Wikipedia talk:Portal/Guidelines

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Request for comment

A request for comment regarding the use of direct transclusion in portals and the newer portal transclusion templates is occurring at the Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) page, here.

– North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 03:44, 13 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

How many portals?

How many portals on Wikipedia are there, as of November 2019? Note: I've only edited them 5 times, in my entire 14 years on Wikipedia. GoodDay (talk) 03:42, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I bet that ranks you among the top 100 most active portal editors. – Levivich 05:08, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

About 550. See Category:All portals. --RL0919 (talk) 04:52, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That's small enough to analyze. Is there a way to get a list of all of them ranked by edits, page views, links, etc.? I wonder if we can deduce something by looking at which portals are most successful. – Levivich 05:08, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a graph somewhere of the number of portals over time? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 15:00, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know of one but the rough picture is that they reached 1500 by summer 2018, had a brief spike up to 5000 at the turn of the year and fell rapidly back to 1500 in April 2019 when almost all recent additions were deleted. The number has now dropped to 550 and is still falling steadily. Attempts to plot the history more accurately are difficult. Additions since early 2019 are in single figures. We continue to lose about 200 top level pages per month but these are not all portals; the counts include many redirects and and a handful of dabs. An MfD search, which will miss some cases and thus be an underestimate, finds 303, 94, 55, 109, 134, 67 deletions in May to October respectively. Certes (talk) 16:12, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the Massviews Analysis for all portals. --Phospheros (talk) 17:22, 15 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Very interesting analysis. Is there any way to see the correlation between Portals and WikiProjects – E.g. does every WikiProj have a Portal? Are there more portals than projects, or visa versa. Do WikiProjects have the same pattern of decline? thanks for that. Britishfinance (talk) 20:03, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Someone could create a script figure that out that last question. But for now you could take a look at the Massviews Analysis for Active WikiProjects, Semi-active WikiProjects, & Inactive WikiProjects for the other questions. --Phospheros (talk) 21:00, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That is also very helpful Phospheros. I have been posting at the User talk:Scottywong/Portal guideline workspace, that I think portals are not really "portals" as a reader would expect, but more like galleria or emporia of FA/GA content (e.g. it is the Main Article that is real "content portal" to navigating a topic as it is heavily edited, structured, and far more scruitizined than the portal). However, I am not sure that readers are that interested in FA/GA per se (e.g. it is bigger thing for Wikipedians than for ordinary readers); although other interesting split could be listed (e.g "most read", "most edited", "most vandalised" articles). Therefore, and alternative future for portals is to be a true portal into the world of the WikiProject. There are quite a few portals and WikiProjects whose front pages are quite alike. The portals could be the "front page" of the WikiProject? It is interesting that there are now less portals than WikiProjects? Britishfinance (talk) 21:26, 16 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Britishfinance: Per WP:BEANS, do we really want the list of "most vandalized" articles to be easy to find.

One of the problems with Portals is that there is no consensus as to what a portal should be, so we have no legitimate criteria as to why a portal should be kept.

One possible approach would be to agree that portals should neither be created nor deleted until such time as a consensus as to the purpose of portals is reached. Alternatively, perhaps a portal could be deleted if it meets none of the proposed criteria for being kept, but we would still need an agreement not to create portals as part of any pause in deleting portals. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:52, 17 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think the beans were lodged long time ago Wikipedia:Most vandalized pages; any google search lists many articles on "most vandalised" WP articles. It holds a fascination with readers, which at the moment, portals do not? Trying to think of things that would improve things for readership. Britishfinance (talk) 21:38, 17 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Excessive portal creation does not seem to be a major problem at the moment. Nine of our portals were created this year. Certes (talk) 02:50, 17 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

How to make a portal?

Okay, so I read that you have to look in the contents page of portals. So what is the next step? (User talk:60.229.47.100#top) 05:03, 12 December 2020 (AEDT)

How to make a portal? Mr.brightskin (talk) 16:42, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Mr.brightskin: There is no consensus on how to make a portal (this page failed to be adopted as a guideline) or even on what topics merit a portal. One way to start would be to look at existing portals on similar topics. If few such portals exist then the topic may not be suitable. For example, we have very few portals about people, and the bar to creating them is set high. (Portal:Jesus got deleted.) Creating a portal is a complex task which we do not often attempt. If you are new to Wikipedia then it may be wise to gain experience in other areas first. If you would like to tell us what topic you are considering, someone may be able to give more specific help. You may also find WP:WikiProject Portals and its talk page useful. Certes (talk) 17:12, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Is it necessary for Portals to have links to purge the cache?

I don't understand why some portals (e.g. Portal:Mathematics) have links to purge the cache to generate new random entries. Purging the cache is a two-step process that isn't very reader friendly. You can achieve the same effect by reloading the page or clicking the left-right arrows. Isn't this redundant? Schierbecker (talk) 19:59, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Reloading the page only changes the selection if the portal was recently purged but an old version is still in the reader's browser cache. For example, refreshing Portal:Mathematics reloads the same FA, currently Kepler. Purging would show a new FA. Many portals pick a random subset from a long list, e.g. any 20 from 100. Clicking the left-right arrows moves within that subset of 20. Purging generates a new set of 20. Certes (talk) 22:30, 1 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I see. It still seems unnecessary. I really doubt anyone is using portals like that. Schierbecker (talk) 03:24, 7 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) § Portals on the main page

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) § Portals on the main page. Cremastra (talk) 22:15, 5 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]