France
After two years of upkeep, it's time for the France portal to go through peer review... on the road -- one hopes-- to eventually becoming a featured portal candidate. Comments/suggestions/advice and technical assistance to make the portal "feature portal worthy" would be greatly appreciated. Thanks -- NYArtsnWords 00:04, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
- The pic of the M. is too big (500px) - make it smaller (at least fitting a 800x600 screen).
feydey
14:25, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
- Done. (Actually, I have been putting the pic of the month at 350 px, but the picture looked small this month in my browser, so I had increased it to 500 - guess it doesn't work for all browsers). NYArtsnWords 15:16, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
- I was bold and moved topics up to the top, but I must wonder if geography and administrative districts and provinces really are all necessary. They make the portal incredibly long, and give unbalanced weight to the geography of France; even language is somewhat geographical in nature. There's not one for history or government or culture or anything of the sort, though I don't necessarily think there needs to be. I would suggest shortening and combining them into one, and then maybe alternating Province/Département of the Month to give a more personal look at a region of France. Atropos 18:22, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
- Scroll length needs to be shortened. See other FPs. Perhaps rm. Geography, Administrative divisions, Provinces etc.? feydey 09:29, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
- It is true that the various geography-related Featured Portals are pretty streamed-down affairs. I have removed the "language" and "geography" sections, added a couple of sentences to the main intro, and added the map to the topics section. NYArtsnWords 21:51, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
- Please don't use thumb mark-up for image formatting, as it causes faults with the box backgrounds. If possible add external links (sources) to "Recent events in France" news items in the box. Replace the title " Personality of the Month" with "Person of the month" or "Biography of the month". Not mandatory: in the intro add a link: "The French Republic or France..." same goes for the other boxes' main articles. feydey 11:35, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
- I have changed it to "Person of the month", removed thumb mark-ups throughout and added the France link in the intro. As a rule, "recent events" items have always had links to wikinews, except for items that wikinews did not cover. In the person/article of the month, the "read more" links lead to the articles. -- NYArtsnWords 16:38, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
- Perhaps a "Related portals" box - it could include Portal:Belgium, Portal:French and Francophone literature etc. feydey 19:13, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
- There is already a "related portals" section. Do you think a separate box is necessary? -- NYArtsnWords 02:11, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
- I missed it completely :| a separate box is not necessary, but could help to bring more people to those portals perhaps. In a separate box with icons they are easier to be found than a line at the bottom of the page. Otherwise the Portal looks good. Best, feydey 07:59, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
A few observations:
- Since the large sections on related topics are overwhelming the portal, this portal is an ideal candidate for converting into a 3-tab style like Portal:Australia or Portal:Christianity.
- Current events section doesn't seem to be regularly updated. It's not likely that nothing notable happened in France in the entire month of Sep 2007!
- Something wrong in the Selected picture archive? Several images are not appearing and showing a copy-vio tag instead. Portals must not use any fair-use image - that could be the issue.
Overall this seems to be a very rich portal and should have been a featured portal by now. Arman Aziz 10:24, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
- Arman - Thanks for the comments.
- I try (alone) to keep the current events section relatively up to date (depending on my own non-wiki work load). Compounding matters, there are few updates to the wikinews:Portal:France site. More contributors would remedy the problem.
- There is nothing wrong with the selected images archive: mistakes were made with fair-use vs. free-use on a few months, so the archive reflects that.
- I will think about the 3-tab style. I worry however that the majority of visitors to the Portal are looking for category/related topics, and that the 3-tab style wuld be less practical for the uninitiated.
- Cheers- NYArtsnWords 11:32, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
France
After two years of upkeep, it's time for the France portal to go through peer review... on the road -- one hopes-- to eventually becoming a featured portal candidate. Comments/suggestions/advice and technical assistance to make the portal "feature portal worthy" would be greatly appreciated. Thanks -- NYArtsnWords 00:04, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
- The pic of the M. is too big (500px) - make it smaller (at least fitting a 800x600 screen).
feydey
14:25, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
- Done. (Actually, I have been putting the pic of the month at 350 px, but the picture looked small this month in my browser, so I had increased it to 500 - guess it doesn't work for all browsers). NYArtsnWords 15:16, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
- I was bold and moved topics up to the top, but I must wonder if geography and administrative districts and provinces really are all necessary. They make the portal incredibly long, and give unbalanced weight to the geography of France; even language is somewhat geographical in nature. There's not one for history or government or culture or anything of the sort, though I don't necessarily think there needs to be. I would suggest shortening and combining them into one, and then maybe alternating Province/Département of the Month to give a more personal look at a region of France. Atropos 18:22, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
- Scroll length needs to be shortened. See other FPs. Perhaps rm. Geography, Administrative divisions, Provinces etc.? feydey 09:29, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
- It is true that the various geography-related Featured Portals are pretty streamed-down affairs. I have removed the "language" and "geography" sections, added a couple of sentences to the main intro, and added the map to the topics section. NYArtsnWords 21:51, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
- Please don't use thumb mark-up for image formatting, as it causes faults with the box backgrounds. If possible add external links (sources) to "Recent events in France" news items in the box. Replace the title " Personality of the Month" with "Person of the month" or "Biography of the month". Not mandatory: in the intro add a link: "The French Republic or France..." same goes for the other boxes' main articles. feydey 11:35, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
- I have changed it to "Person of the month", removed thumb mark-ups throughout and added the France link in the intro. As a rule, "recent events" items have always had links to wikinews, except for items that wikinews did not cover. In the person/article of the month, the "read more" links lead to the articles. -- NYArtsnWords 16:38, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
- Perhaps a "Related portals" box - it could include Portal:Belgium, Portal:French and Francophone literature etc. feydey 19:13, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
- There is already a "related portals" section. Do you think a separate box is necessary? -- NYArtsnWords 02:11, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
- I missed it completely :| a separate box is not necessary, but could help to bring more people to those portals perhaps. In a separate box with icons they are easier to be found than a line at the bottom of the page. Otherwise the Portal looks good. Best, feydey 07:59, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
A few observations:
- Since the large sections on related topics are overwhelming the portal, this portal is an ideal candidate for converting into a 3-tab style like Portal:Australia or Portal:Christianity.
- Current events section doesn't seem to be regularly updated. It's not likely that nothing notable happened in France in the entire month of Sep 2007!
- Something wrong in the Selected picture archive? Several images are not appearing and showing a copy-vio tag instead. Portals must not use any fair-use image - that could be the issue.
Overall this seems to be a very rich portal and should have been a featured portal by now. Arman Aziz 10:24, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
- Arman - Thanks for the comments.
- I try (alone) to keep the current events section relatively up to date (depending on my own non-wiki work load). Compounding matters, there are few updates to the wikinews:Portal:France site. More contributors would remedy the problem.
- There is nothing wrong with the selected images archive: mistakes were made with fair-use vs. free-use on a few months, so the archive reflects that.
- I will think about the 3-tab style. I worry however that the majority of visitors to the Portal are looking for category/related topics, and that the 3-tab style wuld be less practical for the uninitiated.
- Cheers- NYArtsnWords 11:32, 10 September 2007 (UTC)