This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
This archive page covers approximately the dates between February 2005 and August 2005..
Post replies to the main talk page, copying the section you are replying to if necessary.
Archived discussions:
Anybody willing to make a Computer Science wikiportal? :) -- r3m0t 23:22, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I could make it but someone would have to maintain it... Ausir 00:35, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
What about a special Portal: namespace? The portals don't really belong in the Wikipedia: namespace, at least they should be moved to the main namespace. -- grm wnr 23:11, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps users could use their preferences to opt for a specific portal as the main page when they type en.wikipedia.org into their browser? Similarly, would we allow external domains to point at specific portals? Thus, http://wikibiology.com/ or http://biowiki.com/ could point at the Wikipedia biology portal - or is this considered cyber squatting?-- Oldak Quill 13:02, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Also, I think it would be useful to put a link to the wikiportals page (or an index of the wikiportals) on the main page.
The instructions read:
To create the basic skeleton for a new Wikiportal, use Template:Wikiportal. When editing the new Wikiportal for the first time, enter the template in the form {{subst:Wikiportal | topic=Astronomy | bgcolor=black | fgcolor=white}}, and save it.
I was under the impression that parameters could not be used when substing a template: has this changed? -- Phil | Talk 10:58, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)
Is there anything this page should be learning from the process that has been happening at Talk:Cricket and Talk:Cricket (portal). The basic point boils down where to have portals to keep readers, editors and re-users all maximally served. Pcb21| Pete 17:13, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I just got slapped on the wrist (ouch :) ) for suggesting to move the UK portal to a British Isles portal. So I wanted to read up on portals, but I can't find much information about what a portal is supposed to be. I thought it should be about broader subjects, a point of entry (or rather .... portal) to the constituent parts, with some clarification about what is what. The 'slapping' occurred on a subpage of mine ( User:DirkvdM/British Isles - Clarification of Terms) in which I suggest an article about the British Isles to help people find their way in this rather messy subject. That seemed to me to be a good subject for a portal. But now I notice there are also portals for Quebec and Hong Kong. Aren't these subjects too narrow for a portal? Same for the People's Republic of China. Wouldn't it make more sense to have a portal on China (certainly a broad enough subject) which then has a link to the present situation, namely the Republic? There are portals for 6 countries, 2 smaller regions (Quebec and Hong Kong) and only 2 for larger regions (EU and Africa). Shouldn't portals be only for larger regions, or, rather, 'messy' regions that need clarification?
Now that I look at the various portals I'm confused. I assumed that the religion portal would have a list of the religions in the world (well, at least the 10 or so biggest ones plus their subdivisions). But not so. The Religion Category (how do I link that here?) hardly lists any religions (it's about things that have to do with religion) and the Religion Article mentions many, but doesn't categorise them. Hell ( :) ), it doesn't even mention calvinism, even though there is an article about it. But that's no problem, because there are portals for that sort of thing. One might think. But looking through the portals I now start wonder what they are for. I assumed that an article is about a specific subject, a category gives listings for a broader subject and a portal puts all the terms in such a broader subject into perspective (though I'm not sure in which of the latter two a thematical (as opposed to alphabetical) listing should go then). Am I missing something?
And the other question I'm stuck with now is where an overview such as the one I propose on my subpage should go. I wanted to find a clarification of the terms Britain, Great Britian, Brittannia and the British Isles, found the explanation spread over various articles and thought it a good idea to put all that information about all those related terms in one place and give a very concise explanation. Although I must admit it has gotten a bit out of hand and I don't know where to stop with this subject. But surely there are more such 'messy' subjects (maybe confusing would be a better word). How should they be dealt with?
DirkvdM 07:07, 2005 May 2 (UTC)
I created the first portals at en: and it's definitely what I wanted them to be - they are meant to be both for readers and editors. Ausir 15:25, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
I've just recently been getting involved in the astronomy portal, and have been considering the question of what the portals are for. It seems to me they're certainly not for editors only, or readers only. The work I've been doing on astronomy has been aimed both at encouraging more people to edit astronomy articles, and to showcase what good content there already is. Generally, I think a portal should aim to offer readers an introduction to a broad subject area in the same way as the main page offers an introduction to the whole content. The very word portal implies that it's a means of accessing information, and not just a handy editorial resource.
It seems to me that portals should cover broad areas, and shouldn't be heirarchical. I think there should really be a maximum of about 30 portals, otherwise their usefulness to readers is diminished. So, I think a cricket portal is too narrow - there is already a sport and games portal, and it would not be useful to have separate football, motor racing and darts portals below that.
I also think issues with namespace need to be resolved. At the moment, the main page of a portal is in the wikipedia namespace, but the template for creating the framework puts loads of stuff in the template namespace. I don't think either is ideal. For astronomy, I moved all the subpages from template namespace into the same namespace as the front page ie Wikipedia:, but then we've got issues with avoiding self-referencing to contend with. I think it would make most sense to adopt a pseudo-namespace, with portals at Portal:Astronomy, Portal:Music, etc etc. (user Worldtraveller forgot to sign MarSch 15:00, 7 May 2005 (UTC))
At de: portals on narrower subjects are mostly subpages of the broader ones. Ausir 06:42, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
See also: Wikipedia:Portalspace where the Portalspace is being formally proposed - the Listspace is not yet being formally proposed
This is nothing official, I'd just like to see what the general opinion is. Ausir 20:51, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
There are too many portals in {{ wikiportals}}:
If we want such a link on the main page then we need to make a selection. Currently the following is on main:
Culture | Geography | History | Life | Mathematics | Science | Society | Technology
Browse Wikipedia · Article overviews · Alphabetical index · Other category schemes
I was thinking of one portal for all countries/continents, a science portal, a math portal, an arts portal, the sport(s) and games portal, miscellaneous portal for all portals which don't fall naturally under any other. Probably a bit biased :) so tell me what you think. - MarSch 17:43, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
Science :
Physics |
Mathematics |
Astronomy |
Biology
The arts:
Literature |
Art |
Music |
History |
Philosophy
Personal life :
Sport and games |
Religion
Browse Wikipedia · Article overviews · Alphabetical index · Other category schemes
Not bad. Pending further discussion I've put
on Main Page (table free). - MarSch 14:13, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
I was thinking along the lines of
Continent :
America |
Africa |
Australia |
Eurasia
Science :
Natural science |
Social science |
Humanities
but of course whe need some more main portals besides these two. Only I'm not sure what should go where. - MarSch 14:58, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
So in this abbreviated list, where do transportation topics (such as the newly created Trains portal) belong? Science? That doesn't quite sound right. slambo 03:46, May 17, 2005 (UTC)
What about a geography portal? Could something like that replace the continents? What wikiportals are necessary? Let's make the ones we need and put them on the main page. -- Spangineer ( háblame) 19:01, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
Wikiportals
Culture:
Art |
Literature:
Biography |
Music |
Religion | Television:
Star Wars |
Doctor Who
Society :
Personal life:
Sports and games |
Baseball |
Football |
Cricket
Science :
Astronomy |
Biology |
Physics |
Information technology |
Medicine
Social Science:
Archaeology |
History |
History of Science
Mathematics:
Cryptography
Technology :
Aviation |
Trains |
Computer and video games |
Engineering |
Information technology
Geography:
Africa |
Australia |
Belarus |
Canada |
China |
European Union |
Hong Kong |
India |
Ireland |
Israel |
New Zealand |
Palestine |
Poland |
Quebec |
Russia |
South Africa |
United Kingdom |
United States
Browse Wikipedia · Article overviews · Alphabetical index · Other category schemes
Too big for the main page? Too much info (too many pages)? Probably, but where do you cut down. And if a page isn't included on the main page is it really required? And if it is still required, how do you get to it easily? Lots of questions I can't answer. Trevor macinnis 22:40, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Trevor macinnis 14:49, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The page has been moved, without consensus, let alone discussion, to Wikipedia:Portal from Wikipedia:Wikiportal. I am to move it back. Wikiportal is more in keeping with other initiatives throughout Wikimedia. Whilst "portal" is useful shorthand, but I oppose it's formal use without discussion.-- Cyberjunkie 14:01, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
I have added this to the project page, since I come across quite a lot of portals which are created by anonymous users, without a clue. -- MarSch 18:18, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
On a related note, where is the line being drawn between an "existing portal" on the list and a portal "under construction"? For example, the Europe portal looks complete and is listed on the portal template, but hasn't been touched in a month and is listed under "portals under constuction". Trevor macinnis 30 June 2005 04:22 (UTC)
There ist also the posibility to delete unmaintained portals. -- 80.135.57.59 18:07, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
There is no need for special pages to delete portals. Just look at Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Sweden. The VfD-system is working. -- 80.135.15.147 21:36, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
There is no need for a special area for discussing the deletion of portals specifically. Wikipedia:Votes for deletion covers the deletion of portals now. From Monday 2005-08-29 (if all goes well) the new Wikipedia:Non-main namespace pages for deletion will cover them. Uncle G 16:21:04, 2005-08-28 (UTC)
Would it be worthwhile for there to be an approval process for new portals? It seems to me that several of the requested portals are either a) substantially duplicates of existing portals (eg African Union with Africa) b) regions of very narrow interest for which efforts on a portal might be better directed to a broader subject (eg The Simpsons, Organic gardening, speculative fiction). It seems to me that it would be useful for there to be some kind of commenting process on proposed portals to assess whether the subject is sufficiently broad and would generate sufficient interest to warrant its own portal. Worldtraveller 17:54, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
It's great that the Africa portal points to the category of African countries, but I'd like to have some way to point all the Africa country articles to the Africa portal. No matter where readers start, they should be able to navigate around. 19 June 2005.
I have WP:TfD'ed artportal. -- MarSch 14:10, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I moved the portals section to the top of the Browse Wikipedia page (linked from front page). However, the portal template in use there is different from the one in use here:
Here:
On wikipedia browse:
As you can see, for example Brazil is in the first list but not in the second. Is there an easy way to keep these synchronized? Jacoplane 23:37, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I've created a set of templates for creating 'boxes' in wikiportal pages. Currently, the portals have boxes that are hard-coded into the portal pages themselves. This makes those edit pages unreadable, the color schemes are hard to change, and many of the boxes have css errors in them that cause content to overflow out of the box (becoming unreadable) in browsers like Firefox. Those interested should have a look at Wikipedia talk:Wikiportal/box-header. I'll convert the portals as I find time, and encourage others to do so as well. Slike2 04:43, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)
This is a very interesting idea, and the Canada and Computer and video games portals do look cleaner in the edit box, but there are a few things that should be fixed before I would support it as a replacement to the current way of creating a portal with the {{ portal skeleton}}.
If we fix that (and convert the old pages over - they apparently aren't being done by the "Maintainers") then things could run so much smoother. Trevor macinnis 28 June 2005 17:42 (UTC)
I switched over the aviation portal to this format, but is you take a look the anniversaries box extends too far. Any idea why? Trevor macinnis 30 June 2005 21:26 (UTC)
I think that it would probably a good idea to convert {{ portal skeleton}} to use these boxes. -- MarSch 3 July 2005 11:25 (UTC)
Along the same lines, I'm going to take out the section on making a portal using the old way, and other references. I'm also asking maintainers of existing pages to convert them over to box format(or give the ok for anyone to).
What happened that a lot of templates using old layout suddenly have a toc showing up? -- MarSch 28 June 2005 16:15 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikiportals
We've started a Wikipedia:WikiProject to help align all of the various Wikiportals with the Main_Page. It's a top down approach, and we don't want to collide with the efforts to build individual portals.
We're just trying to establish some Project spaces and fill in some gaps to make it easier for readers to Browse Wikipedia via polished Wikiportals in the main namespace and work on rough drafts in the Wikipedia: namespace. I hope this will help provide some structure and organization. Thanks Quinobi 28 June 2005 21:07 (UTC)
This a rough draft of the main template:
It will have a place for the new
Wikipedia:User_groups functionality.
fr has a similar project "
Synoptique" with a column for stub--
Ste281 5 July 2005 18:12 (UTC)
Someone has created a
Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Pornography; I have mixed feelings about this, but figure that if 'twere done 'tis best 'twere done quickly well, so I created
Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Pornography/Things you can do. Anyway, should we add it to this page? I think there is plenty of room for actual worthwhile encyclopedic content in this area, but I also think what we have right now is mostly one step from simply being pornography itself. --
Jmabel |
Talk July 9, 2005 04:57 (UTC)
Is it appropriate to involve other reference-oriented wikis such as those hosted by Wikicities in a Wikiportal? Most specifically I'd be interested in hosting one on poker if I could draw in content from PokerWiki. Religion, mentioned above, also seems like a good topic for transwiki unification via portals since it has a functioning Wikicity too. Seems that Wikiportals, as opposed to Wikipediaportals, would draw in other wiki info on a topic but I don't want to step on any toes. - PhilipR 15:15, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
The article Culture of Italy has been listed to be improved on Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive. You can add your vote there if you would like to support the article.-- Fenice 14:20, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
I agree as stated above that there should be an apporval for portals, and the ones that aren't maintained be removed. For example, the soccer portal is one of only few that are well maintained. Phoenix 2 16:37, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
Now that the Existing Wikiportals list is so long, perhaps we should break it up so it's a little easier to find the one your looking for. Even just two areas, one for interests and on for countries, would help a little -- Sketchee 17:31, August 19, 2005 (UTC)
In the German Wikipedia with more than 200 Portals, we link to de:Wikipedia nach Themen which replaces "Other Wikiportals". -- 80.135.5.181 15:50, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
Hi folks, good ideas. But I think Sketchee talks about the list in the main project page and not in the template one. For further discussions and details, please refer to the section below. Cheers - Svest 21:00, August 22, 2005 (UTC)
Dear all. As of August 22, 2005, the number of portals is increasing dramatically. We have many issues discussed above but nothing looks in order. We need to organize our planning and find solutions to the many issues before it's too late and we'd end up facing the same problems we're facing with categories. Here are some relevant issues with initial proposals and please use your vote to make the situation better. Please, feel free to add any issues below using the same skeleton (Issue, proposal and vote):
Culture | Geography | History | Life | Mathematics | Science | Society | Technology
I don't think the Template:Categorybrowsebar should be removed, but I've created a page titled Wikipedia:Wikiportal Browse and I think it should be linked to. How about:
Culture | Geography | History | Life | Mathematics | Science | Society | Technology
Browse Wikipedia · Browse Portals · Article overviews · Alphabetical index · Other indexes
I'd do it myself but the template is protected. Trevor MacInnis( Talk | Contribs) 21:35, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Continents:
Africa |
Americas |
Countries:
Afghanistan |
Algeria |
Organizations:
Wikipedia:Wikiportal/European Union |
Wikipedia:Wikiportal/United Nations |
Perhaps if a portal is seen to be unsupported it can be reduced to a bare bones, where the required links are available (categories, projects, etc) but items that need to be changed regularly (Featured article/picture) are removed. Trevor MacInnis( Talk | Contribs) 21:35, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Cheers and respect from
Svest 22:43, August 22, 2005 (UTC)
Wiki me up™
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
This archive page covers approximately the dates between February 2005 and August 2005..
Post replies to the main talk page, copying the section you are replying to if necessary.
Archived discussions:
Anybody willing to make a Computer Science wikiportal? :) -- r3m0t 23:22, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I could make it but someone would have to maintain it... Ausir 00:35, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
What about a special Portal: namespace? The portals don't really belong in the Wikipedia: namespace, at least they should be moved to the main namespace. -- grm wnr 23:11, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps users could use their preferences to opt for a specific portal as the main page when they type en.wikipedia.org into their browser? Similarly, would we allow external domains to point at specific portals? Thus, http://wikibiology.com/ or http://biowiki.com/ could point at the Wikipedia biology portal - or is this considered cyber squatting?-- Oldak Quill 13:02, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Also, I think it would be useful to put a link to the wikiportals page (or an index of the wikiportals) on the main page.
The instructions read:
To create the basic skeleton for a new Wikiportal, use Template:Wikiportal. When editing the new Wikiportal for the first time, enter the template in the form {{subst:Wikiportal | topic=Astronomy | bgcolor=black | fgcolor=white}}, and save it.
I was under the impression that parameters could not be used when substing a template: has this changed? -- Phil | Talk 10:58, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)
Is there anything this page should be learning from the process that has been happening at Talk:Cricket and Talk:Cricket (portal). The basic point boils down where to have portals to keep readers, editors and re-users all maximally served. Pcb21| Pete 17:13, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I just got slapped on the wrist (ouch :) ) for suggesting to move the UK portal to a British Isles portal. So I wanted to read up on portals, but I can't find much information about what a portal is supposed to be. I thought it should be about broader subjects, a point of entry (or rather .... portal) to the constituent parts, with some clarification about what is what. The 'slapping' occurred on a subpage of mine ( User:DirkvdM/British Isles - Clarification of Terms) in which I suggest an article about the British Isles to help people find their way in this rather messy subject. That seemed to me to be a good subject for a portal. But now I notice there are also portals for Quebec and Hong Kong. Aren't these subjects too narrow for a portal? Same for the People's Republic of China. Wouldn't it make more sense to have a portal on China (certainly a broad enough subject) which then has a link to the present situation, namely the Republic? There are portals for 6 countries, 2 smaller regions (Quebec and Hong Kong) and only 2 for larger regions (EU and Africa). Shouldn't portals be only for larger regions, or, rather, 'messy' regions that need clarification?
Now that I look at the various portals I'm confused. I assumed that the religion portal would have a list of the religions in the world (well, at least the 10 or so biggest ones plus their subdivisions). But not so. The Religion Category (how do I link that here?) hardly lists any religions (it's about things that have to do with religion) and the Religion Article mentions many, but doesn't categorise them. Hell ( :) ), it doesn't even mention calvinism, even though there is an article about it. But that's no problem, because there are portals for that sort of thing. One might think. But looking through the portals I now start wonder what they are for. I assumed that an article is about a specific subject, a category gives listings for a broader subject and a portal puts all the terms in such a broader subject into perspective (though I'm not sure in which of the latter two a thematical (as opposed to alphabetical) listing should go then). Am I missing something?
And the other question I'm stuck with now is where an overview such as the one I propose on my subpage should go. I wanted to find a clarification of the terms Britain, Great Britian, Brittannia and the British Isles, found the explanation spread over various articles and thought it a good idea to put all that information about all those related terms in one place and give a very concise explanation. Although I must admit it has gotten a bit out of hand and I don't know where to stop with this subject. But surely there are more such 'messy' subjects (maybe confusing would be a better word). How should they be dealt with?
DirkvdM 07:07, 2005 May 2 (UTC)
I created the first portals at en: and it's definitely what I wanted them to be - they are meant to be both for readers and editors. Ausir 15:25, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
I've just recently been getting involved in the astronomy portal, and have been considering the question of what the portals are for. It seems to me they're certainly not for editors only, or readers only. The work I've been doing on astronomy has been aimed both at encouraging more people to edit astronomy articles, and to showcase what good content there already is. Generally, I think a portal should aim to offer readers an introduction to a broad subject area in the same way as the main page offers an introduction to the whole content. The very word portal implies that it's a means of accessing information, and not just a handy editorial resource.
It seems to me that portals should cover broad areas, and shouldn't be heirarchical. I think there should really be a maximum of about 30 portals, otherwise their usefulness to readers is diminished. So, I think a cricket portal is too narrow - there is already a sport and games portal, and it would not be useful to have separate football, motor racing and darts portals below that.
I also think issues with namespace need to be resolved. At the moment, the main page of a portal is in the wikipedia namespace, but the template for creating the framework puts loads of stuff in the template namespace. I don't think either is ideal. For astronomy, I moved all the subpages from template namespace into the same namespace as the front page ie Wikipedia:, but then we've got issues with avoiding self-referencing to contend with. I think it would make most sense to adopt a pseudo-namespace, with portals at Portal:Astronomy, Portal:Music, etc etc. (user Worldtraveller forgot to sign MarSch 15:00, 7 May 2005 (UTC))
At de: portals on narrower subjects are mostly subpages of the broader ones. Ausir 06:42, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
See also: Wikipedia:Portalspace where the Portalspace is being formally proposed - the Listspace is not yet being formally proposed
This is nothing official, I'd just like to see what the general opinion is. Ausir 20:51, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
There are too many portals in {{ wikiportals}}:
If we want such a link on the main page then we need to make a selection. Currently the following is on main:
Culture | Geography | History | Life | Mathematics | Science | Society | Technology
Browse Wikipedia · Article overviews · Alphabetical index · Other category schemes
I was thinking of one portal for all countries/continents, a science portal, a math portal, an arts portal, the sport(s) and games portal, miscellaneous portal for all portals which don't fall naturally under any other. Probably a bit biased :) so tell me what you think. - MarSch 17:43, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
Science :
Physics |
Mathematics |
Astronomy |
Biology
The arts:
Literature |
Art |
Music |
History |
Philosophy
Personal life :
Sport and games |
Religion
Browse Wikipedia · Article overviews · Alphabetical index · Other category schemes
Not bad. Pending further discussion I've put
on Main Page (table free). - MarSch 14:13, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
I was thinking along the lines of
Continent :
America |
Africa |
Australia |
Eurasia
Science :
Natural science |
Social science |
Humanities
but of course whe need some more main portals besides these two. Only I'm not sure what should go where. - MarSch 14:58, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
So in this abbreviated list, where do transportation topics (such as the newly created Trains portal) belong? Science? That doesn't quite sound right. slambo 03:46, May 17, 2005 (UTC)
What about a geography portal? Could something like that replace the continents? What wikiportals are necessary? Let's make the ones we need and put them on the main page. -- Spangineer ( háblame) 19:01, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
Wikiportals
Culture:
Art |
Literature:
Biography |
Music |
Religion | Television:
Star Wars |
Doctor Who
Society :
Personal life:
Sports and games |
Baseball |
Football |
Cricket
Science :
Astronomy |
Biology |
Physics |
Information technology |
Medicine
Social Science:
Archaeology |
History |
History of Science
Mathematics:
Cryptography
Technology :
Aviation |
Trains |
Computer and video games |
Engineering |
Information technology
Geography:
Africa |
Australia |
Belarus |
Canada |
China |
European Union |
Hong Kong |
India |
Ireland |
Israel |
New Zealand |
Palestine |
Poland |
Quebec |
Russia |
South Africa |
United Kingdom |
United States
Browse Wikipedia · Article overviews · Alphabetical index · Other category schemes
Too big for the main page? Too much info (too many pages)? Probably, but where do you cut down. And if a page isn't included on the main page is it really required? And if it is still required, how do you get to it easily? Lots of questions I can't answer. Trevor macinnis 22:40, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Trevor macinnis 14:49, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The page has been moved, without consensus, let alone discussion, to Wikipedia:Portal from Wikipedia:Wikiportal. I am to move it back. Wikiportal is more in keeping with other initiatives throughout Wikimedia. Whilst "portal" is useful shorthand, but I oppose it's formal use without discussion.-- Cyberjunkie 14:01, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
I have added this to the project page, since I come across quite a lot of portals which are created by anonymous users, without a clue. -- MarSch 18:18, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
On a related note, where is the line being drawn between an "existing portal" on the list and a portal "under construction"? For example, the Europe portal looks complete and is listed on the portal template, but hasn't been touched in a month and is listed under "portals under constuction". Trevor macinnis 30 June 2005 04:22 (UTC)
There ist also the posibility to delete unmaintained portals. -- 80.135.57.59 18:07, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
There is no need for special pages to delete portals. Just look at Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Sweden. The VfD-system is working. -- 80.135.15.147 21:36, 24 August 2005 (UTC)
There is no need for a special area for discussing the deletion of portals specifically. Wikipedia:Votes for deletion covers the deletion of portals now. From Monday 2005-08-29 (if all goes well) the new Wikipedia:Non-main namespace pages for deletion will cover them. Uncle G 16:21:04, 2005-08-28 (UTC)
Would it be worthwhile for there to be an approval process for new portals? It seems to me that several of the requested portals are either a) substantially duplicates of existing portals (eg African Union with Africa) b) regions of very narrow interest for which efforts on a portal might be better directed to a broader subject (eg The Simpsons, Organic gardening, speculative fiction). It seems to me that it would be useful for there to be some kind of commenting process on proposed portals to assess whether the subject is sufficiently broad and would generate sufficient interest to warrant its own portal. Worldtraveller 17:54, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
It's great that the Africa portal points to the category of African countries, but I'd like to have some way to point all the Africa country articles to the Africa portal. No matter where readers start, they should be able to navigate around. 19 June 2005.
I have WP:TfD'ed artportal. -- MarSch 14:10, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I moved the portals section to the top of the Browse Wikipedia page (linked from front page). However, the portal template in use there is different from the one in use here:
Here:
On wikipedia browse:
As you can see, for example Brazil is in the first list but not in the second. Is there an easy way to keep these synchronized? Jacoplane 23:37, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I've created a set of templates for creating 'boxes' in wikiportal pages. Currently, the portals have boxes that are hard-coded into the portal pages themselves. This makes those edit pages unreadable, the color schemes are hard to change, and many of the boxes have css errors in them that cause content to overflow out of the box (becoming unreadable) in browsers like Firefox. Those interested should have a look at Wikipedia talk:Wikiportal/box-header. I'll convert the portals as I find time, and encourage others to do so as well. Slike2 04:43, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)
This is a very interesting idea, and the Canada and Computer and video games portals do look cleaner in the edit box, but there are a few things that should be fixed before I would support it as a replacement to the current way of creating a portal with the {{ portal skeleton}}.
If we fix that (and convert the old pages over - they apparently aren't being done by the "Maintainers") then things could run so much smoother. Trevor macinnis 28 June 2005 17:42 (UTC)
I switched over the aviation portal to this format, but is you take a look the anniversaries box extends too far. Any idea why? Trevor macinnis 30 June 2005 21:26 (UTC)
I think that it would probably a good idea to convert {{ portal skeleton}} to use these boxes. -- MarSch 3 July 2005 11:25 (UTC)
Along the same lines, I'm going to take out the section on making a portal using the old way, and other references. I'm also asking maintainers of existing pages to convert them over to box format(or give the ok for anyone to).
What happened that a lot of templates using old layout suddenly have a toc showing up? -- MarSch 28 June 2005 16:15 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikiportals
We've started a Wikipedia:WikiProject to help align all of the various Wikiportals with the Main_Page. It's a top down approach, and we don't want to collide with the efforts to build individual portals.
We're just trying to establish some Project spaces and fill in some gaps to make it easier for readers to Browse Wikipedia via polished Wikiportals in the main namespace and work on rough drafts in the Wikipedia: namespace. I hope this will help provide some structure and organization. Thanks Quinobi 28 June 2005 21:07 (UTC)
This a rough draft of the main template:
It will have a place for the new
Wikipedia:User_groups functionality.
fr has a similar project "
Synoptique" with a column for stub--
Ste281 5 July 2005 18:12 (UTC)
Someone has created a
Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Pornography; I have mixed feelings about this, but figure that if 'twere done 'tis best 'twere done quickly well, so I created
Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Pornography/Things you can do. Anyway, should we add it to this page? I think there is plenty of room for actual worthwhile encyclopedic content in this area, but I also think what we have right now is mostly one step from simply being pornography itself. --
Jmabel |
Talk July 9, 2005 04:57 (UTC)
Is it appropriate to involve other reference-oriented wikis such as those hosted by Wikicities in a Wikiportal? Most specifically I'd be interested in hosting one on poker if I could draw in content from PokerWiki. Religion, mentioned above, also seems like a good topic for transwiki unification via portals since it has a functioning Wikicity too. Seems that Wikiportals, as opposed to Wikipediaportals, would draw in other wiki info on a topic but I don't want to step on any toes. - PhilipR 15:15, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
The article Culture of Italy has been listed to be improved on Wikipedia:This week's improvement drive. You can add your vote there if you would like to support the article.-- Fenice 14:20, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
I agree as stated above that there should be an apporval for portals, and the ones that aren't maintained be removed. For example, the soccer portal is one of only few that are well maintained. Phoenix 2 16:37, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
Now that the Existing Wikiportals list is so long, perhaps we should break it up so it's a little easier to find the one your looking for. Even just two areas, one for interests and on for countries, would help a little -- Sketchee 17:31, August 19, 2005 (UTC)
In the German Wikipedia with more than 200 Portals, we link to de:Wikipedia nach Themen which replaces "Other Wikiportals". -- 80.135.5.181 15:50, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
Hi folks, good ideas. But I think Sketchee talks about the list in the main project page and not in the template one. For further discussions and details, please refer to the section below. Cheers - Svest 21:00, August 22, 2005 (UTC)
Dear all. As of August 22, 2005, the number of portals is increasing dramatically. We have many issues discussed above but nothing looks in order. We need to organize our planning and find solutions to the many issues before it's too late and we'd end up facing the same problems we're facing with categories. Here are some relevant issues with initial proposals and please use your vote to make the situation better. Please, feel free to add any issues below using the same skeleton (Issue, proposal and vote):
Culture | Geography | History | Life | Mathematics | Science | Society | Technology
I don't think the Template:Categorybrowsebar should be removed, but I've created a page titled Wikipedia:Wikiportal Browse and I think it should be linked to. How about:
Culture | Geography | History | Life | Mathematics | Science | Society | Technology
Browse Wikipedia · Browse Portals · Article overviews · Alphabetical index · Other indexes
I'd do it myself but the template is protected. Trevor MacInnis( Talk | Contribs) 21:35, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Continents:
Africa |
Americas |
Countries:
Afghanistan |
Algeria |
Organizations:
Wikipedia:Wikiportal/European Union |
Wikipedia:Wikiportal/United Nations |
Perhaps if a portal is seen to be unsupported it can be reduced to a bare bones, where the required links are available (categories, projects, etc) but items that need to be changed regularly (Featured article/picture) are removed. Trevor MacInnis( Talk | Contribs) 21:35, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
Cheers and respect from
Svest 22:43, August 22, 2005 (UTC)
Wiki me up™