Wikipedia talk:Portal/Guidelines/Archive 2

message: I just removed Portal:Tel-Aviv from  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  list.  
The  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  list.  
My 2 pennies.  Deano 16:42, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)

text: 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)

text: 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  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)

text: 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)
replies: text: Agreed on both points. London takes forever to load :)--Cyberjunkie | Talk 09:25, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Going, going... gone.  Deano 18:48, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  MORE Sub-Standard Portals 

message: 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)
replies: text: Going, going... gone.  Deano 18:48, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Portal:Bucharest|Bucharest]]

message: 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)
thread_title: [[Wikipedia:Miscellaneous deletion/Portal pages]]

message: 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):
*Portal:Cricket
*Portal:London
*Portal:Australia
*Portal:New Zealand
*Portal:Politics
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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Standards 

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

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Main Categories as Portals?? 

message: 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)
replies: text: Sounds like a fairly sensible solution to me. :) Ambi 02:55, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title: Proposals

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  Portals and how they're organised 

message: 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)
thread_title: Featured portals