Wikipedia talk:Portal/Guidelines/Archive 3

message: On my watchlist today, I noticed an editor changing the category on Portal:Trains from  to .  That's all well and good, but in looking around this afternoon, I see a note on WP:P that says "As of December 3rd, 2005, portals are being converted to Wikiportals to conform with Wikipedia standards."  Also, on Category talk:Portals, there's a note that Portals should be moved from Portal:Foo to Wikiportal:Foo, but I don't see any discussion on the topic.  Are we really changing namespace again?  Slambo (Speak) 20:56, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Apparently not. The notice on WP:P was put there by an anonymous user, as part of a very confusing series of edits that reverted themselves leaving only that message. Another user has since removed that message.--Srleffler 03:49, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The anonymous user appears to have been User:CelebritySecurity, editing without being logged in. This looks like it could have been a misunderstanding rather than vandalism, although this user does seem to have a habit of moving things without discussing it first. He had moved WP:P to Wikipedia:Wikiportal. Another editor moved it back, but missed the note.--Srleffler 04:27, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  More namespace confusion 

message: DO you support the reforms to portals as suggested above?  Change if you agree with the proposals; Keep if you prefer the status quo.
*Change - the portal system needs to be better integrated, and this is an excellent means of doing it.  It also provides a clear definition for the purpose of a "portal", thus (hopefully) eliminating useless portals.  Deano 19:54, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Radical Reforms VOTE

message: It has come to my attention that some seriously high-profile portals are not maintained at all.  Top of the list being Portal:USA.  The last significant updates were in June.  This really isn't acceptable... what should be done?  Deano 23:47, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Contact previous maintainers and see if we can coax them to continue regular updates? Might be worth leaving a note on the relevant US community boards and projects, particularly USWNB (although I've found Americans to be considerably less organised than other communities). Further down the track, we may have to "de-list" un-maintained portals.--cj | talk 01:53, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Portal maintenance 

message: I have an idea on how to make portals more useful. Most agree that portals should be about broad subject matter, but many aren't. What I propose, is designating broad portals as main portals, and all others as subportals (some subportals would be under multiple portals [such as a hypothetical Portal:Science fiction under TV, Film and Literature] which would be fine). This would create a hierarchy that would be much more useful. Portal:Browse could list the main portals, and a brief explaination, and then the broad portals would link to its subportals, if any.  Here is an example I made in my namespace: User:JonMoore/Newportal. This is only a mock-up, and of course, may be implemented in any number of ways, but at least it gives a visual. Subportals should probably be shorter, the further down the chain they are, and could also list what upper portals they belong to, and probably geared more towards listing what articles fit into those subjects. Things like featured articles and the like could be left to the broader portals. Comments? Jon 02:09, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I like it! This is something I've wondered about also; I've wanted to replace the eight or so main categories with portals as entry-points to Wikipedia content. Categories are deficient in that function, which is why portals were created in the first place - to better facilitate access to content. The flow-on from that would be what you've just suggested: if there are a set of main portals, all other portals must be divided between them. I've noticed this is done to an extent on the French and Italian Wikipedias. Creating such a hierarchy would go a long way to making portals clearer. However, I'd like to see Portal:Browse formatted in a similar style to what it is at present, with the whatever many main portals replacing the current headings, and their sub-portals coming beneath them. Also,  (which has become more like ) could be re-designed in line with the new hierarchy. Once we figure out if there should be a hierarchy and if so, what it should be, then we should discuss main portal designs.--cj | talk 05:14, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: WOW! I just noticed that categories in the Main Page bar have been replaced with portals!! That's stage one down.--cj | talk 08:07, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank User:Fplay for that one.  Go for it! 18:39, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

text: This is a good idea - I like it.  It works well in parallel to the featured portal system because it means good quality portals (like, IMHO, Portal:London) are, rightfully, subservient to Portal:England and P:UK and Portal:Europe and Portal:Geography, but can still bypass the lot in terms of prominence if it becomes a featured portal.  Good proposal - its got my support.   Deano 11:09, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Oh yeah, this will also mean that the namespace can follow a similar structure to category bars (such as this one), where sub-portals a grouped under a greater heading... if at all.  I'm particularly thinking about Religion here... there are far too many of them on the namespace at the moment.   Deano 11:09, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Portal reform proposal

message: Since we now have eight/ten portals (see ) prominently featured throughout Wikipedia, we best ensure they are in good shape. I've been going through them (and a few others) and reformatting them somewhat. I'd appreciate any help others are willing to give. Fortunately, there is plenty of featured content in their topic areas to display. The primary aspects of the portals that need addressing are their lists (categories, things you can do, articles). Of the portals, so far I've worked on Culture, Geography, People, and Science.--cj | talk 01:44, 23 December 2005 (ACST)
:Reply: Portals in general need help.  One problem is buggy formatting.  Columning goes haywire, and sometimes boxes and text overlap.  Some portals are particularly unstable in Internet Explorer.  Portal:Philosophy and Portal:Middle-earth were having formatting problems, but converting to a non-div-based table format has cleared these up.  Go for it! 05:34, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, in general they do. However, as these are now very prominent, they should be at the very least good. I've finished History now, and am making a start on Art. Portal:History will automatically update itself up until June, 2006. The Did you know section will still need to be updated manually, though I've left a note at .--cj | talk 03:44, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, Art is done. What next? I'm looking at you, Technology...;-)--cj | talk 09:37, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: At first I didn't much like the changes, but after looking around at the others, that's a good dose of consistency, and I'm very quickly getting used to them.  One thing, tho...  I'm trying to introduce a monthly rotation on the Trains portal lead image.  Can we point the Related Portals image at the current month's trains portal image?  I know that we're using a different size image on the lead than we are in the related portals (I'm sure we could find a way to keep the sizes correct in both places), but is there any real reason not to? Slambo (Speak) 15:25, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Main Portals Improvement Drive

message: Somehow, I just knew it!  The "People" and the "Nature" groups were always the problem children.  On the cat browser W:Browse, the "People" section is a pathetic list of lists.  Maybe that is the nature of our cats, but it looks shitty.  The Nature part only exists because it was part of "Category:Fundamental". The touchy-feely approach to taxonomy only gets you so far.  And the Dewey decimal system (DDS) sort-of sucks for our puroses also.
OK, it is HARD to come up with a strict hierarchy and the population density by cats is slightly different than that by portals.  Same for the "overviews" (which, if anything, are based on the cats once again).  I mean, I just spent too much time today cleaning up the "Art" category after shoving the Art/Arts merger down everything throats.  Now it finally makes some SENSE, but it was not simple to get there and it was very Iterative.  Not by design (I lack the expertise), just LOTS of incremental steps.
Nevertheless, the portals are the fancy stuff and we must let them lead the way.  They are the true Front Door to Wikipedia.
Just to review: This whole thing was first driven by Cateogry:Top_8.
* Then Art and Philosophy crept into the navigation bar. 
* Then Religion went along for the ride with Philosophy
* Then Science was split into Physical and Social
Did you know that I had to write that crap on the "People" article to try to avoid the fact that it is really, uuuuhhhh, Biography, but "People" sounded so much nicer at the time whenever they had their bull session and picked the magic 8.
As usual, it is the People/Society/Social_Sciences which is really Biography/Humanities and I-do-not-know-what.  It that damn "Society" Category, which is (groan!) a touch-feely sacred cow of a Top_8.  Just visit Category:Society and you will see exactly what I mean.  Do you thinkt that DDS has groups called "Nature" or "Society" (or "Space" for that matter?).  Of course not!  So what to do?  Let me think about this and I will post again. 
If I had my druthers, we would disect Society into the Social Sciences, especially Sociology and the rest could be thrown into Entertainment for all I care.  But we are stuck with it and will have to make do somehow.  Cyberjunkie makes some valid points.  We need to agree on something and re-impose it on the UI.  Probably a compromise. I will think some more and then post again. --  Fplay 07:42, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I am coming to see that what CJ has done is an improvement and that the Cat and Overview browsers should simply follow suit.  GFI: Do you have specific objections?  AFAIAC, we can change the History icon also (the icon is not badly shifted and the user will figure it out).  CJ's approach of the side-by-side comparision was the right thing to do.  In GFI's "standard" approach, it merely emphasizes the badness of the "People" section.  The big, honking Geography thing has to be kept in the Portal section, but there is no sense trying to so that back in the cat and overview browsers: a simple list of regious would suffices.   -- Fplay 08:41, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The problem children: Society and People 

message: Please review CJ's and "Go for it"'s layouts.  Feel free to comment or pick-and-choose specifics.  Once the general direct is set, we can hammer out the details.  GFI is the status quo, but CF has better balance.  If we change the status quo, we re-layout Wikipedia:Browse and Wikipedia:Browse_by_overview (quite tractable tasks) for consistency.
* GFI: 
* CJ:  
:I support Cyberjunkie's. Ambi 11:36, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As long as whatever is chosen is implemented across the entire UI (all the browsebar pages), it doesn't bother me which one is chosen.  But I get the impression that Cyberjunkie isn't concerned with the rest of the UI, and that he won't lift a finger to implement his changes on any other page but the Portal:Browse.  It's a standard UI which I support.  Cyberjunkie, what is your intent in regards to changing the rest of the UI? Go for it! 17:25, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that we can pick up the slack.  And some variation is OK, like the dancing guy in the Overviews, if we feel it is justified.  Just not the top-level groupings. -- Fplay 18:11, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

text: It makes me wonder if all the concerned parties afe off on Christmas break. -- Fplay 18:45, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hierarchy VOTE 

message: I've created a Directory of Portals to replace the list on Wikipedia:Portal. I've done most of the Art & Culture and Geography portals, but the rest still need to added or merged from the old list. Please ensure that your and any other portals are listed.--cj | talk 15:11, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: We might want to say "most active" Maintainer to avoid suggestions of exclusivity on authority issues. -- Fplay 18:26, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It says "Maintainers", indicating shared responsibility.--cj | talk 03:42, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Nicely done.  You have way too much time on your hands.  (Like me!)  Go for it! 07:27, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Portals Directory

message: If we ever get enough other math portals together, we should give it back its own section.  I have  already done so on the cat and overview browsers. -- Fplay 17:42, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Math section 

message: I created a new browse bar for portals , and a template for subportals: . I'm trying to make the number of boxes optional using if/then statements (using  at User:JonMoore/Portal_template), but I think I may have to go the route of  and create multiple templates. I made an example of what it wold look like for a lower-level portal here and added it to Portal:Geography to show what it would look like for a upper-level ("Main") portal. This would pretty much relieve the need for  on the page, I think.  may be used on main portals, and we can customized the bar for mid-level and lower-level portals. Lower-level portals would probably not need the subportal boxes, only Main and mid-level ones. Jon 20:50, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Portal stuff

message: I created a graphic version of the browsebar:
I have placed it on Portal:Art and Portal:Geography to get a feel for the look. What do you guys think? JonMoore 18:12, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It does look pretty but I think people more used to other sites on the internet will try to click on the picture rather than the words to get to the category. On Wikipedia, that will put them on the image page. There is a work-around for this but it might be simpler just to leave it as text.-gadfium 21:22, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: See Template talk:Click.-gadfium 04:07, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Sad but true. Well, at least I tried :-) JonMoore 00:56, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I threw together a quick version that lines up clickable images and text. Also made it a single template rather than meta calls to Click4 given the current jihad against meta-templates. Didn't try to make the placement perfect and I think the resolution problem is still going to be an issue... I'd suggest collapsing it down to cover a smaller centered area. See User:CBDunkerson/Sandbox and adjust at will. --CBD ☎ ✉ 01:27, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: {{tl|browsebar graphic}}

message: I've just signed on to maintain the  biology portal, as no one else was doing it.  I've started off by revamping the main page.  I've added links to "Previous articles" and "Previous pictures" and I've tagged these sections with the date they were last changed.  My question is about how best to show these dates.  It's kind of ... clumsy and tacked-on right now.  If someone could take a look at the page and figure out a better way to do it, please do so.  Also, if you could take a look at the archive pages, Portal:Biology/Previous articles and Portal:Biology/Previous pictures and figure out a better format for them, that'd be great too.  Right now there's only one previous on each but I think you can get the drift about how it's supposed to go.  Thanks in advance for all of your help!  --Cyde Weys votetalk 04:27, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need some style help at [[Portal:Biology]] 

message: Anyone want to setup archives for previous selected articles and pictures on Portal:Science?  I already did it on Portal:Biology, so you can use that as an example.  I just don't feel like doing it again so soon.  --Cyde Weys votetalk 19:28, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archives