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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5

This archive page covers approximately the dates between September 2005 and November 2005.

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

Archived discussions:

Portal namespace questions

I have a few questions, now that we have the division in portals.

1. What exactly is the the difference between a reader and a user-aid portal? I know its says that"If your Wikiportal is designed as a reader-aid, such as Portal:Cricket, please place it in the portal namespace. If it is an editor-aid, keep it at Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Subject.", but all of them have been moved to the Portal namespace, except the most recently created ones. For an average Wikipedia user, how do you tell the difference, and why differentiate to begin with?

2. Having a seperate namespace suggests that portals are an important and different section of the Wikipedia world. How are we exposing average readers to portals? Having the links on Wikipedia:Browse is alright, but not very visable. I suggested (above and at Talk:Main_Page#Portals_link) a link on the main page to a page I created (Portal:Browse) be placed in the Template:Categorybrowsebar, since it seems to me that Portals are a different form of browsing Wikipedia. This is a task for an admin since the template is protected.

3. Who is going to go around cleaning up all the redirects created by moving the Wikiportals over? I know that moving the aviation portal created probably close to 100 new redirect pages that (I hope) have no links to them other than the odd talk page. Also a task for an admin.

A few concerns that I hope we can clear up before portals get so big that changes are overwhelmingly (sp?) difficult. - Trevor MacInnis(Talk | Contribs) 21:08, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Good and relevant questions. Unfortunately, I have no answer to any of them. I've seen no admin involved here so far. I hope the questions above will find answers ASAP as I agree w/ you that this is the right time to tackle those issues before it's too late. -- Svest 21:26, September 4, 2005 (UTC) Wiki me up™

Sub-standard Portals

I've just gone through all the Portals in the browser bar and just realised how many sub-standard Portals there are. In particular, Portal:Zelda seems like vandalism. Others could barely be designated "under-construction" and yet are within the browser as completed Portals. That there are Portals that shouldn't exist was an issue raised before the archive, but one that recieved little attention. If Portals are to gain credibility with the community at large, we need to ensure that those sub-standard are eliminated. I'm not entirely sure through what process Portals may be deleted, but it seems clear to me that some must meet that end. Thoughts? --Cyberjunkie | Talk 16:30, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

The following is a list of some Portals that I deemed sub-standard, whether because of formatting issues or because they are incomplete or inappropriate. I mean no offence to their creators and/or maintainers. There are others not listed that need work, also. Those bolded have been removed from {{portals}}.

I realise I have faulted in my expression. I have been using the term "sub-standard" incorrectly: this would imply we have a standard; we do not, and this is perhaps a problem. Another is that there remains confusion between the terms "Wikiportal" and "Portal"; we need a resolute definition to work by so we can determine what is and isn't a portal. I don't think we should allow categories to pass themselves off a portals, as with Category:Mathematics. And portals should be obligated to feature the {{portal}} template. I hope these points generate discussion.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 08:31, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree. "Sub-standard" portals need to be taken care of. My suggestion would be to talk to the user(s) who have created the portals or are the main contributer. If they have no intention of continuing improvements then the portal should be listed on Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion and susequently deleted. If the portal is on the subject that will likely be used if done corectly (such as Film), perhaps it can be changed into static page with any pertinant links. - Trevor MacInnis(Talk | Contribs) 21:38, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
We probably do need to set a standard. What happens to WikiProjects for example if they are unmaintained or undeveloped or inactive? Perhaps the same could be applied here? --Celestianpower hablamé 21:42, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
A version of the {{inactive}} template maybe? Or put a version of {{expansion}} or some other cleanup template. Is this the kind of thing that needs a Wikiproject of its own for people to dedicate themselves to? - Trevor MacInnis(Talk | Contribs) 22:19, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
About inactive portals, if they are important subject which deserve a portal (Tech for example) maybe they can be switched over to a format like Portal:Cricket or Portal:Politics. These two portals are not very editor friendly, but look beautiful as a portla for readers. - Trevor MacInnis(Talk | Contribs) 14:56, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
I have listed a few WikiProjects for deletion in the past, ones which were barely sketched out beyond the template, and in one instance at least just a template. Some were deleted, some were kept, although there was a low voting turnout it is fair to say. I have recently listed Portal:Future Prospects at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion, consensus so far on that is to delete. However, I agree with Trevor MacInnis that with potentially useful portals we should make them as reader friendly as possible. I will volunteer to help out to that effect. Hiding talk 15:52, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps if someone wrote a template to use on the inactive/crappy portals. Something along the lines of {{box portal skeleton}} but using the code from Politics or Cricket portal, call it {{static portal}} maybe. I'll give it a try tommorow if someone would mail the creators/maintainers of the above mentioned portals to see if we need to apply it to their portals, or if they will do it. - Trevor MacInnis(Talk | Contribs) 04:12, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Just briefly, I've created {{portaltalk}} in effort to centralise discussion and create commonality between portals. It's essentially an equivalent to a WikiProject "project notice". Please feel free to work on the wording, and to place them on Portal talk pages. I'm working on some other things also, but have run out of time. I agree the above proposals for "status tags": we proably need "under construction", "inactive/unmaintained/static", "help requested" or some such. In that sense, they'll probably work as stubs. Portal:Zelda has been nominated for deletion.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 06:09, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to see all portals following the example of Portal:Cricket or Portal:Politics. However, that would fix only part of the problem, which is the format and design. The 2 other main problems are mainly maintenance/update and of course the creation of nonesense portals as Portal:Zelda.
There is only one solution to deal with the portals like Portal:Zelda; presenting them to vote for deletion. For the maintenance part, the issue is a bit complicated. Usually, the problem is the lack of time for the creator and the maintainer. I've created 2 portals so far; Portal:Morocco and Portal:Spain. Morroco looks fine but for Spain, I really need assistance. What I did is that put the template portal on the main article Spain and added a memo in its talk page to ask for assistance. It seems not working. What I suggest is to create a template of assistance added at the top of the talk page of the main article or at top of section where the memo was edited. Cheers -- Svest 12:17, 28 September 2005 (UTC)  Wiki me up™
Portal:Cricket doesn't seem to have the {{portal}} template in it. Is that still a requirement? I think it shoud be. --Celestianpower háblame 09:25, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Agreed again. In fact, I suggested such above.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 09:27, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Criteria for portals?

I've stated here before my belief that we are getting many portals constructed which are dedicated to very narrow topic areas, such as Doctor Who, Ancient Germanic Culture, Stargate, Eastern Christianity and others. Should we try to set out some kind of criteria for what portals should be? I believe they should be created for high-level topic areas, and the ones I've listed above are too specific. Or, are people theoretically happy for a portal to be created on any topic, no matter how narrow? Worldtraveller 16:51, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

I would say Wikicities is a good example here. If the suject is broad enough for a wikicity, and does not fit under other portals, then it should go ahead. --Celestianpower hablamé 17:09, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
I think it would be useful to have some kind of in-house criteria. I don't know anything about wikicities and what kind of subjects they allow. Worldtraveller 17:24, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
The following are the wikicities guidelines:
Wikis must have a large potential audience, and be likely to attract enough editors to maintain the wiki over a long period of time. Personal wikis, wikis for small groups, or individual schools are not generally permitted. See the university and schools policy. If your proposal is too narrow in scope, you will be advised to broaden it and add your idea as a sub-section of a larger Wikicity. Although some fair use material may be included in wikis, Wikicities aims to be a repository of free content, so any wiki which would be primarily made up of fair use material rather than GFDL material is not permitted. For example, wikis which aim to collect lyrics or other copyrighted works are not allowed. You may not request a Wikicity if you are banned on any other wiki.
Check your idea is not already covered by an existing Wikicity. Check your idea could not become part of an existing Wikimedia project (http://www.wikimedia.org). Check which other proposals were rejected for an idea of what not to request.
We could make our criteria the following:
  • It must be of a broad enough subject to attract editors to it and for readers to find it benificial.
  • It must not totally or partially duplicate another portal.
  • Portals that do not meet either of these criteria are subject to deletion immediately at WP:MD.
Sound any good? A bit wishy-washy really I suppose. --Celestianpower hablamé 17:39, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
No, I like that, simple but gets the point across. Any other thoughts? I think we should add this to the portals page. Worldtraveller 08:22, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
Not really any other suggestions and I think, as a start, these should go on the main page. Where? A new section? Top of the page? Worked into the prose? --Celestianpower hablamé 17:13, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I think we have to be more specific. duplicating, beneficial are still subjective and surely not helping. -- Svest 18:35, 14 October 2005 (UTC)  Wiki me up™

That's what I thought. How could we make it more precise do we think? --Celestianpower hablamé 20:14, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Suggestions

First suggestion is to elect a committee of wikipedians managing the portals.

  • Before any portal is created, the topic of the portal should be presented to the committe for vote. The vote should be based on a set of critereas. (i.e. see below)
  • The committee decides the creation of the portal.

Criteria

The best thing to do is . Examples (please feel free to add or trim stuff to and from the list/skeleton):

Allowed

  • Only portals that have an academic background are allowed. (i.e. Sciences, Religions, Literature, Society, Sports, Photography, Music, Theatre, Cinema, Art, Painting, Politics, Economics, Finance, Sociology, Egyptology, Media, Poetry, Journalism, etc..)
  • The topic should be general enough. (i.e. Software engineering instead of .NET and Java separately)
  • Portals about countries and major cities are allowed. (i.e. cities that have more than 5 million inhabitants)

Not allowed

  • Portals about characters are not allowed. Individual and breakout articles are considered to be enough to cover them in depth. (i.e. Doctor Who, Pokemon, James Bond, The Simpsons...They should belong to Fiction portal)
  • Portals about soaps, series, books are not allowed. (Stargate, Star Wars, Oz, etc... They should belong to Cinema, Fiction, Literature portals) Individual and breakout articles are considered to be enough to cover them in depth.
  • Portals about brands, companies, etc... are not allowed.
  • Portals about phenomenons are not allowed. (i.e. Earthquakes should belong to Geology portal) -- Svest 21:25, 14 October 2005 (UTC)  Wiki me up™
I agree with the "allowed section" (save the prohibition on cities with under 5 million people). In the "not allowed" section, I agree with only the last two points. The first two ("characters" and "series") are too restrictive I think, though I could be convinced otherwise. It would be better if such portals could be folded into broader, subject-specific portals such as "anime" or "science fiction". But I'm worried that if we close down existing and maintained portals we might alienate entire sections of the Wikipedia community. The last thing I want is for yet another fork (read: split from Wikipedia).
As for the committee thing, I'm not opposed. But I wouldn't want such a thing to have any overbearing authority. More, something like an "Advisory Committee" would be appropriate. But then, if we can manage to attract more dedicated editors to portals, we mightn't need one. I think we need to organise more like Wikipedia:WikiProject.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 06:10, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
I like the general principles of these criteria (criterion is singular) but I share the fears of CyberJunkie in that what to do about the existing ones. Many of the un-allowed ones under these guidelines are well-maintained and useful. Take Star Wars for example. There are literally billions of Star Wars articles/categories/projects ...etc... here on Wikipedia (okay, the portal isn't too hot but there you go) and there needs to be some place for readers to go to find all of this (or relevant info for their needs). Think about the relative numbers of people coming to Wikipedia wanting to find out about the different subjects. There will be any more looking for popular culture than the Phillippines for example. Just my two pennies. --Celestianpower hablamé 07:51, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
I largely agree with the above proposals. I think that there should be some means of deciding an arbitrary figure, "x" , which is the number of related articles to a subject. If x exceeds the figure, then a portal is deemed plausible/helpful/neccessary. As I mentioned below, a very crude means of doing this is the list of most referenced articles. It should be deemed that an article that has more than y references is entitled to a portal, becuase presumably it is of great importance. Although there are clear flaws in this simple system, crudely it works.
In any case, there is a need to establish a clear criterion regarding the placement of Portals onto the namespace. The namespace should be the ultimate aim of a Portal, when it is up to scratch at shows a) quality, b) quantity of relevant links, c) sound maintenace. Like how articles reach "Featured" status, the namespace should be the portal equivalent. Deano
I've added some comments on "Standards" below. I disagree entirely with the "disallowed" section. As long as the portal is useful and links to a large number of related pages, I see no problem. If our James Bond articles are so in-depth that a portal would be useful to navigate between the best ones, then why shouldn't we have one? jguk 20:31, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Geographical portals

I am wondering why we should have country and city portals at all. City portals seem way too specific to me, and country portals express systemic bias unless there is one created and maintained for every single country. In addition, they can very easily become strongly POV, because those who maintain them will inevitably be from, or have some strong connection with, the country concerned. Continents seem ideal for portals, countries much less so to me. Worldtraveller 02:40, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

There are only 3 cities with their own Wikiportals - namely New York, London and Bucharest. NYC is one of the four global cities and there is such a wealth of information about it that it deserves its own portal in order to streamline access to NYC specific articles. The NYC portal has been around for a while I believe. However, London is a even more multicultural, and is the most referenced city in all of Wikipedia. All of the above applies equally, if not more, for London as it does for NYC. Hence why I created the London portal yesterday. As for Bucharest, it is not a global city, it is not a major city, and its portal is not half as good as our London one, and ours was made in one day.
Long story short, city portals are necessary for major, major cities that have, as a crude divisor, over 10,000 wikilinks in English. Obviously that is quite crude, but it works. And the same principle should apply to anything - perhaps not at that figure, but that principle. See Wikipedia:Most referenced articles for figures.
Deano 13:25, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

MORE Sub-Standard Portals

I just removed Portal:Tel-Aviv from {{Template:portals}} because it is non-existent and shouldn't exist generally. There is not enough information about a city such as Tel Aviv, or Bucharest for that matter (see Portal:Bucharest) to justify having a portal for it. Or at least to justify having the portal come under the {{Template:portals}} list.

The {{Template:portals}} list should be kept ONLY for portals that satisfy set criteria and quality, and have reasonable justification for their existence on the list. If people want to create pointless portals then it doesn't really matter, so long as they don't claim them to be good enough to be on the {{Template:portals}} list.

My 2 pennies. Deano 16:42, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

I think you're right - it's probably time we went through every portal in the portal namespace and moved those of low quality back to Wikipedia:Wikiportal space to let them die or develop, jguk 17:23, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay well based on the fact that all portals should be in WP:P regardless of their status/quality, I'm going to act unilaterally and just remove the crap ones from the {{portals}} namespace template. Any objections... well I guess we'll have to sort that out later, because I'm going to do it now. Crap portals on the namespace dilutes the impression of the good ones. Deano 17:54, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Deano - you're behind the times - there is a special namespace for reader-oriented portals. That's why the talk page of the Cricket portal, for example, is at Portal talk:Cricket not [[Talk:Portal:Cricket]]. The bad ones that aren't particularly useful for readers shouldn't be in the portal namespace, but the good ones should remain, jguk 19:22, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

??? I'm fairly sure everything you've just said agrees with what I said anyway... Deano 19:28, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, thinking about it - perhaps we should see whether the substandard ones can easily be made up to the right standard. What do we reckon the best Portal formats are? I think Portal:Cricket is great (but then I started that one). What do others think? jguk 19:34, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Obviously I'm gonna say Portal:London, but I took inspiration from Portal:Australia and Portal:New Zealand - both of which were excellent. I originally based it on Portal:NYC, but in my humble opinion P:L has superceeded that already. Deano 19:39, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Well I must say, Australia and New Zealand are great - but then, I created those :P. London is very good also, if rather large. While I am still not overly fond of the format, Cricket and Politics great. I think it might be a good idea to start a "feauture portal" process, so that those new to the fold have examples to work by. I've pruned {{portals}} once before of sub-standard portals (and added a notice warning against them), and it looks like we'll have to keep doing so until some sort of coherent process is established. --Cyberjunkie | Talk 02:41, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I suppose a crude way of doing it would be stick the good ones in bold on the namespace... Although it would need major policing, it would work! Deano 10:38, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I think the London portal is a bit cluttered really but I do like the fact that there isn't one style for all the portals. Variety is the spice of life you know. --Celestianpower háblame 09:19, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Agreed on both points. London takes forever to load :)--Cyberjunkie | Talk 09:25, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

"London takes forever to load :)" - well what can I say! A high quality city needs high quality imagery!!! Perhaps consider investing in Broadband!!! Deano 18:27, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Bucharest

I really don't think this portal is / has the potential to be up to standard. And it is even more ridiculous in the new template format when it is put on a par with NYC and London - both of whom have a multitude of information already, leave alone potential for the future. I reckon Bucharest should be taken off the namespace... any thoughts? I'll give it a day or two before I do it if I don't hear anything to the contrary... Deano 21:53, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Going, going... gone. Deano 18:48, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellaneous deletion/Portal pages

The portals in Wikipedia namespace have been nominated for deletion because the nominator believes all portals should now be in the portal namespace. Hiding talk 13:59, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Standards

In line with the above, I agree we should settle on some standards for portals in the Portal namespace.

I suggest:

  • Portals should be useful for readers - they should allow readers to navigate around the better articles on a particular subject, giving links to key topics (and to a reasonable number of key topics too)
  • Portals should be easy to maintain. "Recent articles" and "News" sections are only worth having if there are sufficient volunteers to keep them new, otherwise such sections shouldn't exist
  • Portals should encourage visitors to contribute to Wikipedia, but should be discreet in how they do it
  • Portals should link in to the Category system
  • Portals should not duplicate other portals
  • Portals should be aesthetically pleasing

In particular, let's list out the portals we just think are good (for whatever reason) and see what links them. So far the following have been suggested as good portals (I list them here without further comment):

But let's decide on what are good portals - keep those in the portal namespace as examples as what is good, and move substandard ones back to the Wikipedia namespance until they improve, jguk 19:29, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

HI jguk. We believe that it's the right time to set policies. Otherwise, we'll be facing a mess! Can you please give your opinions and comments about some proposals above at Wikipedia talk:Wikiportal#Suggestions. By the way, nice pic of Tetouan! Cheers -- Svest 19:50, 31 October 2005 (UTC)  Wiki me up™

Portal improvement drive

To improve the quality of Portalspace, I propose a portal improvement drive. Let's take 10 portals (in order per Template:Portals) and either improve them so that they look good and put the emphasis on helping the reader (but with links to relevant WP projects, how to contribute, etc.) - or, if that would require too much work for now, remove them from Portalspace (by moving them to Wikipedia:Wikiportals/X and deleting the redirect in the Portalspace). The first 10 for consideration, together with my own comments, are as follows:

  1. Portal:Africa - needs reorganisation to put user content first, put links to Wikiprojects, etc. in bottom right corner. Shouldn't be categorised as a Wikiportal. Retrievable.
  2. Portal:Caribbean - needs to lose the news section as not updated often; "Things you can do" section" should go as empty and irrelevant; WikiProject notification should be in bottom right (ie as discreet as possible); "Categories" list needs to explain abbreviations; Beautification required. Retrievable.
  3. Portal:Europe - demote - offers nothing new from the categories.
  4. Portal:Algeria - demote - news sections rarely updated - offers little new.
  5. Portal:Australia - place WikiProjects at bottom right, and move the collaboration of the fortnight to within the WikiProject section or omit (how important is this to the reader?) - maybe add a showcase articles section as per Portal:Cricket - nearly there, but could be improved
  6. Portal:Bangladesh - lose "news" sections as not updated regularly; move WikiProject info to bottom right; maybe add a showcase articles section - nearly there, but could be improved
  7. Portal:Belarus - I'm not too sure about this one - there's no point in having a "contribute" section as there isn't much activity on Belarus-related articles. I imagine that the portal already links to our most important articles on the subject (which is why I'm not of the view that it should necessarily be demoted), but there are only few articles on Belarus on WP
  8. Portal:Brazil - lose "Portal Info" - move "Help out" to the bottom right - maybe add a "showcase articles" section as per Portal:Cricket
  9. Portal:Canada - demote for now
  10. Portal:People's Republic of China - demote for now

What do others think? jguk 19:05, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Excellent idea jguk - totally agree with your propositions for the namespace. I've said it before, but I really think the namespace for a portal should be like "featured status" is for an article... perhaps not quite so rigid but the same principle. I do think that there should be some barriers to entry put up as well - stopping incomplete/sub-standard portals entering the namespace. Approval of some kind should be required...
You have suggested several times that "Things you can do"/"WikiProject" boxes should be moved to the bottom-right, which is probably fair enough. When I created the London page I thought it was strange the amount of emphasis portals in general seemed to put on their "Thing You Can Do" boxes, so demoting their importance would be a good idea.
The "news" sections of several portals are unkept - instead of axing them, why not create a simple link-to-Wikinews box à la Portal:London? Solves the problem doesn't it?
Also, you seem quite keen on the "Showcase Articles" as illustrated by Portal:Cricket. Would you agree that the "Related Topics" templates used in Portal:London (copied from Portal:NYC) are a suitable alternative? They do not filter lower-quality or incomplete articles, but are we really trying avoid that? The way I see it, the more people who view an article, the more likely it is to improve...
In terms of the 10 portals:
  1. Portal:Africa - general standard improvement and clean-up needed
  2. Portal:Caribbean - ditto
  3. Portal:Europe - question mark in my eyes... the idea of a merger with the EU has left me conflicted...
  4. Portal:Algeria - excellent ergonomics, but lacks substance
  5. Portal:Australia - excellent formats and style - minor improvements needed
  6. Portal:Bangladesh - see above regarding news; plenty of potential
  7. Portal:Belarus - demote for now - lack of substance in terms of articles about Belarus
  8. Portal:Brazil - plenty of potential, needs tidying up
  9. Portal:Canada - lacks finesse at the moment, but definitely has potential
  10. Portal:People's Republic of China - ditto Canada
Deano 21:30, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
It seems we're headed towards agreement, Deano, though it'd be nice to have other views than just ours.
On the "wikinews" point, I do disagree with you, though. We are Wikipedia, not Wikinews - it's not our place to promote the sister project. Also, it does not follow that just because one subject area is well developed in WP that it is developed in WN. Maybe London is well developed on WN (I don't know, I haven't looked), but I doubt this is true for most portals. I deliberately did not have a News section for the Cricket portal because I didn't see it being maintained - I imagine that's true for most subject areas.
I agree that the "Related topics" section is a sensible alternative to "Showcase articles". I think some area where there are direct links to some interesting articles directly related to the portal's subject is important. I agree with you that these articles needn't be perfect, though I'd be loathed to see stubs or articles needing cleaning up being listed. In general, I imagine there is a small number of suitable formats for portals. We should explore what the best three or five or so are, and list those as examples for others.
My concern about the London portal is that it is too busy. It's trying to do too much. We don't really need the "London on Wikipedia" and "Did you know" sections, for example. A "did you know" section might be useful for a portal with fewer links, but is not really necessary for the London one. I'm also unconvinced generally about the "Other portals" section. What does it offer - especially when we have Category:Portals?
I'll try playing around with the London portal, see if I can improve it, jguk 22:08, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, on your WikiNews point, if there's relavent information on WikiNews then we link to it. A big topic like London has a major section on WikiNews and therefore in my opinion deserves a link. WikiNews isn't a competitor, it's complimentary. As this is a portal, a reader aid, if it helps the understanding of the topic area then of course a link would be appropriate.
About the portals section, I think it's a very good idea. It shows that the portal is part of a set and helps the user browse the whole of Wikipedia. It's a very daunting place when you first discover it and anything that helps a user find his way around is certainly in my book a good idea. --Celestianpower háblame 18:27, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Well it appears we are fast coming to disagreement over what qualifies "improvement". The changes jguk made to Portal:London were met with pretty much unanimous disapproval by everyone on the discussion page, and so the page has reverted back to its old format. I agree with Celestainpower in that Wikinews is complementary to Wikipedia - indeed WP:P specifies that good portals should have links to sister projects. As for formats, I would suggest that agreement is extremely unlikely and the safest bet is to grant portals autonomy to produce a format they believe effective (within reason), and leave content and clarity as the only centralised requirement. Deano 16:59, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Main Categories as Portals??

The Main categories of Wikipedia (which are in the Template:Eight portals links on the main page) as well as many major Categories such as Category:Philosophy have a layout similar to that of Portals and are reader-oriented. The namespace "Portals" was created recently and is meant exactly for that kind of cases: The "Portal" part of those categories should be made actual Portals on the appropriate namespace.

I think it should now be made a policy that Categories stay categories (pretty much like disambiguation pages should have no other material than the links to the things it disambiguates to) and the Portal material be moved to an appropriate Portal page on the good namespace. Jules LT 00:13, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I removed all categories masquerading as Portals from the template a while back.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 00:27, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Furthermore, there is no appropriate template to signal to people that a Portal-like category should be made into a normal plain category and an actual portal: Template:Split refers to pages that should be replaced by disambiguation and the content split elsewhere and Template:Move appears as if it meant that the article named like the category should be moved, instead of the Portal material in the Category. Do you know of a template that would be appropriate? Otherwise, I suggest we create a Template:Portalized-Category explaining that this should be transforned into a proper portal and the category should be left alone. Jules LT 17:50, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

No I don't, but categories should not be 'Portalised' in any case. It might be good to have a 'policy' on this. --cj | talk 23:11, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree that Categories shouldn't have a full Portal followed by the full list of categories and articles, like the Philosophy category used to have before 9 Nov 2005. However, you shouldn't forbid categories from having any text. When browsing through the hierarchy of categories you are not familiar with (even when you are familiar with it, but categorized another way), it helps to have some explanation or overview of what a category covers, narrower topics, related topics, etc. so that editors can assign the right category to an article and you don't get duplicated branches. GUllman 01:07, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Proposals

I was going to wait until I had fully formulated my ideas, but I think we need to get the ball rolling. So I'll float a few points to get discussion going.

  • Firstly, I propose Wikipedia:Wikiportal be moved to Wikipedia:Portal, and that we drop the arbitrary distinction between a Wikiportal and a Portal. In my opinion, a completely editor-focused portal should not exist, as that is the function of notice boards and WikiProjects. Moreover, I think that Portals should be "user-focused", that is, both reader and editor. They should promote content and contribution -- this is, afterall, the goal of Wikipedia is it not?
  • Secondly, to halt the creation of purposeless and, frankly, crap portals, I think we should follow what has happened with stubs - namely, we need to create a 'proposal' mechanism (cf. WikiProject Stub sorting/Proposals). This is similar to a proposal above to create a "committee", but is much more consensual and considerably less 'authoritarian', if you will. Of course, this will require a greater level of participation, but I believe we'll manage.
  • Finally (for now), we need to overhaul the "project" page so it is clearer to users what is actually going on. This would probably necessitate spliting off several sections, or something along the lines of Wikipedia:WikiProject. I haven't thought much on this point, but hope others have suggestions.

Well, that's all for now. Thoughts? Agreement? Outrage? ;-)--cj | talk 23:11, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Sounds like a fairly sensible solution to me. :) Ambi 02:55, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
Strongly agree with your first and second points, and have no opinion - nothing against - the third. There has to be a decent system to filter crap portals and emphasise the good ones. Deano 18:23, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
I pretty much echo Deano, not sure what you have in mind for three, but one and two have my support. Hiding talk 20:05, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I've enacted point one and am working on points two and three. We need to compile a list of crappy portals so we can either put them into Wikipedia namespace or put them up for deletion. Portal:Democracy is up for deletion already, but I think it might be better to put them through all at once. --cj | talk 04:54, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Portals and how they're organised

Recently, I've been getting rather confused as to the actual difinition of a Portal. I've always though it was the layout, yet the links on the main page (culture, geography, etc.) point to categories rather than portals, even though they seem to resemble many Portals. This leads me to wonder what exactly sets prtals apart from categories like the ones I mentioned

This is further reinforced by the fact that Category:Portals is an alphabetical listing, and when I click a letter, just shows me a list of various categories, no Portals. I've also noticed that this page actually has 2 lists of Portals, which are inconsistent (presumably neither are complete) and full of dead links.

I hope that explains why I've tagged these 3 pages as confusing, and why I find portals in general confusing. -82.7.125.142 19:35, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Read Wikipedia:Portals and Wikipedia:Category for explainations of both concepts. And you're right the letters on Category:Portals are just broken, I don't know what's up with that. --Sketchee 22:00, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
I know. What I'm trying to say is that these pages could be confusing to new users (it took me some time to figure it out myself), and this is further compounded by the inconsistent management and organisation of portals, and the fact that many portals are mislabeled as categories (for example, the main page categories).

I totally agree. We tried to do something to solve this issue but there was a lack of consistency and a lack of volunteers somehow --> Wikipedia talk:Wikiportal/Archive 1#Issues.2C proposals and votes. -- Svest 00:06, 2 December 2005 (UTC)  Wiki me up™

Why do we need Category:Portals and Category:Wikiportals, anyway? I think they should both be merged into Wikipedia:Portal. -82.7.125.142 17:25, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

They should and will be. If you'd like to help, you could replace all instances of Category:Wikiportals with Category:Portals. Then I can delete the former.--cj | talk 03:30, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi all. I set up the basic infrastructure for a Wikipedia:Featured portals process. See that page for more detail. An area needing immediate attention is Wikipedia:What is a featured portal?; this would be a good page to articulate what we expect of portals. Thanks, --cj | talk 17:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

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