Wikipedia talk:Portal/Guidelines/Archive 6

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)

As with anything else here, if you build it, they will come. —Mike 10:06, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)

Portal:

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 a Main Page: namespace? sjorford:// 09:43, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Use of Portals

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.

yes instead of to the categories. Also on the encyclopedia entry there should be a link. Just as languages link to their respective wikis. MarSch 16:48, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have created a template for this at Template:Portal. Simply type {{portal}} to use it. It produces what you see on the right. -MarSch 14:52, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Does subst work with parameters now then?

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)

OK, so I guess it does. When was anyone going tell the rest of us about it? --Phil | Talk 11:09, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

Most appropriate namespace for portals

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)

Maybe there needs to be a section, down in a corner out of the way, for collaborations? So visitors can see articles in the process of being reworked (so they know things aren't stagnating) and they might even feel inspired to add to them themselves, and editors can see ones they need to help with. And yet it's not obtrusive so casual readers aren't bothered by lots of "under construction" bits. Master Thief Garrett 09:54, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

What are portals for?

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)

You raise many interesting (and confounding) questions. Where does a portal begin and where should it end? Mostly they just seem to exist, with no broad or agreed purpose. For instance, there are country portals aimed at editors, subject portals aimed at nothing definable and then an experimental "portal" organised by jguk created (supposedly) for readers.

Apart from a few comments on the Portal:Cricket, I've only been involved in the Australia Wikiportal - in fact, I created it. While I didn't specifically target any particular user, I suppose it is more useful to editors, much like regional Wikipedian notice boards. With regards to your questions on regions, Australia is fortunate in that it is a region in of itself (though, admittedly, more likely to be included in Australasia or Oceania).

Personally, the only questions that I see as needing to be answered are those of purpose. Are the portals targeting readers or editors or both? Once that issue has been decided, I don't suppose it matters what a portal is created for. There could very well be portal hierarchies: Regions - Countries - Subnational. Same goes for subjects. In any case, there is bound to be much overlapping.--Cyberjunkie 07:32, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Portals are like the main page, but then biased towards specific articles. -MarSch 14:57, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Seem to me like the purpose of a portal is for both Readers and Editors. For readers, it is jumping-off point for articles to explore. Categories are great, but too broad. The purpose of a portal directed at readers is to show them "Here are some of the best articles about XYZ..." Similarly, for editors, the purpose is to show them relevant topics and to include links to the projects which are ongoing within the subject. Thus, it always works as a segway between reading and editing. While exploring the portal, you find a project that needs help in a subject you're interested in. Simple enough... --Wolf530 04:10, May 3, 2005 (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)

Some ruminations

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))

Whether portals are useful pretty much depends on how well Wikipedia is developed in a particular area. If we had detailed articles on all the main football leagues, lots of football players, competitions, managers, grounds, etc. a portal would certainly be useful to help navigate through them all and highlight the main areas of interest.

Also different portals can have different ideas, different aims. And no doubt some will be more successful than others. These are early days in PortalWorld - let's just see how things develop, jguk 17:46, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

I was the first to introduce portals to en: and they definitely should be both for readers and editors. If you looked at Polish or French portals, you'd notice that they're actually more like your cricket one in terms of organization than many of the other ones here. Ausir 20:51, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree that portals are for readers and editors both (as is all in wikiland), but I am also a bit concerned with a lot of too narrow portals, like for cricket and the request for the simpsons? I think there should be a portal for each continent separately and not for individual countries. Right now portals for both Europe and European Union are under construction and that is just silly and probably counterproductive. On another note, I just noticed that Main_page is in article space. This is not right. It shouldbe at Portal:main or some such... -MarSch 15:00, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

I think it is definitely silly to have both Europe and European Union. On the other hand, it is clear from the size of the cricket wikiportal that it is a pretty well-covered topic, and would be diminished by being part of sport and games. Cricket is watched by approximately one in ten of the world's population. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that there are a large number of articles in that category. I feel that sport and games is perhaps too broad, and would benefit from being a "super-portal" linking to the other portals. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 20:21, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't know about this. I mean, having a "Sport" portal sounds right to me. But shouldn't the Cricket article in the encyclopedia function as the jumping-off point for articles on that, more specific, subject? If we give every "big" sport a portal, we're going to down a slippery-slope where we'll end up with an article on a subject, and a mirroring portal for each and every subject. I think we'd do well to simply create a list of subjects which are broad enough for a portal, and cut it off there. --Wolf530 04:11, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

At de: portals on narrower subjects are mostly subpages of the broader ones. Ausir 06:42, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

I think that is a fantastic idea. May I suggest the subpage feature of the new space be activated. In reply to Wolf530's comment, I think cricket is an area that is wide enough and has enough devotees to make a portal worthwhile. There are more cricket FAs than any other sport. It's worth having, in short. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 13:36, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Survey of opinion on a separate namespace for portals and lists

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)

I have seen no discussion on lists yet and have not formed an opinion on where they should be, or whether they should be at all ;) but portals shouldn't be in article space and neither should main page anymore. A portal namespace might be a bit narrow, so perhaps there should be a Navigation namespace or some such. By the way, I thought that a namespace was nothing other than the Navigation: prefix, or User: for the user namespace. What does jguk mean below? -MarSch 15:11, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

I must say I don't really know in what way a these spaces work. The only way I can see things manifesting themselves is with the talk pages. The talk page of Article is at Talk:Article; whereas the talk page of Wikipedia:Three revert rule (for example) is at Wikipedia talk:Three revert rule. The talk page of Portal:Cricket is at [[Talk:Portal:Cricket]] rather than at Portal talk:Cricket. However, I confess, I don't know if it means more than that, jguk 15:43, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Move lists and portals to a separate namespace

Ausir 20:51, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
I have a mild preference for this above keeping them in the main namespace. We can easily reformat the names of Portals and Lists to look like this anyway (eg we already have Portal:Cricket, and we could have List:Cricketers easily enough). But it would probably better to have a formal namespace (assuming it is not going to be too difficult or time-consuming for the developers to construct these new spaces, jguk 09:26, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
I support new namespaces for lists and portals but nothing else. I would not want this to lead to a precedent where 100s of random namespaces are being constantly requested. Angela . 17:53, May 7, 2005 (UTC)
I completely agree with jguk above. --Theo (Talk) 10:05, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Move only portals to separate namespace, keep lists in the main namespace

Cyberjunkie 05:11, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
Circeus 14:01, May 7, 2005 (UTC)
Tuf-Kat 17:21, May 7, 2005 (UTC)
as ruminated above (thanks for signing, MarSch!) Worldtraveller 18:05, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
AB CD 18:10, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
r3m0t ^talk 18:47, May 7, 2005 (UTC) Lists are too often linked to to move around now.
There are too many lists that aren't just lists, like List of gaps in Interstate Highways. --SPUI (talk) 07:19, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
I strongly object to lists being moved according to a vote here. It's another issue entirely, and one that has nothing to do with this page. That said, a portal namespace is a good idea. Ambi 12:27, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
Lists sometimes are more like proper articles than some articles. ed g2s • talk 12:28, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
I also agree with Ambi that we should not be voting on the list namespace here (talk:Wikiportal). The list namespace would affect thousands of pages, unlike the thirty-odd Wikiportals, and should be discussed on a more suitable and visible page. ed g2s • talk 12:32, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
I think my reasoning is explained above. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 17:04, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Keep portals in the Wikipedia namespace, keep lists in the main namespace

Neutrality^talk 05:13, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

Keep portals and lists in the main namespace

I'd be happy with this too. I note we can make them look like they are separate spaces already - and that it might look better if all lists started with "List:" rather than what we currently have. It would be better if there were formal Portalspaces and Listspaces, but if the developers can't quickly do that, this is a good alternative option. Finally, I note that Portalspace is likely to be less controversial than Listspace as we have so few portals and so many lists, jguk 09:26, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Move portals to the category: namespace

Just throwing in another possibility, (there is an example at Category:Cetaceans. Pcb21| Pete 20:39, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

portals on Main page

There are too many portals in {{wikiportals}}:

What are portals?
List of portals

If we want such a link on the main page then we need to make a selection. Currently the following is on main:

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)

I think would definitely be a very good thing to link to portals from the main page. Is that something that is generally accepted? I hope so, portals are much more user-friendly than categories. As far as what should be included in a list, I think the broadest topics are best for portals. That said (and bias aside of course :)) I'd love to see Astronomy linked, perhaps in addition to science, just because I think astronomy has greater public appeal than most sciences, and we have loads of pretty pictures to show off.

How about this:

Browse Wikipedia · Article overviews · Alphabetical index · Other category schemes

But obviously without the redlinks. Worldtraveller 16:53, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Not bad. Pending further discussion I've put

What are portals?
List of portals

on Main Page (table free). -MarSch 14:13, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking along the lines of

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)

I would say trains belong under a technology or transportation portal. Maybe science needs to be renamed to academia or something. Maybe technology and engineering need to be there and trains could be under tech & engi or something. Maybe we need a Culture main portal, which couls house things like music and art.-MarSch 13:19, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Looking at various search engines for aviation (portal), rail (portal) and automotive (no portal yet) topics, dir.google.com uses: Science → Technology → Transportation. Yahoo uses: Recreation → Travel → Transportation. I'm more inclined to follow Google's lead on this one because transportation includes business and freight transport as well as recreational transport. slambo 16:22, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

Transport would more normally come under technology (which, as mentioned, may also come under science), and if the wikiportals are indexed thus, that's where I'd expect to find it. But I doubt the functionality of such an index system, as wikiportals are bound to be created where there will be no obvious category.--Cyberjunkie 08:26, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes, portals will be created which are impossible to classify. That is not really the issue here. They can be put in a list category, template or whatever. What we need is a small number of superportals we can gather together and stick in a prominent place like Main Page, the ultimate superportal. -MarSch 12:42, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Page move

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 was being bold. Portal is used in many other language editions. I'm surprised that you have a problem with my move and also that you moved it back without discussing first. I don't see what the wiki adds, surely we don't talk about wikiarticles either. Wikiportal is not an initiative of Wikimedia, instead portals are something inside Wikipedia just as articles and templates. --MarSch 16:11, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

What about the namespace that is to be created? It is Portal: not Wikiportal: --MarSch 16:14, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Assuming the move to Wikipedia:Portal goes ahead, I trust that you will also be moving all of the Wikiportals themselves (for example, Wikipedia:Wikiportal/United Kingdom to Wikipedia:Portal/United Kingdom), changing the references to Category:Wikiportals and correcting the cross references? -- ALoan (Talk) 16:23, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I realise it was a bold edit, but this is a project with which many are involved and of which there are consequences of any move. As ALoan has pointed out, it means that all Wikiportals must now be retitled for consistency, and approval should be sought at these individual portals. Bold edits are encouraged in context, but basic Wikiquette should always be preferred. My revert is justifiable in that I re-established the pre-existing situation, and at least I gave notice. You seem to have missed my point, also. I did not state that it was Wikimedia initiative, I stated the use of "wiki" as a prefix in initiatives is widespread throughout Wikimedia, especially within Wikipedia (read WikiProject, Wikibreak, Wikistress, Wikiquette etc.). With regards to Portal: I have made mention amongst the manifold discussion about the retention of the "wiki" prefix, but it has seemingly been lost in the speed and confusion of the issue as driven by jguk (a move I support, by and large). In any case, that is not a resolved issue, and when a resolution is reached, it will be by consensus. ;) I intend to revert again, not immediately (say, 8 hours), so that others can comment - though, the discussion should extend beyond this.--Cyberjunkie 16:48, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

On one hand, I'd prefer the name Wikiportal. On the other, when the portalspace is established, Portal: would be more consistant with namespaces such as Template: and Category: as opposed to Wikitemplate: and Wikicategory: Ausir 18:44, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree, the namespace (if created) should be consistent with the other namespaces. If the namespace is created then I'd expect that the "wiki" prefix would be dropped from "wikiportal". But this is yet to happen, and it is precisely because of consistency that this page should remain at Wikipedia:Wikiportal until such time. I am now to revert the page to its original address. Please (!) do not move it again.--Cyberjunkie 09:58, 20 May 2005 (UTC)