Wikipedia talk:Portal/Guidelines/Archive 1a

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Portal. 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.

This archive page covers approximately the dates between February 2005 and August 2005..

Post replies to the main talk page, copying the section you are replying to if necessary.

Archived discussions:

Archive 1, Archive 2, Archive 3

Misc

Anybody willing to make a Computer Science wikiportal? :) --r3m0t 23:22, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I could make it but someone would have to maintain it... Ausir 00:35, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

As with anything else here, if you build it, they will come. —Mike 10:06, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)

Portal:

What about a special Portal: namespace? The portals don't really belong in the Wikipedia: namespace, at least they should be moved to the main namespace. --^grm_wnr 23:11, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps a Main Page: namespace? sjorford:// 09:43, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Use of Portals

Perhaps users could use their preferences to opt for a specific portal as the main page when they type wiki.riteme.site into their browser? Similarly, would we allow external domains to point at specific portals? Thus, http://wikibiology.com/ or http://biowiki.com/ could point at the Wikipedia biology portal - or is this considered cyber squatting?--Oldak Quill 13:02, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Also, I think it would be useful to put a link to the wikiportals page (or an index of the wikiportals) on the main page.

yes instead of to the categories. Also on the encyclopedia entry there should be a link. Just as languages link to their respective wikis. MarSch 16:48, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have created a template for this at Template:Portal. Simply type {{portal}} to use it. It produces what you see on the right. -MarSch 14:52, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A sweep has been made of WikiProjects and Wikiportals. A table for the so-called top-level project-portal pairs is being drafted. see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikiportals for details. Also there is a Community hash. Quinobi 4 July 2005 09:04 (UTC)

Does subst work with parameters now then?

The instructions read:

To create the basic skeleton for a new Wikiportal, use Template:Wikiportal. When editing the new Wikiportal for the first time, enter the template in the form {{subst:Wikiportal | topic=Astronomy | bgcolor=black | fgcolor=white}}, and save it.

I was under the impression that parameters could not be used when substing a template: has this changed? --Phil | Talk 10:58, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

OK, so I guess it does. When was anyone going tell the rest of us about it? --Phil | Talk 11:09, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

Most appropriate namespace for portals

Is there anything this page should be learning from the process that has been happening at Talk:Cricket and Talk:Cricket (portal). The basic point boils down where to have portals to keep readers, editors and re-users all maximally served. Pcb21| Pete 17:13, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Maybe there needs to be a section, down in a corner out of the way, for collaborations? So visitors can see articles in the process of being reworked (so they know things aren't stagnating) and they might even feel inspired to add to them themselves, and editors can see ones they need to help with. And yet it's not obtrusive so casual readers aren't bothered by lots of "under construction" bits. Master Thief Garrett 09:54, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

What are portals for?

I just got slapped on the wrist (ouch :) ) for suggesting to move the UK portal to a British Isles portal. So I wanted to read up on portals, but I can't find much information about what a portal is supposed to be. I thought it should be about broader subjects, a point of entry (or rather .... portal) to the constituent parts, with some clarification about what is what. The 'slapping' occurred on a subpage of mine (User:DirkvdM/British Isles - Clarification of Terms) in which I suggest an article about the British Isles to help people find their way in this rather messy subject. That seemed to me to be a good subject for a portal. But now I notice there are also portals for Quebec and Hong Kong. Aren't these subjects too narrow for a portal? Same for the People's Republic of China. Wouldn't it make more sense to have a portal on China (certainly a broad enough subject) which then has a link to the present situation, namely the Republic? There are portals for 6 countries, 2 smaller regions (Quebec and Hong Kong) and only 2 for larger regions (EU and Africa). Shouldn't portals be only for larger regions, or, rather, 'messy' regions that need clarification?

Now that I look at the various portals I'm confused. I assumed that the religion portal would have a list of the religions in the world (well, at least the 10 or so biggest ones plus their subdivisions). But not so. The Religion Category (how do I link that here?) hardly lists any religions (it's about things that have to do with religion) and the Religion Article mentions many, but doesn't categorise them. Hell ( :) ), it doesn't even mention calvinism, even though there is an article about it. But that's no problem, because there are portals for that sort of thing. One might think. But looking through the portals I now start wonder what they are for. I assumed that an article is about a specific subject, a category gives listings for a broader subject and a portal puts all the terms in such a broader subject into perspective (though I'm not sure in which of the latter two a thematical (as opposed to alphabetical) listing should go then). Am I missing something?

And the other question I'm stuck with now is where an overview such as the one I propose on my subpage should go. I wanted to find a clarification of the terms Britain, Great Britian, Brittannia and the British Isles, found the explanation spread over various articles and thought it a good idea to put all that information about all those related terms in one place and give a very concise explanation. Although I must admit it has gotten a bit out of hand and I don't know where to stop with this subject. But surely there are more such 'messy' subjects (maybe confusing would be a better word). How should they be dealt with?

DirkvdM 07:07, 2005 May 2 (UTC)

You raise many interesting (and confounding) questions. Where does a portal begin and where should it end? Mostly they just seem to exist, with no broad or agreed purpose. For instance, there are country portals aimed at editors, subject portals aimed at nothing definable and then an experimental "portal" organised by jguk created (supposedly) for readers.

Apart from a few comments on the Portal:Cricket, I've only been involved in the Australia Wikiportal - in fact, I created it. While I didn't specifically target any particular user, I suppose it is more useful to editors, much like regional Wikipedian notice boards. With regards to your questions on regions, Australia is fortunate in that it is a region in of itself (though, admittedly, more likely to be included in Australasia or Oceania).

Personally, the only questions that I see as needing to be answered are those of purpose. Are the portals targeting readers or editors or both? Once that issue has been decided, I don't suppose it matters what a portal is created for. There could very well be portal hierarchies: Regions - Countries - Subnational. Same goes for subjects. In any case, there is bound to be much overlapping.--Cyberjunkie 07:32, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Portals are like the main page, but then biased towards specific articles. -MarSch 14:57, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Seem to me like the purpose of a portal is for both Readers and Editors. For readers, it is jumping-off point for articles to explore. Categories are great, but too broad. The purpose of a portal directed at readers is to show them "Here are some of the best articles about XYZ..." Similarly, for editors, the purpose is to show them relevant topics and to include links to the projects which are ongoing within the subject. Thus, it always works as a segway between reading and editing. While exploring the portal, you find a project that needs help in a subject you're interested in. Simple enough... --Wolf530 04:10, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

I created the first portals at en: and it's definitely what I wanted them to be - they are meant to be both for readers and editors. Ausir 15:25, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Some ruminations

I've just recently been getting involved in the astronomy portal, and have been considering the question of what the portals are for. It seems to me they're certainly not for editors only, or readers only. The work I've been doing on astronomy has been aimed both at encouraging more people to edit astronomy articles, and to showcase what good content there already is. Generally, I think a portal should aim to offer readers an introduction to a broad subject area in the same way as the main page offers an introduction to the whole content. The very word portal implies that it's a means of accessing information, and not just a handy editorial resource.

It seems to me that portals should cover broad areas, and shouldn't be heirarchical. I think there should really be a maximum of about 30 portals, otherwise their usefulness to readers is diminished. So, I think a cricket portal is too narrow - there is already a sport and games portal, and it would not be useful to have separate football, motor racing and darts portals below that.

I also think issues with namespace need to be resolved. At the moment, the main page of a portal is in the wikipedia namespace, but the template for creating the framework puts loads of stuff in the template namespace. I don't think either is ideal. For astronomy, I moved all the subpages from template namespace into the same namespace as the front page ie Wikipedia:, but then we've got issues with avoiding self-referencing to contend with. I think it would make most sense to adopt a pseudo-namespace, with portals at Portal:Astronomy, Portal:Music, etc etc. (user Worldtraveller forgot to sign MarSch 15:00, 7 May 2005 (UTC))

Whether portals are useful pretty much depends on how well Wikipedia is developed in a particular area. If we had detailed articles on all the main football leagues, lots of football players, competitions, managers, grounds, etc. a portal would certainly be useful to help navigate through them all and highlight the main areas of interest.

Also different portals can have different ideas, different aims. And no doubt some will be more successful than others. These are early days in PortalWorld - let's just see how things develop, jguk 17:46, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

I was the first to introduce portals to en: and they definitely should be both for readers and editors. If you looked at Polish or French portals, you'd notice that they're actually more like your cricket one in terms of organization than many of the other ones here. Ausir 20:51, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree that portals are for readers and editors both (as is all in wikiland), but I am also a bit concerned with a lot of too narrow portals, like for cricket and the request for the simpsons? I think there should be a portal for each continent separately and not for individual countries. Right now portals for both Europe and European Union are under construction and that is just silly and probably counterproductive. On another note, I just noticed that Main_page is in article space. This is not right. It shouldbe at Portal:main or some such... -MarSch 15:00, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

I think it is definitely silly to have both Europe and European Union. On the other hand, it is clear from the size of the cricket wikiportal that it is a pretty well-covered topic, and would be diminished by being part of sport and games. Cricket is watched by approximately one in ten of the world's population. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that there are a large number of articles in that category. I feel that sport and games is perhaps too broad, and would benefit from being a "super-portal" linking to the other portals. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 20:21, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't know about this. I mean, having a "Sport" portal sounds right to me. But shouldn't the Cricket article in the encyclopedia function as the jumping-off point for articles on that, more specific, subject? If we give every "big" sport a portal, we're going to down a slippery-slope where we'll end up with an article on a subject, and a mirroring portal for each and every subject. I think we'd do well to simply create a list of subjects which are broad enough for a portal, and cut it off there. --Wolf530 04:11, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

At de: portals on narrower subjects are mostly subpages of the broader ones. Ausir 06:42, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

I think that is a fantastic idea. May I suggest the subpage feature of the new space be activated. In reply to Wolf530's comment, I think cricket is an area that is wide enough and has enough devotees to make a portal worthwhile. There are more cricket FAs than any other sport. It's worth having, in short. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 13:36, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Survey of opinion on a separate namespace for portals and lists

See also: Wikipedia:Portalspace where the Portalspace is being formally proposed - the Listspace is not yet being formally proposed

This is nothing official, I'd just like to see what the general opinion is. Ausir 20:51, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

I have seen no discussion on lists yet and have not formed an opinion on where they should be, or whether they should be at all ;) but portals shouldn't be in article space and neither should main page anymore. A portal namespace might be a bit narrow, so perhaps there should be a Navigation namespace or some such. By the way, I thought that a namespace was nothing other than the Navigation: prefix, or User: for the user namespace. What does jguk mean below? -MarSch 15:11, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

I must say I don't really know in what way a these spaces work. The only way I can see things manifesting themselves is with the talk pages. The talk page of Article is at Talk:Article; whereas the talk page of Wikipedia:Three revert rule (for example) is at Wikipedia talk:Three revert rule. The talk page of Portal:Cricket is at [[Talk:Portal:Cricket]] rather than at Portal talk:Cricket. However, I confess, I don't know if it means more than that, jguk 15:43, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Move lists and portals to a separate namespace

Ausir 20:51, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
I have a mild preference for this above keeping them in the main namespace. We can easily reformat the names of Portals and Lists to look like this anyway (eg we already have Portal:Cricket, and we could have List:Cricketers easily enough). But it would probably better to have a formal namespace (assuming it is not going to be too difficult or time-consuming for the developers to construct these new spaces, jguk 09:26, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
I support new namespaces for lists and portals but nothing else. I would not want this to lead to a precedent where 100s of random namespaces are being constantly requested. Angela . 17:53, May 7, 2005 (UTC)
I completely agree with jguk above. --Theo (Talk) 10:05, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Move only portals to separate namespace, keep lists in the main namespace

Cyberjunkie 05:11, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
Circeus 14:01, May 7, 2005 (UTC)
Tuf-Kat 17:21, May 7, 2005 (UTC)
as ruminated above (thanks for signing, MarSch!) Worldtraveller 18:05, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
AB CD 18:10, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
r3m0t ^talk 18:47, May 7, 2005 (UTC) Lists are too often linked to to move around now.
There are too many lists that aren't just lists, like List of gaps in Interstate Highways. --SPUI (talk) 07:19, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
I strongly object to lists being moved according to a vote here. It's another issue entirely, and one that has nothing to do with this page. That said, a portal namespace is a good idea. Ambi 12:27, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
Lists sometimes are more like proper articles than some articles. ed g2s • talk 12:28, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
I also agree with Ambi that we should not be voting on the list namespace here (talk:Wikiportal). The list namespace would affect thousands of pages, unlike the thirty-odd Wikiportals, and should be discussed on a more suitable and visible page. ed g2s • talk 12:32, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
I think my reasoning is explained above. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 17:04, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Keep portals in the Wikipedia namespace, keep lists in the main namespace

Neutrality^talk 05:13, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

Keep portals and lists in the main namespace

I'd be happy with this too. I note we can make them look like they are separate spaces already - and that it might look better if all lists started with "List:" rather than what we currently have. It would be better if there were formal Portalspaces and Listspaces, but if the developers can't quickly do that, this is a good alternative option. Finally, I note that Portalspace is likely to be less controversial than Listspace as we have so few portals and so many lists, jguk 09:26, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Move portals to the category: namespace

Just throwing in another possibility, (there is an example at Category:Cetaceans. Pcb21| Pete 20:39, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

please see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikiportals Quinobi 28 June 2005 21:10 (UTC)

portals on Main page

There are too many portals in {{wikiportals}}:

What are portals?
List of portals

If we want such a link on the main page then we need to make a selection. Currently the following is on main:

Browse Wikipedia · Article overviews · Alphabetical index · Other category schemes

I was thinking of one portal for all countries/continents, a science portal, a math portal, an arts portal, the sport(s) and games portal, miscellaneous portal for all portals which don't fall naturally under any other. Probably a bit biased :) so tell me what you think. -MarSch 17:43, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

I think would definitely be a very good thing to link to portals from the main page. Is that something that is generally accepted? I hope so, portals are much more user-friendly than categories. As far as what should be included in a list, I think the broadest topics are best for portals. That said (and bias aside of course :)) I'd love to see Astronomy linked, perhaps in addition to science, just because I think astronomy has greater public appeal than most sciences, and we have loads of pretty pictures to show off.

How about this:

Browse Wikipedia · Article overviews · Alphabetical index · Other category schemes

But obviously without the redlinks. Worldtraveller 16:53, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Not bad. Pending further discussion I've put

What are portals?
List of portals

on Main Page (table free). -MarSch 14:13, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking along the lines of

but of course whe need some more main portals besides these two. Only I'm not sure what should go where. -MarSch 14:58, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

So in this abbreviated list, where do transportation topics (such as the newly created Trains portal) belong? Science? That doesn't quite sound right. slambo 03:46, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

I would say trains belong under a technology or transportation portal. Maybe science needs to be renamed to academia or something. Maybe technology and engineering need to be there and trains could be under tech & engi or something. Maybe we need a Culture main portal, which couls house things like music and art.-MarSch 13:19, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Looking at various search engines for aviation (portal), rail (portal) and automotive (no portal yet) topics, dir.google.com uses: Science → Technology → Transportation. Yahoo uses: Recreation → Travel → Transportation. I'm more inclined to follow Google's lead on this one because transportation includes business and freight transport as well as recreational transport. slambo 16:22, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

Transport would more normally come under technology (which, as mentioned, may also come under science), and if the wikiportals are indexed thus, that's where I'd expect to find it. But I doubt the functionality of such an index system, as wikiportals are bound to be created where there will be no obvious category.--Cyberjunkie 08:26, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes, portals will be created which are impossible to classify. That is not really the issue here. They can be put in a list category, template or whatever. What we need is a small number of superportals we can gather together and stick in a prominent place like Main Page, the ultimate superportal. -MarSch 12:42, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

What about a geography portal? Could something like that replace the continents? What wikiportals are necessary? Let's make the ones we need and put them on the main page. --Spangineer (háblame) 19:01, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

How about this? It includes every portal online June 23, 2005:

Browse Wikipedia · Article overviews · Alphabetical index · Other category schemes

Too big for the main page? Too much info (too many pages)? Probably, but where do you cut down. And if a page isn't included on the main page is it really required? And if it is still required, how do you get to it easily? Lots of questions I can't answer.Trevor macinnis 22:40, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Great effort! And a great start! I'm going to stick this in a template and put it at Main Page (simple layout). To answer some of your questions, I think that as more and more portals come into existence it will become clear where to cut down. We should start to introduce this hierarchy into the portals so that from the main portals you can reach the more specialized portals. That should be easy enough. --MarSch 09:05, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Indeed - I have tweaked slightly -

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

-- ALoan (Talk) 11:55, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I put {{main portals}} on the Wikipedia:Browse page. If this version is acceptable to everyone, I think it shold completely replace the old version (especially at Wikipedia:Wikiportal, at least until we can decide how and where to include and exclude portals), that way when new portals are started {{main portals}} will be kept updated.

Trevor macinnis 14:49, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't think we should replace {portals} with {main portals} even though they momentarily both contain all templates. --MarSch 17:45, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Page move

The page has been moved, without consensus, let alone discussion, to Wikipedia:Portal from Wikipedia:Wikiportal. I am to move it back. Wikiportal is more in keeping with other initiatives throughout Wikimedia. Whilst "portal" is useful shorthand, but I oppose it's formal use without discussion.--Cyberjunkie 14:01, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I was being bold. Portal is used in many other language editions. I'm surprised that you have a problem with my move and also that you moved it back without discussing first. I don't see what the wiki adds, surely we don't talk about wikiarticles either. Wikiportal is not an initiative of Wikimedia, instead portals are something inside Wikipedia just as articles and templates. --MarSch 16:11, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

What about the namespace that is to be created? It is Portal: not Wikiportal: --MarSch 16:14, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Assuming the move to Wikipedia:Portal goes ahead, I trust that you will also be moving all of the Wikiportals themselves (for example, Wikipedia:Wikiportal/United Kingdom to Wikipedia:Portal/United Kingdom), changing the references to Category:Wikiportals and correcting the cross references? -- ALoan (Talk) 16:23, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I realise it was a bold edit, but this is a project with which many are involved and of which there are consequences of any move. As ALoan has pointed out, it means that all Wikiportals must now be retitled for consistency, and approval should be sought at these individual portals. Bold edits are encouraged in context, but basic Wikiquette should always be preferred. My revert is justifiable in that I re-established the pre-existing situation, and at least I gave notice. You seem to have missed my point, also. I did not state that it was Wikimedia initiative, I stated the use of "wiki" as a prefix in initiatives is widespread throughout Wikimedia, especially within Wikipedia (read WikiProject, Wikibreak, Wikistress, Wikiquette etc.). With regards to Portal: I have made mention amongst the manifold discussion about the retention of the "wiki" prefix, but it has seemingly been lost in the speed and confusion of the issue as driven by jguk (a move I support, by and large). In any case, that is not a resolved issue, and when a resolution is reached, it will be by consensus. ;) I intend to revert again, not immediately (say, 8 hours), so that others can comment - though, the discussion should extend beyond this.--Cyberjunkie 16:48, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

On one hand, I'd prefer the name Wikiportal. On the other, when the portalspace is established, Portal: would be more consistant with namespaces such as Template: and Category: as opposed to Wikitemplate: and Wikicategory: Ausir 18:44, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree, the namespace (if created) should be consistent with the other namespaces. If the namespace is created then I'd expect that the "wiki" prefix would be dropped from "wikiportal". But this is yet to happen, and it is precisely because of consistency that this page should remain at Wikipedia:Wikiportal until such time. I am now to revert the page to its original address. Please (!) do not move it again.--Cyberjunkie 09:58, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Only create a portal if you intend to maintain it

I have added this to the project page, since I come across quite a lot of portals which are created by anonymous users, without a clue. --MarSch 18:18, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's Wikipedia. I would hope that Wikiportals would be maintained by everyone just like every other Wikipedia page. I'm not even sure why we have maintainers listed in the first place. If we want user maintained pages, those would be better left to a user subpage. Just my opinion. --Sketchee 22:20, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

All the better to create low maintenance portals. The Cricket portal has been designed with readers rather than editors in mind, and is extremely low maintenance. A portal that needs a lot of updating but which isn't being updated sounds like it could do with an overhaul. Kind regards, jguk 22:29, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

We can always list the portals that need people to look after is a new section called "Oprhaned Portals." Since it is a new idea, I do not think we should have a Portal For Deletion, yet. As for the maintainers, those are like your portal admins (to me) and I listed them on a Portal Information template (see the portals of Russia and Belarus). Zscout370 (Sound Off) 22:33, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That sounds fine I guess. I'm hope people won't think they can't edit a portal because they aren't a maintainer or that the creator/maintainer has any more authority on the page than anyone else. :) --Sketchee 22:47, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

On a related note, where is the line being drawn between an "existing portal" on the list and a portal "under construction"? For example, the Europe portal looks complete and is listed on the portal template, but hasn't been touched in a month and is listed under "portals under constuction".Trevor macinnis 30 June 2005 04:22 (UTC)

Well, since an anonymous created it, I guess it has no maintainers. The difference is not clearcut of course. But portals which weren't filled in at all and were listed in the portals template were commented out as they should be. I guess there is a distinction between ready and active.--MarSch 30 June 2005 12:28 (UTC)

There ist also the posibility to delete unmaintained portals. --80.135.57.59 18:07, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, it is preferable to create a template of unmaintained portals which states that the portal is being unmaintained and needs help. Deleting it is not an option as soon or later someone would recreate it and start from scratch, which would be more painfull. Svest 18:20, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Just to name one: Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Sweden. The last edit is from 5 July and since that time it is rather british than swedish. Visitors for swedish texts will not get much help from that portal, don`t they? How many months will that last until someone will maintain that portal? --80.135.57.59 19:28, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I had a look at it and it really look british as you said. I agree. How about a vfd for unmantained portals then? Cheers - Svest 21:29, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Done! Let´s see what will happen. --80.135.25.238 12:10, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Great job. Now, we have to create the following:

Template:Pfd; (done)
Template:Pfr; (done)
Template:Pfm; (done)
Wikipedia:Portals for deletion/Howto; (done)
Wikipedia:Portals for deletion policies; (done)
Portals for deletion; (done)
Category:Portals for deletion;

Cheers - Svest 20:53, August 24, 2005 (UTC) ^{Wiki me up}

There is no need for special pages to delete portals. Just look at Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Sweden. The VfD-system is working. --80.135.15.147 21:36, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I believe there's no need for that now. However, when the number of portals would grow, we'll need that for sure. It's a good way to have standards in Wikipedia. That would help users as well as editors. The same process has been followed for Categories. No big deals, the special pages and templates are already created, see above. Cheers - Svest 21:59, August 24, 2005 (UTC) ^{Wiki me up}

There is no need for a special area for discussing the deletion of portals specifically. Wikipedia:Votes for deletion covers the deletion of portals now. From Monday 2005-08-29 (if all goes well) the new Wikipedia:Non-main namespace pages for deletion will cover them. Uncle G 16:21:04, 2005-08-28 (UTC)

Approval for portals?

Would it be worthwhile for there to be an approval process for new portals? It seems to me that several of the requested portals are either a) substantially duplicates of existing portals (eg African Union with Africa) b) regions of very narrow interest for which efforts on a portal might be better directed to a broader subject (eg The Simpsons, Organic gardening, speculative fiction). It seems to me that it would be useful for there to be some kind of commenting process on proposed portals to assess whether the subject is sufficiently broad and would generate sufficient interest to warrant its own portal. Worldtraveller 17:54, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Not only is this sensible, but I've been a bit bold and smooshed together some of the overspecific requests into more sensible topics. Sorry if I was overzealous. Ashibaka (tock) 03:44, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

How about the requirement of a wikiproject to back it up? --MarSch 11:58, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Not sure about that, as projects can tackle quite specific aspects of a subject. For example, in astronomy, I definitely think there should be an astronomy portal, but none of the astronomy-related projects would be suitable for a portal in my opinion - constellations, telescopes, astronomical objects. Worldtraveller 16:48, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

they could collaborate to back this portal up --MarSch 09:30, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

How do I point to a portal?

It's great that the Africa portal points to the category of African countries, but I'd like to have some way to point all the Africa country articles to the Africa portal. No matter where readers start, they should be able to navigate around. 19 June 2005.

For the Art wikiportal when that began, I added it as a bullet under the See also section of the main pages relating to art. Recently for categories, User:Maria N created Template:Artportal. I suppose you could make one for the Africa portal and use that in the See Also sections if editors of those articles don't object. --Sketchee 03:17, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

Please don't create so many separate templates: Argumentify. And tell people about it, so we don't end up with 200 templates that do the same thing. There was already a variant used at information technology I think. Don't make me go to tfd. --MarSch 14:32, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Don't make you go to tfd? No need for such strong language. I didn't make any templates. --Sketchee 00:49, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

I truly have no idea what 'argumentify' means, but if you could do whatever that means to the Ghana article, I could probably copy it into the rest of the countries. I can do simple tasks well. Generally. Often. Sometimes. On a good day. :-)

I think MarSch is saying, use a plain link like this: Africa Wikiportal rather than using a special template. On the other hand, {{portal}} already exists, and you could create a variant that accepted an argument - {{portal2|Africa}}. -- ALoan (Talk) 21:40, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It is also possible to use the Template Template:Portalpar, which can be placed on any page and be used to point to any portal.Trevor macinnis 03:36, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ah - didn't know about that one. Thanks. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:15, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have WP:TfD'ed artportal. --MarSch 14:10, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Portals on WP:Browse

I moved the portals section to the top of the Browse Wikipedia page (linked from front page). However, the portal template in use there is different from the one in use here:

Here:

What are portals?
List of portals

On wikipedia browse:

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

As you can see, for example Brazil is in the first list but not in the second. Is there an easy way to keep these synchronized? Jacoplane 23:37, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

{{main portals}} is on the browse page because we're testing out a new way of doing it (hopefully people find it easier on the eyes and better organized). They were both complete earlier, but of course Brazil was added to the old one today and not the new one. I'm going to change the wikiportal page today to ask people to add new portals to both if they do add.Trevor macinnis 00:45, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ok, that's cool. It does look much nicer by the way. Jacoplane

Wikiportal box templates

I've created a set of templates for creating 'boxes' in wikiportal pages. Currently, the portals have boxes that are hard-coded into the portal pages themselves. This makes those edit pages unreadable, the color schemes are hard to change, and many of the boxes have css errors in them that cause content to overflow out of the box (becoming unreadable) in browsers like Firefox. Those interested should have a look at Wikipedia talk:Wikiportal/box-header. I'll convert the portals as I find time, and encourage others to do so as well. Slike2 04:43, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I see you've used this on Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Canada. I think that Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Aviation looks much nicer. Why does everybody keep using the old skeleton? --MarSch 28 June 2005 13:50 (UTC)

I agree that aviation looks much nicer, but the colors on canada are not mine to change. If you're talking about the spacing, I agree there too, and that can be easily changed. Slike2 28 June 2005 20:08 (UTC)

This is a very interesting idea, and the Canada and Computer and video games portals do look cleaner in the edit box, but there are a few things that should be fixed before I would support it as a replacement to the current way of creating a portal with the {{portal skeleton}}.

Information pulled into the boxs should come from subpages of the portal and not Template pages.
A clear instruction page (current one is just as confusing to a newbie as the portal sketeton instructions}.

If we fix that (and convert the old pages over - they apparently aren't being done by the "Maintainers") then things could run so much smoother.Trevor macinnis 28 June 2005 17:42 (UTC)

I don't understand what you mean by #1. Things do get pulled from subpages (which I think are template pages due to method of importing). The canada wikiportal, with lack of "edit" link for the main section, isn't a matter of the box not working, it's a matter of people not putting in that extra template link. As for the template instructions - I'll try to fix them up. Slike2 28 June 2005 20:08 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't hink I explained myself very well. The way things are set up now most portals have their main page at "Wikipedia:Wikiportal/portal title and all the pages that are in the boxes are at Template:Wikiportal:portal title/box title. This was probably due to the way the pages were coded to begin with, but I don't think that's the proper way to have it. You can see at a few pages (Culture or Aviation) that the pages in the boxes are located at Wikipedia:Wikiportal/portal title/box title. A much cleaner and more organized way of doing it. I'm not a wikicode wiz or anything but I'm trying to find out why the Template stuff happens and correct the "mistake".Trevor macinnis 28 June 2005 20:25 (UTC)

Ok, I've discoved that it's due to the fact that the box-header template uses the ed template istead of the ed2 template. If there are no objections, I will change this (and the affected Canada and video games portals)Trevor macinnis 28 June 2005 20:43 (UTC)

No objection. I went ahead and changed what I think you were referring to? Slike2 28 June 2005 22:34 (UTC)

I switched over the aviation portal to this format, but is you take a look the anniversaries box extends too far. Any idea why?Trevor macinnis 30 June 2005 21:26 (UTC)

Fixed. (Both columns should be floated.) Slike2 30 June 2005 21:49 (UTC)

I think that it would probably a good idea to convert {{portal skeleton}} to use these boxes. --MarSch 3 July 2005 11:25 (UTC)

I've already done this. Check out {{box portal skeleton}}. An instuction manual has been posted to the Wikiportal talk page as well. I used this to convert over the history portal if you want to see the practical.Trevor macinnis 3 July 2005 13:08 (UTC)

Along the same lines, I'm going to take out the section on making a portal using the old way, and other references. I'm also asking maintainers of existing pages to convert them over to box format(or give the ok for anyone to).

toc in portals

What happened that a lot of templates using old layout suddenly have a toc showing up? --MarSch 28 June 2005 16:15 (UTC)

Must have something to do with the software upgrade yesterday. We could NOTOC them out or convert the pages to the new format.Trevor macinnis 28 June 2005 17:11 (UTC)

The new software recognizes h (h1,h2,h3...) html elements as headings (== ==) Slike2 28 June 2005 19:54 (UTC)

thanks for the info. --MarSch 30 June 2005 12:32 (UTC)

New WikiProject_Wikiportals

Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikiportals

We've started a Wikipedia:WikiProject to help align all of the various Wikiportals with the Main_Page. It's a top down approach, and we don't want to collide with the efforts to build individual portals.

We're just trying to establish some Project spaces and fill in some gaps to make it easier for readers to Browse Wikipedia via polished Wikiportals in the main namespace and work on rough drafts in the Wikipedia: namespace. I hope this will help provide some structure and organization. Thanks Quinobi 28 June 2005 21:07 (UTC)

This a rough draft of the main template:

It will have a place for the new Wikipedia:User_groups functionality.

See: Wikipedia:Village_Pump | Wikipedia:WikiProjects | Wikipedia:WikiProject_Community | Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikiportals

fr has a similar project "Synoptique" with a column for stub--Ste281 5 July 2005 18:12 (UTC)

Pornoportal

Someone has created a Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Pornography; I have mixed feelings about this, but figure that if 'twere done 'tis best 'twere done ~~quickly~~ well, so I created Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Pornography/Things you can do. Anyway, should we add it to this page? I think there is plenty of room for actual worthwhile encyclopedic content in this area, but I also think what we have right now is mostly one step from simply being pornography itself. -- Jmabel | Talk July 9, 2005 04:57 (UTC)

I understand your position, but wikipedia really shouldn't be as 'clean' as many of us would like it to be. Old chinese pot drawings are not what porn is about today. The random picture of what I guess is a porn star is pretty useless though. And I do think it would be drastically better to have a sex wikiportal instead. Slike2 00:27, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

What are portals for? Is anyone really likely to make use of a pornography portal? If portals are to be useful for navigation they've got to provide access to broad areas of content. A 'human behaviour' or 'sex and gender' portal would be a useful thing; a pornography portal is not. That's my opinion anyway. Worldtraveller 00:40, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes - It sounds like a Pornography Wikiproject is more of what you may have been looking for? --Celestianpower ^hab 12:11, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

External wikis

Is it appropriate to involve other reference-oriented wikis such as those hosted by Wikicities in a Wikiportal? Most specifically I'd be interested in hosting one on poker if I could draw in content from PokerWiki. Religion, mentioned above, also seems like a good topic for transwiki unification via portals since it has a functioning Wikicity too. Seems that Wikiportals, as opposed to Wikipediaportals, would draw in other wiki info on a topic but I don't want to step on any toes. - PhilipR 15:15, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

I'd have no problem with you using information from those external wiki's (it's all free use isn't it?), but I am very much against actually making a connection between Wikipedia and those (advertised on) sites. I think that would be spam of some sort, although I'm not fluent in Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines.I think an External links section would be close enough.Trevor macinnis 15:50, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Improvement Drive

The article Culture of Italy has been listed to be improved on Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive. You can add your vote there if you would like to support the article.--Fenice 14:20, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Removal of unmaintained portals

I agree as stated above that there should be an apporval for portals, and the ones that aren't maintained be removed. For example, the soccer portal is one of only few that are well maintained. Phoenix2 16:37, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

Break up the list?

Now that the Existing Wikiportals list is so long, perhaps we should break it up so it's a little easier to find the one your looking for. Even just two areas, one for interests and on for countries, would help a little --Sketchee 17:31, August 19, 2005 (UTC)

In the German Wikipedia with more than 200 Portals, we link to de:Wikipedia nach Themen which replaces "Other Wikiportals". --80.135.5.181 15:50, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to create a page modelled after the German page. The number of portals has increased beyond what can be listed in the templates, and I think a page like (Wikipedia:Browse) is needed. I'll start it at Wikipedia:Wikiportal Browse tonight. - Trevor MacInnis(Talk | Contribs) 17:41, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi folks, good ideas. But I think Sketchee talks about the list in the main project page and not in the template one. For further discussions and details, please refer to the section below. Cheers - Svest 21:00, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

Right, good idea on both counts. The list on the main project page should be broken up, and the {{portals}} template should be broken up too. Or at least people should have the option of using a section of ot. Check out the suggestion at Template talk:Portals and a suggested template at {{Portals view: Technology}}. Trevor MacInnis(Talk | Contribs) 00:34, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Issues, proposals and votes

Dear all. As of August 22, 2005, the number of portals is increasing dramatically. We have many issues discussed above but nothing looks in order. We need to organize our planning and find solutions to the many issues before it's too late and we'd end up facing the same problems we're facing with categories. Here are some relevant issues with initial proposals and please use your vote to make the situation better. Please, feel free to add any issues below using the same skeleton (Issue, proposal and vote):

Issue 1: Wikiportals in the main page... Everyone agrees that it's a necessity to have a "respected" representation of wikiportals at the main page. It's indeed a priority.
Proposal 1: The Wikiportals should be on top, just above the "featured article" and the "In the News" sections. It is preferable to be a rectangular section where we'd have a "featured Wikiportal" in one part (this would enhance the quality of wikiportals and therefore the maintenance to keep them updated. Only maintained ones would be featured) and other links to similar wikiportals to the featured one with a "see more wikiportals here" link.

It should be on top because Wikiportals will surely become very important for Wikipedia as most visitors come with no specific idea about what they are looking for and representing well wikiportals would help them navigate instead of using "Categories"; which are a mess indeed. Just compare Technology with Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Technology and see what I am talking about.

The following should be removed:

and replaced by a section for wikiportals (in a rectangular box) as described above.

No doubt the main page will look better with more information using the same space as it uses now.

Also, a link to Wikiportals in the navigation bar at left should exist. The link will be directed to what a "portal of portals" as 80.135.5.181 suggested in the section above using the same thing as for the German one

Proposal 2:

I don't think the Template:Categorybrowsebar should be removed, but I've created a page titled Wikipedia:Wikiportal Browse and I think it should be linked to. How about:

Browse Wikipedia · Browse Portals · Article overviews · Alphabetical index · Other indexes

I'd do it myself but the template is protected. Trevor MacInnis(Talk | Contribs) 21:35, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I don´t know how to advance something like that. Maybe it should be proposed to Talk:Main Page? --80.135.14.6 22:20, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

I requested this edit at Talk:Main_Page#Portals_link but it was refused. I think it would be the best way for people to access portals, and if anyone is interested maybe they could Be Bold and do it, but for now are there any other suggestions? - Trevor MacInnis(Talk | Contribs) 21:11, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Votes:

Issue 2: Categorization of Wikiportals... This is no doubt the hardest task. If not solved ASAP, it would be a mess again as the Categories.
Proposal 1: Many ideas are possible but maybe the German example is the best solution. Also, the countries categorization would be organized as follows (Geography would be a portal itself about Geographical science and discoveries instead of being a parent of countries):

Proposal 2:

Votes:

Issue 3: Unmaintained wikiportals... This is a big issue also. However, but I still believe that the "featured Wikiportal" would help. I am not sure what else can be done. What I believe is that with time, this problem will not be that bad as wikiportals would become important in the Wikipedia project and thus everyone who creates and/or volunteers to maintain a portal would be keen to respect that.

Proposal 1:

Perhaps if a portal is seen to be unsupported it can be reduced to a bare bones, where the required links are available (categories, projects, etc) but items that need to be changed regularly (Featured article/picture) are removed. Trevor MacInnis(Talk | Contribs) 21:35, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Proposal 2:

Votes:

Cheers and respect from Svest 22:43, August 22, 2005 (UTC) ^{Wiki me up}