Needs a little work to get to FP status, my suggestions:
    • You have to change the color of the portal, green and light blue look horrible together.
    • Put the to-do list in its same content to the section, without the box sorrounding it.
    • Create a suggestions page for the DYK section.
    • Remove encouragement to join the WikiProject Disaster Management from the WikiProject section and instead put it under "Main WikiProject:".
    • Even up columns at the "Selected quotes" section, the width of the quotes is bigger than the width of the title. Michaelas10 (Talk) 22:38, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Replying to questions:
      • By evening up the colums at the "Selected quotes" section, I meant that in both of my browsers, the right column of the section is not on the same position as the right column of the section's title.
      • Ehhm I have no problem with the new coloring, and it is a lot better than the provious one, but I think it would be better if you change it to the fifth coloring from the palettes. Michaelas10 (Talk) 09:30, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
  • The portal is coming along nicely. However, as pointed out by Michaelas10, change the colors and the to do box. The things you can do box could also use this picture. I don't think bullets are necessary for the DYK section since the dogs portal doesn't use them. The main wikiproject section could be moved to the right column and the related wikiportals condensed into the left column. s d 3 1 4 1 5 final exams! 23:23, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
    • If I could get rid of the bullets in front of the ellipses on the Main Page DYK, I would, I think it’s ugly, and it’s incompatible with div formatting of images. I don't think that style should be used on portals either. Rfrisbietalk 02:13, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
      • I hope you don't mind, but I felt that if the Main Page has it, then we should also have it. I personally like the bullet points better, but if you would like, we could bring it up at T:DYK and discuss it with some other admins who are involved in DYK. Nishkid64 21:13, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
        • I don't like spitting in the wind, but if an admin actually supports getting rid of the bullets, I would join in supporting their removal. Rfrisbietalk 21:19, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
          • I could go either way on this, but nonetheless, I'll bring it up with other DYK people soon. Nishkid64 00:50, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Images need captions. Personally, I prefer the "mouseover" style. Rfrisbietalk 02:32, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Think about formatting news items like at Portal:Science, e.g., below. Rfrisbietalk 02:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Too many bullets. I got rid of some. Rfrisbietalk 03:01, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
  • The intro could use some fleshing out, with only one paragraph before the bullet points.
  • I would switch the topics box with the things to do box, so that things to do is on the side and the topics are full width.
  • Green on brown is not an appealing color scheme, so maybe that could be changed.
    • I have green and brown together in my home, that's partly why I picked this palette for the the Dogs Portal...plus folks kept telling me to change the colors! I have a few more samples at User:Rfrisbie/Palettes/Portals. Good luck on that one. >;-o) Rfrisbietalk 03:36, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Okay, I used one of your samples. Tell me what you guys think now! =) Nishkid64 15:45, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
        • It looks fine to me, as long as Gphoto doesn't say it's "too blue"! ;-) Rfrisbietalk 18:12, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep up the good work! --Gphototalk 03:19, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Main problems I can see:
  • The color scheme. I can see what might have been the thinking behind it, but it still isn't real appealing. I tend to agree that having different shades of the same color is probably the best way to go, or alternately choosing a three color scheme (brown, blue, and green), probably in generally darker shades.
  • Also, the lead has to lengthened at least a bit. Maybe including the names and short descriptions of the events which qualify as disasters? Badbilltucker 14:35, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My review

I was asked to review this portal, so my opinion is:

  • The design should be improved:
    • Those colors are a really bad choice: the combination makes the portal look ugly and the background color should be lighter, making it easy to read. I suggest you choose one color and stick the whole design of the portal to it, with a darker tone for the headers and a really light tone for the background.
    • The portal looks better when you alternate columns and rows, leaving no empty spaces.
  • Sections that should be shorter:
    • News and events: Give just a brief description of the event, otherwise it's rather tedious to read
    • Selected picture: you are supposed to give a brief description of the situation, otherwise it's like a second selected article.
  • You've got way too many lists and the portal looks monotone:
    • News and events: no arguments there
    • Categories: you might want to make a table there for all the categories and sub-categories
    • Disasters topics: same here, and you might consider removing all the detailed lists
  • Add more images, the portal will look much better:
    • Quotes: If available, add a little photo of the person you are quoting next to the quote

I hope my review helps you to improve this portal. --Wesborland 00:14, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your reviews. Hopefully, I'll be able to fix everything out. Just two comments: my news items are too long? I thought people complain about reading paragraphs, not two sentences lol. Also, selected pictures tend to have a bit of a description below it. At least, I did that for the Business and Economics Portal and others have done it for other portals, and no one seems to mind. Nishkid64 00:38, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Jesus, it's late (I run on UK time, it's the same as the time on the wiki). Anyway, before I sign out, I want to say - please keep the news section as it is, it really would lose something were it shorter. Blood red sandman 00:42, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Review

Hey just a few little things:

  • Personally I prefer a shorter discription of the selected picture. 1-2 sentences should usually suffice, if a read wants more they can go to the article.
  • The difference in seperators, specifically; categories has " · ", and topics has " • ". Consistancy should be followed.
  • And, as is being discussed on a few portal talk pages, more selected articles and pictures should be prepared(This is a personal guideline, and does not have to be fixed).

The new color scheme is more appealing to the eyes. Overall, not shabby at all.  :) Joe I 19:00, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

This is really a great portal and you did a good job improving it according to the reviewers. But I kind of like the previous color scheme. The current blue scheme seems so calm, so paficist, which is a bit at odds with the contents of the portal. Good luck. --Melanochromis 15:57, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
How about some nice red shades? :-) Rfrisbietalk 16:22, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I personally like blue (contrary to my holiday color signature), since blue reminds me of water and many natural disasters involve water. s d π Happy Holidays! 22:45, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anniversary section

I suppose, portal lacks of an anniversary section. It would be better to have it for this kind of featured portal. Regards, Shyam (T/C) 16:09, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Will add shortly. Thanks, Shyam. Nishkid64 15:26, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
One more thing - like Rfrisbie, I like the red shades. Blood Red Sandman Open Up Your Heart - Receive My EviLove 10:55, 21 January 2007 (UTC)