Portal talk:Heraldry

Portal Creation

Fellow editors, Following the consensus reached that an heraldic portal would be welcome at Wikipedia, I have started the portal. Rest assured that I have NO IDEA what I'm doing. If you can think of a way to improve this portal, do so as soon as possible. I won't be offended by any changes to my material, because I know I've not done much good yet.--E va ^db 11:55, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From what I've seen it looks very good. Excellent job E va ^db. Dryzen 19:45, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Looks great, but I think Eire should be called Republic of Ireland... Lozleader 19:48, 15 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about Ireland? It fit the formating better.--E va ^db 06:32, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Much better Lozleader 08:38, 16 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good job Evadb! I have a few suggestions to offer

Since heraldry is not a hot news topic, perhaps we could drop the News box :)
We should have some method (and regular interval) for updating the selected article/picture/biography. See for example the Archive and Candidates links on Portal:Scouting. Monthly is probably an appropriate frequency, maybe we could update the selected items on the first of each month.
I notice in the open tasks box you have links to a Heraldry Wikiproject. Do you plan to propose such a project? (I don't see any mention at Wikipedia:Wikiproject/List_of_proposed_projects) My feeling is that this would just create more administration, where the time would be better spent on the articles themselves. In that case I would suggest replacing contents of the Things you can do box with something like what's currently at User:Dr pda/Sandbox. We could also have a page (Portal:Heraldry/Todo_list perhaps) listing articles which need to be created, like the lists of Officers and Offices of Arms on your userpage.
Finally, most (all?) of the links in the Wikimedia sister projects template at the bottom go to non-existing articles. I wonder if all these are necessary? (Though to edit we would have to copy the text of the Template:WikimediaForPortals, rather than using the Template itself). The Commons link in particular points to Commons:Heraldry which is an empty article, while Commons:Category:Heraldry has a number of images. If someone has time, maybe they could organise some of the images into an article (i.e. galleries), or otherwise just make Commons:Heraldry a redirect to Commons:Category:Heraldry (although this seems a bit of a hack).

Dr pda 21:49, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the great input, Dr pda. All of your thoughts seem very good to me. I'll plan on booting the "News" link. It was part of the basic template, so I left it on, but your comment is well founded. As for the Things you can do, I just followed the template of one of the featured portals. That explains the wikiproject bits. I think that your sandbox template is wonderful and think that the portal should use that. I'll plan on adding that information, as well. Keep up the great work.--E va ^db 09:08, 22 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

June Updating Plan

Good day, folks. The end of the month is close at hand. I think it would be good to start a list of possible candidates for the portal template subpages for the month of June. Changing things on the first of the month seems reasonable to me. Here is what I think might be nice:

Selected article

Either Lord Lyon King of Arms or Court of the Lord Lyon (this would help balance out the English bias in this months feature

How about the Canadian Heraldic Authority instead? Both the Lord Lyon and Lyon Court articles are a bit light on content, whereas the CHA article has been featured on the main page Dr pda 14:46, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. That sounds like a good choice to me.--E va ^db 15:10, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Selected picture

Image:Sir Francis Grant, Lord Lyon King of Arms, H.R.H. .jpg (this is a great PD picture of Lord Lyon in action)

Selected biography

Elias Ashmole (this was recently chosen as a featured article and will be put on the mainpage in early June. If we can beef up the heraldic content, it would be even better)

Did You Know?

I've not had enough time to look around and see what tidbits can be used here. Suggestions welcome:

Rodney Dennys left his career in the British intelligence service to become an officer of arms Dr pda 14:46, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Ypotryll has the head of a boar, the body of a camel, the legs and hooves of a goat and the tail of a serpent -- Dave Boven 14:54, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

During the Second World War the records of the College of Arms were stored in Thornbury Castle (pictured), home of Sir Algar Howard, Norroy and Ulster King of Arms Dr pda 22:31, 31 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like the rest can stay as is indefinitely, but changes may be nice now and again to keep things fresh. Let me know what ya'll think of these things.--E va ^db 09:06, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've updated the Portal with the appropriate suggestions. I think it looks pretty good and ought to stay that way for a month or so. Well done.--E va ^db 07:16, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template Format

On my screen, the Quotes and the To Do List seem to have migrated from the right column to the bottom of the page. I'm not good enough at wikiformatting to put them back where they belong. Anyone else?--E va ^db 07:16, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. There was a stray </div> tag at the end of the selected biography which was the culprit. Nice job on the update by the way. Dr pda 10:21, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You Rock! Great work and thanks.--E va ^db 10:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

July Updating Plan

We might as well start thinking about a July plan for updating right now. If you have suggestions for these categories, list them here for discussion.--E va ^db 10:47, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Selected article

Ecclesiastical heraldry --Dr pda 23:48, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was checking "what links here" and saw this. Any chance we could get this article up to WP:GOOD status? Gimmetrow 12:32, 13 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Selected picture

One of the following --Dr pda 23:48, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pursuivants at Garter Service
Heralds at Garter Service

Selected biography

Johannes Rietstap --Dr pda 23:48, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Did You Know?

...that the coat of arms of Greenland depicts a polar bear raising its left forepaw, breaking with the heraldic tradition of showing the right forepaw raised, because polar bears are left-handed? (appeared on the Main Page on June 17 2006) Dr pda 18:18, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

...that the horseman depicted on the Coat of arms of Moscow was not identified with Saint George until the 18th century? (appeared on the Main Page on June 25 2006) Dr pda 23:48, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

National Archives of South Africa

Various heraldry pages have links to www.national.archsrch.gov.za; these always (for me) lead to a page which begins "Existing session timed-out. Restarting." If that's a subscription service, it doesn't belong here. —Tamfang 18:20, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]