Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals

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[edit] Anybody want to help out with Portal:Public domain????

Hello all. I'm really only just starting to get into the Wikipedia thing with any seriousness. This is my first contribution to what we'll call the "structure" or organization of Wikipedia... I just started the public domain portal! Would anyone like to help or add anything?

Also:Is it possible to change the colour of the portal layout now that the portal is set up? Don't you think a portal about the public doman would look nice with simple black-framed white boxes, to reflect the vast amount of text and document material available in the public domain? Just a thought... Black Lab (talk) 09:59, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Projects, Portals and People

I made a little table for coordinating WikiProjects, Portals and People for 50 U.S. states. It is here:

 Wikipedia:WikiProject_U.S._states/PPP.

WP:CBTF -- CQ

[edit] Reveiws and critiqes

Numismatics Portal

Hey, need a few people to review and critiqe 2 portals for me, please. I would like to put Numismatics up for Wikipedia:Featured portals soon.

Texas Portal

Texas is newer and slower going, but would like opions.

[edit] Portal proliferation comment

I first want it understood that no denigration on the quality of any particular portals is intended here. However, it does strike me that we are currently facing the prospect that we have so many portals existing and being created that they are, in effect, losing at least some of their uniqueness. To use a comparison, if a portal is, as it were, intended as the equivalent of the "front page" of a newspaper section dealing with that topic, we currently have a newspaper which runs to the length of a good bookshelf. Also, with the increasing number of "sub-portals" or related portals on given topics, it becomes even less likely that individuals will note either the portal of most interest to them or one of the portals which, by chance, happens to contain content which would be of interest to them if they knew it was there. In a sense, I can see, particularly in some areas, how the increasing number of portals both decreases their individual effectiveness, and, given the number of unimpressive portals, the "reputation" of portals in general. As an example, although I haven't verified, Portal:Ayyavazhi doesn't look to have been updated for some time. Anyone who went to a portal which isn't updated or is of comparatively poor quality and noticed that might come to conclude that such a portal is the standard of all portals, and might ignore them in general on the basis of that one bad experience.

I know that there are several portals which already have several "pages" to them, and I was thinking in some areas this might be a productive way to go. We might be able to merge some comparatively inactive or unmaintained portals into a logical "parent" portal, potentially increasing the number of hits on that portal, and thus its "effectiveness", and at the same time make it easier in a way to maintain that portal, because the maintainers wouldn't have to try to find specifically relevant content for each section of each portal. As an example, it would be a lot easier to find news stories to place in the Portal:Religion than to find separate stories for inclusion in each religion portal which has such sections.

Does anyone else think this idea has any merit? If by chance any of you do, can anyone think of any guidelines, like perhaps frequency of updating or time since last update, number of relevant articles, or anything else which might be useful as a gauge to determine when and if such "mergers" would be perhaps acceptable? John Carter (talk) 14:13, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

John, you'll find that the discussion here is pretty thin. (Congratulations on getting your toolset by the way, I was on wikibreak until right after it happened). I think that you have a good point, though I'm not sure you could really condense all of the religions into one portal and where would you draw the line, would Portal:Saints get crammed into Portal:Catholicism and that into Portal:Christianity and that into Portal:Religion? What if you transcluded portions of portals into other portals (particularly easy since most portals transclude sub-pages to beingbegin with)? But it's not as if we're fighting for Portal space, a sub page takes up just as much room as a stand alone portal doesn't it? I looked at the example you used: Portal:Ayyavazhi. That portal has some issues and may not be all WP:V but does it really matter when it was updated last? It may be omitting some new articles, but it doesn't even have a news section that I saw, so currency isn't really an issue. I think that there are definitely poorly structured portals out there, some of which are also not being worked on. Where that is the case {{sofixit}} applies and merger may be the correct fix in some cases - or in some rare cases MfD. I think it would be appropriate to raise those issues here or on a sub-page, or even to list them on the project page here, so that we can all review them and suggest ideas.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 19:35, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks; I hope no one comes to regret me being an admin too much. Anyway, I wasn't actually considering merging all the religion portals. However, as an example, the Portal:Christianity has three "tabs" to subpages. Also, right now, there are at least 10 "child" Christianity portals, so that field might be a bit overcrowded. It might be possible, maybe, to create more tabs on the main portal page. These might include, for instance, a "creed of the month" page, with the main article on a given creed and maybe an accompanying bio and other article for presumably the denominations with enough quality articles to fill such a page. Or, alternately, for example with Portal:Canada and its 13 "child" portals, some sort of more direct and obvious linkage from the main portal to the various extant "subportals" could potentially help them all get more readers. In effect, to continue with the metaphor above, trying to organize them from the main portal page more as a "newspaper section" than as simply separate extant portals. And, yeah, in some cases, like maybe Christianity and a few others, it might be possible to adjust the main "portal" page a bit to make it easier to rotate through the various "sub"portals, or even remove some if they could be "merged" into the larger portal. John Carter (talk) 20:02, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
I really see no point in consolidating portals into subpages. That's what the "Related portals" section is for. RichardF (talk) 01:45, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I have to agree here w/ RichardF (talk · contribs), I don't think this is a good idea. Cirt (talk) 01:51, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Another option, although maybe not a particularly good one, would be to establish something like Portal:Australia portals for subjects which have multiple related portals. Personally, that one could stand some improvement, but provides a basic concept. Maybe if a possible Portal:Christianity portals or similar "main" subject portal were to include/transclude some minimal information from each of the "descendant" portals, that might be acceptable. I'm thinking here maybe something like:
  • "Portal:Popes - Biography of the Month - Pope Pius III"
  • "Portal:Catholicsm - Biography of the Month - Thomas More"
and so on at the bottom of each relevant "main" portal section. Would that be too weird-looking, or would it possibly be acceptable? John Carter (talk) 21:16, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Multiple portal portals

Yeah, it's a weird idea, but Portal:Australia portals is already one such. Would there be any inherent objections to the creation of other such "multi-portals", which might include links to the various other portals related to the topic? I'm thinking particularly hear of a similar portal for Christianity, maybe with at least links to the various other portals, hopefully at least an indication of the contents of each. John Carter (talk) 19:29, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

My initial reaction is that it detracts from Portal:Australia and competes with it. It would seem better suited as a simple "Related portals" section at the main portal. If that's not enough space, a tabbed subpage arrangement could be created. Any broad topic already has subportals. Topical navbars is another way of tying related subportal together. Wikipedia is confusing enough without Coke suing Coke Zero or whatever. Once a new design like this gets started, I'm sure it will proliferate no matter what any detractors say. ;-) RichardF (talk) 19:42, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
I also find it quite curious Portal:Australia is not linked at Portal:Australia portals (at least i didn't see it right off). That's even more telling to me that this can be a divisive and unwanted trend. RichardF (talk) 19:50, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Neither did I actually. Certainly, if such "directory" portals were to exist, they should definitely include links to the main portal on the subject. For those who know such things better than I do, which is basically anybody who might look at this page, would anyone think that it might qualify for deletion as a fork? John Carter (talk) 19:56, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Portals being considered for deletion

Please see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Millencolin and Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Einstein Family. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 13:50, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

And Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:GIST Security. John Carter (talk) 19:01, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
And, while we're at it, Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Nazism and Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:New Age. John Carter (talk) 21:38, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
  • John, Are you sure you don't mean to post these here, on the portal page itself?--Doug.(talk • contribs) 22:16, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
  • No, I actually meant to post them here, because I hadn't read the instructions. But, I have moved them now. John Carter (talk) 22:26, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Portal guidelines

Four of the current "entertainer" portals being considered for deletion, all four relating to popular female singers, as well as the Beyonce Knowles portal which was recently deleted, are all the work of one apparently male editor. This points to the possibility of "fancruft" portals being created elsewhere. Do we want to have any sort of particular guidelines regarding what to do with such portals? Personally, I can't see any real objection to their existences, but the problem of what to do with them when the subject is no longer active, be it a retiring performer, cancelled series, or whatever else. Any ideas? John Carter (talk) 15:09, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Portal:Sandbox

Anyone have any opinions or ideas as to why this portal even exists, and whether it should continue to do so? John Carter (talk) 21:14, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This is a playground for people who wish to learn to edit portals without fear of messing up a visible live page with rather complex syntax. BusterD (talk) 11:31, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Question regarding rotating articles

I've recently set up Portal:Biography with specific different biographies for the month of April, but it hasn't seemed to work. What would I have to do to "install" the new selections? John Carter (talk) 12:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Have you purged the page cache? Try loading the main portal page with ?action=purge at the end of the url. Slambo (Speak) 13:59, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
It doesn't seem to have worked. I suspect that the problem is due to either the continuing existence of the extant April article or a failure to alter the rotation period, but I am personally not so clear with these things to have any idea how to safely do either. John Carter (talk) 18:43, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I've inserted the current day variable into the mainpage portal code. Does this perform like you wanted? BusterD (talk) 11:29, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Very much so. Thank you very much. Now I can see how it was done in the event any other portals need the same work later. John Carter (talk) 14:40, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Portal guidelines hasn't seen much action for a couple of years

That page is marked with Template:style-guide, which is deprecated, and it isn't in the "Wikipedia style guidelines" cat. If it's a useful page, then I hope some people from this wikiproject will update it. If the guidance on that page is out of date, it might be best not to add the "Wikipedia style guidelines" cat. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:56, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Inconsistencies within the portal namespace

Here's a quick way to check for inconsistencies within the portal namespace: generate a list of all non-redirect subpages in the portal namespace which do not have a corresponding non-redirect parent page.

I did this by hand, browsing a listing of portal pages via Special:Prefixindex, for the past hour and found a few dozen portal pages which required deletion, redirection, moving, or (minor) editing. A bot-generated list (I'm sure someone at WP:BOTREQ could do it) would be much easier/faster to work with. Unfortunately, as I am pressed for time for the foreseeable future, this isn't really something that I can tackle alone. However, it may be something in which this WikiProject has an interest. –Black Falcon (Talk) 01:33, 21 May 2008 (UTC)