Wikipedia:Portal peer review/Visual arts/archive1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Visual arts

Greetings. I (with some help from another dedicated editor) have put a good deal of time into improving this portal. I would appreciate any and all thoughts, no matter how critical. I'm very interested in making this portal feature-worthy, so please don't hold back. Thanks so much for your time and your insights. Planetneutral 04:10, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Looking very promising. Despite having chosen the last colour scheme, the new one has won me over! For the selected quotes section, would you consider incorporating some from Portal:Art/Quote archive? Each of the quotes is about the visual arts rather than the arts, so it makes more sense for them to be P:VA than P:A. Plus we can get rid of that awful, trite quote that has been on the P:A main page for months. I will post a message on Portal talk:Arts shortly. [talk to the] HAM 20:02, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Yep, I'd noticed that about the quotations at P:A, but didn't want to steal or replicate content, if I could avoid it. I'd be happy to use those quotations though, so if there's no objection to it, I'll pop in tonight and cherry-pick. I'd like to be able to identify sources, wherever possible. Still need to figure out the source of the Joan Miró quote. If anyone knows, chime in. Cheers, Planetneutral 20:16, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I think the reason they are all visual art quotes is because Portal:Art formerly was focused on visual art, but later visual art split off. I think a lot of them came from wikisource. I'll have to find that page again. --sparkitTALK 17:36, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Aha! it was wikiquote - art quotes--sparkitTALK 18:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, there certainly are a few unusual things going on here, not unusual for artists.  :)

  • selected image - Tho not a requirement, I agree that the image credit should go directly under the image, then the description.
    • Done.
  • selected article - The read more link seems to take up alot of space, should try to find another way.(Same for the bios)
    • See what you think of my solution.
  • Did you know - should follow Template:Did you know and use {{*mp}}.
    • Had never seen that before. Will work on tonight. Done.
  • intro - Seems like you could get great use out of rotating intro images(if you want to replace the eye, which is indeed very symbolic), such as Portal:Electronics and Portal:Philosophy of science.
    • Great idea. The one reason I would hesitate to do this is that we wanted to establish some continuity between the portal and the WikiProject, so we are using the same image in both places and on the associated project banner.
    • Have decided against this for the moment, for the reason provided here.
  • content - Me personally will look for a few more articles or quotes in each rotated section. I generally go with 10 FA, or GA quality articles/pics/quotes for each section.
    • Agreed. That's a work in progress. I'll be cherry-picking some quotes from Portal:Arts as specified above.
    • Bumped these numbers up, but don't want to rush it and sacrifice quality for the sake of numbers.
  • color - It defiantly took me by surprise, and quite interesting. Have you tried one shade lighter, tho?
    • Have to get my color expert in on that one. We'll take a look.
    • Thanks to quick work by our color expert, a lighter color is now in place. I have to say I prefer the stronger contrast of the darker background. What do you think?
      • Yeah, I think I like the darker as well, good try. Joe I 21:45, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
        • Reverted to darker color.
  • Caps - Non caps in the title boxes was going to be my first point, but it is growing on me as well, and I see no reason why it shouldn't stay like that. But why is the DYK capitalized, seems to me like it's not a name such as the Wikiprojects and Wikimedia?
    • More or less because I was troubled by starting what was ultimately a complete sentence ("Did you know that xyz?") with a lowercase letter. It can easily be changed if you think consistency is the greater priority.
    • This has been reverted, per Michaelas10 below.

Other than that, I think you've got yourself a winner. :) Joe I 05:35, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your comments! Planetneutral 12:20, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
  • It's pretty good. Comments:
  • Requires WP:MSH fixes (e.g. "introduction" > "Introduction", "selected article" > "Selected article").
I was pretty sure we'd lose the fight to be different on this one. Of course, they started that way and so it's trivial to reverse that.
Let's let it stand for now. These are actually labels not headers. --sparkitTALK 18:00, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
There appears to be an acceptance that portal headers are just like article headers, thus the guideline applies. Lets remain constant. Michaelas10 (Talk) 18:33, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Done, with some reluctance.
  • Sentence capitals ("show new selected content...> "Show new selected content...").
Done.
  • "Selected quotation" > "Selected quote".
Again, this is how it was, but I recoil at the poor English demonstrated. Nevertheless, I understand the whole consistency angle on this. Done, again with some reluctance.
  • "Did you know..." section:
  • Add bullets (*) per the main page.
Will do, as per Joe's comments above. Done.
  • Remove sole years linking per WP:DATE.
Strange that they wouldn't adhere to that on the main DYK page, which is where these come from.
  • They link full dates, which is allowed. Michaelas10 (Talk) 18:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't mean to be uncivil on this one (and quite frankly, I have no dogs in this fight), but the evidence refutes your assertion. Check for yourself: Wikipedia:Recent_additions. Scroll down a bit and you'll find at least five examples of isolated year linking. Again, I don't really care and I'm happy to change it, but the instance that you pointed out is copied straight from that page. Seems strange to change something that has passed muster on the Main page. Also, WP:DATE doesn't seem quite as clear cut about that as you've implied here. Doesn't seem to be consensus on that point.
  • Nor it links to years themselves, but rather to the year of the subject. Note WP:DATE#Partial dates. Michaelas10 (Talk) 09:53, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
  • (Reclaiming space) Funny that we'd use the same guideline to make two different assertions. What you are presenting as hard and fast here is presented there as 'Another possibility...' And that's still not what's happening in the DYKs from the Main page that I pointed you to. Like I said earlier, the example on the P:VA is just copied from there. But I do aim to please here, so I've gone ahead and linked that year to 1991 in art, as per your suggestion.
  • Create a nomination procedure.
Haven't they already been through a sufficient process if they were featured on the Main Page?
  • Please see my comments here. A nomination procedure could be helpful as always, and soften the article-creation time limit. Michaelas10 (Talk) 18:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Done.
  • Layout preferences: "Read more..." > "...Read more". Have all the "more" links one external space below the actual section's context.
I understand the second part, but guess I could go either way on the placement of the ellipses. We can try it. Ellipses done. Space created.
  • Remove all the arts (not visuals arts) associated Wikimedias, these would fit better under the arts portal.
    • I pointed to the art pages because there are no visual arts pages at those projects. It would look pretty lame to have only two projects in that section and yet, if I remove the box altogether, someone will fault it for not having the associated projects. What would you do?
  • Leave only two links in that section. Michaelas10 (Talk) 18:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I think they stay as is. Personally I hate having a barren wikimedia section, and art and visual art are barely different. Joe I 18:19, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
  • The portal is purposing to focus on visual arts rather than arts. Adding arts links here would be similar to adding philosophy links to the philosophy of science portal. Michaelas10 (Talk) 18:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
  • (reclaiming space) I think the conundrum here is that you are really both right. The question is what best serves the reader. If we want a reader to find the visual arts content on Wikiquote, then they need to go to the Art page. Unless I go and start a visual arts page there, then there's not much I can do about that. Do I want to prevent people from getting to that available visual arts content in the name of uniform application of policy/standards? Not really, but as Michael points out, the wider interpretation opens the door to further ambiguity. So I'm mixed on this. Two links does seem pretty paltry though. Planetneutral 18:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I've changed it to the two links. I guess it looks OK.
  • Add the arts portal under the "Related portals" section. Michaelas10 (Talk) 17:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Done.
Thank you so much for your comments! Planetneutral 17:54, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


As a biased color expert and layout tweaker (I've been working with planetneutral), I'm liking the design.

Question: is it customary to have the instructions above the content on archive pages? If we put a link to the instructions at the top, and the instructions themselves at the bottom, I think we'd have better looking and more interesting archive pages. --sparkitTALK 17:47, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

My experience is that it's not customary to have much by way of instructions at all. I think what you suggest is fine. Go for it! Planetneutral 17:54, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
will do! Standby... --sparkitTALK 18:01, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Looks good, thanks for the idea :) Joe I 00:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)