Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Archive 2

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Wikinews Importer Bot

Thanks to Misza13, the Wikinews Importer Bot now is available to automatically import certain dynamically-generated Wikinews pages into Wikipedia portals. See the pages that link to User:Wikinews Importer Bot for a growing list of examples. Check it out! RichardF (talk) 17:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

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 ~~being~~begin 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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

Rename of Main Page to Portal:Wikipedia

Not sure if people here have noticed, but there is currently a proposal to rename Main Page to Portal:Wikipedia. It's been going for a while, take a look here. Cheers! ~ JohnnyMrNinja 08:41, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Portal:Film

Hello, I was wondering how to update the image that I see so frequently with Portal:Film. There is a consensus at WT:FILM to replace Image:Film reel.svg with Image:Video-x-generic.svg. Does this have to be done manually? —Erik (talk • contrib) - 14:56, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

[1] - I guess you figured it out, no worries. I usually watch Portal talk:Film, so you can ask stuff there in the future if you want. Cirt (talk) 22:28, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Portal Usage Guidelines

I'm not familiar with portals. Can someone please point me to guidelines for when portal links should be included in an article? I ask because an editor has recently added portal links to multiple university articles. This isn't in line with most other university articles and it looks awful funny but I don't know if this is really a problem. Any guidance would be much appreciated! --ElKevbo (talk) 02:48, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh wow, no, that is not how they are supposed to be used. Links to portals generally go in the See also section, per WP:ALSO - and never that many at a time, yikes. Cirt (talk) 02:52, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Would you or someone else in this project like to speak with that editor and revert those edits? I'd be happy to revert but obviously I'm not a good person to speak about the guidelines or current consensus for portal usage. --ElKevbo (talk) 03:08, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Done. Also posted a note [2] to the talk page for Victoriaedwards (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 04:07, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks so much Cirt! Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help. --ElKevbo (talk) 04:08, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

No prob. Hopefully the user will engage in discussion. Cirt (talk) 04:18, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Portal:Arctic

Newly created. Any advise about the beginnings so far online? SriMesh | talk 03:15, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Portal:British Army

i do not know where to post this but I could do with some help in getting Portal:British Army to featured portal status. I have nearly managed this on my own but I could do with some help. If there is a better place to forward this message, I would be grateful. Thanks Jhfireboy Talk 21:07, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Additional featured portal director

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Featured_portal_candidates#Additional_Featured_portal_director. Cirt (talk) 21:58, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Portal text colour

I am working on Portal:UK Waterways and for some reason the normal text within each box is appearing as blue on the portal page (but not when editing/previewing the box). I can see how to change colors for the header and footer, (ie at Portal:UK Waterways/box-header) but not within the box itself. Where is this set up? Derek Andrews (talk) 17:46, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Duh. Sorry, I see it is in the box-header page. Sorry to bother you. Derek Andrews (talk) 18:14, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

New portal for Beverages

I am currently working on a companion portal to Portal:Food, Portal:Drink, and would like any suggestions, feedback and assistance. Please feel free to comment on the talk page.

Also, when I was looking at the four food portals I noticed there was common formatting used on some of the "Selected foo" boxes so I created some templates to use on the "Selected" sub page articles. These are them:

{{Selected biography}} is for use on the "Selected person" section
{{selected article}} is for use on the "Selected article section

The other one I created, {{Selected ingredient}}, is kind of proprietary to the Food/Drink portals, but I think the others can be used on just about any portal on WP. These ones have been tested and do work, I will be adding a couple of more that are currently percolating in the back of my mind

--Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 06:34, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

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

Reveiws and critiqes

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 is newer and slower going, but would like opions.

Portal maintenance

A portal can be created but it also needs to be maintained. There are lot of portals which are never updated. Is there a place to list such portals? --Just my 2 cents -- Hemanshu (talk) 11:43, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Either Category:Portals needing attention or Category:Portals under construction should be added to poor quality portals. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:14, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

What is the purpose of a Portal on Wikipedia

My name is Wiki User 68 ^Blah ^Stuff

I joined this group for guidance regarding Portal design and concepts. After much research and, now, quite a few portal designs (at least ten, and increasing) I find myself questioning their relevance and structure, considering Wikipedia's main page IS a Portal. Don't get me wrong, I know what they could do for Wikipedia, but I find myself in a position of having to sell the idea to project admins to promote them. I seem to find having created so many that "something's missing" with regard to their relevance.

Yet, I've found well designed Portals always accepted with great gratitude - as long as the link from the main page is in the "distance"!?...

I find this project having only 50 or so members quite shocking, or am I just naive?! I've found working from the Portal Template that it requires standard additions as well as others which I'd like to develope, but that requires consensus, which I'm in complete agreement with, to promote.

I would like to ask All members their opinions on All of the above. I'm more than happy to construct a prototype of a Web-2 Portal template for you to try out on current and future projects.

On a collaborative project as this I prefer to work with a project's consensus. I can't help it! It's my background. Wiki User 68 ^Blah ^Stuff Today about 22:57 March 24, 2009 —Preceding undated comment added 23:00, 24 March 2009 (UTC).

Selected Books

I find the new Wikipedia:Books feature quite interesting, and like portals in many ways. It seems like books should be folded into portals when applicable, and portals can be useful when selecting content to create books.

One simple way to hook books into portals is through categories. I added a little info to the current Wikipedia:Books category subcategories to help that out. For example, Category:Wikipedia:Books on the United States now has a handy "β" piped name when it is placed in Category:United States. That allows it to show up at the bottom of the Portal:United States Categories box because it uses the automatic "<categorytree>United States</categorytree>" tag.

Portal-worthy books also could be listed in Topics boxes or, some day, Featured content boxes. Wikipedia:Books has a "Featured Books" section, but it's empty and I have no idea how something would make that list.

Some time down the road, a few portals might even add a "Selected books" box, but I expect those will be few and far between.

I tried out the Special:Book tool and was quite impressed. It was easy to use and powerful! (Am I in the right place?! ;-) Anyway, I tried making a series of books based on a topical template. I thought it went very smoothly. The template supplied the organized, quality content, and the "create a book" tools made it a snap. I just added some extra intro, placeholder, and category stuff and they were done. For this example, I used Template:PU to create the Purdue University book series.

Well, those are some of my initial thoughts on Books and Portals. What do you all think? :-) RichardF (talk) 19:28, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Books ←→ portals ← categories ← books ← topical templates

Here are a few more thoughts on some portal design possibilities for books. I expect books will be highlighted in portals a number of ways, depending on the the design of a portal and how much good book content is available on that portal's topic. I have two types of examples so far. As a "Categories" box example, Portal:United States/Categories shows Category:Wikipedia:Books on the United States at the bottom of the category tree. Any portals that use a category tree won't have to do anything new if a book subcategory exists. Other portals would have to manually add the books category. As a "Topics" box example, Portal:Education/Topical templates has a new addition of a book under the applicable heading. That example also shows how a book series can be displayed in a portal only with the main book, while the complete series can be displayed at the corresponding article's "See also" section, Purdue University#See also in this case. A Featured book can be placed in a portal's "Featured contents" box using the same style as in a "Topics" box. A quote is a quote. They come from articles so books have nothing to add to a "Selected quotes" box. Good quotes should already be there. A "Selected books" box would need at least 10 entries to meet the Featured portals minimum for a rotating contents box. Perhaps these entries would include an individual or series collection of Table(s) of Contents with an intro and a good image. So, that looks like plenty of possibilities to me. Any others? :-) RichardF (talk) 13:19, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates

Hello, does anybody watch the Featured portal candidates page? — Kpalion^(talk) 11:52, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Not really it seems, the seem to get to it very rarely as some stuff has been there for months with no action at all. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 15:05, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Add external links sections to portals

I suggested to add the following links to Portal:Mathematics:

but received only "Why?" response. I don't know how to response him back.

I propose to develop a policy that portals may have external links (like these suggested by me to Portal:Mathematics).

VictorPorton (talk) 17:39, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Portal:Cannabis improvement

Can I recruit any interested volunteers to help improve the Cannabis Portal, which needs some serious attention. It looks as though the foundation was laid at one point, but has been seriously neglected. I am trying to figure out how these Portals work as far as maintenance goes, but any assistance with re-structuring and updating the portal would be much appreciated. I am sure there are some users out there that are familiar with portals and know how to make them immaculate within a short period of time. --Another Believer _(Talk) 22:21, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Portal:Scouting broken

When Jan 1, 2010 rolled around this portal display went awry. I checked it on both my computers and it looks the same: some portlets display on the left with blank space on the right, some display across the whole screen, and then some display on the right with blank space on the left. I changed my screen settings and it doesn't help. I have not changed any of the portal's code, so one would think something with the new monthly content is breaking it, but I have no idea what. It displayed fine prior to that. Can anyone help? Thanks. — Rlevse • Talk • 14:44, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

yea, it seems to have fixed itself, go figure, New Year Wiki Gremlins I guess. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:30, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

An anon realized I left off <div><center> tags on the picture page, hehe. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:40, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Point of starting

There seems no straight forward place to place this - having been involved with WikiProject Death - it is obvious that the project needs an accompanying Portal:Death - I am wondering if any regulars would like to point the next stage of creating and developing a Portal:Death from this stage Satu Suro 06:56, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh well started anyway - strange how some places are so silent these days...- cheers Satu Suro 06:38, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, it's dead quiet in here. -Pollinosisss (talk) 18:11, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Request for Comment: Should Wikipedia Essays have a portal in portal namespace?

Discussion is ongoing here: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Essay_Categorization_and/or_Classification#Portal. Please read the discussion and weigh in with your opinions. ɳoɍɑfʈ^Talk! 14:48, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

A class status

We could use to demonstrate A class portals. --Extra999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 15:00, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Help with our portal

Hello, I'm having some trouble with Portal:Wikipedia essays. I think I'm not adding featured essays and Did You Know sections correctly, because as soon as I add one, it just changes to a redlink with the next number. Can someone look at the page and tell me the proper way to add a new featured essay/DYK? Thanks. ɳorɑfʈ^Talk! 23:59, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Proper categorization of portals

I've been doing maintenance on the Category:Canadian music tree. My question relates to: Category:Music portals. Is the Austrailian music set-up correct? They have:

Category:Music of Australia portal with Portal:Music of Australia categorised in it.
Portal:Music of Australia is categorised under Category:Music portals per [3]

The Wikipedia:Portal/Categorizing#Proper categorization document says to come here for help. Thanks very much. Argolin (talk) 22:47, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that appears to be correct. -- Cirt (talk) 22:57, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Featured portal candidates

Just a reminder about the current candidates: Canada – Speculative fiction – United Kingdom

Please come participate in the review of the portals. The more people who can review them at this point, the better. Thanks! ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 19:35, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Portal Link Addition Bot

Hey everyone, you may be interested in participating in the discussion at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DodoBot 2. - EdoDodo ^talk 05:46, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

References?

I've been working with Portal:Kansas recently and noticed that this portal does not cite any references like a standard article. Of course it isn't an article, but shouldn't references still be included in the articles?--Paul McDonald (talk) 16:01, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Nope, references are generally not included in portals. If you take a look at featured portals, such as Portal:Architecture and Portal:Music you'll see that virtually none of them have references. - EdoDodo ^talk 18:30, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe you... but... why? :)--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:26, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Because Portals alone shouldn't be giving any information, they should just be a collection of articles to help the reader find things. - EdoDodo ^talk 20:58, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Portal:Renewable energy

Wonder if there is someone who enjoys working with portals and could help us out here. Or if you would care to offer a comment. Thanks. Johnfos (talk) 01:13, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Things have moved ahead quite nicely with this portal. Feel free to drop in and have a look around... Johnfos (talk) 20:18, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

MFD notice for Portal:Dragon Ball

I have listed Portal:Dragon Ball for Miscellany for deletion. Please join the discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Dragon Ball. Do not remove the {{mfd}} tag until the consensus may be reached. Thank you. JJ98 (Talk) 17:13, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Contents pages navigation proposal

A proposal to add topical links to all of the contents pages has been made. As part of that proposal, the navigation bar at the top of these contents pages would look like this.

All who read this invitation, please respond to the proposal, Portal talk:Contents#Adding topical links to contents pages navigational headers and footers, as you see fit. Regards, RichardF (talk) 15:25, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Portal:Cartoon Network

Portal:Cartoon Network is up for deletion at WP:MFD. Please comment here for any concerns. Thank you for time, regards. JJ98 (Talk) 02:23, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

New Portal

How about making the Bolivia Portal. I started it in my userspace. It's here. I would like to get help, because that I never made a portal before. I started it a bit. I would want approval before moving all to Portal:Bolivia. ~~EBE123~~ ^talk_Contribs 19:55, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Moved to Portal:Bolivia. Please help. ~~EBE123~~ ^talk_Contribs 19:07, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Inactive portals

I've just found Portal:Nudity is currently inactive (no edits since June last year). Is there any way we should mark this? I've left a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Nudity but that project doesn't seem particularly active either. Thryduulf (talk) 10:09, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Portal Status

{{Portal talk}} instructs users to list the status of their portals at /Status. However, that page depends on templates that have been deleted since July 2010. The only other features of the page seem to be redundant to Wikipedia:Portal/Directory, which is considerably more up-to-date than this one (this one has been listed as out-of-date since December 2010). Given this, I've marked the page as historical and removed the reference to it from {{Portal talk}}. Feel free to revert if there really is something this is good for, but I don't see it. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 00:16, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to change a section title

There's a proposal to adjust one of the main section titles used in "Wikipedia's contents", which will also affect the order in which the section titles are presented. See Portal talk:Contents#Proposal for main section title adjustment. The Transhumanist 02:31, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Most popular portal

Is there a list of portals by pageviews? – Lionel ^(talk) 23:43, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm also interested in viewing pageviews for portals, plus a question: are they accessible from outside via a search engine, like the article namespace is?--~T P W 20:02, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Portals

I have started a RFC on the Portal namespace. You may view it here. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 20:19, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Style tweaks for small and mobile screens

I've noticed that a lot of portal pages use a two-column layout (using CSS floats); on large screens this looks great, but on very narrow screens -- and especially on smartphones -- you end up with tiny tiny inch-wide columns that aren't big enough to fit their contents.

At MediaWiki_talk:Common.css#Portal_column_width_vs_narrow_and_mobile_screens I'm proposing moving the float & width definitions to common styles; these can then be disabled on narrow screens through a CSS media query (on mobile displays through the en.m.wikipedia.org system they shouldn't even be engaged at all), switching to a nice one-column layout automatically.

If there's no objection, I'll start this on a few portal pages later today as an experiment. --brion (talk) 22:29, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and done this on Portal:Literature and the portals linked to it from the bottom. They render a lot nicer on mobile, though some are still too wide due to other things on the page (either in whole or in part -- usually big tables of icons with links to other portals!) If there's no obvious problem I'll have a bot run over the rest of the portals to do the same, then look after the icons and tables. --brion (talk) 23:39, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Citing sources in Portals

I'm looking specifically at Portal:Current events/Sports‎ when I ak that should a Portal which is filled with a lot of news type reporting, that it should be referenced? The regular editors at this portal seem actively opposed, believing the Portals are somehow immune from standards of verifiability. Any assistance? --Falcadore (talk) 10:14, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Far from being an expert on the matter, the portals themselves are not articles but aggregated links to articles that contain the citations to sources. As such, they are like the lead of an article and do not require citations, at least that is how I interpret it. --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 19:18, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Problem I have that despite being labelled as a portal, the contents are actually an unsourced version of Wikinews. If it is to behave as Wikinews and contains nothing but news items it should be sourced and the Portal name does not abrogate the responsibility? --Falcadore (talk) 21:43, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Article maintenance portals

We have recently started Wikipedia:WikiProject Merge (please join) and one of our users has created a merge portal. This doesn't make any sense to me. Should portals be made for maintenance categories? D O N D E groovily Talk to me 01:43, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

This is now being discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Merge -- John of Reading (talk) 08:03, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Portal:Athletics

I'm a bit on standby with this candidacy, somebody can tell me if the portal is now OK to be FP? --Kasper2006 (talk) 06:21, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Marie-Angélique Memmie Le Blanc

Hi ! User:Pierre.alix has translated Marie-Angélique Memmie Le Blanc from French into English. I re-read it, but i'm French too and we wish somebody re-read it too in order to be sure of the quality of language. Thanks by advance. Mythe - 兔Talk with me on my French talk page - Angers 09:20, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Proposed change to Template:Subpage

I just thought I'd post here to let everyone know of a change to Template:Subpage I have proposed on its talk page. I don't believe that the alteration is likely to have any significant affect, but I thought it would be best to check before editing the template. Michael An on 17:35, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Content split of Portal:Palestine

Per, Portal talk:Palestine#Content split it looks like Portal:Palestine will be split. Anyone want to help out. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 07:30, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Naming of portals

I have been looking for, but have been unable to find, a Wikipedia policy specifically on the naming of portals. A WikiProject Switzerland editor has proposed creating English language equivalents of fr:Portail:Culture de la Suisse and fr:Portail:Politique suisse but is unsure of which of the following formats to use: "Portal: foo of Switzerland" or "Portal: Swiss foo". I have suggested the former, because it is consistent with Wikipedia policy on the naming of articles (eg Culture of Switzerland and Politics of Switzerland, both of which are part of a series of similarly named articles), but I note that, eg, there are already portals named Portal:French politics and Portal:Canadian politics. My comment on this dilemma is that maybe these two existing portals should be renamed. Can anyone else comment on the issue? Bahnfrend (talk) 05:38, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Your suggestion would follow the general naming practices here, so Portal:Culture of Switzerland and Portal:Politics of Switzerland. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 23:47, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Portal bar location

Is the proper location of {{Portal bar}} the See also section? please answer at Template_talk:Portal_bar. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 13:40, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Unitarian Universalism Portal

I'm Interested creating a portal for Unitarian Universalism. There is enough guidance here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Portal (at least at first glance), but at the bottom it seems to suggest checking in on this Talk page first. Any advice? I am teachable. Bodysurfinyon (talk) 05:02, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Questioning the need of portals when categories exist

Hi!

I did not intend to start a probably re-hashed discussion on why portals exist when categories exist. But in the course of a discussion over the use of categories in a single article, Prometheus (film), I noticed that a user kept bringing up the generality of portals are unnecessary when categories existed - The discussion is at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Film#Use_of_Portals_in_film_articles

I asked him to not bring up that general argument in the specific Wikiproject talk page on a very specific subject, because that is a community-wide matter that affects all articles, and not a matter that should affect a single article or series of articles in a WikiProject (if one WikiProject says "let's exclude portals" it will conflict with another project that is pro-portals). Because he continued to bring it up, I am starting a discussion here so he can talk about it here instead of in the talk page. So would anyone mind discussing it with him?

Thank you, WhisperToMe (talk) 22:23, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

My own response to the user's points:
- Portals are more difficult to create than average articles, and that is why they are not created as often.
- Portals actually introduce a reader to a topic, showing a general overview and the "best of" a topic, while a bare category merely categorizes
- Portals AFAIK began on the French Wikipedia and spread elsewhere, so they have more of them
Since these points were not relevant to the specific Prometheus discussion I had the right to ignore the general "why do we have portals?" questions to keep the conversation on topic
WhisperToMe (talk) 22:30, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

You will find that portals are used more often the categories (3 times more). Categories are the least used navigational aid we have. i.e. Canada article viewed about 2000 times a day ..its portal Portal:Canada viewed about 100 times a day and its cat Category:Canada viewed 25 times a day. With all that said - the more ways our readers have to navigate topics the better - so all methods are valid despite some not being used as much. Moxy (talk) 22:52, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Full page stats are at http://stats.grok.se/ - The portal Canada is viewed more often than the category WhisperToMe (talk) 00:29, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

So 5% of all users of Canada use a portal and/or a category. Which makes them both pretty redundant really. The point of the original discussion was the abuse of portals based on their bare association with the topic at hand and lack of further information about the topic at hand. A portal to the 2010s adds no information about the film Prometheus, nor does the Film in America portal because short of its copyright being owned there, there's nothing primarily American about it, there are links to science fiction in the opening sentence so we don't need that portal, etc, etc, etc. Prometheus is only an example where Whisper added 6 portals, but the issue was raised because my Watchlist was lighting up with him adding similarly tangential portals to multiple articles. Their use was less relevant than even a See Also section which at least highlights specific articles related to the immediate topic rather than a very broad generalisation of topics that may or may not have anything to do with and/or give you any useful information. That's a problem, them being obtrusive is secondary to that. The French Wikipedia using portals, more or less than the English one, is not an endorsement of their use, it's just the French wikipedia using portals. Given the quality of random film articles there compared to their equivalent here, I wouldn't cite teh French wikipedia as a good example of doing anything here except the nifty film reel background on the infobox. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 16:39, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Comparing usage is kind of tricky, actually. Our readers presumably most often click one of the 13,000+ Canada-related subcategories rather than the main category, and the sum of hits from these quickly add up to more than 100 hits/day (Category:Unemployment_in_Canada, 5 hits/day; Category:Canadian_diplomats, 7 hits/day; Category:21st-century_Canadian_actors 9 hits/day; etc). 100 hits is nothing, really. The average hits/day/article for all articles is probably much lower, but the the average article is not linked from 1500 articles and 75,000 talk pages like the Canada portal is. jonkerz ♠talk 16:51, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Comparing usage of all 13k categories to that of one portal is rather iffy in its usefulness. As has already been pointed out here, categories and portals are not in a competition; rather they are meant to be complementary ways for people to find things on the site. It has long been common practice to add portals to either the See also section or the external links section (I've seen both), and while its good not to add too many tangentially-related portals, having two or three is a good thing as it allows more options for people if they wish to go exploring on the site. We are here to provide information to the masses, so anything which will help them go from one topic to another is going to be helpful. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 15:30, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Nihonjoe, in one instance being discussed here - I added five portals (the duplication of the "film" portal twice is a mistake) to this article about a film, which was a science-fiction related US and British co-production released in the 2010s. What are your thoughts in that instance? WhisperToMe (talk) 22:12, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Apparently at least one person thought that was excessive. I added the Alien portal to the Alien footer template on that page (which is where it belongs). I think the 2010s portal might have been a little excessive, but the others seemed fine. It isn't unusual for some articles to contain multiple portal links. Certainly, Film in the United States, Science fiction (which actually redirects to the science fiction section of the Speculative fiction portal), and (what should have been, if it actually existed) Film in the United Kingdom are not just tangentially related, as Darkwarriorblake implied with his removal of the portals. They were in the correct section (External links), as well. I think even a link to the Film portal in that section would not be out of place. Perhaps Darkwarriorblake doesn't like portals for some reason, and it certainly seems like Jonkerz also has something against them. However, portals have long been established on Wikipedia, and placing links to related portals in the EL section is also a long-established practice. Perhaps this should be a village pump discussion? ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 23:44, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm fine with it being a village pump discussion :) WhisperToMe (talk) 19:34, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

In his latest edit: Darkwarriorblake argues "It was a discussion here, that wasn;t good enough so you made it a discussion at the portal project. Mayhaps it doesn't need to be a discussion, maybe portals just aren't that important. Of course we don't like portals, we aren't asking for them not to be included because we like them but just as friends." - See diff - He also responded to Nihonjoe's post here WhisperToMe (talk) 20:18, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Categories are needed to search with CatScan, helping with statistics and maintenance jobs. So even if they are not frequently used for browsing, we can't say they are less useful than portals. Max51 (talk) 04:47, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

WikiVoyage-inspired portal layout

I recently came across WikiVoyage's Main Page and was struck by how eye-catching and uncluttered the layout is. I revamped a portal I maintain, Portal:Nanotechnology, along similar principles, and I'm curious what others think. Template:Voyage box is available for the use of anyone who wants to replicate the layout on other portals. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 04:31, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Do/Should WikiProjects have the power over how the portals in their scope are used?

There was a discussion over whether the portals relevant to Wikipedia:WikiProject Film should be used in articles related to film. There are discussions about the case:

WhisperToMe (talk) 21:21, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to add Portal:Film in the United States to Gone with the Wind (film)

Hi! Here is an RFC on whether to add Portal:Film in the United States to: Gone with the Wind (film) Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Proposal_to_add_Portal:Film_in_the_United_States_to_Gone_with_the_Wind_.28film.29 WhisperToMe (talk) 23:51, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Portal:Astronomy/Events/2014 → 2014 in astronomy

FYI, Portal:Astronomy/Events/2014 has been proposed to be renamed to 2014 in astronomy, and possibly all the year pages in the portal as well. See Portal talk:Astronomy/Events/2014 -- 65.94.171.126 (talk) 05:54, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet for Wikiproject Portals at Wikimania 2014

Hi all,

My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.

One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

This is particularly aimed at highlighting less discoverable but successful projects, e.g:

• Active Wikiprojects: Wikiproject Medicine, WikiProject Video Games, Wikiproject Film

• Tech projects/Tools, which may be looking for either users or developers.

• Less known major projects: Wikinews, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.

• Wiki Loves Parliaments, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves ____

• Wikimedia thematic organisations, Wikiwomen’s Collaborative, The Signpost

The deadline for submissions is 1st July 2014

For more information or to sign up for one for your project, go to:

Project leaflets
Adikhajuria (talk) 17:10, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)