Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Featured log/December 2005

Portal:Constructed languages

Self nom. I think this portal is very useful, with lots of links to the relevent material, has a good use of graphics so is quite attractive, and is well-maintained, as can be seen by the number of collaborators. Jon 03:46, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

• Support. Okay, in my capacity of one of those collaborators I might perhaps not be entirely objective, but yes, I agree with Jon, and I support the proposal. --IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 09:10, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

• Support - I like this portal - it is ergonomic, unlike many, and has loads of links, which is very important. I like it. Deano 18:02, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

• Object Overall a good portal, but I have a few concerns. The introductory box is un-orthodox: I don't think it should be self-referential. I understand this is a feature of a few recently created portals, but not one I wish to see in a featured portal. The intro box should be used to create an overview of the topic area. Wikipedia:Portal will eventually be the page that decribes what a portal actually is. Secondly, the gap between the two columns seems un-necessarily wide. Thirdly, "Portal collaborators" should be scrapped or relegated to the talk page - self-referential again. "External links" concerns me; it could be construed as advertising. Perhaps it could be renamed "Web resources" and re-formatted in a less...um...promotional way. Again, a very good portal (inspired by other language Wikipedias perhaps?) but I can't support until these points are met.--cj | talk 06:06, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

  I fixed the gap between the two columns. I'm not entirely clear with what you mean by the introduction box being self-referential. If you ask me, it does exactly what it is suppose to: giving an overview of the topic area. Do you have a suggestion for improvement? Wikipedia:Portal is not exactly helpful! As for the "portal collaborators": I adopted that feature directly from the only other wikipedia that has a similar portal, the German one. Personally, I can't see any harm in it, but I'm not particularly attached to it either. If there is a consensus for removing it, then let's do so. As for the external links section: I'll see what I can do. There's nothing promotional about them, but some of them might be relegated to the main article about conlangs. I think I will add a section for the main categories, too. --IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 07:55, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

  As for the *reason* for the gap. I created the portal, and for some reason (probably my browser) without the large gap, the right-hand column appears below the left-hand column. Just an FYI. Yes, this portal was inspired by, and expanded upon from the German-language version of the conlang portal. Jon 18:33, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

  Thanks for fixing that gap. By self-referential I mean: "Welcome to the Wikiportal about Constructed languages! This portal is concerned with the...This portal is designed...". The last paragraph of the introduction is fine, but you may wish to expand it. We currently have guideline against self-references in article space that I believe should (and may propose to) extend to portals. I thought this portal may have been based on the French or German designs; however, "Portal collaborators" does not pertain to the topic area and should be moved to the portal's talk page. Although it's taking quite a while, Wikipedia:Portal will be made clearer in coming months (I'm slowly working on it). As for external links, I didn't mean "promotional" per se, I was just struggling for words. I'd like to see something done with it all the same. I'll support once my objections about self-references have been rectified. Just out of curiosity: is there interest in converting this portal into a broader "Languages" portal? "Constructed languages" is a limited area.--cj | talk 08:15, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

  PS: Features that encourage contribution should be exceptions to self-reference rules, however.--cj | talk 08:18, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

  Well then, I think I have addressed all your issues. I've removed the self-referential part from the introduction box (I left the "Welcome" intact, but I suppose that's allright) and expanded the rest. I moved the collaborators to the Talk page and replaced it with a "Corresponding categories" section. Furthermore, I changed the header of "External links" to "Web resources", removed some of the links, and gave them a slightly more explicative character.

  As for merging it into a broad "languages" portal: I wouldn't support that. First of all, because it's an entirely different can of worms. But mostly, because the constructed languages field would inevitably be reduced to one minor paragraph in such a portal, and as you can see, there's more than enough stuff about them to warrant a separate portal. Of course, I would encourage the creation of a separate languages portal.

  Thanks for the feedback! --IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 09:11, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

  Support Thank you for your prompt responses.--cj | talk 09:20, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

  And thank you for your feedback and changing your vote! :) --IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 09:27, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

  Oh, one more thing: I think categories should be placed above "Things to do".--cj | talk 09:33, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

  Done! --IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 09:40, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

• Object Overall, it looks very impressive, and I hope it makes it onto the featured list. I do have some objections/suggestions/questions first: (1) To reduce maintenance, the language of the month should be set up on a loop. Eg Have a page ready made for each month (this month's would be Portal:Constructed languages/Language of the month/December) and transclude it in. (2) How will the DYK section remain fresh? (3) Is there no Constructed Languages WikiProject? (and if not, why not?) jguk 11:33, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

  Re (1) - That's a good suggestion. It would certainly be worth the effort to have the languages-of-the-month prepared a few months in advance. I have reorganised that section accordingly. However, I'm not sure about the loop idea. First of all, articles change and new articles are added. Besides, why restrict the number of featurable articles to twelve? My prefered solution is that people can make proposals for featured languages, which will then be reviewed, and new ones will be picked by consensus. I wouldn't like to close that discussion a year in advance!

  Re (2) - The DYK section will be refreshed when someone thinks of something new. Is refreshing it on a regular base a requirement?

  Re (3) - No WikiProject yet. The possibility has been discussed on several occasions, but as for now, nobody has gotten around to creating one yet. Is a WikiProject needed for maintaining a portal?

  Thanks, --IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 13:20, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

  Thank you for your responses. Re (1) - a loop would ideally be reviewed at least every 12 months, but if it only happened every 13 or 14 there would be no problem. (2)/(3) A portal has to not look as though it is out of date. If there are 2 or 3 regular maintainers of the moving bits, that's fine - if there are 0 or 1, then there could be a problem, jguk 17:38, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

  On Portal talk:Constructed languages I've listed a few languages that would IMO qualify for being featured article candidates. I'm still not sure about the loop idea, though; I think we better start one by one. As for a WikiProject, one is actually being initiated right now. I expect at least five participants, probably more. So I really don't think there's any reason to worry about the number of regular maintainers, or about the portal getting out of date. --IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 17:46, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm still concerned as to whether the portal will remain fresh, though I agree it is a good portal. May I offer a way out of the impasse? I'll be willing to withdraw this objection provided that it is agreed that if the language of the month and DYK sections are ever not updated for a period of three months, it will be summarily demoted from its featured status (though if that ever were to occur it could be renominated for featured status). Also, if the WikiProject gets up and running, I'll expect it to be linked to from the portal, but I guess you're planning to do that anyway, jguk 17:54, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

This portal does have regular editors, especially myself and User:IJzeren Jan, among others. See Portal talk:Constructed languages for a list. I don't think only this portal should be subject to such a restriction of lack of updates...any portal that is "featured" and not updated for a signifigant period of time should be demoted. Maybe that should be a condition for featured status for all portals? I'm not disagreeing, I'm just saying that this portal shouldn't be singled out. JonMoore 19:05, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I second that. No portal gets singled out on its own. File:Anglo-indian.jpg Deano (Talk) 19:31, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I would certainly say that every featured portal should be kept so that it does not look out of date (either because of its inate design or because the bits that date are regularly maintained), and if any featured portal isn't maintained (I'd suggest for three months), then it should be summarily demoted. I would support having that in the featured portal criteria. Also, as you can see, I have made the same comment for two other candidacies - I fully agree with you that this portal shouldn't be singled out, jguk 19:44, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

On this theme, please see my proposed amendment to Wikipedia:What is a featured portal? here, jguk 19:57, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the others that imposing rules on one portal that wouldn't be imposed on others is unfair. But on the other hand, I'm ready to accept the challenge, because frankly, I have no doubt that this portal will be updated regularly. But I still disagree with the solution you propose. Building a loop is easy enough, and mind you, it can be done very quickly if necessary. But it has several disadvantages: it would mean that we restrict ourselves to only twelve (or fifty-two, should be turn it into a "language of the week" instead) languages of the month, and we make it pretty hard for others to contribute anything. Besides, any change in any of the articles in question would automatically mean that the LOTW page in question needs to be updated too, and that's much more of a strain on maintainability than creating new ones two, three months in advance, if you ask me!

I'm still not convinced of the necessity of regularly updating the DYK section. I'd say that there's as much need for that as for regularly updating the welcome message. But no worries there, we are gathering possible DYKs, and when we have enough of them, we will create a loop for that.

NB I agree with your idea that Featured Portals shouldn't be out-of-date.

NB2: The WikiProject Constructed languages you mentioned has started! —IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 20:09, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

In any case, I am pleased to inform you that Jon and I have implement a system, in which the Do You Know section rotates per weekday. —IJzeren Jan _{In mij legge alle fogultjes een ij} 23:30, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Based on this, and the new amendment to Wikipedia:What is a featured portal?, I now support, jguk 11:48, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Portal:London

I think this portal is informative, attractive and useful. It has a distinctive style that fits its topic well. the wub "?!" 17:28, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

• Strong Support Perhaps one of the best portals on Wikipedia. The last time I viewed this portal was when it was first created, so I was pleasantly surprised to see its progress. My only point would be to ask that the sibling boxes in "Other Projects" be centre-aligned. On that section, is there a reason for the seemingly out-of-place Johnson quote?--cj | talk 08:31, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I've replaced the sibling boxes with the standard {{sisterlinks}} template that covers the lot. The Johnson quote I've stuck at the bottom of the page... its quite good but I agree was quite out of place where it was. Deano 17:13, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

• Support. A great portal for one of the world's great cities. The reason I'm supporting this most of all is the fact that there is a very well-organised list of London-related topics throughout, which makes it a true portal, while there are also other pieces of trivia and info that give the reader an immediate snapshot of London. I particularly like the "London on Wikipedia" section! Ronline ✉ 11:57, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

• Support. (Though I must declare that I did help out on it early on.) Nonetheless, I've looked at a lot of others and I think ours is deserving - it's a genuine portal in that it offers short-cuts to lots and lots of stuff, and people do be looking for London topics, and I now think after many improvements it looks the bee's knees too. Tarquin Binary 20:50, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

• I'm sure it will get there, but object for now. The two "did you know" sections are stale and unmaintained (since October). Where bits in a portal cannot be or are not being easily maintained, they should be removed. The "Featured article" and "Featured picture" do not appear on WP:FA or WP:FP. We should keep the use of "featured" to refer to WP's official featured content - could another term be used? (for example, Portal:Cricket uses the term "showcase articles") I'm not sure that voting for next months article or picture is something to encourage people to do - it doesn't help the encyclopaedia and seems mostly of interest to WikiProject London members rather than readers. Other than that - it's looking great, jguk 08:03, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I've updated the DYKs and created an archive. I'd completely forgotten about them - I meant to do them when I did the featured showcase articles. And on that note, I've changed everything from featured to showcase - moved pages, renamed links etc. etc. Should all be okay I think.

As for the voting... I got the idea from several other portals, and yeah the idea is meant to be that people in the know vote for an article/picture that they think is worthy. True, does not necessarily help the encyclopedia, but it enables a greater degree of participation from a wider group of people. Otherwise it would just be me doing everything. On that basis I created the suggest a DYK page. File:Anglo-indian.jpg Deano 10:59, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm still concerned as to whether this portal will be kept up to date. From my experience on WP:Cricket, on the WikiProject page we have a pretty active "New articles" section. I don't know how active the London WikiProject is, but could, perhaps the DYK box in the portal be transcluded into the London WikiProject page with an open invite to participants to update it with new articles or recently improved articles they wish to highlight to others? Also, do we really need two DYK boxes rather than just one? jguk 11:24, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

In the last 2 days the WikiProject has picked up some steam... but the DYK suggestion system takes care of your point. As soon as one is suggested, it is implemented. Two DYK boxes helps the page structure, and gives more opportunity for readers to find out something interesting. I don't think you can make comparisons with Portal:Cricket - you have lots of new articles because lots of new things are always happening. The cricket portal page has a completely different structure and appearance to P:London - the latter has focussed on ergonomics as well as links. File:Anglo-indian.jpg Deano (Talk) 13:51, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm still concerned as to whether the portal will remain fresh, though I agree it is a good portal. May I offer a way out of the impasse? I'll be willing to withdraw this objection provided that it is agreed that if the DYK section is ever not updated for a period of three months, it will be summarily demoted from its featured status (though if that ever were to occur it could be renominated for featured status), jguk 17:50, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Done. File:Anglo-indian.jpg Deano (Talk) 18:04, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. On the basis of this deal, Support. Please also see my proposed amendment to Wikipedia:What is a featured portal?, jguk 19:59, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

• Support does a very good job of pointing out the way around a large subject. Justinc 10:55, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Portal:Cricket

The first portal in the Portal namespace. Designed for readers. IMHO, one of the best, but I admit I'm biased:) jguk 14:34, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

• Cricket portal is good, hope it gets featured. Hamedog 09:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Definately the first, with its own style. Very useful. Jon 03:49, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
• Support its a great portal Hamedog 03:13, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
• Object, I'd like to see the columns better balanced and a committment to change the featured article every once in a while.--cj | talk 05:46, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

  The featured article section rotates through the available cricket-related featured articles (except for cricket itself, which is always shown in the top left hand corner) every month. As there are not yet 13 featured cricket-related articles, some articles are due to be shown twice in a year. If you look at Cricket featured article/TYPE IN MONTH you'll see what I mean. I'll look at the column lengths tonight, jguk 08:18, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

  Support. Silly me. Sorry, I didn't examine the format closely enough; I didn't notice the feature article box was templatised, so when I reviewed various revisions of the history, Sydney Riots was always featured. Very original design, with committed maintainers.--cj | talk 08:25, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

• Support. Simple and effective design, well maintained. the wub "?!" 10:48, 20 December 2005 (UTC)