Wikipedia:Portal

Portals or Wikiportals are pages intended to serve as "main pages" for specific topics or areas. They may be associated with one or more WikiProjects; unlike WikiProjects, they are meant for both readers and editors of Wikipedia, and should promote content and encourage contribution. There is a separate directory of finished portals, and general information about them on this page.

If you want to help run one of the Wikiportals listed below, please add yourself to the list. Or see how to create a new portal, below.

Directory of Portals

Quick links :

Complete directory of finished portals ...including founding dates and maintainers. If you have created a portal, list it here.

How to create a new portal

Portals are not appropriate for every topic. Only create portals for broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers.

To create a new portal on the topic "Topic" follow these steps:

1. Create a new portal at [[Portal:Topic]] (where "Topic" is the subject of your portal) and enter the following text

{{subst:box portal skeleton}}

Save.

2. Create two subpages:

• Save Portal:Topic/box-header with this text:

{{Portal:Box-header-round | title={{{1}}} 
|editpage={{{2}}} 
|border=#aaaaaa           <!-- This is the color of the borders around Box Sections -->
|titleforeground=white    <!-- This is the color of the Box Section Title Bar text -->
|titlebackground=#aaccff  <!-- This is the color of the Box Section Title Bar -->
|background=#f9f9ff       <!-- This is the color of the Box Section background -->
|foreground=black}}       <!-- This is the color of the Box Section text -->

• Save Portal:Topic/box-footer with this text:

{{Portal:box-footer | {{{1}}} }}

3. Return to your portal page Portal:Topic and begin editing (general instructions on editing a portal are below). Basically follow the red links to create sub-pages that will fill the boxes.

4. Place a link to your portal at the top of the appropriate article (of the same name) by placing a {{portal}} there, or place {{portalpar}} at other various pages. List your portal at {{portals}} and {{main portals}}

For an explanation of how and why this format works go here.

5. List your new portal in the Directory of portals.

6. Announce your new portal on the community bulletin board.

How to edit the portal

The box portal allows you to edit the portal without editing the main portal page. Simply follow the red links to the sub pages and enter the information there. These sub-pages will be displayed on the main page.

Adding a section (box)

If you wish to add a section (box) using the regular codes, go to your portal page (e.g. [1]) and simply type in:

 {{/box-header| 1 | 2 }}
 {{   3   }}
 {{/box-footer| 4 }}

where

• "1" is the box title
• "2" is the article to be linked to. This will appear right under the title bar. You may omit this parameter if you don't want an edit link to appear, but you must not omit the pipe, for example:
  • {{/box-header | Selected article | Portal:Computer and video games/Selected}}
  • {{/box-header | Selected article | }} (no edit link param, note pipe still in place)
• "3" is again the article to be linked to (this will appear as a red link until first edited), for example:
  • {{/Featured}}
• "4" is a link that you'd like to display at the bottom-right corner of the box. You may omit this parameter if you don't want an edit link to appear, but you must not omit the pipe, for example:
  • {{/box-footer | [[Computer and video games|More about Computer and video games...]]}}
  • {{/box-footer | }} (no bottom-right param, note pipe still in place)

Example 1

The following code:

<div style="float:right; width:50%;">
{{/box-header|A random title|Portal:Computer and video games/Selected article}}
{{/Selected article}}
{{/box-footer|[[Computer and video games|More about Computer and video games...]]}}
</div>

results in -->

A random title

Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES, is an 8-bit video game console released by Nintendo in North America, Brazil, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Its Japanese equivalent is known as the Nintendo Family Computer (任天堂 ファミリーコンピュータ), or Famicom (ファミコン). The most successful gaming console of its time in Asia and North America (Nintendo claims to have sold over 60 million NES units worldwide), it helped revitalize the video game industry following the video game crash of 1983, and set the standard for subsequent consoles in everything from game design (the first modern platform game, Super Mario Bros., was the system’s first "killer game") to business practices. The NES was the first console for which the manufacturer openly courted third-party developers. Portal:Computer and video games/box-footer

Example 2

The following code:

<div style="float:right; width:50%;">
{{/box-header|A random title|Wikipedia talk:Wikiportal/box-header}}
   The following text will appear in the [[box]]. This text can be placed on 
    the [[Wikipedia:Wikiportal|portals]] main page and edited there.Or, 
    alternatly placed on a sub-page of the portal, which is explained below.
{{/box-footer|[[Computer and video games|More about Computer and video games...]]}}
</div>

Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Computer and video games/box-header The following text will appear in the box. This text can be placed on the portals main page and edited there.Or, alternatly placed on a sub-page of the portal, which is explained below. Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Computer and video games/box-footer

...when used at the computer and video games portal, will result in what is displayed to the immediate right. -->

The exact same code, used at other portals, will create a box with the exact same content, but the colors may be completely different. This is because each portal has templates at:

1. "[portal url]/box-header" (e.g. [2])
2. "[portal url]/box-footer" (e.g. [3])

that add color information, and the pass all the work along to the Wikipedia:Wikiportal/box-header and Wikipedia:Wikiportal/box-footer templates, which compose everything into a standards-compliant and cross-browser box.

Changing colors

The colors of the portal can be changed in the box-header subpage. A list of colors you can use is available at Web colors or List of colors.

How to make a good Wikiportal

Most Wikiportals contain the following for readers:

• A featured article and/or picture
• Links into the main category for the topic and possibly subcategories (some portals actually appear in the description page for the main category)
• General info about the subject, or links thereto
• Links to other portals (using templates)

...and for editors:

• Links to related WikiProjects. You can use {{Wikimedia}} to add Wikimedia Sister Projects' links to your portal (links to news, images and so on).

• Links to specific articles or tasks
• Collaboration of the week, month, etc.

You may want to embark on an effort to fill the related categories with appropriate articles if this has not been done already (or add it to the portal's "todo" list so visitors can help out).

Portals under construction (alphabetical order)

• Agropedia (to replace Portal:Agronomy and include both Agronomy and Agriculture topics, which are intimately related, although different)
• Anarchism
• Ancient Germanic culture
• Ancient Greece
• Architecture
• Atmosphere
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Cars
• Central Intelligence Agency
• Community
• Dogs
• England
• Fire
• Free software (mostly complete, polishing help appreciated)
• Health
• Humor
• Italy
• Las Vegas
• Libya
• Linguistics
• Latin America
• Middle East
• Mobile phone
• Papua New Guinea
• Peru
• Philately
• Tibetan Buddhism
• Prague
• Rhetoric
• Robotics (help with content would be appreciated)
• Slovenia
• Theology
• Transport
• Turkey
• U.S. Roads
• Weather
• Western Sahara
• Wiki

Requested portals (alphabetical order)

General portals preferred to concrete portals.

• Portal:Asia
• Portal:Books
• Portal:Basketball
• Portal:Ecology
• Portal:Entertainment
• Portal:Fashion
• Portal:Fruits and Vegtables
• Portal:LGBT
• Portal:Opera
• Portal:Psychology
• Portal:Serbia and Montenegro
• Portal:Social Science
• Portal:Television
• Portal:Theatre

Related pages

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Categories
• Portal:Browse
• Wikipedia:Browse
• Wikipedia:Root page