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Introduction and invitations

Hello. I've taken it upon myself to make an attempt to create a framework for discussing portals, with the ultimate goal of creating a proposal for a new portal guideline that can be presented to the wider community in an RfC. I have purposely pinged a small group of editors to this discussion, and I have intentionally selected editors that I expect to have differing views on these topics. If we can work together to find proposals that have some agreement among us, I believe that we can eventually create a guideline that the community can accept. I would like to keep this discussion limited to a small group of editors, but with that said, I don't mind if a few other editors are invited to the discussion. However, in order for this discussion to be successful, it needs to be conducted in a calm, rational, civil way, where the only goal is to create a guideline that is in the best interests of Wikipedia. So, if you're going to invite other editors to the discussion, please make it a relatively small number, and please choose editors that are well-versed in portals, and who have the ability to have a rational and thoughtful discussion about them. I'd also like to keep a relative balance between portal inclusionists and portal deletionists, so that discussions don't get lopsided. I've tried to start by inviting a diverse group of people to this discussion who I've seen contributing regularly to portal MFDs, but I might have missed some important users in the world of portals.

I will essentially act as a moderator of the discussion, but may also throw a few of my own ideas in, if I have any. However, since this page is in my userspace, I reserve the right to remove comments without warning if I find them to be unproductive or uncivil, and I also reserve the right to ask specific users to stop contributing to this project if I believe that their participation is disruptive or unhelpful. My goal is to keep the discussion focused on finding compromises that everyone can live with. Remember that a good compromise is one where both sides are equally unsatisfied.

Here's how I'd like to organize this effort:

  1. First, I'd like to form a group of interested participants who are willing to contribute to this project.
  2. Secondly, once we've got a good group of people, I'd like to review the stated goals of a portal guideline (on the main workspace page) and come to an agreement on those.
  3. Thirdly, I'd like to find an agreement on the major elements that a portal guideline would need to include (I've also started a list on the main workspace page for this).
  4. Finally, I'd like to dig into each of these major elements and begin to solicit proposals for the wording of each of those sections, have discussion on them, find the points of disagreement, and see if we can find a middle-ground that everyone can accept.
  5. Assuming we're successful, the next step will be to start an RfC on our proposed guideline page, and see if we can gain a consensus within the larger Wikipedia community to adopt it as an official guideline.

I would like to take these steps in order, one at a time, without skipping ahead. So, let's start with taking a couple days to work on the first step. Please indicate below if you're interested in participating in this project. Additionally, this would probably be the best time to invite a few other people to this discussion by adding them to the ping list below, if you feel a strong desire to do so (but again, I think this group will work best if it remains relatively small). Anyone else that's been invited, please acknowledge your interest (or lack thereof) below. Thanks! ‑Scottywong | [yak] || 19:51, 13 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Invited

Users that have been invited thus far. To ensure that we have a suitable group of editors that are interested in this project before we start working, please move your signature below to acknowledge your interest in participating here.

Further invitations by User:Hecato:

Participating

Restricted (temporary)

"1) BrownHairedGirl (talk · contribs · logs · edit filter log · block log) and Northamerica1000 (talk · contribs · logs · edit filter log · block log) are prohibited from editing in the Portal: namespace or engaging in discussions about portals, with the exception of arbitration case pages, until this case is concluded." This is per ARBCOM with 5 supporting (4 is needed to pass). This is put into place so neither editor gets into further trouble. ( Discussion)

For who's benefit is this sub-section? I'm 1,000% sure that neither of these two longstanding admin need this subsection put into place so they don't get into trouble. I'm also 1,000% sure that having this here won't help any of the rest of us come up with a portal guideline. It looks to me like a public badge of shame. Since it has no benefit and it's potentially harmful, I think it should be removed. – Leviv ich 20:59, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I think the point is so that it doesn't seem odd that they are not here (or in the case of BrownHairedGirl, that they briefly participated and then stopped). BD2412 T 21:03, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
You are correct in saying that this is for information purposes. BHG can not respond any further to comments she made here nor can NA1000 join in. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 03:56, 1 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Some introductory steps for this process

I was thinking about ways to initiate this process itself here on this page. do we want to poll all the editors here, and ask each of them for a brief introductory statement of what their concerns or questions are, and where they might wish to see things go? it's just a suggestion. that might be one good way to initiate things. if not, no problem, just suggesting that. thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 14:56, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I was really hoping to guide this conversation from very general, broad topics to very specific details. However, a lot people seem to be chomping at the bit to get right into the details. We'll have to figure out the best way to steer things. I realize that everyone has a horse in this race, and everyone wants to make sure that their thoughts are heard on what they consider to be the most important aspects of this discussion. However, I continue to believe that we need to have some level of organization to this process, or else we won't end up getting anywhere.
I haven't heard anyone object to the overall goals for a portal guideline that I've posted on the main page, so I'll assume that those goals are accurate and complete. I suppose we can assume that everyone agrees on the main elements that a portal guideline would need to include, and we can always go back and update them if need be. So, that gets us to the first part of the guidline: the introduction and summary. Let's start discussing that below, in the Introduction and Summary section. I think it's critically important that we all agree what the overall purpose of portals is, before we start getting into the details of how to build them, and inclusion criteria, and all that. I'll start the discussion below. I'll also put a link at the top of this page that leads everyone to the currently active discussion, in the hopes that we can all stay focused on that until it's time to move on to the next topic. ‑Scottywong | [converse] || 16:47, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
ok, thanks for answers, @ Scottywong:. here are some other questions, from my earlier comment below. thanks.
  • Can we have a separate sub-section for each person commenting here, for them to provide their basic ideas? I have seen this method being used helpfully when a lot of people need to provide input on a specific question. users would still be free to comment in other users' sections to discuss the ideas from those users.
  • Also, remember that we need to address concerns of some people who don't want portals to exist at all. any comments on that? or on how we should do that?
thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 14:38, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Sm8900: That looks fine to me, thanks for organizing that. I've got some things that have come up in my personal life that are going to limit the amount of time I can put towards Wikipedia for the near future, but I'll continue to check in as I can. I'm glad to see that the discussions are active. ‑Scottywong | [converse] || 17:06, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

General discussion

I will start by saying that I do not feel that portals recently kept by consensus (past 2 to 3 months) should be deleted as it goes around the decided decision. Once guidelines are firmly established then this can be revisited. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 02:52, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I have no idea what this means. Also, you've skipped very far ahead to step 4 before we've even finished step 1. ‑Scottywong | [gab] || 02:55, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Im not sure where you want comments and/or concerns. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 02:58, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Knowledgekid87: I don't really want comments and/or concerns just yet. But, I appreciate your enthusiasm and participation. At this point, I simply want to ensure that we have a suitable group of people who are interested and willing to commit to this project, because it's going to be a lot of work and it probably won't always be easy. Perhaps anyone that is interested can simply put their signature above next to their name? The reason I want to do this first is that I know that this is a turbulent time for portals, there is a lot of animosity between people, and there are a lot of other discussions going on simultaneously. Therefore, it's possible that no one has the energy for this right now. And, I don't want to waste a lot of my time trying to kick this can down the road if no one is going to join me. So, before we even start talking about portals at all, let's just make sure that we've got a good group of people committed to this, and it's going to be worth our time. If we don't get enough interested editors to participate, I'll likely abandon this effort and delete the page. But, at least I'm trying something. ‑Scottywong | [confabulate] || 03:04, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Well I am in and will wait for more people then. I currently maintain Portal:Anime and manga which covers a lot of scopes and has recently been transcluded, the portal is also supported by our project. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 03:09, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I find your selection of invited participants rather odd. With most of these users being opposed to portals in principle or wanting to limit the number of portals to a very small number. -- Hecato ( talk) 12:08, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    • I think that the selection reflects those who are active in generally discussing portals that have been nominated for deletion. I would add that the community in general appears to want to limit the number of portals to a fairly small number, based on the absence of opposition to proposals for the deletion of most portals for narrow topics. BD2412 T 12:26, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
      • If the design process of a new guideline is rigged in that direction then we might as well write down a list of ten or so acceptable portal topics, delete the rest and outlaw the creation of new portals, because that would be the outcome anyway. I don't consider users, whose sole involvement in portals is the attempt to get rid of them, "Portal power users" or positive forces in the improvement of portals for that matter. -- Hecato ( talk) 12:37, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
        • Thanks for letting us know your honest thoughts. As I explained above, my selection of people to invite was semi-random and limited to names that I recognized as frequent contributors to recent Portal MFDs, who generally had thoughtful arguments. I tried to get a roughly even split of people who seemed more likely to vote to keep most portals, and those who are more likely to delete, but I may have gotten that balance wrong. If there are truly some portal "power users" that I neglected to invite, please feel free to invite them now. In any case, I can assure you that the goal of this process is not to find a sneaky way to delete all portals. In fact, I would consider the discussion of "should we even have portals?" to be out of scope here. I intend to presume that portals are here to stay, in some form or another, so let's put together a guideline for portals that everyone can agree on, so that we can all stop arguing about them incessantly.
  • I have added a few names from the top of my head. Might add a few more later. A general invitation to Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals should be extended. Do you want to do that as the organizer, or should I? -- Hecato ( talk) 15:22, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • My intention was to keep this to a relatively small group, because too many cooks can spoil the soup. To be clear, no one is missing out on anything if they're not here. My intention isn't to create a guideline in secret and then post it somewhere and insist that everyone follows it. The intention is to create a draft guideline that can be taken to an RFC, where all editors will have the opportunity to comment on it and further shape it. I don't think that inviting the entirety of Wikipedia here will be productive at this point in the process. ‑Scottywong | [spill the beans] || 16:23, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I don't think everyone who has been invited are going to join anyways. At some point we have to start, and the group can still be small by that point. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 16:25, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I agree that too many cooks spoil the broth. Which is why I found your selection process so odd. That said, the WikiProject should be brought in eventually. They are the people with the most experience in actually working with portals. The selection of a taskforce should have probably started there. -- Hecato ( talk) 17:05, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I think that the argument by User:Hecato that the original invitees were selected to be against portals is just off the mark. I count 11 original invitees, and, of them, Certes, Knowledgekid87, Northamerica1000, SportingFlyer, and Thryduulf are advocates of portals. So I disagree with the claim that the group is unbalanced. I do think that the extension of invitations to additional editors by Hecato may render it unbalanced, but I trust that User:Scottywong can keep it balanced. Robert McClenon ( talk) 04:09, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Just saw this - I wouldn't consider myself an "advocate" so much as someone who finds them useful and doesn't quite understand why we would rush to delete them. I have tried to apply consistent keep/delete votes based on a set of guidelines at MfD (which have evolved with time - I didn't understand the severity of the bulk creation problem when I stumbled into the space). Some of those guidelines I have proposed below. SportingFlyer T· C 10:49, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Scottywong: Congratulations for the initiative. But I believe I can't help much, because I'm not fluent in English, which limits me in discussions.

@ Robert McClenon: I've just spotted this, and while it's true I have advocated against the bulk deletion of portals without examination, on individual portals I have recommended a mix of keep, delete and merge. Characterising everyone on one or other side of a binary divide is neither accurate nor helpful. Thryduulf ( talk) 11:23, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Either way, my strongest opinion at the moment is that the community first needs to decide what a portal really is and update WP: PORTAL with simple and clear text. Other opnions I have are:

Thanks for the input. Your English certainly seems good enough to me, so don't let that prevent you from participating. ‑Scottywong | [babble] || 14:34, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Would it help to get people who actually care about and maintain portals involved here? I am trying to keep the balance, but it would be helpful if those who do the work be here too. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 15:05, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I do think inviting User:Nihonjoe was a good call as he has edited a lot of portals. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 15:29, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I think this is a great idea but isn't it about a year too late? By the time we finish discussing and agreeing a decent portal guideline, there will be virtually no portals left unless we call a halt to the deletion of the remaining few portals against criteria which are not only obsolete, but now deprecated. If we do believe this is worth pursuing the first thing we must do is agree on the purpose of portals. It is the lack of clarity over this which has led to portals being poorly structured and rarely viewed and which is the fundamental reason why editors cannot agree on whether to keep or delete portals (now that the auto-portals have gone). FWIW I believe there are at least 3 potential uses for portals:
  • To showcase a topic, encouraging readers to explore it further (this has failed in the past because portals were almost unlinked from mainspace - a fault of the guidelines - and not searchable, both can be fixed)
  • To act as a navaid akin to a category tree, but with the advantage that a whole topic can be seen on one page (again failed in the past for the reasons above)
  • To act as a tool for project editors to expand and improve topic coverage (I have used this very effectively, but it's never been seen as a portal purpose)
If we really can nail the purpose, the rest becomes easier. Bermicourt ( talk) 19:53, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Better late than never. If we delay another year, then we'll be 2 years late. Btw, I've copied and pasted your bullet points to the active discussion below. ‑Scottywong | [speak] || 21:23, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Thanks for starting this discussion. If we want to understand the purpose(s) that portals aim to serve at the moment better, maybe we could try to collect some examples of portals and check what these portals do well and for what purpose. There are "magazine"/"mini main page" things, there are "invite collaboration bits", there are lists of "our best articles", there is sometimes "overview of the topic" and there are "large navboxes". Some of these tie in well with WikiProjects, others are more independent. Many portals try to be everything at once, with mixed success. The recently renovated Portal:Canada separates some of the things it does into three tabs, each serving a different purpose, which helps make each of the tabs a lot more focused and usable. (BTW the possible purpose we're currently not great at is giving an overview of a topic; many portals just take the intro section of the main article instead of trying to cover the whole topic in a less text-heavy fashion. But doing this well is hard).— Kusma ( t· c) 21:27, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • May $DEITY bless this ship and all who sail in her. I wish you all well, and if you can avoid knocking six bells out of each other I hope that we can come to a consensus of the role of portals in today's Wikipedia. Guy ( help!) 23:08, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Reasons for WP:POG's failure

I am just going to throw up some of the reasons why I feel WP:POG failed as a guideline as it will help going forward:

  • 1. Rules requiring maintenance were placed in the lead section rather than the body of the guideline for further info. From the lead: Portals which require manual updating are at a greater risk of nomination for deletion if they are not kept up to date. Do not expect other editors to maintain a portal you create.
  • 2. The guideline was out of date, and did not take into account of new developments such as the benefit of transclusions. Here were the prior instructions on when to update: The more often portals are updated, with fresh content, the more interesting they will be to readers and attract returning visitors. Some portals update the selected articles and pictures once a month. Others update them weekly, which is preferred. Other update schedules—ranging from once every few weeks to every time the article is refreshed—are also sometimes used. The time to update should vary by portal as some would need it more often than others.

Other editors can chime in too here, these are just my thoughts. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 15:54, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Arbitrary break to discuss direction of these discussions

I want to thank everyone who has participated in these discussions so far, the response has been a lot stronger than I anticipated. I want to quickly summarize what we've achieved so far, and have a discussion on how much further we should go before we try to put together a proposal and deliver it to the wider community. Here is what we've accomplished so far:

  • We've found some consensus on some statements about what the overall purpose of portals should be.
  • We've had a long discussion on the criteria that should be used to determine if a subject is appropriate for a portal, and while there is still some work to do to come to an agreement on the specifics, I think we have made a lot of progress towards coming to agreement.

This is about half of what I originally set out to achieve. The next two steps are to get into the technical details of actually creating and maintaining portals, define best practices for how to structure portals, and list the tasks that should be periodically done to properly maintain portals. However, now that I'm considering moving us to the next step in the discussion, I'm wondering if we've bitten off more than we can chew. Specifically, I'm concerned about whether all of us have the stamina to continue these discussions for an extended period of time, and I'm concerned that if we bring a proposal to RFC that has too many large elements, it will create a lot of chaos in the discussion when people agree with this part of the proposal but not that part. Does anyone have any thoughts about this? Should we continue on to the more technical discussion of how portals should be constructed and maintained? Or should we circle the wagons now, polish what we've got, bring something to RFC, and then come back and resume the discussion on the technical parts later? ‑Scottywong | [confer] || 16:34, 3 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Narrower, more focused requests for comment have a better chance of yielding a clear answer, so personally I feel it's best to proceed one step at a time, rather than trying to bundle several steps into one request. isaacl ( talk) 17:29, 3 December 2019 (UTC) reply
I think we should continue just a bit more, until we have something that can be used as a reasonable yardstick at MFD. Typically, MFDs are mostly concerned with suitability of the topic and about quality/maintenance status of the portal itself. So if we agree on some maintenance requirements, at least in a very general sense (maybe "portals should not display any content that is out of date by more than a year"), we could construct a minimal guideline concentrating on the most important bits, and then work on the more technical details after we have persuaded the community that we have come to a reasonable compromise here. — Kusma ( t· c) 17:35, 3 December 2019 (UTC) reply
What do people think about working towards a (short) guideline that we can propose and support as a group? Doable? Advisable? – Leviv ich 19:01, 3 December 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Scottywong: If you want you can close sections as completed, or close this whole thing while you summarize key points. I think there has been progress made here just there are open discussions everywhere. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 00:20, 4 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Discussion: Goals

At this point, are we talking about the goals of this project, the goals of a document to be developed by this project, the goals of portals, or what? I think that, in addition to establishing goals for this project, we should be trying to identify the goals of portals so that we can address them. I have asked other editors what the objectives of portals are, and I get different answers from different editors, and I don't always follow them, so I would like to identify the purposes of portals, but if this will be done in a later stage of the discussion, that is all right. Robert McClenon ( talk) 04:07, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I suppose it doesn't hurt to start the preliminary discussions while people are still filing into the room and deciding if they want to participate.
My intention with this section is to discuss the goals of a portal guideline, since this is ultimately the output of our efforts. In other words, let's summarize everything that we need to achieve before we're ready to take a proposed guideline to an RFC. If we can all agree on exactly what a portal guideline needs to include, then everything we do in subsequent steps can refer back to these overarching goals to ensure that we're meeting them, and that we're not proposing things that are counter to the goals or unrelated to the goals.
I have listed some basic goals of a portal guideline at User:Scottywong/Portal_guideline_workspace#Goals. Let's discuss those goals here, and then make changes to that page once we're all in agreement. The current goals that I have started us off with are:
  1. To clarify the purpose of portals within the larger scope of the English Wikipedia.
  2. To promote consistency in the way that portals are constructed and maintained.
  3. To provide clear criteria for topics that are appropriate for portals.
  4. To document best practices for portals and encourage editors to follow them.
As you can see, goal #1 of a portal guideline is to define the purpose of portals, which is essentially what you are asking for. But, before we get into debating the purpose of portals, let's make sure that we've captured all of the relevant goals of the entire guideline and agreed on them. So, the basis for this discussion should be: do you agree with the above goals? Do you think any of the above goals should be removed or reworded? Do you think that there are any goals missing from that list? ‑Scottywong | [confer] || 05:16, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Looks good to me, and let me also note my appreciation of Scottywong organizing/moderating this initiative which I think is timely. My two comments on the above goals are:
1. For each goal, we might also state the inverse case – E.g. to also highlight/specify examples of what should not be happening (a technique I find very useful when reading WP guidelines)
2. As you will have read at MfDs, my overall concern re portals is that their very low adoption/engagement by all segments (readers, editors, even vandals), is due to their functional obsolesce. Ultimately, Main Articles are now better-structured consensus guides through a topic area (with links to sub-topics), NavBoxes are better navigation aids (and many portals just paste the NavBox into the portal), and WikiProjects now have a tool that lists and categorizes all topic articles by rank (plus most projects have a consensus list of their own most-important articles). This led me to consider whether a better long-term solution for portals is to merge them with WikiProjects (this does sometimes happen at MfD), and put the WikiProject link on the Main Article page (instead of the Talk Page). I outlined this on the Talk Pages of NA1K and BHG. I guess my question here, is whether this concern would (or even should), get discussed at this forum under Goal #1 – E.g. whatever purpose Portals might serve, it is done better elsewhere, and thus the functional obsolesce of portals might not be mitigated by Goals #2 to #4? I understand however if that question is out of scope.
Britishfinance ( talk) 09:46, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I think that we should open this discussion to creative, out-of-the-box ideas that maybe haven't been considered before. However, ideas like merging portals into WikiProjects are likely to be viewed by some as a step towards abolishing portals altogether, and that is something that I don't think it would be productive to deliberate here. If we're going to create a guideline for portals, I think we need to presume that Wikipedia is going to have a portal namespace with portal pages, period. Our goal is to find the best way to implement them, and create the best rules to govern them. ‑Scottywong | [squeal] || 14:29, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
As for your inverse exercise, I'll take a stab at it:
  1. We don't want confusion within Wikipedia about the purpose of portals, and we don't want different editors designing portals for entirely different purposes.
  2. We don't want different editors constructing portals in different ways, using different designs. A consistent design will make it easier for all editors to maintain all portals, without having to first figure out how the mechanics of the portal work.
  3. We don't want editors creating portals on inappropriate topics. ("Inappropriate" is, of course, a term that will need to be better defined later.)
  4. We don't want inconsistently designed portals.
It's pretty clear to me from that exercise that goals 2 and 4 are mostly redundant to each other. Perhaps we can merge those two goals and reduce it to three goals? ‑Scottywong | [spill the beans] || 14:45, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
My thoughts on the above are as follows:
  • Portals should basically be the equivalent of the main page, but for specific subject areas. They should look and feel more like the main page, with a combination of a general overview of the subject area and its organizational structure within Wikipedia, and samples of content within that subject area that is of the highest quality (FA/GA content) or that is particularly interesting or current (DYK/ITN content).
  • With this goal in mind, portals should obviously only exist for subject areas that are broad enough to present a breadth of articles (and more specifically, a breadth of FA/GA-level articles), and for which DYK/ITN-type content could foreseeably be generated on a regular basis (I would think at least one new item of each kind per month).
  • Maintenance of portals should be straightforward and transparent, and the best practices should be those that promote these ends.
BD2412 T 14:15, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I think these are all great topics that will need to be discussed at length, but we might be getting slightly ahead of ourselves. I realize that this process I've outlined is going to start painfully slowly, where we start with talking about the goals of a portal guideline itself, and then agree on the elements that the guideline needs, and only then do we actually start getting to the meat of the discussion where we actually talk about portals. But, given the tensions that exist about this topic, I think it's crucial to approach this slowly and methodically, get agreement on the biggest and most general concepts, and then work our way down to discussing the specifics. Do you have any input on the goals that we've set forth above for the guideline itself? Anything missing, out-of-place, or unnecessary? ‑Scottywong | [spout] || 14:49, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I kind of feel that the general goal I have in mind entails all of these specifics; i.e., the broad purpose of portals should be to present subject areas that are broad enough to sustain this set of elements. BD2412 T 23:01, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply

While my thoughts are:

  • Portals do not have to act as main pages, they can be recruiting tools to those interested in joining Wiki-projects as they need the editors badly.
  • Portals basically act as showcases to highlight featured content by editors. These can help motivate others to edit their favorite subject areas.
  • Portals can and have been successful in terms of viewership and interest.
  • More to come...
- Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 14:51, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
What if we introduce into this conversation a concept of portals and sub-portals, with subportals being a separate page under a broad portal offering a deeper dive into a topic that is not one of the very broad ones, but of interest to some community nonetheless? We could have more rigid guidelines for top-level portals, and more flexibility for subportals. BD2412 T 23:04, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Goals of Portals

On 19 July 2019, I posted a Request for Comments (see /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_153#RFC:_Purposes_of_Portals_(19_July_2019)) asking for input as to what the purposes of portals are.

The ideas that I offered, reflecting previous comments by various editors, were: Some of the purposes that have been proposed are:

1. Showcasing our best content to readers. The Main Page, for example, is a portal with this very purpose. The Main Page is also very labor-intensive. Showcasing is work.
2. Navigating the encyclopedia. Along with lists, navigation templates, and categories, portals are one way readers can navigate the encyclopedia.
3. Containing content not available elsewhere on the encyclopedia. Some editors have stated that portals contain content, so that content is harmfully deleted when portals are deleted.
3A. Unique, forked or transcluded encyclopedic content
3B. Explanatory content such as guidance and reviews (others?)
4. Planning and management of WikiProjects. Portals allow editors to keep track of the current and planned scope of the project's coverage.
5. Metatext and reviews of the topic.
6. A statement of the importance of the topic. The provision that portals should be about "broad subject areas" is more commonly remembered and quoted than the qualifying clause, "which will attract readers and portal maintainers". A portal is seen as a declaration that a topic is a broad subject area.
7. An invitation to readers and editors to develop particular articles in a topic area.
8. Fun, or exercise. Some editors like making portals.

Possible Discussion of Goals of Portals

Sorry, probably my fault, it seems multiple editors mistook this section as the place where we'd discuss the goals of portals. This section was intended to discuss the goals of a guideline, i.e. what does the guideline need to accomplish to be a successful guideline. ‑Scottywong | [gab] || 23:59, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Aren't the goals of the guideline contingent on the goals of portals? BD2412 T 17:38, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • The purposes listed below started out with Bermicourt's three, which were (not in this order) (1) navigation, (2) showcase, (3) tool for editors, to which Hecato added two new ones (not in this order): (4) advertise WikiProject, and (5) keep readers up-to-date. Now, of these 8 from RM above, four are new: (6) containing unique content [numbered as 3/3A/3B on RM's list], (7) Metatext and reviews of the topic [#5 on RM's list], (8) statement of importance [#6 on RM's list], (9) invitation to develop articles [#7 on RM's list], and (10) fun/exercise [#8 on RM's list]. I'd suggest adding the new goals/purposes to the list of 5 purposes below, and editors can just add those to their vote lists. But I'd also suggest RM take a second look at the addition first to ensure (a) they're not duplicative or restatements of purposes already proposed, and (b) they have a snowball's chance in heck of gaining consensus. – Leviv ich 20:08, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • @ Scottywong: as far as I can see, there is almost no discussion on this page about the goals of portals, and discussion has moved onto details without agreeing goals. Have I missed something? -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 21:43, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ BrownHairedGirl: You're right, you haven't missed something. There seemed to be a lot more enthusiasm and energy for diving into the details, so in the interest of keeping these discussions alive and ongoing, I decided to allow things to happen a bit more organically and not force the sequence of the discussion. We may want (and need) to return to this discussion at some point however, so that the goals of portals can be clearly stated on the guideline. All discussions are open, so feel free to contribute and opinions/ideas here to be discussed at any time. ‑Scottywong | [prattle] || 19:06, 29 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Scottywong: I hatted the goals discussion because things seemed to have stalled. This page is becoming really hard to follow, and I do think we might want to consider a new subpage to re-discuss the implication of the goals we agreed on when it comes to policy. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 22:09, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Discussion: Elements

Echoing my thoughts above, I think portals generally should include:

  1. a summary description of the field addressed
  2. two or three kinds of featured content (FA/GA articles) from within the field, e.g.:
    1. concepts or things in the field
    2. biographies of significant historical figures within the field
    3. significant events in a scientific area or locations in a geographic area
  3. DYK content, being generated with sufficient regularity to have a new item added every month or so
  4. ITN content, being generated with sufficient regularity to have a new item added every month or so
  5. links to related content going both up and down the tree (up to broader topics and down to narrower topics)

That's my baseline. BD2412 T 23:13, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply

that sounds very good to me. Sm8900 ( talk) 03:54, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • This is good for a description of an ideal portal, but a minimum viable portal should not need to have all of this. Especially asking for one ITN and DYK item per month is asking quite a lot. (There are two things here: news/DYKs must be available, and somebody has to add them, which requires very dedicated maintainers, as automation often fails for these things). This means we could only have portals about very large topics, which often lose focus a bit (big country portals are only slightly more focused than Wikipedia's rather random Main Page). We should try not to outlaw structures like Portal:South East England and its more focused subportals. — Kusma ( t· c) 10:54, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply
User:Scottywong - When can we discuss this list? Robert McClenon ( talk) 06:04, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Outline of portal intent

Keeping in mind that portals for many are their first door into a namespace other then the main namespace. Portal is a term, generally synonymous with "gateway". So what kind of gateway....in my view a portal should be a page or pages that presents to our readers an amalgamation of what Wikipedia has to offer by way of content, navigation and contributing to a topic. So what does this mean?

  1. We should first introduce our readers to the topic (intro) with other small excerpts showing - highlighting our "best and vital" related articles and images as a modern front page of a news paper or wedsite does but in an academic showcase.
  2. Secondly we should make it informative with a broad range of articles...this can be done with factoids or hooks like DYK 's, current events, and anniversaries etc..
  3. Thirdly we should introduce our readers to our other navigational options like categories, outlines (indexes), navboxes, lists of lists, etc.
  4. Fourth we should introduce our readers to the WP:ADMINPS side of Wikipedia and encourage participation and contributing...this can be done with an intro to a wiki-project, listing tasks to be done or listing current discussions.-- Moxy 🍁 00:12, 1 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Current examples

I believe giving a few examples would be great so all can see the vision of what different editors have in mind.-- Moxy 🍁 01:41, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Good idea Moxy, and your example is noted below (I have a related section re MOS). Do we have a feel for the +10 greatest portals in WP (e.g. that most would feel are great showcases, actively read and maintained, and would never face MfD)? I ask that because they could also serve to help guide us here. thanks. Britishfinance ( talk) 13:35, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Aside from the Canada one .... Portal:Law is coming along well in my view.-- Moxy 🍁 00:18, 1 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Moxy vision

I have built 2 basically auotomated portals that I think covers what a traditional portal was intended to be as per the info page Wikipedia:Portal#Purposes of portals... but incorporating the new transclution method alongside new elements. This will still need maintainers to keep up with GA and FA promotions and demotions and to ensure bot sections are functioning properly.

Portal:Canada that uses the transclution method listing all it's content on sub pages while at the same time providing a navigational aid in different formats and criteria. So what does the portals have...A quick intro only 2 paragraphs. On the left we have many relevant selected FA and GA articles in 2 sections (one places and events the other Bios) with a quick one paragraph hook. We then on the left have symbols and top level vital/top importance articles...again with a quick one paragraph hook. On the right we have current articles, slelected images, DYk's and news. With the bottom having panorama's and links to other related content. As mentioned above all this has sub pages listing selected content and more. Finally we have a page to introduce readers to the back side of Wikipedia in hopes to gain editors ....in this case Canadian knowledgeable editors encouraging project joining alongside maintenance tasks that can be performed by any editor regardless if they join the project or not. This format was also used at Portal:Australia with some per existing elements.-- Moxy 🍁 01:41, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Manual of Style

Portals often have a kind of personalized "scrapbook" look and feel to them – E.g. different colours, different layouts/borders, different graphic etc. I have seen this "scrapbook" issue raised at MfD and in the larger RfCs on portals. Ultimately, portals are "showcases" of FA/GA material, which is of the highest MOS-standard in WP? It is not a mistake that the showcase for such rigorously MOS'ed content would have no real MOS rules of its own (e.g. like hanging the Mona Lisa in an ordinary office)? Is there an appetite in this forum to develop a "standardized" MOS-format for portals? Britishfinance ( talk) 12:26, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Is it not also unusual that WP:FAC or WP:GAN, for whose articles portals really serve, seem to have no interest or input into portals? Britishfinance ( talk) 12:26, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

  • We had a Featured Portals process, which died in its sleep a couple of years ago. The Wikipedia:Featured portal criteria were not very detailed. I always thought that was a plus, as it is not clear that there is one best method to do portals, and there was always some creativity in different approaches (some topics are more visual than others etc.). I see no reason why all portals should look the same. I would rather see the Mona Lisa in an attractive lookinh room than in a bland one that ticks all the checkboxes of the room design guideline. — Kusma ( t· c) 12:45, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • That is very interesting Kusma. Maybe this is a mad thought, but what if there was a centralised FAC/GAN portal/repository, and that a reader could click a link on a topic article into this cental portal and it would automatically bring up the FA/GA articles relevant to the topic? E.g. Instead of having a "Portal:Alaska" (with all the issues of no MOS, no maintainer, not really a "portal" per se etc.), you have an "Alaska FA/GA Article Bar", that when you click on it, brings you to the centralised FAC/GAN portal/repository and the relevant Alaska FA/GA articles, as kept up to date by FAC/GAN, come up as a list for inspection? Instead of localized FA/GA portals, we have a centralised one? The indivisual WikiProjects or real topic maintainers would be allowed to further classify this central FAC/GAN database by major recommended topic articles in their area (in the way a good portal goes). Is that a crazy idea? thanks. Britishfinance ( talk) 13:22, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    Britishfinance, if I understand you correctly, we have some things in this direction: the main list of FAs at WP:FA, which isn't all that well-sorted, and bot-updated lists of FAs/GAs by project (see Portal_talk:Germany#Recognized_content for one). Currently I use that list mostly for inspiration when I want another articled for the Selected articles, but it would be possible to display such lists more publicly (in the case of Germany, I don't do that because of the dominance of military history). — Kusma ( t· c) 15:38, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Thanks again for that Kusma. Perhaps there is something in this. If the portal focus was on getting a better structured FA/GAN portal that could be more easily linked into and searched from the Main Space - would that not solve the issues of many portals that we see at MfD? Obviously, the bigger, customised, well-maintained portals could still just do their own portals, however, a better FA/GAN database/portal could substitute for many others? thanks. Britishfinance ( talk) 15:54, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I think we should focus on the basic guidelines first, then come up with a MOS. I mean it is a good idea but I don't want us to get distracted from the central focus. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 14:09, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    • I agree with Knowledgekid87. How a portal should look will depend in part on what its purpose is and what it is trying to achieve, so we need to sort that out first. Also, as long as WP:ACCESS is met the look isn't that important in the grand scheme of things. Thryduulf ( talk) 17:30, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • But with respect Thryduulf, and I realize that you have more experience in this area than I have, the grand scheme of things is that a very high % of portals in WP are abandoned by maintainers, editors, and readers. And by abandoned, I mean last real content edit (outside of The Transhumanist type mass-edits), was a decade ago? Certainly, almost all WP portals outside of the top 100, struggle to show any activity/support post-2013 (portals really collapsed post-2013). Look at the last 50 portal MfDs – the pattern is relentless and shows no sign of stopping. Unless we do something meaningful to change this trajectory, to materially improve what portals do, then this whole discussion is moot, because most will end up being deleted within the decade (or less).
Even though I have been on the deletion-side for portals at MfD, I am in a low minority in this discussion in trying to think of meaningful ways to make portals materially better. All the portal-keeps are focused on setting "guidelines" in the hope that these guidelines will protect portals at MfD. However, I think even if we agreed that any portal in a topic-area with 1 GA article could never be deleted, it would not change their current trend, and outside of the top 100, their inevitable end. Standing at the portal MfD for the last few months is a very sobering exposure to the abandonment of this tool as it is currently structured and configured (guidelines aside)? I don't want to be impolite, but I think this reality is missing from our discussion. Britishfinance ( talk) 22:01, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I think most of the discussion is looking at the wrong side of the telescope. Let's find groups of editors interested in developing and supporting a portal as part of their work in the related area, and work on ensuring the process supports them, so they'll ensure the portal is well-maintained. Finding interested editors first will naturally avoid creating more portals than can be supported. isaacl ( talk) 05:26, 23 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Alternative tools to portals

Portals duplicate some tools (e.g pasting-in Navboxes from Main Article, or pasting-in selections of FA/GA directory from the WikiProjects). However, their main "unique" service, is displaying FA/GA topic articles in a galleria or emporium (e.g they are not "portals" in the true sense of the word). Here are some suggestions for alternative ways in which this "unique" service, could also be done in other ways that would overcome some of the problems seen at portal MFDs around FORKING/lack of scrutiny, being out-of-date etc. for discussion/debate. thanks Britishfinance ( talk) 19:48, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Frameless galleries in Head Article

  • When I am doing articles om mountains, I sometimes stick a "Gallery" at the end which links to other related mountains in the caption (the "frameless" gallery is very nice looking, per Benbaun#Gallery, or Event Communications#Gallery). I guess, without realizing it, I am kind of doing a mini-portal – showcasing great photos and linking to their relevant articles. It also comes up nicely in the mobile view (which is a problem below for portals). Am I naive in thinking that adding a "Gallery" of important articles and their main images, to the bottom of Main/Head Articles would do the main work of many portals?
By being a gallery in the Main Article, it is also more scrutinized and checked by the community (e.g. less FORKING)? Also, many of the other things in portals, e.g. pasting in the Navbox etc, are already in the Main Article. I can usually add 4-5 photographs (e.g. 4-5 linked articles), which is as many articles as most portals offer. This would be a better format to put at the bottom of Maryland highway system, than Portal:Maryland roads, for example. Why don't we just use this? Pinging BrownHairedGirl on this, who may have given this more thought than I? Britishfinance ( talk) 18:51, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Just made this change to the Head Article of at Maryland highway system#Gallery, which includes all 4 FA articles in this topic, plus one GA-article. All the NavBoxes are already below it on the Head Article, so there is not much else needed. Also, this looks good on the mobile view? Britishfinance ( talk) 19:18, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
The main problem with this approach is that galleries aren't popular in all articles (though not as controversial now as they were 10 years ago) and need to follow the WP:IG guideline. Portals can be more flexible. — Kusma ( t· c) 19:25, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Thanks Kusma, and understand that. Do you think that this approach could work better for some portals (e.g. topics with less than 5 FA articles), that are abandoned? thanks. Britishfinance ( talk) 19:29, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I like BF's suggestion. Note that the builtin-image gallery available to all logged-out readers not only includes all images on the page (i.e. not just those in the gallery section), but gives a full-screen display that is vastly better than the tiny images in portal image galleries. This new technology has made portals' image galleries redundant. One of the more comic absurdities of TTH's spam portals was that they drew their image list solely from the set of images used in the head article, but included only a random subset, at much lower resolution, and took ages to load.

When it comes to images, the portal is not just redundant; it does a significantly worse job than the head article. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 21:35, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Thanks BrownHairedGirl, and just to be clear for everybody in case there is any confusion, the images are the main images from the FA articles that are worth showcasing (with the link to the FA article in the image caption, per Maryland highway system#Gallery); they are not featured images per se (although, they can also be added in another gallery). At their essence, and when the duplicated elements are taken out (e.g. Navboxes, WikiProject directories, etc.), most portals are a list of 4-5 FA articles. If you combined this, with the "FA/GA search bar" below, then we could have solved most of the outstanding issues seen at MfD with the portal tool. Britishfinance ( talk) 21:44, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
BrownHairedGirl, I replied to you about this in a different section (but forgot to sign, so you did not get a ping). As far as images go, there are cases where using MediaViewer auto-gallery on the main article does a terrible job, and the limited text length there can make it vastly inferior to what a portal can do. — Kusma ( t· c) 21:45, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Kusma: I see no specifics in that.
  1. I have seen no case where MediaViewer auto-gallery on the main article does a terrible job. Please can you link to some examples?
  2. I have seen no case where the portal image gallery offers full-screen display. Have I missed something?
  3. Every portal image gallery I have seen either a) displays only one image until the page is purged, or b) displays a horizotally-scrolling gallery, but of limited size and with slow loading. So what exactly can the portal do which is vastly better?
-- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 21:53, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
BrownHairedGirl, I find many MediaViewer galleries far from perfect. Fullscreen isn't appropriate for many smaller images, especially with large screens, is always on black background whether that is appropriate or not, and the image captions are far away from the image (if there are any at all). For examples of mediocrity, how about Hong Kong (the final couple of images include one with the caption "中华人民共和国的分区", which I can read but many others can't, as well as images of unrelated Chinese cities. The population pyramid is mixed in with photographs of various things that do not make up a coherent whole. Panoramas are also used, which don't look that great in the media viewer unless you happen to have an extremely wide screen). Or FA The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, where most of the image captions don't make sense or require an extra click to see fully. Having a page other than the article allow one to have image selections and captions that are made to provide a good gallery, not to support a good article, which are different things. Using full-screen galleries (or encouraging the use of MediaViewer) in cases where that works well is something we should look into ("/Gallery" subpages might have been the better way to go than portals for this, but subpages were deprecated before I even started editing here), but currently MediaViewer doesn't seem to offer enough control to be used well. (Commons uses also additional gallery systems). But we are going a bit off-topic here. — Kusma ( t· c) 10:22, 26 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Kusma: I don't agree we are going off-topic. When "improve this tool" is a topic, the "why are we using this tool" question is a relevant question. One of the reasons that portals have been such a mess for so long is that old assumptions have gone unreviewed, and new ideas have been rolled out without testing them them properly to ensure that their flaws are properly considered. For example, the whole navbox-cloned automated portal thing was rolled out without enough critical examination and without the wide input of an RFC where the ultimately-fatal flaws might have been examined.
In this case, I looked at the two articles which you described, and the problems seem to me to be trivial. I don't mind at all having the captions at the bottom; it's easy to scroll past the flags; and the captioning problems seem to be trivial. Comparing media Viewer on Hong Kong that with Portal:Hong Kong (where there is only one image at a fraction of the size), shows such a huge gap that it almost seems unfair, as if the portal wasn't even trying to be useful. Single postage stamp vs full-gallery is a non-contest. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 13:07, 26 November 2019 (UTC) reply
BrownHairedGirl, I think the whole thing is apples and oranges, but you are certainly entitled to your opinion. I would not be opposed to having a page in Portal:Hong Kong that gives access to a well-done Media Viewer gallery. That gallery could easily be superior to just taking the pictures from the article (that is almost by definition, as images in articles are usually not chosen and captioned in order to be used as a standalone clickthrough gallery). The "postage stamp" gallery also has different use cases than the full screen one, especially when the focus is on both text and image. The problems you find trivial can't be fixed without negatively affecting the article, which is not a good at all. — Kusma ( t· c) 13:41, 26 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Kusma, just to be clear (as I am not technology-minded), are you saying that the gallery on Maryland highway system#Gallery (e.g. all 4 Maryland roads FA articles with caption link to the article), is inferior to what is on Portal:Maryland roads? I thought it was at least as good, and obviously, the capion can be expanded if needed, and, most importantly, it can be viewed on mobile? thanks. Britishfinance ( talk) 22:01, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Britishfinance, I'd say they both do their job well (if you enjoy photographs of roads), but they do different jobs. Both can be viewed on mobile (the technical problems are with a different form of presentation). — Kusma ( t· c) 11:58, 26 November 2019 (UTC) reply

"FA/GA search bar"

  • Picking up on a point discussed under #Manual of style above, there seems to be a search capability into the main FA/GA database per FAC/GAN. What we could create is a "FA/GA search bar", which would be a button/template bar that when pressed for a topic, would present, in a standardised format, the main FA (articles and list) for a topic, plus all the GA articles, preferably ranked by pageviews (e,g, most read first); or other agreed method of ranking.
This would fix any issues of FORKING (e.g. selective lists of GA articles), or lists being out-of-date (the FAC/GAN database is live) when portals are abandoned. Having a search bar that links into a live database, displaying results in a standardized format, is surely a better technology solution than customized, localized, sub-lists of FA/GA articles in various non-MOS "scrapbook-type" formats? Wanted to also ping BrownHairedGirl on this (as well, as the interesting/insightful comments from Kusma per above. thanks. Britishfinance ( talk) 19:43, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
We do have topical lists of FAs/GAs of various types, most of them autogenerated by User:JL-Bot (compare User:JL-Bot/Project content for some options). I am not sure that people really search for "quality articles related to Maryland" unless they want to show off how great WikiProject Maryland is; these lists tend to be more for discovery than for searching in my opinion. But maybe I am wrong. Discovering images based on quality is another matter, and Commons has some really great tools for that: commons:Help:FastCCI gives you amazing galleries of pictures (probably) related to a certain topic. All of these automated things can of course fail (but not in the same way that handmade things fail)... But we are a bit offtopic here: we are trying to determine what portals should be, not how to make portals redundant ;) — Kusma ( t· c) 20:59, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Thanks Kusma. Isn't presenting the main FA/GA article exactly what portals are for (everything else is duplication, like NavBoxes). I don't have the skill level to use the JL-Bot (I don't even understand it, unfortunately), however, if I have a button or bar called "FA/GA Maryland" that when pushed on an article in mainspace, automatically brings up a standardized MOS'ed page that shows all FA/FA list articles for Maryland (couple of lines of into plus main picture), plus the GA topic article list (but ranked according to a pre-agreed consensus like pageviews etc.), wouldn't that be a better technology solution than having localised portals with the associated issues? I don't think that JL-Bot gives that?
We could solve a massive amount of MfD issues with portals (including FORKING, out-of-date etc, with such a solution, and help the FA/GA process? Obviously, we can also add Commons photos in here as well - and again, the key point being that useful changes to the button/bar will immediately transclude such changes across everything.
Put is another way, if we had such an "FA/GA search bar" (where the topic name is included in the bar - E.g. you would have an "FA/GA Maryland" button/bar that could be transcluded onto all Maryland articles), pasted into main articles, and an editor came along and said "Lets instead build individual portals for each topic that will carry a static sub-list of FA/GA article for each topic at a given time (and I will decide the actual list), that I will maintain and keep relevant/up-to-date", we would laugh at them? Britishfinance ( talk) 21:22, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Britishfinance: As we found out in this discussion above, we don't agree with each other on that point. Portals do not just present "all related FAs/GAs", and given how random and niche many of our FAs/GAs are, that is not even necessarily something particularly worth doing. (I'm not interested in displaying a hundred different battleships and submarines on Portal:Germany, but I do like displaying lots of DYKs and selected anniversaries). YMMV. — Kusma ( t· c) 21:38, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Thanks Kusma. I don't know if there is a similar automated way to do DYKs – E.g. is there a DYK central database? I have ignored the DYKs/anniversaries, as at all portal MfDs (or at least the ones I have seen), these lists are usually in the worst shape (untouched for a decade in most cases). I guess there are still going to be a group of highly-maintained portals that have everything and could be sustainable on their own (i.e. the Main Page), however, I think it could be useful if we can swap an abandoned out-of-date portal, with an "FA/GA search bar", that might at least be able to keep the FAC/GAN showcasing going? thanks. (hadn't seen YMMV before, great term). Britishfinance ( talk) 21:52, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Britishfinance, I dunno about nay such search tool. Haven't seen it.
However, there is a serious problem with using FA/GA lists for reader-facing pages. The set of articles in such a list reflects the choices made by editors on which articles to develop. Editors legitimately choose their own interests, but while each individual FA/GA will be carefully scrutinised for NPOV, the set of articles on a given topic will not. The result can be a hideously unbalanced list.
The results have been seen on three portals:
NPOV can't upheld by automated tools or by editors who fail to exercise good judgement. Unless lists are chosen by editors who both know the topic area and are capable exercising good and transparent judgements, anything like this will create POV problems.
Portals need to be built by editors who have wide and deep knowledge of the topic area, and exercise good judgement, and work as transparently and collaboratively as possible. Neither drive-by list-makers nor automated tools can do that. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 21:27, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
BrownHairedGirl, this tool doesn't exist (to my mind), we would have to create it. I agree that the correlation between FA/GA article topics and what is important in a topic area is very variable (and zero in cases). However, that is the core issue with portals. Their only unique purpose is to showcase FA/GA articles – as soon as they try to become content portals and offer non-FA/GA articles, we get into FORKING against the better structured/scrutinized Main Article. There is just no way to square this circle, EXCEPT, to recognise that the only real unique feature of portals is to showcase FA/GA.
Therefore, having an automated link to the central database of FA/GA articles, that automatically produces in a standardised format, the full list of FA/FA lists on a topic (which is never that huge), plus the relevant GA topic articles, but ranked in some automated non-POV way (e.g. by pageviews), is surely a better technology solution than standalone individual portals whose only real unique purpose is to showcase FA/GA material based on a non-standardised way? Britishfinance ( talk 21:36, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • @ Britishfinance, if you showcase FA/GA, then there are two possible ways of building the list:
  1. a full set of FA/GA, which will nearly always be unbalanced. WP:NPOV is core policy, so that's not an option.
  2. a subset selected for balance, which requires those skilled editors, working transparently.
That applies regardless of whether the list is displayed (or accessed via) a portal page or an article. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 22:01, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • BrownHairedGirl, but I am not trying to use FA/GA as a content guide to the topic – that is the job of the Main Article. Even with a skilled editor (per your 2.), a selection of FA/GA to approximate balance of a content guide is always going to be an inferior version of the Main Article. However, isn't it acceptable to show readers, should they want it, a list of all FA (there are never that many FA articles), and a pre-agreed standardized list of GA articles (e.g. by pageviews) via an FA/GA search bar"? Ultimately, listing FA/GA articles and adding a frame that rotates between them, is one of the main things portals do? It can't be any worse than the current system? thanks. Britishfinance ( talk) 22:09, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Discussion: Introduction and summary

As stated above, I feel that it's important that we tackle these sections one at a time, because the results of this discussion will inform the next discussion. This discussion is about what content to put in the introduction of our portal guideline. As stated on the main workshop page, this introduction needs to provide a summary of what portals are, and what their purpose is. Please post your thoughts below and let's see if we can come to an agreement on what this opening paragraph should say. ‑Scottywong | [talk] || 16:54, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Initial discussion
The following is a closed discussion. Please do not modify it.
    • I agree that we should discuss one idea at a time, and I am not sure how we got this far by skipping over some sections. I would like to be sure that we don't move on to the next topic until the moderator decides that we have discussed the previous ones at enough length. Robert McClenon ( talk) 04:55, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • There seemed to not be too much interest in discussing the very general concepts, so I decided to just skip to this section. I get the feeling that there isn't much disagreement on what the goals of the guideline should be, and what elements a guideline will need to include. We can always return to that discussion if necessary. ‑Scottywong | [prattle] || 17:18, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • It is a good idea to do things one at a time. But shouldn't we agree on the purposes of portals first before writing the introduction? I assume the introduction would summarize those purposes. -- Hecato ( talk) 18:53, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    • Exactly. The introduction of the guideline will define the purpose of portals. So, let's figure out and agree upon the purpose of portals, and then the introduction will write itself. ‑Scottywong | [confabulate] || 21:20, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply

User:Bermicourt listed a couple potential ideas for what portals are above, I'll repost them here so that they're in the place where this is going to be discussed. We can use this as a launching point. Thought on these?

  • To showcase a topic, encouraging readers to explore it further (this has failed in the past because portals were almost unlinked from mainspace - a fault of the guidelines - and not searchable, both can be fixed)
  • To act as a navaid akin to a category tree, but with the advantage that a whole topic can be seen on one page (again failed in the past for the reasons above)
  • To act as a tool for project editors to expand and improve topic coverage (I have used this very effectively, but it's never been seen as a portal purpose) -- Quote by Bermicourt

Purpose proposal 1

  • Aright, in that vein, I would like to expand on that list and propose the following. Ranked from most important to least important:
The purposes of Portals are...
  1. Introduce users to the most important topics in a topic area. Encourage readers to explore it further and act as a navigational aid.
  2. Showcase high quality content.
  3. Advertise WikiProjects and related Wikimedia
  4. Act as a tool for WikiProject editors to expand and improve topic coverage.
  5. (conditional) Keep readers up-to-date with recent developments in the field (e.g. in scientific fields or big sport events like the Olympics)

Can we get an opinion poll on these? Are all of these reasonable, should the order of importance be different? -- Hecato ( talk) 21:58, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Responses to Proposal 1
The following is a closed discussion. Please do not modify it.

Response by Levivich

  • Here are my thoughts on the 5 purposes :
Swim on, noble marine mammals. Robert McClenon ( talk) 05:14, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    1. Topic introduction and navigational aid, similar to a table of contents, is what I see as the primary, and perhaps the only, purpose of portals.
    2. I think this contradicts #1. WP:TFA on the main page showcases our best work. If a reader wants to see our best articles, they can go to WP:FA or WP:GA. The reader who wants to learn about art and goes to Portal:Arts won't be well-served by seeing randomly-chosen, but well-written articles about art. Rather, they want to see the topic logically-presented. Hopefully the major articles about art would be high-quality already, but I don't think a primary purpose of portals can be to both act as a topic introduction/navigational aid, and showcase our best articles about a topic. It's got to be one or the other–"important" articles should be presented rather than "high quality" articles, and so I go with #1 over #2. That said, no objection if, e.g., Portal:Arts had a link to WP:FA#Art or WP:GA/AA.
    3. I'm not convinced of the benefit of having portals advertise WikiProjects and I'm not sure what advertising "related Wikimedia" means. But if I understand the gist of this, it's saying portals should be used as a tool to recruit reader to become editors. I guess I'm not really against any page being used as a tool to recruit editors, but I'm just not understanding what this would mean if it were recognized in the guideline as a purpose of portals. Links to related WikiProjects seem harmless enough.
    4. I get that a portal can be a useful tool to help a WikiProject get organized, but I don't think reader-facing content should have, as a "purpose", acting as a tool to assist editors. Whenever reader and editor interests conflict, the reader interest should prevail. So, I see no reason to list this as a purpose of portals, even as a low-priority purpose (because I don't think we should have multiple purposes and prioritize them, but just one purpose to focus on).
    5. WP:NOTNEWS – I don't think the purpose of any part of Wikipedia should be to keep readers up to date about recent developments about anything. – Leviv ich 23:40, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    Regarding your objection to #2, perhaps there is a way to combine #1 and #2 so that they can work at the same time? For instance, something along the lines of, "Introduce users to the most important topics in a topic area, prioritizing the highest quality content, if available." I agree that we don't want to prioritize showing off the best articles over presenting a logical overview of the subject. But, if FA/GA content is available, it would make sense to direct readers to those articles first. ‑Scottywong | [confer] || 00:04, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    I would say no, there isn't a way to combine #1 and #2, because I feel they are in direct conflict with one another–a conflict that cannot be surmounted. (I'm going to pick on Portal:Arts just because it's the first one on the main page, nothing personal against the editors who maintain it.) Portal:Arts, currently, features our best work about Arts, but it does not provide a good introduction to the topic, nor is it a useful navigational aid. I click on Portal:Arts, and if I want a list of the major artists or major works of art, that's nowhere on that page. All I get is the category tree, where "artists" isn't one of the entries. If I click on "creative works" to see a list of the major works of art, I get to Category:Creative works, which doesn't list any creative works, but instead lists subcategories, none of which are "works by importance". I don't know where on Wikipedia I can go if I want to see a list of the most important artists or the most important works of art. Portal:Arts should be that place.
    Portal:Arts should also tell me about things like art movements, methods and schools of art criticism, and types of art, like visual arts, performance art, literature, etc. Right now, those latter three are just in the category section, with the other Arts subcategories. There's no organized presentation of the topic. Instead, what Portal:Arts does–and it does it well–is showcase our best work in the field of Arts. So we have the featured article, featured biography, featured audio, featured picture, DYK, ITN, etc. But topically, it's just a random presentation of art topics.
    Last example: if I click on "More featured biographies" at Portal:Arts, it takes me to a list of Arts biographies. A ha! A list of the most important artists, no doubt! Nope, Portal:Arts/Featured biography has a list of featured articles that are biographies of art-related persons. Most of them are kind of obscure. One of them is about the subject of the Mona Lisa, Lisa del Giocondo. That's in the rotation for appearing on Portal:Arts. What's not in the rotation is the article about the artist who painted the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci. That's not an FA, just a GA. In fairness, da Vinci is mentioned in the blurb about del Giocondo, but that is entirely backwards in my view. Portal:Arts definitely needs, somewhere on there, to have something about or a link to Leonardo da Vinci. Lisa del Giocondo is not really a major topic in the world of Arts... it's kind of a "hey, it's the lady who posed for the Mona Lisa"... it's trivia, really. But we feature it at Portal:Arts, because we're prioritizing #2 over #1. But #2 shouldn't really be a consideration at all. We should list the major sub-topics for each topic (e.g., at Portal:Arts, the major artists, major works of art, major schools of art, etc.), irrespective of the quality of those articles. That's my view, anyway. (#2–a showcase portal–would be good expansion of our WP:FA ad WP:GA pages; e.g., I would replace WP:FA#Arts and WP:GA/AA with something like the current Portal:Arts.) – Leviv ich 00:45, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    In theory, high-importance topics should get more attention, resulting in high-quality articles. In practice, FA and GA evaluation do not take into account the importance of the article, but WP:VITAL does. I would suggest that we work towards different outputs within the portals distinguishing levels of importance of the subjects being showcased. I would add that the history of art is not all about a handful of great artists. It is also about many thousands of little-known artists who made a small but distinct contribution to the field. BD2412 T 01:16, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Clarification: "related Wikimedia" refers to Commons, Wikisource, Wikinews, Wikiquote, etc. Related sister projects of the Wikipedia with their own hubs/categories on the subject area of the portal. -- Hecato ( talk) 08:38, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by MJL

  • Comment. Okay, so I have a unique perspective in this portal affair. Unlike seriously 99% of people in the world, I was a person who would actually visit portals semi-regularly before I started editing. Here is my take on this proposal:
    1. I think portals are perfect for helping users get into the weeds of a topic area as well as being a good introduction.
    2. Not sure I have any clue that I get where Lev is coming from on this. A portal done right would essentially be structured in a Wikipedia:Summary style with more visibility for well-written articles. There are ways you can nudge a reader towards, say, a GA-class article rather than a stub.
    3. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    4. If this is incidental, I don't mind it. I just don't think it should be a primary focus for portals if they are reader-facing (which honestly, they don't have to be).
    5. Nope. I'm not into it. That'd be a lot of maintenance for not that much payoff. Portal:Current events should be the only one like that.
That's all I got. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 01:46, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ MJL: to your #5, just FYI the template {{ transclude selected current events}} automatically extracts subject-specific entries from Portal:Current events subpages and thus significantly reduces the maintenance required; that template is in use on Portal:Nigeria, Portal:Chess and many other portals. UnitedStatesian ( talk) 17:09, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ UnitedStatesian: The template has been known to give bugged out results for certain portals though, right? – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 17:17, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ MJL:I think careful parameter selection (and complete avoidance on certain types of portals) largely eliminates that risk. UnitedStatesian ( talk) 17:21, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ UnitedStatesian: That does change the calculation a bit then. Still, it probably shouldn't be considered a "core" purpose or goal of all portals. It feels like just a nice thing to tack onto some. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 17:29, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by BD2412

  • My comments:
    1. - absolutely, let's have this.
    2. - absolutely, let's have this too. Well-written articles on minor aspects of a field still display the breadth of the field.
    3. - I see no reason not to do this.
    4. - This is more the purview of WikiProjects.
    5. - Yes, and we should find ways to coordinate the activity of main page ITN work (or revive Wikinews to a greater degree).
  • Thanks. BD2412 T 04:19, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by Kusma

  • My thoughts:
    1. - yes, that should be a big part of what portals do (and few portals are currently very good at this -- there should be more than the main article lead, a category tree and a navbox).
    2. - yes, we should draw attention to our best work. (DYKs could also be seen as part of this)
    3. - absolutely, portals should advertise that Wikipedia is not completed and always needs new editors, and try to engage readers
    4. - In a systematic way, that should be done by WikiProjects. In less systematic ways, this is covered by the previous point.
    5. - That is a huge amount of work, and should ideally be done on Wikinews. A proper NPOV balance here is also very difficult to achieve. This shouldn't be outlawed, but it is not a central purpose of all portals.
  • Good suggestions overall, though. — Kusma ( t· c) 11:11, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by Thryduulf

  • I support all of these, but 5 should be optional - a portal that does not do this should not be seen as having "failed" or be used as a reason for deletion. In a fast-moving field (e.g. UK politics) this will be a mammoth task and the latest developments are not always going to be the most important; in a slow-moving field (e.g. Shakespeare) there will be long periods of time without major developements; in very broad scoped portals (e.g. Science) there is just too much going on in too many disparate areas for this to be that useful. For portals with a relative moderate scope in moderately-paced fields (e.g. Rail transport) then it will be a useful thing that can be accomplished. Thryduulf ( talk) 12:41, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by BritishFinance

  • I think the above list is highlighting a core problem with portals. In essence, Portals are uniquely about highlighting FA/GA content (e.g. they are not really "portals", but more like a gallery or emporia of rated articles). Because our FA/GA articles in a given topic area are not always correlated with the most important sub-topics, Portals have been importing non-GA/FA articles to beef up this aspect. However, this is where they squarely conflict, and fork, with the topic-Main Articles, which is the best structured and scrutinized guide to the topic in WP (by definition). Main Articles also equipped with the main NavBoxes on the topic, which is another area the Portals have been duplicating (e.g. acting as a navigational guide). To resolve this, I think that portals should commit more to going one of two ways:
A. Being Gallerias. Stop trying to duplicate the Main Articles/Navboxes, and become a unique galleria of interesting articles in a topic. Such a galleria will not act as a topic-guide (which the Main Article is, and we want to avoid forking), but a series of galleries on selections of articles that topic-enthusiast readers could find interesting. For example, as well as listing the highest-ranked topic articles (the original FA/GA purpose of portals I believe), we could list the "most read" topic articles (like a top 10), the "most edited" topic articles, the "largest" topic articles, and other noteworthy/interesting samples of the article directory. This would be a unique purpose of a topic portal (not replicated anywhere else), and would avoid duplication/forking with the Main Article+NavBoxes and the WikiProjects. OR;
B. Be a true portal. The WP term "portal" is a bit misleading as WP portals are not real portals in the sense a reader would expect. Because the Main Article (plus its Main NavBoxes), is really the true "content portal" (e.g best way to navigate the topic), portals could take on more of the heavy lifting on acting as a window into the WikiProjects. In fact, there are many portals and font WikiProject pages that look very alike? We either want a person to read and/or contribute. Reading is either the Main Article (for structured content guide), or the Galleria-focus (per A. above for "interesting" slices of WP-content on the topic). However, contributing means quickly accessing into the world of the WikiProject. In this regard, Portals should be the "front page" of a WikiProject (and visa versa).
Therefore, as I read the above list, I end up with the following:
  1. - This is the job of the topic Main Article, and in 99% of cases, the Main Article is far more heavily edited and scrutinized than the portal. I have spent the last few weeks at MfD seeing portal-after-portal who give a forked and materially inferior guides to the topic than the Main Article. In all cases, we should stop portals trying to focus on this area (e.g. it is neither A or B above).
  2. The original "galleria" concept of portals (per A. above). Yes, but, we need WikiProject/broader input into these lists, and we need more than just FA/GA to male portals viable (per my point A. above - make it a more interesting galleria or other selections of topic-articles); I am not sure readers are that into FA/GA per se.
  3. The "portal into WikiProjects" concept, that I think we should consider (per B. above); however, why not go the full step and make the portal the front page of the WikiProjet (and visa versa). It would automatically link WikiProjects into the Main Article, which would be a big plus, and would really give portals a future?
  4. This is a duplication of 2 and of 3. We should have WikiProjects inputting into the list of "galleria" content per item 2, and I think we should make portals into the front page of WikiProjects (per B. above); in any case, if 2. or 3. are done without full WikiProject input, we are back to forking (and what we see at MfD).
  5. We just don't have the bandwidth or resources to do this in a meaningful way. Only if the portal became a true "portal" (per B. above), AND the WikiProject on the topic was very active, could this be contemplated. I don't think anybody would object to a WikiProject doing this (but again, what item B. is preferred).
Really sorry for the long response, but I am trying to get to core principals that could materially alter the future usefulness of portals (and give them a future), and avoid their current, and quite dramatic, state of abandonment and inferior duplication of items found elsewhere on WP. Britishfinance ( talk) 21:05, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Britishfinance, I agree that the main article is always going to be the best text-based, linearly structured treatment of a topic that we will have. On the other hand, many of our articles are very long and fail to give a good at-a-glance impression of the topic. That's a niche where portals could play a role. Most currently don't, partly because we select content to display based on article quality, not on relevance to the topic. (Some of TTH's infamous navbox based one minute portals actually did a better job at this than the handwritten ones). — Kusma ( t· c) 09:13, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Thanks Kusma. If portals try to make up for any failings in the structure/lede etc. of the Main Article, with an at-a-glance impression, they could then end up further down the rabbit hole of forking? E.g. if the Main Article has such issues, isn't it better to spend time fixing the Main Article (e.g. better lede, better sectioning etc.), in a more heavily edited and scrutinized environment, rather than trying to "overlay" a fix on the portal page? In many MfDs, where the Main Article is tagged for issues, and has been for years, the portal is usually in even worse shape?
I would like to find a role that could give portals a real future (hence my A and B above), but I just can't see one where a portal is providing any sort of alternative topic guide to the Main Article + NavBox? Was that was a concept that made more sense a decade ago where Main Articles were less developed, and NavBoxes might not have existed? However, if a portal was a unique galleria of different interesting sections of the thousands of articles that exist on a topic (A. above), AND/OR, the front page of the WikiProject (B. above), then I could see some kind of a future there. thanks. Britishfinance ( talk) 09:39, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Britishfinance, both of your directions A and B have some rather attractive points. However, I am not sure that these things and the "overview" have to be mutually exclusive. A tab approach (look at Portal:Canada for the technical realisation) might be able to do both A and B, and we could include a page that has a "slideshow" type box for all of the provinces of Canada as well as maps and a couple of high level subarticles of Canada. Clever use of transclusion (or Wikidata) could make the maintenance effort bearable (although the downside is that article lead sections are not always written to be perfect for use in a portal box), and of course the other option is to make all static content as timeless as possible (don't include BLPs, don't include "current" presidents etc.) As for the history: portals were created mostly as mini main pages, based on an idea coming from the French Wikipedia. We already had navboxes similar to today, but the category system was still a bit of a mixture between a tree system and a tag system (it has much improved since). Personally I have never been too fond of navboxes; I prefer to use article links, categories or portals. — Kusma ( t· c) 10:39, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Thanks Kusma, and very interesting re history. I also agree that A and B do not need to be exclusive – E.g. it could be the front page of the WikiProject and have galleria of various interesting cross-sections of the topic directory (as decided by the WikiProject). thanks. Britishfinance ( talk) 19:13, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Hmm, I hadn't thought about tabs. I would support purpose #2 (galleria) if it was on a separate tab from the main portal page. (Or even down "below the fold" on the main portal page.) – Leviv ich 19:57, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by Robert McClenon

RMcC on Proposal 1

  1. - No. The main article on a topic should introduce and summarize the topic. Editors who want to focus on introducing the topic should be encouraged to work on improving the article.
  2. - The Main Page is a portal to the encyclopedia, and it is a showcase for a Featured Article, and for a few other things.
  3. - WikiProjects should advertise themselves.
  4. - Not sure I understand, but think I disagree.
  5. - Why not?

Robert McClenon ( talk) 05:14, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by Knowledgekid87

My responses:

  1. - I am unsure what if any navigational aid portals will accomplish unless they are properly linked.
  2. - Portals are best to showcase featured content as an encouragement to aim for good articles.
  3. - Projects need editors, if there is a way to get editors to join Wiki-projects then I am all for it. As it is Projects are already linked to portals.
  4. - As others have said, this is an area for Wikiprojects.
  5. - This should only be done if portals grow to be large and successful.

- Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 01:21, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by Sm8900

  1. - yes, it is highly beneficial to enable users to find articles more easily.
  2. - yes, as navigational overviews, highlighting good articles, seems totally fine.
  3. - it is very worthwhile draw more editors to Projects
  4. - I think portals are a tool for anyone who wishes to use them. so allowing them to be a tool for Projects seems totally fine to me.
  5. - Yes. in doing so, we are not keeping readers up to date, we are keeping articles up to date. that doesn't make Wikipedia into a news service; it makes it into Wikipedia; i.e. an encyclopedia that anyone can edit any time, to add new data when appropriate.

-- Sm8900 ( talk) 15:53, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by Scottywong

  1. - I see this as being the main purpose of portals. While articles also naturally act as a navigational aid, portals are distinctly different. Articles require you to read through a significant portion of the article to find links to related topics. By contrast, portals act more like a concept tree, allowing you to quickly view a broad topic and rapidly understand its different facets without having to read an entire article on the details.
  2. - While I agree that articles shouldn't necessarily be selected based on quality alone, I think it makes sense to prioritize higher quality articles over lower quality ones.
  3. - I think that portals should primarily benefit readers. If we do too much to prioritize WikiProjects and other internal wiki-stuff, we'll end up confusing casual readers.
  4. - This can (and should) be done more effectively within the subpages of the Wikiproject itself.
  5. - To the extent that portals should be kept up-to-date and relevant. If the subject is one that is rapidly changing and growing, then it is important that the selected articles are regularly updated to reflect new articles on new topics in that emerging field.

‑Scottywong | [soliloquize] || 17:33, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by Hecato

For the sake of the Consensus-o-meter. Also it gives me a chance to respond to some ideas above without WP:BLUDGEONing too much.

  1. - I think Kusma said it best. Few portals currently do this (well) and I think that is a big part of the reason why Portals are unpopular in large parts of the community. I do not agree with the idea that articles should be the only way to navigate Wikipedia. Navigation per hyperlinked nouns in running text is a great navigational method and one of the reasons why Wikipedia is so successful, but it also comes with its downsides. A portal can be more focused and deliberate in its navigation. People don't have to scan a text first to find the important topics. And it can be more extensive than some (quickly overfilled) navbox, which requires manual hovering to get a glimpse of what each topic is about.
  2. - I think this makes sense as well, but I think it should be a secondary goal of portals. BD2412 made an especially good point in so far that showing random selections of high quality articles can give a wider overview of the topic area.
  3. - I think we can do this without infringing too much on the first two purposes. I do not see any real downsides. Though Scottywong maybe has a point in that portals should primarily serve the readers. But a modest introduction to the associated WikiProject at the bottom half of the portal should be acceptable.
  4. - An interesting idea by Bermicourt. But after reading some of the arguments here I also think this should only be incidental rather than done on purpose by the portal designer. A related question we should discuss later would be whether red links in portals are acceptable as a way to encourage editing.
  5. - It makes sense for some portals, but like Thryduulf said, it should be optional. Only some portals should manually keep readers up to date and even then, it should only be done when there are already articles about these new developments. There are ways to do this by transcluding from the Current Events portal and Wikinews. Both are somewhat limited in their coverage though.

-- Hecato ( talk) 19:03, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

(FWIW, I already counted you as a "yes" on all 5 points, as you were the proposer. But, it doesn't change the percentages that much either way.) ‑Scottywong | [verbalize] || 00:40, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Scottywong: I think you forgot to count Thryduulf then. The count was 10 before I added myself as 11. They did not have a headline either. -- Hecato ( talk) 00:44, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Ahh ok, you might be right, thanks. ‑Scottywong | [express] || 03:25, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by SportingFlyer

Seeing how this discussion has been constructive so far, I thought I'd jump in as I had originally steered very clear.

  • 1. Yes. I think there's some confusion now as portals should now serve as introductions or showcases as a specific topic. I think the "main article" argument is a logical fallacy, as the portals are meant to showcase not only the main article, but different elements of the topic the main article may not cover. I just updated a specific portal I'm very familiar with, and while I learned some things - portals should best be aimed at people who want to learn more about a specific topic area, as opposed to being a page users go to on a regular basis. The best portals do an excellent job of showcasing content and drawing you into the encyclopaedia, which is a bit different from how I think people access the encyclopaedia generally (Google a topic -> click the Wikipedia result.) It should also put all of the navigational aids in one spot for easy reading.
  • 2. Yes. Portals should be a way to showcase the best-written articles on a topic. There are only 365 days in the year on the main page, but a good article in a specific topic should be advertised in portal space.
  • 3. Yes Though this shouldn't be their specific purpose - I wouldn't mind seeing portals replace the main pages of WikiProjects
  • 4. This dovetails in with 3, but I don't think it's their primary purpose.
  • 5. No. SportingFlyer T· C 23:51, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by Bermicourt

  • My comments:
    1. - definitely, let's have this, but let's ensure it's well linked as a navaid unlike most current portals because the ex-guidelines didn't encourage strong linking.
    2. - this is not essential, but enhances the 1st purpose.
    3. - why not?
    4. - I have found them invaluable for this purpose and created or expanded thousands of articles because I had a clear overview of the gaps and coverage. It is not well understood, however, and the guidelines need to explain how to get the best out of this function.
    5. - This is maintenance intensive and will only work for some portals e.g. Portal:Germany. It should be seen as "nice to have" not essential.
  • Can someone update the consensus-o-meter? Cheers. Bermicourt ( talk) 11:47, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
     Done – Leviv ich 19:51, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Consensus-o-meter

Total Percent
One 10.5 13
81%
Two 11.5 13
89%
Three 10.5 13
81%
Four 6 13
46%
Five 5.5 13
42%

I know it's not a vote, but I did want to get a rough feel for consensus here thus far. Everyone has agreed to point one, there is mostly agreement on points two and three, and there is less agreement on point four. Point five has the least amount of support, though (numbers-wise).
It might be more helpful to pick apart the points of more contention to really figure out what the consensus is there. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 17:29, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I'm not so sure it's a straight yes/no for all of them, rather a must/should/can/shouldn't/cannot (I don't recall any must nots). Thryduulf ( talk) 21:49, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I updated the meter to capture more recent votes. I gave a full point for any , a half point for any or , and no points for any . ‑Scottywong | [verbalize] || 17:40, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I think it's encouraging to see 3 out of 5 proposals appear to be for the most part supported, this means that we can build upon that going forward. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 14:43, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Indeed. It's nice to know the chasm separating people here isn't that particularly wide. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 02:39, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I love this and think we should use the WP:CONSENSOMETER more often. – Leviv ich 19:52, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I don't particularly like it, because we're supposed to be having a discussion. A raw person count doesn't take into account the strength of the arguments or the degree of support. isaacl ( talk) 07:42, 29 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Off-topic discussion

Another List

I tried, above, to include a list of possible purposes of portals that were discussed in an RFC a few months ago. It had eight points. Do I get a chance to propose it, or has it been overtaken by a five-item list, or can they be compared to each other? Robert McClenon ( talk) 06:09, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Robert McClenon: Some of those were kind of silly like the purpose of portals being the entertainment of their creators. And your RfC seemed rather inconclusive, which I think was due to it being too unfocused and broad. But feel free to propose more purposes for portals once this proposal is through and we can agree on some (or none) of the purposes I have proposed. My intention was not to force my ideas on the rest of the group, but rather to get things rolling quickly instead of being stuck arguing for a month. -- Hecato ( talk) 09:50, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I can see some utility in that direction. Many editors would love to see an article they created or worked on be featured on the main page, but opportunities for such slots are very limited. For editors working in a particular area, having their work featured on the subject-area portal for the topic could be the next best thing (if portals are constructed to facilitate this). I could see something like a competition to collect badges for developing articles for some number of portals worthy of being the featured article on each. BD2412 T 19:28, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Not sure that's what Robert had in mind. But still an interesting idea, maybe as a way to make portals more popular/make the community more involved. Probably too early for this stage though, we should remember it for later. (Edit: this is my opinion, not a ruling or something) -- Hecato ( talk) 20:44, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply
User:Scottywong - Did you appoint User:Hecato to be in charge of controlling the agenda by deciding what proposals we consider in what order? Robert McClenon ( talk) 06:09, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I am fully aware that the creation of portals for the amusement of their creators is silly. I am also fully aware that that is the history of how we got 5,000 portals with an objective of 10,000 before a moratorium was called. Some portals have been created for frivolous reasons, and any serious discussion of portals should take history, both silly and non-silly, into account. Robert McClenon ( talk) 06:13, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
If User:Robert McClenon checks the history of this page he will notice that I posted my proposal before he created his "Goals of Portals" section (in the wrong place by the way, ignoring the giant signs that indicate what discussion and section are to be used). Similar to User:Levivich, I would also like to urge User:Robert McClenon to only propose things that he thinks are reasonable proposals that might actually gain traction, instead of just throwing things in the room to make gotcha points. -- Hecato ( talk) 10:01, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Robert McClenon and Hecato, take it easy. Remember, we're here to collaboratively and constructively find agreement on portal concepts, not to bicker about the past. And, no one has been appointed to be in charge of anything within this discussion, except to the extent that I am trying to act as a neutral moderator. Robert, if you'd like to propose a different set of goals, you (and anyone else) are free to start a "Proposal 2" or "Proposal 3" section below. If any proposal gets significantly stronger consensus than the rest, then we'll probably go with that proposal. ‑Scottywong | [yak] || 17:15, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I'm only going to say this one more time, sir. Calm down. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 19:25, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Proposal 1 summary

It would seem to me that items 1-3 of proposal 1 have gotten pretty strong consensus. I would propose that we include those 3 goals in the guideline for now, and in the meantime, we can see if any other proposals for goals are put forth that gain consensus. ‑Scottywong | [gossip] || 23:55, 19 November 2019 (UTC) I've listed those three goals (and slightly reworded them) on the main page at User:Scottywong/Portal guideline workspace#Introduction and summary for now, to keep track of them. They can still be changed at any time. ‑Scottywong | [spill the beans] || 00:08, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

My apologies for replying to a closed discussion, but I see problems here. I agree, in theory, with goals 1 and 2, but they are incompatible. Pointing out important topics, and acting as a navigational aid, are compatible, but showcasing high quality content is a different issue. IMO, Goal 1 is better handled by the articles themselves, and Outlines, than by the present incarnations of Portals. Goals 3 and (no consensus) 4 should probably only be in editor-facing material; perhaps if users try to edit the Portals, they should be provided with pointers to the WikiProjects. I feel goal 5 is above our pay grade.
Please let me know if there is anywhere I can better contribute to this discussion. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:16, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply

Purpose proposal 2

In July 2019, I proposed the following possible reasons for portals:

1. Showcasing our best content to readers. The Main Page, for example, is a portal with this very purpose. The Main Page is also very labor-intensive. Showcasing is work.
2. Navigating the encyclopedia. Along with lists, navigation templates, and categories, portals are one way readers can navigate the encyclopedia.
3. Containing content not available elsewhere on the encyclopedia. Some editors have stated that portals contain content, so that content is harmfully deleted when portals are deleted.
3A. Unique, forked or transcluded encyclopedic content
3B. Explanatory content such as guidance and reviews (others?)
4. Planning and management of WikiProjects. Portals allow editors to keep track of the current and planned scope of the project's coverage.
5. Metatext and reviews of the topic.
6. A statement of the importance of the topic. The provision that portals should be about "broad subject areas" is more commonly remembered and quoted than the qualifying clause, "which will attract readers and portal maintainers". A portal is seen as a declaration that a topic is a broad subject area.
7. An invitation to readers and editors to develop particular articles in a topic area.
8. Fun, or exercise. Some editors like making portals.

Robert McClenon ( talk) 21:38, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Responses to Proposal 2
The following is a closed discussion. Please do not modify it.

I think that this list of reasons to create portals is descriptive, in that it lists reasons why editors create portals, while Proposal 1 is normative, listing reasons why we may think that portals should be created. Robert McClenon ( talk) 06:40, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Collapsed at request of moderator. Robert McClenon ( talk) 06:40, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I will try to map between Proposal 1 and Proposal 2:

Proposal 1 - Numberingt Proposal 1 - Description Proposal 2 - Numbering Proposal 2 - Description
1 Introduce users to the most important topics in a topic area. Encourage readers to explore it further and act as a navigational aid. 2, 7 Navigating the encyclopedia. Along with lists, navigation templates, and categories, portals are one way readers can navigate the encyclopedia.. An invitation to readers and editors to develop particular articles in a topic area.
2 Showcase high quality content. 1 Showcasing our best content to readers. The Main Page, for example, is a portal with this very purpose. The Main Page is also very labor-intensive. Showcasing is work.
3 Advertise WikiProjects and related Wikimedia 4 Planning and management of WikiProjects. Portals allow editors to keep track of the current and planned scope of the project's coverage.
4 Act as a tool for WikiProject editors to expand and improve topic coverage. 4 Planning and management of WikiProjects. Portals allow editors to keep track of the current and planned scope of the project's coverage.
5 Keep readers up-to-date with recent developments in the field (e.g. in scientific fields or big sport events like the Olympics) 5 Metatext and reviews of the topic.
3 Containing content not available elsewhere on the encyclopedia. Some editors have stated that portals contain content, so that content is harmfully deleted when portals are deleted.
6 A statement of the importance of the topic. The provision that portals should be about "broad subject areas" is more commonly remembered and quoted than the qualifying clause, "which will attract readers and portal maintainers". A portal is seen as a declaration that a topic is a broad subject area.
8 Fun, or exercise. Some editors like making portals.

Robert McClenon ( talk) 21:38, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Robert McClenon: I'd encourage you to simply state your proposal independently, rather than trying to map your proposal to the previous one. I think that will just increase confusion. Put forth the proposal that you think is best, and we'll comment on it. ‑Scottywong | [confess] || 00:42, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by Scottywong

@ Robert McClenon: One thing I'm not clear on: do you personally support all 8 of these above goals for portals, or are you simply putting them out for discussion? If you don't support all 8 of these goals, I think it would be good for you to post your thoughts on the validity of them. ‑Scottywong | [soliloquize] || 23:49, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

As far as I can see, goals 3, 6, and 8 are the only ones that are significantly different than the goals put forth in proposal 1. And personally, I would put a next to goals 3, 6, and 8 in your list. I don't believe that these should be included in the stated goals for portals. ‑Scottywong | [soliloquize] || 23:49, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I agree with Scotty. – Leviv ich 00:25, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I also agree with Scottywong. I'm also unclear with what you mean by number 5. Number 8 is fine as a statement of fact, but it shouldn't be a purpose of portals in the same way that people enjoying fixing typos isn't a purpose of articles. Thryduulf ( talk) 10:32, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I am not presenting any of these as a valid purpose of portals, at this time. This was a list that I pulled together a few months ago, summarizing all of the arguments for or reasons for portals. If I am asked to comment on what I think are their merits, I will. I was offering this list for what I saw as completeness. If you want me to rate them, I will. Robert McClenon ( talk) 15:07, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Proposal 2 summary

This did not see a lot of discussion, but it didn't see a lot of support so folks moved on. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 22:02, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Discussion: Criteria for determining which topics should have portals

This is the currently active discussion.
Slightly off-topic discussion about what articles should be used in a portal

Wikipedia already has three solid processes for highlighting quality material, these being FA determinations, GA determinations, and DYK. Although articles making it to DYK are often not FA or GA material, they do go through a heightened level of scrutiny and editing by DYK participants before the content is able to make it to the main page. I see no reason to reinvent the wheel on this, although there are some neat little articles that have not been evaluated for GA status for which I would not object to a process to have them featured on a portal. I would prefer that we not use portals to highlight poor articles in need of improvement. That's what WikiProjects are for, and we can use portals to promote the WikiProjects more directly. I do think, however, that we can use the potential for being featured on a portal as a means to encourage editors to work on content in specific areas. Some editors like to collect GA/FA/DYK badges, and I see no reason why we can't offer similar rewards to editors who create or improve content sufficient to get featured in a portal. BD2412 T 04:10, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply

  • I agree that Wikipedia:Content assessment should be used to determine what quality content should be displayed on a portal. But displaying quality conent is only one purpose of portals. The more important purpose (in my opinion) is navigating to the most important topics/articles in the topic scope of the portal. And the quality of those articles is less important than their relevance to the topic area.
E.g. the first priority of a portal about the Solar System should be showcasing and navigating to the articles of the Sun, the 8 planets, the asteroid belts, etc. Preferably in a visually engaging fashion, using the tools that are only available to the portal space. Showcasing quality content and new developments in the topic area would then be important but lesser priorities.-- Hecato ( talk) 11:02, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I think that can be accomplished in part through different sets of featured content, with higher-level content being more prominent on the page. BD2412 T 22:12, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Since this is "inclusion criteria" though, I have to agree as I don't see a need to change the FA, GA, or DYK status. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 15:05, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • One of the problems I find at MfD is that there is often not a great correlation between the subjects that FA/GA articles are written on, and the subjects that a reader would want to cover in a topic area (in some cases there is almost zero correlation). In addition, FA/GA is a prized distinction for WP editors, however, I wonder if readers really care about FA/GA, over the usefulness of the subject. I see some portals try to bridge this gap by adding non-FA/GA articles, but then we are into forks of the Main Article (which is a better-structured topic content guide). Obviously there must be major topic areas where there is a depth of FA/GA articles on the major subject areas within the topic, however, I do wonder if the FA/GA criteria would justify larger amounts of portals? Britishfinance ( talk) 19:45, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • @ Britishfinance:, I agree, but I think this may present an opportunity to push editors towards working on obtaining at least GA status for those articles that are of highest importance to the topic area. Perhaps we provide some leeway for B-Class articles if they are of high importance. At least those have been assessed as being in reasonably good and informative shape. BD2412 T 20:07, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • In terms of practical inclusion criteria, based on some of my work:
  • Any good or featured article should automatically be able to be added to any portal template (template being: featured articles, biographies, et cetera.)
  • Occasionally to often, we will need to add articles which aren't featured or good, whether it be for NPOV reasons (I needed to add women to a specific biography template) or to represent a sub-part of the topic (say, geographical articles may require a B-class article)
  • No stubs or start-class articles should be added to portals without discussion
  • The criteria shouldn't really be that difficult. SportingFlyer T· C 00:09, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • To be clear, "inclusion criteria" isn't intended to answer the question of "what articles should be selected and included in a portal?" Instead, it is intended to answer the question, "what topics should have portals, and what topics should not have portals?" These criteria should make portal deletion discussions a lot easier to navigate, and a lot less contentious. We're not quite at this point in the discussion yet, but I don't mind if interested users start to discuss it now. ‑Scottywong | [squeal] || 00:45, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • @ ScottyWong: I just now saw this - I thought inclusion criteria was "what can be included within the portals" and the Portal creation instructions as "when can we have portals." Perhaps a re-naming would be helpful? SportingFlyer T· C 05:39, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • @ SportingFlyer: What would be a better name? The "Portal creation instructions" section is intended to be technical instructions on how to create a portal, and documenting best practices for which templates to use, sub-page structure, etc. ‑Scottywong | [soliloquize] || 19:22, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • How about "Criteria for determining which subjects should have portals"? I also thought that inclusion criteria referred to inclusion of material within portals, which I would say is the most natural reading of the phrase. BD2412 T 19:55, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

With respect to the question of which topics should have portals, there have been some suggestions in the past to tie portals in to WP:VITAL at some level, although even in the top 100, not every "vital" topic is actually a good fit for a portal (for example, I'm not sure what a portal for Knowledge or even Country or Ethnic group would look like), but that would be my starting point. I think that we should definitely not have portals keyed to individual persons, which we begin to see a lot of with level 3 vital articles (i.e. the top 1,000). I would actually support a system where we set a maximum number of portals (say, 500 or 750) and then have a process similar to that used at WP:VITAL to hammer out the list of those that should exist. As I have mentioned above, I also think that we should allow sub-portals under primary portals to explore specific concepts within a topic. BD2412 T 22:40, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I have a crazy suggestion that not everyone will probably like: what if we created a page where users could suggest/request an idea for a portal, and allow the community to discuss it for a short time and decide whether that topic is deserving of a portal? This would give the community a chance to judge whether a topic is broad enough, has enough quality articles, has an active enough WikiProject, and ensure that there are editors committed to regularly maintaining the portal... before the work of creating the portal is done. WP:Request for portal or something. This wouldn't negate the need for clear inclusion criteria in a guideline, but could possibly supplement it. This would ensure that rogue editors can't unilaterally decide to create thousands of inappropriate portals, and then force the community to nominate them all for deletion individually. It would also prevent an editor from going through all the hard work of creating a portal, just to later discover that the community doesn't support having a portal on that topic. Just an idea. Thoughts? ‑Scottywong | [speak] || 23:44, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I would support something like that. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 00:50, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I would only support this if it leads to the creation of rules, i.e. it's not a continual, ongoing process, but rather a one or two month committee. One of the advantages of SNGs is they provide users the ability to create articles with the knowledge they will be kept at AfD. We should strive for similar rules here, but I don't mind the idea of gaining consensus on what the rules should be based on different topic examples. SportingFlyer T· C 02:49, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
This is not a bad idea and could solve several issues; formalizing the usefulness of the topic and identifying registered topic maintainers, the absence of which for a period would automatically send the portal into another process (e.g. moved to WikiProject, deleted etc.), until new topic maintainers appear. Portals with no proper topic maintainers (who have topic expertise or WikiProject involvement), is a core problem of portals. It recognizes that portals are not articles, but tools/showcases, and need active topic maintainers, or the showcase begins to decay. Britishfinance ( talk) 22:57, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Well rather than discuss what topics should have portals I am taking the opposite route to narrow things down:

  1. Portals should not be localized - Any given portal must be able to reach out to a broad worldwide audience as determined by consensus.
Examples include Portal:Middle-earth, North Palatine Uplands, Portal:Dragon Ball. Note: In regards to BD2412's idea above, some "vital list" areas that were portals have already been deleted or are up for deletion (examples: Painting, and Weather). This seems like a case by case basis as determined by consensus for now until this one area can be addressed at a later time.

This is all I have for now... - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 00:49, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

My hunch is that if portals are limited to a smaller set of most important topics, then editors who are inclined to work on portals will focus their efforts on that set, including things like painting and weather. I also generally support merging subtopic portals into supertopic portals of greater importance, with the understanding that some substantial vetting will need to be done to insure that material merged in is proper and up to date. BD2412 T 01:20, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Yeah but "most important topics" are open to debate as some subjects have multiple layers of media connected to different subjects. Portals have to provide a neutral point of view and when they become too large doing that may pose an even bigger challenge trying to cover all of the scopes. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 02:28, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
The "most important topics" are the ones that have the most readers and editors. I agree strongly with if portals are limited to a smaller set of most important topics, then editors who are inclined to work on portals will focus their efforts on that set (and I think it's true for articles, too). Concentrated effort is better for building an encyclopedia than dispersed effort. – Leviv ich 02:31, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
It isn't black and white though is what I am trying to say.... Some portals are advertised more than others so those of course would receive more readers over time. There is also the lingering concern about presenting huge portals in a neutral point of view. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 02:41, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Proposal (copied from other header) I viewed this space as the guidelines by which a portal could be created, instead of jumping into whether transclusion is necessary - I view these as two distinct issues.

A topic should be eligible for a portal if:
  • It has an associated WikiProject (though the WikiProject need not be required adopt the portal); or is a topic that does not have its own WikiProject, but would be eligible for a WikiProject (this needs to be better phrased - I know a lot of African content gets tagged as "WikiProject Africa," which should not preclude, say, Uganda from having a portal created for it, and I'm really only thinking about country-level portals here.)
  • It has enough content to sustain a portal, which would include at least roughly 50 good and featured articles and several thousand articles within the associated WikiProject.
  • The portal has not been automatically generated or has a maintainer.
  • Is not Portal:Burger King, the ridiculousness which appears to have started this discussion.
  • Other arguments I've seen at MfD are common sense articles about pageviews and such - as long as the portals have a maintainer present and have a large enough content base to exist, I see no reason against having them. For instance, I really fail to understand why Portal:Basketball has been considered a narrow topic in the close per Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Basketball (it only came up twice, and once was my own keep vote) given there are 46,000 basketball-related articles on the encyclopaedia - all that portal needed was a maintainer. SportingFlyer T· C 05:35, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I would support these as reasonable, many Wiki-projects support the portals they have. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 02:53, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
SportingFlyer's suggestions seem good to me, although I'd say around 1000 articles would be sufficient, as long as most are not stubs. I dislike the idea that portals should not be "localised" or should have exclusively world-wide interest - most countries I think are potentially broad enough for a portal (not all, e.g. Portal:Monaco seems unlikely) and these are definitely going to be skewed towards people from that region. I also disagree with an absolute prohibition on portals about people - Portal:Donald Trump and Portal:Stephen King might be viable as two examples, worded badly it could also exclude Portal:The Beatles or Portal:Popes and similarly some large corporations are probably viable subjects, e.g. Portal:Microsoft. The existence of a portal at one level should not preclude overlapping portals at a different level, e.g. Portal:Science should not preclude the existence of Portal:Physics and/or Portal:Quantum physics or vice versa, and the same content featuring in multiple portals should not be an issue (e.g. Portal:Military aircraft, Portal:World War II, Portal:United Kingdom and Portal:History might all include content related to the Battle of Britain). Thryduulf ( talk) 10:55, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Just asking - does Donald Trump have his own associated WikiProject?!? I don't mind lowering the total articles requirement as long as we have a consistent featured/good articles requirement. SportingFlyer T· C 10:57, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Donald Trump did have his own portal, but it was narrowly deleted at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Donald Trump but my reading of the close is that it would have been kept if it was being actively maintained. All the portals I quote are just examples of the sort of subjects I consider potentially viable in theory rather than assertions that these specific ones are or would be in practice. Thryduulf ( talk) 11:15, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I'd like to take a look at that portal just to see how many potential articles it could hold. It seems far too narrow of a topic for me to support in its present state. SportingFlyer T· C 11:53, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Wayback Machine delivers: [1] -- Hecato ( talk) 12:21, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Donald Trump has 1,050 pages tagged as within its scope, 676 of them have been assessed as an article or list. A further 64 pages are unassessed, all of which are in the main namespace and so are almost certainly articles or lists with a small possibility of redirects. Again though this was just an example of a single person portal that might be viable to back up my point that single-person portals should not be absolutely excluded, Portal:Jesus would be another example (that was an automated portal that was deleted for being an automated portal, no assessment was made of the topic's potential). Thryduulf ( talk) 12:45, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Genuinely surprised that's a WikiProject. Perhaps I need to take a look at the WikiProjects and tighten the guidelines a bit? SportingFlyer T· C 14:26, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • To restate and expand on a point I believe I have made elsewhere on this page, I do not think that we should ever have a portal for an individual person, and for that matter for an individual company, TV show, music group, or sports team (or even sports franchise). BD2412 T 23:05, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • On that I fundamentally disagree with you. Individual people/companies/etc will rarely be suitable for a portal, but an absolute prohibition is excessive, unnecessary and will likely be counter productive at some point in the future. Thryduulf ( talk) 11:27, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I would suggest as an alternative that we allow sub-portals under existing portals with a focus on things like these that are of significance to their super-portal. I can't see the case for a portal for even the most significant individual people in history—Jesus, Marx, Einstein, Newton, Gandhi—they all, I would contend, fit better as featured biographies under a more broadly topical portal. The same goes for bands and companies. Once we allow portals on individual people or ensembles like these, that opens the door to anyone saying, for example, the if we can have a portal on the Beatles, why not one on Megadeth, or R.E.M., or Public Enemy; if we can have a portal on Gandhi, then why not one on Jimmy Carter or Mother Teresa or Steve Wozniak? BD2412 T 12:36, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I agree with you about "opens the door", but what's a sub-portal? (further complication?) DexDor (talk) 12:47, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Portals on individuals will be far too limited in scope. There are only about ~50 WikiProjects dedicated to individuals, 45 of them are individuals in bands, 5 are American politicians (would say presidents but Hillary Clinton has one), and 1 is the remnants of the Gian Lorenzo Bernini WikiProject. I would agree a ban is necessary, there just won't be enough topics to highlight. SportingFlyer T· C 12:54, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • SportingFlyer, if there won't be enough topics to highlight for most individuals, then an explicit ban will not be necessary. I am not a big fan of portals about people, especially about living people, but could see them make sense for, say, authors who have written many works that each have individual articles (Shakespeare, Dickens, ...) Looking at Wikipedia:WikiProject Shakespeare versus Wikipedia:WikiProject Hillary Clinton, by the numerical criteria I suggested below, Shakespeare would be allowed and Hillary Clinton would not be allowed, which seems correct to me. — Kusma ( t· c) 13:24, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I agree with Kusma. If a portal about an individual meets the criteria we agree on then there is no reason or justification for banning such a portal, if such a portal does not meet the criteria then it wont be kept/created whether there is a ban or not. This also answers your question "If we have a portal about X why not one about Y?" - if it meets the criteria you can have one, if it doesn't you can't, whether X and Y are Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich, Los Angeles and Sacramento or Christianity and Pastafarianism. Thryduulf ( talk) 14:58, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Problems with WP:VITAL and number of articles in scope

User:BD2412 and User:Knowledgekid87 raised some interesting points. I would like to summarize and expand on those points.

  • I see some value in using WP:VITAL to determine some essential portal topics. Having a somewhat objective non-partisan list to fall back on sounds very attractive.
But I don't think it is the be-all and end-all solution to this question. WP:VITAL contains some umbrella concepts like Philosophy, Science and Technology, which I believe have all the ingredients to be great portal topics. But it also contains important, but rather limited, abstract concepts like Death and Tool. While important, they do not exactly act as broad groups. In fact both Portal:Death and Portal:Tool have recently been deleted (but that may not necessarily be a statement about the subject area, but rather one about the quality of the portals).
  • I believe the number of articles in the scope of a topic area to be an important factor. But this comes with its own problems. For once it is hard to measure. WikiProjects tend to have a bot-maintained list of articles in their scope, based on WikiProject banners on article talk pages. But those tend to be incomplete, especially when the WikiProject is new, small or inactive/semi-active.
Categories tend to create a more complete net of related articles, since they are mandatory in articles. But counting articles in categories is not that easy from a technical standpoint. There is Wikipedia:PetScan, but Categories tend to loop, with sub-categories listing top-categories. So articles might get counted more than once if the scan-depth is too deep. And some category trees tend to loop more than others.
  • Another issue might be regional bias. Just by the nature of en.wiki being in English, there will be more articles about the Anglosphere than about the rest of the world. A topic area might be very broad, but the supply of articles just is not there (yet). Should a portal be created based on the potential for a large number of articles in its scope or just based on the actual number of articles?

-- Hecato ( talk) 10:48, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

  • I've never heard it said the bot-maintained article lists are inaccurate - does anyone have any evidence here? SportingFlyer T· C 10:54, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Well it depends on how diligent the WikiProject was in adding their template on the talk pages of related articles. This is manual work and requires some combing through categories for the members of the Project to accomplish. As far as I know the bot just looks for and counts those templates. Maybe I am wrong. -- Hecato ( talk) 11:07, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • ( edit conflict) Although the lists are bot-maintained, the articles have to be tagged by humans initially. Some WikiProjects have very active taggers and are very inclusive, others are a lot more focused on what they regard as in scope and/or tag less proactively. The biggest variation based on my subjective experience is in how geographical projects treat biographies, for example a person born in place A, who grew up in place B, was educated in place C, lived in D during their main period of notability which related to place E and retired to F. They will almost always be tagged with the project for place D and/or E, but could have all, none or any combination of A, B, C and F. Topically sometimes only the most specific project is tagged, sometimes multiple levels of the hierarchy are. Overlap is also possible when there are combined geographic and topical categories (e.g. a railway station in Oxfordshire may be tagged with Oxfordshire and UK railways, both of which are child projects of United Kingdom, meaning double counting is possible. So while the bot-maintained lists are a useful guide to the breadth of a project's content they should not be regarded as definitive. Thryduulf ( talk) 11:12, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • If wiki-projects don't actively tag their articles then they shouldn't have portals as this is like a key thing with article assessment. It would also give an indication of the lack of a possible lack of activity in said wiki-project. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 14:24, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Some Portals also focus centrally on more than one area and/or strictly exclude things that do not fall within the scope. An example being American comics and Manga which sound the same but are in two very different universes. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 14:15, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • If we go with the number of articles in scope route: Maybe there could be a rule like "you have to demonstrate that there are at least 1000 articles in the scope of the portal"? How one demonstrates that would then be left open. With the WikiProject bot-counts being just one possible option. Good idea, bad idea? Too restrictive, not restrictive enough? -- Hecato ( talk) 17:42, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Its a good idea that would need a consensus here at the workshop on the articles under the scope of said portal. Portals in my opinion should be supported by Wiki-projects, those that are not and don't bother to update their numbers risk portal deletion. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 18:10, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I would agree with such a restriction. That number might be a bit high - maybe something in the lower hundreds, but definitely not below that. BD2412 T 18:35, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I'm just saying but, some portals have upwards of 10,000+ articles under the scope. Are we talking about total articles, or total usable articles that are GA, FA, and FL? - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 18:39, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Well "usable" articles depends on what the purpose of portals is. If it is only to showcase high quality content then GA/A/FA/FL is probably a good measure, but if purposes include introducing readers to the most important articles in the topic area and/or acting as a window for content that editors can get involved with and improve then "usable" is a much wider set. I think having say at least 5 featured articles and at least say 25 Good / A-class articles would be a more useful metric than total number of articles. I know very little about featured lists so I don't know if requiring any of them would be a good thing or not. Thryduulf ( talk) 19:47, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Just to be clear, I meant 1000 articles in the general topic scope. Like in the number of articles listed by a WikiProject, regardless of quality. The portal itself of course does not have to showcase or navigate to 1000 articles, that would be nuts.
Also regarding the quality articles, I agree. We have agreed to that purpose in Proposal 1 (#2), so there should be a minimum number of quality articles. A conservative number would be like 20 articles of Good quality or better. I can make a proposal if you guys think it sounds reasonable. -- Hecato ( talk) 20:41, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Alternatively I could omit numbers and just propose whether these two restrictions should be in place at all. But then we will have to vote again on numbers. -- Hecato ( talk) 21:31, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Finding agreement on rough numbers

Before we settle on a solid proposal, let's try to get agreement on some rough numbers. I've seen a lot of the same ideas thrown around when it comes to criteria for determining which topics should have portals. To me, it boils down to the following:

  1. Portals must always serve accurate, up-to-date, relevant information to readers. The information provided to readers should be balanced and should not suffer from any kind of significant systemic bias. This means that portals needs regular maintenance to ensure that they're keeping up with changes (not only changes within the topic itself, but also changes with quality assessments of articles that are featured in the portal, as well as new articles that are written within that topic). If it can be shown that a portal is not receiving regular maintenance, and as a result it is providing inaccurate or unbalanced information to readers, that portal is likely to be deleted. Signs that a portal are likely to receive regular maintenance include:
    • There is an active WikiProject devoted to the subject.
    • One or more users have explicitly committed to maintaining the portal.
  2. Portals should be about a sufficiently broad topic, to ensure that there is a sufficiently rich collection of high quality articles that can be featured within the portal. "Broadness" is generally measured by counting the number of articles that the portal topic comprises, while also taking quality and/or importance assessments into account.

Given the above, what numbers does everyone think should be inserted into the following statements? (If you disagree that any of these should even be requirements for a portal, feel free to say that too.)

  1. Portal maintenance:
    • Portals should have a supporting WikiProject with a minimum of ___ active users, and/or a portal should have a minimum of ___ users that have committed to regularly maintaining the portal.
    • For portals that are on a subject that changes rapidly (e.g., a cutting-edge scientific field), portals should receive attention a minimum of ___ times per ___.
    • For portals that are on a subject that does not change rapidly (e.g., a historical topic), portals should receive attention a minimum of ___ times per ___.
  2. Portal "broadness":
    • Total number of articles within the scope of the project must be at least ___.
    • Total number of articles that are GA/FA/FL within the scope of the project must be at least ____.
    • Total number of articles that are B class or higher within the scope of the project must be at least ___.

‑Scottywong | [spout] || 23:55, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Also, if anyone has the ability to do it easily, it might be instructive for someone to find out what the above statistics are for some of the more "successful" existing portals on Wikipedia. In other words, how many B/GA/FA articles does Portal:Mathematics have underneath it, and how many active users are in its WikiProject? Getting a decent sample of these numbers for existing "good" portals might give us a good idea for how to set reasonable thresholds. ‑Scottywong | [confess] || 00:00, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

SportingFlyer response

Using subheadings to make this easier.

  • Portals should be tied to a WikiProject. The number of users of the WikiProject should not matter, but the portal should have at least 1 active maintainer.
  • Portals should be maintained at least once a year, though certain portals may be maintained more frequently, especially where the underlying topic changes rapidly. If no changes need to be made to the portal, a maintainer should at least post to the talk page saying the portal has been reviewed.
  • A portal must cover the same topic as a WikiProject, and the WikiProject must have at least 2,500 articles, approximately 50 of which must be good or featured articles, and at least 250 articles must be better than start-class.
  • We should be able to run a query to check articles by WikiProject. Obviously this will under-estimate the number of articles since some may not have been tagged, but I don't think this undercount is a problem for determining portal suitability. SportingFlyer T· C 01:53, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Knowledgekid87 response

1.Portal maintenance

Since it is hard to calculate how many active members a Wikiproject has, we should go with maintainers which I feel should be at least one.
I have no opinion on subjects that change rapidly as I have not really dealt with any.
Portals which don't change rapidly should receive attention a minimum of 2 times per month.

2.Portal "broadness"

A portal must cover the same topic as a WikiProject, and the WikiProject must have at least 10,000 articles. (I am in agreement with Scotty below)
Total number of articles that are GA/FA/FL within the scope of the project must be at least 100 (seems reasonable, can always be later adjusted)
Total number of articles that are B class or higher within the scope of the project can vary.

- Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 01:59, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Thryduulf: - I am open to new ideas when it comes to Portal/Wikiproject relationships. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 14:34, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Scottywong: - I agree with the 10,000 number and the ideal of 450 to 650 portals. I am aware that this would get rid of a lot of smaller portals, but we want portals to be successful. Lets be honest.... we aren't going to have 10,000+ portals on Wikipedia or else this guideline will never make it given the current editor mood. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 17:24, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Hecato: - 500 articles is far too low now in my opinion as it would mean over 10,000 portals on Wikipedia. The reality as I have said is that the Wikipedia community is unlikely to approve such a thing. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 17:33, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Kusma's response

I am mostly in agreement as to the general principles. I am not too happy with any fixed numbers, but that may turn out to be necessary to find a compromise acceptable to all sides (just like our sports notability guidelines are not perfect, but prevent a lot of unproductive discussion). Basically one question I have is how much portals should display our systemic biases: based on quality content and wikiproject activity, we could easily create a dozen portals on European and American military history topics, but end up merging all of Africa into a single portal. Perhaps the existence of quality articles criterion should be relaxed a bit if necessary for a more neutral selection of portal topics. or perhaps we should just highlight our awareness of the systemic bias inherent in our quality content and advertise for help in addressing the issue. — Kusma ( t· c) 08:58, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

But let's go for some numbers. I think 500 related articles should be enough, and if 20 of them are GA or better, that will do (20 is a fairly typical number of selections in a portal selection box, and the number we ask for should be related to what is necessary for a portal). Some of my favourite portals are Portal:Solar System (10000+ total articles, 100+ GA or better) and Portal:Opera (10000+ articles, 70 GA or better), and they easily make the cut. Looking through the Germany project (I maintain Portal:Germany, which has almost 100k articles in its scope, 1000 of them GA or better, but lots of those are really military history articles), my cutoff would not allow a portal for Munich at the moment, but could possibly allow one in the future if a dedicated crowd comes and works on this. — Kusma ( t· c) 11:00, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Thryduulf's response

I agree with pretty much everything Kusma says. I dislike Knowledgekid's implied requirement for a 1:1 relationship between portals and WikiProjects - multiple smaller wikiprojects collaborating on a broader portal should not be excluded, nor should a very broad wikiproject maintaining ones with broad and narrow focus (e.g. Physics may wish to maintain a general portal and also one for Quantum physics).

As for numbers, I think that as long as a portal is being actively maintained it is irrelevant how many (or which) people are doing it. Activity is probably best monitored by responsiveness - queries on a portal talk page should generally receive a response within about a week. An arbitrary number of edits or other actions in an arbitrary time period is just that - arbitrary. The only thing we should be caring about is whether the portal remains accurate and up-to-date (relative to our articles), and that is going to vary markedly by topic area. Portal:Current events will fail in days but a historical topic may remain within standard for years without significant action. Portal Olympics might need approximately daily attention during a games, but there may be no changes for many months between events; a portal about disasters or extreme weather will similarly have peaks and troughs but not on a predictable schedule.

If anyone has queries or concerns about the reliability or up-to-dateness of a portal then they should either (a) WP:SOFIXIT if they can, or if they can't, (b) detail their concerns on the talk page. Only if that doesn't get a response within about a week should there be any concerns over activity levels.

Regarding content numbers, 20 GA or better articles seems like a good marker but only if that drops below about 15 should an active portal be considered for deletion, especially if there is a large amount of other featured content. Circa 500 articles in scope, at least 100 better than a stub, seems like a good baseline to me but more is also better. 300 C-class or better articles covering the full breadth of the topic area is better though than 1000 start-class articles about a niche aspect. Thryduulf ( talk) 11:55, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

For all those thinking that allowing portals with 20 GA/500 total articles will result in 10,000 portals - that simply isn't the case as there aren't 10,000 topics that could support a portal let alone enough people interested in maintaining that many portals. My reading of the RfCs about ending portals does not suggest that there is any desire among the community to limit the number of portals to an arbitrary level, simply that all the portals that exist should be of good quality, whether that means 5 or 5000. Accordingly I'm very firmly opposed to absurdly high requirements like 10,000 articles or 100 FAs. Thryduulf ( talk) 21:16, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
That's actually exactly what happened in the past. There was no firm guidance given on what topics should have portals, and Wikipedia suddenly had thousands of portals, most of which had no maintainers and therefore rotted and died. No one is trying to artificially limit the number of portals to a specific, arbitrary level (see my response to your comments below), but we're trying to enact some common-sense guidelines to prevent history from repeating itself. ‑Scottywong | [spout] || 01:17, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Yes indeed that's the aim, but if we enact maintenance and quality guidelines then we will not get the thousands of portals last time - but even if we did get thousands of portals that meet the criteria they will, by definition, be maintained and useful so the project will benefit. Whether a portal gets abandoned or not is completely independent of anything to do with how big it is or how many other portals there are. Thryduulf ( talk) 09:07, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Hecato's response

I must say I am generally not a fan of this format. "Plug in the numbers" is begging the question. We must accept your premises to answer the poll. Not that I necessarily disagree with your premises.

Since this is already rolling though, I basically support what Kusma and Thryduulf said.

  • 20GA or better.
  • 500+ articles in scope.
  • At least one WikiProject in scope with at least one active person. The portal should not be necessarily be tied directly to one WikiProject though.
  • Some portals need more attention than others, I am against setting a hard rule. This should be decided on a case by case basis. This binary choice sounds bad to me. Some portals will probably not even need monthly maintenance, simply because there won't be new content to add. With transclusions a lot of content updates itself without much maintenance required. Maintainers will just add new quality content and fix some potential issues. Portals like Olympics will definitely need updates several times per month during the events, but not outside of the event.
  • Querying maintainers for still being active is fine. That reminder-bot idea sounds good to me.
  • We should show some leniency with active portals that were created before this guideline was in place (assuming it will be accepted by the community). Give them some time to get up to standard before jumping to deletion.

-- Hecato ( talk) 14:56, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Levivich's response

  1. Portal maintenance:
    • I agree that portals should have at least one committed maintainer, or at least one committed active WikiProject. A "committed active WikiProject" is one where someone responds to a message on a talk page and says, "yes we're active and committed to maintaining this portal". I'd AGF that if a WikiProject says its active, then it's active. If no one responds on the WikiProject talk page, then it's inactive, even if it's not marked as inactive. (I guess this means at least one active WikiProject editor.)
    • I'm persuaded by the arguments above that minimum necessary maintenance activity is going to vary from portal to portal, and for some portals, by time of year. Olympics is a good example. I think perhaps the proof is in the pudding: a portal is being maintained "enough" if it doesn't fall out of date. Any portal that falls out of date is therefore not being maintained "enough". Rather than a minimum-number-of-edits-per-time-period rule (which is easily gamed, cf. admin inactivity criteria), I'd write something in the guideline along the lines of a portal should be deleted as unmaintained if it can be shown that its content is out of date (prior to the deletion discussion... Unlike articles, I don't believe in WP:HEYing portals). Sorry, I know I'm not putting up a number here, but I agree with Thryd that any number would be arbitrary and for any possible number/time period we chose, there would be portals for which that number/time period wouldn't work.
  2. Portal "broadness":
    • Total number of articles within the scope of the project must be at least 2,500 10,000. That's a real minimum in my mind to meet the broadness criteria. I would agree to a number like 10,000 or 50,000. I think of Portal:Solar System, Portal:Opera, Portal:Canada, Portal:Australia, or any of the main page portals (Arts, History, etc.), and it strikes me that we must have 50k articles in those topic areas. So 2,500 strikes me as actually really low, but it's the highest number anyone else has put for this one, so I'll go with 2,500 :-) (Update: upped from 2,500 to 10,000 per comments below.)
    • Total number of articles that are GA/FA/FL within the scope of the project must be at least 100. All of the above-mentioned portals (I think) have 100+ GA-or-higher articles. I think 50 is the next-highest number anyone has put forward for this one, so I'd consent to 50 as well.
    • Total number of articles that are B class or higher within the scope of the project must be at least 200. I would argue against even making this a criteria because the metric, in my opinion, is so unreliable. I have zero faith in WikiProject article classes (and importances). In my experience–admittedly anecdotal–whether an article is Start class or B or A class is a complete and total crap shoot – might as well just roll dice. It entirely depends on the project and the editor making the assessment. I can't tell you how many articles I've seen that are basically GAs categorized as Start class (just because no one has been around to assess it), or start class articles categorized as B class (because the assessor is being extremely generous, perhaps to "beef up" the project's catalog). Yes, I'm bitter about my article creations being assessed too low. :-) I feel like if we make it X number of Y-class articles, WikiProjects will just re-assess a bunch of articles to push themselves (or their portal project) into compliance. The difference with FAs and GAs is that it requires one or more independent editors to review and approve, rather than just being a self-assessment within the WikiProject the way article classes are.

Scottywong's response

Great responses so far, these are all good ideas. There seems to already be a rough consensus above on how to approach maintenance of portals, and it probably won't end up being the overly simplistic binary choice that I originally proposed above. However, there seems to be a larger disparity in opinions about article broadness. Here's a thought experiment for a different way to approach the problem:

How many portals do you think Wikipedia should ideally have, in total? 10? 100? 1000? As far as I can tell, there are currently around 500, but that number will probably continue to decrease somewhat if the current activity at MFD continues. For the sake of argument, let's say we end up with 200 high quality portals that are being actively maintained, and have an active WikiProject supporting them, such that these 200 portals would survive at MFD. Now, consider that Wikipedia currently has about 6.5M articles total, 2.3M of which are Start-class or higher, 44k of which are GA or higher, and 8.8k of which are FA or FL. Assuming that every article was part of a portal (which is obviously a silly assumption, but go with it for a moment), that would equate to about 32k articles per portal, 11.5k Start+ articles per portal, 221 GA+ articles per portal, or 44 FA/FL articles per portal. Below is a table that shows how these numbers work out if we assume that we have a different number of portals:

Total portal count Articles per portal Start+ articles per portal GA+ articles per portal FA/FL articles per portal
10 644,470 231,784 4,414 882
100 64,447 23,178 441 88
200 32,224 11,589 221 44
500 12,889 4,636 88 18
1,000 6,445 2,318 44 9
5,000 1,289 464 9 2
10,000 645 232 4.4 0.9

Many people above seem to have latched onto a number of 500 articles beneath each portal, with at least 20 GA or better articles. At those levels, that means we'd be shooting for somewhere between 2000-13000 portals in total. Keep in mind that there are only about 5000 editors who make 100+ edits per month. In order to satisfy the maintenance requirements for that many portals, we'd need nearly every active editor to commit to maintaining some portals.

Given the analysis above, and the activity that I've seen at MFD over the last few months, my opinion would be that we need to set these thresholds at a high enough level to prevent the same problem of too many portals being created on narrow topics. I would personally vote for a requirement of a bare minimum of 10,000 articles in the topic area of each portal, and at least 100 GA or better articles. That would theoretically allow us to have a maximum of between 450-650 portals (if every article was part of a portal, or every GA+ article was part of a portal), and in reality we'd probably settle down around perhaps half that number of portals. As Levivich points out above, the most successful and most viewed portals easily meet these requirements. ‑Scottywong | [prattle] || 17:12, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Scottywong, topics are not all the same size, and many large portals suck because they are lacking focus. Mid sized topics tend to have the best portals. Your proposal outlaws Opera although that seems to me to be a wonderful portal and topic. — Kusma ( t· c) 18:28, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I suppose some wiggle room (70 - 100?) can be made for combined GA,FL & FA candidates as WP:Opera has 14,040 pages under their scope. We really shouldn't go too low as there are only so many articles out to feature, and it has to be in a NPOV. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 18:36, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Perhaps you're right that 100 GA+ articles is a bit too high, considering that there are successful portals that exist with less than 100 GA+ articles. I can see that as a valid argument for reducing it to perhaps as low as 50. However, I still believe that these thresholds need to be set relatively high to ensure that we end up with a reasonable number of portals that are practically maintainable. I would disagree that Portal:Opera is a "mid-sized topic", it's a pretty broad topic. Not as broad as Portal:Music, but I don't think it would be good to go much lower (i.e. narrower) than opera when it comes to portals about music. ‑Scottywong | [comment] || 18:52, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
The now-deleted portal that sold me on portals was a portal on the 1948 Australian tour of England (cricket). There were probably 40-50 good or featured articles on the subject and not a lot of stubs, and the portal did a fantastic job of basically letting me know how much quality content we had on this very specific area, and introducing me to a topic I admittedly didn't know as much about as I thought. It hadn't been maintained in awhile, though, even though it was handmade, though it didn't really need maintenance - just someone checking every so often to make sure it wasn't broken. I'm not necessarily advocating for smaller portals, but in cleaning up some portals I'm noticing that a lot of their good/featured articles are in specific topic areas, Croatia has a lot of good military articles on their wars for instance (which is kind of a shame, really.) I don't really see a problem with setting up portals on narrow topics if the quality of the content is good, but I'm now of the mindset that we should be trying to limit, instead of broaden, the amount of topics we can create portals about. SportingFlyer T· C 04:50, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
How many portals we should have is, imho, completely the wrong question to ask because it is not a relevant question. There should be no "target" - whether we have 5 or 50,000 portals that meet whatever criteria we deem a portal should meet doesn't matter. What matters is that every portal we do have gives value to our readers. The number of portals that can be maintained is practically unknowable as it depends on how much maintenance a portal requires, and how many people maintain a portal (and there isn't necessarily a 1:1 relationship between portals and portal maintainers). In You also cannot just divide the number of articles of a given class by any number of portals and get a number that is relevant to anything - some topics are broader than others, not every article will be relevant to a portal, some articles will be relevant to more than one. Thryduulf ( talk) 21:11, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I agree with Thryduulf that it's not appropriate to target a fixed number of portals. It would be like trying to set a maximum number of navigational boxes, but this can only be evaluated on a topic-by-topic basis. Portals can only be viable in the long term if they are managed like navigation boxes and other navigational aids: the editors interested in the topic area must be the ones actively maintaining the associated portals. (In an ideal world, the interested editors would be part of one or more related WikiProjects, but unfortunately with many WikiProjects stagnant, the interested editors might have to be notified on the talk pages of key related articles.) As long as they are assuming the onus of keeping the portals up-to-date, let them decide the best way to organize the portals they are supporting, just like they organize the related navigational boxes. isaacl ( talk) 22:16, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Re "every portal we do have gives value to our readers" - there have been many examples of portals being bad for readers by presenting out of date or incorrect info (when the corresponding article was correct). DexDor (talk) 21:37, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
That might be poorly worded, I was not saying every portal does or did give value, but that every portal should do this (determining which are and which aren't is the purpose of these guidelines). What matters is whether an individual portal is or is not giving value, how many portals there are that give value is irrelevant. Thryduulf ( talk) 23:00, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
This issue has also since been fixed by adding transclusions. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 23:25, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Thryduulf: To clarify, I'm not suggesting that we literally put a clause in the portal guideline that says "Wikipedia should have no more than 250 portals at any time." This was only a thought experiment, intended to help us get a better idea for the consequences our choice of numbers will have. I think we all agree that there is a finite limit to how many portals Wikipedia can support. That limit is partially defined by how many active editors Wikipedia has, how many of those editors are willing to maintain portals, and how many portals each of those editors is willing to maintain. Additionally, that limit is partially defined by how we design and construct portals, because some methodologies require more maintenance than others. Some topics require more maintenance than others, but all portals require some level of maintenance. However, I don't think anyone can argue that, in the not too distant past, Wikipedia objectively had too many portals; far more than could be practically maintained by the current set of portal editors. This resulted in portals that received no updates for a decade or longer, and many portals that served inaccurate information to readers. In order to prevent this problem from happening again, there must be a force that limits the number and type of portals that can be created. Based on the discussions above as well as the status quo of portals since their inception, there is a strong consensus that portals should only be created for "broad" topics, and the best way to judge the "broadness" of a topic is by counting how many Wikipedia articles are part of that topic. We need to choose numbers that strike the right balance between these two forces: 1) a number that is low enough to allow portals on reasonable topics, not just the broadest possible topics; and 2) a number that is high enough to ensure that Wikipedia has a quantity of portals that are practically maintainable, so that we don't see portals constantly being dragged to MFD because they've been abandoned. That is the aim of this discussion. ‑Scottywong | [confabulate] || 00:11, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
The amount of interest editors have in portals is not known, though, other than to say that based on experience to date, it's pretty low. So trying to estimate an end number of portals isn't possible. It would be better to look for groups of editors actually interested in supporting a portal. Given that editors tend to be overoptimistic in estimating what they'll be able to do (which has an upside: ambition helps drive improvement), I do think there should be active editing from several interested editors for a given portal. The problem that occurred in the past is the creation of a lot of portals by editors not really active in the topic area, and a lack of engagement with the interested editors for the topic. I appreciate that identifying groups one by one and engaging with them is likely going to result in a lot fewer portals. But I can't see any other way to make portals sustainable. Either they get integrated into the normal workflow of the editors most interested in the topic and flourish (as is the case for other navigational aids), or they don't. isaacl ( talk) 01:46, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Scottywong: You've missed my point. While there is a theoretical limit to the number of portals Wikipedia can support, what that number is is irrelevant and even if it were it would not be predictable based on article numbers (even if for no other reason than each article may be within the scope of 0, 1 or more than 1 portals). The only thing that matters is that each portal that exists is useful and maintained. The problem with the automated portals was nothing to do with how many there were, simply that they were (generally) not useful. Thryduulf ( talk) 09:14, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Are you suggesting that a portal guideline should simply say, "Make sure any portals you create are useful and maintained", and trust that that will be sufficient to prevent another episode where an editor mass-creates 1000 portals on extremely narrow topics that all have to be individually deleted at MFD? The problem is that the word "useful" is far too subjective; everyone has a different definition. I'm sure there are a few people in the world that might consider Portal:Late 18th century opera in northwestern Italy to be "useful", but that doesn't mean that such a portal should exist. The goal here is to create an organizational structure. We need to put some definition behind the word "useful", so that all portal editors/creators are working towards the same goal.
Also, the number of portals that can be practically maintained is not irrelevant. There's no need to find the exact number, but it would be smart to at least agree on a ballpark number. If we write a guideline that encourages/allows users to create 100,000 portals on the narrowest of topics, that would be an obvious failure on our part to create a sensible guideline that is in the best interests of Wikipedia.
I would argue that the "usefulness" of a portal depends heavily on whether or not it is actively maintained. Abandonment is one of the primary reasons for deleting portals today. So, if we want portals to remain useful, we need to include a mechanism in the guideline that limits the number of portals to a level that can be practically maintained by the users we have today. ‑Scottywong | [prattle] || 16:14, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I think we should just stick with an article scope of 10,000 with GA/FL/FA articles numbering at least 70. I'm sorry but we have to put some limitations on portals until it can be proven that more are needed. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 16:31, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Determining what "useful" and "maintained" mean is the entire point of what we're doing here. When we agree what the minimum requirements are (and 10,000 articles is on order of magnitude too high) then that will automatically limit what portals get created. If anybody mass creates portals again (unlikely) then either they will be good and maintained per the agreed definitions (in which case everybody wins) or they wont be they can be deleted (and nobody loses). None of this makes the total number of portals relevant to whether a portal is or is not good. Thryduulf ( talk) 17:50, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Britishfinance response

I find SW's analysis very insightful and a smart way of trying to roughly quantify/scale the outcomes of choices. However, I have never really found that issues over the worthiness of a topic are hotly contested at MfD; it is generally apparent whether a topic is broad enough or not to both keeps and deletes (although, I did like SW's suggestion of an RfP approach to creating new portals above). The real issue is abandonment, and specifically the complete absence of any dedicated topic maintainer(s), and any interest by the WikiProject, in the portal. If we had a rule that any portal without a recognized live topic maintainer/WikiProject support – but not a mass-maintainer trying to simultaneously update a wide range of portals without any topic interest or knowledge (per the Transhumanist) – then we would probably get to about 100 core portals. A focus on dedicated topic maintainers is the key here. I have yet to see a portal with a dedicated live topic maintainer/WikiProject support that has been deleted. If we got more clarity on this issue, we would have fewer, but higher quality and relevant portals in WP. If we respected the message that complete abandonment by a live topic maintainer implies, then we could make faster progress in portal-space. The other guidelines are of lesser order/less contentious at MfD. Britishfinance ( talk) 23:55, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Portal page views

I am bringing this up here as this is an issue brought up numerous times for those in favor of portal deletion. Should portals be treated like articles where WP:ATA (specifically WP:POPULARPAGE) applies more? This can apply to which portals should have topics if a decision is made regarding the importance of the matter. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 15:09, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

  • Oppose using page views to decide whether a portal should exist.
As I see it the reasons why portals have low page views are:
1. The entire portal space in general has poor pageviews. Mostly due to not being included well in the navigation process, especially being excluded from mobile. With the few exceptions of a few portals that are well linked. Like the ones on the frontpage.
2. The portal itself has especially poor pageviews
2a. ...because it is poorly linked
2b. ...because it is simply a bad portal
2c. ...because the topic area is just not fit for a portal
Using pageviews to determine whether a portal should exist only assumes 2c can be the case, ignoring the other possibilities. So WP:POPULARPAGE applies to porals as well. At best pageviews can be used to identify portals that might need some work to raise their utility and make them more visible. Topic areas that qualify for having a portal should be determined by other means, like articles in scope, etc. -- Hecato ( talk) 15:24, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Oppose using page views exactly per Hecato. Thryduulf ( talk) 15:29, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Oppose using pageviews. If a topic area is large and well-developed enough to sustain a portal, it should not matter how many readers there are. What matters is that any readers (no matter if it is 3/month or 3000/month) are presented with a suitable high quality portal. Views are also impossible to predict in advance, and asking for large number of views may cause editors to link to portals more than appropriate or necessary and could cause completely unnecessary disruption to article space. (We should talk about linking and discoverability of portals in a future section). Of course it may be more "useful" to work on portals with large numbers of viewers, but it is not realistic to expect people to work on popular pages instead of the pages they are interested in. I mainly see the "views" argument as something that tells us we should maybe relax a notch or two about portals, as whatever we end up doing is only going to be noticed by a small percentage of Wikipedia's readers anyway. — Kusma ( t· c) 15:44, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Still support using page views in some sense although I believe I'm in a minority on this. I can't escape the idea that the proof of the pudding is in the eating: we know if a page is important and useful to a reader by whether or not people are reading it. It's like if you write a book, or a song, you know it's a good book or song based on sales. If no one is buying it then no one is reading or listening to it. I never believed in the philosophy of, "I want to write a great song, even if no one likes it." Well, if no one likes it, then it's not a great song! People like great songs. Great songs get bought and listened to. So I feel the same way about websites, which would include portals (and articles). Nevertheless, the points raised above (which have been raised by others in similar prior conversations) are pretty strong, especially 2a about it not being well-linked. The problem is, if a portal has low page views, you can't tell if it's because of Hecato's reasons 2a (poor inbound linking), 2b (bad design) or 2c (poor topic choice). 2a and 2b can be fixed, 2c cannot be fixed. 2b suggests improving the portal; 2c suggests deleting it; 2a suggests not touching it and instead adding more links from articles, etc. So low page views suggests a problem but doesn't answer what the problem is, and therefore low page views are not in and of itself a reason to delete portals. I think the guideline should discuss this (that low page views is a problem but not a reason for deletion in and of itself). – Leviv ich 16:04, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Oppose using pageviews. We don't delete content just because it's not seen......we have thousands of articles that are rarely viewed. In no way does page views related to quality.....as people will not know the quality until they click the page. Not like people leave notes indicating a portal is crappie thus deterring others. All about portal link saturation and visibility. I think we need to make sure we don't make a sub set of rules for a content namespace that does not strictly follow Wikipedia:Editing policy and Wikipedia:Core content policies. Unlike our administration namespaces these are meant for public viewing. Deletion should be based on the stricter criteria of NPOV and verifyability WP:DEL-CONTENT over the criteria used for project namespaces. I also think that making a deletion clause based on views for only one namespace could set a precedence for other areas of the project that is the opposite of our general editing policy WP:POPULARPAGE...we have many many articles and even policies that are rarely view that would never be deleted based on views. We should however incorporating notability in relation to the broadness of a subject of portals.-- Moxy 🍁 22:19, 21 November 2019 (UTC)‘’ reply
(As has probably been previously pointed out to you) deleting an article removes (referenced) encyclopedic information from wp so that's rather different from deleting a portal (or template ...). DexDor (talk) 22:35, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
That argument has been made many times in deletion discussions, but that doesn't make it relevant. Thryduulf ( talk) 23:02, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support using pageviews. At MfD, low page views are a very reliable indicator of a failed portal (one of the best, imho), and directly link to full abandonment by the maintainer(s) (i.e why support/update something that nobody reads, it is a natural human reaction), which is a very serious situation for a portal. A portal is not content (e.g. like chronicling the existence of an obscure crustation for posterity), it is a tool to showcase/display FA/GA content; if nobody wants to visit your display, then at some stage, you are going to shut it down and walk away to leave it to decay. That is where the problems arise, and where portals can make WP look like a failed/abandoned project. Britishfinance ( talk) 23:28, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support using pageviews as an indicator, oppose using pageviews as deletion criteria - I agree with Levivich that pageviews should be used as a measure of how well a portal is doing, and low pageviews should be a sign that there is a problem. I would support language in the guideline to this effect (as well as some best practices for identifying and resolving the problems that are causing low page views). However, I also agree with Hecato that pageviews shouldn't be used as a rationale for deletion, because low page views can have a number of different causes, and deletion is not an appropriate solution to all of those causes. ‑Scottywong | [squeal] || 00:17, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support using pageviews as an indicator, oppose using pageviews as deletion criteria - This seems to be where consensus is heading, and it gives both sides a bit of what they want. Historically portals have not all been advertised the same is one of the issues for example. I get the feeling that within a few months of these guidelines going into place, portals will be deleted again. The difference at least be something was done to address the long standing issues. The previous guidelines were good for their time but were flawed in the sense of not taking partial portal abandonment into account (it happened to some but not all portals). - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 00:59, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Oppose using page views in any capacity - low page views may mean the page isn't properly advertised or transcluded, but should have no bearing on whether the portal should exist. SportingFlyer T· C 01:06, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I think what we're saying is that pageviews can be used as a tool to identify problems (like if a portal isn't properly advertised or transcluded) while also being explicitly excluded from the list of reasons to delete a portal. ‑Scottywong | [chat] || 01:12, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I get that, I'm saying I'd prefer not to use them as a guideline for anything. There are other ways to figure out if portals haven't been transcluded properly. SportingFlyer T· C 04:50, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Comment: Not all pageviews are created equal. A pageview that occurs in the course of checking a portal to determine whether it has problems that needs fixing counts the same as a pageview that occurs in the course of a reader indulging their interest in the topic. A page that has very few views is likely not being maintained. That said, it is conceivable that a portal is so well constructed mechanically that it functions with very little maintenance, but I do think that an extreme dearth of pageviews is a sign that something is wrong, and that the portal should not exist. I would consider this a valid factor for portals receiving only two or three views per day. BD2412 T 02:03, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    • I agree that an extreme dearth of pageviews is a sign that something is possibly wrong, but as that something may or may not be anything to do with the portal it really does not indicate whether the portal should or should not exist. Also for some topics interest will wax and wane as things happen or don't happen in the real world - the Olympics portal for example will naturally get many more page views during a games than it will between them, a Disasters portal will get more views in the aftermath of a large disaster than when there hasn't been one for a while, etc. low page views in the fallow periods does not indicate anything is wrong with the portal. Thryduulf ( talk) 09:04, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
      • Portals that get higher page views during specific periods of interest can be accommodated by looking at average page views over a longer period. However, to be clear, there are plenty of portals which routinely average dozens of views per day irrespective of events in the world - in fact, there are currently over 250 portals that have averaged more than two dozen views per day over the past two years. In light of that circumstance, I would say that something is definitely wrong with a portal averaging only four or five views per day over the same period. BD2412 T 21:37, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Oppose using pageviews. Doing so is contrary to what Wikipedia stands for: not a popularity contest. UnitedStatesian ( talk) 17:26, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Oppose using pageviews. Well said. We don't even use pageviews as a deletion threshold for articles; certainly not for categories which are also navaids. It's simply been used to justify deletion by editors who just don't like portals. Bermicourt ( talk) 08:57, 23 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Oppose using pageviews for me, portals should be evaluated primarily on the basis of whether the topic is sufficiently broad to support a well-constructed portal. In some cases, the quality of the portal is also relevant. The popularity of the portal should not move the needle at all. Lepricavark ( talk) 02:26, 29 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support using pageviews to identify portals that no one cares about. I know that this discussion will decide that pageviews don't matter, because portals are so important for some poorly understood reason that they don't need viewers. For more than a decade, we had what most editors thought was a portal guideline that said that portals should be about broad subject areas that would attract large numbers of readers and portal maintainers. When a few stubborn editors started checking whether the portals had readers and found that they did not, portal advocates decided that readers were not important. If no one is reading a portal, what is it for? Because some editors like making portals, or because they have invisible readers (which is a mystical rationale). Oh well. Robert McClenon ( talk) 18:41, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Comment or Question for User:Hecato - Why shouldn't 2b be a reason to delete a portal? Why should being a bad portal be a reason to keep a portal? We have already seen that tagging a portal doesn't work, and that Waiting for Godot to come and maintain or improve a portal doesn't help. ( Godot is in Darjeeling drinking black tea with an Indian magician.) Robert McClenon ( talk) 18:45, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Oppose using page views as a criteria for portals. As others have noted, we don't use that for article or anything else as far as a deletion criteria. Sadly, it's been used by some editors as a (weak, in my opinion) reason to delete them. Since Wikipedia doesn't do very much to let people know portals even exist, that's a really bad reason to use. I have a suggestion below that might help with that. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:42, 4 December 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Page views must be considered a key indicator, however, not all page views are equal. Beware Wikipedia:Popular pages. Pageviews contain critical information, however, to blindly chase pageviews would mean becoming pornography and tabloid magazine content. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:28, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Oppose page view as criteria. It's a slippery-slope argument to use these numbers and always a moving-goalpost target. A portal with only 200 views a week? People want 1000. Now you got 2000? They want 5000. It's also mentioned above that technical limitations reduce portal exposure on mobiles. This already imposes a glass ceiling for portal page views. OhanaUnited Talk page 04:11, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Oppose using page views Page views would really be irrelevant given the other items around which consensus seems to be coalescing, namely 1) connection to an active or semi-active WikiProject that actively maintains the portal and 2) a certain minimum number of articles in scope. If a portal meets both 1) and 2), I think whatever page views fall out of that are fine. UnitedStatesian ( talk) 02:02, 10 March 2020 (UTC) reply

Criteria proposal 1

I'm going to start us off with a formal proposal here, to comment and vote on, and I don't expect that it will be the only proposal in this section (so feel free to create additional proposals if you want). I believe that this is one of the most important elements of a potential guideline, so it deserves a lot of attention. Below is my proposal on criteria for determining which topics should have portals:

There are two primary criteria that must be satisfied:

  1. Portals must be about a sufficiently broad topic.
  2. Portals must be actively maintained.


Broadness

A "sufficiently broad" topic is a subject that has a rich collection of high quality articles that can be featured within the portal. It should be a subject that is broad enough to have many different facets. Typically, topics that are broad enough to support a portal have a minimum of 5,000 Wikipedia articles that are related to that topic. Topics that have a sufficiently rich collection of high quality articles typically have a minimum of 50 Wikipedia articles that are related to the topic and are rated at GA level or higher. This is a guideline and not necessarily a hard limit, and exceptions can be made in cases where it can be shown that there is an active group of editors that are committed to indefinitely maintaining a portal on a somewhat narrower topic. The narrower the topic, the less likely it is that an exception will be made.


Maintenance

Portals must always serve accurate, up-to-date, relevant, and balanced information to readers. In order to achieve this, all portals require regular maintenance to ensure that they're keeping up with changes (not only changes within the topic itself, but also changes with quality assessments of articles that are featured in the portal, as well as new articles that are written within that topic). If it can be shown that a portal is not receiving regular maintenance, and as a result it is providing inaccurate or unbalanced information to readers, then that portal is likely to be nominated for deletion. There is not a required cadence of maintenance for portals, but it is suggested that all portals are checked at least once every 6 months to ensure nothing is broken, to check for new articles that have recently been created, to check for articles that have recently attained GA or FA status, and generally to ensure that the portal is still serving accurate, up-to-date, and balanced content to readers. Some topics will naturally not require frequent maintenance (e.g., Portal:American Civil War) while others will naturally require very frequent maintenance (e.g. Portal:Global warming). Some topics will require a variable amount of maintenance at different times (e.g. Portal:Olympics).

In general, it is highly encouraged to only create portals for topics that have an active WikiProject associated with them. However, this is not a hard rule, and exceptions can be made in cases where it can be shown that there is an active group of editors that are committed to indefinitely maintaining a portal, even if that group of editors are not members of an associated WikiProject.


WP:Portal/Requests

To create a new portal, first post a request at WP:Portal/Requests. The request should include a description of the topic that you'd like to create a portal on, along with an analysis of the broadness of that topic, and an indication of how many high-quality articles that topic is comprised of. Include information about related WikiProjects that will support the portal, as well as a list of specific users who have committed to maintaining the portal regularly. Include any other comments or information that might be relevant to the request. After the request is made, anyone from the community can comment on it. After 7 days of discussion, it can be closed by an uninvolved editor, and consensus can be judged. If there is a consensus that this portal should not be created, then it will not be allowed to exist. Otherwise, if there is a consensus that it should be created, or if there is no clear consensus, then the portal will be allowed to be created. New portals that are created without going through this process can be speedy deleted.

Please indicate your support or opposition to this proposal below. Thanks. ‑Scottywong | [confer] || 17:05, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Proposal 1 discussion

I oppose the Requests requirement per WP:CREEP. The other requirements, combine with MfD/CSD, are sufficient to prevent bad portals that are created from lasting very long. Perhaps a better model would be similar to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals, where the process is optional. UnitedStatesian ( talk) 17:35, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I disagree with numeric criteria to identify broadness. I feel the corresponding subject matter experts should be empowered to decide by consensus what topics make suitable entry points to a given area. I agree that portals should have a corresponding body of interested editors who monitor them for vandalism at the very least, and make appropriate updates (with the understanding that there is no deadline). I disagree with a centralized request page to approve portals. Navigation boxes are managed by the various groups of editors interested in a given topic without any centralized approval; portals ought to be treated like another navigational aid. isaacl ( talk) 17:41, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Do you have an alternate measure of broadness that you would prefer? Or do you oppose the entire concept of requiring portals to be about sufficiently broad topics? ‑Scottywong | [gab] || 17:58, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I agree with the concept of portals being about "sufficiently broad topic", I just think this is best determined by those maintaining the portal with circa 500 articles being a ball-park guideline. Thryduulf ( talk) 18:01, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
How do we measure "broadness" then? At 500 articles per scope anyone can pretty much create a portal about anything and call it broad because of x y or z. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 18:03, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
500 articles about a topic is a broad topic. If portals about such topics are well constructed and maintained then what is the problem if we have lots of them? Thryduulf ( talk) 18:46, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Recent history has shown that clearly Wikipedia currently lacks the ability and organization required to maintain "lots" of portals. MFD routinely contains portals that haven't been updated in a decade, and there are only around 500 portals in existence right now. I can't understand how anyone would argue that we should be encouraging more portals to be created at a time when portals are being deleted at an unprecedented rate. ‑Scottywong | [squeal] || 21:28, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
+1 with Scottywong; the long list of MfDs on portals (that involves quite a wide range of editors over time), shows that the maintainer support for portals is nowhere near figures for even 1,000 portals. Even at the current levels of circa 500 portals, there is still a long list of portals to come whose last edit by a proper maintainer (e.g. not The Transhumanist-type edits), was pre-2013 (I notice that after 2013, portal support seemed to really collapse). I would suspect that WP doesn't even have the maintainer support for 100 good portals. Hence my suggestion under #Manual of Style above that we think of other ways to handle this (e.g. having a centralized FA/GA article database that could be linked to by a "portal-bar" on the article pages; or other ideas). MfD sees the reality of support by portal maintainers – most are gone. Britishfinance ( talk) 21:40, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
My view on portals, which I appreciate is not shared by everyone, is that they should serve as an entry point to learn about a given topic area (hence the name). So the topic area should be broad enough such that there is an advantage in having a navigational aid to supplement the primary article on that topic. I think they should be organized with relatively distinct domains, though eliminating all overlap is not necessary. To that end, I believe broad advice on best practices is desirable, including cases where portals aren't the best approach. However I also feel the people who are invested in doing the work long term should be able to define it, by and large. I think trying to determine a count of associated articles is just asking for a lot of arguing about how that count is derived. Let those knowledgeable in the area decide what are the best entry points. The problem that had occurred is various editors on their own initiative decided they wanted to make a gift of a portal to the corresponding group of interested editors, without considering that this is effectively handing them a recurring cost that has to be paid. We need to ensure that these editors want to pay this cost, and part of that is letting them decide how they want to dole out the time and effort in support of any associated portals. isaacl ( talk) 18:16, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
( edit conflict) I broadly agree with Isaacl and UnitedStatesian. A numeric guide as to the ballpark for what is broad enough is fine, but that figure should be in the region of 500 and certainly no more than 1000, but ultimately it should be based on the consensus of those doing the maintaining. Something similar to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals is a good idea and that would work well, especially if there is a draft space where portals can be built up (it's unreasonable to expect them to be created perfectly immediately). Thryduulf ( talk) 17:59, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Where did you get the 500-1000 article range from? Is that just a gut feeling, or is it based on something more concrete? ‑Scottywong | [yak] || 18:34, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
500-1000 articles (in addition to a guideline about volume of GA+ content) indicates that there is sufficient content about the topic on Wikipedia to support a portal, based on the amount of content showcased in portals and the range of topics those articles will need to cover in order to exist as non-duplicate articles. 500 articles is what you might find in a small paper encyclopaedia focused on a single topic - by contrast 10,000 articles is about a sixth of the entire single volume Encyclopaedia Britannia. Thryduulf ( talk) 18:56, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
You might note that I reduced this proposal to 5000 articles, not 10000. Are you aware of any existing portals that have survived MFD, that are on a topic area that is only comprised of around 500 articles? ‑Scottywong | [prattle] || 19:38, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
There have been so many MFDs, many (maybe even most) of which of which were completely unrelated to the broadness of the topic (and indeed far too many based on nothing more than the manner in which it was created), so what survived or did not survive MFD is not a useful guide to topic broadness. What makes 5000 articles broad enough for you but 500 not? Where did you derive that figure from? How and why will it ensure the quality of a portal but 500 not? Thryduulf ( talk) 21:00, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
There is a large discussion section above on this page where I showed exactly how I derived 10000 articles as a threshold (and subsequently downgraded it to 5000 in an attempt to find consensus). You read that discussion and commented on it. I was hoping for a similar analysis from you (or, at least something a bit more concrete than a vague notion that 500 feels like the right number). Portals on broader topics are more likely to attract maintainers, that's a simple fact. It's far more likely that people will volunteer to maintain Portal:Music than Portal:German electronic music in the key of F-sharp from 1988-1992. The reason I bring MFD into this is because I think it would be smart to craft a guideline that prohibits portals from being created if they are unlikely to survive MFD. The hundreds of MFD discussions over the past year form a sort of meta-consensus that is unlikely to change anytime soon. In my opinion, it would be unwise to draft a guideline that significantly deviates from that consensus. Please keep in mind: I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm not pro- or anti-portal. I admit freely that nearly everyone in this discussion knows more about portals than I do. My opinions are derived from closing dozens of MFD discussions on portals, and reading through recent RFCs and other discussions on the subject. I see an obvious problem that needs to be solved, and I'm attempting to solve it. In my opinion, creating a guideline that encourages editors to create portals on narrow topics would not solve the problem, and would actually make the problem quite a bit worse than it already is today. But again, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. ‑Scottywong | [gossip] || 21:20, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Scottywong, it is far more likely that people want to maintain Portal:Opera than Portal:Music, as the latter is so general that most would-be maintainers will dislike a substantial part of it. People work on what they enjoy, not on what others would like them to work on, and that is a simple fact. — Kusma ( t· c) 21:37, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I feel like I'm not being understood. No one is suggesting that we force editors to maintain portals that they don't want to maintain. I'm simply pointing out the obvious fact that broader topics are more likely to appeal to a larger group of people. Of course there can be exceptions to this occasionally, but there are more people in the world that are interested in the "American Civil War" than there are people that are interested in "firing mechanisms on long-bore muskets used in the American Civil War". Broader topics naturally appeal more broadly. This is not a difficult concept, and I don't understand why we're arguing over it. ‑Scottywong | [babble] || 21:59, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I support having an article scope number criteria, but oppose a requirement for portal making as it should be "WP:Portal/Proposals". I want to add that it is too much of a gamble to rely on self referred "experts" to identify scope. The general consensus among the community I feel is to downsize portals, this can easily be taken via a straw poll. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 18:08, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Support this idea. It would stop portal-spam (which the community doesn't like). It would force the community to engage more in the topic of portals at RfPs, which cannot be a bad thing - I am not sure that all the !votes at big portal RfCs really understand what is happening in portal-space. By specifying the actual maintainers of the portal (and that they are genuine topic enthusiasts), we get to the core of the issue with portals, abandonment. We might also ask that the WikiProject endorse the RfP? We should also think about automating the process of when the maintainers leave WP, or stop supporting the portal - e.g. it could automatically go back to an RfP, and if it failed (because the existing maintainers never showed up, and new ones did not step forward), it get deleted/draftified. Britishfinance ( talk) 18:26, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
This proposal is silent on what imho, is the content driver of the recent conduct ArbCom portal case. In my view, a drive-by maintainer (e.g. not a topic enthusiast, not part of the original RfP, not part of the WikiProject, and especially doing mass-portal updates etc.) is not "maintenance", and is therefore to be discarded in any 6-monthly assessment of whether the portal is being maintained. This is a crunch issue for us to discuss (if not the core " Elephant in the room" for portals). thanks Britishfinance ( talk) 18:53, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Britishfinance, I completely disagree. It does not matter at all who performs maintenance, if they do what needs to be done. One of the problems here is that we don't have clear expectations of what maintenance is necessary. — Kusma ( t· c) 19:19, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Thanks Kusma, and as I said in my ArbCom statement, I think this is one of the core issues both for portals, and the tensions around portals. I raised it at ArbCom to see if they had a view on it/how to resolve it. Given the abandonment of portals by most maintainers, this issue is the most material item in my view as to the trajectory of the number of portals over the next 24 months. I am almost afraid to mention it here, but outside of the underlying abandonment of most portals, it is the "elephant" in my view. thanks. Britishfinance ( talk) 19:27, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
There is a discussion section below that will be devoted to the topic of portal maintenance, where we can set clear expectations of what is required. We'll get there soon. ‑Scottywong | [squeal] || 19:36, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Sounds like a good plan, I will put the "elephant" back in its enclosure :) Britishfinance ( talk) 19:38, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Support broadness. I question whether there are any topics that have 500 articles, 50 of which (10%) are GA or better. It seems like keeping a 1:100 ratio between articles and FAs is more reasonable, i.e., 5k/50 or 10k/100. 50 is the minimum number of GAs+ that I think can sustain a portal (any less, and the portal will display all GAs+, rather than have a selection of the best GAs+, since we need–what–like 25-ish GAs+ in the rotation?). So, if it's 50 GAs+, I'm at 5,000 articles (1:100 ratio). Frankly I wonder if we should only set a GA+ number, and not an article number at all. Support maintenance but I would change it to monthly instead of every 6 months. Six months is a long time to be serving readers with bad content. Even a month seems like a long time to me. Ambivalent on requests as it's kind of counter to our BOLD policy, and I just wonder if processing the requests is making too much work for volunteer editors. The way I figure, if we have a well-written guideline, an editor either (a) is competent enough to read the guideline and only make a portals that comply with the guideline, or (b) should be TBAN'd from making portals. Those in category B will make themselves known after making a few bad portals. Everyone else is in catetgory A and doesn't need to ask permission first. That's my view of it, anyway, but I'm not opposed to trying it because, well... there's a pretty good counterexample of what can happen when portal creation goes unchecked. – Leviv ich 20:19, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Again, support the main ideas, oppose some bits. More specifically, I support the ideas of requiring maintenance and a "broad topic". However, I think we should look at some examples before we adopt a definition of "broad topic". (For example I would consider Nigeria (13k articles, 29 GA or better) a broad topic. Roads in Maryland clock in at 600 articles, 70 GA or better, but I would describe it as a bit niche. Cheshire has 3000 articles, 79 GA or better. All three have decent portals, although Cheshire and Nigeria are far more appealing to me as a non-roadgeek). I oppose the requirement to propose a portal and oppose the idea of requiring named maintainers as un-wiki and against WP:NOTBURO/ WP:OWN. I agree that a portal that has sections that are half a year or more out of date needs work, and those that are several years out of date should have out of date content hidden (if possible) or be deleted (portals shouldn't be embarrassing). So require maintenance, don't require maintainers. — Kusma ( t· c) 20:42, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    • I guess Roads in Maryland is an example of why we need a minimum-article number and a minimum-GA+ number. – Leviv ich 21:45, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
      I could be persuaded to support something like "if a portal has more than 5000 articles/50 GA+, it is an automatic pass of broadness; if it has less than 1000/20+ GA articles, it is an automatic fail of broadness; portals in the intermediate area should be looked at individually, taking their quality into account". That would allow us to discourage portals about narrow areas, while making it possible to keep some of the few gems of portal space like Portal:Cheshire. — Kusma ( t· c) 11:16, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
      I like the idea of a range. – Leviv ich 01:35, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
      Levivich, perhaps we can find a way to encourage people to include narrow topics with comparatively large amounts of quality content as somewhat highlighted parts of broader portals (as some form of "merging"). This might also involve the WP:FT and WP:GT processes that highlight topics with lots of quality content but don't currently get enough attention in my opinion. — Kusma ( t· c) 11:04, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
      +1 to that idea. – Leviv ich 20:50, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Agree with everything but requests We don't need an AfC for portals - we want to encourage people to be bold. There are bits and pieces of the proposal I'd copy edit (I would define portals as needing to be both "sufficiently broad" and "sufficiently rich" and require they be tied to a WikiProject (EDIT: I just now noticed this was at the end of the maintenance section)) but I would generally support this. Also, if "sufficiently rich" is met but "sufficiently broad" is not but the portal is maintained, I don't necessarily see a reason to delete it - we don't want to encourage these types of portals, but as I've noted above with the 1948 Australia tour of England, the best portals should draw you in to the best tended article gardens on Wikipedia. SportingFlyer T· C 11:58, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support all three propositions, generally as worded. Topics should have breadth before they are even considered for a portal. Portals should either be attached to a specific WikiProject or have (at least) some editors dedicated to carrying out maintenance tasks. I can see no good reason not to have an approval process for determining which topics should have portals. I would not envisions such a process requiring a very involved discussion, but would have it entail the editor or editors proposing the creation of the new portal articulating how the portal will be arranged, what components it will have, and what specific articles or other content it will include at the beginning. BD2412 T 16:36, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support all three parts. The first one, the Requests, is comparable to my previous suggestion that we should have Portals for Discussion to approve both the creation and the deletion of portals. I would prefer that, but I don't think it will be approved. By the way, I do favor the use of pageviews. I have in the past been neutral on the deletion of poorly viewed well-maintained portals, as opposed to poorly viewed poorly maintained portals , which just must be deleted. But I support all three parts. Robert McClenon ( talk) 21:21, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support Broadness, Maintenance. Oppose Requests. I think mostly everything has already been said above. The first two requirements are sufficient. I think some of the problems raised above about good portals that don't fit the requirements could be solved by allowing sub-portals. I.e. Portal:Germany could have some sub-portals like Portal:Munich. We could decide on some rules for that to prevent abuse. -- Hecato ( talk) 09:50, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support all three I think Scotty is spot-on with regard to the criteria. In light of the numerous portals MfDs, it seems advisable to determine the appropriateness of a portal topic before hours are spent creating a portal that may otherwise be deleted. Lepricavark ( talk) 02:31, 29 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support Broadness, very strongly. Portals are top-down looking, which necessarily implies broad views. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:42, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Oppose Maintenance. "Maintenance" seems to imply that portals are covering developing topics. No, that is the job or articles. Portals should not overlap with articles. I still support auto-portals, but please do not launch thousands of portals. I think the BOT Policy method of unrolling automation should be the government protocol for any auto-page thing, if it is to be done again. Reducing the need for expert maintenance should be a major goal. A need for indefinite continuing maintenance should be regarded as a failure in the model. "Failed maintenance" is a reason for deprecation. Good maintenance should be removing the need for repeat maintenance. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:42, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Support WP:Portal/Requests. Some throttle is needed on new portal creation. I think there is only so much possible interest in portals, and thousands of portals guarantee their failure. I think their future depends on a culling down to 10-100 portals. Thinner portals should be merged to insider broader portals. This will be contentious, and the contentiousness is good, because it means there is interest. An excellent example is Talk:Main Page/Archive 194#Add Portal:Law to the list of portals displayed on the homepage, where User:BD2412 seeks to elevate Portal:Law to the top level. Only so many Portals can be top level portals. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:42, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Consensometer
Total Percent
Broadness 12 13
92%
Maintenance 12 12
100%
Requests 7 12
58%

I counted the !votes as follows, apologies if I missed or misunderstood anyone, please make adjustments as needed or let me know and I'll make them. As to broadness/maintenance/requests: Scotty (prop) 1/1/1, US 1/1/0, isaacl 0/1/0, Thryd 1/1/1, KK87 1/-/1, BF 1/1/1, L 1/1/-, Kusma 1/1/0. Note that pretty much everyone has some qualification or adjustment to the specific details in the proposal; so not everyone agrees, for example, exactly what broadness or exactly what maintenance requirements there should be. – Leviv ich 06:56, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Criteria proposal 2

There seemed to not be very strong support for requiring editors to get pre-approval for a new portal before creating it, at a page like WP:Portals/Requests. I'd like to try re-wording that part of proposal 1 to see if there is more support for it in a different form. This proposal is intended to replace the section of proposal 1 entitled " WP:Portals/Requests":

WP:Portals/Portals for discussion

Before creating a new portals, editors are highly encouraged (but not required) to discuss their ideas and intentions at WP:Portals/Portals for discussion, to get feedback from the community about their idea for a new portal. These discussions should start with a description of the topic that the portal will focus on, along with an analysis of the broadness of that topic, and an indication of how many high-quality articles that topic is comprised of. Include information about related WikiProjects that will support the portal, as well as a list of specific users who have committed to maintaining the portal regularly. The community can then discuss the potential new portal, provide opinions on whether they believe this portal should or shouldn't be created, provide advice on how to best create the portal, let editors know if there other closely-related portals already exist, and potentially find other editors that might be interested in helping to create and maintain the new portal. In general, new portals that receive a positive reaction from the community in a PfD discussion are far less likely to be deleted in the future.

This currently redirects to MFD, but that can be dealt with. Robert McClenon ( talk) 23:44, 29 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Comment. I think this proposal is problematic as the highly encouraged (but not required criteria will introduce an element of Self-selection bias (e.g. good portals will use it, poor portals will ignore it). I have a feeling the RfP idea would be more popular on a community-level. Obviously, and this is not a criticism per se, this form has a disproportionate weighting of portal enthusiasts (versus the general community). Whatever final proposals are decided, it is important that portal enthusiasts note that proposals that are unanimously supported by enthusiasts are unlikely to become community endorsed WP-guidelines. There are going to be some elements that enthusiasts don't like (and elements, that dislikers don't like). RfP was a good idea, and one that I think would have helped better community-wide support for whatever is decided? Britishfinance ( talk) 00:22, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support - This will hopefully cut down on the narrow topic portals. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 04:15, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support, an excellent step. BD2412 T 04:37, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support, reasonable compromise. In an ideal world, that page will act both as a bit of a gatekeeper against unsuitable content and as a page where would-be creators can get help in finding the best scope for their portal proposal. — Kusma ( t· c) 10:48, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support – I can get behind "encouraged-but-not-required" langauge. I think BF's point, it wll result in a sorting: (1) editors who know what they're doing and can make portals without needing to go through PfD; (2) editors who don't know what they're doing and go through PfD for guidance; and (3) editors who don't know what they're doing and don't go through PfD. I think group 3 will be small and thus easy to identify, and if necessary, they can be tban'd from making portals without PfD. I see WP:AfC as an analogous system. I also like the idea of PfD taking over from MfD for portal deletion discussions. – Leviv ich 20:54, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • For me the key aspect is ensuring the editors who regularly edit related articles are engaged and collectively agree with taking the lead in creating, updating, and maintaining the portal in question. Portals should not be created by other editors as a gift without confirming that the gift will be nurtured so it can flourish. isaacl ( talk) 18:52, 1 December 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support. I think it's a good idea to have a place where portal ideas can be discussed. I'm assuming this would also become a deletion venue, by the name. Maybe have WP:Portals for discussion and WP:Portals for discussion/Deletion? Invalid OS ( talk) 14:48, 4 December 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Unsure. Requiring pre-discussion implies a lack of leadership, and the failure to have previously discussed generally. I think the default position should be that there should be no new portals. Instead, new subject area interests should be woven into existing working portals. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:45, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Discussion: Portal creation instructions

  1. All "selected biographies" MUST be transcluded per WP:BLP and related policies. If the content on portals is not updated, then it poses a serious potential risk to those who are living and recently deceased as stale information may not be factually correct.
  • @ Knowledgekid87:, I would agree with respect to actual BLPs and the recently deceased. I'm not sure what risk is posed for long-dead figures. BD2412 T 15:27, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I amended it, in general though this is a core policy which has to be taken into account as a definite guideline here. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 15:29, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    • I would also generally prefer transclusion. However, I can imagine a circumstance where a summary of a biography of a long-dead person with multiple lines of notability might emphasize their activities with respect to the field relevant to the portal. BD2412 T 16:11, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • An idea to discuss when we get to this section: remove the "purge" link from portals, and create a bot that purges every portal once or twice a day. ‑Scottywong | [gossip] || 01:09, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    • @ Scottywong: there is already a bot which does purgeing: Joe's Null Bot, run by User:Joe's Null Bot. Joe is v friendly and helpful editor, who may be able to comment on the feasability of purgeing 500 pages twice a day.
However, I would oppose removing the purge button. So long as portals use the absurd one-excerpt-at-a-time model, purge is the only way to see another selection. If that model is dumped in favour of the mega-navbox model, then of course lose the purge button ... but until then, it's needed. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 23:33, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I have suggested in other discussions, and would suggest here as well, that every portal should have some mechanism through which any reader can easily see all of the content displayed in each subset of information to be included in the portal. I believe that Portal:Law (with Portal:Law/Maintenance as a more thorough catalog of content) is on the way to becoming a model for this concept. BD2412 T 04:47, 21 December 2019 (UTC) reply
I agree that this is desirable (and Portal:Germany has subpages that show all possible selections), but I wouldn't put this as an absolutely necessary item. (A start-class portal could possibly do without, but a B-class or better portal needs to show its workings). In any case, I'd say we should try to agree on what standards existing portals should be judged by before telling people how to create further portals. — Kusma ( t· c) 10:09, 21 December 2019 (UTC) reply
I think this is applicable to both cases. Existing portals that lack such a structure should be required to incorporate one. BD2412 T 14:13, 21 December 2019 (UTC) reply
I like this idea, and I've already implemented it over at Portal:Speculative fiction/Selected biography. Works very well. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 19:50, 27 December 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I am not convinced that portals should include content. Paragraphs of content confuse the distinction between the portal and mainspace articles. Maybe portals should be more like an illustrated category tree, where the only prose is illustration captions. I like the idea of portal structure being modelled on the category trees, except that there needs to be more control on the number of routes to a single page, when moving downwards. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:49, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
    SmokeyJoe, I am not sure what you are proposing here, it sounds to me like you are proposing to replace the current portals by something completely different, and I don't understand by what. Could you maybe make a mock-up portal to show what you suggest? — Kusma ( t· c) 07:54, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
    • Kusma, I am suggesting consideration of defining what portals should be, bit by bit. Should portals reproduce content? If yes, all content? Selected content? Random content? What is thought that readers are getting from this? — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 08:12, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply

Discussion: Portal maintenance guidelines

  • I'd love to see some sort of bot remind maintainers to take a look at portals they're maintaining at least annually. Maintenance need not be that complicated going forward - we just need to make sure the article selection stays fresh, the article selections match the transclusion selections, that everything still works properly, and that nothing is out of date or broken. I think failure to maintain a portal would be a reason for deletion (after the proposer discusses with any maintainers), but if anyone steps forward to adopt the article and no other reasons for deletion exist, the article should be kept automatically. SportingFlyer T· C 03:46, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • The bot I envision isn't supposed to clean up the portal - it's supposed to notify anyone listed as a portal maintainer to check the portal and make any necessary updates as a reminder. SportingFlyer T· C 02:50, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I think a key question asked should be: How much maintenance does or should a portal need? Portals are made up of sub-pages which generally don't need tons of editors maintaining them unless we go with the format Portal:Current events has with ongoing events. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 00:59, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I would definitely agree that every portal should get a thorough review at least once per year, touching every featured item on the portal and making sure content is up to date and displaying properly. As an example to that end, I have created Portal:Law/Maintenance, and am currently at an early stage of reviewing the content (somewhat complicated by the merger of content from the former Portal:Crime and Portal:English law). I expect this to take the rest of the year, so that the job will be much easier next year. BD2412 T 02:09, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    • You make a good point here that active maintenance may not be reflected in the number of edits to the main portal page. Thryduulf ( talk) 09:19, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
      • That is 100% right. I've had portals deleted based on the edit count implying that portals need to be constantly fiddled with. That's rubbish - we don't even use that criterion for articles. Again it was just another meaningless statistic used as an excuse to delete portals. The level of editing of a well designed main portal page, like a complete navbox, may easily be zero especially if the selected articles are refreshed on subpages. It just needs someone to oversee it and ensure it doesn't get out of date. Portals may need editing ("maintaining") in the following cases:
        • Links to new topic articles may need to be created (but often they are red links already)
        • Links may need to be moved from a "Wanted Articles" section to the relevant subtopic section.
        • Editors may want to add "Wanted Articles" or "Wanted Images"
        • Selected articles/images/biographies may need to be refreshed (but there can be a 12-month rotating cycle which does not need refreshing each year)
        • Any "in the news" section will need to be refreshed almost weekly (so we should only have that on portals if editors actively update it)
        • Minor edits to improve the text
      • But a simple portal like Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Harz (put up for deletion and moved to project space) needs hardly any maintenance. Yet I used it for years to generate a comprehensive coverage and expansion of the topic with dozens of new and expanded articles, none of which needed the page to be edited. Bermicourt ( talk) 09:11, 23 November 2019 (UTC) reply
        • Of all the portals I have seen, the Bermicourt versions are some of the best. I would describe them as "mega-navboxes", and a very rational use of a portal (and very nicely constructed). One question I have asked of Bermicourt on their portals is whether they could, or should, be converted into navboxes (albeit large ones), that would be transcluded across all relevant mainspace articles, and thus even more visible/scrutinized by other editors? Britishfinance ( talk) 11:54, 23 November 2019 (UTC) reply
          • Thank you, but I can't claim the credit for the design as I have imported them in most cases from German Wikipedia where they have clear guidelines and clear processes e.g. portals can't even be launched until they pass an approval process. They have a number of models:
          • One - the "Harz model" if you like (linked above) - is like a mega-navbox with no subpages. To try and answer your question, I'm not sure how we'd convert them into navboxes. Even if you took out the topic overview and selected article, they're really too big to place at the bottom of an article or even on the talk page. I could never see what was wrong with using them "as is" i.e. as a portal in portal space, but they were poorly linked (hence the criticism of low pageviews which is a questionable yardstick anyway). That was probably because the guidelines were weak and despite saying that should attract large numbers of readers, didn't encourage widespread linking (in fact WP:POG only suggests one mainspace link. So it wasn't consistent. Also portals never appeared in searches which has been repeatedly flagged up as a flaw.
          • Another model is the type with many subpages and e.g. rotating selected articles and images - that's much more of the sort of showcase originally envisaged.
          • Another feature are the maintenance pages where editors work collaboratively to improve topic coverage using the portal as a tool - this is project editor stuff and is really an "add on" to any portal. HTH. Bermicourt ( talk) 15:28, 23 November 2019 (UTC) reply
            • When I first came to WP as saw portals, I expected to find mega-navbox type pages of large structured arrangements of the WP articles in a topic grouped into main areas (a bit like List of Ireland-related topics, that still sits as the header to the main Ireland navbox). In essence, these are the Bermicourt Hartz portals. However, I also notice that some topic areas have now done this completely with "nested navboxes" like the United Kingdom, which has a reasonably well-nested series of large navboxes and to navigate sub-articles, leaving the Portal:United Kingdom redundant as a navigation guide.
Obviously, building nested navboxes as per the United Kingdom is a bigger task, although navboxes have the benefit of being more widely transcluded and therefore checked/updated by more editors (e.g. they are probably the best long-term solution0). However, in the absence of the full nested navbox solution, the Bermicourt Hartz portals (e.g. "mega-navboxes") are acceptable in my view, and should be separately "carved-out" in our discussions as there are much less issues of FORKING, less "scrapbooking" style (perhaps Bermicourt could develop a MOS for mega-navboxes portals), and other issues with standard portals. Britishfinance ( talk) 18:07, 23 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I'd be happy to develop a MOS for such portals once there is consensus that they are, in principle, acceptable. At the moment all I see is mass deletion going on and I'm not confident that any attempt to create navboxes of any type will survive without a clear thumbs up from the community. But I guess that's what we're trying to achieve here. Bermicourt ( talk) 18:39, 23 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Tangential discussion
In his introduction to his page, Scottywong noted in order for this discussion to be successful, it needs to be conducted in a calm, rational, civil way, where the only goal is to create a guideline that is in the best interests of Wikipedia.
Yet here we have Bermicourt resorting yet again to his habitual WP:BATTLEFIELD conduct by misrepresenting the one-by-one scrutiny of portals at MFD as mass deletion. This mendacious misrepresentation has been repeated by Bermicourt and others for over seven months: see e.g. an early blast of it in April at WT:WPPORT.
We can either have a civil, rational discussion ... or we can have this become yet another page hacked by Bermicourt as yet another a venue for his WP:BATTLEFIELD campaign of misrepresentation. But not both. @ Scottywong: which do you want this page to be? -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 02:56, 27 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Why are you taking such offense to this one broad comment anyways? I hate to agree but there has been an uptick in portal deletions in recent months. Can we please just focus on the central issues regarding portals rather than looking for behavior issues not even addressed to you? - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 04:05, 27 November 2019 (UTC) reply
KK87, my objection is that it's a continuation of a misinformation campaign which Bermicourt has been running for most of this year, because it poisons the atmosphere. Bermicort has repeatedly levelled this false charge at me, so it's v clear that i am one of is targets, even tho he didn't name names this time.
I haven't seen an increase in the rate of MFD nominations, and the November tally is way below the average of ~125/month for the ~1000 non-spam portals deleted in April–November. I suggest that you check the data before asserting conclusions.
But whatever the rate of MFDs, a series of individual consensus-forming discussions on individual portals is not mass deletion. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 06:09, 27 November 2019 (UTC) reply
BHG I'm afraid you've resorted too quickly to personal attack when you don't like something another editor says. Please don't do that. As for me, I'm certainly not looking for a battle, I'm just stating a fact. When I say portals are being 'mass deleted' I mean they're being deleted in huge numbers, way beyond the normal rate of deletion for a group of pages. There is, in effect, a campaign against portals which is not simply an innocent 'clean up' of a few pages; it's a relentless drive to get rid of most, if not all, portals. You yourself said before it started that you didn't think we should have more than a very low number (around 80 I think) of portals. And so my point was that I feel I will be wasting time trying to work on a navbox portal MOS while that's going on. My navbox portals have all been deleted from portal space. Bermicourt ( talk) 08:16, 27 November 2019 (UTC) reply
BHG, as you know, I have sympathy for your position and the job you have been doing on portals in the face of not always reasonable or fair opposition, however, I think you should power-down in this area. Bermicourt is a pretty reasonable participant in my view, who has seen their "mega-navbox" portals deleted at MfD (which I, and in some cases, you, have some appreciation for). It is not unreasonable for Bermicourt to observe that they should not spend any further time working on "mega-navbox" type portals when everything they have been doing on this area has been deleted so far (I am taking Bermicourt's word on this). The term "mass deletions" may not be optimal, but it is also not entirely unreasonable given what has happened to their work? Ultimately, I think the "mega-navbox" portal has never really had a proper discussion, and I can see benefits (especially if nested MainPage navboxes have not/cannot be done). Britishfinance ( talk) 12:25, 27 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I'm going to collapse this part of the discussion because it is tangential to the subject of portal maintenance. Everyone knows that tensions are running high when it comes to portals. This discussion was going in a productive direction, hopefully it can continue. I'd ask everyone to focus on the task at hand, try to avoid writing phrases that might trigger negative emotions in other editors, and try to ignore phrases that might trigger a reaction in you. The purpose here is to write a guideline that works for everyone, not to argue about the past. ‑Scottywong | [converse] || 19:14, 29 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Bermicourt: if there is agreement that your portal design is favorable, it might be beneficial to describe/define that design in a MOS-like way. This would probably make sense to discuss in the section above on portal creation instructions. I'd also be interested to hear more about how the German Wikipedia deals with portals, how they are designed, how they decide which topics should have portals, how their portals are linked/promoted, how much traffic they receive compared to their main articles, etc. If they're doing something right, we should learn from them. ‑Scottywong | [express] || 19:17, 29 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Comment: I'd be curious what people think of Portal:Speculative fiction as another possibility for a format option. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:51, 4 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Discussion: Portal Categorizing

We can take the discussion to update Wikipedia:Portal/Guidelines/Categorizing. See:

Guilherme Burn ( talk) 14:34, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Discussion about technical problems

Since we are talking about what is best for our readers I think we should mention technical limitations that need to be fixed.-- Moxy 🍁 15:49, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Mobile view limitations

  • 1 {{ Portal}} is not seen in mobile view that represents 60% of our readers unlike {{ Portal-inline}} or {{ Portal bar}} (when the no border parameter is used) all because the original portal template was made with "<div role=navigation". <div role=navigation was implemented because nav boxes with all their boxes result in load time concerns and format conundrum in mobile view and because portals are navigational aids the template got lumped in to all the other navigational template aids because of the border style box.-- Moxy 🍁 15:49, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Propose a wide RFC be done to fix {{ Portal}} to be visable in mobile view by requesting the box (border) be removed so that its compatible with mobile view software.-- Moxy 🍁 15:49, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Not sure what the technical problem is here but we need a software update.-- Moxy 🍁 15:59, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
The problem here is clear, but the proposed remedy is yet another example of portals adding extra complexity to fix one of the issues in a bad design. The Wikimedia software already has an excellent image gallery feature built into every page for logged-out readers, and similar functionality is available in mobile view. The built-in gallery offers a full-screen view of the images, so it vastly superior to the tiny window offered on portals.
Instead of adding extra complexity, readers would be very much better served by using much less complexity: abandon {{ Transclude files as random slideshow}}, and instead use a simple, static image gallery of small thumnbails which would be browsed using the built-in gallery software. This would have multiple benefits:
  1. much better image viewing
  2. reduced complexity (one less Lua module)
  3. faster loading time (the processing and loading of images accessed by {{ Transclude files as random slideshow}} adds a significant delay to portals where it is used)
  4. more familiar markup on the portal page
The built-in gallery was not available when the first portals were created in 2005, but 14 years later the environment has changed, and portal designers have not adapted to the availability of a better technology. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 12:25, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
BrownHairedGirl, is there some way of customising what the media viewer does? As far as I know, it slideshows through all images on a page. Using all images is bad (at least on articles), as that often includes flags and other content that doesn't belong in a gallery. It is also not always true that fullscreen is the way to go, and for pictures accompanied by too much text the MediaViewer cuts it off. It also depends on people's preferences whether image links go into slideshow mode or not. I'm all for integrating the technologies we have better (and I agree that some of the Lua magic transclusion templates are more resource intensive than they should be) but both have their limitations (and both have their use cases). On a case by case basis, sending viewers to a (sub-)page well curated for use with MediaViewer could be better than a slideshow on a page (I'd love to see good examples of this), but I don't see either method as redundant. — Kusma ( t· c) 21:41, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • 3 In many portals we use main navboxes to help navigation. ...however navboxes like above also use the div role=navigation parameter thus omitting them from mobile view. Example normal view vs mobile view version note how topics missing in mobile view.-- Moxy 🍁 15:49, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Solution create a template that looks the same but omits the "<div role=navigation" for use only in portals or if posible create a wrap like {{ Plain navboxes}} again only used in portals.-- Moxy 🍁 15:49, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Mobile view has many problems and most Wikipedians rarely think about it (and the developers of mobile view don't seem to think of and talk to Wikipedians much, or they wouldn't have invented automated navigation tools to replace navboxes and portals in mobile view). It's a shame that the slideshows don't work in mobile view, they could really shine there (imagine something like a slideshow for stuff like the states and territories of Australia, giving you a way to navigate through important subtopics without leaving the page). Most of what we do here is still very old-fashioned hypertext. Anyway, support improving the discoverability and usability of portals in mobile. — Kusma ( t· c) 16:46, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I am going to bring @ BrownHairedGirl: into the loop for this one as it was mentioned in an MfD. She said something about the portal template needing a community consensus to change it to better mobile viewing. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 21:41, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • The issue here is that mobile view does not display navigational elements, which as far as i have been able to determine amount those with in a <div role="navigation". The elements affected appear to be categories, navboxes, portal link templates such as {{ Portal bar}} and {{ Portal}} and (i think {{ subject bar}}.
Moxy has been trying to work around this by using {{ portal-inline}}, and has berated me for not making that change when updating portal links after an MFD. [2] I don't technically see way to do it, with my current setup, and it would be outwith the scope of WP:BRFA/BHGbot 4.
I have not formed a substantive view on whether displaying portal links in mobile view is a good idea or not. However, I do note that the current set-up is long-standing and also consistent across all navigational elements, so I assume that the decision to exclude them was made for a good reason. Any change to that status quo should be made only after understanding the reasons why it was implemented in the first place (which I don't know), and through a properly-notified discussion involving whoever designs that interface.
So I oppose any attempt to work around the status quo. This is an interface design issue, and should be considered directly as such, rather than being evaded by workarounds. It raises the obvious question that if portal links are to be included in mobile view, why not also categories and navboxes?
I am quite weary of this topic, because Moxy has been banging on about in for months in all sorts of inappropriate places (e.g. at MFDs, where it is off-topic) without as far as I can see ever bothering to find out why things are as they are. (I am glad to see Moxy noting the effect of <div role="navigation", but that's only because I pointed it out). Even now, I note that Moxy chooses to raise it here, rather than engaging with the interface designers. Moxy appears to push this point everywhere except the place that matters. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 22:18, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Nobody here really cares about your dealings with Moxy and I wish you would strike them as they aren't helpful, thank you though for explaining your opinion about mobile view. We arent all going to agree on things, but its helpful to hear as many opinions as possible that don't involve other editors. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 04:52, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I raised the history not to look backwards, but to note the failure to seek an effective path to resolution which engages all the issues. I stress the importance of having a clear of understanding why the current situation exists before proposing changes to it, and of ensuring that a broad interface design issue is handled as a broad interface design issue rather than as a technical portal issue.
Moxy's goal seems to be increase the visibility of portals in mobile view, but Moxy has not expressed any reason for their apparent desire that mobile view should support portals when it doesn't support the other navigational elements such as categories and navboxes. Good arguments could be made for a range of answers to that question, but I object to the persistent framing of the interface design choices as just a technical issue about portals. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 08:07, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I would strongly support either an RfC or an edict which makes portals more usable on mobile (though there are a number of things on Wikipedia which work horribly on mobiles.) SportingFlyer T· C 05:11, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • To the extent that we have the coding capacity, I would expect that getting Navboxes on mobile first is a more important objective than portals, given the relative use? Britishfinance ( talk) 10:06, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    • @ Britishfinance, I am sure a good case can be made for that view. However, the missing factor in this proposal is the failure of its proponents to establish why all three type of navigational elements were suppressed. The proposer works on the basis that the reasons are purely technical, but has offered no evidence to prove or disprove that implicit assumption. It is equally possible that a decision was made to declutter the mobile interface by removing navigation tools. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 10:39, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • The most basic steps for making portals mobile friendly would be the following:
  1. Hide in mobile - Just hides the content of {{him-top}} and {{him-bottom}} in low resolutions. This would hide incompatible content if necessary. Can be done easily with CSS.
  2. Full size in mobile - Adjust existing portal templates to take up 100% width in low resolutions. Can be done relatively easily with CSS as well.
I would also recommend adjusting the {{ Portal bar}} template to work in mobile and generally use that template over {{ Portal}}, which has low visibility in any resolution.-- Hecato ( talk) 10:27, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Hecato, I would support a deprecation of {{ Portal}} in favour of {{ Portal bar}}, but only in article space. On category pages, {{ Portal}} is better because the portal links occupy otherwise unused whitespace on the top right. Using {{ Portal bar}} on categories would increase the height of the page's header section, which reduces the proportion of the page's main contents which are visible above the fold.
If there was an RFC consensus to do this, I would be happy open a WP:BRFA to use WP:AWB to implement it. I did quick test [3], and it's fairly simple task with a regex. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 11:29, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
BrownHairedGirl, good point regarding categories. — Kusma ( t· c) 14:11, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Hecato, many portals already automatically switch from a two-column layout to a single-column layout if the available width is too small (you can test this on desktop by making your browser window smaller). — Kusma ( t· c) 14:10, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
You are right. Though I've seen a few different solutions in different portals. It would be great if we could standardize it a bit and also make it work with more than two columns. -- Hecato ( talk) 20:02, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
So back to moving forward with tech problems..... We should investigate what the technical issues are with {{ portal}} not being in mobile view and as to why they were omitted in the first place...then come up with some wording for an RfC on the {{ Portal}} template viability. I will email the mobile view developers this weekend see what they have to say.-- Moxy 🍁 15:42, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Outstanding technical problems

Mobile view now accounts for 60% of our readers.. e.g Portal:Michigan (Mobile view) vs. (Normal view)

  1. In Module:Excerpt the parameter |List= as used in {{ Transclude random excerpt }} is not collapsed in mobile view.
  2. {{ Transclude files as random slideshow}} is displaying all images at one time in mobile view.
  3. {{ Navbox}} not seen in mobile view.
  4. {{ Portal}} format not supported on mobile view.
  5. {{ Portal bar|border=no}} only supported on mobile versions if the border=no parameter is used.

Proposed remedies

Wikipedia's mobile view is broken in many ways that are not specific to portals. For example, collapsible sections don't collapse – anywhere. Until MediaWiki is fixed, the best we can do is attempt workarounds. For example, enclosing a list in <div class="navbox"> prevents it from appearing at all on mobile (and labelling it as a navbox is not too far from the truth). Would that be better than having it stuck in the expanded position? Certes ( talk) 22:20, 9 February 2020 (UTC) reply

Questions: Re General process here on this workspace

Comments by Sm8900

  • Can we have a separate sub-section for each person commenting here, for them to provide their basic ideas? they would still be free to comment in other users' sections to discuss the ideas from those users.
  • Remember we need to address concerns of some people who don't want portals to exist at all. any comments on that?

just noting that. Sm8900 ( talk) 21:03, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply

  • Given consensus has continually been to keep portals in some fashion, I'm hoping this conversation remains civil enough to move things forward and establish some guidelines. SportingFlyer T· C 05:37, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Sm8900: I think it's best that we approach this project with the assumption that portals are here to stay in some form or another, and we're here to simply construct guidelines on what that form is. Opening up this discussion to the question of "should portals even exist at all" will threaten to derail the conversation entirely. I believe that question was discussed at length in a somewhat recent RFC. I'd prefer to avoid trying to answer that question in this forum. ‑Scottywong | [squeal] || 23:52, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Scottywong: I agree. thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 20:44, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Existence of Portals

Since the issue is being raised and then dropped of whether portals should exist at all, I will comment, basically to agree not to address that issue. I still do not really understand why the advocates of portals wants portals. The reasons that are mentioned are inconsistent. I have come to the conclusion that there is some sort of mystical appeal to portals (and maybe to a lot of other non-articles such as outlines, but we are discussing portals) that I will not understand. Also, the editors here are mostly portal advocates and not portal skeptics such as myself, but I am not in favor of getting rid of portals, because I know that some editors think they are useful. So I agree that this is not a forum to discuss whether portals should exist. Robert McClenon ( talk) 22:02, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply

We have had two community wide discussions on the matter with no consensus on wholesale deletion. As I have told others though, if you don't actively participate here then you really can't complain as much if these proposed rules go into effect. You being a "portal skeptic" isn't a bad thing as your ideas could be helpful. If you really don't care about portals at all though then you might want to just ignore them. Viewing portals isn't mandatory, and Wikipedia is a big place. Your input of course would be valid at MfDs for portals that fail any ne w proposed guidelines here. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 05:03, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I think @ Robert McClenon: is going out of his way to be open-minded and accepting here, and I appreciate it. Sm8900 ( talk) 14:24, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Thank you for that, User:Sm8900. I am not happy with the way that this workshop is progressing, because I think that it is heading toward a pro-portal position. I feel that I have been singled out for partisan criticism both for going too slow and for going too fast, and I am glad that someone understands that I am only trying to be reasonable and that I want portal skeptics as well as portal advocates to be heard. I strongly disagree with any statement that if I don't actively participate here, I can't complain. This is not the final word. Any proposal from this group will still go to the community, and will presumably be considered under some sort of ArbCom oversight. If this group proposes rules that are one-sided, they may have the same fate as every previous attempt to enact guidelines about portals (that is, nothing). And I still don't know what the value of portals is. I just know that some editors are passionate about them for some reason. Robert McClenon ( talk) 23:33, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Robert...plenty of people involved who are portal skeptics have been invited which include yourself, Newshunter12, and BrownHairedGirl among others. If you can think of anymore to balance things out then yes it of course would be welcomed. I am saying that you cant place blame on the process if the people who are more skeptical choose not to participate as much. I am fully aware of what may happen when this goes before the community which I think about a lot. An issue is that those that don't want portals on Wikipedia at all will of course likely not support any new guidelines for portals. This workshop is intended to work with the remaining portals for those who want to retain them per community consensus. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 01:05, 26 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I think this workshop is making some progress towards a guideline that will allow portals to exist (as per the previous community consensus) and at the same time define terms "broad topic" and "maintenance" etc. more precisely so the remaining portals can be measured up against a community defined standard. This standard is going to be more rigorous than that of many portal advocates, while it may be less rigorous than that of many portal skeptics. I am certainly willing to support rules that are stricter than those of my ideal world in order to find peace and compromise. — Kusma ( t· c) 09:58, 26 November 2019 (UTC) reply

The problem so far with this whole discussion page is that mostly consist of various compromises over points of detail, with hardly any attention to underlying questions of what are the actual goals of portals, whether those goals meet any actual need among readers, and whether any of elements of portals actually go sufficient distance towards meeting those goals that readers might want to use portals.

For example:

  1. How does a portal add value to the reader over and above a well-built head article? Why have none of the claims for added value been borne out in non-trivial viewing figures?
  2. What is the purpose of the lists of selected articles? Why does anyone expect that readers actually want some list of articles built on some undisclosed criteria?
  3. Why create excerpts of articles? Do they actually add enough value over the built-in excerpts to justify being the central focus of a portal?

Instead, this whole page is nearly all detail, with the underlying assumptions mostly unexamined. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs)

@ BrownHairedGirl: the broad consensus is clearly in favor of portals existing. with respect, I don't feel we need to revisit that question here. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 14:32, 26 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Sm8900, The community decided ~18 months ago not to delete all portals. That doesn't mean that it is in favour of portals, just that it doesn't want to exterminate every last one.
I am not trying to revisit that question. But I am asking that this workshop page should be rescued from the utter absurdity of discussing implementation details before even agreeing goals. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 17:24, 26 November 2019 (UTC) reply
These are all good questions which would have to be discussed in the "Goals" section above. I noticed you did ping Scotty, I get the feeling that since we are so close to Thanksgiving (a major American holiday) some people may be unable to be as active here. I would wait for December 2nd or so before editing picks up again. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 14:59, 26 November 2019 (UTC) reply
User:Kusma - This workshop seems to be making progress, but I am deeply skeptical. I thank User:Sm8900 for going out of their way to say that I was going out of my way to be open-minded and accepting here, and so are you, but I don't see that open-mindedness by other portal advocates here or elsewhere. I don't think that portal skeptics are being listened to. It isn't your fault, and there isn't anything that you or I can do about it, but this workshop will probably result in a proposed guideline that will leave existing cruddy portals in place and will probably permit additional useless portals. I don't like being lectured. I will say that if portal skeptics are ignored, or given an empty nod, this workshop may result in a proposed guideline that will have the usual fate of any proposed portal guideline, that is, No Consensus. I think that is because portal advocates don't really know why they want portals, because their desire for them is non-rational, and so they and portal skeptics are talking past each other. That is my opinion. Robert McClenon ( talk) 00:56, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
You are entitled to your opinion, and all of us here know that there will be rationales at a proposed guideline such as "portals are garbage". These are considered to be WP:IDONTLIKETHEM comments. Arguments that have more weight are those that successfully discredit the things talked about here. Portal skeptics who go on about how much junk portals are will, and should be ignored just as much as someone saying "these portals are the best things on Wikipedia". - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 04:11, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
User:Knowledgekid87 - I think that you may be misunderstanding or misrepresenting my views. I have never said anything to the effect that "portals are garbage". I have occasionally said that certain specific portals were crud. I am not likely to say that portals are garbage because I don't understand the reasons for portals. I know that the advocates of portals are passionate about the value of portals, but they haven't been able to communicate the reason for that passion to me. So I am just puzzled about portals. I don't think that they are garbage because I don't know what their builders are trying to do. So please don't think that I am dismissing them as garbage. Robert McClenon ( talk) 04:36, 1 December 2019 (UTC) reply
My apologies as I meant in general. I was not trying to say you would say such a thing, I am saying that there will be editors that will use that rationale. Portal skeptics that have an argument to give would be taken more seriously. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 15:37, 1 December 2019 (UTC) reply
Robert McClenon, sure, some of the sentiment towards portals from their maintainers comes from attachment to our own previous work that we are proud of. Pride may be a bit irrational, but WP:DYK mostly serves as a pride-based motivation to do good content work. On the general point, I am (as a hopeless romantic and optimist) still hoping we can agree on some compromise guideline that gives clear criteria what portals should do (at minimum), what topics can be considered suitable for portals and what topics are unsuitable. It is likely going to be quite a bit stricter than my own somewhat laissez-faire attitude, but a widely supported guideline would be well worth that. For topics that are too narrow but have good quality, I used to oppose the call to "merge" them, but I am now reconsidering that stance: if we can come up with some kind of "merge" that truly works as an WP:ATD, we should go for it. Possible technical implementations could be dedicated subtopic boxes, subportal tabs or similar. — Kusma ( t· c) 10:43, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply

A quota on # of portals might be a solution. It would stop any mass creations & mass deletions. GoodDay ( talk) 15:48, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I have proposed something very much like that in this discussion. Make portals function more like WP:VITAL, with a set number, and an include/exclude discussion model required to create a new portal. BD2412 T 05:21, 1 December 2019 (UTC) reply
I think we are in the process of doing that with a limit on portal numbers with the amount of articles in their scope. It is at least a start on a process of creating a criteria. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 15:48, 1 December 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I have never seen a serious argument on deleting the mainpage linked portals. This was a critical flaw in the ENDPORTALS RFC. It was a stupid question. A quota on number of portals is a very good idea. I suggest that number should be as low as 10, and no higher than 100. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:52, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Parting ways

Ya'll should consider separating portals from English Wikipedia & giving them a home of their own. Just like Wikinews & Wiktionary, for examples. GoodDay ( talk) 15:25, 28 November 2019 (UTC) reply

  • For most of the active portals that I am aware of, that would not be a particularly useful step, as they are closely integrated with articles, article assessment, WikiProjects, and editors here. Should portals be deprecated on Wikipedia, my portal would prefer a life as subpage of Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany to being exiled to a different project. But the community has repeatedly rejected the idea of deprecating all portals, so this isn't such a useful discussion at this point. — Kusma ( t· c) 15:40, 28 November 2019 (UTC) reply
The community chose to keep portals in existence. My suggestion is to allow them to exist somewhere else, in Wikimedia Foundation land. GoodDay ( talk) 16:16, 28 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • The community also repeatedly rejected the idea of deprecating NPORN, until one day, the community decided to deprecate it. – Leviv ich 16:22, 28 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    NPORN had de facto pariah status long before the community acted to deprecate it. PORN was routinely deleted at AfD, and at DRV complaints received zero sympathy. WP:POG, upon first being noticed, quickly fell into pariah status. The lesson: Do not write guidelines ahead of consensus, and consensus required community participation. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:55, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
    If the proposals being discussed on this page have the effect of improving portals, then the community will become increasingly inclined to keep and further improve them. BD2412 T 20:11, 28 November 2019 (UTC) reply
User:GoodDay - I agree with you. Portals in their own WikiTheater will still be able to reference articles in Wikipedia because Wikimedia has always supported and will always support cross-project references. But creating a separate theater for them would require that their advocates express clearly what they want to do with portals, and they can't do that. Robert McClenon ( talk) 00:59, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Indeed. GoodDay ( talk) 01:03, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I think the purpose of this page is to focus on ways that we can make portals more relevant and constructive for the project, so let's do that. BD2412 T 01:31, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I wish you all luck, in your goals. GoodDay ( talk) 01:41, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Portals and neutrality / balance

At some point we should discuss what WP:NPOV means for portals and selections. Should portals be governed by the same rules as articles (requiring a balanced treatment of subtopics) or by the same rules as the Main Page (which is heavily biased towards the interests of Wikipedia editors, but has some rules that try to hide this bias a bit, by not allowing all-American DYKs or weeks with only Tropical Storm FAs etc.) or by the same rules as Wikiproject FA lists (which just list every FA in the scope of the topic, even if that results in a selection where half of the articles about "Germany" are actually about battleships)? I am happy to postpone this discussion into the "best practices" phase, but wanted to make sure we discuss this at some point. — Kusma ( t· c) 17:41, 3 December 2019 (UTC) reply

I agree. This needs to be sorted at some point. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 20:09, 3 December 2019 (UTC) reply
I think NPOV is the most important content policy (it implies WP:V & WP:NOR), and Portals' disconnection from NPOV is a massive issue. The Main page is excusable, it is not titled with a topic, it is clearly not an article or a treatment of any single topic, and there is only one of it. If topic portals are to continue, they must be robust with respect to NPOV. One way it to allow only extremely broad subject areas, such as the current main page linked portals, arguing that a whole subject area is not vulnerable to severe NPOV. However, this approach will break down on more narrowly scoped portals.
To ensure avoidance of NPOV problems, I think the best way is to have a defined and objective rule for what is and is not included. This calls for subjective decisions. NPOV is not achieved by pretending POV doesn't exist, but by explicitly addressing known and possible POVs.
* Are Portals supposed to be comprehensive navigation aids, like the category system, systematically including all subtopics regardless? Unlike the category system, the number of routes to a particular page will be POV-susceptible.
* Are Portals to be structured so as to highlight the best, the FA and GA rated content? This introduces editor bias, because editors choose what to work on and improve according to their own preferences.
* Are Portals to be structured to reveal content in terms of reader page views? Could this be workable? Show readers what readers are already interested in? That sounds attractive, until noting that the list of Wikipedia:Popular pages was embarrassingly rife with adolescent and popular interests, with huge systematic bias towards readers with fast devices and connectivity. However, if filtered by encyclopedic subject areas, starting with the current main page linked portal titles, maybe it could work.
Or are portals more work than they are worth? -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:15, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
I like to think of portals as similar to the Main Page, which means that quality-based article selections can carry a strong bias towards the interests of editors, but this can be mitigated by not displaying all available quality content at once. Please let me know about WP:NPOV problems you see in Portal:Germany so I can see if I can fix them. — Kusma ( t· c) 06:12, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
I think many default to thinking of portals as mini main pages, and that that is one of the roots of the problem of their flawed design of purpose. There can only be one main page, and the eight main page linked portals are relatively tiny, even “negligible”.
Portal:Germany is a second tier portal, one level below the main page linked portals. I think it might be better forced into a higher portal, or broken and packaged into multiple higher portals. Or maybe not. I think Germany comprises a large amount of Society and Geography. Portal:Germany might be OK, it attracts a lot of attention, obvious problems would be fixed quickly, I think. However, should every nation have its own portal? I think no. Every nation portal is tempted into being a brochure for the nation. That is the biggest POV issue. That and the fact that it presents material as if it is unsourced. I think less text is better, though there must be some. The pictures are good. The inclusion of navigation templates is good. — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 11:35, 29 January 2020 (UTC) reply
SmokeyJoe, Germany is a rather large topic, so it is comparatively well suited to "mini main page" treatment and very difficult to do a good navigation aid for (other topics have very different issues). We also have lots of fresh DYK content. In the article selection, I try not to make it a brochure for Germany, but have a selection of good and bad things. If there is a POV in the selection, it is probably a pro-scientist and anti-battleship POV :) All of the material (except news and cuisine) is from recent main page DYK or from GA or FA class articles, so everything is well sourced, even if the sources are a click away. — Kusma ( t· c) 17:00, 29 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Possible way to increase visibility of portals

I've noticed that the portals with the highest views tend to be the eight portals listed at the top of the Main page (see stats here). Since we have random transclusion of content that can be used to keep portals fresh, what about making a random link tool (possibly using much the same Lua capabilities as the random excerpt translusion templates) that pulls from a curated list of portals and lists eight of them (so it takes the same space on the Main page)? We could initially limit it to portals that were previously featured portals in order to make sure they meet higher standards of quality, and then have a method to propose additions to the approved list. I think this could significantly increase portal views for other portals, and provide incentive for cleaning up and improving portals in order to be on the list. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 21:58, 3 December 2019 (UTC) reply

  • I think that there is exponential decline in page views of portals, counting the main page as a portal, in terms of number of links they are from the main page. I have concluded this browsing this data browsing 3-4 levels down from the mainpage, allowing for an estimate of page hits being due to bots and crawlers that should be removed from the count. A signal to determine bots and crawlers is to expect high daily random noise in the counts from genuine readers; a flat level of hits is indicative of automated page views. The meaning of exponential decay is, I think, that readers attempting to navigate via portals very rapidly decide that navigation by portal is not valuable. The more they do it, the less likely they are to continue (growth proportional to number is the definition of exponential). Thus, the question demanding is an answer, is what makes a portal valuable to a reader? A possible answer is "nothing". Another possible answer is "structured navigation". Whatever, this question needs more attention. Tricking more readers into viewing portals is not the right approach. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:25, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
    • @ SmokeyJoe: I'm not sure how my proposal has anything to do with "tricking" people into viewing them. It has everything to do with providing another way for people to find the portals. As I noted, the eight portals listed on the main page have significantly more views than any other portals. This is most likely due to being right at the top of the main page. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 01:50, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
      • User:Nihonjoe, while obviously true that being on top of the 12-million-views-per-day page helps with getting visibility, it is also the case that main page editors' consensus was that these eight subject portals, and no others, belong there. I think that these main page portals themselves fail to give value to readers, based upon the number of people who go from a top level portal to a second level portal being the same ration as the number of people visiting the main page going to a main page linked portal. Visibility is important, but is less important than ensuring that the portal is worth visiting. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 02:00, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
      Nihonjoe, we could also start by trying to link other portals more prominently from the top 8. Maybe add randomness to {{ Portals browsebar}}? We're more likely to get support for main page changes after a year or so of trialling this in portal space. — Kusma ( t· c) 08:46, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
I think that is the sort of creative idea that will raise the profile and hence readership of portals. But on it's own, it's not enough - portals need a range of measures to improve their connectivity and hence visibility. Just two other ideas:
  • Mainspace links from all relevant articles. It's quite clear that one of the reasons for such low viewing levels on many portals is that they are so poorly linked. This is partly a result of the now rejected portal guidelines which said: To optimise access to portals, each portal should have the following links leading to them: 1) From the root article of the portal, 2) From the category of the same name or whatever are the root categories in the Category box section and 3) From the corresponding navigation template(s). So in effect only one mainspace link! For navigation purposes alone, portals should be linked from every article relevant to the portal topic.
  • Make portals appear in searches. Currently portals never appear in the search hits. So if you punch in "Science" you see about 8 hits including Science and technology in the Philippines but not Portal:Science. My betting is that, for 99% of readers searching on Science, the portal would be of more interest than the sub-articles on science. Indeed a good portal will give a far bigger and better overview of the topic than the search hits. Bermicourt ( talk) 20:21, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
  • If there is a main article with a portal of the same name, then there could be a link at the top of the article. Similar to the " For the X, see..." template format. -- Hecato ( talk) 10:25, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Results?

What's the end result? Has anything been decided? GoodDay ( talk) 21:38, 20 December 2019 (UTC) reply

@ GoodDay: Not sure. I have at least three comments above that have gone without any reply. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 21:48, 20 December 2019 (UTC) reply
Scottywong hasn't edited in more than two weeks. If he doesn't return soon, we should continue without him as moderator of the discussion (and maybe find someone else for that task). But for the moment, I am still waiting. — Kusma ( t· c) 21:53, 20 December 2019 (UTC) reply
A few have been busy with Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Portals/Evidence and I would guess others are waiting for the holidays to be over before moving forward with a wider community talk. I think there is a good outline here that just needs to be consolidated for presentation...something I believe others are more skilled at then I. -- Moxy 🍁 21:56, 20 December 2019 (UTC) reply
I agree. Let's see if there is any further activity by a few days into January. BD2412 T 04:49, 21 December 2019 (UTC) reply
Should we try to find someone who would help moderate this discussion? I think Scottywong's attempts to focus discussion and to summarise what we agree on have been very helpful here. — Kusma ( t· c) 06:14, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Though my views on portals is already well known. I do appreciate that many of you have put significant time & effort in maintaining them. As a viewer from the gallery, I'll be interested in seeing how it all ends :) GoodDay ( talk) 22:05, 20 December 2019 (UTC) reply

The discussions didn't die, they were put on hold from things such as the holidays and the ARBCOM decision. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 00:52, 27 January 2020 (UTC) reply

I had chosen not to participate here pending the outcome of arbitration. Why even discuss portals if one editor was allowed to dominate all discussion? Now I'm enthusiastic about contributing to a discussion much like this one. I'm impressed with what has been covered so far. Let's continue or start again. BusterD ( talk) 01:03, 27 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Arbitration Committee (Portals)

Finding of fact

Portals

Accepted "2) Portals, a page-collation function created on Wikipedia in 2005, are tools intended to help readers browse broad subject areas. Recent community proposals have been contentious and have not resulted in a clear consensus about their use. ( proposal to discontinue their use, proposal to adopt community guidelines, proposal to delete portal space)"


Proposed remedies

Community discussion recommended (II)

Accepted "7.1) The Arbitration Committee recommends that a well-publicized community discussion be held to establish a guideline for portals. The committee further recommends that this RfC be kept open for at least 30 days, be closed by a panel of 3 uninvolved administrators, and at a minimum address the following questions:

  • Topics: How broad or narrow should a topic area be for it to sustain a portal?
  • Page views: Should there be a minimum number of page views for a portal to be considered viable? How should those page views be measured?
  • WikiProjects: Should portals be required to be connected to an active WikiProject or other group of maintainers?
  • Updates: How often should a portal be updated?
  • Automation: Can automated tools be used in the creation or maintenance of portals?
  • Links to portals: How should portals be used? Should they be linked on all relevant Wikipedia articles, or should another method be used to ensure that portals are viewed and used?"

Moratorium on Portal creation ?

I recommend that ya'll hold off on creating/re-creating portals (self-impose time window on yourselves) & instead concentrate on improving the portals you currently have. Restraint, would have a positive effect in this topic area. Note: Improved portals, is a foundation for future portal creations. GoodDay ( talk) 15:41, 25 January 2020 (UTC) reply

I dont think creation of new ones is on anyone's mind...think we still need alot of cleanup (still more to be deleted and many to update). Let alone the guidelines thing.- Moxy 🍁 16:17, 25 January 2020 (UTC) reply
A few (formally featured) military history portals were deleted prematurely, while I, as a listed maintainer, was not notified of the discussion and was busy dealing with the death of a parent. Portal:Culture also needs re-creation. That said, I wholeheartedly agree re-creation is WAY down my list of priorities. I'm pleased that ArbCom's intervention appears to have broken the back of the disagreement, that heat surrounding such disagreement has cooled, and that a reasonable discussion is recommended/suggested going forward. I'd like to think the work which has gone into THIS workspace page has clarified some of the issues bulleted by ArbCom, making it possible to have a larger discussion on these issues. My hope is to buttress existing portals based on criteria established by new discussion, then look at subject areas which would benefit from portals under the new process. BusterD ( talk) 13:50, 26 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Arbitration has made way for common ground resolution based of productive talks and this page is a good start. As for creation....I think GoodDay concerns is based on mass creation over you or anyone doing there best to create one portal in a subject there are highly aware of. A few build here and there is manageable...a few new examples to evaluate in this guideline building proces would be a good thing.-- Moxy 🍁 14:09, 26 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Not wanting to sidebar this unduly, but it is possible that otherwise willing editors might not want to take on maintainer responsibility because of the envisioned time requirement. I updated and fortified the ACW portal in less than four hours (most of that making mistakes with the Lua lists), and now checking it monthly takes fifteen minutes or less. Re-creating say, Portal:Napoleonic Wars, would take me about two hours (and it would be a more improved portal than the one deleted). So I could myself easily take on a dozen portals' responsibility. I'd rather find someone with specific area interest, show them how to build and maintain it, and focus more on pagepace myself. ArbCom case behind us, I'm clamoring for the first discussion about required topic broadness. BusterD ( talk) 14:27, 26 January 2020 (UTC) reply


User:SmokeyJoe on 7.1, ArbCom's six starter questions

Topics. To be appropriate for a Portal, its scope must be an entire subject area that is not a subset of a larger portal. The starting list is the eight main page linked portals, numbered alphabetically.
1. Arts
2. Biography
3. Geography
4. History
5. Mathematics
6. Science
7. Society
8. Technology
A feature of all these portals is they all have relevance to all humans. I believe that Portals for specific things, like nation portals, should not exist as stand alone portals.
I am aware of a recent proposal to add Portal:Law to this list.
Page views. Page views are a measure of of how used the portal is, and to this number should be monitored. However, the meaning behind the number is complicated, and raising the number should not be a standalone driver.
WikiProjects. Most WikiProject are highly specific, not suited to their own reader-facing portal. However, WikiProject may very well benefit from maintaining an editor-facing portal within the WikiProject. Also not that most WikiProjects are inactive.
Updates. Portals should not require work to keep them valid. However, they can always be improved. Portals, like the encyclopedia, should aim to be timeless.
Automation is possibly a very good idea. However, do not launch automation unilaterally. Use the procedures at WP:Bot policy. Make your proposal, test it small scale, get feedback on the small scale results.
Links to Portals. This depends on whether portals are mainspace content, or WP space content (WikiProjects, Category pages). Currently they are a mix, and this is a problem. Mainspace should not surreptitiously link to Portals if Portals surreptitiously link to project space.
-- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 04:30, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
I find "not a subset of a larger portal" to be a problematic phrase, since it is possible to loosely define anything as a subset of a sufficiently vague supertopic. For example, one could say that Technology is a subset of Science, and that Arts are a subset of Society, and perhaps even that Biography is a subset of History. If a subject matter is broad enough to support a portal, the existence of a larger portal of which the subject is a subset should be irrelevant. BD2412 T 04:38, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
I don't disagree. Would Portal:Germany go under Portal:Society, or Portal:Geography? If it goes under both, then the portal structure will have so many connections, so few structural limitations, that it may as well simply be the category system. Or is that a possibility? If portals may be massively connected, how is it different to the wikilinking of the parent articles? An indeed, how will portals do a better job than navigational templates. The phrase is largely driven by a desire to create a natural limit to the number of portals. My line of thought may well not be the way forwards, but if it is, there are problems with the current selection of main page linked portals. Mathematics, Science and Technology are all highly connected, as well as Biography and Society.
I know a lot has been said before, elsewhere, as well as above, and I may have missed whole sections, but I feel some progress on defining a limitation to the topics that are suitable for Portals is needed. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 05:51, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
@ BD2412 and SmokeyJoe:. hi. thanks for these points. sorry, but I disagree with one recommendation above. I disagree with SmokeyJoe that portals for nations "should not exist." they serve a valid role here. and also, they exist because multiple editors want them, and find them useful.
please note, one important point for this whole effort is to find new ways to create portals in a logical manner, not to delete wholesale an entire group of portals that already exist, and have WP:Consensus. I do appreciate all of the ideas here. thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 06:10, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Sm8900, OK. Nation portals? What is their role? What is the evidence that editors want them, and if they are reader-facing, what is the relevance of specifying editors versus readers? Editors find them useful? How, and isn't that a reason to put them inside a WikiProject, away from readers? -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 06:17, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
they serve the same role that every other portal does on major topics that editors wish to edit. that is the whole point of portal. for example, the portal on United Kingdom serves as a portal to articles and topics that relate to the United Kingdom. while the portal on the United States serves that role for articles that relate to the United States. and the portal on France serves that role for articles that relate to France. I'm not sure why this is even a point of dispute. there is broad consensus for all of these portals to exist in their current role. there is no need for gratuitous deletion of existing portals that have consensus, and which no one is raising any objections to. and also, gratuitous wholesale deletion of portals is what got us into this situation. the point of this exercise is to find positive ways to build portals as a resource, not to delete entire groups of them. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 06:24, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
I think there is not broad consensus for any portals to remain as they are, but this will come in the RfC, not by assertion. I do not support the deletion of any of the remaining portals that I have seen. All of them, including the nation portals, might be merged or split, but note deleted. WP:ATD supports this. I am dreaming of ways to restructure so as to make them actually serve readers, which they do not do currently. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 06:52, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
I like country portals since I'm interested in specific areas of geography. They help me quickly identify the best articles for that particular region, not as an editor, but as a reader. As an editor, they also help identify areas where we need to improve. For instance, most of the Croatian featured articles are about the war, which is an understandable shame. SportingFlyer T· C 04:40, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
SportingFlyer I agree fully with your comment above. well said!! -- Sm8900 ( talk) 16:56, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
About links- Portals are a content namespace that should strictly follow Wikipedia:Editing policy and Wikipedia:Core content policies anything less should not be seen by our readers. Unlike our administration namespaces portals are meant for public viewing thus should adhere to ALL content protocols.That said...they are also an introduction to our administration namespaces (first for most) and could be an asset for encouraging participation as outlined above. Encouraging participation via portals is not a problem and in fact one of the only ways mobile viewers will find any administration namespace in a content area of Wikipedia (if mobile friendly link format is used). Got to remember no categories. no navtemplates and no popups in mobile view, thus a visible portal link is the only link to help with navigation. -- Moxy 🍁 06:43, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Moxy, if that is the way to go, then it means not interspersing WikiProject links in the Portal text. I have noticed that some portals did this, and the better ones do not. If this is agreed, it would be a good point in a portal guideline. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 06:54, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
In my view Wikiproject links can help topics gain participation (without editors we dont have a Wikipedia)...but in my view again...this should be on a sub pages labeled as such like at Portal:Canada with Portal:Canada/Wikiprojects. We need editors Predictions of the end of Wikipedia#Decline in editors. The loss of Wikiproject participation seems linked to more mobile viewers not seeing talk page banners and portals, thus not being introduced to projects-- Moxy 🍁 07:10, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Moxy, maybe. An alternative possibility is that WikiProjects are a relic of the past, of the few years of exponential growth in article count, and now most WikiProjects are inactive. Editor arrive via the "edit" buttons in mainspace. If mainspace points them to portals, and portals have "edit" buttons, I think that will attract editors to portals. If portals are template code heavy, then they are behind a barrier. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 07:23, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
I am chiming in briefly simply to say, I agree fully with all of Moxy's points above. I appreciate your points on this. I am including the points on portals, on including WikiProjects, on encouraging and recruiting editors to become active, and the other points. well said! thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 16:04, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply


About page views...see #Portal page views.-- Moxy 🍁 06:43, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Moxy, yes. I had not attempted to summarise the page above.
This page is difficult to comprehend alongside the ArbCom's list of six questions. There is overlap and difference. Working from the ArbCom list of six:
Topics: Moxy's User_talk:Scottywong/Portal_guideline_workspace#Outline_of_portal_intent is a good read. As are User_talk:Scottywong/Portal_guideline_workspace#Discussion:_Criteria_for_determining_which_topics_should_have_portals; "Portals should not be localized"; and WP:VITAL
Page views: User_talk:Scottywong/Portal_guideline_workspace#Portal_page_views covers this extensively, and I think everyone is on the same page.
WikiProjects: e.g. SportingFlyer: "At least one WikiProject per Portal". There was less mention of WikiProjects.
Updates, Automation, and Links to portals were mentioned but not systematically discussed.
I added my own opinion separately, having missed the boat for participating in the above. I think the next step is to design a better RfC. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 07:13, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Agree .-- Moxy 🍁 07:22, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
I disagree with most points, but that is because I apparently have a fundamentally different idea in my head of what portals should be. I believe portals should be a bit like the Main Page, just slightly more focused. That means they should link to news, new and good articles in their topic area, and also that they should heavily link to the Wikipedia namespace, in order to encourage participation. I am not opposed to portals that are structured more as navigational tools, but that depends on the subject area. Anyway, what type of portals should exist depends on what portals are supposed to do ( Portal:Cheshire, one of our best portals, will fail your test, but I can see no reason why we would want to delete it). Incidentally, one of the less discussed issues with The Transhumanist's portals is that they were much more on the "navigational tool"/"pretty navbox" side of what portals could be than many of the handmade ones, which may have influenced some people's idea of what portals do. — Kusma ( t· c) 12:42, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Kusma I agree fully with your comment above. well said!! -- Sm8900 ( talk) 16:56, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Portal:Cheshire. It’s pretty. It doesn’t link to Cheshire, and I couldn’t work out how to fix it. It is trying to be all things to all people. Scope of purpose is missing. Deletion should not be on the cards. Ten visits per day. Could we include a survey link for the readers to comment on what they were expecting and what they found? — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 21:34, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
The portal includes a More about Cheshire... link. DexDor (talk) 21:44, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
So it does. I didn't find it, though i did find some links far below the fold. I expect the main topic article to linked from the lede sentence, but bold Cheshire looks like it is self-linking to the current page. A minor issue, but one that is common to many portals. Another minor problem I would fix, except I lack the skill to edit portal code, is the lack of linking to neighboring counties or higher jurisdictions. They are there, but hard to find. The context of the portal seems to be from within Cheshire, and with no outside interest, only inward looking. This may be what the target audience wants, but as a navigation tool, it is a trap, like you get from a commercial website that tries to dissuade you from thinking about other companies. It is implicitly Cheshire promotionalism. This is a subtle NPOV failure, and the parent article does most things better. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 22:50, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
The Main page begins with a link to the article Wikipedia, which says what Wikipedia is, and is easily read and easily edited. The first section on a feature article links to the featured article immediately. Portal:Cheshire doesn't do this, instead it confuses me, and I feel the message is that because I am not from Cheshire, I shouldn't be even looking at this. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 23:11, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
@ SmokeyJoe: It would be a courtesy to ping me when talking about a portal I have maintained for over a decade on a page I haven't been invited to contribute to. The link to Cheshire is at the bottom of the text. It can easily be duplicated at the top. You do that by clicking the edit link and placing "[[" and "]]" around the relevant word. There, I've done it for you.
It does link explicitly to a number of other county portals and wikiprojects, as well as the standard portal topics bar. The intro links in the first sentence to North West England, the relevant region, and to ceremonial counties of England which gives a long list of similar entities. I can easily add adjacent counties if that would make you happier. ETA: Done, in geography box.
There is an existing suggestions page, which is widely linked within the portal. Should you fail to get a quick response (due to maintainer dying of shock) you can post at the wikiproject talk page, which is more widely watched by active project editors. Espresso Addict ( talk) 00:32, 31 January 2020 (UTC) reply
You did it for me by editing Portal:Cheshire/Intro. I was looking through Portal:Cheshire. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 03:13, 31 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Moving forward, January 2020.

After two years of deleting most portal pages, and the grief and incivilities involved, and an ArbCom case, there is now an expectation of an RfC. Crafting an RfC is an art that few are good at. Talking about everything all at once can be a bad thing. I have thought on this, and suggest three separate delineations:

  • 1. Scope. Topics. How many. Breath. Integation with mainspace (incoming links from mainspace) and WikiProjects (portals sending portal readers to WikiProject pages)
  • 2. Technical stuff. Pages views as a KPI. Updates & Automation. Are portal readers welcome to edit portals? Barriers to engaging with portals.
  • 3. Purpose. Quality and style. What should readers find in portals? Should portals be be consistent?. I find portals are inward-looking, lacking links to similar and higher portals. I find portals are trying to be too many things at the same time, meaning the lack a coherent purpose.
  • 4. Where. Where should the discussion(s) be held? Here? At a village pump? Please not multiple places all at once.

-- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 23:05, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply

I do not agree that "portals are inward-looking, lacking links to similar and higher portals....portals are trying to be too many things at the same time, meaning the lack a coherent purpose."
Portals serve a highly useful purpose. that is why there is a strong community consensus in favor of keeping portals. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 13:22, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply


First a definition people can wrap their heads around. I think our definition of a portal should be what people expect portals to be like in the real world..but tailored to Wikipedia. No need to reinvent the wheel.... just reworded a bit so fits our context

A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displaying information (a portlet); often, the user can configure which ones to display...

....change to something like ....

A Wikipedia portal is a specially designed page in the Portal namspace that brings information about a broad topic, like featured and vital content, factoids, navigational aids, editor groups and ongoing tasks together in a uniform way. Usually, each information ource gets its dedicated area on the page for displaying information (a portlet); often, readers can select different items to display in a portlet...

-- Moxy 🍁 02:20, 31 January 2020 (UTC) reply
I agree with Moxy. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 00:58, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
So, no limitation as to scope whatsoever? No focus. And how is what going to change? Do you acknowledge that Portals currently, historically, do not work? Do you acknowledge any problem whatsoever with Portals? — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:03, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
I do not have any feeling or perception that portals "do not work." none whatsoever. they are a valid part of Wikipedia, just like numerous other special features and pages within the project as a whole. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 06:52, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Pageviews? Readers recruited? Interested editors? If these are objectives, are they being met? I don’t see you being realistic. — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 07:22, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
more general comments about portals as a group? of course. if your goal is to delete one or more portals, this is the wrong page for that. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 07:24, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
no, I do not see those as objectives. the purpose of portals is to serve as portals to certain subjects, both for editors and readers. if it wasn't, then maybe we could get rid of this entry too, Isovaleryl-CoA dehydrogenase, as I don't see it as being generally helpful as far as page views, readers recruited, etc etc etc.either. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 07:28, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
The purpose of portals is to serve as portals? Mainspace articles are the product, portals are not. — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 08:03, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
@ SmokeyJoe: yes, the purpose of portals is to serve as portals. I don't know why there is a question as to what is the purpose of portals is in the first place, but if that's the question, then yes, the answer is really that simple. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 13:15, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
After the main page, what do people expect portals to be like? Just going from the main page, it does not much link to project space or WikiProjects. Should this then be the mode for portals, de-emphasise project links?
The mainpage highlights featured content most prominently, a new featured article every day. It’s one the Wikipedia landing page. It says: Wikipedia has high quality interesting content, do you want to read more. Similarly with DYKs, do you want to read more. Portal pages are not landing pages from outside, so why the promotionalism? I thought a portal was for navigation, but instead I find promotion, scanty, and usually very poor assistance in navigation. Even the good ones, they only navigate downwards. — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:20, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
So what do you propose? Very easy to find fault....much harder to find solutions.
I propose narrowing the scope. One leading idea of mine, while Not to eliminate featured content or WikiProject links, but to put 80% of the page area to serving comprehensive navigation. Alternatively, it could be to feature the best content, or the newest content, but I suggest definitely not all three at once. Focus. Compare with the main page, does it try to do all things at once? Navigation is my expectation of a portal, and is my recommendation for the 80% focus. — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:33, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
. editor groups and ongoing tasks? I think that is the purpose of the WikiProject page. Put a discrete side frame link to the WikiProject, and at the WikiProject page, present editor groups and ongoing tasks there. — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:36, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
I've deliberately placed the WikiProject and contribution-focused content right at the bottom, under the topics box, to keep it out of the way. One could also use the tabbed portal model to put this content on a subpage. Espresso Addict ( talk) 04:20, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
SmokeyJoe, if you want "comprehensive navigation", then portals have to be about tiny subject areas. A topic area like Cheshire is already too large for comprehensive navigation, and something like biography is hopeless. I think a lot of The Transhumanist's work on Wikipedia was trying to create a comprehensive navigation system, first through outlines, then through portals. I don't think that can work, but I am willing to be proven wrong. — Kusma ( t· c) 10:46, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Kusma, comprehensive navigation would be impossible if it were to be done at one level. The category system does it. Outlines was a nice attempt, one that I liked. The category system has so many connections that you get lost. Outlines merged into Portals might be workable. The navigation would be in portal subpages. Portal:Cheshire might be a subpage of Portal:England. A browsable navigation system allows you to find something you can’t name. Wikilinks lets you find things you didn’t know you wanted to find. Search engines help you find what you already partly know. Do we want portals to be a place to go to for navigation? By comprehensive navigation, I mean that it is guaranteed that the page will be able to be navigated to. Do we want portals to do this, or not? I think that decision needs to be made. Making it work will be hard. Doing it half way makes for a disappointing, net-negative, navigation product. I think if you want portals to feature quality articles, then give up trying to make it good for navigation to all content. — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 11:39, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
@ Kusma and SmokeyJoe: I agree with Kusma. , "if you want 'comprehensive navigation', then portals have to be about tiny subject areas. A topic area like Cheshire is already too large for comprehensive navigation, and something like biography is hopeless." there is no way to use portals for that role. Sm8900 ( talk) 13:18, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
I wouldn't be opposed to investigating how outlines and portals could work together, possibly using subpages, or some form of compression (clickable links that open, as is already in place for categories), but that presupposes a good outline exists, and is kept up to date. I'm not aware of one for either of my main portals, and useful ones for a top-level topic such as science or geography are hard to envisage. There's a problem that the people who edit outlines are not, on the whole, the same as those who edit portals. Espresso Addict ( talk) 00:41, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Espresso Addict, indeed. Very few edit outlines, and very few edit portals, and I was hopeful when User:The Transhumanist, who was the main outlines enthusiast, began to be interested in Portals. I encouraged him, and feel part responsible for his over-enthusiasm that rebounded. I suspect he feels bitten, but I think it would be great if he could come back and contribute to these discussions. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 00:58, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
@ SmokeyJoe and Espresso Addict: I don't feel bitten, but I did feel harassed, though even that's not why I left. Back in 2009, I spent most of a year defending pages I had created from someone hell bent on deleting them by any means necessary. They finally gave up. But, it was a hollow victory. Not only was it psychologically exhausting, it was also a huge waste of off-the-clock time. So now, I generally steer clear of uphill battles, unless I'm getting paid. During the portal battle, I found the Internet-at-large to be more inviting than Wikipedia, and got involved elsewhere. I pop in from time to time when I'm looking something up, and can't help but notice the alert messages on my account. It's nice to see some familiar nyms, and some new ones. Good luck with all your WP endeavors.    — The Transhumanist   13:51, 9 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Indeed, SmokeyJoe. I fear this is the nub of the problem. The encyclopedia as a whole has settled on categories as the main navigation device, which imo have significant limitations (though I'm not suggesting deleting them!), plus Google as the main entrance mechanism (likewise). There's too little general discussion about navigation, and too much of it gets bogged down in fruitless talking past one another. Espresso Addict ( talk) 01:16, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
@ Espresso Addict:, I agree with much of your ideas. it so happens that personally, I have little interest of my own in editing outlines. but i don't feel the need to get involved with the issues of outlines overall as far as editing practices; they may rise or fall, depending on individual editor interest, and where editors simply feel themselves drawn to edit. Based on that I respect your views on outlines, respoect your ideas, and i respect your commitment. I don't plan to get involved too much in this issue. if i don't like outlines, I simply won't read them, and will just let them be. I assume other people like them, so i just let them sit and be a resource, for those who like them or wish to use them. that's kind of how I perceive discussions, ideas, topics, etc which pertain to portals as well. thanks!! -- Sm8900 ( talk) 17:01, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Portals and outlines can work together Portal:Croatia/Indices.-- Moxy 🍁 20:17, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
I agree. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 20:19, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Could we set up a one-off workshop somewhere, where we have a month for users to submit proposals based on the ones discussed above, and then a week to vote on the proposals as a group, modeled after how arbitration works? SportingFlyer T· C 04:37, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
And could we move to some neutral venue out of an editor's talk subpages? Espresso Addict ( talk) 04:45, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
imho, there is nothing wrong with portals as a group. some individual portals need some improvements, and should be addressed on an individual basis.
we have no standing here to put limits or restrictions on portals as a group. what we can do is think up some effective positive methods and techniques to improve individual portals. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 06:10, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
we do not have any standing "as a group" to vote on or to enact any restrictions or rules that would be binding on Wikipedia as a whole. the best that we can do is to submit individual portals for individual consideration and discussion. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 06:56, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Sm8900, this page was designed to be a place where a smaller group drafts an RfC that can then be submitted to the whole community. For improvement of individual portals, I suggest to discuss at the portals project. — Kusma ( t· c) 07:57, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Per Espresso Addict, and my comment at the Arbcom talk page, this discussion should be moved to an appropriate workshop page in Wikipedia space. I understand that having it here was useful a month or two ago, for getting some traction going, but now with the Arbcom recommendation for an RFC, there is more momentum behind this and it should be where people can easily find and contribute to it. Also, it appears tha Scottywong has been largely inactive for the past month or so, so I assume he's not actually mediating right now! Cheers  —  Amakuru ( talk) 10:17, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
I appreciate your suggestion, but personally, I do not have any standing to implement or to do that. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 13:19, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
We should move this to a venue that can be formally linked from the Arbcom (talk) page, and -- if Scottywong is not volunteering -- appoint one or more further neutral moderator(s). Espresso Addict ( talk) 00:31, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
@ Sm8900:: Any editor (short of one under some kind of topic ban) has standing to initiate an RfC on any topic. However, an RfC proposed through substantial community action, like what is represented on this page, would likely fare better. BD2412 T 01:07, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
@ BD2412:, those are all excellent points. normally, I would say yes to that idea without hesitation. however, the nature of the recent discussion here, and the discussion on portals in general, is what is giving me pause. we already have editors here questioning the basic role for portals, and the basic need for them, even though this has been discussed numerous times, and established a community consensus repeatedly in favor of keeping the portals. as long as that remain a recurring theme in the discussion here, I will have broad questions about any RfC generated here. I am much more comfortable with the conventional RfC process as it already exists; namely individual editors perceive specific questions to submit to RfC for the community on specific individual items, such as articles, categories, etc. and then the discussion proceeds based on the ups and downs of that article or other item itself. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 16:24, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Sm8900. There are many problems with your posts. One is your circular answer for what is the purpose of a portal. “established a community consensus repeatedly in favor of keeping the portals” is a gross misreading of WP:ENDPORTALS, the discussion was far from broad support of portals, and the consensus was to reject wholesale deletion of all portals including the mainpage linked portals without even case by case review of these best portals. (The question posed was stupid). Your historical background is very recent. Portals have been lambasted since 13 years ago. Three years ago, when I posted WT:Portal/Guidelines/Archive 6#Portals are moribund, I was describing an old stagnant problem. — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 22:18, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
@ SmokeyJoe:, hm, I'm not sure that I agree. but you make some interesting points, even though I disagree with you. so then, if that is the case, then what is your feeling on how we should approach portals, and how we should keep them on an ongoing basis? -- Sm8900 ( talk) 01:06, 4 February 2020 (UTC) reply
I think we need to come up with some objective statements as to what are the desired purposes of portals. "The purpose of a portal is to be a portal" is not that. Neither is "A portal is something that does all things that someone might expect". There are multiple options (eg navigation; featuring best content; new content; tasks needing attention), and we should discuss them. Having established discrete objective purposes, then consider objective measures. Pageview is one, but I think we nearly all have already agreed that it is very poor. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:18, 4 February 2020 (UTC) reply
that's interesting. However, sorry but I disagree. Portals have an established purpose, based on their long-standing existence and active usage across multiple WikiProjects. If you need to know their purpose, the best source for that is probably WP:Portals. there are probably other useful essays as well. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 01:21, 4 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Portals have many stated purposes, but, since those are incompatible, there is no established purpose. The first step in the process of creating legitimate guidelines for portals is to establish the purpose by consensus, preferably with an RfC. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:49, 4 February 2020 (UTC) reply
I appreciate your reply, but I disagree. Since portals exist, and have an established consensus to remain, that alone entails an implicit purpose. the purpose stems from the editors who set them up, and the editors who agree to allow them to continue. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 20:01, 4 February 2020 (UTC) reply

Wrong. There isn't a consensus to remain. There's no consensus to delete. In any case, the first step of a Portals RfC is to determine the purpose of portals. Differing opinions on the purpose of Portals lead to faulty portal creations and faulty portal deletions. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:31, 5 February 2020 (UTC) reply

  • Hi all, I've gotten a bit busier in my personal life recently, and really have no time to devote to Wikipedia at the moment. Hopefully things will slow down in the coming months. In my absence, please feel free to continue using this space to discuss the future of portals (or move the discussion elsewhere, if desired). I feel like there are more than enough good discussions above from which to start drafting an RfC. Cheers. ‑Scottywong | [gossip] || 15:47, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Some of the responses suggest the need for an even more general RfC question: Do portals in general have any problem that needs action? — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 22:06, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply

It's quite concerning, that @ Sm8900: appears to be taking over this workspace discussion, IMHO. GoodDay ( talk) 16:16, 5 February 2020 (UTC) reply

point taken; I have edited and condensed my own earlier comment above for brevity, to allow this discussion thread to proceed more smoothly. that's a valid point. thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 16:48, 5 February 2020 (UTC) reply
You've edited posts that other people have already commented on, and deleted other people's posts. As a long-time editor, you should already be well aware of the talk page conventions against this. I already counseled you to stop changing the formatting on pages. Once again you've made multiple small edits, filling the page history with your contributions. If you continue to ignore talk page guidelines and advice of others, your contributions won't be taken seriously, regardless of their content. isaacl ( talk) 18:29, 5 February 2020 (UTC) reply
nothing has been deleted. the only material that was removed was a single section, which was archived, not deleted. with that said, I appreciate all of your other points on this. thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 18:47, 5 February 2020 (UTC) reply
You created no links to archive pages, so no one can find any archives. Subsections are rarely archived; archiving is usually done by bot and it archives entire sections. Archiving is generally done when conversations have reached a certain age, and not done after just a day. Again, you should know this already through your past experiences with talk pages. Your thanks ring hollow as you persist in the same behaviour, no matter how many times you've thanked others for telling you to stop. isaacl ( talk) 19:02, 5 February 2020 (UTC) reply
ok, have done so. this is now done.  Done as far as archiving of that section, I had the approval to do so from the admin who is a regular long-standing participant here. as far as the timing for archiving a section; this page is a workspace, not a regular talk page, so it has a specific topical scope. that section was adding nothing to the discussion of the core topics of this workspace which has a specific topical focus. therefore, I contacted the admin to ask about archiving it. they agree with that idea, so hence it was removed from the page, and placed in the archive, thereby to restore the previous flow on this page of active threads for discussion of the core topics that typify this page's focus. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 19:51, 5 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Decisions on Wikipedia are made by common agreement, including archiving. I have objected to your cherry-picked archival. isaacl ( talk) 23:20, 5 February 2020 (UTC) reply
I was not aware that that individual section had any individual value to any discussion topic here. I do not think there is any basis for objecting to archiving of section, as an action that had a clear basis in keeping the page focused. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 23:47, 5 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Cherry-picked archiving makes for a very confused record. Please use a simple cut-past archiving method based on threads being old. Please do not split the record. Please do not hide old talk content in collapsed boxes, unless maybe it is decidedly off-topic. I do not have confidence in Sm8900 clerking this page. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 23:50, 5 February 2020 (UTC) reply
I appreciate your reply. I will keep your points in mind. in regards to archiving any sections, I made sure to run it past BD2412, just to get their input on that, and will continue to do so in regards to any items that relate to any formattting issues, content, etc. but anyway, I do respect and appreciate your points in regards to parameters for editing and formatting sections here. thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 02:23, 6 February 2020 (UTC) reply

The purpose of portals, from the page

The text at the front page currently gives three possible purposes, introduction and navigational aid;showing high quality content; and exposing to related projects.

In my opinion: introduction and navigational aid is possible through templates on the pages directly, and the articles should serve as introduction. This is not what portals should be - it would be bad redundancy - templates are better. Serving as collection of high quality content is a possible goal. However, this naturally restricts portals to large topics with a sufficient amount of featured and good articles. Exposing to related projects cannot be the main goal(it won`t draw readers to the portal), but it can and probably should be a secondary purpose. This leaves us with portals:

-being for large topics with suitably many featured articles

-articles reasonably related to that having a link to that portal - not too intrusive, of course,

-showing links to related wikiprojects. Lurking shadow ( talk) 18:27, 7 February 2020 (UTC) reply

I disagree that templates are automatically better for navigation. Templates are intentionally small and can never give the coverage that a portal can. In a sense, the template is a 'baby portal' or 'sub-portal', useful but not comprehensive.
There is also a fourth and very useful purpose: portals are an great collaborative aid for project editors. They give an instant overview of project coverage and where the gaps are. They can be used to show - either on the main page or sub-pages - which articles need creating, expanding, reworking, destubbing or reviewing; which articles need images and so on. They can be used to prod readers to create new articles or expand existing ones. This is a major use on German Wikipedia which we have not fully exploited here, although I have used them for this purpose, creating hundreds of articles based on the red links in a portal. Bermicourt ( talk) 20:05, 7 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Nav templates are only seen by 40% of our readers ....like categories and popups....thus leaving portals to server 60% of our readers Comparison of pageviews across multiple pages.-- Moxy 🍁 20:17, 7 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Navbars not being available to mobile users sounds like a bug to me; still, does anyone know if the complicated template construction our portals use work properly on the mobile interface?
And outlines (and massive navbars, such as {{ Classes of natural numbers}}) are better for navigation than portals.
If portals were used primarily to showcase high qualify content, that would be something no other modality on Wikipedia could do. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:33, 7 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Some portals work OKish in mobile, if a reader can find them (links to them are hidden). On, say, Portal:Germany in mobile view, there's extra whitespace in the top box, and the "Topics" box is empty because the content is a navbox and therefore hidden in mobile view. Portals supposed to contain random slideshows show all images instead of the one they are supposed to show, which is a very poor use of screen space. For an example, see the Australia portal. In my view, portals exist more for semi-accidental discovery than for deliberate navigation. At least that's what the majority of 2006-2016 portals built around selected quality articles and pictures, DYKs and possibly News or On This Day type content seemed to be best for. — Kusma ( t· c) 00:12, 8 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Basically, mobile is a big problem for both. That`s terrible and needs to be fixed. Portals may have more room they also cover much more topics; and they require an extra step which includes a link(probably templated) anyways. Not really an improvement. I am not convinced. Lurking shadow ( talk) 21:35, 8 February 2020 (UTC) reply
well said. I agree. I'm glad to see this discussion occurring here, in regards to things that can be improved in terms of design details. thanks!! -- Sm8900 ( talk) 22:25, 12 February 2020 (UTC) reply

A tidbit of information

Saw something today.....seems list transclution makes it very easy to update for new users. first edit by new editor. Think if ALL had this ability more might be interested in maintaining portals.-- Moxy 🍁 18:55, 17 February 2020 (UTC) reply

It is always nice when it is easy to add things (and it is usually great to see people helping on a portal they do not own). On the other hand, the subpage model has an easier time putting working "edit" links everywhere that invite editors making small fixes. (In the transclusion model it is difficult to see what you need to do to fix a typo, which is a bit weird in a wiki). — Kusma ( t· c) 20:31, 17 February 2020 (UTC) reply

We still need guidelines

Hi all, this page has gone a bit quiet recently. It seems to me that achieving the original goal (to write a guideline that says what portals should do, so existing or proposed portals can be measured against that guideline) would still be beneficial. There have been some portal MfDs recently where having such a guideline would have been helpful. I think we were almost there, but we still need a neutral person able to summarize what has been discussed so far in order to turn in into a wider RfC proposal. Any thoughts/volunteers/suggestions? — Kusma ( t· c) 20:24, 7 March 2020 (UTC) reply

I feel the community has discussion fatigue on portals as they have been discussed to death....from WP:PUMP to WP:ARBCOM. I know I saw two up for deletion, one should pass as the topic is broad while the other is too narrow. I just don't know though.... - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 00:58, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
I'll work on an arbitration style request page... do it in my sandbox so we can all tweak it.... I think the first rfc should be simple with only 4 or 5 questions.... based on their purpose... scope... creation criteria and process.... is automation preferred or not..... and deletion process.-- Moxy 🍁 02:06, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
that sounds fine. I think this effort by Moxy sounds very valid and worthwhile. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 04:07, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
I'd be happy to participate in such discussion. I think the controversy is a bit behind us, but nobody else seems to want to start the suggested RfCs. Those that WANT a thing and work with a thing have the burden of putting guidelines and styles forward. Those that DON'T WANT a thing, well, we've already been down that road. BusterD ( talk) 03:26, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
  • I think that before there can be a guideline, there needs to be an agreement on the conceptual purpose of a portal. It has to be more limited than some want. If a portal can include all things for all readers, then it is hopeless to talk about guidelines. I have given more than my share of opinion, more in hope of getting discussions rolling than anything else. I think few portals have served many readers, and a portals rethink is warranted. I would like to engage in constructive discussions, but the leaders of the discussions should be editors who want to work on portals. I don't think there are any more portals that arguably *need* deletion. Some arguable should be archived, but archiving does not involved deletion or 7-day MfD discussions. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 04:01, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
I don't see a clear pathway to achieving consensus on a conceptual purpose of portals. IMHO, their actual existing purpose seems fairly self-evident, so I don't see a basis for devising a new conceptual definition. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 04:05, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
Yes, I was thinking of you. Your bland "the purpose of portals is to serve as portals" and "Portals have an established purpose" is bald faced denial that there is a problem with a lack of definition of a portal. Without an objective definition of purpose, one can't objectively even attempt to measure whether they are meeting that purpose, you can't say what works or does not work, you can't make a plan to improve them. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 04:16, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
okay, but this is not an argument between the two of us, as far as I know. the community has an understanding of the purpose that portals serve. we don't have the right here to unilaterally decide that portals a) do not have a purpose; b) the purpose of portals as understood by the community is not valid; or c) any discussion of portals is invalid unless we meet every editor's own personal standard of whether portals have a valid purpose or not. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 04:23, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
I think it is broadly recognized by the community that there is a problem with portals, and that nearly every individual recognises that the scope and purpose of a portal is poorly defined, almost completely unconstrained.
(a) If portals have a purpose, what is that purpose? Rule: you cannot use "portal" when defining a portal. I suspect you think the purpose of a portal is limited only by the imagination of a portal editor?
(b) If there is a community statement, or other evidence, on the community's understanding of the purpose of portals, please point me to it.
(c) Consensus has never required every individual to agree, but consensus requires agreement. I'll be impressed if there are seven editors who can agree on a statement of the purpose of portals. Finding three in agreement would be a great start. You fail to provide a logically valid statement, I have only seen you make statements on portals that are self-referencing. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 04:33, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
I agree with you. there are not seven editors who can agree on the purpose of portals. I don't think we can find three. therefore we don't have the right to unilaterally impose a requirement for consensus that cannot be realistically met. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 04:41, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
anyway, obviously I am not the person whom you need to convince. the focus of this topic is obviously the community outlook, not the opinion of any individual editor. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 04:43, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
if you want a purpose, here is one: "the purpose of portals is to provide an informational overview of a topic, using compilations of links in various forms and configurations that provide the average user with a useful overview of the topic." there. now I suggest we proceed with discussing some guidelines. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 04:48, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply

The purpose of portals

Someone has suggested:

"the purpose of portals is to provide an informational overview of a topic, using compilations of links in various forms and configurations that provide the average user with a useful overview of the topic."

This is good.
Does it meet with the general opinions expressed at User talk:Scottywong/Portal guideline workspace#Purpose proposal 1?
It does not address: Featured content; Comprehensive navigation; simple navigation. Does this mean that portals should not do these things?
I find it lacking with respect to "topic". What is a "topic"? Normally, a topic is an article. Will every topic have a portal? How will this portal differ from the lede of the article on the topic?
I suggest

"the purpose of portals is to provide an informational overview of set of subtopics of a broad topic area, with easy navigation to all these subtopics."

-- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 05:37, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
This is would be a clear definition, Still doesn't include featured content, ITN, and some of the other usual components of portals. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 10:22, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
Arthur Rubin. Featured content, ITN, and some of the other usual components of portals. I've wondered about these being "usual components of portals". Do these reflect "purpose of portals" defaulting unconsciously to "A portal is a an imitation of the Main page but for a particular area/topic/niche"? -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 23:28, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
SmokeyJoe, I appreciate your constructive approach to this. if my reply was of value, then I am genuinely glad, and I am genuinely glad we could have this positive discussion on your views on this. I look forward to hearing your views on this and to hearing more of your discussion. I do agree with your definition above, as stated. thanks!!! cheers! -- Sm8900 ( talk) 13:54, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
I prefer SmokeyJoe's "set of subtopics of a broad topic area" wording. I would also add something along the lines of, "and highlighting the articles of highest quality and importance across the breadth of the topic area". BD2412 T 14:06, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
The suggestion above has some overlap with outlines. Portals de facto do have a showcase aspect where excerpts are selected as much for the quality of the Wikipedia articles as for their coverage of the topic. In the news may be an important detail to discuss later; it often requires more manual maintenance than other portal elements and can become problematic if neglected. Certes ( talk) 14:11, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
In the news and current events is completely automated now. One can select a topic category to pull from Portal:Current events. In the news can be a bit more confusing but is also just pulls info from another source as seen here. The hard one is anniversaries Portal:Germany/Anniversaries is all populated by hand and maintained by hand.-- Moxy 🍁 14:46, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
At the risk of straying off topic, it would be great if ITN could be taken from hand-curated Wikinews categories. The automated ITNs I looked at used word matching. I tightened a few up, e.g. to rid Portal:Bears of people who bear arms and the Chicago Bears' results, but it was never perfect. Certes ( talk) 14:58, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
Portal:Germany/Anniversaries requires maintenance once every blue moon. News is much harder. I don't want to use News that isn't about Germany, but the automated transclusions from Portal:Current events include everything that mentions Germany, even if it is offtopic like Americans talking about Nazis (see Potential Candidates / 2 March). A way to "select a topic category to pull from Portal:Current events" might help, but somebody would need to manually maintain those categories. — Kusma ( t· c) 15:31, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
I'd like to interject here, reacting to something insightful Arthur Rubin said above, that for purely navigation purposes, portals may not be optimal (my paraphrase). He suggested that "outlines (and massive navbars, such as {{ Classes of natural numbers}} are better for navigation than portals." I agree. Looking at that template as someone who does not frequently examine the field, IMHO the template is well-organized and helpful, but so overwhelmingly dense that it's poor starting place for the uninitiated. My point is that a well-designed portal provides a launching place for introduction to the topic, a starting point which allows for light dabbling and multiple sorts of examples. Perhaps something concise along these lines this might be useful in the purpose statement. I like Nihonjoe's Alt 2 below for this reason. Perhaps "introductory overview" as opposed to "informational". I have heard folks in this discussion previously remark an article introduction is not always the best portal introduction. I believe that providing an entry point to a content rich topic is an essential service of portals. BusterD ( talk) 22:07, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply

Alternate 1

Here is my suggestion for the purpose:

"the main purpose of portals is to provide an informational overview of Wikipedia's coverage of subtopics of a broad topic area, including navigational elements as well as showcasing the best available content."

I don't think the portal model works all that well for systematic navigation, and is more for semi-accidental discovery. DYK or Anniversary sections, for instance, are not navigational tools, but try to teach the reader something new. — Kusma ( t· c) 15:31, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply

Is it clear what an "informational overview" is? We don't have an article about informational overviews (it's a redlink) and (if I understand the search results correctly) not one of our millions of articles uses that term. DexDor (talk) 18:54, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
I think the phrase itself is clear, in terms of its more simple meaning, based simply on the basic definition of the two words that comprise the phrase. I do hear your point. thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 19:31, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
In that case is a Wikipedia article an "informational overview"? DexDor (talk) 20:44, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
It depends on the Wikipedia article. the article History of the world certainly is. the article United States certainly is. however, articles such as As Maine goes, so goes the nation, or Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, or Ribose 5-phosphate, or Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate, are sources of information, but are not overviews of a broad topical area. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 20:59, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
by the way, informational overview is now no longer redlinked (see inset). -- Sm8900 ( talk) 21:12, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
I don't think you're making the purpose of portals (in particular, how it differs from the purpose of articles) any clearer. DexDor (talk) 21:20, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
okay, so then what then is your question? are you questioning the validity of portals? based on the substance or lack thereof in my answers? Let me assure you, I am not a prototypical example of Wikipedians who are able to provide satisfactory comprehensive answers to pithy questions of this nature. seriously, our purpose here is not to decide whether portals should exist. this is supposed to be a positive, results-oriented conversation. asking for my opinion, and then poking holes in it, will not get us very far in addresssing this topic.
I am happy to discuss any and all topics with you. however, with respect if one of my answers seems lacking, it is better to refocus on the core topic of discussion, rather than to question the very validity of portals, based on whether a single ordinary editor (i.e., myself) can answer a single basic question or not. I do appreciate your input. thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 21:24, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
Re "I am not ... able to provide satisfactory comprehensive answers to pithy questions ..." - you are not obliged to comment. DexDor (talk) 21:40, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
ok, agreed. I will step back on this thread now, and allow others to comment. I wanted to take the spotlight off my own replies, so we are in accord here; let's simply move on. thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 21:50, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply

Alternate 2

Here's my attempt:

The purpose of a portal is to provide an introduction to a broad topic area through the presentation of random subtopic article hooks, Did you know...? hooks, On this day historical hooks, and other hooks meant to elicit interest from the reader. These should showcase the best available content and most important topics of the given broad topic area.

Similar to some of those already posted, but also different. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 17:27, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply

Much of that is a description of a portal rather than defining the purpose(s) of a portal. It's a bit like a car could be described as "a metal box on wheels ...", but its purpose would be something like "to transport people ...". DexDor (talk) 12:48, 10 March 2020 (UTC) reply
It specifically describes the purpose (that whole "purpose of a portal is to provide an introduction to a broad topic area through the presentation of..." part), and then how that purpose is achieved. Describing the purpose of something almost always includes a description of how that purpose is achieved. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 19:12, 10 March 2020 (UTC) reply
It appears that we are still going around the same points, in regards to what the purpose of a portal is. I like SmokeyJoe's formulation and articulation of this, above. I am also open to the other positive and constructive ideas for modifying this, as well. Can we please simply provide the latest draft of a purpose of portals, and then move on with the discussion?
any statement of purpose simply needs a general consensus. we don't need to meet the full and exact concerns of every individual participant here in this discussion here; a general consensus would be a good basis to move on. I do welcome and appreciate the input of everyone here, on both sides of the debate. seriously, thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 14:35, 11 March 2020 (UTC) reply
interesting points. thanks!! -- Sm8900 ( talk) 01:07, 20 April 2020 (UTC) reply
Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=User_talk:Scottywong/Portal_guideline_workspace&oldid=1189660755"
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Introduction and invitations

Hello. I've taken it upon myself to make an attempt to create a framework for discussing portals, with the ultimate goal of creating a proposal for a new portal guideline that can be presented to the wider community in an RfC. I have purposely pinged a small group of editors to this discussion, and I have intentionally selected editors that I expect to have differing views on these topics. If we can work together to find proposals that have some agreement among us, I believe that we can eventually create a guideline that the community can accept. I would like to keep this discussion limited to a small group of editors, but with that said, I don't mind if a few other editors are invited to the discussion. However, in order for this discussion to be successful, it needs to be conducted in a calm, rational, civil way, where the only goal is to create a guideline that is in the best interests of Wikipedia. So, if you're going to invite other editors to the discussion, please make it a relatively small number, and please choose editors that are well-versed in portals, and who have the ability to have a rational and thoughtful discussion about them. I'd also like to keep a relative balance between portal inclusionists and portal deletionists, so that discussions don't get lopsided. I've tried to start by inviting a diverse group of people to this discussion who I've seen contributing regularly to portal MFDs, but I might have missed some important users in the world of portals.

I will essentially act as a moderator of the discussion, but may also throw a few of my own ideas in, if I have any. However, since this page is in my userspace, I reserve the right to remove comments without warning if I find them to be unproductive or uncivil, and I also reserve the right to ask specific users to stop contributing to this project if I believe that their participation is disruptive or unhelpful. My goal is to keep the discussion focused on finding compromises that everyone can live with. Remember that a good compromise is one where both sides are equally unsatisfied.

Here's how I'd like to organize this effort:

  1. First, I'd like to form a group of interested participants who are willing to contribute to this project.
  2. Secondly, once we've got a good group of people, I'd like to review the stated goals of a portal guideline (on the main workspace page) and come to an agreement on those.
  3. Thirdly, I'd like to find an agreement on the major elements that a portal guideline would need to include (I've also started a list on the main workspace page for this).
  4. Finally, I'd like to dig into each of these major elements and begin to solicit proposals for the wording of each of those sections, have discussion on them, find the points of disagreement, and see if we can find a middle-ground that everyone can accept.
  5. Assuming we're successful, the next step will be to start an RfC on our proposed guideline page, and see if we can gain a consensus within the larger Wikipedia community to adopt it as an official guideline.

I would like to take these steps in order, one at a time, without skipping ahead. So, let's start with taking a couple days to work on the first step. Please indicate below if you're interested in participating in this project. Additionally, this would probably be the best time to invite a few other people to this discussion by adding them to the ping list below, if you feel a strong desire to do so (but again, I think this group will work best if it remains relatively small). Anyone else that's been invited, please acknowledge your interest (or lack thereof) below. Thanks! ‑Scottywong | [yak] || 19:51, 13 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Invited

Users that have been invited thus far. To ensure that we have a suitable group of editors that are interested in this project before we start working, please move your signature below to acknowledge your interest in participating here.

Further invitations by User:Hecato:

Participating

Restricted (temporary)

"1) BrownHairedGirl (talk · contribs · logs · edit filter log · block log) and Northamerica1000 (talk · contribs · logs · edit filter log · block log) are prohibited from editing in the Portal: namespace or engaging in discussions about portals, with the exception of arbitration case pages, until this case is concluded." This is per ARBCOM with 5 supporting (4 is needed to pass). This is put into place so neither editor gets into further trouble. ( Discussion)

For who's benefit is this sub-section? I'm 1,000% sure that neither of these two longstanding admin need this subsection put into place so they don't get into trouble. I'm also 1,000% sure that having this here won't help any of the rest of us come up with a portal guideline. It looks to me like a public badge of shame. Since it has no benefit and it's potentially harmful, I think it should be removed. – Leviv ich 20:59, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I think the point is so that it doesn't seem odd that they are not here (or in the case of BrownHairedGirl, that they briefly participated and then stopped). BD2412 T 21:03, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
You are correct in saying that this is for information purposes. BHG can not respond any further to comments she made here nor can NA1000 join in. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 03:56, 1 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Some introductory steps for this process

I was thinking about ways to initiate this process itself here on this page. do we want to poll all the editors here, and ask each of them for a brief introductory statement of what their concerns or questions are, and where they might wish to see things go? it's just a suggestion. that might be one good way to initiate things. if not, no problem, just suggesting that. thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 14:56, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I was really hoping to guide this conversation from very general, broad topics to very specific details. However, a lot people seem to be chomping at the bit to get right into the details. We'll have to figure out the best way to steer things. I realize that everyone has a horse in this race, and everyone wants to make sure that their thoughts are heard on what they consider to be the most important aspects of this discussion. However, I continue to believe that we need to have some level of organization to this process, or else we won't end up getting anywhere.
I haven't heard anyone object to the overall goals for a portal guideline that I've posted on the main page, so I'll assume that those goals are accurate and complete. I suppose we can assume that everyone agrees on the main elements that a portal guideline would need to include, and we can always go back and update them if need be. So, that gets us to the first part of the guidline: the introduction and summary. Let's start discussing that below, in the Introduction and Summary section. I think it's critically important that we all agree what the overall purpose of portals is, before we start getting into the details of how to build them, and inclusion criteria, and all that. I'll start the discussion below. I'll also put a link at the top of this page that leads everyone to the currently active discussion, in the hopes that we can all stay focused on that until it's time to move on to the next topic. ‑Scottywong | [converse] || 16:47, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
ok, thanks for answers, @ Scottywong:. here are some other questions, from my earlier comment below. thanks.
  • Can we have a separate sub-section for each person commenting here, for them to provide their basic ideas? I have seen this method being used helpfully when a lot of people need to provide input on a specific question. users would still be free to comment in other users' sections to discuss the ideas from those users.
  • Also, remember that we need to address concerns of some people who don't want portals to exist at all. any comments on that? or on how we should do that?
thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 14:38, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Sm8900: That looks fine to me, thanks for organizing that. I've got some things that have come up in my personal life that are going to limit the amount of time I can put towards Wikipedia for the near future, but I'll continue to check in as I can. I'm glad to see that the discussions are active. ‑Scottywong | [converse] || 17:06, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

General discussion

I will start by saying that I do not feel that portals recently kept by consensus (past 2 to 3 months) should be deleted as it goes around the decided decision. Once guidelines are firmly established then this can be revisited. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 02:52, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I have no idea what this means. Also, you've skipped very far ahead to step 4 before we've even finished step 1. ‑Scottywong | [gab] || 02:55, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Im not sure where you want comments and/or concerns. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 02:58, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Knowledgekid87: I don't really want comments and/or concerns just yet. But, I appreciate your enthusiasm and participation. At this point, I simply want to ensure that we have a suitable group of people who are interested and willing to commit to this project, because it's going to be a lot of work and it probably won't always be easy. Perhaps anyone that is interested can simply put their signature above next to their name? The reason I want to do this first is that I know that this is a turbulent time for portals, there is a lot of animosity between people, and there are a lot of other discussions going on simultaneously. Therefore, it's possible that no one has the energy for this right now. And, I don't want to waste a lot of my time trying to kick this can down the road if no one is going to join me. So, before we even start talking about portals at all, let's just make sure that we've got a good group of people committed to this, and it's going to be worth our time. If we don't get enough interested editors to participate, I'll likely abandon this effort and delete the page. But, at least I'm trying something. ‑Scottywong | [confabulate] || 03:04, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Well I am in and will wait for more people then. I currently maintain Portal:Anime and manga which covers a lot of scopes and has recently been transcluded, the portal is also supported by our project. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 03:09, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I find your selection of invited participants rather odd. With most of these users being opposed to portals in principle or wanting to limit the number of portals to a very small number. -- Hecato ( talk) 12:08, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    • I think that the selection reflects those who are active in generally discussing portals that have been nominated for deletion. I would add that the community in general appears to want to limit the number of portals to a fairly small number, based on the absence of opposition to proposals for the deletion of most portals for narrow topics. BD2412 T 12:26, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
      • If the design process of a new guideline is rigged in that direction then we might as well write down a list of ten or so acceptable portal topics, delete the rest and outlaw the creation of new portals, because that would be the outcome anyway. I don't consider users, whose sole involvement in portals is the attempt to get rid of them, "Portal power users" or positive forces in the improvement of portals for that matter. -- Hecato ( talk) 12:37, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
        • Thanks for letting us know your honest thoughts. As I explained above, my selection of people to invite was semi-random and limited to names that I recognized as frequent contributors to recent Portal MFDs, who generally had thoughtful arguments. I tried to get a roughly even split of people who seemed more likely to vote to keep most portals, and those who are more likely to delete, but I may have gotten that balance wrong. If there are truly some portal "power users" that I neglected to invite, please feel free to invite them now. In any case, I can assure you that the goal of this process is not to find a sneaky way to delete all portals. In fact, I would consider the discussion of "should we even have portals?" to be out of scope here. I intend to presume that portals are here to stay, in some form or another, so let's put together a guideline for portals that everyone can agree on, so that we can all stop arguing about them incessantly.
  • I have added a few names from the top of my head. Might add a few more later. A general invitation to Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals should be extended. Do you want to do that as the organizer, or should I? -- Hecato ( talk) 15:22, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • My intention was to keep this to a relatively small group, because too many cooks can spoil the soup. To be clear, no one is missing out on anything if they're not here. My intention isn't to create a guideline in secret and then post it somewhere and insist that everyone follows it. The intention is to create a draft guideline that can be taken to an RFC, where all editors will have the opportunity to comment on it and further shape it. I don't think that inviting the entirety of Wikipedia here will be productive at this point in the process. ‑Scottywong | [spill the beans] || 16:23, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I don't think everyone who has been invited are going to join anyways. At some point we have to start, and the group can still be small by that point. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 16:25, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I agree that too many cooks spoil the broth. Which is why I found your selection process so odd. That said, the WikiProject should be brought in eventually. They are the people with the most experience in actually working with portals. The selection of a taskforce should have probably started there. -- Hecato ( talk) 17:05, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I think that the argument by User:Hecato that the original invitees were selected to be against portals is just off the mark. I count 11 original invitees, and, of them, Certes, Knowledgekid87, Northamerica1000, SportingFlyer, and Thryduulf are advocates of portals. So I disagree with the claim that the group is unbalanced. I do think that the extension of invitations to additional editors by Hecato may render it unbalanced, but I trust that User:Scottywong can keep it balanced. Robert McClenon ( talk) 04:09, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Just saw this - I wouldn't consider myself an "advocate" so much as someone who finds them useful and doesn't quite understand why we would rush to delete them. I have tried to apply consistent keep/delete votes based on a set of guidelines at MfD (which have evolved with time - I didn't understand the severity of the bulk creation problem when I stumbled into the space). Some of those guidelines I have proposed below. SportingFlyer T· C 10:49, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Scottywong: Congratulations for the initiative. But I believe I can't help much, because I'm not fluent in English, which limits me in discussions.

@ Robert McClenon: I've just spotted this, and while it's true I have advocated against the bulk deletion of portals without examination, on individual portals I have recommended a mix of keep, delete and merge. Characterising everyone on one or other side of a binary divide is neither accurate nor helpful. Thryduulf ( talk) 11:23, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Either way, my strongest opinion at the moment is that the community first needs to decide what a portal really is and update WP: PORTAL with simple and clear text. Other opnions I have are:

Thanks for the input. Your English certainly seems good enough to me, so don't let that prevent you from participating. ‑Scottywong | [babble] || 14:34, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Would it help to get people who actually care about and maintain portals involved here? I am trying to keep the balance, but it would be helpful if those who do the work be here too. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 15:05, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I do think inviting User:Nihonjoe was a good call as he has edited a lot of portals. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 15:29, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I think this is a great idea but isn't it about a year too late? By the time we finish discussing and agreeing a decent portal guideline, there will be virtually no portals left unless we call a halt to the deletion of the remaining few portals against criteria which are not only obsolete, but now deprecated. If we do believe this is worth pursuing the first thing we must do is agree on the purpose of portals. It is the lack of clarity over this which has led to portals being poorly structured and rarely viewed and which is the fundamental reason why editors cannot agree on whether to keep or delete portals (now that the auto-portals have gone). FWIW I believe there are at least 3 potential uses for portals:
  • To showcase a topic, encouraging readers to explore it further (this has failed in the past because portals were almost unlinked from mainspace - a fault of the guidelines - and not searchable, both can be fixed)
  • To act as a navaid akin to a category tree, but with the advantage that a whole topic can be seen on one page (again failed in the past for the reasons above)
  • To act as a tool for project editors to expand and improve topic coverage (I have used this very effectively, but it's never been seen as a portal purpose)
If we really can nail the purpose, the rest becomes easier. Bermicourt ( talk) 19:53, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Better late than never. If we delay another year, then we'll be 2 years late. Btw, I've copied and pasted your bullet points to the active discussion below. ‑Scottywong | [speak] || 21:23, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Thanks for starting this discussion. If we want to understand the purpose(s) that portals aim to serve at the moment better, maybe we could try to collect some examples of portals and check what these portals do well and for what purpose. There are "magazine"/"mini main page" things, there are "invite collaboration bits", there are lists of "our best articles", there is sometimes "overview of the topic" and there are "large navboxes". Some of these tie in well with WikiProjects, others are more independent. Many portals try to be everything at once, with mixed success. The recently renovated Portal:Canada separates some of the things it does into three tabs, each serving a different purpose, which helps make each of the tabs a lot more focused and usable. (BTW the possible purpose we're currently not great at is giving an overview of a topic; many portals just take the intro section of the main article instead of trying to cover the whole topic in a less text-heavy fashion. But doing this well is hard).— Kusma ( t· c) 21:27, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • May $DEITY bless this ship and all who sail in her. I wish you all well, and if you can avoid knocking six bells out of each other I hope that we can come to a consensus of the role of portals in today's Wikipedia. Guy ( help!) 23:08, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Reasons for WP:POG's failure

I am just going to throw up some of the reasons why I feel WP:POG failed as a guideline as it will help going forward:

  • 1. Rules requiring maintenance were placed in the lead section rather than the body of the guideline for further info. From the lead: Portals which require manual updating are at a greater risk of nomination for deletion if they are not kept up to date. Do not expect other editors to maintain a portal you create.
  • 2. The guideline was out of date, and did not take into account of new developments such as the benefit of transclusions. Here were the prior instructions on when to update: The more often portals are updated, with fresh content, the more interesting they will be to readers and attract returning visitors. Some portals update the selected articles and pictures once a month. Others update them weekly, which is preferred. Other update schedules—ranging from once every few weeks to every time the article is refreshed—are also sometimes used. The time to update should vary by portal as some would need it more often than others.

Other editors can chime in too here, these are just my thoughts. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 15:54, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Arbitrary break to discuss direction of these discussions

I want to thank everyone who has participated in these discussions so far, the response has been a lot stronger than I anticipated. I want to quickly summarize what we've achieved so far, and have a discussion on how much further we should go before we try to put together a proposal and deliver it to the wider community. Here is what we've accomplished so far:

  • We've found some consensus on some statements about what the overall purpose of portals should be.
  • We've had a long discussion on the criteria that should be used to determine if a subject is appropriate for a portal, and while there is still some work to do to come to an agreement on the specifics, I think we have made a lot of progress towards coming to agreement.

This is about half of what I originally set out to achieve. The next two steps are to get into the technical details of actually creating and maintaining portals, define best practices for how to structure portals, and list the tasks that should be periodically done to properly maintain portals. However, now that I'm considering moving us to the next step in the discussion, I'm wondering if we've bitten off more than we can chew. Specifically, I'm concerned about whether all of us have the stamina to continue these discussions for an extended period of time, and I'm concerned that if we bring a proposal to RFC that has too many large elements, it will create a lot of chaos in the discussion when people agree with this part of the proposal but not that part. Does anyone have any thoughts about this? Should we continue on to the more technical discussion of how portals should be constructed and maintained? Or should we circle the wagons now, polish what we've got, bring something to RFC, and then come back and resume the discussion on the technical parts later? ‑Scottywong | [confer] || 16:34, 3 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Narrower, more focused requests for comment have a better chance of yielding a clear answer, so personally I feel it's best to proceed one step at a time, rather than trying to bundle several steps into one request. isaacl ( talk) 17:29, 3 December 2019 (UTC) reply
I think we should continue just a bit more, until we have something that can be used as a reasonable yardstick at MFD. Typically, MFDs are mostly concerned with suitability of the topic and about quality/maintenance status of the portal itself. So if we agree on some maintenance requirements, at least in a very general sense (maybe "portals should not display any content that is out of date by more than a year"), we could construct a minimal guideline concentrating on the most important bits, and then work on the more technical details after we have persuaded the community that we have come to a reasonable compromise here. — Kusma ( t· c) 17:35, 3 December 2019 (UTC) reply
What do people think about working towards a (short) guideline that we can propose and support as a group? Doable? Advisable? – Leviv ich 19:01, 3 December 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Scottywong: If you want you can close sections as completed, or close this whole thing while you summarize key points. I think there has been progress made here just there are open discussions everywhere. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 00:20, 4 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Discussion: Goals

At this point, are we talking about the goals of this project, the goals of a document to be developed by this project, the goals of portals, or what? I think that, in addition to establishing goals for this project, we should be trying to identify the goals of portals so that we can address them. I have asked other editors what the objectives of portals are, and I get different answers from different editors, and I don't always follow them, so I would like to identify the purposes of portals, but if this will be done in a later stage of the discussion, that is all right. Robert McClenon ( talk) 04:07, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I suppose it doesn't hurt to start the preliminary discussions while people are still filing into the room and deciding if they want to participate.
My intention with this section is to discuss the goals of a portal guideline, since this is ultimately the output of our efforts. In other words, let's summarize everything that we need to achieve before we're ready to take a proposed guideline to an RFC. If we can all agree on exactly what a portal guideline needs to include, then everything we do in subsequent steps can refer back to these overarching goals to ensure that we're meeting them, and that we're not proposing things that are counter to the goals or unrelated to the goals.
I have listed some basic goals of a portal guideline at User:Scottywong/Portal_guideline_workspace#Goals. Let's discuss those goals here, and then make changes to that page once we're all in agreement. The current goals that I have started us off with are:
  1. To clarify the purpose of portals within the larger scope of the English Wikipedia.
  2. To promote consistency in the way that portals are constructed and maintained.
  3. To provide clear criteria for topics that are appropriate for portals.
  4. To document best practices for portals and encourage editors to follow them.
As you can see, goal #1 of a portal guideline is to define the purpose of portals, which is essentially what you are asking for. But, before we get into debating the purpose of portals, let's make sure that we've captured all of the relevant goals of the entire guideline and agreed on them. So, the basis for this discussion should be: do you agree with the above goals? Do you think any of the above goals should be removed or reworded? Do you think that there are any goals missing from that list? ‑Scottywong | [confer] || 05:16, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Looks good to me, and let me also note my appreciation of Scottywong organizing/moderating this initiative which I think is timely. My two comments on the above goals are:
1. For each goal, we might also state the inverse case – E.g. to also highlight/specify examples of what should not be happening (a technique I find very useful when reading WP guidelines)
2. As you will have read at MfDs, my overall concern re portals is that their very low adoption/engagement by all segments (readers, editors, even vandals), is due to their functional obsolesce. Ultimately, Main Articles are now better-structured consensus guides through a topic area (with links to sub-topics), NavBoxes are better navigation aids (and many portals just paste the NavBox into the portal), and WikiProjects now have a tool that lists and categorizes all topic articles by rank (plus most projects have a consensus list of their own most-important articles). This led me to consider whether a better long-term solution for portals is to merge them with WikiProjects (this does sometimes happen at MfD), and put the WikiProject link on the Main Article page (instead of the Talk Page). I outlined this on the Talk Pages of NA1K and BHG. I guess my question here, is whether this concern would (or even should), get discussed at this forum under Goal #1 – E.g. whatever purpose Portals might serve, it is done better elsewhere, and thus the functional obsolesce of portals might not be mitigated by Goals #2 to #4? I understand however if that question is out of scope.
Britishfinance ( talk) 09:46, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I think that we should open this discussion to creative, out-of-the-box ideas that maybe haven't been considered before. However, ideas like merging portals into WikiProjects are likely to be viewed by some as a step towards abolishing portals altogether, and that is something that I don't think it would be productive to deliberate here. If we're going to create a guideline for portals, I think we need to presume that Wikipedia is going to have a portal namespace with portal pages, period. Our goal is to find the best way to implement them, and create the best rules to govern them. ‑Scottywong | [squeal] || 14:29, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
As for your inverse exercise, I'll take a stab at it:
  1. We don't want confusion within Wikipedia about the purpose of portals, and we don't want different editors designing portals for entirely different purposes.
  2. We don't want different editors constructing portals in different ways, using different designs. A consistent design will make it easier for all editors to maintain all portals, without having to first figure out how the mechanics of the portal work.
  3. We don't want editors creating portals on inappropriate topics. ("Inappropriate" is, of course, a term that will need to be better defined later.)
  4. We don't want inconsistently designed portals.
It's pretty clear to me from that exercise that goals 2 and 4 are mostly redundant to each other. Perhaps we can merge those two goals and reduce it to three goals? ‑Scottywong | [spill the beans] || 14:45, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
My thoughts on the above are as follows:
  • Portals should basically be the equivalent of the main page, but for specific subject areas. They should look and feel more like the main page, with a combination of a general overview of the subject area and its organizational structure within Wikipedia, and samples of content within that subject area that is of the highest quality (FA/GA content) or that is particularly interesting or current (DYK/ITN content).
  • With this goal in mind, portals should obviously only exist for subject areas that are broad enough to present a breadth of articles (and more specifically, a breadth of FA/GA-level articles), and for which DYK/ITN-type content could foreseeably be generated on a regular basis (I would think at least one new item of each kind per month).
  • Maintenance of portals should be straightforward and transparent, and the best practices should be those that promote these ends.
BD2412 T 14:15, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I think these are all great topics that will need to be discussed at length, but we might be getting slightly ahead of ourselves. I realize that this process I've outlined is going to start painfully slowly, where we start with talking about the goals of a portal guideline itself, and then agree on the elements that the guideline needs, and only then do we actually start getting to the meat of the discussion where we actually talk about portals. But, given the tensions that exist about this topic, I think it's crucial to approach this slowly and methodically, get agreement on the biggest and most general concepts, and then work our way down to discussing the specifics. Do you have any input on the goals that we've set forth above for the guideline itself? Anything missing, out-of-place, or unnecessary? ‑Scottywong | [spout] || 14:49, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I kind of feel that the general goal I have in mind entails all of these specifics; i.e., the broad purpose of portals should be to present subject areas that are broad enough to sustain this set of elements. BD2412 T 23:01, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply

While my thoughts are:

  • Portals do not have to act as main pages, they can be recruiting tools to those interested in joining Wiki-projects as they need the editors badly.
  • Portals basically act as showcases to highlight featured content by editors. These can help motivate others to edit their favorite subject areas.
  • Portals can and have been successful in terms of viewership and interest.
  • More to come...
- Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 14:51, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply
What if we introduce into this conversation a concept of portals and sub-portals, with subportals being a separate page under a broad portal offering a deeper dive into a topic that is not one of the very broad ones, but of interest to some community nonetheless? We could have more rigid guidelines for top-level portals, and more flexibility for subportals. BD2412 T 23:04, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Goals of Portals

On 19 July 2019, I posted a Request for Comments (see /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_153#RFC:_Purposes_of_Portals_(19_July_2019)) asking for input as to what the purposes of portals are.

The ideas that I offered, reflecting previous comments by various editors, were: Some of the purposes that have been proposed are:

1. Showcasing our best content to readers. The Main Page, for example, is a portal with this very purpose. The Main Page is also very labor-intensive. Showcasing is work.
2. Navigating the encyclopedia. Along with lists, navigation templates, and categories, portals are one way readers can navigate the encyclopedia.
3. Containing content not available elsewhere on the encyclopedia. Some editors have stated that portals contain content, so that content is harmfully deleted when portals are deleted.
3A. Unique, forked or transcluded encyclopedic content
3B. Explanatory content such as guidance and reviews (others?)
4. Planning and management of WikiProjects. Portals allow editors to keep track of the current and planned scope of the project's coverage.
5. Metatext and reviews of the topic.
6. A statement of the importance of the topic. The provision that portals should be about "broad subject areas" is more commonly remembered and quoted than the qualifying clause, "which will attract readers and portal maintainers". A portal is seen as a declaration that a topic is a broad subject area.
7. An invitation to readers and editors to develop particular articles in a topic area.
8. Fun, or exercise. Some editors like making portals.

Possible Discussion of Goals of Portals

Sorry, probably my fault, it seems multiple editors mistook this section as the place where we'd discuss the goals of portals. This section was intended to discuss the goals of a guideline, i.e. what does the guideline need to accomplish to be a successful guideline. ‑Scottywong | [gab] || 23:59, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Aren't the goals of the guideline contingent on the goals of portals? BD2412 T 17:38, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • The purposes listed below started out with Bermicourt's three, which were (not in this order) (1) navigation, (2) showcase, (3) tool for editors, to which Hecato added two new ones (not in this order): (4) advertise WikiProject, and (5) keep readers up-to-date. Now, of these 8 from RM above, four are new: (6) containing unique content [numbered as 3/3A/3B on RM's list], (7) Metatext and reviews of the topic [#5 on RM's list], (8) statement of importance [#6 on RM's list], (9) invitation to develop articles [#7 on RM's list], and (10) fun/exercise [#8 on RM's list]. I'd suggest adding the new goals/purposes to the list of 5 purposes below, and editors can just add those to their vote lists. But I'd also suggest RM take a second look at the addition first to ensure (a) they're not duplicative or restatements of purposes already proposed, and (b) they have a snowball's chance in heck of gaining consensus. – Leviv ich 20:08, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • @ Scottywong: as far as I can see, there is almost no discussion on this page about the goals of portals, and discussion has moved onto details without agreeing goals. Have I missed something? -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 21:43, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ BrownHairedGirl: You're right, you haven't missed something. There seemed to be a lot more enthusiasm and energy for diving into the details, so in the interest of keeping these discussions alive and ongoing, I decided to allow things to happen a bit more organically and not force the sequence of the discussion. We may want (and need) to return to this discussion at some point however, so that the goals of portals can be clearly stated on the guideline. All discussions are open, so feel free to contribute and opinions/ideas here to be discussed at any time. ‑Scottywong | [prattle] || 19:06, 29 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Scottywong: I hatted the goals discussion because things seemed to have stalled. This page is becoming really hard to follow, and I do think we might want to consider a new subpage to re-discuss the implication of the goals we agreed on when it comes to policy. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 22:09, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Discussion: Elements

Echoing my thoughts above, I think portals generally should include:

  1. a summary description of the field addressed
  2. two or three kinds of featured content (FA/GA articles) from within the field, e.g.:
    1. concepts or things in the field
    2. biographies of significant historical figures within the field
    3. significant events in a scientific area or locations in a geographic area
  3. DYK content, being generated with sufficient regularity to have a new item added every month or so
  4. ITN content, being generated with sufficient regularity to have a new item added every month or so
  5. links to related content going both up and down the tree (up to broader topics and down to narrower topics)

That's my baseline. BD2412 T 23:13, 14 November 2019 (UTC) reply

that sounds very good to me. Sm8900 ( talk) 03:54, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • This is good for a description of an ideal portal, but a minimum viable portal should not need to have all of this. Especially asking for one ITN and DYK item per month is asking quite a lot. (There are two things here: news/DYKs must be available, and somebody has to add them, which requires very dedicated maintainers, as automation often fails for these things). This means we could only have portals about very large topics, which often lose focus a bit (big country portals are only slightly more focused than Wikipedia's rather random Main Page). We should try not to outlaw structures like Portal:South East England and its more focused subportals. — Kusma ( t· c) 10:54, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply
User:Scottywong - When can we discuss this list? Robert McClenon ( talk) 06:04, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Outline of portal intent

Keeping in mind that portals for many are their first door into a namespace other then the main namespace. Portal is a term, generally synonymous with "gateway". So what kind of gateway....in my view a portal should be a page or pages that presents to our readers an amalgamation of what Wikipedia has to offer by way of content, navigation and contributing to a topic. So what does this mean?

  1. We should first introduce our readers to the topic (intro) with other small excerpts showing - highlighting our "best and vital" related articles and images as a modern front page of a news paper or wedsite does but in an academic showcase.
  2. Secondly we should make it informative with a broad range of articles...this can be done with factoids or hooks like DYK 's, current events, and anniversaries etc..
  3. Thirdly we should introduce our readers to our other navigational options like categories, outlines (indexes), navboxes, lists of lists, etc.
  4. Fourth we should introduce our readers to the WP:ADMINPS side of Wikipedia and encourage participation and contributing...this can be done with an intro to a wiki-project, listing tasks to be done or listing current discussions.-- Moxy 🍁 00:12, 1 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Current examples

I believe giving a few examples would be great so all can see the vision of what different editors have in mind.-- Moxy 🍁 01:41, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Good idea Moxy, and your example is noted below (I have a related section re MOS). Do we have a feel for the +10 greatest portals in WP (e.g. that most would feel are great showcases, actively read and maintained, and would never face MfD)? I ask that because they could also serve to help guide us here. thanks. Britishfinance ( talk) 13:35, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Aside from the Canada one .... Portal:Law is coming along well in my view.-- Moxy 🍁 00:18, 1 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Moxy vision

I have built 2 basically auotomated portals that I think covers what a traditional portal was intended to be as per the info page Wikipedia:Portal#Purposes of portals... but incorporating the new transclution method alongside new elements. This will still need maintainers to keep up with GA and FA promotions and demotions and to ensure bot sections are functioning properly.

Portal:Canada that uses the transclution method listing all it's content on sub pages while at the same time providing a navigational aid in different formats and criteria. So what does the portals have...A quick intro only 2 paragraphs. On the left we have many relevant selected FA and GA articles in 2 sections (one places and events the other Bios) with a quick one paragraph hook. We then on the left have symbols and top level vital/top importance articles...again with a quick one paragraph hook. On the right we have current articles, slelected images, DYk's and news. With the bottom having panorama's and links to other related content. As mentioned above all this has sub pages listing selected content and more. Finally we have a page to introduce readers to the back side of Wikipedia in hopes to gain editors ....in this case Canadian knowledgeable editors encouraging project joining alongside maintenance tasks that can be performed by any editor regardless if they join the project or not. This format was also used at Portal:Australia with some per existing elements.-- Moxy 🍁 01:41, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Manual of Style

Portals often have a kind of personalized "scrapbook" look and feel to them – E.g. different colours, different layouts/borders, different graphic etc. I have seen this "scrapbook" issue raised at MfD and in the larger RfCs on portals. Ultimately, portals are "showcases" of FA/GA material, which is of the highest MOS-standard in WP? It is not a mistake that the showcase for such rigorously MOS'ed content would have no real MOS rules of its own (e.g. like hanging the Mona Lisa in an ordinary office)? Is there an appetite in this forum to develop a "standardized" MOS-format for portals? Britishfinance ( talk) 12:26, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Is it not also unusual that WP:FAC or WP:GAN, for whose articles portals really serve, seem to have no interest or input into portals? Britishfinance ( talk) 12:26, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

  • We had a Featured Portals process, which died in its sleep a couple of years ago. The Wikipedia:Featured portal criteria were not very detailed. I always thought that was a plus, as it is not clear that there is one best method to do portals, and there was always some creativity in different approaches (some topics are more visual than others etc.). I see no reason why all portals should look the same. I would rather see the Mona Lisa in an attractive lookinh room than in a bland one that ticks all the checkboxes of the room design guideline. — Kusma ( t· c) 12:45, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • That is very interesting Kusma. Maybe this is a mad thought, but what if there was a centralised FAC/GAN portal/repository, and that a reader could click a link on a topic article into this cental portal and it would automatically bring up the FA/GA articles relevant to the topic? E.g. Instead of having a "Portal:Alaska" (with all the issues of no MOS, no maintainer, not really a "portal" per se etc.), you have an "Alaska FA/GA Article Bar", that when you click on it, brings you to the centralised FAC/GAN portal/repository and the relevant Alaska FA/GA articles, as kept up to date by FAC/GAN, come up as a list for inspection? Instead of localized FA/GA portals, we have a centralised one? The indivisual WikiProjects or real topic maintainers would be allowed to further classify this central FAC/GAN database by major recommended topic articles in their area (in the way a good portal goes). Is that a crazy idea? thanks. Britishfinance ( talk) 13:22, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    Britishfinance, if I understand you correctly, we have some things in this direction: the main list of FAs at WP:FA, which isn't all that well-sorted, and bot-updated lists of FAs/GAs by project (see Portal_talk:Germany#Recognized_content for one). Currently I use that list mostly for inspiration when I want another articled for the Selected articles, but it would be possible to display such lists more publicly (in the case of Germany, I don't do that because of the dominance of military history). — Kusma ( t· c) 15:38, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Thanks again for that Kusma. Perhaps there is something in this. If the portal focus was on getting a better structured FA/GAN portal that could be more easily linked into and searched from the Main Space - would that not solve the issues of many portals that we see at MfD? Obviously, the bigger, customised, well-maintained portals could still just do their own portals, however, a better FA/GAN database/portal could substitute for many others? thanks. Britishfinance ( talk) 15:54, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I think we should focus on the basic guidelines first, then come up with a MOS. I mean it is a good idea but I don't want us to get distracted from the central focus. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 14:09, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    • I agree with Knowledgekid87. How a portal should look will depend in part on what its purpose is and what it is trying to achieve, so we need to sort that out first. Also, as long as WP:ACCESS is met the look isn't that important in the grand scheme of things. Thryduulf ( talk) 17:30, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • But with respect Thryduulf, and I realize that you have more experience in this area than I have, the grand scheme of things is that a very high % of portals in WP are abandoned by maintainers, editors, and readers. And by abandoned, I mean last real content edit (outside of The Transhumanist type mass-edits), was a decade ago? Certainly, almost all WP portals outside of the top 100, struggle to show any activity/support post-2013 (portals really collapsed post-2013). Look at the last 50 portal MfDs – the pattern is relentless and shows no sign of stopping. Unless we do something meaningful to change this trajectory, to materially improve what portals do, then this whole discussion is moot, because most will end up being deleted within the decade (or less).
Even though I have been on the deletion-side for portals at MfD, I am in a low minority in this discussion in trying to think of meaningful ways to make portals materially better. All the portal-keeps are focused on setting "guidelines" in the hope that these guidelines will protect portals at MfD. However, I think even if we agreed that any portal in a topic-area with 1 GA article could never be deleted, it would not change their current trend, and outside of the top 100, their inevitable end. Standing at the portal MfD for the last few months is a very sobering exposure to the abandonment of this tool as it is currently structured and configured (guidelines aside)? I don't want to be impolite, but I think this reality is missing from our discussion. Britishfinance ( talk) 22:01, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I think most of the discussion is looking at the wrong side of the telescope. Let's find groups of editors interested in developing and supporting a portal as part of their work in the related area, and work on ensuring the process supports them, so they'll ensure the portal is well-maintained. Finding interested editors first will naturally avoid creating more portals than can be supported. isaacl ( talk) 05:26, 23 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Alternative tools to portals

Portals duplicate some tools (e.g pasting-in Navboxes from Main Article, or pasting-in selections of FA/GA directory from the WikiProjects). However, their main "unique" service, is displaying FA/GA topic articles in a galleria or emporium (e.g they are not "portals" in the true sense of the word). Here are some suggestions for alternative ways in which this "unique" service, could also be done in other ways that would overcome some of the problems seen at portal MFDs around FORKING/lack of scrutiny, being out-of-date etc. for discussion/debate. thanks Britishfinance ( talk) 19:48, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Frameless galleries in Head Article

  • When I am doing articles om mountains, I sometimes stick a "Gallery" at the end which links to other related mountains in the caption (the "frameless" gallery is very nice looking, per Benbaun#Gallery, or Event Communications#Gallery). I guess, without realizing it, I am kind of doing a mini-portal – showcasing great photos and linking to their relevant articles. It also comes up nicely in the mobile view (which is a problem below for portals). Am I naive in thinking that adding a "Gallery" of important articles and their main images, to the bottom of Main/Head Articles would do the main work of many portals?
By being a gallery in the Main Article, it is also more scrutinized and checked by the community (e.g. less FORKING)? Also, many of the other things in portals, e.g. pasting in the Navbox etc, are already in the Main Article. I can usually add 4-5 photographs (e.g. 4-5 linked articles), which is as many articles as most portals offer. This would be a better format to put at the bottom of Maryland highway system, than Portal:Maryland roads, for example. Why don't we just use this? Pinging BrownHairedGirl on this, who may have given this more thought than I? Britishfinance ( talk) 18:51, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Just made this change to the Head Article of at Maryland highway system#Gallery, which includes all 4 FA articles in this topic, plus one GA-article. All the NavBoxes are already below it on the Head Article, so there is not much else needed. Also, this looks good on the mobile view? Britishfinance ( talk) 19:18, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
The main problem with this approach is that galleries aren't popular in all articles (though not as controversial now as they were 10 years ago) and need to follow the WP:IG guideline. Portals can be more flexible. — Kusma ( t· c) 19:25, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Thanks Kusma, and understand that. Do you think that this approach could work better for some portals (e.g. topics with less than 5 FA articles), that are abandoned? thanks. Britishfinance ( talk) 19:29, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I like BF's suggestion. Note that the builtin-image gallery available to all logged-out readers not only includes all images on the page (i.e. not just those in the gallery section), but gives a full-screen display that is vastly better than the tiny images in portal image galleries. This new technology has made portals' image galleries redundant. One of the more comic absurdities of TTH's spam portals was that they drew their image list solely from the set of images used in the head article, but included only a random subset, at much lower resolution, and took ages to load.

When it comes to images, the portal is not just redundant; it does a significantly worse job than the head article. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 21:35, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Thanks BrownHairedGirl, and just to be clear for everybody in case there is any confusion, the images are the main images from the FA articles that are worth showcasing (with the link to the FA article in the image caption, per Maryland highway system#Gallery); they are not featured images per se (although, they can also be added in another gallery). At their essence, and when the duplicated elements are taken out (e.g. Navboxes, WikiProject directories, etc.), most portals are a list of 4-5 FA articles. If you combined this, with the "FA/GA search bar" below, then we could have solved most of the outstanding issues seen at MfD with the portal tool. Britishfinance ( talk) 21:44, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
BrownHairedGirl, I replied to you about this in a different section (but forgot to sign, so you did not get a ping). As far as images go, there are cases where using MediaViewer auto-gallery on the main article does a terrible job, and the limited text length there can make it vastly inferior to what a portal can do. — Kusma ( t· c) 21:45, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Kusma: I see no specifics in that.
  1. I have seen no case where MediaViewer auto-gallery on the main article does a terrible job. Please can you link to some examples?
  2. I have seen no case where the portal image gallery offers full-screen display. Have I missed something?
  3. Every portal image gallery I have seen either a) displays only one image until the page is purged, or b) displays a horizotally-scrolling gallery, but of limited size and with slow loading. So what exactly can the portal do which is vastly better?
-- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 21:53, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
BrownHairedGirl, I find many MediaViewer galleries far from perfect. Fullscreen isn't appropriate for many smaller images, especially with large screens, is always on black background whether that is appropriate or not, and the image captions are far away from the image (if there are any at all). For examples of mediocrity, how about Hong Kong (the final couple of images include one with the caption "中华人民共和国的分区", which I can read but many others can't, as well as images of unrelated Chinese cities. The population pyramid is mixed in with photographs of various things that do not make up a coherent whole. Panoramas are also used, which don't look that great in the media viewer unless you happen to have an extremely wide screen). Or FA The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, where most of the image captions don't make sense or require an extra click to see fully. Having a page other than the article allow one to have image selections and captions that are made to provide a good gallery, not to support a good article, which are different things. Using full-screen galleries (or encouraging the use of MediaViewer) in cases where that works well is something we should look into ("/Gallery" subpages might have been the better way to go than portals for this, but subpages were deprecated before I even started editing here), but currently MediaViewer doesn't seem to offer enough control to be used well. (Commons uses also additional gallery systems). But we are going a bit off-topic here. — Kusma ( t· c) 10:22, 26 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Kusma: I don't agree we are going off-topic. When "improve this tool" is a topic, the "why are we using this tool" question is a relevant question. One of the reasons that portals have been such a mess for so long is that old assumptions have gone unreviewed, and new ideas have been rolled out without testing them them properly to ensure that their flaws are properly considered. For example, the whole navbox-cloned automated portal thing was rolled out without enough critical examination and without the wide input of an RFC where the ultimately-fatal flaws might have been examined.
In this case, I looked at the two articles which you described, and the problems seem to me to be trivial. I don't mind at all having the captions at the bottom; it's easy to scroll past the flags; and the captioning problems seem to be trivial. Comparing media Viewer on Hong Kong that with Portal:Hong Kong (where there is only one image at a fraction of the size), shows such a huge gap that it almost seems unfair, as if the portal wasn't even trying to be useful. Single postage stamp vs full-gallery is a non-contest. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 13:07, 26 November 2019 (UTC) reply
BrownHairedGirl, I think the whole thing is apples and oranges, but you are certainly entitled to your opinion. I would not be opposed to having a page in Portal:Hong Kong that gives access to a well-done Media Viewer gallery. That gallery could easily be superior to just taking the pictures from the article (that is almost by definition, as images in articles are usually not chosen and captioned in order to be used as a standalone clickthrough gallery). The "postage stamp" gallery also has different use cases than the full screen one, especially when the focus is on both text and image. The problems you find trivial can't be fixed without negatively affecting the article, which is not a good at all. — Kusma ( t· c) 13:41, 26 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Kusma, just to be clear (as I am not technology-minded), are you saying that the gallery on Maryland highway system#Gallery (e.g. all 4 Maryland roads FA articles with caption link to the article), is inferior to what is on Portal:Maryland roads? I thought it was at least as good, and obviously, the capion can be expanded if needed, and, most importantly, it can be viewed on mobile? thanks. Britishfinance ( talk) 22:01, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Britishfinance, I'd say they both do their job well (if you enjoy photographs of roads), but they do different jobs. Both can be viewed on mobile (the technical problems are with a different form of presentation). — Kusma ( t· c) 11:58, 26 November 2019 (UTC) reply

"FA/GA search bar"

  • Picking up on a point discussed under #Manual of style above, there seems to be a search capability into the main FA/GA database per FAC/GAN. What we could create is a "FA/GA search bar", which would be a button/template bar that when pressed for a topic, would present, in a standardised format, the main FA (articles and list) for a topic, plus all the GA articles, preferably ranked by pageviews (e,g, most read first); or other agreed method of ranking.
This would fix any issues of FORKING (e.g. selective lists of GA articles), or lists being out-of-date (the FAC/GAN database is live) when portals are abandoned. Having a search bar that links into a live database, displaying results in a standardized format, is surely a better technology solution than customized, localized, sub-lists of FA/GA articles in various non-MOS "scrapbook-type" formats? Wanted to also ping BrownHairedGirl on this (as well, as the interesting/insightful comments from Kusma per above. thanks. Britishfinance ( talk) 19:43, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
We do have topical lists of FAs/GAs of various types, most of them autogenerated by User:JL-Bot (compare User:JL-Bot/Project content for some options). I am not sure that people really search for "quality articles related to Maryland" unless they want to show off how great WikiProject Maryland is; these lists tend to be more for discovery than for searching in my opinion. But maybe I am wrong. Discovering images based on quality is another matter, and Commons has some really great tools for that: commons:Help:FastCCI gives you amazing galleries of pictures (probably) related to a certain topic. All of these automated things can of course fail (but not in the same way that handmade things fail)... But we are a bit offtopic here: we are trying to determine what portals should be, not how to make portals redundant ;) — Kusma ( t· c) 20:59, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Thanks Kusma. Isn't presenting the main FA/GA article exactly what portals are for (everything else is duplication, like NavBoxes). I don't have the skill level to use the JL-Bot (I don't even understand it, unfortunately), however, if I have a button or bar called "FA/GA Maryland" that when pushed on an article in mainspace, automatically brings up a standardized MOS'ed page that shows all FA/FA list articles for Maryland (couple of lines of into plus main picture), plus the GA topic article list (but ranked according to a pre-agreed consensus like pageviews etc.), wouldn't that be a better technology solution than having localised portals with the associated issues? I don't think that JL-Bot gives that?
We could solve a massive amount of MfD issues with portals (including FORKING, out-of-date etc, with such a solution, and help the FA/GA process? Obviously, we can also add Commons photos in here as well - and again, the key point being that useful changes to the button/bar will immediately transclude such changes across everything.
Put is another way, if we had such an "FA/GA search bar" (where the topic name is included in the bar - E.g. you would have an "FA/GA Maryland" button/bar that could be transcluded onto all Maryland articles), pasted into main articles, and an editor came along and said "Lets instead build individual portals for each topic that will carry a static sub-list of FA/GA article for each topic at a given time (and I will decide the actual list), that I will maintain and keep relevant/up-to-date", we would laugh at them? Britishfinance ( talk) 21:22, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Britishfinance: As we found out in this discussion above, we don't agree with each other on that point. Portals do not just present "all related FAs/GAs", and given how random and niche many of our FAs/GAs are, that is not even necessarily something particularly worth doing. (I'm not interested in displaying a hundred different battleships and submarines on Portal:Germany, but I do like displaying lots of DYKs and selected anniversaries). YMMV. — Kusma ( t· c) 21:38, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Thanks Kusma. I don't know if there is a similar automated way to do DYKs – E.g. is there a DYK central database? I have ignored the DYKs/anniversaries, as at all portal MfDs (or at least the ones I have seen), these lists are usually in the worst shape (untouched for a decade in most cases). I guess there are still going to be a group of highly-maintained portals that have everything and could be sustainable on their own (i.e. the Main Page), however, I think it could be useful if we can swap an abandoned out-of-date portal, with an "FA/GA search bar", that might at least be able to keep the FAC/GAN showcasing going? thanks. (hadn't seen YMMV before, great term). Britishfinance ( talk) 21:52, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Britishfinance, I dunno about nay such search tool. Haven't seen it.
However, there is a serious problem with using FA/GA lists for reader-facing pages. The set of articles in such a list reflects the choices made by editors on which articles to develop. Editors legitimately choose their own interests, but while each individual FA/GA will be carefully scrutinised for NPOV, the set of articles on a given topic will not. The result can be a hideously unbalanced list.
The results have been seen on three portals:
NPOV can't upheld by automated tools or by editors who fail to exercise good judgement. Unless lists are chosen by editors who both know the topic area and are capable exercising good and transparent judgements, anything like this will create POV problems.
Portals need to be built by editors who have wide and deep knowledge of the topic area, and exercise good judgement, and work as transparently and collaboratively as possible. Neither drive-by list-makers nor automated tools can do that. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 21:27, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
BrownHairedGirl, this tool doesn't exist (to my mind), we would have to create it. I agree that the correlation between FA/GA article topics and what is important in a topic area is very variable (and zero in cases). However, that is the core issue with portals. Their only unique purpose is to showcase FA/GA articles – as soon as they try to become content portals and offer non-FA/GA articles, we get into FORKING against the better structured/scrutinized Main Article. There is just no way to square this circle, EXCEPT, to recognise that the only real unique feature of portals is to showcase FA/GA.
Therefore, having an automated link to the central database of FA/GA articles, that automatically produces in a standardised format, the full list of FA/FA lists on a topic (which is never that huge), plus the relevant GA topic articles, but ranked in some automated non-POV way (e.g. by pageviews), is surely a better technology solution than standalone individual portals whose only real unique purpose is to showcase FA/GA material based on a non-standardised way? Britishfinance ( talk 21:36, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • @ Britishfinance, if you showcase FA/GA, then there are two possible ways of building the list:
  1. a full set of FA/GA, which will nearly always be unbalanced. WP:NPOV is core policy, so that's not an option.
  2. a subset selected for balance, which requires those skilled editors, working transparently.
That applies regardless of whether the list is displayed (or accessed via) a portal page or an article. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 22:01, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • BrownHairedGirl, but I am not trying to use FA/GA as a content guide to the topic – that is the job of the Main Article. Even with a skilled editor (per your 2.), a selection of FA/GA to approximate balance of a content guide is always going to be an inferior version of the Main Article. However, isn't it acceptable to show readers, should they want it, a list of all FA (there are never that many FA articles), and a pre-agreed standardized list of GA articles (e.g. by pageviews) via an FA/GA search bar"? Ultimately, listing FA/GA articles and adding a frame that rotates between them, is one of the main things portals do? It can't be any worse than the current system? thanks. Britishfinance ( talk) 22:09, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Discussion: Introduction and summary

As stated above, I feel that it's important that we tackle these sections one at a time, because the results of this discussion will inform the next discussion. This discussion is about what content to put in the introduction of our portal guideline. As stated on the main workshop page, this introduction needs to provide a summary of what portals are, and what their purpose is. Please post your thoughts below and let's see if we can come to an agreement on what this opening paragraph should say. ‑Scottywong | [talk] || 16:54, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Initial discussion
The following is a closed discussion. Please do not modify it.
    • I agree that we should discuss one idea at a time, and I am not sure how we got this far by skipping over some sections. I would like to be sure that we don't move on to the next topic until the moderator decides that we have discussed the previous ones at enough length. Robert McClenon ( talk) 04:55, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • There seemed to not be too much interest in discussing the very general concepts, so I decided to just skip to this section. I get the feeling that there isn't much disagreement on what the goals of the guideline should be, and what elements a guideline will need to include. We can always return to that discussion if necessary. ‑Scottywong | [prattle] || 17:18, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • It is a good idea to do things one at a time. But shouldn't we agree on the purposes of portals first before writing the introduction? I assume the introduction would summarize those purposes. -- Hecato ( talk) 18:53, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    • Exactly. The introduction of the guideline will define the purpose of portals. So, let's figure out and agree upon the purpose of portals, and then the introduction will write itself. ‑Scottywong | [confabulate] || 21:20, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply

User:Bermicourt listed a couple potential ideas for what portals are above, I'll repost them here so that they're in the place where this is going to be discussed. We can use this as a launching point. Thought on these?

  • To showcase a topic, encouraging readers to explore it further (this has failed in the past because portals were almost unlinked from mainspace - a fault of the guidelines - and not searchable, both can be fixed)
  • To act as a navaid akin to a category tree, but with the advantage that a whole topic can be seen on one page (again failed in the past for the reasons above)
  • To act as a tool for project editors to expand and improve topic coverage (I have used this very effectively, but it's never been seen as a portal purpose) -- Quote by Bermicourt

Purpose proposal 1

  • Aright, in that vein, I would like to expand on that list and propose the following. Ranked from most important to least important:
The purposes of Portals are...
  1. Introduce users to the most important topics in a topic area. Encourage readers to explore it further and act as a navigational aid.
  2. Showcase high quality content.
  3. Advertise WikiProjects and related Wikimedia
  4. Act as a tool for WikiProject editors to expand and improve topic coverage.
  5. (conditional) Keep readers up-to-date with recent developments in the field (e.g. in scientific fields or big sport events like the Olympics)

Can we get an opinion poll on these? Are all of these reasonable, should the order of importance be different? -- Hecato ( talk) 21:58, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Responses to Proposal 1
The following is a closed discussion. Please do not modify it.

Response by Levivich

  • Here are my thoughts on the 5 purposes :
Swim on, noble marine mammals. Robert McClenon ( talk) 05:14, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    1. Topic introduction and navigational aid, similar to a table of contents, is what I see as the primary, and perhaps the only, purpose of portals.
    2. I think this contradicts #1. WP:TFA on the main page showcases our best work. If a reader wants to see our best articles, they can go to WP:FA or WP:GA. The reader who wants to learn about art and goes to Portal:Arts won't be well-served by seeing randomly-chosen, but well-written articles about art. Rather, they want to see the topic logically-presented. Hopefully the major articles about art would be high-quality already, but I don't think a primary purpose of portals can be to both act as a topic introduction/navigational aid, and showcase our best articles about a topic. It's got to be one or the other–"important" articles should be presented rather than "high quality" articles, and so I go with #1 over #2. That said, no objection if, e.g., Portal:Arts had a link to WP:FA#Art or WP:GA/AA.
    3. I'm not convinced of the benefit of having portals advertise WikiProjects and I'm not sure what advertising "related Wikimedia" means. But if I understand the gist of this, it's saying portals should be used as a tool to recruit reader to become editors. I guess I'm not really against any page being used as a tool to recruit editors, but I'm just not understanding what this would mean if it were recognized in the guideline as a purpose of portals. Links to related WikiProjects seem harmless enough.
    4. I get that a portal can be a useful tool to help a WikiProject get organized, but I don't think reader-facing content should have, as a "purpose", acting as a tool to assist editors. Whenever reader and editor interests conflict, the reader interest should prevail. So, I see no reason to list this as a purpose of portals, even as a low-priority purpose (because I don't think we should have multiple purposes and prioritize them, but just one purpose to focus on).
    5. WP:NOTNEWS – I don't think the purpose of any part of Wikipedia should be to keep readers up to date about recent developments about anything. – Leviv ich 23:40, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    Regarding your objection to #2, perhaps there is a way to combine #1 and #2 so that they can work at the same time? For instance, something along the lines of, "Introduce users to the most important topics in a topic area, prioritizing the highest quality content, if available." I agree that we don't want to prioritize showing off the best articles over presenting a logical overview of the subject. But, if FA/GA content is available, it would make sense to direct readers to those articles first. ‑Scottywong | [confer] || 00:04, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    I would say no, there isn't a way to combine #1 and #2, because I feel they are in direct conflict with one another–a conflict that cannot be surmounted. (I'm going to pick on Portal:Arts just because it's the first one on the main page, nothing personal against the editors who maintain it.) Portal:Arts, currently, features our best work about Arts, but it does not provide a good introduction to the topic, nor is it a useful navigational aid. I click on Portal:Arts, and if I want a list of the major artists or major works of art, that's nowhere on that page. All I get is the category tree, where "artists" isn't one of the entries. If I click on "creative works" to see a list of the major works of art, I get to Category:Creative works, which doesn't list any creative works, but instead lists subcategories, none of which are "works by importance". I don't know where on Wikipedia I can go if I want to see a list of the most important artists or the most important works of art. Portal:Arts should be that place.
    Portal:Arts should also tell me about things like art movements, methods and schools of art criticism, and types of art, like visual arts, performance art, literature, etc. Right now, those latter three are just in the category section, with the other Arts subcategories. There's no organized presentation of the topic. Instead, what Portal:Arts does–and it does it well–is showcase our best work in the field of Arts. So we have the featured article, featured biography, featured audio, featured picture, DYK, ITN, etc. But topically, it's just a random presentation of art topics.
    Last example: if I click on "More featured biographies" at Portal:Arts, it takes me to a list of Arts biographies. A ha! A list of the most important artists, no doubt! Nope, Portal:Arts/Featured biography has a list of featured articles that are biographies of art-related persons. Most of them are kind of obscure. One of them is about the subject of the Mona Lisa, Lisa del Giocondo. That's in the rotation for appearing on Portal:Arts. What's not in the rotation is the article about the artist who painted the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci. That's not an FA, just a GA. In fairness, da Vinci is mentioned in the blurb about del Giocondo, but that is entirely backwards in my view. Portal:Arts definitely needs, somewhere on there, to have something about or a link to Leonardo da Vinci. Lisa del Giocondo is not really a major topic in the world of Arts... it's kind of a "hey, it's the lady who posed for the Mona Lisa"... it's trivia, really. But we feature it at Portal:Arts, because we're prioritizing #2 over #1. But #2 shouldn't really be a consideration at all. We should list the major sub-topics for each topic (e.g., at Portal:Arts, the major artists, major works of art, major schools of art, etc.), irrespective of the quality of those articles. That's my view, anyway. (#2–a showcase portal–would be good expansion of our WP:FA ad WP:GA pages; e.g., I would replace WP:FA#Arts and WP:GA/AA with something like the current Portal:Arts.) – Leviv ich 00:45, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    In theory, high-importance topics should get more attention, resulting in high-quality articles. In practice, FA and GA evaluation do not take into account the importance of the article, but WP:VITAL does. I would suggest that we work towards different outputs within the portals distinguishing levels of importance of the subjects being showcased. I would add that the history of art is not all about a handful of great artists. It is also about many thousands of little-known artists who made a small but distinct contribution to the field. BD2412 T 01:16, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Clarification: "related Wikimedia" refers to Commons, Wikisource, Wikinews, Wikiquote, etc. Related sister projects of the Wikipedia with their own hubs/categories on the subject area of the portal. -- Hecato ( talk) 08:38, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by MJL

  • Comment. Okay, so I have a unique perspective in this portal affair. Unlike seriously 99% of people in the world, I was a person who would actually visit portals semi-regularly before I started editing. Here is my take on this proposal:
    1. I think portals are perfect for helping users get into the weeds of a topic area as well as being a good introduction.
    2. Not sure I have any clue that I get where Lev is coming from on this. A portal done right would essentially be structured in a Wikipedia:Summary style with more visibility for well-written articles. There are ways you can nudge a reader towards, say, a GA-class article rather than a stub.
    3. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    4. If this is incidental, I don't mind it. I just don't think it should be a primary focus for portals if they are reader-facing (which honestly, they don't have to be).
    5. Nope. I'm not into it. That'd be a lot of maintenance for not that much payoff. Portal:Current events should be the only one like that.
That's all I got. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 01:46, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ MJL: to your #5, just FYI the template {{ transclude selected current events}} automatically extracts subject-specific entries from Portal:Current events subpages and thus significantly reduces the maintenance required; that template is in use on Portal:Nigeria, Portal:Chess and many other portals. UnitedStatesian ( talk) 17:09, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ UnitedStatesian: The template has been known to give bugged out results for certain portals though, right? – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 17:17, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ MJL:I think careful parameter selection (and complete avoidance on certain types of portals) largely eliminates that risk. UnitedStatesian ( talk) 17:21, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ UnitedStatesian: That does change the calculation a bit then. Still, it probably shouldn't be considered a "core" purpose or goal of all portals. It feels like just a nice thing to tack onto some. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 17:29, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by BD2412

  • My comments:
    1. - absolutely, let's have this.
    2. - absolutely, let's have this too. Well-written articles on minor aspects of a field still display the breadth of the field.
    3. - I see no reason not to do this.
    4. - This is more the purview of WikiProjects.
    5. - Yes, and we should find ways to coordinate the activity of main page ITN work (or revive Wikinews to a greater degree).
  • Thanks. BD2412 T 04:19, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by Kusma

  • My thoughts:
    1. - yes, that should be a big part of what portals do (and few portals are currently very good at this -- there should be more than the main article lead, a category tree and a navbox).
    2. - yes, we should draw attention to our best work. (DYKs could also be seen as part of this)
    3. - absolutely, portals should advertise that Wikipedia is not completed and always needs new editors, and try to engage readers
    4. - In a systematic way, that should be done by WikiProjects. In less systematic ways, this is covered by the previous point.
    5. - That is a huge amount of work, and should ideally be done on Wikinews. A proper NPOV balance here is also very difficult to achieve. This shouldn't be outlawed, but it is not a central purpose of all portals.
  • Good suggestions overall, though. — Kusma ( t· c) 11:11, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by Thryduulf

  • I support all of these, but 5 should be optional - a portal that does not do this should not be seen as having "failed" or be used as a reason for deletion. In a fast-moving field (e.g. UK politics) this will be a mammoth task and the latest developments are not always going to be the most important; in a slow-moving field (e.g. Shakespeare) there will be long periods of time without major developements; in very broad scoped portals (e.g. Science) there is just too much going on in too many disparate areas for this to be that useful. For portals with a relative moderate scope in moderately-paced fields (e.g. Rail transport) then it will be a useful thing that can be accomplished. Thryduulf ( talk) 12:41, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by BritishFinance

  • I think the above list is highlighting a core problem with portals. In essence, Portals are uniquely about highlighting FA/GA content (e.g. they are not really "portals", but more like a gallery or emporia of rated articles). Because our FA/GA articles in a given topic area are not always correlated with the most important sub-topics, Portals have been importing non-GA/FA articles to beef up this aspect. However, this is where they squarely conflict, and fork, with the topic-Main Articles, which is the best structured and scrutinized guide to the topic in WP (by definition). Main Articles also equipped with the main NavBoxes on the topic, which is another area the Portals have been duplicating (e.g. acting as a navigational guide). To resolve this, I think that portals should commit more to going one of two ways:
A. Being Gallerias. Stop trying to duplicate the Main Articles/Navboxes, and become a unique galleria of interesting articles in a topic. Such a galleria will not act as a topic-guide (which the Main Article is, and we want to avoid forking), but a series of galleries on selections of articles that topic-enthusiast readers could find interesting. For example, as well as listing the highest-ranked topic articles (the original FA/GA purpose of portals I believe), we could list the "most read" topic articles (like a top 10), the "most edited" topic articles, the "largest" topic articles, and other noteworthy/interesting samples of the article directory. This would be a unique purpose of a topic portal (not replicated anywhere else), and would avoid duplication/forking with the Main Article+NavBoxes and the WikiProjects. OR;
B. Be a true portal. The WP term "portal" is a bit misleading as WP portals are not real portals in the sense a reader would expect. Because the Main Article (plus its Main NavBoxes), is really the true "content portal" (e.g best way to navigate the topic), portals could take on more of the heavy lifting on acting as a window into the WikiProjects. In fact, there are many portals and font WikiProject pages that look very alike? We either want a person to read and/or contribute. Reading is either the Main Article (for structured content guide), or the Galleria-focus (per A. above for "interesting" slices of WP-content on the topic). However, contributing means quickly accessing into the world of the WikiProject. In this regard, Portals should be the "front page" of a WikiProject (and visa versa).
Therefore, as I read the above list, I end up with the following:
  1. - This is the job of the topic Main Article, and in 99% of cases, the Main Article is far more heavily edited and scrutinized than the portal. I have spent the last few weeks at MfD seeing portal-after-portal who give a forked and materially inferior guides to the topic than the Main Article. In all cases, we should stop portals trying to focus on this area (e.g. it is neither A or B above).
  2. The original "galleria" concept of portals (per A. above). Yes, but, we need WikiProject/broader input into these lists, and we need more than just FA/GA to male portals viable (per my point A. above - make it a more interesting galleria or other selections of topic-articles); I am not sure readers are that into FA/GA per se.
  3. The "portal into WikiProjects" concept, that I think we should consider (per B. above); however, why not go the full step and make the portal the front page of the WikiProjet (and visa versa). It would automatically link WikiProjects into the Main Article, which would be a big plus, and would really give portals a future?
  4. This is a duplication of 2 and of 3. We should have WikiProjects inputting into the list of "galleria" content per item 2, and I think we should make portals into the front page of WikiProjects (per B. above); in any case, if 2. or 3. are done without full WikiProject input, we are back to forking (and what we see at MfD).
  5. We just don't have the bandwidth or resources to do this in a meaningful way. Only if the portal became a true "portal" (per B. above), AND the WikiProject on the topic was very active, could this be contemplated. I don't think anybody would object to a WikiProject doing this (but again, what item B. is preferred).
Really sorry for the long response, but I am trying to get to core principals that could materially alter the future usefulness of portals (and give them a future), and avoid their current, and quite dramatic, state of abandonment and inferior duplication of items found elsewhere on WP. Britishfinance ( talk) 21:05, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Britishfinance, I agree that the main article is always going to be the best text-based, linearly structured treatment of a topic that we will have. On the other hand, many of our articles are very long and fail to give a good at-a-glance impression of the topic. That's a niche where portals could play a role. Most currently don't, partly because we select content to display based on article quality, not on relevance to the topic. (Some of TTH's infamous navbox based one minute portals actually did a better job at this than the handwritten ones). — Kusma ( t· c) 09:13, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Thanks Kusma. If portals try to make up for any failings in the structure/lede etc. of the Main Article, with an at-a-glance impression, they could then end up further down the rabbit hole of forking? E.g. if the Main Article has such issues, isn't it better to spend time fixing the Main Article (e.g. better lede, better sectioning etc.), in a more heavily edited and scrutinized environment, rather than trying to "overlay" a fix on the portal page? In many MfDs, where the Main Article is tagged for issues, and has been for years, the portal is usually in even worse shape?
I would like to find a role that could give portals a real future (hence my A and B above), but I just can't see one where a portal is providing any sort of alternative topic guide to the Main Article + NavBox? Was that was a concept that made more sense a decade ago where Main Articles were less developed, and NavBoxes might not have existed? However, if a portal was a unique galleria of different interesting sections of the thousands of articles that exist on a topic (A. above), AND/OR, the front page of the WikiProject (B. above), then I could see some kind of a future there. thanks. Britishfinance ( talk) 09:39, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Britishfinance, both of your directions A and B have some rather attractive points. However, I am not sure that these things and the "overview" have to be mutually exclusive. A tab approach (look at Portal:Canada for the technical realisation) might be able to do both A and B, and we could include a page that has a "slideshow" type box for all of the provinces of Canada as well as maps and a couple of high level subarticles of Canada. Clever use of transclusion (or Wikidata) could make the maintenance effort bearable (although the downside is that article lead sections are not always written to be perfect for use in a portal box), and of course the other option is to make all static content as timeless as possible (don't include BLPs, don't include "current" presidents etc.) As for the history: portals were created mostly as mini main pages, based on an idea coming from the French Wikipedia. We already had navboxes similar to today, but the category system was still a bit of a mixture between a tree system and a tag system (it has much improved since). Personally I have never been too fond of navboxes; I prefer to use article links, categories or portals. — Kusma ( t· c) 10:39, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Thanks Kusma, and very interesting re history. I also agree that A and B do not need to be exclusive – E.g. it could be the front page of the WikiProject and have galleria of various interesting cross-sections of the topic directory (as decided by the WikiProject). thanks. Britishfinance ( talk) 19:13, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Hmm, I hadn't thought about tabs. I would support purpose #2 (galleria) if it was on a separate tab from the main portal page. (Or even down "below the fold" on the main portal page.) – Leviv ich 19:57, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by Robert McClenon

RMcC on Proposal 1

  1. - No. The main article on a topic should introduce and summarize the topic. Editors who want to focus on introducing the topic should be encouraged to work on improving the article.
  2. - The Main Page is a portal to the encyclopedia, and it is a showcase for a Featured Article, and for a few other things.
  3. - WikiProjects should advertise themselves.
  4. - Not sure I understand, but think I disagree.
  5. - Why not?

Robert McClenon ( talk) 05:14, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by Knowledgekid87

My responses:

  1. - I am unsure what if any navigational aid portals will accomplish unless they are properly linked.
  2. - Portals are best to showcase featured content as an encouragement to aim for good articles.
  3. - Projects need editors, if there is a way to get editors to join Wiki-projects then I am all for it. As it is Projects are already linked to portals.
  4. - As others have said, this is an area for Wikiprojects.
  5. - This should only be done if portals grow to be large and successful.

- Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 01:21, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by Sm8900

  1. - yes, it is highly beneficial to enable users to find articles more easily.
  2. - yes, as navigational overviews, highlighting good articles, seems totally fine.
  3. - it is very worthwhile draw more editors to Projects
  4. - I think portals are a tool for anyone who wishes to use them. so allowing them to be a tool for Projects seems totally fine to me.
  5. - Yes. in doing so, we are not keeping readers up to date, we are keeping articles up to date. that doesn't make Wikipedia into a news service; it makes it into Wikipedia; i.e. an encyclopedia that anyone can edit any time, to add new data when appropriate.

-- Sm8900 ( talk) 15:53, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by Scottywong

  1. - I see this as being the main purpose of portals. While articles also naturally act as a navigational aid, portals are distinctly different. Articles require you to read through a significant portion of the article to find links to related topics. By contrast, portals act more like a concept tree, allowing you to quickly view a broad topic and rapidly understand its different facets without having to read an entire article on the details.
  2. - While I agree that articles shouldn't necessarily be selected based on quality alone, I think it makes sense to prioritize higher quality articles over lower quality ones.
  3. - I think that portals should primarily benefit readers. If we do too much to prioritize WikiProjects and other internal wiki-stuff, we'll end up confusing casual readers.
  4. - This can (and should) be done more effectively within the subpages of the Wikiproject itself.
  5. - To the extent that portals should be kept up-to-date and relevant. If the subject is one that is rapidly changing and growing, then it is important that the selected articles are regularly updated to reflect new articles on new topics in that emerging field.

‑Scottywong | [soliloquize] || 17:33, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by Hecato

For the sake of the Consensus-o-meter. Also it gives me a chance to respond to some ideas above without WP:BLUDGEONing too much.

  1. - I think Kusma said it best. Few portals currently do this (well) and I think that is a big part of the reason why Portals are unpopular in large parts of the community. I do not agree with the idea that articles should be the only way to navigate Wikipedia. Navigation per hyperlinked nouns in running text is a great navigational method and one of the reasons why Wikipedia is so successful, but it also comes with its downsides. A portal can be more focused and deliberate in its navigation. People don't have to scan a text first to find the important topics. And it can be more extensive than some (quickly overfilled) navbox, which requires manual hovering to get a glimpse of what each topic is about.
  2. - I think this makes sense as well, but I think it should be a secondary goal of portals. BD2412 made an especially good point in so far that showing random selections of high quality articles can give a wider overview of the topic area.
  3. - I think we can do this without infringing too much on the first two purposes. I do not see any real downsides. Though Scottywong maybe has a point in that portals should primarily serve the readers. But a modest introduction to the associated WikiProject at the bottom half of the portal should be acceptable.
  4. - An interesting idea by Bermicourt. But after reading some of the arguments here I also think this should only be incidental rather than done on purpose by the portal designer. A related question we should discuss later would be whether red links in portals are acceptable as a way to encourage editing.
  5. - It makes sense for some portals, but like Thryduulf said, it should be optional. Only some portals should manually keep readers up to date and even then, it should only be done when there are already articles about these new developments. There are ways to do this by transcluding from the Current Events portal and Wikinews. Both are somewhat limited in their coverage though.

-- Hecato ( talk) 19:03, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

(FWIW, I already counted you as a "yes" on all 5 points, as you were the proposer. But, it doesn't change the percentages that much either way.) ‑Scottywong | [verbalize] || 00:40, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Scottywong: I think you forgot to count Thryduulf then. The count was 10 before I added myself as 11. They did not have a headline either. -- Hecato ( talk) 00:44, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Ahh ok, you might be right, thanks. ‑Scottywong | [express] || 03:25, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by SportingFlyer

Seeing how this discussion has been constructive so far, I thought I'd jump in as I had originally steered very clear.

  • 1. Yes. I think there's some confusion now as portals should now serve as introductions or showcases as a specific topic. I think the "main article" argument is a logical fallacy, as the portals are meant to showcase not only the main article, but different elements of the topic the main article may not cover. I just updated a specific portal I'm very familiar with, and while I learned some things - portals should best be aimed at people who want to learn more about a specific topic area, as opposed to being a page users go to on a regular basis. The best portals do an excellent job of showcasing content and drawing you into the encyclopaedia, which is a bit different from how I think people access the encyclopaedia generally (Google a topic -> click the Wikipedia result.) It should also put all of the navigational aids in one spot for easy reading.
  • 2. Yes. Portals should be a way to showcase the best-written articles on a topic. There are only 365 days in the year on the main page, but a good article in a specific topic should be advertised in portal space.
  • 3. Yes Though this shouldn't be their specific purpose - I wouldn't mind seeing portals replace the main pages of WikiProjects
  • 4. This dovetails in with 3, but I don't think it's their primary purpose.
  • 5. No. SportingFlyer T· C 23:51, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Response by Bermicourt

  • My comments:
    1. - definitely, let's have this, but let's ensure it's well linked as a navaid unlike most current portals because the ex-guidelines didn't encourage strong linking.
    2. - this is not essential, but enhances the 1st purpose.
    3. - why not?
    4. - I have found them invaluable for this purpose and created or expanded thousands of articles because I had a clear overview of the gaps and coverage. It is not well understood, however, and the guidelines need to explain how to get the best out of this function.
    5. - This is maintenance intensive and will only work for some portals e.g. Portal:Germany. It should be seen as "nice to have" not essential.
  • Can someone update the consensus-o-meter? Cheers. Bermicourt ( talk) 11:47, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
     Done – Leviv ich 19:51, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Consensus-o-meter

Total Percent
One 10.5 13
81%
Two 11.5 13
89%
Three 10.5 13
81%
Four 6 13
46%
Five 5.5 13
42%

I know it's not a vote, but I did want to get a rough feel for consensus here thus far. Everyone has agreed to point one, there is mostly agreement on points two and three, and there is less agreement on point four. Point five has the least amount of support, though (numbers-wise).
It might be more helpful to pick apart the points of more contention to really figure out what the consensus is there. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 17:29, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I'm not so sure it's a straight yes/no for all of them, rather a must/should/can/shouldn't/cannot (I don't recall any must nots). Thryduulf ( talk) 21:49, 16 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I updated the meter to capture more recent votes. I gave a full point for any , a half point for any or , and no points for any . ‑Scottywong | [verbalize] || 17:40, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I think it's encouraging to see 3 out of 5 proposals appear to be for the most part supported, this means that we can build upon that going forward. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 14:43, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Indeed. It's nice to know the chasm separating people here isn't that particularly wide. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 02:39, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I love this and think we should use the WP:CONSENSOMETER more often. – Leviv ich 19:52, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I don't particularly like it, because we're supposed to be having a discussion. A raw person count doesn't take into account the strength of the arguments or the degree of support. isaacl ( talk) 07:42, 29 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Off-topic discussion

Another List

I tried, above, to include a list of possible purposes of portals that were discussed in an RFC a few months ago. It had eight points. Do I get a chance to propose it, or has it been overtaken by a five-item list, or can they be compared to each other? Robert McClenon ( talk) 06:09, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Robert McClenon: Some of those were kind of silly like the purpose of portals being the entertainment of their creators. And your RfC seemed rather inconclusive, which I think was due to it being too unfocused and broad. But feel free to propose more purposes for portals once this proposal is through and we can agree on some (or none) of the purposes I have proposed. My intention was not to force my ideas on the rest of the group, but rather to get things rolling quickly instead of being stuck arguing for a month. -- Hecato ( talk) 09:50, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I can see some utility in that direction. Many editors would love to see an article they created or worked on be featured on the main page, but opportunities for such slots are very limited. For editors working in a particular area, having their work featured on the subject-area portal for the topic could be the next best thing (if portals are constructed to facilitate this). I could see something like a competition to collect badges for developing articles for some number of portals worthy of being the featured article on each. BD2412 T 19:28, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Not sure that's what Robert had in mind. But still an interesting idea, maybe as a way to make portals more popular/make the community more involved. Probably too early for this stage though, we should remember it for later. (Edit: this is my opinion, not a ruling or something) -- Hecato ( talk) 20:44, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply
User:Scottywong - Did you appoint User:Hecato to be in charge of controlling the agenda by deciding what proposals we consider in what order? Robert McClenon ( talk) 06:09, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I am fully aware that the creation of portals for the amusement of their creators is silly. I am also fully aware that that is the history of how we got 5,000 portals with an objective of 10,000 before a moratorium was called. Some portals have been created for frivolous reasons, and any serious discussion of portals should take history, both silly and non-silly, into account. Robert McClenon ( talk) 06:13, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
If User:Robert McClenon checks the history of this page he will notice that I posted my proposal before he created his "Goals of Portals" section (in the wrong place by the way, ignoring the giant signs that indicate what discussion and section are to be used). Similar to User:Levivich, I would also like to urge User:Robert McClenon to only propose things that he thinks are reasonable proposals that might actually gain traction, instead of just throwing things in the room to make gotcha points. -- Hecato ( talk) 10:01, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Robert McClenon and Hecato, take it easy. Remember, we're here to collaboratively and constructively find agreement on portal concepts, not to bicker about the past. And, no one has been appointed to be in charge of anything within this discussion, except to the extent that I am trying to act as a neutral moderator. Robert, if you'd like to propose a different set of goals, you (and anyone else) are free to start a "Proposal 2" or "Proposal 3" section below. If any proposal gets significantly stronger consensus than the rest, then we'll probably go with that proposal. ‑Scottywong | [yak] || 17:15, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I'm only going to say this one more time, sir. Calm down. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 19:25, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Proposal 1 summary

It would seem to me that items 1-3 of proposal 1 have gotten pretty strong consensus. I would propose that we include those 3 goals in the guideline for now, and in the meantime, we can see if any other proposals for goals are put forth that gain consensus. ‑Scottywong | [gossip] || 23:55, 19 November 2019 (UTC) I've listed those three goals (and slightly reworded them) on the main page at User:Scottywong/Portal guideline workspace#Introduction and summary for now, to keep track of them. They can still be changed at any time. ‑Scottywong | [spill the beans] || 00:08, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

My apologies for replying to a closed discussion, but I see problems here. I agree, in theory, with goals 1 and 2, but they are incompatible. Pointing out important topics, and acting as a navigational aid, are compatible, but showcasing high quality content is a different issue. IMO, Goal 1 is better handled by the articles themselves, and Outlines, than by the present incarnations of Portals. Goals 3 and (no consensus) 4 should probably only be in editor-facing material; perhaps if users try to edit the Portals, they should be provided with pointers to the WikiProjects. I feel goal 5 is above our pay grade.
Please let me know if there is anywhere I can better contribute to this discussion. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:16, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply

Purpose proposal 2

In July 2019, I proposed the following possible reasons for portals:

1. Showcasing our best content to readers. The Main Page, for example, is a portal with this very purpose. The Main Page is also very labor-intensive. Showcasing is work.
2. Navigating the encyclopedia. Along with lists, navigation templates, and categories, portals are one way readers can navigate the encyclopedia.
3. Containing content not available elsewhere on the encyclopedia. Some editors have stated that portals contain content, so that content is harmfully deleted when portals are deleted.
3A. Unique, forked or transcluded encyclopedic content
3B. Explanatory content such as guidance and reviews (others?)
4. Planning and management of WikiProjects. Portals allow editors to keep track of the current and planned scope of the project's coverage.
5. Metatext and reviews of the topic.
6. A statement of the importance of the topic. The provision that portals should be about "broad subject areas" is more commonly remembered and quoted than the qualifying clause, "which will attract readers and portal maintainers". A portal is seen as a declaration that a topic is a broad subject area.
7. An invitation to readers and editors to develop particular articles in a topic area.
8. Fun, or exercise. Some editors like making portals.

Robert McClenon ( talk) 21:38, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Responses to Proposal 2
The following is a closed discussion. Please do not modify it.

I think that this list of reasons to create portals is descriptive, in that it lists reasons why editors create portals, while Proposal 1 is normative, listing reasons why we may think that portals should be created. Robert McClenon ( talk) 06:40, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Collapsed at request of moderator. Robert McClenon ( talk) 06:40, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I will try to map between Proposal 1 and Proposal 2:

Proposal 1 - Numberingt Proposal 1 - Description Proposal 2 - Numbering Proposal 2 - Description
1 Introduce users to the most important topics in a topic area. Encourage readers to explore it further and act as a navigational aid. 2, 7 Navigating the encyclopedia. Along with lists, navigation templates, and categories, portals are one way readers can navigate the encyclopedia.. An invitation to readers and editors to develop particular articles in a topic area.
2 Showcase high quality content. 1 Showcasing our best content to readers. The Main Page, for example, is a portal with this very purpose. The Main Page is also very labor-intensive. Showcasing is work.
3 Advertise WikiProjects and related Wikimedia 4 Planning and management of WikiProjects. Portals allow editors to keep track of the current and planned scope of the project's coverage.
4 Act as a tool for WikiProject editors to expand and improve topic coverage. 4 Planning and management of WikiProjects. Portals allow editors to keep track of the current and planned scope of the project's coverage.
5 Keep readers up-to-date with recent developments in the field (e.g. in scientific fields or big sport events like the Olympics) 5 Metatext and reviews of the topic.
3 Containing content not available elsewhere on the encyclopedia. Some editors have stated that portals contain content, so that content is harmfully deleted when portals are deleted.
6 A statement of the importance of the topic. The provision that portals should be about "broad subject areas" is more commonly remembered and quoted than the qualifying clause, "which will attract readers and portal maintainers". A portal is seen as a declaration that a topic is a broad subject area.
8 Fun, or exercise. Some editors like making portals.

Robert McClenon ( talk) 21:38, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Robert McClenon: I'd encourage you to simply state your proposal independently, rather than trying to map your proposal to the previous one. I think that will just increase confusion. Put forth the proposal that you think is best, and we'll comment on it. ‑Scottywong | [confess] || 00:42, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Statement by Scottywong

@ Robert McClenon: One thing I'm not clear on: do you personally support all 8 of these above goals for portals, or are you simply putting them out for discussion? If you don't support all 8 of these goals, I think it would be good for you to post your thoughts on the validity of them. ‑Scottywong | [soliloquize] || 23:49, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

As far as I can see, goals 3, 6, and 8 are the only ones that are significantly different than the goals put forth in proposal 1. And personally, I would put a next to goals 3, 6, and 8 in your list. I don't believe that these should be included in the stated goals for portals. ‑Scottywong | [soliloquize] || 23:49, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I agree with Scotty. – Leviv ich 00:25, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I also agree with Scottywong. I'm also unclear with what you mean by number 5. Number 8 is fine as a statement of fact, but it shouldn't be a purpose of portals in the same way that people enjoying fixing typos isn't a purpose of articles. Thryduulf ( talk) 10:32, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I am not presenting any of these as a valid purpose of portals, at this time. This was a list that I pulled together a few months ago, summarizing all of the arguments for or reasons for portals. If I am asked to comment on what I think are their merits, I will. I was offering this list for what I saw as completeness. If you want me to rate them, I will. Robert McClenon ( talk) 15:07, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Proposal 2 summary

This did not see a lot of discussion, but it didn't see a lot of support so folks moved on. – MJL  ‐Talk‐ ☖ 22:02, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Discussion: Criteria for determining which topics should have portals

This is the currently active discussion.
Slightly off-topic discussion about what articles should be used in a portal

Wikipedia already has three solid processes for highlighting quality material, these being FA determinations, GA determinations, and DYK. Although articles making it to DYK are often not FA or GA material, they do go through a heightened level of scrutiny and editing by DYK participants before the content is able to make it to the main page. I see no reason to reinvent the wheel on this, although there are some neat little articles that have not been evaluated for GA status for which I would not object to a process to have them featured on a portal. I would prefer that we not use portals to highlight poor articles in need of improvement. That's what WikiProjects are for, and we can use portals to promote the WikiProjects more directly. I do think, however, that we can use the potential for being featured on a portal as a means to encourage editors to work on content in specific areas. Some editors like to collect GA/FA/DYK badges, and I see no reason why we can't offer similar rewards to editors who create or improve content sufficient to get featured in a portal. BD2412 T 04:10, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply

  • I agree that Wikipedia:Content assessment should be used to determine what quality content should be displayed on a portal. But displaying quality conent is only one purpose of portals. The more important purpose (in my opinion) is navigating to the most important topics/articles in the topic scope of the portal. And the quality of those articles is less important than their relevance to the topic area.
E.g. the first priority of a portal about the Solar System should be showcasing and navigating to the articles of the Sun, the 8 planets, the asteroid belts, etc. Preferably in a visually engaging fashion, using the tools that are only available to the portal space. Showcasing quality content and new developments in the topic area would then be important but lesser priorities.-- Hecato ( talk) 11:02, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I think that can be accomplished in part through different sets of featured content, with higher-level content being more prominent on the page. BD2412 T 22:12, 15 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Since this is "inclusion criteria" though, I have to agree as I don't see a need to change the FA, GA, or DYK status. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 15:05, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • One of the problems I find at MfD is that there is often not a great correlation between the subjects that FA/GA articles are written on, and the subjects that a reader would want to cover in a topic area (in some cases there is almost zero correlation). In addition, FA/GA is a prized distinction for WP editors, however, I wonder if readers really care about FA/GA, over the usefulness of the subject. I see some portals try to bridge this gap by adding non-FA/GA articles, but then we are into forks of the Main Article (which is a better-structured topic content guide). Obviously there must be major topic areas where there is a depth of FA/GA articles on the major subject areas within the topic, however, I do wonder if the FA/GA criteria would justify larger amounts of portals? Britishfinance ( talk) 19:45, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • @ Britishfinance:, I agree, but I think this may present an opportunity to push editors towards working on obtaining at least GA status for those articles that are of highest importance to the topic area. Perhaps we provide some leeway for B-Class articles if they are of high importance. At least those have been assessed as being in reasonably good and informative shape. BD2412 T 20:07, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • In terms of practical inclusion criteria, based on some of my work:
  • Any good or featured article should automatically be able to be added to any portal template (template being: featured articles, biographies, et cetera.)
  • Occasionally to often, we will need to add articles which aren't featured or good, whether it be for NPOV reasons (I needed to add women to a specific biography template) or to represent a sub-part of the topic (say, geographical articles may require a B-class article)
  • No stubs or start-class articles should be added to portals without discussion
  • The criteria shouldn't really be that difficult. SportingFlyer T· C 00:09, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • To be clear, "inclusion criteria" isn't intended to answer the question of "what articles should be selected and included in a portal?" Instead, it is intended to answer the question, "what topics should have portals, and what topics should not have portals?" These criteria should make portal deletion discussions a lot easier to navigate, and a lot less contentious. We're not quite at this point in the discussion yet, but I don't mind if interested users start to discuss it now. ‑Scottywong | [squeal] || 00:45, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • @ ScottyWong: I just now saw this - I thought inclusion criteria was "what can be included within the portals" and the Portal creation instructions as "when can we have portals." Perhaps a re-naming would be helpful? SportingFlyer T· C 05:39, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • @ SportingFlyer: What would be a better name? The "Portal creation instructions" section is intended to be technical instructions on how to create a portal, and documenting best practices for which templates to use, sub-page structure, etc. ‑Scottywong | [soliloquize] || 19:22, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • How about "Criteria for determining which subjects should have portals"? I also thought that inclusion criteria referred to inclusion of material within portals, which I would say is the most natural reading of the phrase. BD2412 T 19:55, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

With respect to the question of which topics should have portals, there have been some suggestions in the past to tie portals in to WP:VITAL at some level, although even in the top 100, not every "vital" topic is actually a good fit for a portal (for example, I'm not sure what a portal for Knowledge or even Country or Ethnic group would look like), but that would be my starting point. I think that we should definitely not have portals keyed to individual persons, which we begin to see a lot of with level 3 vital articles (i.e. the top 1,000). I would actually support a system where we set a maximum number of portals (say, 500 or 750) and then have a process similar to that used at WP:VITAL to hammer out the list of those that should exist. As I have mentioned above, I also think that we should allow sub-portals under primary portals to explore specific concepts within a topic. BD2412 T 22:40, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I have a crazy suggestion that not everyone will probably like: what if we created a page where users could suggest/request an idea for a portal, and allow the community to discuss it for a short time and decide whether that topic is deserving of a portal? This would give the community a chance to judge whether a topic is broad enough, has enough quality articles, has an active enough WikiProject, and ensure that there are editors committed to regularly maintaining the portal... before the work of creating the portal is done. WP:Request for portal or something. This wouldn't negate the need for clear inclusion criteria in a guideline, but could possibly supplement it. This would ensure that rogue editors can't unilaterally decide to create thousands of inappropriate portals, and then force the community to nominate them all for deletion individually. It would also prevent an editor from going through all the hard work of creating a portal, just to later discover that the community doesn't support having a portal on that topic. Just an idea. Thoughts? ‑Scottywong | [speak] || 23:44, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I would support something like that. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 00:50, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I would only support this if it leads to the creation of rules, i.e. it's not a continual, ongoing process, but rather a one or two month committee. One of the advantages of SNGs is they provide users the ability to create articles with the knowledge they will be kept at AfD. We should strive for similar rules here, but I don't mind the idea of gaining consensus on what the rules should be based on different topic examples. SportingFlyer T· C 02:49, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
This is not a bad idea and could solve several issues; formalizing the usefulness of the topic and identifying registered topic maintainers, the absence of which for a period would automatically send the portal into another process (e.g. moved to WikiProject, deleted etc.), until new topic maintainers appear. Portals with no proper topic maintainers (who have topic expertise or WikiProject involvement), is a core problem of portals. It recognizes that portals are not articles, but tools/showcases, and need active topic maintainers, or the showcase begins to decay. Britishfinance ( talk) 22:57, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Well rather than discuss what topics should have portals I am taking the opposite route to narrow things down:

  1. Portals should not be localized - Any given portal must be able to reach out to a broad worldwide audience as determined by consensus.
Examples include Portal:Middle-earth, North Palatine Uplands, Portal:Dragon Ball. Note: In regards to BD2412's idea above, some "vital list" areas that were portals have already been deleted or are up for deletion (examples: Painting, and Weather). This seems like a case by case basis as determined by consensus for now until this one area can be addressed at a later time.

This is all I have for now... - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 00:49, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

My hunch is that if portals are limited to a smaller set of most important topics, then editors who are inclined to work on portals will focus their efforts on that set, including things like painting and weather. I also generally support merging subtopic portals into supertopic portals of greater importance, with the understanding that some substantial vetting will need to be done to insure that material merged in is proper and up to date. BD2412 T 01:20, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Yeah but "most important topics" are open to debate as some subjects have multiple layers of media connected to different subjects. Portals have to provide a neutral point of view and when they become too large doing that may pose an even bigger challenge trying to cover all of the scopes. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 02:28, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
The "most important topics" are the ones that have the most readers and editors. I agree strongly with if portals are limited to a smaller set of most important topics, then editors who are inclined to work on portals will focus their efforts on that set (and I think it's true for articles, too). Concentrated effort is better for building an encyclopedia than dispersed effort. – Leviv ich 02:31, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
It isn't black and white though is what I am trying to say.... Some portals are advertised more than others so those of course would receive more readers over time. There is also the lingering concern about presenting huge portals in a neutral point of view. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 02:41, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Proposal (copied from other header) I viewed this space as the guidelines by which a portal could be created, instead of jumping into whether transclusion is necessary - I view these as two distinct issues.

A topic should be eligible for a portal if:
  • It has an associated WikiProject (though the WikiProject need not be required adopt the portal); or is a topic that does not have its own WikiProject, but would be eligible for a WikiProject (this needs to be better phrased - I know a lot of African content gets tagged as "WikiProject Africa," which should not preclude, say, Uganda from having a portal created for it, and I'm really only thinking about country-level portals here.)
  • It has enough content to sustain a portal, which would include at least roughly 50 good and featured articles and several thousand articles within the associated WikiProject.
  • The portal has not been automatically generated or has a maintainer.
  • Is not Portal:Burger King, the ridiculousness which appears to have started this discussion.
  • Other arguments I've seen at MfD are common sense articles about pageviews and such - as long as the portals have a maintainer present and have a large enough content base to exist, I see no reason against having them. For instance, I really fail to understand why Portal:Basketball has been considered a narrow topic in the close per Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Basketball (it only came up twice, and once was my own keep vote) given there are 46,000 basketball-related articles on the encyclopaedia - all that portal needed was a maintainer. SportingFlyer T· C 05:35, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I would support these as reasonable, many Wiki-projects support the portals they have. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 02:53, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
SportingFlyer's suggestions seem good to me, although I'd say around 1000 articles would be sufficient, as long as most are not stubs. I dislike the idea that portals should not be "localised" or should have exclusively world-wide interest - most countries I think are potentially broad enough for a portal (not all, e.g. Portal:Monaco seems unlikely) and these are definitely going to be skewed towards people from that region. I also disagree with an absolute prohibition on portals about people - Portal:Donald Trump and Portal:Stephen King might be viable as two examples, worded badly it could also exclude Portal:The Beatles or Portal:Popes and similarly some large corporations are probably viable subjects, e.g. Portal:Microsoft. The existence of a portal at one level should not preclude overlapping portals at a different level, e.g. Portal:Science should not preclude the existence of Portal:Physics and/or Portal:Quantum physics or vice versa, and the same content featuring in multiple portals should not be an issue (e.g. Portal:Military aircraft, Portal:World War II, Portal:United Kingdom and Portal:History might all include content related to the Battle of Britain). Thryduulf ( talk) 10:55, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Just asking - does Donald Trump have his own associated WikiProject?!? I don't mind lowering the total articles requirement as long as we have a consistent featured/good articles requirement. SportingFlyer T· C 10:57, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Donald Trump did have his own portal, but it was narrowly deleted at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Donald Trump but my reading of the close is that it would have been kept if it was being actively maintained. All the portals I quote are just examples of the sort of subjects I consider potentially viable in theory rather than assertions that these specific ones are or would be in practice. Thryduulf ( talk) 11:15, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I'd like to take a look at that portal just to see how many potential articles it could hold. It seems far too narrow of a topic for me to support in its present state. SportingFlyer T· C 11:53, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Wayback Machine delivers: [1] -- Hecato ( talk) 12:21, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Donald Trump has 1,050 pages tagged as within its scope, 676 of them have been assessed as an article or list. A further 64 pages are unassessed, all of which are in the main namespace and so are almost certainly articles or lists with a small possibility of redirects. Again though this was just an example of a single person portal that might be viable to back up my point that single-person portals should not be absolutely excluded, Portal:Jesus would be another example (that was an automated portal that was deleted for being an automated portal, no assessment was made of the topic's potential). Thryduulf ( talk) 12:45, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Genuinely surprised that's a WikiProject. Perhaps I need to take a look at the WikiProjects and tighten the guidelines a bit? SportingFlyer T· C 14:26, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • To restate and expand on a point I believe I have made elsewhere on this page, I do not think that we should ever have a portal for an individual person, and for that matter for an individual company, TV show, music group, or sports team (or even sports franchise). BD2412 T 23:05, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • On that I fundamentally disagree with you. Individual people/companies/etc will rarely be suitable for a portal, but an absolute prohibition is excessive, unnecessary and will likely be counter productive at some point in the future. Thryduulf ( talk) 11:27, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I would suggest as an alternative that we allow sub-portals under existing portals with a focus on things like these that are of significance to their super-portal. I can't see the case for a portal for even the most significant individual people in history—Jesus, Marx, Einstein, Newton, Gandhi—they all, I would contend, fit better as featured biographies under a more broadly topical portal. The same goes for bands and companies. Once we allow portals on individual people or ensembles like these, that opens the door to anyone saying, for example, the if we can have a portal on the Beatles, why not one on Megadeth, or R.E.M., or Public Enemy; if we can have a portal on Gandhi, then why not one on Jimmy Carter or Mother Teresa or Steve Wozniak? BD2412 T 12:36, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I agree with you about "opens the door", but what's a sub-portal? (further complication?) DexDor (talk) 12:47, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Portals on individuals will be far too limited in scope. There are only about ~50 WikiProjects dedicated to individuals, 45 of them are individuals in bands, 5 are American politicians (would say presidents but Hillary Clinton has one), and 1 is the remnants of the Gian Lorenzo Bernini WikiProject. I would agree a ban is necessary, there just won't be enough topics to highlight. SportingFlyer T· C 12:54, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • SportingFlyer, if there won't be enough topics to highlight for most individuals, then an explicit ban will not be necessary. I am not a big fan of portals about people, especially about living people, but could see them make sense for, say, authors who have written many works that each have individual articles (Shakespeare, Dickens, ...) Looking at Wikipedia:WikiProject Shakespeare versus Wikipedia:WikiProject Hillary Clinton, by the numerical criteria I suggested below, Shakespeare would be allowed and Hillary Clinton would not be allowed, which seems correct to me. — Kusma ( t· c) 13:24, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I agree with Kusma. If a portal about an individual meets the criteria we agree on then there is no reason or justification for banning such a portal, if such a portal does not meet the criteria then it wont be kept/created whether there is a ban or not. This also answers your question "If we have a portal about X why not one about Y?" - if it meets the criteria you can have one, if it doesn't you can't, whether X and Y are Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich, Los Angeles and Sacramento or Christianity and Pastafarianism. Thryduulf ( talk) 14:58, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Problems with WP:VITAL and number of articles in scope

User:BD2412 and User:Knowledgekid87 raised some interesting points. I would like to summarize and expand on those points.

  • I see some value in using WP:VITAL to determine some essential portal topics. Having a somewhat objective non-partisan list to fall back on sounds very attractive.
But I don't think it is the be-all and end-all solution to this question. WP:VITAL contains some umbrella concepts like Philosophy, Science and Technology, which I believe have all the ingredients to be great portal topics. But it also contains important, but rather limited, abstract concepts like Death and Tool. While important, they do not exactly act as broad groups. In fact both Portal:Death and Portal:Tool have recently been deleted (but that may not necessarily be a statement about the subject area, but rather one about the quality of the portals).
  • I believe the number of articles in the scope of a topic area to be an important factor. But this comes with its own problems. For once it is hard to measure. WikiProjects tend to have a bot-maintained list of articles in their scope, based on WikiProject banners on article talk pages. But those tend to be incomplete, especially when the WikiProject is new, small or inactive/semi-active.
Categories tend to create a more complete net of related articles, since they are mandatory in articles. But counting articles in categories is not that easy from a technical standpoint. There is Wikipedia:PetScan, but Categories tend to loop, with sub-categories listing top-categories. So articles might get counted more than once if the scan-depth is too deep. And some category trees tend to loop more than others.
  • Another issue might be regional bias. Just by the nature of en.wiki being in English, there will be more articles about the Anglosphere than about the rest of the world. A topic area might be very broad, but the supply of articles just is not there (yet). Should a portal be created based on the potential for a large number of articles in its scope or just based on the actual number of articles?

-- Hecato ( talk) 10:48, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

  • I've never heard it said the bot-maintained article lists are inaccurate - does anyone have any evidence here? SportingFlyer T· C 10:54, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Well it depends on how diligent the WikiProject was in adding their template on the talk pages of related articles. This is manual work and requires some combing through categories for the members of the Project to accomplish. As far as I know the bot just looks for and counts those templates. Maybe I am wrong. -- Hecato ( talk) 11:07, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • ( edit conflict) Although the lists are bot-maintained, the articles have to be tagged by humans initially. Some WikiProjects have very active taggers and are very inclusive, others are a lot more focused on what they regard as in scope and/or tag less proactively. The biggest variation based on my subjective experience is in how geographical projects treat biographies, for example a person born in place A, who grew up in place B, was educated in place C, lived in D during their main period of notability which related to place E and retired to F. They will almost always be tagged with the project for place D and/or E, but could have all, none or any combination of A, B, C and F. Topically sometimes only the most specific project is tagged, sometimes multiple levels of the hierarchy are. Overlap is also possible when there are combined geographic and topical categories (e.g. a railway station in Oxfordshire may be tagged with Oxfordshire and UK railways, both of which are child projects of United Kingdom, meaning double counting is possible. So while the bot-maintained lists are a useful guide to the breadth of a project's content they should not be regarded as definitive. Thryduulf ( talk) 11:12, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • If wiki-projects don't actively tag their articles then they shouldn't have portals as this is like a key thing with article assessment. It would also give an indication of the lack of a possible lack of activity in said wiki-project. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 14:24, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Some Portals also focus centrally on more than one area and/or strictly exclude things that do not fall within the scope. An example being American comics and Manga which sound the same but are in two very different universes. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 14:15, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • If we go with the number of articles in scope route: Maybe there could be a rule like "you have to demonstrate that there are at least 1000 articles in the scope of the portal"? How one demonstrates that would then be left open. With the WikiProject bot-counts being just one possible option. Good idea, bad idea? Too restrictive, not restrictive enough? -- Hecato ( talk) 17:42, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Its a good idea that would need a consensus here at the workshop on the articles under the scope of said portal. Portals in my opinion should be supported by Wiki-projects, those that are not and don't bother to update their numbers risk portal deletion. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 18:10, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I would agree with such a restriction. That number might be a bit high - maybe something in the lower hundreds, but definitely not below that. BD2412 T 18:35, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I'm just saying but, some portals have upwards of 10,000+ articles under the scope. Are we talking about total articles, or total usable articles that are GA, FA, and FL? - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 18:39, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Well "usable" articles depends on what the purpose of portals is. If it is only to showcase high quality content then GA/A/FA/FL is probably a good measure, but if purposes include introducing readers to the most important articles in the topic area and/or acting as a window for content that editors can get involved with and improve then "usable" is a much wider set. I think having say at least 5 featured articles and at least say 25 Good / A-class articles would be a more useful metric than total number of articles. I know very little about featured lists so I don't know if requiring any of them would be a good thing or not. Thryduulf ( talk) 19:47, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Just to be clear, I meant 1000 articles in the general topic scope. Like in the number of articles listed by a WikiProject, regardless of quality. The portal itself of course does not have to showcase or navigate to 1000 articles, that would be nuts.
Also regarding the quality articles, I agree. We have agreed to that purpose in Proposal 1 (#2), so there should be a minimum number of quality articles. A conservative number would be like 20 articles of Good quality or better. I can make a proposal if you guys think it sounds reasonable. -- Hecato ( talk) 20:41, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Alternatively I could omit numbers and just propose whether these two restrictions should be in place at all. But then we will have to vote again on numbers. -- Hecato ( talk) 21:31, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Finding agreement on rough numbers

Before we settle on a solid proposal, let's try to get agreement on some rough numbers. I've seen a lot of the same ideas thrown around when it comes to criteria for determining which topics should have portals. To me, it boils down to the following:

  1. Portals must always serve accurate, up-to-date, relevant information to readers. The information provided to readers should be balanced and should not suffer from any kind of significant systemic bias. This means that portals needs regular maintenance to ensure that they're keeping up with changes (not only changes within the topic itself, but also changes with quality assessments of articles that are featured in the portal, as well as new articles that are written within that topic). If it can be shown that a portal is not receiving regular maintenance, and as a result it is providing inaccurate or unbalanced information to readers, that portal is likely to be deleted. Signs that a portal are likely to receive regular maintenance include:
    • There is an active WikiProject devoted to the subject.
    • One or more users have explicitly committed to maintaining the portal.
  2. Portals should be about a sufficiently broad topic, to ensure that there is a sufficiently rich collection of high quality articles that can be featured within the portal. "Broadness" is generally measured by counting the number of articles that the portal topic comprises, while also taking quality and/or importance assessments into account.

Given the above, what numbers does everyone think should be inserted into the following statements? (If you disagree that any of these should even be requirements for a portal, feel free to say that too.)

  1. Portal maintenance:
    • Portals should have a supporting WikiProject with a minimum of ___ active users, and/or a portal should have a minimum of ___ users that have committed to regularly maintaining the portal.
    • For portals that are on a subject that changes rapidly (e.g., a cutting-edge scientific field), portals should receive attention a minimum of ___ times per ___.
    • For portals that are on a subject that does not change rapidly (e.g., a historical topic), portals should receive attention a minimum of ___ times per ___.
  2. Portal "broadness":
    • Total number of articles within the scope of the project must be at least ___.
    • Total number of articles that are GA/FA/FL within the scope of the project must be at least ____.
    • Total number of articles that are B class or higher within the scope of the project must be at least ___.

‑Scottywong | [spout] || 23:55, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Also, if anyone has the ability to do it easily, it might be instructive for someone to find out what the above statistics are for some of the more "successful" existing portals on Wikipedia. In other words, how many B/GA/FA articles does Portal:Mathematics have underneath it, and how many active users are in its WikiProject? Getting a decent sample of these numbers for existing "good" portals might give us a good idea for how to set reasonable thresholds. ‑Scottywong | [confess] || 00:00, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

SportingFlyer response

Using subheadings to make this easier.

  • Portals should be tied to a WikiProject. The number of users of the WikiProject should not matter, but the portal should have at least 1 active maintainer.
  • Portals should be maintained at least once a year, though certain portals may be maintained more frequently, especially where the underlying topic changes rapidly. If no changes need to be made to the portal, a maintainer should at least post to the talk page saying the portal has been reviewed.
  • A portal must cover the same topic as a WikiProject, and the WikiProject must have at least 2,500 articles, approximately 50 of which must be good or featured articles, and at least 250 articles must be better than start-class.
  • We should be able to run a query to check articles by WikiProject. Obviously this will under-estimate the number of articles since some may not have been tagged, but I don't think this undercount is a problem for determining portal suitability. SportingFlyer T· C 01:53, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Knowledgekid87 response

1.Portal maintenance

Since it is hard to calculate how many active members a Wikiproject has, we should go with maintainers which I feel should be at least one.
I have no opinion on subjects that change rapidly as I have not really dealt with any.
Portals which don't change rapidly should receive attention a minimum of 2 times per month.

2.Portal "broadness"

A portal must cover the same topic as a WikiProject, and the WikiProject must have at least 10,000 articles. (I am in agreement with Scotty below)
Total number of articles that are GA/FA/FL within the scope of the project must be at least 100 (seems reasonable, can always be later adjusted)
Total number of articles that are B class or higher within the scope of the project can vary.

- Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 01:59, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Thryduulf: - I am open to new ideas when it comes to Portal/Wikiproject relationships. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 14:34, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Scottywong: - I agree with the 10,000 number and the ideal of 450 to 650 portals. I am aware that this would get rid of a lot of smaller portals, but we want portals to be successful. Lets be honest.... we aren't going to have 10,000+ portals on Wikipedia or else this guideline will never make it given the current editor mood. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 17:24, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Hecato: - 500 articles is far too low now in my opinion as it would mean over 10,000 portals on Wikipedia. The reality as I have said is that the Wikipedia community is unlikely to approve such a thing. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 17:33, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Kusma's response

I am mostly in agreement as to the general principles. I am not too happy with any fixed numbers, but that may turn out to be necessary to find a compromise acceptable to all sides (just like our sports notability guidelines are not perfect, but prevent a lot of unproductive discussion). Basically one question I have is how much portals should display our systemic biases: based on quality content and wikiproject activity, we could easily create a dozen portals on European and American military history topics, but end up merging all of Africa into a single portal. Perhaps the existence of quality articles criterion should be relaxed a bit if necessary for a more neutral selection of portal topics. or perhaps we should just highlight our awareness of the systemic bias inherent in our quality content and advertise for help in addressing the issue. — Kusma ( t· c) 08:58, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

But let's go for some numbers. I think 500 related articles should be enough, and if 20 of them are GA or better, that will do (20 is a fairly typical number of selections in a portal selection box, and the number we ask for should be related to what is necessary for a portal). Some of my favourite portals are Portal:Solar System (10000+ total articles, 100+ GA or better) and Portal:Opera (10000+ articles, 70 GA or better), and they easily make the cut. Looking through the Germany project (I maintain Portal:Germany, which has almost 100k articles in its scope, 1000 of them GA or better, but lots of those are really military history articles), my cutoff would not allow a portal for Munich at the moment, but could possibly allow one in the future if a dedicated crowd comes and works on this. — Kusma ( t· c) 11:00, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Thryduulf's response

I agree with pretty much everything Kusma says. I dislike Knowledgekid's implied requirement for a 1:1 relationship between portals and WikiProjects - multiple smaller wikiprojects collaborating on a broader portal should not be excluded, nor should a very broad wikiproject maintaining ones with broad and narrow focus (e.g. Physics may wish to maintain a general portal and also one for Quantum physics).

As for numbers, I think that as long as a portal is being actively maintained it is irrelevant how many (or which) people are doing it. Activity is probably best monitored by responsiveness - queries on a portal talk page should generally receive a response within about a week. An arbitrary number of edits or other actions in an arbitrary time period is just that - arbitrary. The only thing we should be caring about is whether the portal remains accurate and up-to-date (relative to our articles), and that is going to vary markedly by topic area. Portal:Current events will fail in days but a historical topic may remain within standard for years without significant action. Portal Olympics might need approximately daily attention during a games, but there may be no changes for many months between events; a portal about disasters or extreme weather will similarly have peaks and troughs but not on a predictable schedule.

If anyone has queries or concerns about the reliability or up-to-dateness of a portal then they should either (a) WP:SOFIXIT if they can, or if they can't, (b) detail their concerns on the talk page. Only if that doesn't get a response within about a week should there be any concerns over activity levels.

Regarding content numbers, 20 GA or better articles seems like a good marker but only if that drops below about 15 should an active portal be considered for deletion, especially if there is a large amount of other featured content. Circa 500 articles in scope, at least 100 better than a stub, seems like a good baseline to me but more is also better. 300 C-class or better articles covering the full breadth of the topic area is better though than 1000 start-class articles about a niche aspect. Thryduulf ( talk) 11:55, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

For all those thinking that allowing portals with 20 GA/500 total articles will result in 10,000 portals - that simply isn't the case as there aren't 10,000 topics that could support a portal let alone enough people interested in maintaining that many portals. My reading of the RfCs about ending portals does not suggest that there is any desire among the community to limit the number of portals to an arbitrary level, simply that all the portals that exist should be of good quality, whether that means 5 or 5000. Accordingly I'm very firmly opposed to absurdly high requirements like 10,000 articles or 100 FAs. Thryduulf ( talk) 21:16, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
That's actually exactly what happened in the past. There was no firm guidance given on what topics should have portals, and Wikipedia suddenly had thousands of portals, most of which had no maintainers and therefore rotted and died. No one is trying to artificially limit the number of portals to a specific, arbitrary level (see my response to your comments below), but we're trying to enact some common-sense guidelines to prevent history from repeating itself. ‑Scottywong | [spout] || 01:17, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Yes indeed that's the aim, but if we enact maintenance and quality guidelines then we will not get the thousands of portals last time - but even if we did get thousands of portals that meet the criteria they will, by definition, be maintained and useful so the project will benefit. Whether a portal gets abandoned or not is completely independent of anything to do with how big it is or how many other portals there are. Thryduulf ( talk) 09:07, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Hecato's response

I must say I am generally not a fan of this format. "Plug in the numbers" is begging the question. We must accept your premises to answer the poll. Not that I necessarily disagree with your premises.

Since this is already rolling though, I basically support what Kusma and Thryduulf said.

  • 20GA or better.
  • 500+ articles in scope.
  • At least one WikiProject in scope with at least one active person. The portal should not be necessarily be tied directly to one WikiProject though.
  • Some portals need more attention than others, I am against setting a hard rule. This should be decided on a case by case basis. This binary choice sounds bad to me. Some portals will probably not even need monthly maintenance, simply because there won't be new content to add. With transclusions a lot of content updates itself without much maintenance required. Maintainers will just add new quality content and fix some potential issues. Portals like Olympics will definitely need updates several times per month during the events, but not outside of the event.
  • Querying maintainers for still being active is fine. That reminder-bot idea sounds good to me.
  • We should show some leniency with active portals that were created before this guideline was in place (assuming it will be accepted by the community). Give them some time to get up to standard before jumping to deletion.

-- Hecato ( talk) 14:56, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Levivich's response

  1. Portal maintenance:
    • I agree that portals should have at least one committed maintainer, or at least one committed active WikiProject. A "committed active WikiProject" is one where someone responds to a message on a talk page and says, "yes we're active and committed to maintaining this portal". I'd AGF that if a WikiProject says its active, then it's active. If no one responds on the WikiProject talk page, then it's inactive, even if it's not marked as inactive. (I guess this means at least one active WikiProject editor.)
    • I'm persuaded by the arguments above that minimum necessary maintenance activity is going to vary from portal to portal, and for some portals, by time of year. Olympics is a good example. I think perhaps the proof is in the pudding: a portal is being maintained "enough" if it doesn't fall out of date. Any portal that falls out of date is therefore not being maintained "enough". Rather than a minimum-number-of-edits-per-time-period rule (which is easily gamed, cf. admin inactivity criteria), I'd write something in the guideline along the lines of a portal should be deleted as unmaintained if it can be shown that its content is out of date (prior to the deletion discussion... Unlike articles, I don't believe in WP:HEYing portals). Sorry, I know I'm not putting up a number here, but I agree with Thryd that any number would be arbitrary and for any possible number/time period we chose, there would be portals for which that number/time period wouldn't work.
  2. Portal "broadness":
    • Total number of articles within the scope of the project must be at least 2,500 10,000. That's a real minimum in my mind to meet the broadness criteria. I would agree to a number like 10,000 or 50,000. I think of Portal:Solar System, Portal:Opera, Portal:Canada, Portal:Australia, or any of the main page portals (Arts, History, etc.), and it strikes me that we must have 50k articles in those topic areas. So 2,500 strikes me as actually really low, but it's the highest number anyone else has put for this one, so I'll go with 2,500 :-) (Update: upped from 2,500 to 10,000 per comments below.)
    • Total number of articles that are GA/FA/FL within the scope of the project must be at least 100. All of the above-mentioned portals (I think) have 100+ GA-or-higher articles. I think 50 is the next-highest number anyone has put forward for this one, so I'd consent to 50 as well.
    • Total number of articles that are B class or higher within the scope of the project must be at least 200. I would argue against even making this a criteria because the metric, in my opinion, is so unreliable. I have zero faith in WikiProject article classes (and importances). In my experience–admittedly anecdotal–whether an article is Start class or B or A class is a complete and total crap shoot – might as well just roll dice. It entirely depends on the project and the editor making the assessment. I can't tell you how many articles I've seen that are basically GAs categorized as Start class (just because no one has been around to assess it), or start class articles categorized as B class (because the assessor is being extremely generous, perhaps to "beef up" the project's catalog). Yes, I'm bitter about my article creations being assessed too low. :-) I feel like if we make it X number of Y-class articles, WikiProjects will just re-assess a bunch of articles to push themselves (or their portal project) into compliance. The difference with FAs and GAs is that it requires one or more independent editors to review and approve, rather than just being a self-assessment within the WikiProject the way article classes are.

Scottywong's response

Great responses so far, these are all good ideas. There seems to already be a rough consensus above on how to approach maintenance of portals, and it probably won't end up being the overly simplistic binary choice that I originally proposed above. However, there seems to be a larger disparity in opinions about article broadness. Here's a thought experiment for a different way to approach the problem:

How many portals do you think Wikipedia should ideally have, in total? 10? 100? 1000? As far as I can tell, there are currently around 500, but that number will probably continue to decrease somewhat if the current activity at MFD continues. For the sake of argument, let's say we end up with 200 high quality portals that are being actively maintained, and have an active WikiProject supporting them, such that these 200 portals would survive at MFD. Now, consider that Wikipedia currently has about 6.5M articles total, 2.3M of which are Start-class or higher, 44k of which are GA or higher, and 8.8k of which are FA or FL. Assuming that every article was part of a portal (which is obviously a silly assumption, but go with it for a moment), that would equate to about 32k articles per portal, 11.5k Start+ articles per portal, 221 GA+ articles per portal, or 44 FA/FL articles per portal. Below is a table that shows how these numbers work out if we assume that we have a different number of portals:

Total portal count Articles per portal Start+ articles per portal GA+ articles per portal FA/FL articles per portal
10 644,470 231,784 4,414 882
100 64,447 23,178 441 88
200 32,224 11,589 221 44
500 12,889 4,636 88 18
1,000 6,445 2,318 44 9
5,000 1,289 464 9 2
10,000 645 232 4.4 0.9

Many people above seem to have latched onto a number of 500 articles beneath each portal, with at least 20 GA or better articles. At those levels, that means we'd be shooting for somewhere between 2000-13000 portals in total. Keep in mind that there are only about 5000 editors who make 100+ edits per month. In order to satisfy the maintenance requirements for that many portals, we'd need nearly every active editor to commit to maintaining some portals.

Given the analysis above, and the activity that I've seen at MFD over the last few months, my opinion would be that we need to set these thresholds at a high enough level to prevent the same problem of too many portals being created on narrow topics. I would personally vote for a requirement of a bare minimum of 10,000 articles in the topic area of each portal, and at least 100 GA or better articles. That would theoretically allow us to have a maximum of between 450-650 portals (if every article was part of a portal, or every GA+ article was part of a portal), and in reality we'd probably settle down around perhaps half that number of portals. As Levivich points out above, the most successful and most viewed portals easily meet these requirements. ‑Scottywong | [prattle] || 17:12, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Scottywong, topics are not all the same size, and many large portals suck because they are lacking focus. Mid sized topics tend to have the best portals. Your proposal outlaws Opera although that seems to me to be a wonderful portal and topic. — Kusma ( t· c) 18:28, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I suppose some wiggle room (70 - 100?) can be made for combined GA,FL & FA candidates as WP:Opera has 14,040 pages under their scope. We really shouldn't go too low as there are only so many articles out to feature, and it has to be in a NPOV. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 18:36, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Perhaps you're right that 100 GA+ articles is a bit too high, considering that there are successful portals that exist with less than 100 GA+ articles. I can see that as a valid argument for reducing it to perhaps as low as 50. However, I still believe that these thresholds need to be set relatively high to ensure that we end up with a reasonable number of portals that are practically maintainable. I would disagree that Portal:Opera is a "mid-sized topic", it's a pretty broad topic. Not as broad as Portal:Music, but I don't think it would be good to go much lower (i.e. narrower) than opera when it comes to portals about music. ‑Scottywong | [comment] || 18:52, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
The now-deleted portal that sold me on portals was a portal on the 1948 Australian tour of England (cricket). There were probably 40-50 good or featured articles on the subject and not a lot of stubs, and the portal did a fantastic job of basically letting me know how much quality content we had on this very specific area, and introducing me to a topic I admittedly didn't know as much about as I thought. It hadn't been maintained in awhile, though, even though it was handmade, though it didn't really need maintenance - just someone checking every so often to make sure it wasn't broken. I'm not necessarily advocating for smaller portals, but in cleaning up some portals I'm noticing that a lot of their good/featured articles are in specific topic areas, Croatia has a lot of good military articles on their wars for instance (which is kind of a shame, really.) I don't really see a problem with setting up portals on narrow topics if the quality of the content is good, but I'm now of the mindset that we should be trying to limit, instead of broaden, the amount of topics we can create portals about. SportingFlyer T· C 04:50, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
How many portals we should have is, imho, completely the wrong question to ask because it is not a relevant question. There should be no "target" - whether we have 5 or 50,000 portals that meet whatever criteria we deem a portal should meet doesn't matter. What matters is that every portal we do have gives value to our readers. The number of portals that can be maintained is practically unknowable as it depends on how much maintenance a portal requires, and how many people maintain a portal (and there isn't necessarily a 1:1 relationship between portals and portal maintainers). In You also cannot just divide the number of articles of a given class by any number of portals and get a number that is relevant to anything - some topics are broader than others, not every article will be relevant to a portal, some articles will be relevant to more than one. Thryduulf ( talk) 21:11, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I agree with Thryduulf that it's not appropriate to target a fixed number of portals. It would be like trying to set a maximum number of navigational boxes, but this can only be evaluated on a topic-by-topic basis. Portals can only be viable in the long term if they are managed like navigation boxes and other navigational aids: the editors interested in the topic area must be the ones actively maintaining the associated portals. (In an ideal world, the interested editors would be part of one or more related WikiProjects, but unfortunately with many WikiProjects stagnant, the interested editors might have to be notified on the talk pages of key related articles.) As long as they are assuming the onus of keeping the portals up-to-date, let them decide the best way to organize the portals they are supporting, just like they organize the related navigational boxes. isaacl ( talk) 22:16, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Re "every portal we do have gives value to our readers" - there have been many examples of portals being bad for readers by presenting out of date or incorrect info (when the corresponding article was correct). DexDor (talk) 21:37, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
That might be poorly worded, I was not saying every portal does or did give value, but that every portal should do this (determining which are and which aren't is the purpose of these guidelines). What matters is whether an individual portal is or is not giving value, how many portals there are that give value is irrelevant. Thryduulf ( talk) 23:00, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
This issue has also since been fixed by adding transclusions. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 23:25, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Thryduulf: To clarify, I'm not suggesting that we literally put a clause in the portal guideline that says "Wikipedia should have no more than 250 portals at any time." This was only a thought experiment, intended to help us get a better idea for the consequences our choice of numbers will have. I think we all agree that there is a finite limit to how many portals Wikipedia can support. That limit is partially defined by how many active editors Wikipedia has, how many of those editors are willing to maintain portals, and how many portals each of those editors is willing to maintain. Additionally, that limit is partially defined by how we design and construct portals, because some methodologies require more maintenance than others. Some topics require more maintenance than others, but all portals require some level of maintenance. However, I don't think anyone can argue that, in the not too distant past, Wikipedia objectively had too many portals; far more than could be practically maintained by the current set of portal editors. This resulted in portals that received no updates for a decade or longer, and many portals that served inaccurate information to readers. In order to prevent this problem from happening again, there must be a force that limits the number and type of portals that can be created. Based on the discussions above as well as the status quo of portals since their inception, there is a strong consensus that portals should only be created for "broad" topics, and the best way to judge the "broadness" of a topic is by counting how many Wikipedia articles are part of that topic. We need to choose numbers that strike the right balance between these two forces: 1) a number that is low enough to allow portals on reasonable topics, not just the broadest possible topics; and 2) a number that is high enough to ensure that Wikipedia has a quantity of portals that are practically maintainable, so that we don't see portals constantly being dragged to MFD because they've been abandoned. That is the aim of this discussion. ‑Scottywong | [confabulate] || 00:11, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
The amount of interest editors have in portals is not known, though, other than to say that based on experience to date, it's pretty low. So trying to estimate an end number of portals isn't possible. It would be better to look for groups of editors actually interested in supporting a portal. Given that editors tend to be overoptimistic in estimating what they'll be able to do (which has an upside: ambition helps drive improvement), I do think there should be active editing from several interested editors for a given portal. The problem that occurred in the past is the creation of a lot of portals by editors not really active in the topic area, and a lack of engagement with the interested editors for the topic. I appreciate that identifying groups one by one and engaging with them is likely going to result in a lot fewer portals. But I can't see any other way to make portals sustainable. Either they get integrated into the normal workflow of the editors most interested in the topic and flourish (as is the case for other navigational aids), or they don't. isaacl ( talk) 01:46, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Scottywong: You've missed my point. While there is a theoretical limit to the number of portals Wikipedia can support, what that number is is irrelevant and even if it were it would not be predictable based on article numbers (even if for no other reason than each article may be within the scope of 0, 1 or more than 1 portals). The only thing that matters is that each portal that exists is useful and maintained. The problem with the automated portals was nothing to do with how many there were, simply that they were (generally) not useful. Thryduulf ( talk) 09:14, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Are you suggesting that a portal guideline should simply say, "Make sure any portals you create are useful and maintained", and trust that that will be sufficient to prevent another episode where an editor mass-creates 1000 portals on extremely narrow topics that all have to be individually deleted at MFD? The problem is that the word "useful" is far too subjective; everyone has a different definition. I'm sure there are a few people in the world that might consider Portal:Late 18th century opera in northwestern Italy to be "useful", but that doesn't mean that such a portal should exist. The goal here is to create an organizational structure. We need to put some definition behind the word "useful", so that all portal editors/creators are working towards the same goal.
Also, the number of portals that can be practically maintained is not irrelevant. There's no need to find the exact number, but it would be smart to at least agree on a ballpark number. If we write a guideline that encourages/allows users to create 100,000 portals on the narrowest of topics, that would be an obvious failure on our part to create a sensible guideline that is in the best interests of Wikipedia.
I would argue that the "usefulness" of a portal depends heavily on whether or not it is actively maintained. Abandonment is one of the primary reasons for deleting portals today. So, if we want portals to remain useful, we need to include a mechanism in the guideline that limits the number of portals to a level that can be practically maintained by the users we have today. ‑Scottywong | [prattle] || 16:14, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I think we should just stick with an article scope of 10,000 with GA/FL/FA articles numbering at least 70. I'm sorry but we have to put some limitations on portals until it can be proven that more are needed. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 16:31, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Determining what "useful" and "maintained" mean is the entire point of what we're doing here. When we agree what the minimum requirements are (and 10,000 articles is on order of magnitude too high) then that will automatically limit what portals get created. If anybody mass creates portals again (unlikely) then either they will be good and maintained per the agreed definitions (in which case everybody wins) or they wont be they can be deleted (and nobody loses). None of this makes the total number of portals relevant to whether a portal is or is not good. Thryduulf ( talk) 17:50, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Britishfinance response

I find SW's analysis very insightful and a smart way of trying to roughly quantify/scale the outcomes of choices. However, I have never really found that issues over the worthiness of a topic are hotly contested at MfD; it is generally apparent whether a topic is broad enough or not to both keeps and deletes (although, I did like SW's suggestion of an RfP approach to creating new portals above). The real issue is abandonment, and specifically the complete absence of any dedicated topic maintainer(s), and any interest by the WikiProject, in the portal. If we had a rule that any portal without a recognized live topic maintainer/WikiProject support – but not a mass-maintainer trying to simultaneously update a wide range of portals without any topic interest or knowledge (per the Transhumanist) – then we would probably get to about 100 core portals. A focus on dedicated topic maintainers is the key here. I have yet to see a portal with a dedicated live topic maintainer/WikiProject support that has been deleted. If we got more clarity on this issue, we would have fewer, but higher quality and relevant portals in WP. If we respected the message that complete abandonment by a live topic maintainer implies, then we could make faster progress in portal-space. The other guidelines are of lesser order/less contentious at MfD. Britishfinance ( talk) 23:55, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Portal page views

I am bringing this up here as this is an issue brought up numerous times for those in favor of portal deletion. Should portals be treated like articles where WP:ATA (specifically WP:POPULARPAGE) applies more? This can apply to which portals should have topics if a decision is made regarding the importance of the matter. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 15:09, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply

  • Oppose using page views to decide whether a portal should exist.
As I see it the reasons why portals have low page views are:
1. The entire portal space in general has poor pageviews. Mostly due to not being included well in the navigation process, especially being excluded from mobile. With the few exceptions of a few portals that are well linked. Like the ones on the frontpage.
2. The portal itself has especially poor pageviews
2a. ...because it is poorly linked
2b. ...because it is simply a bad portal
2c. ...because the topic area is just not fit for a portal
Using pageviews to determine whether a portal should exist only assumes 2c can be the case, ignoring the other possibilities. So WP:POPULARPAGE applies to porals as well. At best pageviews can be used to identify portals that might need some work to raise their utility and make them more visible. Topic areas that qualify for having a portal should be determined by other means, like articles in scope, etc. -- Hecato ( talk) 15:24, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Oppose using page views exactly per Hecato. Thryduulf ( talk) 15:29, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Oppose using pageviews. If a topic area is large and well-developed enough to sustain a portal, it should not matter how many readers there are. What matters is that any readers (no matter if it is 3/month or 3000/month) are presented with a suitable high quality portal. Views are also impossible to predict in advance, and asking for large number of views may cause editors to link to portals more than appropriate or necessary and could cause completely unnecessary disruption to article space. (We should talk about linking and discoverability of portals in a future section). Of course it may be more "useful" to work on portals with large numbers of viewers, but it is not realistic to expect people to work on popular pages instead of the pages they are interested in. I mainly see the "views" argument as something that tells us we should maybe relax a notch or two about portals, as whatever we end up doing is only going to be noticed by a small percentage of Wikipedia's readers anyway. — Kusma ( t· c) 15:44, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Still support using page views in some sense although I believe I'm in a minority on this. I can't escape the idea that the proof of the pudding is in the eating: we know if a page is important and useful to a reader by whether or not people are reading it. It's like if you write a book, or a song, you know it's a good book or song based on sales. If no one is buying it then no one is reading or listening to it. I never believed in the philosophy of, "I want to write a great song, even if no one likes it." Well, if no one likes it, then it's not a great song! People like great songs. Great songs get bought and listened to. So I feel the same way about websites, which would include portals (and articles). Nevertheless, the points raised above (which have been raised by others in similar prior conversations) are pretty strong, especially 2a about it not being well-linked. The problem is, if a portal has low page views, you can't tell if it's because of Hecato's reasons 2a (poor inbound linking), 2b (bad design) or 2c (poor topic choice). 2a and 2b can be fixed, 2c cannot be fixed. 2b suggests improving the portal; 2c suggests deleting it; 2a suggests not touching it and instead adding more links from articles, etc. So low page views suggests a problem but doesn't answer what the problem is, and therefore low page views are not in and of itself a reason to delete portals. I think the guideline should discuss this (that low page views is a problem but not a reason for deletion in and of itself). – Leviv ich 16:04, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Oppose using pageviews. We don't delete content just because it's not seen......we have thousands of articles that are rarely viewed. In no way does page views related to quality.....as people will not know the quality until they click the page. Not like people leave notes indicating a portal is crappie thus deterring others. All about portal link saturation and visibility. I think we need to make sure we don't make a sub set of rules for a content namespace that does not strictly follow Wikipedia:Editing policy and Wikipedia:Core content policies. Unlike our administration namespaces these are meant for public viewing. Deletion should be based on the stricter criteria of NPOV and verifyability WP:DEL-CONTENT over the criteria used for project namespaces. I also think that making a deletion clause based on views for only one namespace could set a precedence for other areas of the project that is the opposite of our general editing policy WP:POPULARPAGE...we have many many articles and even policies that are rarely view that would never be deleted based on views. We should however incorporating notability in relation to the broadness of a subject of portals.-- Moxy 🍁 22:19, 21 November 2019 (UTC)‘’ reply
(As has probably been previously pointed out to you) deleting an article removes (referenced) encyclopedic information from wp so that's rather different from deleting a portal (or template ...). DexDor (talk) 22:35, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
That argument has been made many times in deletion discussions, but that doesn't make it relevant. Thryduulf ( talk) 23:02, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support using pageviews. At MfD, low page views are a very reliable indicator of a failed portal (one of the best, imho), and directly link to full abandonment by the maintainer(s) (i.e why support/update something that nobody reads, it is a natural human reaction), which is a very serious situation for a portal. A portal is not content (e.g. like chronicling the existence of an obscure crustation for posterity), it is a tool to showcase/display FA/GA content; if nobody wants to visit your display, then at some stage, you are going to shut it down and walk away to leave it to decay. That is where the problems arise, and where portals can make WP look like a failed/abandoned project. Britishfinance ( talk) 23:28, 21 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support using pageviews as an indicator, oppose using pageviews as deletion criteria - I agree with Levivich that pageviews should be used as a measure of how well a portal is doing, and low pageviews should be a sign that there is a problem. I would support language in the guideline to this effect (as well as some best practices for identifying and resolving the problems that are causing low page views). However, I also agree with Hecato that pageviews shouldn't be used as a rationale for deletion, because low page views can have a number of different causes, and deletion is not an appropriate solution to all of those causes. ‑Scottywong | [squeal] || 00:17, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support using pageviews as an indicator, oppose using pageviews as deletion criteria - This seems to be where consensus is heading, and it gives both sides a bit of what they want. Historically portals have not all been advertised the same is one of the issues for example. I get the feeling that within a few months of these guidelines going into place, portals will be deleted again. The difference at least be something was done to address the long standing issues. The previous guidelines were good for their time but were flawed in the sense of not taking partial portal abandonment into account (it happened to some but not all portals). - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 00:59, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Oppose using page views in any capacity - low page views may mean the page isn't properly advertised or transcluded, but should have no bearing on whether the portal should exist. SportingFlyer T· C 01:06, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I think what we're saying is that pageviews can be used as a tool to identify problems (like if a portal isn't properly advertised or transcluded) while also being explicitly excluded from the list of reasons to delete a portal. ‑Scottywong | [chat] || 01:12, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I get that, I'm saying I'd prefer not to use them as a guideline for anything. There are other ways to figure out if portals haven't been transcluded properly. SportingFlyer T· C 04:50, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Comment: Not all pageviews are created equal. A pageview that occurs in the course of checking a portal to determine whether it has problems that needs fixing counts the same as a pageview that occurs in the course of a reader indulging their interest in the topic. A page that has very few views is likely not being maintained. That said, it is conceivable that a portal is so well constructed mechanically that it functions with very little maintenance, but I do think that an extreme dearth of pageviews is a sign that something is wrong, and that the portal should not exist. I would consider this a valid factor for portals receiving only two or three views per day. BD2412 T 02:03, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    • I agree that an extreme dearth of pageviews is a sign that something is possibly wrong, but as that something may or may not be anything to do with the portal it really does not indicate whether the portal should or should not exist. Also for some topics interest will wax and wane as things happen or don't happen in the real world - the Olympics portal for example will naturally get many more page views during a games than it will between them, a Disasters portal will get more views in the aftermath of a large disaster than when there hasn't been one for a while, etc. low page views in the fallow periods does not indicate anything is wrong with the portal. Thryduulf ( talk) 09:04, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
      • Portals that get higher page views during specific periods of interest can be accommodated by looking at average page views over a longer period. However, to be clear, there are plenty of portals which routinely average dozens of views per day irrespective of events in the world - in fact, there are currently over 250 portals that have averaged more than two dozen views per day over the past two years. In light of that circumstance, I would say that something is definitely wrong with a portal averaging only four or five views per day over the same period. BD2412 T 21:37, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Oppose using pageviews. Doing so is contrary to what Wikipedia stands for: not a popularity contest. UnitedStatesian ( talk) 17:26, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Oppose using pageviews. Well said. We don't even use pageviews as a deletion threshold for articles; certainly not for categories which are also navaids. It's simply been used to justify deletion by editors who just don't like portals. Bermicourt ( talk) 08:57, 23 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Oppose using pageviews for me, portals should be evaluated primarily on the basis of whether the topic is sufficiently broad to support a well-constructed portal. In some cases, the quality of the portal is also relevant. The popularity of the portal should not move the needle at all. Lepricavark ( talk) 02:26, 29 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support using pageviews to identify portals that no one cares about. I know that this discussion will decide that pageviews don't matter, because portals are so important for some poorly understood reason that they don't need viewers. For more than a decade, we had what most editors thought was a portal guideline that said that portals should be about broad subject areas that would attract large numbers of readers and portal maintainers. When a few stubborn editors started checking whether the portals had readers and found that they did not, portal advocates decided that readers were not important. If no one is reading a portal, what is it for? Because some editors like making portals, or because they have invisible readers (which is a mystical rationale). Oh well. Robert McClenon ( talk) 18:41, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Comment or Question for User:Hecato - Why shouldn't 2b be a reason to delete a portal? Why should being a bad portal be a reason to keep a portal? We have already seen that tagging a portal doesn't work, and that Waiting for Godot to come and maintain or improve a portal doesn't help. ( Godot is in Darjeeling drinking black tea with an Indian magician.) Robert McClenon ( talk) 18:45, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Oppose using page views as a criteria for portals. As others have noted, we don't use that for article or anything else as far as a deletion criteria. Sadly, it's been used by some editors as a (weak, in my opinion) reason to delete them. Since Wikipedia doesn't do very much to let people know portals even exist, that's a really bad reason to use. I have a suggestion below that might help with that. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:42, 4 December 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Page views must be considered a key indicator, however, not all page views are equal. Beware Wikipedia:Popular pages. Pageviews contain critical information, however, to blindly chase pageviews would mean becoming pornography and tabloid magazine content. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:28, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Oppose page view as criteria. It's a slippery-slope argument to use these numbers and always a moving-goalpost target. A portal with only 200 views a week? People want 1000. Now you got 2000? They want 5000. It's also mentioned above that technical limitations reduce portal exposure on mobiles. This already imposes a glass ceiling for portal page views. OhanaUnited Talk page 04:11, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Oppose using page views Page views would really be irrelevant given the other items around which consensus seems to be coalescing, namely 1) connection to an active or semi-active WikiProject that actively maintains the portal and 2) a certain minimum number of articles in scope. If a portal meets both 1) and 2), I think whatever page views fall out of that are fine. UnitedStatesian ( talk) 02:02, 10 March 2020 (UTC) reply

Criteria proposal 1

I'm going to start us off with a formal proposal here, to comment and vote on, and I don't expect that it will be the only proposal in this section (so feel free to create additional proposals if you want). I believe that this is one of the most important elements of a potential guideline, so it deserves a lot of attention. Below is my proposal on criteria for determining which topics should have portals:

There are two primary criteria that must be satisfied:

  1. Portals must be about a sufficiently broad topic.
  2. Portals must be actively maintained.


Broadness

A "sufficiently broad" topic is a subject that has a rich collection of high quality articles that can be featured within the portal. It should be a subject that is broad enough to have many different facets. Typically, topics that are broad enough to support a portal have a minimum of 5,000 Wikipedia articles that are related to that topic. Topics that have a sufficiently rich collection of high quality articles typically have a minimum of 50 Wikipedia articles that are related to the topic and are rated at GA level or higher. This is a guideline and not necessarily a hard limit, and exceptions can be made in cases where it can be shown that there is an active group of editors that are committed to indefinitely maintaining a portal on a somewhat narrower topic. The narrower the topic, the less likely it is that an exception will be made.


Maintenance

Portals must always serve accurate, up-to-date, relevant, and balanced information to readers. In order to achieve this, all portals require regular maintenance to ensure that they're keeping up with changes (not only changes within the topic itself, but also changes with quality assessments of articles that are featured in the portal, as well as new articles that are written within that topic). If it can be shown that a portal is not receiving regular maintenance, and as a result it is providing inaccurate or unbalanced information to readers, then that portal is likely to be nominated for deletion. There is not a required cadence of maintenance for portals, but it is suggested that all portals are checked at least once every 6 months to ensure nothing is broken, to check for new articles that have recently been created, to check for articles that have recently attained GA or FA status, and generally to ensure that the portal is still serving accurate, up-to-date, and balanced content to readers. Some topics will naturally not require frequent maintenance (e.g., Portal:American Civil War) while others will naturally require very frequent maintenance (e.g. Portal:Global warming). Some topics will require a variable amount of maintenance at different times (e.g. Portal:Olympics).

In general, it is highly encouraged to only create portals for topics that have an active WikiProject associated with them. However, this is not a hard rule, and exceptions can be made in cases where it can be shown that there is an active group of editors that are committed to indefinitely maintaining a portal, even if that group of editors are not members of an associated WikiProject.


WP:Portal/Requests

To create a new portal, first post a request at WP:Portal/Requests. The request should include a description of the topic that you'd like to create a portal on, along with an analysis of the broadness of that topic, and an indication of how many high-quality articles that topic is comprised of. Include information about related WikiProjects that will support the portal, as well as a list of specific users who have committed to maintaining the portal regularly. Include any other comments or information that might be relevant to the request. After the request is made, anyone from the community can comment on it. After 7 days of discussion, it can be closed by an uninvolved editor, and consensus can be judged. If there is a consensus that this portal should not be created, then it will not be allowed to exist. Otherwise, if there is a consensus that it should be created, or if there is no clear consensus, then the portal will be allowed to be created. New portals that are created without going through this process can be speedy deleted.

Please indicate your support or opposition to this proposal below. Thanks. ‑Scottywong | [confer] || 17:05, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Proposal 1 discussion

I oppose the Requests requirement per WP:CREEP. The other requirements, combine with MfD/CSD, are sufficient to prevent bad portals that are created from lasting very long. Perhaps a better model would be similar to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals, where the process is optional. UnitedStatesian ( talk) 17:35, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I disagree with numeric criteria to identify broadness. I feel the corresponding subject matter experts should be empowered to decide by consensus what topics make suitable entry points to a given area. I agree that portals should have a corresponding body of interested editors who monitor them for vandalism at the very least, and make appropriate updates (with the understanding that there is no deadline). I disagree with a centralized request page to approve portals. Navigation boxes are managed by the various groups of editors interested in a given topic without any centralized approval; portals ought to be treated like another navigational aid. isaacl ( talk) 17:41, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Do you have an alternate measure of broadness that you would prefer? Or do you oppose the entire concept of requiring portals to be about sufficiently broad topics? ‑Scottywong | [gab] || 17:58, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I agree with the concept of portals being about "sufficiently broad topic", I just think this is best determined by those maintaining the portal with circa 500 articles being a ball-park guideline. Thryduulf ( talk) 18:01, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
How do we measure "broadness" then? At 500 articles per scope anyone can pretty much create a portal about anything and call it broad because of x y or z. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 18:03, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
500 articles about a topic is a broad topic. If portals about such topics are well constructed and maintained then what is the problem if we have lots of them? Thryduulf ( talk) 18:46, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Recent history has shown that clearly Wikipedia currently lacks the ability and organization required to maintain "lots" of portals. MFD routinely contains portals that haven't been updated in a decade, and there are only around 500 portals in existence right now. I can't understand how anyone would argue that we should be encouraging more portals to be created at a time when portals are being deleted at an unprecedented rate. ‑Scottywong | [squeal] || 21:28, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
+1 with Scottywong; the long list of MfDs on portals (that involves quite a wide range of editors over time), shows that the maintainer support for portals is nowhere near figures for even 1,000 portals. Even at the current levels of circa 500 portals, there is still a long list of portals to come whose last edit by a proper maintainer (e.g. not The Transhumanist-type edits), was pre-2013 (I notice that after 2013, portal support seemed to really collapse). I would suspect that WP doesn't even have the maintainer support for 100 good portals. Hence my suggestion under #Manual of Style above that we think of other ways to handle this (e.g. having a centralized FA/GA article database that could be linked to by a "portal-bar" on the article pages; or other ideas). MfD sees the reality of support by portal maintainers – most are gone. Britishfinance ( talk) 21:40, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
My view on portals, which I appreciate is not shared by everyone, is that they should serve as an entry point to learn about a given topic area (hence the name). So the topic area should be broad enough such that there is an advantage in having a navigational aid to supplement the primary article on that topic. I think they should be organized with relatively distinct domains, though eliminating all overlap is not necessary. To that end, I believe broad advice on best practices is desirable, including cases where portals aren't the best approach. However I also feel the people who are invested in doing the work long term should be able to define it, by and large. I think trying to determine a count of associated articles is just asking for a lot of arguing about how that count is derived. Let those knowledgeable in the area decide what are the best entry points. The problem that had occurred is various editors on their own initiative decided they wanted to make a gift of a portal to the corresponding group of interested editors, without considering that this is effectively handing them a recurring cost that has to be paid. We need to ensure that these editors want to pay this cost, and part of that is letting them decide how they want to dole out the time and effort in support of any associated portals. isaacl ( talk) 18:16, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
( edit conflict) I broadly agree with Isaacl and UnitedStatesian. A numeric guide as to the ballpark for what is broad enough is fine, but that figure should be in the region of 500 and certainly no more than 1000, but ultimately it should be based on the consensus of those doing the maintaining. Something similar to Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals is a good idea and that would work well, especially if there is a draft space where portals can be built up (it's unreasonable to expect them to be created perfectly immediately). Thryduulf ( talk) 17:59, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Where did you get the 500-1000 article range from? Is that just a gut feeling, or is it based on something more concrete? ‑Scottywong | [yak] || 18:34, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
500-1000 articles (in addition to a guideline about volume of GA+ content) indicates that there is sufficient content about the topic on Wikipedia to support a portal, based on the amount of content showcased in portals and the range of topics those articles will need to cover in order to exist as non-duplicate articles. 500 articles is what you might find in a small paper encyclopaedia focused on a single topic - by contrast 10,000 articles is about a sixth of the entire single volume Encyclopaedia Britannia. Thryduulf ( talk) 18:56, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
You might note that I reduced this proposal to 5000 articles, not 10000. Are you aware of any existing portals that have survived MFD, that are on a topic area that is only comprised of around 500 articles? ‑Scottywong | [prattle] || 19:38, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
There have been so many MFDs, many (maybe even most) of which of which were completely unrelated to the broadness of the topic (and indeed far too many based on nothing more than the manner in which it was created), so what survived or did not survive MFD is not a useful guide to topic broadness. What makes 5000 articles broad enough for you but 500 not? Where did you derive that figure from? How and why will it ensure the quality of a portal but 500 not? Thryduulf ( talk) 21:00, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
There is a large discussion section above on this page where I showed exactly how I derived 10000 articles as a threshold (and subsequently downgraded it to 5000 in an attempt to find consensus). You read that discussion and commented on it. I was hoping for a similar analysis from you (or, at least something a bit more concrete than a vague notion that 500 feels like the right number). Portals on broader topics are more likely to attract maintainers, that's a simple fact. It's far more likely that people will volunteer to maintain Portal:Music than Portal:German electronic music in the key of F-sharp from 1988-1992. The reason I bring MFD into this is because I think it would be smart to craft a guideline that prohibits portals from being created if they are unlikely to survive MFD. The hundreds of MFD discussions over the past year form a sort of meta-consensus that is unlikely to change anytime soon. In my opinion, it would be unwise to draft a guideline that significantly deviates from that consensus. Please keep in mind: I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm not pro- or anti-portal. I admit freely that nearly everyone in this discussion knows more about portals than I do. My opinions are derived from closing dozens of MFD discussions on portals, and reading through recent RFCs and other discussions on the subject. I see an obvious problem that needs to be solved, and I'm attempting to solve it. In my opinion, creating a guideline that encourages editors to create portals on narrow topics would not solve the problem, and would actually make the problem quite a bit worse than it already is today. But again, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. ‑Scottywong | [gossip] || 21:20, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Scottywong, it is far more likely that people want to maintain Portal:Opera than Portal:Music, as the latter is so general that most would-be maintainers will dislike a substantial part of it. People work on what they enjoy, not on what others would like them to work on, and that is a simple fact. — Kusma ( t· c) 21:37, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I feel like I'm not being understood. No one is suggesting that we force editors to maintain portals that they don't want to maintain. I'm simply pointing out the obvious fact that broader topics are more likely to appeal to a larger group of people. Of course there can be exceptions to this occasionally, but there are more people in the world that are interested in the "American Civil War" than there are people that are interested in "firing mechanisms on long-bore muskets used in the American Civil War". Broader topics naturally appeal more broadly. This is not a difficult concept, and I don't understand why we're arguing over it. ‑Scottywong | [babble] || 21:59, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I support having an article scope number criteria, but oppose a requirement for portal making as it should be "WP:Portal/Proposals". I want to add that it is too much of a gamble to rely on self referred "experts" to identify scope. The general consensus among the community I feel is to downsize portals, this can easily be taken via a straw poll. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 18:08, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Support this idea. It would stop portal-spam (which the community doesn't like). It would force the community to engage more in the topic of portals at RfPs, which cannot be a bad thing - I am not sure that all the !votes at big portal RfCs really understand what is happening in portal-space. By specifying the actual maintainers of the portal (and that they are genuine topic enthusiasts), we get to the core of the issue with portals, abandonment. We might also ask that the WikiProject endorse the RfP? We should also think about automating the process of when the maintainers leave WP, or stop supporting the portal - e.g. it could automatically go back to an RfP, and if it failed (because the existing maintainers never showed up, and new ones did not step forward), it get deleted/draftified. Britishfinance ( talk) 18:26, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
This proposal is silent on what imho, is the content driver of the recent conduct ArbCom portal case. In my view, a drive-by maintainer (e.g. not a topic enthusiast, not part of the original RfP, not part of the WikiProject, and especially doing mass-portal updates etc.) is not "maintenance", and is therefore to be discarded in any 6-monthly assessment of whether the portal is being maintained. This is a crunch issue for us to discuss (if not the core " Elephant in the room" for portals). thanks Britishfinance ( talk) 18:53, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Britishfinance, I completely disagree. It does not matter at all who performs maintenance, if they do what needs to be done. One of the problems here is that we don't have clear expectations of what maintenance is necessary. — Kusma ( t· c) 19:19, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Thanks Kusma, and as I said in my ArbCom statement, I think this is one of the core issues both for portals, and the tensions around portals. I raised it at ArbCom to see if they had a view on it/how to resolve it. Given the abandonment of portals by most maintainers, this issue is the most material item in my view as to the trajectory of the number of portals over the next 24 months. I am almost afraid to mention it here, but outside of the underlying abandonment of most portals, it is the "elephant" in my view. thanks. Britishfinance ( talk) 19:27, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
There is a discussion section below that will be devoted to the topic of portal maintenance, where we can set clear expectations of what is required. We'll get there soon. ‑Scottywong | [squeal] || 19:36, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Sounds like a good plan, I will put the "elephant" back in its enclosure :) Britishfinance ( talk) 19:38, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Support broadness. I question whether there are any topics that have 500 articles, 50 of which (10%) are GA or better. It seems like keeping a 1:100 ratio between articles and FAs is more reasonable, i.e., 5k/50 or 10k/100. 50 is the minimum number of GAs+ that I think can sustain a portal (any less, and the portal will display all GAs+, rather than have a selection of the best GAs+, since we need–what–like 25-ish GAs+ in the rotation?). So, if it's 50 GAs+, I'm at 5,000 articles (1:100 ratio). Frankly I wonder if we should only set a GA+ number, and not an article number at all. Support maintenance but I would change it to monthly instead of every 6 months. Six months is a long time to be serving readers with bad content. Even a month seems like a long time to me. Ambivalent on requests as it's kind of counter to our BOLD policy, and I just wonder if processing the requests is making too much work for volunteer editors. The way I figure, if we have a well-written guideline, an editor either (a) is competent enough to read the guideline and only make a portals that comply with the guideline, or (b) should be TBAN'd from making portals. Those in category B will make themselves known after making a few bad portals. Everyone else is in catetgory A and doesn't need to ask permission first. That's my view of it, anyway, but I'm not opposed to trying it because, well... there's a pretty good counterexample of what can happen when portal creation goes unchecked. – Leviv ich 20:19, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Again, support the main ideas, oppose some bits. More specifically, I support the ideas of requiring maintenance and a "broad topic". However, I think we should look at some examples before we adopt a definition of "broad topic". (For example I would consider Nigeria (13k articles, 29 GA or better) a broad topic. Roads in Maryland clock in at 600 articles, 70 GA or better, but I would describe it as a bit niche. Cheshire has 3000 articles, 79 GA or better. All three have decent portals, although Cheshire and Nigeria are far more appealing to me as a non-roadgeek). I oppose the requirement to propose a portal and oppose the idea of requiring named maintainers as un-wiki and against WP:NOTBURO/ WP:OWN. I agree that a portal that has sections that are half a year or more out of date needs work, and those that are several years out of date should have out of date content hidden (if possible) or be deleted (portals shouldn't be embarrassing). So require maintenance, don't require maintainers. — Kusma ( t· c) 20:42, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    • I guess Roads in Maryland is an example of why we need a minimum-article number and a minimum-GA+ number. – Leviv ich 21:45, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
      I could be persuaded to support something like "if a portal has more than 5000 articles/50 GA+, it is an automatic pass of broadness; if it has less than 1000/20+ GA articles, it is an automatic fail of broadness; portals in the intermediate area should be looked at individually, taking their quality into account". That would allow us to discourage portals about narrow areas, while making it possible to keep some of the few gems of portal space like Portal:Cheshire. — Kusma ( t· c) 11:16, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
      I like the idea of a range. – Leviv ich 01:35, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
      Levivich, perhaps we can find a way to encourage people to include narrow topics with comparatively large amounts of quality content as somewhat highlighted parts of broader portals (as some form of "merging"). This might also involve the WP:FT and WP:GT processes that highlight topics with lots of quality content but don't currently get enough attention in my opinion. — Kusma ( t· c) 11:04, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
      +1 to that idea. – Leviv ich 20:50, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Agree with everything but requests We don't need an AfC for portals - we want to encourage people to be bold. There are bits and pieces of the proposal I'd copy edit (I would define portals as needing to be both "sufficiently broad" and "sufficiently rich" and require they be tied to a WikiProject (EDIT: I just now noticed this was at the end of the maintenance section)) but I would generally support this. Also, if "sufficiently rich" is met but "sufficiently broad" is not but the portal is maintained, I don't necessarily see a reason to delete it - we don't want to encourage these types of portals, but as I've noted above with the 1948 Australia tour of England, the best portals should draw you in to the best tended article gardens on Wikipedia. SportingFlyer T· C 11:58, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support all three propositions, generally as worded. Topics should have breadth before they are even considered for a portal. Portals should either be attached to a specific WikiProject or have (at least) some editors dedicated to carrying out maintenance tasks. I can see no good reason not to have an approval process for determining which topics should have portals. I would not envisions such a process requiring a very involved discussion, but would have it entail the editor or editors proposing the creation of the new portal articulating how the portal will be arranged, what components it will have, and what specific articles or other content it will include at the beginning. BD2412 T 16:36, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support all three parts. The first one, the Requests, is comparable to my previous suggestion that we should have Portals for Discussion to approve both the creation and the deletion of portals. I would prefer that, but I don't think it will be approved. By the way, I do favor the use of pageviews. I have in the past been neutral on the deletion of poorly viewed well-maintained portals, as opposed to poorly viewed poorly maintained portals , which just must be deleted. But I support all three parts. Robert McClenon ( talk) 21:21, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support Broadness, Maintenance. Oppose Requests. I think mostly everything has already been said above. The first two requirements are sufficient. I think some of the problems raised above about good portals that don't fit the requirements could be solved by allowing sub-portals. I.e. Portal:Germany could have some sub-portals like Portal:Munich. We could decide on some rules for that to prevent abuse. -- Hecato ( talk) 09:50, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support all three I think Scotty is spot-on with regard to the criteria. In light of the numerous portals MfDs, it seems advisable to determine the appropriateness of a portal topic before hours are spent creating a portal that may otherwise be deleted. Lepricavark ( talk) 02:31, 29 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support Broadness, very strongly. Portals are top-down looking, which necessarily implies broad views. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:42, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Oppose Maintenance. "Maintenance" seems to imply that portals are covering developing topics. No, that is the job or articles. Portals should not overlap with articles. I still support auto-portals, but please do not launch thousands of portals. I think the BOT Policy method of unrolling automation should be the government protocol for any auto-page thing, if it is to be done again. Reducing the need for expert maintenance should be a major goal. A need for indefinite continuing maintenance should be regarded as a failure in the model. "Failed maintenance" is a reason for deprecation. Good maintenance should be removing the need for repeat maintenance. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:42, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Support WP:Portal/Requests. Some throttle is needed on new portal creation. I think there is only so much possible interest in portals, and thousands of portals guarantee their failure. I think their future depends on a culling down to 10-100 portals. Thinner portals should be merged to insider broader portals. This will be contentious, and the contentiousness is good, because it means there is interest. An excellent example is Talk:Main Page/Archive 194#Add Portal:Law to the list of portals displayed on the homepage, where User:BD2412 seeks to elevate Portal:Law to the top level. Only so many Portals can be top level portals. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:42, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Consensometer
Total Percent
Broadness 12 13
92%
Maintenance 12 12
100%
Requests 7 12
58%

I counted the !votes as follows, apologies if I missed or misunderstood anyone, please make adjustments as needed or let me know and I'll make them. As to broadness/maintenance/requests: Scotty (prop) 1/1/1, US 1/1/0, isaacl 0/1/0, Thryd 1/1/1, KK87 1/-/1, BF 1/1/1, L 1/1/-, Kusma 1/1/0. Note that pretty much everyone has some qualification or adjustment to the specific details in the proposal; so not everyone agrees, for example, exactly what broadness or exactly what maintenance requirements there should be. – Leviv ich 06:56, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Criteria proposal 2

There seemed to not be very strong support for requiring editors to get pre-approval for a new portal before creating it, at a page like WP:Portals/Requests. I'd like to try re-wording that part of proposal 1 to see if there is more support for it in a different form. This proposal is intended to replace the section of proposal 1 entitled " WP:Portals/Requests":

WP:Portals/Portals for discussion

Before creating a new portals, editors are highly encouraged (but not required) to discuss their ideas and intentions at WP:Portals/Portals for discussion, to get feedback from the community about their idea for a new portal. These discussions should start with a description of the topic that the portal will focus on, along with an analysis of the broadness of that topic, and an indication of how many high-quality articles that topic is comprised of. Include information about related WikiProjects that will support the portal, as well as a list of specific users who have committed to maintaining the portal regularly. The community can then discuss the potential new portal, provide opinions on whether they believe this portal should or shouldn't be created, provide advice on how to best create the portal, let editors know if there other closely-related portals already exist, and potentially find other editors that might be interested in helping to create and maintain the new portal. In general, new portals that receive a positive reaction from the community in a PfD discussion are far less likely to be deleted in the future.

This currently redirects to MFD, but that can be dealt with. Robert McClenon ( talk) 23:44, 29 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Comment. I think this proposal is problematic as the highly encouraged (but not required criteria will introduce an element of Self-selection bias (e.g. good portals will use it, poor portals will ignore it). I have a feeling the RfP idea would be more popular on a community-level. Obviously, and this is not a criticism per se, this form has a disproportionate weighting of portal enthusiasts (versus the general community). Whatever final proposals are decided, it is important that portal enthusiasts note that proposals that are unanimously supported by enthusiasts are unlikely to become community endorsed WP-guidelines. There are going to be some elements that enthusiasts don't like (and elements, that dislikers don't like). RfP was a good idea, and one that I think would have helped better community-wide support for whatever is decided? Britishfinance ( talk) 00:22, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support - This will hopefully cut down on the narrow topic portals. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 04:15, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support, an excellent step. BD2412 T 04:37, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support, reasonable compromise. In an ideal world, that page will act both as a bit of a gatekeeper against unsuitable content and as a page where would-be creators can get help in finding the best scope for their portal proposal. — Kusma ( t· c) 10:48, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support – I can get behind "encouraged-but-not-required" langauge. I think BF's point, it wll result in a sorting: (1) editors who know what they're doing and can make portals without needing to go through PfD; (2) editors who don't know what they're doing and go through PfD for guidance; and (3) editors who don't know what they're doing and don't go through PfD. I think group 3 will be small and thus easy to identify, and if necessary, they can be tban'd from making portals without PfD. I see WP:AfC as an analogous system. I also like the idea of PfD taking over from MfD for portal deletion discussions. – Leviv ich 20:54, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • For me the key aspect is ensuring the editors who regularly edit related articles are engaged and collectively agree with taking the lead in creating, updating, and maintaining the portal in question. Portals should not be created by other editors as a gift without confirming that the gift will be nurtured so it can flourish. isaacl ( talk) 18:52, 1 December 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Support. I think it's a good idea to have a place where portal ideas can be discussed. I'm assuming this would also become a deletion venue, by the name. Maybe have WP:Portals for discussion and WP:Portals for discussion/Deletion? Invalid OS ( talk) 14:48, 4 December 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Unsure. Requiring pre-discussion implies a lack of leadership, and the failure to have previously discussed generally. I think the default position should be that there should be no new portals. Instead, new subject area interests should be woven into existing working portals. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:45, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Discussion: Portal creation instructions

  1. All "selected biographies" MUST be transcluded per WP:BLP and related policies. If the content on portals is not updated, then it poses a serious potential risk to those who are living and recently deceased as stale information may not be factually correct.
  • @ Knowledgekid87:, I would agree with respect to actual BLPs and the recently deceased. I'm not sure what risk is posed for long-dead figures. BD2412 T 15:27, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I amended it, in general though this is a core policy which has to be taken into account as a definite guideline here. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 15:29, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    • I would also generally prefer transclusion. However, I can imagine a circumstance where a summary of a biography of a long-dead person with multiple lines of notability might emphasize their activities with respect to the field relevant to the portal. BD2412 T 16:11, 18 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • An idea to discuss when we get to this section: remove the "purge" link from portals, and create a bot that purges every portal once or twice a day. ‑Scottywong | [gossip] || 01:09, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    • @ Scottywong: there is already a bot which does purgeing: Joe's Null Bot, run by User:Joe's Null Bot. Joe is v friendly and helpful editor, who may be able to comment on the feasability of purgeing 500 pages twice a day.
However, I would oppose removing the purge button. So long as portals use the absurd one-excerpt-at-a-time model, purge is the only way to see another selection. If that model is dumped in favour of the mega-navbox model, then of course lose the purge button ... but until then, it's needed. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 23:33, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I have suggested in other discussions, and would suggest here as well, that every portal should have some mechanism through which any reader can easily see all of the content displayed in each subset of information to be included in the portal. I believe that Portal:Law (with Portal:Law/Maintenance as a more thorough catalog of content) is on the way to becoming a model for this concept. BD2412 T 04:47, 21 December 2019 (UTC) reply
I agree that this is desirable (and Portal:Germany has subpages that show all possible selections), but I wouldn't put this as an absolutely necessary item. (A start-class portal could possibly do without, but a B-class or better portal needs to show its workings). In any case, I'd say we should try to agree on what standards existing portals should be judged by before telling people how to create further portals. — Kusma ( t· c) 10:09, 21 December 2019 (UTC) reply
I think this is applicable to both cases. Existing portals that lack such a structure should be required to incorporate one. BD2412 T 14:13, 21 December 2019 (UTC) reply
I like this idea, and I've already implemented it over at Portal:Speculative fiction/Selected biography. Works very well. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 19:50, 27 December 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I am not convinced that portals should include content. Paragraphs of content confuse the distinction between the portal and mainspace articles. Maybe portals should be more like an illustrated category tree, where the only prose is illustration captions. I like the idea of portal structure being modelled on the category trees, except that there needs to be more control on the number of routes to a single page, when moving downwards. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:49, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
    SmokeyJoe, I am not sure what you are proposing here, it sounds to me like you are proposing to replace the current portals by something completely different, and I don't understand by what. Could you maybe make a mock-up portal to show what you suggest? — Kusma ( t· c) 07:54, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
    • Kusma, I am suggesting consideration of defining what portals should be, bit by bit. Should portals reproduce content? If yes, all content? Selected content? Random content? What is thought that readers are getting from this? — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 08:12, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply

Discussion: Portal maintenance guidelines

  • I'd love to see some sort of bot remind maintainers to take a look at portals they're maintaining at least annually. Maintenance need not be that complicated going forward - we just need to make sure the article selection stays fresh, the article selections match the transclusion selections, that everything still works properly, and that nothing is out of date or broken. I think failure to maintain a portal would be a reason for deletion (after the proposer discusses with any maintainers), but if anyone steps forward to adopt the article and no other reasons for deletion exist, the article should be kept automatically. SportingFlyer T· C 03:46, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • The bot I envision isn't supposed to clean up the portal - it's supposed to notify anyone listed as a portal maintainer to check the portal and make any necessary updates as a reminder. SportingFlyer T· C 02:50, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I think a key question asked should be: How much maintenance does or should a portal need? Portals are made up of sub-pages which generally don't need tons of editors maintaining them unless we go with the format Portal:Current events has with ongoing events. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 00:59, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I would definitely agree that every portal should get a thorough review at least once per year, touching every featured item on the portal and making sure content is up to date and displaying properly. As an example to that end, I have created Portal:Law/Maintenance, and am currently at an early stage of reviewing the content (somewhat complicated by the merger of content from the former Portal:Crime and Portal:English law). I expect this to take the rest of the year, so that the job will be much easier next year. BD2412 T 02:09, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    • You make a good point here that active maintenance may not be reflected in the number of edits to the main portal page. Thryduulf ( talk) 09:19, 22 November 2019 (UTC) reply
      • That is 100% right. I've had portals deleted based on the edit count implying that portals need to be constantly fiddled with. That's rubbish - we don't even use that criterion for articles. Again it was just another meaningless statistic used as an excuse to delete portals. The level of editing of a well designed main portal page, like a complete navbox, may easily be zero especially if the selected articles are refreshed on subpages. It just needs someone to oversee it and ensure it doesn't get out of date. Portals may need editing ("maintaining") in the following cases:
        • Links to new topic articles may need to be created (but often they are red links already)
        • Links may need to be moved from a "Wanted Articles" section to the relevant subtopic section.
        • Editors may want to add "Wanted Articles" or "Wanted Images"
        • Selected articles/images/biographies may need to be refreshed (but there can be a 12-month rotating cycle which does not need refreshing each year)
        • Any "in the news" section will need to be refreshed almost weekly (so we should only have that on portals if editors actively update it)
        • Minor edits to improve the text
      • But a simple portal like Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany/Harz (put up for deletion and moved to project space) needs hardly any maintenance. Yet I used it for years to generate a comprehensive coverage and expansion of the topic with dozens of new and expanded articles, none of which needed the page to be edited. Bermicourt ( talk) 09:11, 23 November 2019 (UTC) reply
        • Of all the portals I have seen, the Bermicourt versions are some of the best. I would describe them as "mega-navboxes", and a very rational use of a portal (and very nicely constructed). One question I have asked of Bermicourt on their portals is whether they could, or should, be converted into navboxes (albeit large ones), that would be transcluded across all relevant mainspace articles, and thus even more visible/scrutinized by other editors? Britishfinance ( talk) 11:54, 23 November 2019 (UTC) reply
          • Thank you, but I can't claim the credit for the design as I have imported them in most cases from German Wikipedia where they have clear guidelines and clear processes e.g. portals can't even be launched until they pass an approval process. They have a number of models:
          • One - the "Harz model" if you like (linked above) - is like a mega-navbox with no subpages. To try and answer your question, I'm not sure how we'd convert them into navboxes. Even if you took out the topic overview and selected article, they're really too big to place at the bottom of an article or even on the talk page. I could never see what was wrong with using them "as is" i.e. as a portal in portal space, but they were poorly linked (hence the criticism of low pageviews which is a questionable yardstick anyway). That was probably because the guidelines were weak and despite saying that should attract large numbers of readers, didn't encourage widespread linking (in fact WP:POG only suggests one mainspace link. So it wasn't consistent. Also portals never appeared in searches which has been repeatedly flagged up as a flaw.
          • Another model is the type with many subpages and e.g. rotating selected articles and images - that's much more of the sort of showcase originally envisaged.
          • Another feature are the maintenance pages where editors work collaboratively to improve topic coverage using the portal as a tool - this is project editor stuff and is really an "add on" to any portal. HTH. Bermicourt ( talk) 15:28, 23 November 2019 (UTC) reply
            • When I first came to WP as saw portals, I expected to find mega-navbox type pages of large structured arrangements of the WP articles in a topic grouped into main areas (a bit like List of Ireland-related topics, that still sits as the header to the main Ireland navbox). In essence, these are the Bermicourt Hartz portals. However, I also notice that some topic areas have now done this completely with "nested navboxes" like the United Kingdom, which has a reasonably well-nested series of large navboxes and to navigate sub-articles, leaving the Portal:United Kingdom redundant as a navigation guide.
Obviously, building nested navboxes as per the United Kingdom is a bigger task, although navboxes have the benefit of being more widely transcluded and therefore checked/updated by more editors (e.g. they are probably the best long-term solution0). However, in the absence of the full nested navbox solution, the Bermicourt Hartz portals (e.g. "mega-navboxes") are acceptable in my view, and should be separately "carved-out" in our discussions as there are much less issues of FORKING, less "scrapbooking" style (perhaps Bermicourt could develop a MOS for mega-navboxes portals), and other issues with standard portals. Britishfinance ( talk) 18:07, 23 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I'd be happy to develop a MOS for such portals once there is consensus that they are, in principle, acceptable. At the moment all I see is mass deletion going on and I'm not confident that any attempt to create navboxes of any type will survive without a clear thumbs up from the community. But I guess that's what we're trying to achieve here. Bermicourt ( talk) 18:39, 23 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Tangential discussion
In his introduction to his page, Scottywong noted in order for this discussion to be successful, it needs to be conducted in a calm, rational, civil way, where the only goal is to create a guideline that is in the best interests of Wikipedia.
Yet here we have Bermicourt resorting yet again to his habitual WP:BATTLEFIELD conduct by misrepresenting the one-by-one scrutiny of portals at MFD as mass deletion. This mendacious misrepresentation has been repeated by Bermicourt and others for over seven months: see e.g. an early blast of it in April at WT:WPPORT.
We can either have a civil, rational discussion ... or we can have this become yet another page hacked by Bermicourt as yet another a venue for his WP:BATTLEFIELD campaign of misrepresentation. But not both. @ Scottywong: which do you want this page to be? -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 02:56, 27 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Why are you taking such offense to this one broad comment anyways? I hate to agree but there has been an uptick in portal deletions in recent months. Can we please just focus on the central issues regarding portals rather than looking for behavior issues not even addressed to you? - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 04:05, 27 November 2019 (UTC) reply
KK87, my objection is that it's a continuation of a misinformation campaign which Bermicourt has been running for most of this year, because it poisons the atmosphere. Bermicort has repeatedly levelled this false charge at me, so it's v clear that i am one of is targets, even tho he didn't name names this time.
I haven't seen an increase in the rate of MFD nominations, and the November tally is way below the average of ~125/month for the ~1000 non-spam portals deleted in April–November. I suggest that you check the data before asserting conclusions.
But whatever the rate of MFDs, a series of individual consensus-forming discussions on individual portals is not mass deletion. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 06:09, 27 November 2019 (UTC) reply
BHG I'm afraid you've resorted too quickly to personal attack when you don't like something another editor says. Please don't do that. As for me, I'm certainly not looking for a battle, I'm just stating a fact. When I say portals are being 'mass deleted' I mean they're being deleted in huge numbers, way beyond the normal rate of deletion for a group of pages. There is, in effect, a campaign against portals which is not simply an innocent 'clean up' of a few pages; it's a relentless drive to get rid of most, if not all, portals. You yourself said before it started that you didn't think we should have more than a very low number (around 80 I think) of portals. And so my point was that I feel I will be wasting time trying to work on a navbox portal MOS while that's going on. My navbox portals have all been deleted from portal space. Bermicourt ( talk) 08:16, 27 November 2019 (UTC) reply
BHG, as you know, I have sympathy for your position and the job you have been doing on portals in the face of not always reasonable or fair opposition, however, I think you should power-down in this area. Bermicourt is a pretty reasonable participant in my view, who has seen their "mega-navbox" portals deleted at MfD (which I, and in some cases, you, have some appreciation for). It is not unreasonable for Bermicourt to observe that they should not spend any further time working on "mega-navbox" type portals when everything they have been doing on this area has been deleted so far (I am taking Bermicourt's word on this). The term "mass deletions" may not be optimal, but it is also not entirely unreasonable given what has happened to their work? Ultimately, I think the "mega-navbox" portal has never really had a proper discussion, and I can see benefits (especially if nested MainPage navboxes have not/cannot be done). Britishfinance ( talk) 12:25, 27 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I'm going to collapse this part of the discussion because it is tangential to the subject of portal maintenance. Everyone knows that tensions are running high when it comes to portals. This discussion was going in a productive direction, hopefully it can continue. I'd ask everyone to focus on the task at hand, try to avoid writing phrases that might trigger negative emotions in other editors, and try to ignore phrases that might trigger a reaction in you. The purpose here is to write a guideline that works for everyone, not to argue about the past. ‑Scottywong | [converse] || 19:14, 29 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Bermicourt: if there is agreement that your portal design is favorable, it might be beneficial to describe/define that design in a MOS-like way. This would probably make sense to discuss in the section above on portal creation instructions. I'd also be interested to hear more about how the German Wikipedia deals with portals, how they are designed, how they decide which topics should have portals, how their portals are linked/promoted, how much traffic they receive compared to their main articles, etc. If they're doing something right, we should learn from them. ‑Scottywong | [express] || 19:17, 29 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Comment: I'd be curious what people think of Portal:Speculative fiction as another possibility for a format option. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:51, 4 December 2019 (UTC) reply

Discussion: Portal Categorizing

We can take the discussion to update Wikipedia:Portal/Guidelines/Categorizing. See:

Guilherme Burn ( talk) 14:34, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Discussion about technical problems

Since we are talking about what is best for our readers I think we should mention technical limitations that need to be fixed.-- Moxy 🍁 15:49, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Mobile view limitations

  • 1 {{ Portal}} is not seen in mobile view that represents 60% of our readers unlike {{ Portal-inline}} or {{ Portal bar}} (when the no border parameter is used) all because the original portal template was made with "<div role=navigation". <div role=navigation was implemented because nav boxes with all their boxes result in load time concerns and format conundrum in mobile view and because portals are navigational aids the template got lumped in to all the other navigational template aids because of the border style box.-- Moxy 🍁 15:49, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Propose a wide RFC be done to fix {{ Portal}} to be visable in mobile view by requesting the box (border) be removed so that its compatible with mobile view software.-- Moxy 🍁 15:49, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Not sure what the technical problem is here but we need a software update.-- Moxy 🍁 15:59, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
The problem here is clear, but the proposed remedy is yet another example of portals adding extra complexity to fix one of the issues in a bad design. The Wikimedia software already has an excellent image gallery feature built into every page for logged-out readers, and similar functionality is available in mobile view. The built-in gallery offers a full-screen view of the images, so it vastly superior to the tiny window offered on portals.
Instead of adding extra complexity, readers would be very much better served by using much less complexity: abandon {{ Transclude files as random slideshow}}, and instead use a simple, static image gallery of small thumnbails which would be browsed using the built-in gallery software. This would have multiple benefits:
  1. much better image viewing
  2. reduced complexity (one less Lua module)
  3. faster loading time (the processing and loading of images accessed by {{ Transclude files as random slideshow}} adds a significant delay to portals where it is used)
  4. more familiar markup on the portal page
The built-in gallery was not available when the first portals were created in 2005, but 14 years later the environment has changed, and portal designers have not adapted to the availability of a better technology. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 12:25, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
BrownHairedGirl, is there some way of customising what the media viewer does? As far as I know, it slideshows through all images on a page. Using all images is bad (at least on articles), as that often includes flags and other content that doesn't belong in a gallery. It is also not always true that fullscreen is the way to go, and for pictures accompanied by too much text the MediaViewer cuts it off. It also depends on people's preferences whether image links go into slideshow mode or not. I'm all for integrating the technologies we have better (and I agree that some of the Lua magic transclusion templates are more resource intensive than they should be) but both have their limitations (and both have their use cases). On a case by case basis, sending viewers to a (sub-)page well curated for use with MediaViewer could be better than a slideshow on a page (I'd love to see good examples of this), but I don't see either method as redundant. — Kusma ( t· c) 21:41, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • 3 In many portals we use main navboxes to help navigation. ...however navboxes like above also use the div role=navigation parameter thus omitting them from mobile view. Example normal view vs mobile view version note how topics missing in mobile view.-- Moxy 🍁 15:49, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Solution create a template that looks the same but omits the "<div role=navigation" for use only in portals or if posible create a wrap like {{ Plain navboxes}} again only used in portals.-- Moxy 🍁 15:49, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Mobile view has many problems and most Wikipedians rarely think about it (and the developers of mobile view don't seem to think of and talk to Wikipedians much, or they wouldn't have invented automated navigation tools to replace navboxes and portals in mobile view). It's a shame that the slideshows don't work in mobile view, they could really shine there (imagine something like a slideshow for stuff like the states and territories of Australia, giving you a way to navigate through important subtopics without leaving the page). Most of what we do here is still very old-fashioned hypertext. Anyway, support improving the discoverability and usability of portals in mobile. — Kusma ( t· c) 16:46, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I am going to bring @ BrownHairedGirl: into the loop for this one as it was mentioned in an MfD. She said something about the portal template needing a community consensus to change it to better mobile viewing. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 21:41, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • The issue here is that mobile view does not display navigational elements, which as far as i have been able to determine amount those with in a <div role="navigation". The elements affected appear to be categories, navboxes, portal link templates such as {{ Portal bar}} and {{ Portal}} and (i think {{ subject bar}}.
Moxy has been trying to work around this by using {{ portal-inline}}, and has berated me for not making that change when updating portal links after an MFD. [2] I don't technically see way to do it, with my current setup, and it would be outwith the scope of WP:BRFA/BHGbot 4.
I have not formed a substantive view on whether displaying portal links in mobile view is a good idea or not. However, I do note that the current set-up is long-standing and also consistent across all navigational elements, so I assume that the decision to exclude them was made for a good reason. Any change to that status quo should be made only after understanding the reasons why it was implemented in the first place (which I don't know), and through a properly-notified discussion involving whoever designs that interface.
So I oppose any attempt to work around the status quo. This is an interface design issue, and should be considered directly as such, rather than being evaded by workarounds. It raises the obvious question that if portal links are to be included in mobile view, why not also categories and navboxes?
I am quite weary of this topic, because Moxy has been banging on about in for months in all sorts of inappropriate places (e.g. at MFDs, where it is off-topic) without as far as I can see ever bothering to find out why things are as they are. (I am glad to see Moxy noting the effect of <div role="navigation", but that's only because I pointed it out). Even now, I note that Moxy chooses to raise it here, rather than engaging with the interface designers. Moxy appears to push this point everywhere except the place that matters. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 22:18, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Nobody here really cares about your dealings with Moxy and I wish you would strike them as they aren't helpful, thank you though for explaining your opinion about mobile view. We arent all going to agree on things, but its helpful to hear as many opinions as possible that don't involve other editors. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 04:52, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I raised the history not to look backwards, but to note the failure to seek an effective path to resolution which engages all the issues. I stress the importance of having a clear of understanding why the current situation exists before proposing changes to it, and of ensuring that a broad interface design issue is handled as a broad interface design issue rather than as a technical portal issue.
Moxy's goal seems to be increase the visibility of portals in mobile view, but Moxy has not expressed any reason for their apparent desire that mobile view should support portals when it doesn't support the other navigational elements such as categories and navboxes. Good arguments could be made for a range of answers to that question, but I object to the persistent framing of the interface design choices as just a technical issue about portals. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 08:07, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I would strongly support either an RfC or an edict which makes portals more usable on mobile (though there are a number of things on Wikipedia which work horribly on mobiles.) SportingFlyer T· C 05:11, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • To the extent that we have the coding capacity, I would expect that getting Navboxes on mobile first is a more important objective than portals, given the relative use? Britishfinance ( talk) 10:06, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    • @ Britishfinance, I am sure a good case can be made for that view. However, the missing factor in this proposal is the failure of its proponents to establish why all three type of navigational elements were suppressed. The proposer works on the basis that the reasons are purely technical, but has offered no evidence to prove or disprove that implicit assumption. It is equally possible that a decision was made to declutter the mobile interface by removing navigation tools. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 10:39, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • The most basic steps for making portals mobile friendly would be the following:
  1. Hide in mobile - Just hides the content of {{him-top}} and {{him-bottom}} in low resolutions. This would hide incompatible content if necessary. Can be done easily with CSS.
  2. Full size in mobile - Adjust existing portal templates to take up 100% width in low resolutions. Can be done relatively easily with CSS as well.
I would also recommend adjusting the {{ Portal bar}} template to work in mobile and generally use that template over {{ Portal}}, which has low visibility in any resolution.-- Hecato ( talk) 10:27, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Hecato, I would support a deprecation of {{ Portal}} in favour of {{ Portal bar}}, but only in article space. On category pages, {{ Portal}} is better because the portal links occupy otherwise unused whitespace on the top right. Using {{ Portal bar}} on categories would increase the height of the page's header section, which reduces the proportion of the page's main contents which are visible above the fold.
If there was an RFC consensus to do this, I would be happy open a WP:BRFA to use WP:AWB to implement it. I did quick test [3], and it's fairly simple task with a regex. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 11:29, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
BrownHairedGirl, good point regarding categories. — Kusma ( t· c) 14:11, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Hecato, many portals already automatically switch from a two-column layout to a single-column layout if the available width is too small (you can test this on desktop by making your browser window smaller). — Kusma ( t· c) 14:10, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
You are right. Though I've seen a few different solutions in different portals. It would be great if we could standardize it a bit and also make it work with more than two columns. -- Hecato ( talk) 20:02, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
So back to moving forward with tech problems..... We should investigate what the technical issues are with {{ portal}} not being in mobile view and as to why they were omitted in the first place...then come up with some wording for an RfC on the {{ Portal}} template viability. I will email the mobile view developers this weekend see what they have to say.-- Moxy 🍁 15:42, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Outstanding technical problems

Mobile view now accounts for 60% of our readers.. e.g Portal:Michigan (Mobile view) vs. (Normal view)

  1. In Module:Excerpt the parameter |List= as used in {{ Transclude random excerpt }} is not collapsed in mobile view.
  2. {{ Transclude files as random slideshow}} is displaying all images at one time in mobile view.
  3. {{ Navbox}} not seen in mobile view.
  4. {{ Portal}} format not supported on mobile view.
  5. {{ Portal bar|border=no}} only supported on mobile versions if the border=no parameter is used.

Proposed remedies

Wikipedia's mobile view is broken in many ways that are not specific to portals. For example, collapsible sections don't collapse – anywhere. Until MediaWiki is fixed, the best we can do is attempt workarounds. For example, enclosing a list in <div class="navbox"> prevents it from appearing at all on mobile (and labelling it as a navbox is not too far from the truth). Would that be better than having it stuck in the expanded position? Certes ( talk) 22:20, 9 February 2020 (UTC) reply

Questions: Re General process here on this workspace

Comments by Sm8900

  • Can we have a separate sub-section for each person commenting here, for them to provide their basic ideas? they would still be free to comment in other users' sections to discuss the ideas from those users.
  • Remember we need to address concerns of some people who don't want portals to exist at all. any comments on that?

just noting that. Sm8900 ( talk) 21:03, 17 November 2019 (UTC) reply

  • Given consensus has continually been to keep portals in some fashion, I'm hoping this conversation remains civil enough to move things forward and establish some guidelines. SportingFlyer T· C 05:37, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Sm8900: I think it's best that we approach this project with the assumption that portals are here to stay in some form or another, and we're here to simply construct guidelines on what that form is. Opening up this discussion to the question of "should portals even exist at all" will threaten to derail the conversation entirely. I believe that question was discussed at length in a somewhat recent RFC. I'd prefer to avoid trying to answer that question in this forum. ‑Scottywong | [squeal] || 23:52, 19 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Scottywong: I agree. thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 20:44, 20 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Existence of Portals

Since the issue is being raised and then dropped of whether portals should exist at all, I will comment, basically to agree not to address that issue. I still do not really understand why the advocates of portals wants portals. The reasons that are mentioned are inconsistent. I have come to the conclusion that there is some sort of mystical appeal to portals (and maybe to a lot of other non-articles such as outlines, but we are discussing portals) that I will not understand. Also, the editors here are mostly portal advocates and not portal skeptics such as myself, but I am not in favor of getting rid of portals, because I know that some editors think they are useful. So I agree that this is not a forum to discuss whether portals should exist. Robert McClenon ( talk) 22:02, 24 November 2019 (UTC) reply

We have had two community wide discussions on the matter with no consensus on wholesale deletion. As I have told others though, if you don't actively participate here then you really can't complain as much if these proposed rules go into effect. You being a "portal skeptic" isn't a bad thing as your ideas could be helpful. If you really don't care about portals at all though then you might want to just ignore them. Viewing portals isn't mandatory, and Wikipedia is a big place. Your input of course would be valid at MfDs for portals that fail any ne w proposed guidelines here. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 05:03, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I think @ Robert McClenon: is going out of his way to be open-minded and accepting here, and I appreciate it. Sm8900 ( talk) 14:24, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Thank you for that, User:Sm8900. I am not happy with the way that this workshop is progressing, because I think that it is heading toward a pro-portal position. I feel that I have been singled out for partisan criticism both for going too slow and for going too fast, and I am glad that someone understands that I am only trying to be reasonable and that I want portal skeptics as well as portal advocates to be heard. I strongly disagree with any statement that if I don't actively participate here, I can't complain. This is not the final word. Any proposal from this group will still go to the community, and will presumably be considered under some sort of ArbCom oversight. If this group proposes rules that are one-sided, they may have the same fate as every previous attempt to enact guidelines about portals (that is, nothing). And I still don't know what the value of portals is. I just know that some editors are passionate about them for some reason. Robert McClenon ( talk) 23:33, 25 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Robert...plenty of people involved who are portal skeptics have been invited which include yourself, Newshunter12, and BrownHairedGirl among others. If you can think of anymore to balance things out then yes it of course would be welcomed. I am saying that you cant place blame on the process if the people who are more skeptical choose not to participate as much. I am fully aware of what may happen when this goes before the community which I think about a lot. An issue is that those that don't want portals on Wikipedia at all will of course likely not support any new guidelines for portals. This workshop is intended to work with the remaining portals for those who want to retain them per community consensus. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 01:05, 26 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I think this workshop is making some progress towards a guideline that will allow portals to exist (as per the previous community consensus) and at the same time define terms "broad topic" and "maintenance" etc. more precisely so the remaining portals can be measured up against a community defined standard. This standard is going to be more rigorous than that of many portal advocates, while it may be less rigorous than that of many portal skeptics. I am certainly willing to support rules that are stricter than those of my ideal world in order to find peace and compromise. — Kusma ( t· c) 09:58, 26 November 2019 (UTC) reply

The problem so far with this whole discussion page is that mostly consist of various compromises over points of detail, with hardly any attention to underlying questions of what are the actual goals of portals, whether those goals meet any actual need among readers, and whether any of elements of portals actually go sufficient distance towards meeting those goals that readers might want to use portals.

For example:

  1. How does a portal add value to the reader over and above a well-built head article? Why have none of the claims for added value been borne out in non-trivial viewing figures?
  2. What is the purpose of the lists of selected articles? Why does anyone expect that readers actually want some list of articles built on some undisclosed criteria?
  3. Why create excerpts of articles? Do they actually add enough value over the built-in excerpts to justify being the central focus of a portal?

Instead, this whole page is nearly all detail, with the underlying assumptions mostly unexamined. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs)

@ BrownHairedGirl: the broad consensus is clearly in favor of portals existing. with respect, I don't feel we need to revisit that question here. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 14:32, 26 November 2019 (UTC) reply
@ Sm8900, The community decided ~18 months ago not to delete all portals. That doesn't mean that it is in favour of portals, just that it doesn't want to exterminate every last one.
I am not trying to revisit that question. But I am asking that this workshop page should be rescued from the utter absurdity of discussing implementation details before even agreeing goals. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 17:24, 26 November 2019 (UTC) reply
These are all good questions which would have to be discussed in the "Goals" section above. I noticed you did ping Scotty, I get the feeling that since we are so close to Thanksgiving (a major American holiday) some people may be unable to be as active here. I would wait for December 2nd or so before editing picks up again. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 14:59, 26 November 2019 (UTC) reply
User:Kusma - This workshop seems to be making progress, but I am deeply skeptical. I thank User:Sm8900 for going out of their way to say that I was going out of my way to be open-minded and accepting here, and so are you, but I don't see that open-mindedness by other portal advocates here or elsewhere. I don't think that portal skeptics are being listened to. It isn't your fault, and there isn't anything that you or I can do about it, but this workshop will probably result in a proposed guideline that will leave existing cruddy portals in place and will probably permit additional useless portals. I don't like being lectured. I will say that if portal skeptics are ignored, or given an empty nod, this workshop may result in a proposed guideline that will have the usual fate of any proposed portal guideline, that is, No Consensus. I think that is because portal advocates don't really know why they want portals, because their desire for them is non-rational, and so they and portal skeptics are talking past each other. That is my opinion. Robert McClenon ( talk) 00:56, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
You are entitled to your opinion, and all of us here know that there will be rationales at a proposed guideline such as "portals are garbage". These are considered to be WP:IDONTLIKETHEM comments. Arguments that have more weight are those that successfully discredit the things talked about here. Portal skeptics who go on about how much junk portals are will, and should be ignored just as much as someone saying "these portals are the best things on Wikipedia". - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 04:11, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
User:Knowledgekid87 - I think that you may be misunderstanding or misrepresenting my views. I have never said anything to the effect that "portals are garbage". I have occasionally said that certain specific portals were crud. I am not likely to say that portals are garbage because I don't understand the reasons for portals. I know that the advocates of portals are passionate about the value of portals, but they haven't been able to communicate the reason for that passion to me. So I am just puzzled about portals. I don't think that they are garbage because I don't know what their builders are trying to do. So please don't think that I am dismissing them as garbage. Robert McClenon ( talk) 04:36, 1 December 2019 (UTC) reply
My apologies as I meant in general. I was not trying to say you would say such a thing, I am saying that there will be editors that will use that rationale. Portal skeptics that have an argument to give would be taken more seriously. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 15:37, 1 December 2019 (UTC) reply
Robert McClenon, sure, some of the sentiment towards portals from their maintainers comes from attachment to our own previous work that we are proud of. Pride may be a bit irrational, but WP:DYK mostly serves as a pride-based motivation to do good content work. On the general point, I am (as a hopeless romantic and optimist) still hoping we can agree on some compromise guideline that gives clear criteria what portals should do (at minimum), what topics can be considered suitable for portals and what topics are unsuitable. It is likely going to be quite a bit stricter than my own somewhat laissez-faire attitude, but a widely supported guideline would be well worth that. For topics that are too narrow but have good quality, I used to oppose the call to "merge" them, but I am now reconsidering that stance: if we can come up with some kind of "merge" that truly works as an WP:ATD, we should go for it. Possible technical implementations could be dedicated subtopic boxes, subportal tabs or similar. — Kusma ( t· c) 10:43, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply

A quota on # of portals might be a solution. It would stop any mass creations & mass deletions. GoodDay ( talk) 15:48, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I have proposed something very much like that in this discussion. Make portals function more like WP:VITAL, with a set number, and an include/exclude discussion model required to create a new portal. BD2412 T 05:21, 1 December 2019 (UTC) reply
I think we are in the process of doing that with a limit on portal numbers with the amount of articles in their scope. It is at least a start on a process of creating a criteria. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 15:48, 1 December 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I have never seen a serious argument on deleting the mainpage linked portals. This was a critical flaw in the ENDPORTALS RFC. It was a stupid question. A quota on number of portals is a very good idea. I suggest that number should be as low as 10, and no higher than 100. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:52, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Parting ways

Ya'll should consider separating portals from English Wikipedia & giving them a home of their own. Just like Wikinews & Wiktionary, for examples. GoodDay ( talk) 15:25, 28 November 2019 (UTC) reply

  • For most of the active portals that I am aware of, that would not be a particularly useful step, as they are closely integrated with articles, article assessment, WikiProjects, and editors here. Should portals be deprecated on Wikipedia, my portal would prefer a life as subpage of Wikipedia:WikiProject Germany to being exiled to a different project. But the community has repeatedly rejected the idea of deprecating all portals, so this isn't such a useful discussion at this point. — Kusma ( t· c) 15:40, 28 November 2019 (UTC) reply
The community chose to keep portals in existence. My suggestion is to allow them to exist somewhere else, in Wikimedia Foundation land. GoodDay ( talk) 16:16, 28 November 2019 (UTC) reply
  • The community also repeatedly rejected the idea of deprecating NPORN, until one day, the community decided to deprecate it. – Leviv ich 16:22, 28 November 2019 (UTC) reply
    NPORN had de facto pariah status long before the community acted to deprecate it. PORN was routinely deleted at AfD, and at DRV complaints received zero sympathy. WP:POG, upon first being noticed, quickly fell into pariah status. The lesson: Do not write guidelines ahead of consensus, and consensus required community participation. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:55, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
    If the proposals being discussed on this page have the effect of improving portals, then the community will become increasingly inclined to keep and further improve them. BD2412 T 20:11, 28 November 2019 (UTC) reply
User:GoodDay - I agree with you. Portals in their own WikiTheater will still be able to reference articles in Wikipedia because Wikimedia has always supported and will always support cross-project references. But creating a separate theater for them would require that their advocates express clearly what they want to do with portals, and they can't do that. Robert McClenon ( talk) 00:59, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
Indeed. GoodDay ( talk) 01:03, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply
I think the purpose of this page is to focus on ways that we can make portals more relevant and constructive for the project, so let's do that. BD2412 T 01:31, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I wish you all luck, in your goals. GoodDay ( talk) 01:41, 30 November 2019 (UTC) reply

Portals and neutrality / balance

At some point we should discuss what WP:NPOV means for portals and selections. Should portals be governed by the same rules as articles (requiring a balanced treatment of subtopics) or by the same rules as the Main Page (which is heavily biased towards the interests of Wikipedia editors, but has some rules that try to hide this bias a bit, by not allowing all-American DYKs or weeks with only Tropical Storm FAs etc.) or by the same rules as Wikiproject FA lists (which just list every FA in the scope of the topic, even if that results in a selection where half of the articles about "Germany" are actually about battleships)? I am happy to postpone this discussion into the "best practices" phase, but wanted to make sure we discuss this at some point. — Kusma ( t· c) 17:41, 3 December 2019 (UTC) reply

I agree. This needs to be sorted at some point. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 20:09, 3 December 2019 (UTC) reply
I think NPOV is the most important content policy (it implies WP:V & WP:NOR), and Portals' disconnection from NPOV is a massive issue. The Main page is excusable, it is not titled with a topic, it is clearly not an article or a treatment of any single topic, and there is only one of it. If topic portals are to continue, they must be robust with respect to NPOV. One way it to allow only extremely broad subject areas, such as the current main page linked portals, arguing that a whole subject area is not vulnerable to severe NPOV. However, this approach will break down on more narrowly scoped portals.
To ensure avoidance of NPOV problems, I think the best way is to have a defined and objective rule for what is and is not included. This calls for subjective decisions. NPOV is not achieved by pretending POV doesn't exist, but by explicitly addressing known and possible POVs.
* Are Portals supposed to be comprehensive navigation aids, like the category system, systematically including all subtopics regardless? Unlike the category system, the number of routes to a particular page will be POV-susceptible.
* Are Portals to be structured so as to highlight the best, the FA and GA rated content? This introduces editor bias, because editors choose what to work on and improve according to their own preferences.
* Are Portals to be structured to reveal content in terms of reader page views? Could this be workable? Show readers what readers are already interested in? That sounds attractive, until noting that the list of Wikipedia:Popular pages was embarrassingly rife with adolescent and popular interests, with huge systematic bias towards readers with fast devices and connectivity. However, if filtered by encyclopedic subject areas, starting with the current main page linked portal titles, maybe it could work.
Or are portals more work than they are worth? -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:15, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
I like to think of portals as similar to the Main Page, which means that quality-based article selections can carry a strong bias towards the interests of editors, but this can be mitigated by not displaying all available quality content at once. Please let me know about WP:NPOV problems you see in Portal:Germany so I can see if I can fix them. — Kusma ( t· c) 06:12, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
I think many default to thinking of portals as mini main pages, and that that is one of the roots of the problem of their flawed design of purpose. There can only be one main page, and the eight main page linked portals are relatively tiny, even “negligible”.
Portal:Germany is a second tier portal, one level below the main page linked portals. I think it might be better forced into a higher portal, or broken and packaged into multiple higher portals. Or maybe not. I think Germany comprises a large amount of Society and Geography. Portal:Germany might be OK, it attracts a lot of attention, obvious problems would be fixed quickly, I think. However, should every nation have its own portal? I think no. Every nation portal is tempted into being a brochure for the nation. That is the biggest POV issue. That and the fact that it presents material as if it is unsourced. I think less text is better, though there must be some. The pictures are good. The inclusion of navigation templates is good. — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 11:35, 29 January 2020 (UTC) reply
SmokeyJoe, Germany is a rather large topic, so it is comparatively well suited to "mini main page" treatment and very difficult to do a good navigation aid for (other topics have very different issues). We also have lots of fresh DYK content. In the article selection, I try not to make it a brochure for Germany, but have a selection of good and bad things. If there is a POV in the selection, it is probably a pro-scientist and anti-battleship POV :) All of the material (except news and cuisine) is from recent main page DYK or from GA or FA class articles, so everything is well sourced, even if the sources are a click away. — Kusma ( t· c) 17:00, 29 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Possible way to increase visibility of portals

I've noticed that the portals with the highest views tend to be the eight portals listed at the top of the Main page (see stats here). Since we have random transclusion of content that can be used to keep portals fresh, what about making a random link tool (possibly using much the same Lua capabilities as the random excerpt translusion templates) that pulls from a curated list of portals and lists eight of them (so it takes the same space on the Main page)? We could initially limit it to portals that were previously featured portals in order to make sure they meet higher standards of quality, and then have a method to propose additions to the approved list. I think this could significantly increase portal views for other portals, and provide incentive for cleaning up and improving portals in order to be on the list. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 21:58, 3 December 2019 (UTC) reply

  • I think that there is exponential decline in page views of portals, counting the main page as a portal, in terms of number of links they are from the main page. I have concluded this browsing this data browsing 3-4 levels down from the mainpage, allowing for an estimate of page hits being due to bots and crawlers that should be removed from the count. A signal to determine bots and crawlers is to expect high daily random noise in the counts from genuine readers; a flat level of hits is indicative of automated page views. The meaning of exponential decay is, I think, that readers attempting to navigate via portals very rapidly decide that navigation by portal is not valuable. The more they do it, the less likely they are to continue (growth proportional to number is the definition of exponential). Thus, the question demanding is an answer, is what makes a portal valuable to a reader? A possible answer is "nothing". Another possible answer is "structured navigation". Whatever, this question needs more attention. Tricking more readers into viewing portals is not the right approach. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:25, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
    • @ SmokeyJoe: I'm not sure how my proposal has anything to do with "tricking" people into viewing them. It has everything to do with providing another way for people to find the portals. As I noted, the eight portals listed on the main page have significantly more views than any other portals. This is most likely due to being right at the top of the main page. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 01:50, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
      • User:Nihonjoe, while obviously true that being on top of the 12-million-views-per-day page helps with getting visibility, it is also the case that main page editors' consensus was that these eight subject portals, and no others, belong there. I think that these main page portals themselves fail to give value to readers, based upon the number of people who go from a top level portal to a second level portal being the same ration as the number of people visiting the main page going to a main page linked portal. Visibility is important, but is less important than ensuring that the portal is worth visiting. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 02:00, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
      Nihonjoe, we could also start by trying to link other portals more prominently from the top 8. Maybe add randomness to {{ Portals browsebar}}? We're more likely to get support for main page changes after a year or so of trialling this in portal space. — Kusma ( t· c) 08:46, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
I think that is the sort of creative idea that will raise the profile and hence readership of portals. But on it's own, it's not enough - portals need a range of measures to improve their connectivity and hence visibility. Just two other ideas:
  • Mainspace links from all relevant articles. It's quite clear that one of the reasons for such low viewing levels on many portals is that they are so poorly linked. This is partly a result of the now rejected portal guidelines which said: To optimise access to portals, each portal should have the following links leading to them: 1) From the root article of the portal, 2) From the category of the same name or whatever are the root categories in the Category box section and 3) From the corresponding navigation template(s). So in effect only one mainspace link! For navigation purposes alone, portals should be linked from every article relevant to the portal topic.
  • Make portals appear in searches. Currently portals never appear in the search hits. So if you punch in "Science" you see about 8 hits including Science and technology in the Philippines but not Portal:Science. My betting is that, for 99% of readers searching on Science, the portal would be of more interest than the sub-articles on science. Indeed a good portal will give a far bigger and better overview of the topic than the search hits. Bermicourt ( talk) 20:21, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply
  • If there is a main article with a portal of the same name, then there could be a link at the top of the article. Similar to the " For the X, see..." template format. -- Hecato ( talk) 10:25, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Results?

What's the end result? Has anything been decided? GoodDay ( talk) 21:38, 20 December 2019 (UTC) reply

@ GoodDay: Not sure. I have at least three comments above that have gone without any reply. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 21:48, 20 December 2019 (UTC) reply
Scottywong hasn't edited in more than two weeks. If he doesn't return soon, we should continue without him as moderator of the discussion (and maybe find someone else for that task). But for the moment, I am still waiting. — Kusma ( t· c) 21:53, 20 December 2019 (UTC) reply
A few have been busy with Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Portals/Evidence and I would guess others are waiting for the holidays to be over before moving forward with a wider community talk. I think there is a good outline here that just needs to be consolidated for presentation...something I believe others are more skilled at then I. -- Moxy 🍁 21:56, 20 December 2019 (UTC) reply
I agree. Let's see if there is any further activity by a few days into January. BD2412 T 04:49, 21 December 2019 (UTC) reply
Should we try to find someone who would help moderate this discussion? I think Scottywong's attempts to focus discussion and to summarise what we agree on have been very helpful here. — Kusma ( t· c) 06:14, 28 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Though my views on portals is already well known. I do appreciate that many of you have put significant time & effort in maintaining them. As a viewer from the gallery, I'll be interested in seeing how it all ends :) GoodDay ( talk) 22:05, 20 December 2019 (UTC) reply

The discussions didn't die, they were put on hold from things such as the holidays and the ARBCOM decision. - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 00:52, 27 January 2020 (UTC) reply

I had chosen not to participate here pending the outcome of arbitration. Why even discuss portals if one editor was allowed to dominate all discussion? Now I'm enthusiastic about contributing to a discussion much like this one. I'm impressed with what has been covered so far. Let's continue or start again. BusterD ( talk) 01:03, 27 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Arbitration Committee (Portals)

Finding of fact

Portals

Accepted "2) Portals, a page-collation function created on Wikipedia in 2005, are tools intended to help readers browse broad subject areas. Recent community proposals have been contentious and have not resulted in a clear consensus about their use. ( proposal to discontinue their use, proposal to adopt community guidelines, proposal to delete portal space)"


Proposed remedies

Community discussion recommended (II)

Accepted "7.1) The Arbitration Committee recommends that a well-publicized community discussion be held to establish a guideline for portals. The committee further recommends that this RfC be kept open for at least 30 days, be closed by a panel of 3 uninvolved administrators, and at a minimum address the following questions:

  • Topics: How broad or narrow should a topic area be for it to sustain a portal?
  • Page views: Should there be a minimum number of page views for a portal to be considered viable? How should those page views be measured?
  • WikiProjects: Should portals be required to be connected to an active WikiProject or other group of maintainers?
  • Updates: How often should a portal be updated?
  • Automation: Can automated tools be used in the creation or maintenance of portals?
  • Links to portals: How should portals be used? Should they be linked on all relevant Wikipedia articles, or should another method be used to ensure that portals are viewed and used?"

Moratorium on Portal creation ?

I recommend that ya'll hold off on creating/re-creating portals (self-impose time window on yourselves) & instead concentrate on improving the portals you currently have. Restraint, would have a positive effect in this topic area. Note: Improved portals, is a foundation for future portal creations. GoodDay ( talk) 15:41, 25 January 2020 (UTC) reply

I dont think creation of new ones is on anyone's mind...think we still need alot of cleanup (still more to be deleted and many to update). Let alone the guidelines thing.- Moxy 🍁 16:17, 25 January 2020 (UTC) reply
A few (formally featured) military history portals were deleted prematurely, while I, as a listed maintainer, was not notified of the discussion and was busy dealing with the death of a parent. Portal:Culture also needs re-creation. That said, I wholeheartedly agree re-creation is WAY down my list of priorities. I'm pleased that ArbCom's intervention appears to have broken the back of the disagreement, that heat surrounding such disagreement has cooled, and that a reasonable discussion is recommended/suggested going forward. I'd like to think the work which has gone into THIS workspace page has clarified some of the issues bulleted by ArbCom, making it possible to have a larger discussion on these issues. My hope is to buttress existing portals based on criteria established by new discussion, then look at subject areas which would benefit from portals under the new process. BusterD ( talk) 13:50, 26 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Arbitration has made way for common ground resolution based of productive talks and this page is a good start. As for creation....I think GoodDay concerns is based on mass creation over you or anyone doing there best to create one portal in a subject there are highly aware of. A few build here and there is manageable...a few new examples to evaluate in this guideline building proces would be a good thing.-- Moxy 🍁 14:09, 26 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Not wanting to sidebar this unduly, but it is possible that otherwise willing editors might not want to take on maintainer responsibility because of the envisioned time requirement. I updated and fortified the ACW portal in less than four hours (most of that making mistakes with the Lua lists), and now checking it monthly takes fifteen minutes or less. Re-creating say, Portal:Napoleonic Wars, would take me about two hours (and it would be a more improved portal than the one deleted). So I could myself easily take on a dozen portals' responsibility. I'd rather find someone with specific area interest, show them how to build and maintain it, and focus more on pagepace myself. ArbCom case behind us, I'm clamoring for the first discussion about required topic broadness. BusterD ( talk) 14:27, 26 January 2020 (UTC) reply


User:SmokeyJoe on 7.1, ArbCom's six starter questions

Topics. To be appropriate for a Portal, its scope must be an entire subject area that is not a subset of a larger portal. The starting list is the eight main page linked portals, numbered alphabetically.
1. Arts
2. Biography
3. Geography
4. History
5. Mathematics
6. Science
7. Society
8. Technology
A feature of all these portals is they all have relevance to all humans. I believe that Portals for specific things, like nation portals, should not exist as stand alone portals.
I am aware of a recent proposal to add Portal:Law to this list.
Page views. Page views are a measure of of how used the portal is, and to this number should be monitored. However, the meaning behind the number is complicated, and raising the number should not be a standalone driver.
WikiProjects. Most WikiProject are highly specific, not suited to their own reader-facing portal. However, WikiProject may very well benefit from maintaining an editor-facing portal within the WikiProject. Also not that most WikiProjects are inactive.
Updates. Portals should not require work to keep them valid. However, they can always be improved. Portals, like the encyclopedia, should aim to be timeless.
Automation is possibly a very good idea. However, do not launch automation unilaterally. Use the procedures at WP:Bot policy. Make your proposal, test it small scale, get feedback on the small scale results.
Links to Portals. This depends on whether portals are mainspace content, or WP space content (WikiProjects, Category pages). Currently they are a mix, and this is a problem. Mainspace should not surreptitiously link to Portals if Portals surreptitiously link to project space.
-- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 04:30, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
I find "not a subset of a larger portal" to be a problematic phrase, since it is possible to loosely define anything as a subset of a sufficiently vague supertopic. For example, one could say that Technology is a subset of Science, and that Arts are a subset of Society, and perhaps even that Biography is a subset of History. If a subject matter is broad enough to support a portal, the existence of a larger portal of which the subject is a subset should be irrelevant. BD2412 T 04:38, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
I don't disagree. Would Portal:Germany go under Portal:Society, or Portal:Geography? If it goes under both, then the portal structure will have so many connections, so few structural limitations, that it may as well simply be the category system. Or is that a possibility? If portals may be massively connected, how is it different to the wikilinking of the parent articles? An indeed, how will portals do a better job than navigational templates. The phrase is largely driven by a desire to create a natural limit to the number of portals. My line of thought may well not be the way forwards, but if it is, there are problems with the current selection of main page linked portals. Mathematics, Science and Technology are all highly connected, as well as Biography and Society.
I know a lot has been said before, elsewhere, as well as above, and I may have missed whole sections, but I feel some progress on defining a limitation to the topics that are suitable for Portals is needed. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 05:51, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
@ BD2412 and SmokeyJoe:. hi. thanks for these points. sorry, but I disagree with one recommendation above. I disagree with SmokeyJoe that portals for nations "should not exist." they serve a valid role here. and also, they exist because multiple editors want them, and find them useful.
please note, one important point for this whole effort is to find new ways to create portals in a logical manner, not to delete wholesale an entire group of portals that already exist, and have WP:Consensus. I do appreciate all of the ideas here. thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 06:10, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Sm8900, OK. Nation portals? What is their role? What is the evidence that editors want them, and if they are reader-facing, what is the relevance of specifying editors versus readers? Editors find them useful? How, and isn't that a reason to put them inside a WikiProject, away from readers? -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 06:17, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
they serve the same role that every other portal does on major topics that editors wish to edit. that is the whole point of portal. for example, the portal on United Kingdom serves as a portal to articles and topics that relate to the United Kingdom. while the portal on the United States serves that role for articles that relate to the United States. and the portal on France serves that role for articles that relate to France. I'm not sure why this is even a point of dispute. there is broad consensus for all of these portals to exist in their current role. there is no need for gratuitous deletion of existing portals that have consensus, and which no one is raising any objections to. and also, gratuitous wholesale deletion of portals is what got us into this situation. the point of this exercise is to find positive ways to build portals as a resource, not to delete entire groups of them. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 06:24, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
I think there is not broad consensus for any portals to remain as they are, but this will come in the RfC, not by assertion. I do not support the deletion of any of the remaining portals that I have seen. All of them, including the nation portals, might be merged or split, but note deleted. WP:ATD supports this. I am dreaming of ways to restructure so as to make them actually serve readers, which they do not do currently. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 06:52, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
I like country portals since I'm interested in specific areas of geography. They help me quickly identify the best articles for that particular region, not as an editor, but as a reader. As an editor, they also help identify areas where we need to improve. For instance, most of the Croatian featured articles are about the war, which is an understandable shame. SportingFlyer T· C 04:40, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
SportingFlyer I agree fully with your comment above. well said!! -- Sm8900 ( talk) 16:56, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
About links- Portals are a content namespace that should strictly follow Wikipedia:Editing policy and Wikipedia:Core content policies anything less should not be seen by our readers. Unlike our administration namespaces portals are meant for public viewing thus should adhere to ALL content protocols.That said...they are also an introduction to our administration namespaces (first for most) and could be an asset for encouraging participation as outlined above. Encouraging participation via portals is not a problem and in fact one of the only ways mobile viewers will find any administration namespace in a content area of Wikipedia (if mobile friendly link format is used). Got to remember no categories. no navtemplates and no popups in mobile view, thus a visible portal link is the only link to help with navigation. -- Moxy 🍁 06:43, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Moxy, if that is the way to go, then it means not interspersing WikiProject links in the Portal text. I have noticed that some portals did this, and the better ones do not. If this is agreed, it would be a good point in a portal guideline. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 06:54, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
In my view Wikiproject links can help topics gain participation (without editors we dont have a Wikipedia)...but in my view again...this should be on a sub pages labeled as such like at Portal:Canada with Portal:Canada/Wikiprojects. We need editors Predictions of the end of Wikipedia#Decline in editors. The loss of Wikiproject participation seems linked to more mobile viewers not seeing talk page banners and portals, thus not being introduced to projects-- Moxy 🍁 07:10, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Moxy, maybe. An alternative possibility is that WikiProjects are a relic of the past, of the few years of exponential growth in article count, and now most WikiProjects are inactive. Editor arrive via the "edit" buttons in mainspace. If mainspace points them to portals, and portals have "edit" buttons, I think that will attract editors to portals. If portals are template code heavy, then they are behind a barrier. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 07:23, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
I am chiming in briefly simply to say, I agree fully with all of Moxy's points above. I appreciate your points on this. I am including the points on portals, on including WikiProjects, on encouraging and recruiting editors to become active, and the other points. well said! thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 16:04, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply


About page views...see #Portal page views.-- Moxy 🍁 06:43, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Moxy, yes. I had not attempted to summarise the page above.
This page is difficult to comprehend alongside the ArbCom's list of six questions. There is overlap and difference. Working from the ArbCom list of six:
Topics: Moxy's User_talk:Scottywong/Portal_guideline_workspace#Outline_of_portal_intent is a good read. As are User_talk:Scottywong/Portal_guideline_workspace#Discussion:_Criteria_for_determining_which_topics_should_have_portals; "Portals should not be localized"; and WP:VITAL
Page views: User_talk:Scottywong/Portal_guideline_workspace#Portal_page_views covers this extensively, and I think everyone is on the same page.
WikiProjects: e.g. SportingFlyer: "At least one WikiProject per Portal". There was less mention of WikiProjects.
Updates, Automation, and Links to portals were mentioned but not systematically discussed.
I added my own opinion separately, having missed the boat for participating in the above. I think the next step is to design a better RfC. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 07:13, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Agree .-- Moxy 🍁 07:22, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
I disagree with most points, but that is because I apparently have a fundamentally different idea in my head of what portals should be. I believe portals should be a bit like the Main Page, just slightly more focused. That means they should link to news, new and good articles in their topic area, and also that they should heavily link to the Wikipedia namespace, in order to encourage participation. I am not opposed to portals that are structured more as navigational tools, but that depends on the subject area. Anyway, what type of portals should exist depends on what portals are supposed to do ( Portal:Cheshire, one of our best portals, will fail your test, but I can see no reason why we would want to delete it). Incidentally, one of the less discussed issues with The Transhumanist's portals is that they were much more on the "navigational tool"/"pretty navbox" side of what portals could be than many of the handmade ones, which may have influenced some people's idea of what portals do. — Kusma ( t· c) 12:42, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
Kusma I agree fully with your comment above. well said!! -- Sm8900 ( talk) 16:56, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Portal:Cheshire. It’s pretty. It doesn’t link to Cheshire, and I couldn’t work out how to fix it. It is trying to be all things to all people. Scope of purpose is missing. Deletion should not be on the cards. Ten visits per day. Could we include a survey link for the readers to comment on what they were expecting and what they found? — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 21:34, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
The portal includes a More about Cheshire... link. DexDor (talk) 21:44, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
So it does. I didn't find it, though i did find some links far below the fold. I expect the main topic article to linked from the lede sentence, but bold Cheshire looks like it is self-linking to the current page. A minor issue, but one that is common to many portals. Another minor problem I would fix, except I lack the skill to edit portal code, is the lack of linking to neighboring counties or higher jurisdictions. They are there, but hard to find. The context of the portal seems to be from within Cheshire, and with no outside interest, only inward looking. This may be what the target audience wants, but as a navigation tool, it is a trap, like you get from a commercial website that tries to dissuade you from thinking about other companies. It is implicitly Cheshire promotionalism. This is a subtle NPOV failure, and the parent article does most things better. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 22:50, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
The Main page begins with a link to the article Wikipedia, which says what Wikipedia is, and is easily read and easily edited. The first section on a feature article links to the featured article immediately. Portal:Cheshire doesn't do this, instead it confuses me, and I feel the message is that because I am not from Cheshire, I shouldn't be even looking at this. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 23:11, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply
@ SmokeyJoe: It would be a courtesy to ping me when talking about a portal I have maintained for over a decade on a page I haven't been invited to contribute to. The link to Cheshire is at the bottom of the text. It can easily be duplicated at the top. You do that by clicking the edit link and placing "[[" and "]]" around the relevant word. There, I've done it for you.
It does link explicitly to a number of other county portals and wikiprojects, as well as the standard portal topics bar. The intro links in the first sentence to North West England, the relevant region, and to ceremonial counties of England which gives a long list of similar entities. I can easily add adjacent counties if that would make you happier. ETA: Done, in geography box.
There is an existing suggestions page, which is widely linked within the portal. Should you fail to get a quick response (due to maintainer dying of shock) you can post at the wikiproject talk page, which is more widely watched by active project editors. Espresso Addict ( talk) 00:32, 31 January 2020 (UTC) reply
You did it for me by editing Portal:Cheshire/Intro. I was looking through Portal:Cheshire. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 03:13, 31 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Moving forward, January 2020.

After two years of deleting most portal pages, and the grief and incivilities involved, and an ArbCom case, there is now an expectation of an RfC. Crafting an RfC is an art that few are good at. Talking about everything all at once can be a bad thing. I have thought on this, and suggest three separate delineations:

  • 1. Scope. Topics. How many. Breath. Integation with mainspace (incoming links from mainspace) and WikiProjects (portals sending portal readers to WikiProject pages)
  • 2. Technical stuff. Pages views as a KPI. Updates & Automation. Are portal readers welcome to edit portals? Barriers to engaging with portals.
  • 3. Purpose. Quality and style. What should readers find in portals? Should portals be be consistent?. I find portals are inward-looking, lacking links to similar and higher portals. I find portals are trying to be too many things at the same time, meaning the lack a coherent purpose.
  • 4. Where. Where should the discussion(s) be held? Here? At a village pump? Please not multiple places all at once.

-- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 23:05, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply

I do not agree that "portals are inward-looking, lacking links to similar and higher portals....portals are trying to be too many things at the same time, meaning the lack a coherent purpose."
Portals serve a highly useful purpose. that is why there is a strong community consensus in favor of keeping portals. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 13:22, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply


First a definition people can wrap their heads around. I think our definition of a portal should be what people expect portals to be like in the real world..but tailored to Wikipedia. No need to reinvent the wheel.... just reworded a bit so fits our context

A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displaying information (a portlet); often, the user can configure which ones to display...

....change to something like ....

A Wikipedia portal is a specially designed page in the Portal namspace that brings information about a broad topic, like featured and vital content, factoids, navigational aids, editor groups and ongoing tasks together in a uniform way. Usually, each information ource gets its dedicated area on the page for displaying information (a portlet); often, readers can select different items to display in a portlet...

-- Moxy 🍁 02:20, 31 January 2020 (UTC) reply
I agree with Moxy. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 00:58, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
So, no limitation as to scope whatsoever? No focus. And how is what going to change? Do you acknowledge that Portals currently, historically, do not work? Do you acknowledge any problem whatsoever with Portals? — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:03, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
I do not have any feeling or perception that portals "do not work." none whatsoever. they are a valid part of Wikipedia, just like numerous other special features and pages within the project as a whole. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 06:52, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Pageviews? Readers recruited? Interested editors? If these are objectives, are they being met? I don’t see you being realistic. — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 07:22, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
more general comments about portals as a group? of course. if your goal is to delete one or more portals, this is the wrong page for that. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 07:24, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
no, I do not see those as objectives. the purpose of portals is to serve as portals to certain subjects, both for editors and readers. if it wasn't, then maybe we could get rid of this entry too, Isovaleryl-CoA dehydrogenase, as I don't see it as being generally helpful as far as page views, readers recruited, etc etc etc.either. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 07:28, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
The purpose of portals is to serve as portals? Mainspace articles are the product, portals are not. — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 08:03, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
@ SmokeyJoe: yes, the purpose of portals is to serve as portals. I don't know why there is a question as to what is the purpose of portals is in the first place, but if that's the question, then yes, the answer is really that simple. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 13:15, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
After the main page, what do people expect portals to be like? Just going from the main page, it does not much link to project space or WikiProjects. Should this then be the mode for portals, de-emphasise project links?
The mainpage highlights featured content most prominently, a new featured article every day. It’s one the Wikipedia landing page. It says: Wikipedia has high quality interesting content, do you want to read more. Similarly with DYKs, do you want to read more. Portal pages are not landing pages from outside, so why the promotionalism? I thought a portal was for navigation, but instead I find promotion, scanty, and usually very poor assistance in navigation. Even the good ones, they only navigate downwards. — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:20, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
So what do you propose? Very easy to find fault....much harder to find solutions.
I propose narrowing the scope. One leading idea of mine, while Not to eliminate featured content or WikiProject links, but to put 80% of the page area to serving comprehensive navigation. Alternatively, it could be to feature the best content, or the newest content, but I suggest definitely not all three at once. Focus. Compare with the main page, does it try to do all things at once? Navigation is my expectation of a portal, and is my recommendation for the 80% focus. — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:33, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
. editor groups and ongoing tasks? I think that is the purpose of the WikiProject page. Put a discrete side frame link to the WikiProject, and at the WikiProject page, present editor groups and ongoing tasks there. — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:36, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
I've deliberately placed the WikiProject and contribution-focused content right at the bottom, under the topics box, to keep it out of the way. One could also use the tabbed portal model to put this content on a subpage. Espresso Addict ( talk) 04:20, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
SmokeyJoe, if you want "comprehensive navigation", then portals have to be about tiny subject areas. A topic area like Cheshire is already too large for comprehensive navigation, and something like biography is hopeless. I think a lot of The Transhumanist's work on Wikipedia was trying to create a comprehensive navigation system, first through outlines, then through portals. I don't think that can work, but I am willing to be proven wrong. — Kusma ( t· c) 10:46, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Kusma, comprehensive navigation would be impossible if it were to be done at one level. The category system does it. Outlines was a nice attempt, one that I liked. The category system has so many connections that you get lost. Outlines merged into Portals might be workable. The navigation would be in portal subpages. Portal:Cheshire might be a subpage of Portal:England. A browsable navigation system allows you to find something you can’t name. Wikilinks lets you find things you didn’t know you wanted to find. Search engines help you find what you already partly know. Do we want portals to be a place to go to for navigation? By comprehensive navigation, I mean that it is guaranteed that the page will be able to be navigated to. Do we want portals to do this, or not? I think that decision needs to be made. Making it work will be hard. Doing it half way makes for a disappointing, net-negative, navigation product. I think if you want portals to feature quality articles, then give up trying to make it good for navigation to all content. — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 11:39, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
@ Kusma and SmokeyJoe: I agree with Kusma. , "if you want 'comprehensive navigation', then portals have to be about tiny subject areas. A topic area like Cheshire is already too large for comprehensive navigation, and something like biography is hopeless." there is no way to use portals for that role. Sm8900 ( talk) 13:18, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
I wouldn't be opposed to investigating how outlines and portals could work together, possibly using subpages, or some form of compression (clickable links that open, as is already in place for categories), but that presupposes a good outline exists, and is kept up to date. I'm not aware of one for either of my main portals, and useful ones for a top-level topic such as science or geography are hard to envisage. There's a problem that the people who edit outlines are not, on the whole, the same as those who edit portals. Espresso Addict ( talk) 00:41, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Espresso Addict, indeed. Very few edit outlines, and very few edit portals, and I was hopeful when User:The Transhumanist, who was the main outlines enthusiast, began to be interested in Portals. I encouraged him, and feel part responsible for his over-enthusiasm that rebounded. I suspect he feels bitten, but I think it would be great if he could come back and contribute to these discussions. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 00:58, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
@ SmokeyJoe and Espresso Addict: I don't feel bitten, but I did feel harassed, though even that's not why I left. Back in 2009, I spent most of a year defending pages I had created from someone hell bent on deleting them by any means necessary. They finally gave up. But, it was a hollow victory. Not only was it psychologically exhausting, it was also a huge waste of off-the-clock time. So now, I generally steer clear of uphill battles, unless I'm getting paid. During the portal battle, I found the Internet-at-large to be more inviting than Wikipedia, and got involved elsewhere. I pop in from time to time when I'm looking something up, and can't help but notice the alert messages on my account. It's nice to see some familiar nyms, and some new ones. Good luck with all your WP endeavors.    — The Transhumanist   13:51, 9 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Indeed, SmokeyJoe. I fear this is the nub of the problem. The encyclopedia as a whole has settled on categories as the main navigation device, which imo have significant limitations (though I'm not suggesting deleting them!), plus Google as the main entrance mechanism (likewise). There's too little general discussion about navigation, and too much of it gets bogged down in fruitless talking past one another. Espresso Addict ( talk) 01:16, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
@ Espresso Addict:, I agree with much of your ideas. it so happens that personally, I have little interest of my own in editing outlines. but i don't feel the need to get involved with the issues of outlines overall as far as editing practices; they may rise or fall, depending on individual editor interest, and where editors simply feel themselves drawn to edit. Based on that I respect your views on outlines, respoect your ideas, and i respect your commitment. I don't plan to get involved too much in this issue. if i don't like outlines, I simply won't read them, and will just let them be. I assume other people like them, so i just let them sit and be a resource, for those who like them or wish to use them. that's kind of how I perceive discussions, ideas, topics, etc which pertain to portals as well. thanks!! -- Sm8900 ( talk) 17:01, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Portals and outlines can work together Portal:Croatia/Indices.-- Moxy 🍁 20:17, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
I agree. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 20:19, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Could we set up a one-off workshop somewhere, where we have a month for users to submit proposals based on the ones discussed above, and then a week to vote on the proposals as a group, modeled after how arbitration works? SportingFlyer T· C 04:37, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
And could we move to some neutral venue out of an editor's talk subpages? Espresso Addict ( talk) 04:45, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
imho, there is nothing wrong with portals as a group. some individual portals need some improvements, and should be addressed on an individual basis.
we have no standing here to put limits or restrictions on portals as a group. what we can do is think up some effective positive methods and techniques to improve individual portals. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 06:10, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
we do not have any standing "as a group" to vote on or to enact any restrictions or rules that would be binding on Wikipedia as a whole. the best that we can do is to submit individual portals for individual consideration and discussion. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 06:56, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Sm8900, this page was designed to be a place where a smaller group drafts an RfC that can then be submitted to the whole community. For improvement of individual portals, I suggest to discuss at the portals project. — Kusma ( t· c) 07:57, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Per Espresso Addict, and my comment at the Arbcom talk page, this discussion should be moved to an appropriate workshop page in Wikipedia space. I understand that having it here was useful a month or two ago, for getting some traction going, but now with the Arbcom recommendation for an RFC, there is more momentum behind this and it should be where people can easily find and contribute to it. Also, it appears tha Scottywong has been largely inactive for the past month or so, so I assume he's not actually mediating right now! Cheers  —  Amakuru ( talk) 10:17, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
I appreciate your suggestion, but personally, I do not have any standing to implement or to do that. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 13:19, 2 February 2020 (UTC) reply
We should move this to a venue that can be formally linked from the Arbcom (talk) page, and -- if Scottywong is not volunteering -- appoint one or more further neutral moderator(s). Espresso Addict ( talk) 00:31, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
@ Sm8900:: Any editor (short of one under some kind of topic ban) has standing to initiate an RfC on any topic. However, an RfC proposed through substantial community action, like what is represented on this page, would likely fare better. BD2412 T 01:07, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
@ BD2412:, those are all excellent points. normally, I would say yes to that idea without hesitation. however, the nature of the recent discussion here, and the discussion on portals in general, is what is giving me pause. we already have editors here questioning the basic role for portals, and the basic need for them, even though this has been discussed numerous times, and established a community consensus repeatedly in favor of keeping the portals. as long as that remain a recurring theme in the discussion here, I will have broad questions about any RfC generated here. I am much more comfortable with the conventional RfC process as it already exists; namely individual editors perceive specific questions to submit to RfC for the community on specific individual items, such as articles, categories, etc. and then the discussion proceeds based on the ups and downs of that article or other item itself. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 16:24, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Sm8900. There are many problems with your posts. One is your circular answer for what is the purpose of a portal. “established a community consensus repeatedly in favor of keeping the portals” is a gross misreading of WP:ENDPORTALS, the discussion was far from broad support of portals, and the consensus was to reject wholesale deletion of all portals including the mainpage linked portals without even case by case review of these best portals. (The question posed was stupid). Your historical background is very recent. Portals have been lambasted since 13 years ago. Three years ago, when I posted WT:Portal/Guidelines/Archive 6#Portals are moribund, I was describing an old stagnant problem. — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 22:18, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
@ SmokeyJoe:, hm, I'm not sure that I agree. but you make some interesting points, even though I disagree with you. so then, if that is the case, then what is your feeling on how we should approach portals, and how we should keep them on an ongoing basis? -- Sm8900 ( talk) 01:06, 4 February 2020 (UTC) reply
I think we need to come up with some objective statements as to what are the desired purposes of portals. "The purpose of a portal is to be a portal" is not that. Neither is "A portal is something that does all things that someone might expect". There are multiple options (eg navigation; featuring best content; new content; tasks needing attention), and we should discuss them. Having established discrete objective purposes, then consider objective measures. Pageview is one, but I think we nearly all have already agreed that it is very poor. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 01:18, 4 February 2020 (UTC) reply
that's interesting. However, sorry but I disagree. Portals have an established purpose, based on their long-standing existence and active usage across multiple WikiProjects. If you need to know their purpose, the best source for that is probably WP:Portals. there are probably other useful essays as well. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 01:21, 4 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Portals have many stated purposes, but, since those are incompatible, there is no established purpose. The first step in the process of creating legitimate guidelines for portals is to establish the purpose by consensus, preferably with an RfC. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:49, 4 February 2020 (UTC) reply
I appreciate your reply, but I disagree. Since portals exist, and have an established consensus to remain, that alone entails an implicit purpose. the purpose stems from the editors who set them up, and the editors who agree to allow them to continue. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 20:01, 4 February 2020 (UTC) reply

Wrong. There isn't a consensus to remain. There's no consensus to delete. In any case, the first step of a Portals RfC is to determine the purpose of portals. Differing opinions on the purpose of Portals lead to faulty portal creations and faulty portal deletions. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:31, 5 February 2020 (UTC) reply

  • Hi all, I've gotten a bit busier in my personal life recently, and really have no time to devote to Wikipedia at the moment. Hopefully things will slow down in the coming months. In my absence, please feel free to continue using this space to discuss the future of portals (or move the discussion elsewhere, if desired). I feel like there are more than enough good discussions above from which to start drafting an RfC. Cheers. ‑Scottywong | [gossip] || 15:47, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply
  • Some of the responses suggest the need for an even more general RfC question: Do portals in general have any problem that needs action? — SmokeyJoe ( talk) 22:06, 3 February 2020 (UTC) reply

It's quite concerning, that @ Sm8900: appears to be taking over this workspace discussion, IMHO. GoodDay ( talk) 16:16, 5 February 2020 (UTC) reply

point taken; I have edited and condensed my own earlier comment above for brevity, to allow this discussion thread to proceed more smoothly. that's a valid point. thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 16:48, 5 February 2020 (UTC) reply
You've edited posts that other people have already commented on, and deleted other people's posts. As a long-time editor, you should already be well aware of the talk page conventions against this. I already counseled you to stop changing the formatting on pages. Once again you've made multiple small edits, filling the page history with your contributions. If you continue to ignore talk page guidelines and advice of others, your contributions won't be taken seriously, regardless of their content. isaacl ( talk) 18:29, 5 February 2020 (UTC) reply
nothing has been deleted. the only material that was removed was a single section, which was archived, not deleted. with that said, I appreciate all of your other points on this. thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 18:47, 5 February 2020 (UTC) reply
You created no links to archive pages, so no one can find any archives. Subsections are rarely archived; archiving is usually done by bot and it archives entire sections. Archiving is generally done when conversations have reached a certain age, and not done after just a day. Again, you should know this already through your past experiences with talk pages. Your thanks ring hollow as you persist in the same behaviour, no matter how many times you've thanked others for telling you to stop. isaacl ( talk) 19:02, 5 February 2020 (UTC) reply
ok, have done so. this is now done.  Done as far as archiving of that section, I had the approval to do so from the admin who is a regular long-standing participant here. as far as the timing for archiving a section; this page is a workspace, not a regular talk page, so it has a specific topical scope. that section was adding nothing to the discussion of the core topics of this workspace which has a specific topical focus. therefore, I contacted the admin to ask about archiving it. they agree with that idea, so hence it was removed from the page, and placed in the archive, thereby to restore the previous flow on this page of active threads for discussion of the core topics that typify this page's focus. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 19:51, 5 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Decisions on Wikipedia are made by common agreement, including archiving. I have objected to your cherry-picked archival. isaacl ( talk) 23:20, 5 February 2020 (UTC) reply
I was not aware that that individual section had any individual value to any discussion topic here. I do not think there is any basis for objecting to archiving of section, as an action that had a clear basis in keeping the page focused. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 23:47, 5 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Cherry-picked archiving makes for a very confused record. Please use a simple cut-past archiving method based on threads being old. Please do not split the record. Please do not hide old talk content in collapsed boxes, unless maybe it is decidedly off-topic. I do not have confidence in Sm8900 clerking this page. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 23:50, 5 February 2020 (UTC) reply
I appreciate your reply. I will keep your points in mind. in regards to archiving any sections, I made sure to run it past BD2412, just to get their input on that, and will continue to do so in regards to any items that relate to any formattting issues, content, etc. but anyway, I do respect and appreciate your points in regards to parameters for editing and formatting sections here. thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 02:23, 6 February 2020 (UTC) reply

The purpose of portals, from the page

The text at the front page currently gives three possible purposes, introduction and navigational aid;showing high quality content; and exposing to related projects.

In my opinion: introduction and navigational aid is possible through templates on the pages directly, and the articles should serve as introduction. This is not what portals should be - it would be bad redundancy - templates are better. Serving as collection of high quality content is a possible goal. However, this naturally restricts portals to large topics with a sufficient amount of featured and good articles. Exposing to related projects cannot be the main goal(it won`t draw readers to the portal), but it can and probably should be a secondary purpose. This leaves us with portals:

-being for large topics with suitably many featured articles

-articles reasonably related to that having a link to that portal - not too intrusive, of course,

-showing links to related wikiprojects. Lurking shadow ( talk) 18:27, 7 February 2020 (UTC) reply

I disagree that templates are automatically better for navigation. Templates are intentionally small and can never give the coverage that a portal can. In a sense, the template is a 'baby portal' or 'sub-portal', useful but not comprehensive.
There is also a fourth and very useful purpose: portals are an great collaborative aid for project editors. They give an instant overview of project coverage and where the gaps are. They can be used to show - either on the main page or sub-pages - which articles need creating, expanding, reworking, destubbing or reviewing; which articles need images and so on. They can be used to prod readers to create new articles or expand existing ones. This is a major use on German Wikipedia which we have not fully exploited here, although I have used them for this purpose, creating hundreds of articles based on the red links in a portal. Bermicourt ( talk) 20:05, 7 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Nav templates are only seen by 40% of our readers ....like categories and popups....thus leaving portals to server 60% of our readers Comparison of pageviews across multiple pages.-- Moxy 🍁 20:17, 7 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Navbars not being available to mobile users sounds like a bug to me; still, does anyone know if the complicated template construction our portals use work properly on the mobile interface?
And outlines (and massive navbars, such as {{ Classes of natural numbers}}) are better for navigation than portals.
If portals were used primarily to showcase high qualify content, that would be something no other modality on Wikipedia could do. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:33, 7 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Some portals work OKish in mobile, if a reader can find them (links to them are hidden). On, say, Portal:Germany in mobile view, there's extra whitespace in the top box, and the "Topics" box is empty because the content is a navbox and therefore hidden in mobile view. Portals supposed to contain random slideshows show all images instead of the one they are supposed to show, which is a very poor use of screen space. For an example, see the Australia portal. In my view, portals exist more for semi-accidental discovery than for deliberate navigation. At least that's what the majority of 2006-2016 portals built around selected quality articles and pictures, DYKs and possibly News or On This Day type content seemed to be best for. — Kusma ( t· c) 00:12, 8 February 2020 (UTC) reply
Basically, mobile is a big problem for both. That`s terrible and needs to be fixed. Portals may have more room they also cover much more topics; and they require an extra step which includes a link(probably templated) anyways. Not really an improvement. I am not convinced. Lurking shadow ( talk) 21:35, 8 February 2020 (UTC) reply
well said. I agree. I'm glad to see this discussion occurring here, in regards to things that can be improved in terms of design details. thanks!! -- Sm8900 ( talk) 22:25, 12 February 2020 (UTC) reply

A tidbit of information

Saw something today.....seems list transclution makes it very easy to update for new users. first edit by new editor. Think if ALL had this ability more might be interested in maintaining portals.-- Moxy 🍁 18:55, 17 February 2020 (UTC) reply

It is always nice when it is easy to add things (and it is usually great to see people helping on a portal they do not own). On the other hand, the subpage model has an easier time putting working "edit" links everywhere that invite editors making small fixes. (In the transclusion model it is difficult to see what you need to do to fix a typo, which is a bit weird in a wiki). — Kusma ( t· c) 20:31, 17 February 2020 (UTC) reply

We still need guidelines

Hi all, this page has gone a bit quiet recently. It seems to me that achieving the original goal (to write a guideline that says what portals should do, so existing or proposed portals can be measured against that guideline) would still be beneficial. There have been some portal MfDs recently where having such a guideline would have been helpful. I think we were almost there, but we still need a neutral person able to summarize what has been discussed so far in order to turn in into a wider RfC proposal. Any thoughts/volunteers/suggestions? — Kusma ( t· c) 20:24, 7 March 2020 (UTC) reply

I feel the community has discussion fatigue on portals as they have been discussed to death....from WP:PUMP to WP:ARBCOM. I know I saw two up for deletion, one should pass as the topic is broad while the other is too narrow. I just don't know though.... - Knowledgekid87 ( talk) 00:58, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
I'll work on an arbitration style request page... do it in my sandbox so we can all tweak it.... I think the first rfc should be simple with only 4 or 5 questions.... based on their purpose... scope... creation criteria and process.... is automation preferred or not..... and deletion process.-- Moxy 🍁 02:06, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
that sounds fine. I think this effort by Moxy sounds very valid and worthwhile. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 04:07, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
I'd be happy to participate in such discussion. I think the controversy is a bit behind us, but nobody else seems to want to start the suggested RfCs. Those that WANT a thing and work with a thing have the burden of putting guidelines and styles forward. Those that DON'T WANT a thing, well, we've already been down that road. BusterD ( talk) 03:26, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
  • I think that before there can be a guideline, there needs to be an agreement on the conceptual purpose of a portal. It has to be more limited than some want. If a portal can include all things for all readers, then it is hopeless to talk about guidelines. I have given more than my share of opinion, more in hope of getting discussions rolling than anything else. I think few portals have served many readers, and a portals rethink is warranted. I would like to engage in constructive discussions, but the leaders of the discussions should be editors who want to work on portals. I don't think there are any more portals that arguably *need* deletion. Some arguable should be archived, but archiving does not involved deletion or 7-day MfD discussions. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 04:01, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
I don't see a clear pathway to achieving consensus on a conceptual purpose of portals. IMHO, their actual existing purpose seems fairly self-evident, so I don't see a basis for devising a new conceptual definition. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 04:05, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
Yes, I was thinking of you. Your bland "the purpose of portals is to serve as portals" and "Portals have an established purpose" is bald faced denial that there is a problem with a lack of definition of a portal. Without an objective definition of purpose, one can't objectively even attempt to measure whether they are meeting that purpose, you can't say what works or does not work, you can't make a plan to improve them. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 04:16, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
okay, but this is not an argument between the two of us, as far as I know. the community has an understanding of the purpose that portals serve. we don't have the right here to unilaterally decide that portals a) do not have a purpose; b) the purpose of portals as understood by the community is not valid; or c) any discussion of portals is invalid unless we meet every editor's own personal standard of whether portals have a valid purpose or not. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 04:23, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
I think it is broadly recognized by the community that there is a problem with portals, and that nearly every individual recognises that the scope and purpose of a portal is poorly defined, almost completely unconstrained.
(a) If portals have a purpose, what is that purpose? Rule: you cannot use "portal" when defining a portal. I suspect you think the purpose of a portal is limited only by the imagination of a portal editor?
(b) If there is a community statement, or other evidence, on the community's understanding of the purpose of portals, please point me to it.
(c) Consensus has never required every individual to agree, but consensus requires agreement. I'll be impressed if there are seven editors who can agree on a statement of the purpose of portals. Finding three in agreement would be a great start. You fail to provide a logically valid statement, I have only seen you make statements on portals that are self-referencing. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 04:33, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
I agree with you. there are not seven editors who can agree on the purpose of portals. I don't think we can find three. therefore we don't have the right to unilaterally impose a requirement for consensus that cannot be realistically met. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 04:41, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
anyway, obviously I am not the person whom you need to convince. the focus of this topic is obviously the community outlook, not the opinion of any individual editor. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 04:43, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
if you want a purpose, here is one: "the purpose of portals is to provide an informational overview of a topic, using compilations of links in various forms and configurations that provide the average user with a useful overview of the topic." there. now I suggest we proceed with discussing some guidelines. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 04:48, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply

The purpose of portals

Someone has suggested:

"the purpose of portals is to provide an informational overview of a topic, using compilations of links in various forms and configurations that provide the average user with a useful overview of the topic."

This is good.
Does it meet with the general opinions expressed at User talk:Scottywong/Portal guideline workspace#Purpose proposal 1?
It does not address: Featured content; Comprehensive navigation; simple navigation. Does this mean that portals should not do these things?
I find it lacking with respect to "topic". What is a "topic"? Normally, a topic is an article. Will every topic have a portal? How will this portal differ from the lede of the article on the topic?
I suggest

"the purpose of portals is to provide an informational overview of set of subtopics of a broad topic area, with easy navigation to all these subtopics."

-- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 05:37, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
This is would be a clear definition, Still doesn't include featured content, ITN, and some of the other usual components of portals. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 10:22, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
Arthur Rubin. Featured content, ITN, and some of the other usual components of portals. I've wondered about these being "usual components of portals". Do these reflect "purpose of portals" defaulting unconsciously to "A portal is a an imitation of the Main page but for a particular area/topic/niche"? -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 23:28, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
SmokeyJoe, I appreciate your constructive approach to this. if my reply was of value, then I am genuinely glad, and I am genuinely glad we could have this positive discussion on your views on this. I look forward to hearing your views on this and to hearing more of your discussion. I do agree with your definition above, as stated. thanks!!! cheers! -- Sm8900 ( talk) 13:54, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
I prefer SmokeyJoe's "set of subtopics of a broad topic area" wording. I would also add something along the lines of, "and highlighting the articles of highest quality and importance across the breadth of the topic area". BD2412 T 14:06, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
The suggestion above has some overlap with outlines. Portals de facto do have a showcase aspect where excerpts are selected as much for the quality of the Wikipedia articles as for their coverage of the topic. In the news may be an important detail to discuss later; it often requires more manual maintenance than other portal elements and can become problematic if neglected. Certes ( talk) 14:11, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
In the news and current events is completely automated now. One can select a topic category to pull from Portal:Current events. In the news can be a bit more confusing but is also just pulls info from another source as seen here. The hard one is anniversaries Portal:Germany/Anniversaries is all populated by hand and maintained by hand.-- Moxy 🍁 14:46, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
At the risk of straying off topic, it would be great if ITN could be taken from hand-curated Wikinews categories. The automated ITNs I looked at used word matching. I tightened a few up, e.g. to rid Portal:Bears of people who bear arms and the Chicago Bears' results, but it was never perfect. Certes ( talk) 14:58, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
Portal:Germany/Anniversaries requires maintenance once every blue moon. News is much harder. I don't want to use News that isn't about Germany, but the automated transclusions from Portal:Current events include everything that mentions Germany, even if it is offtopic like Americans talking about Nazis (see Potential Candidates / 2 March). A way to "select a topic category to pull from Portal:Current events" might help, but somebody would need to manually maintain those categories. — Kusma ( t· c) 15:31, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
I'd like to interject here, reacting to something insightful Arthur Rubin said above, that for purely navigation purposes, portals may not be optimal (my paraphrase). He suggested that "outlines (and massive navbars, such as {{ Classes of natural numbers}} are better for navigation than portals." I agree. Looking at that template as someone who does not frequently examine the field, IMHO the template is well-organized and helpful, but so overwhelmingly dense that it's poor starting place for the uninitiated. My point is that a well-designed portal provides a launching place for introduction to the topic, a starting point which allows for light dabbling and multiple sorts of examples. Perhaps something concise along these lines this might be useful in the purpose statement. I like Nihonjoe's Alt 2 below for this reason. Perhaps "introductory overview" as opposed to "informational". I have heard folks in this discussion previously remark an article introduction is not always the best portal introduction. I believe that providing an entry point to a content rich topic is an essential service of portals. BusterD ( talk) 22:07, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply

Alternate 1

Here is my suggestion for the purpose:

"the main purpose of portals is to provide an informational overview of Wikipedia's coverage of subtopics of a broad topic area, including navigational elements as well as showcasing the best available content."

I don't think the portal model works all that well for systematic navigation, and is more for semi-accidental discovery. DYK or Anniversary sections, for instance, are not navigational tools, but try to teach the reader something new. — Kusma ( t· c) 15:31, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply

Is it clear what an "informational overview" is? We don't have an article about informational overviews (it's a redlink) and (if I understand the search results correctly) not one of our millions of articles uses that term. DexDor (talk) 18:54, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
I think the phrase itself is clear, in terms of its more simple meaning, based simply on the basic definition of the two words that comprise the phrase. I do hear your point. thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 19:31, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
In that case is a Wikipedia article an "informational overview"? DexDor (talk) 20:44, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
It depends on the Wikipedia article. the article History of the world certainly is. the article United States certainly is. however, articles such as As Maine goes, so goes the nation, or Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, or Ribose 5-phosphate, or Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate, are sources of information, but are not overviews of a broad topical area. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 20:59, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
by the way, informational overview is now no longer redlinked (see inset). -- Sm8900 ( talk) 21:12, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
I don't think you're making the purpose of portals (in particular, how it differs from the purpose of articles) any clearer. DexDor (talk) 21:20, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
okay, so then what then is your question? are you questioning the validity of portals? based on the substance or lack thereof in my answers? Let me assure you, I am not a prototypical example of Wikipedians who are able to provide satisfactory comprehensive answers to pithy questions of this nature. seriously, our purpose here is not to decide whether portals should exist. this is supposed to be a positive, results-oriented conversation. asking for my opinion, and then poking holes in it, will not get us very far in addresssing this topic.
I am happy to discuss any and all topics with you. however, with respect if one of my answers seems lacking, it is better to refocus on the core topic of discussion, rather than to question the very validity of portals, based on whether a single ordinary editor (i.e., myself) can answer a single basic question or not. I do appreciate your input. thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 21:24, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
Re "I am not ... able to provide satisfactory comprehensive answers to pithy questions ..." - you are not obliged to comment. DexDor (talk) 21:40, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply
ok, agreed. I will step back on this thread now, and allow others to comment. I wanted to take the spotlight off my own replies, so we are in accord here; let's simply move on. thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 21:50, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply

Alternate 2

Here's my attempt:

The purpose of a portal is to provide an introduction to a broad topic area through the presentation of random subtopic article hooks, Did you know...? hooks, On this day historical hooks, and other hooks meant to elicit interest from the reader. These should showcase the best available content and most important topics of the given broad topic area.

Similar to some of those already posted, but also different. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 17:27, 9 March 2020 (UTC) reply

Much of that is a description of a portal rather than defining the purpose(s) of a portal. It's a bit like a car could be described as "a metal box on wheels ...", but its purpose would be something like "to transport people ...". DexDor (talk) 12:48, 10 March 2020 (UTC) reply
It specifically describes the purpose (that whole "purpose of a portal is to provide an introduction to a broad topic area through the presentation of..." part), and then how that purpose is achieved. Describing the purpose of something almost always includes a description of how that purpose is achieved. ··· 日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 19:12, 10 March 2020 (UTC) reply
It appears that we are still going around the same points, in regards to what the purpose of a portal is. I like SmokeyJoe's formulation and articulation of this, above. I am also open to the other positive and constructive ideas for modifying this, as well. Can we please simply provide the latest draft of a purpose of portals, and then move on with the discussion?
any statement of purpose simply needs a general consensus. we don't need to meet the full and exact concerns of every individual participant here in this discussion here; a general consensus would be a good basis to move on. I do welcome and appreciate the input of everyone here, on both sides of the debate. seriously, thanks. -- Sm8900 ( talk) 14:35, 11 March 2020 (UTC) reply
interesting points. thanks!! -- Sm8900 ( talk) 01:07, 20 April 2020 (UTC) reply
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