Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Featured log/July 2006

Portal:Latin America

I have worked on this portal over the past few weeks since I saw how neglected it was. I have added various sections and suchlike, and now feel that it meets featured standard. All featured content is changed manually on Saturday BST, and the news section is updated on most days. The portal has all the sections on the guidlines page except an On This Day feature - and that is for want of data. If you have any objections, I shall try and address them; however, I am self-taught on this portal with regard to syntax, so some of it might be tough. Thanks in particular to the Australia and New Zealand portals, as I stole some of their code. I am the only one who maintains the portal, but Mariano has given me feedback every so often. -Estrellador* 10:24, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

• Very nice overall, but I can't really support a manually-updated portal with just a two-week history of updates. Kirill Lokshin 23:54, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

• Following your criticism, I have made the Featured Picture update automatically, and will get the FA, the FH and the DYN sections to update automatically too over the next couple of days. One small thing - how would I make the DYN title change from week to week to reflect the change in topic? Estrellador* 19:01, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

  Well, one way would be to create a subpage for the title that contains just a #switch statement. For example, you could create Portal:Latin America/DYN Title containing, say:

{{#switch:{{{1}}}
 |1=Art
 |2=History
 |3=Science
 ...
 |52=Art
 |#default=History
}}

Then, you could use {{Portal:Latin America/DYN Title|{{CURRENTWEEK}}}} to grab one of the titles ("Art", "History", "Science", etc.) based on the week number. There are probably other ways of doing this too, but this is what initially comes to mind. Kirill Lokshin 02:16, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much for that - it works very well. Estrellador* 14:38, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

• Comments - The "Countries of Latin America" section looks a bit ugly, a better layout would be great. The second column is too short for including the text of the "Featured History", move it to the right or increase the witdth of the column. Generally, the layout should be better. Apart from that, the portal looks good and has plenty of good content to present. Afonso Silva 21:08, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

• General response - I have tried to fix the countries section by removing the dashes between the TLAs. However, this created a formatting problem with that section, which despite a lot of effort, and a question on the wikiproject:portals talk page, hasn't been sorted. If you know how to, I would be extremely grateful.
• It has now been most of two weeks, and there have been two updates to the content, one manual, the second automatic, so I believe that the objection that there have not been enough updates no longer holds. I have two weeks' worth of content still to show, also. As for the layout, I am not sure that changing the section boundaries would improve the look. I think there was just too much content in the Che Guevara section I put in. I will shorten that part in future to be more like the Vulgar Latin section the portal currently shows.-Estrellador* 08:57, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

  That seems fair. Aside from that, though, a few other things to fix:

• The crazy formatting problem. I'll see if I can figure this one out.

• Thanks very much for fixing that. -Estrellador* 18:48, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

• The image in the "Featured picture" section isn't actually a featured picture; that box should be renamed to "Selected picture" if that may continue to be the case.

• My bad, I thought it was featured. Stupid oversight; I'll only put up featured ones in future. -Estrellador* 18:48, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

• The featured article blurb does't link to the actual article (the Mexico one, rather than the general national anthem one.

• Again, an oversight. I think the featured articles in the next two weeks have not got this problem. -Estrellador* 18:48, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Other than that, looks good. Kirill Lokshin 17:56, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I think I fixed the formatting issues. Kirill Lokshin 18:17, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, did we lose {{portals}} at some point? Or has it been moved somewhere? Kirill Lokshin 00:58, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

It's there now. --Aude (talk contribs) 04:29, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, support from me then. Kirill Lokshin 04:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

• Support - An excellent portal, however I think that the colours are rather hard on the eyes and are distracting, causing you to look away from the text. Otherwise, a job very well done.WotGoPlunk 17:44, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

• What colours would you prefer? They look alright on my monitor, but I tend to have it quite dim. -Estrellador* 18:48, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The actual colour scheme is fine, but just maybe a little lighter colours.

• Support. The portal is well-maintained and useful. As for the countries, I have tweaked with the formatting to space the flags out more evenly and make it so that clicking on the flags takes you to the articles. Did the same for the related portals. The background color of the "Countries" section can be changed in Portal:Latin America/box-header2. --Aude (talk contribs) 00:57, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

How did you manage to make the flags link to the articles? I searched around a bit and the best I could find was someone deliberately not divulging a "workaround". It looks a lot better now, by the way. Thank you. However, I prefer the background to be white, like the other sections, and so have changed it. -Estrellador* 10:34, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The images use {{click}} to make it so that clicking on the image takes you to the article. This is done on a number of other portals, as well as the Main Page (the sister project links). Ideally, this could be done without the template, if/when Bug 539 is implemented. --Aude (talk contribs) 15:14, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

It looks good. One suggestion: no need for explanatory text in the Other portals box. Support--ragesoss 22:30, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• Support - I like the languages section Joe I 18:45, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Portal:Biography

I would eventually like to see all the portals linked in the {{browsebar}} and from the Main Page reach featured status.

Over the past month, I have worked on Portal:Biography:

1. To make it more useful, by:
   1. Revising the categories.
   2. Updating the "Tasks" box.
   3. Adding new features ("On this day" and "Quote of the week").
2. Tweaked the layout to make it more attractive and display the content in a logical manner.
3. Keep it well-maintained.
   1. The "Selected article" is on a weekly schedule.
   2. For the "Selected picture", there are enough pictures to make the updates more frequently than monthly, but not enough to stock it weekly. Thus, this feature is updated 2-3 times a month, manually.
   3. DYK is updated regularly, manually.
   4. On this day is stocked up ahead of time, and automatically updates.
   5. Quotes are stocked up through the end of the year.

I'm the sole maintainer, but the maintenance workload for this portal is fairly minimal and manageable. When I go on holiday/vacation, it's no problem to make sure the features are stocked up. --Aude (talk | contribs) 15:16, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

• Minor object:
  • The distinction between "selected" and "featured" needs to be clarified. Are the articles being selected exclusively from the linked list of FAs? How about the pictures (there should be enough FP portraits to make a decent attempt at it, but this may not be what you're doing)?
  • The "Quote of the week" section needs an archive. Also, is there any more sensible place in WikiQuote to link to than the front page?
  • Having a separate box for {{portals}} seems to be a bit of overkill, no?

  Overall, though, this is an excellent portal, and I'll be happy to support once the above issues are fixed. Kirill Lokshin 00:17, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

• The articles here are all officially featured articles.
• There are not enough featured pictures (non-fair use) of people on Wikipedia, so while I try to select those, sometimes I select featured commons pictures. Even with those, I'm not sure there are enough. At some point may have to pick something that is not featured.
• Added the quotes archive.
• Wikiquotes does have a quote of the day, but not sure it's any better to link there than the main page.
• Agree 100% about the box around the portals template. It's gone.

Thanks for the feedback. --Aude (talk contribs) 00:51, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay. I think the article box should be labeled "Featured articles" then; other than that, everything seems fine. Kirill Lokshin 01:12, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Done. Thanks. --Aude (talk contribs) 01:14, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Great! Support from me, then. Kirill Lokshin 01:18, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

It looks great; support. I've made a few minor changes, which of course can be changed back if they are disliked. Also, one suggestion: links to biography style guides in the Things you can do box. Another possibility: links to the current selected biographies in other portals (selected scientist from science, selected inventor from technology, selected biologist from biology, selected philosopher from philosophy, etc.). If you could get the other portal maintainers to create subpages that simply list the name the current portal bio (as is done with collaborations, for use on the community portal), that would make it maintenance-free for the biography portal maintainer.--ragesoss 22:20, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Your "minor" changes look fine to me. I also like both your suggestions. --Aude (talk contribs) 23:41, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• Support - Nice :) Joe I 18:43, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Portal:Portugal

I believe this Portal meets the criteria to be a FP:

• It is useful, there are hundreds of Portugal-related articles on Wikipedia, this portal creates a useful bridge between them and presents the most complete as featured content.
• I believe it has a nice layout, with nice colors and red links restricted to requested articles.
• It is ergonomic, since it presents things in a effective manner, just like the majority of the featured Wiki portals.
• The portal is updated every week, by myself, and, on a less regular basis, by two other contributors — User:Joaopais and User:PedroPVZ.

As I said, I believe it meets all the criteria. But anyway, I'll try to quickly meet any objection raised. Afonso Silva 20:49, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

• Support, excellent portal in every respect. I would move the "Article needed" box down below the selected content boxes, though; it's not of much interest to the casual reader. Kirill Lokshin 20:55, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I also suggest the "Things you can do" box go towards the bottom. --Aude (talk | contribs) 00:28, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
    • We just placed the "Article needed box" in the top of the portal because it was the better way to have new articles. Our experience is positive, every request placed there has been met. But anyway, I'll move it. About the "Things you can do" box, do you think it should be the last one, is that it? Afonso Silva 11:15, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
• Support, a great portal. I would suggest that you move the selected articles and picture to a queue system, similar to that used at Portal:Oceania (which has daily and monthly rotating sections) or Portal:New Zealand (which has weekly rotating sections) purely because it's easier to maintain; you can set up several weeks worth of content at a time that suits you, and then leave the portal alone at times when you are busy with other things. My support is not at all conditional on this suggestion being adopted.-gadfium 05:00, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I was thinking about creating a queue system when we finish having good articles to display, at the moment, finding a "selected place" is becoming difficult, so, I'll probably start rotating in the next update day (June 19).
• Object: This portal has a very nice aesthetic, but I object to some elements:

1. Contributer sections are secondary aspects for featured portals, and as such, Article needed (which I think is un-necessary with Things you can do) needs to be positioned after content sections.
2. There are red links external to the contributer sections (in Selected biography and Selected place)
3. The were a few formatting faults (mostly image-related due to a glitch in Internet Explorer). I have fixed these. Please ensure this format is carried through to ensuing weeks.
4. Related portals and WikiProjects are separate concepts and must each have there own box.

Also, although not part of my objection, I concur with Gadfium's suggestion above that the auto-rotate system be adopted. Moreover, I find Portugal-related featured content self-referential, but realise that already featured portals have similar sections - hence I've sought comments on the criteria. Great portal, however, and I'll be happy to support once my concerns are satisfied.--cj | talk 06:35, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

1. As I said, we just placed the "Article needed box" in the top of the portal because it was the better way to have new articles. Our experience is positive, every request placed there has been met. But anyway, I'll move it. I just don't want to merge it with the remaining requests, because it is a unique way of presenting the most important requests.
2. I'll remove the red links, I believe they are the first red links present in the selected text, you may check that in the archive.
3. I only use firefox, I didn't realize that there was a formatting bug, thanks for the correction, I'll keep it like that.
4. In the beginning, they had different boxes, but I thought this format was better. I'll put it like it was before.

I've replied to Gadfium about the rotating system, I'll start rotating the content, sooner or later. About the featured articles, why is it self-referential? We have, for example, "Portugal-related categories", why shouldn't we have "Portugal-related FA"? Afonso Silva 11:15, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Support from me.--cj | talk 07:22, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

• Support - defs. DJR (Talk) 13:02, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Meets all the requirements. --Aude (talk | contribs) 16:19, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Congrat! :) NCurse _work 09:37, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

• Support Brilliant. Political Mind 19:54, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Portal:Politics

Previous objections to this nomination have been met, in that news and current affairs section is now maintained, and the portal is in all other regards one of the strongest on Wikipedia. --Wisden17 18:21, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

• Object:
  • Introduction is too short and too self-referential; it should be a few paragraphs about politics, not a few sentences about the portal.
  • Archives for the selected articles and selected biographies are inadequate, since they don't include the summary blurb used on the portal during the time the article was present. The selected picture section doesn't have an archive at all.
  • The category box is useless with its current contents; ditto the WikiProject box.
  • The links to the FA sections in the selected article/biography boxes are redundant with the same links in the "Featured content" box.
  • The "Useful links" box is redundant with just about everything. The editor-oriented links (the WikiProjects) should be moved to the actual WikiProjects box, and the related portals should be split out into their own box. The inclusion of external links—particularly given the contentious nature of the topic—is probably ill-advised in a number of cases.
  • The "Comprehensive overview of politics coverage" is too big; at least shrink the font somewhat.
  • Finally, the portal hasn't been updated in nearly three weeks. What's the content rotation schedule here? Kirill Lokshin 18:56, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Response to Kirill Lokshin:

• Introduction is revised.
• Selected articles and biography archives now include blurbs; Selected picture archive is created.
• Category and WikiProject boxes are revised.
• Useful links box is gone, replaced with "related portals".
• The "Comprehensive overview" - I somewhat disagree on it being "too big", since it's intended to be "comprehensive"; it provides organization of article links that some find useful; Also, located at the bottom of the page, it's optional for people (they can stop scrolling). But, perhaps the layout and format could be improved and maybe shortened slightly. Reducing font-size is not the best idea (this has been debated with many objections, in regards to references sizes [1] across Wikipedia).
• Content rotation:
  • The Selected picture is on a monthly schedule.
  • Yesterday, I updated the Selected article and biography (unknowing that the portal was nominated here), and have now put the selected article on a weekly schedule. See also Portal_talk:Politics#Feature_management.
  • The selected biography is on a more irregular schedule, updated a few times a month. There are enough featured biography articles (see Portal:Politics/Featured articles) for them to be updated more often than monthly, but not enough for them to be weekly right now.
  • The news is updated almost daily.

--Aude (talk | contribs) 16:15, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Excellent work! I see no reason why font shrinking wouldn't work here, as this isn't an article, and a number of other featured portals do it; but it's a rather minor issue. Support from me now. Kirill Lokshin 16:24, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I've added the "div references-small" tag, which is used for references. With this, people can override these settings in their monobook.css, if they wish. --Aude (talk | contribs) 16:34, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

• Support
  • Archives are over-rated and unnecessary, especially for a portal such as this where you a) have a multitude of articles to showcase, and b) pictures are of minor importance to the portal as a whole. Archives are not necessary - they are just a convention (started by myself I do believe - and I never intended it to be compulsory). They serve no real purpose for a portal, and are not the be-all and end-all.
  • Introduction is brief which, in this example, is good. Politics is far to specific to its individual areas to justify a general blurb that is any longer than what is there already - this provides a simple intro with links to topic areas. The "several paragraphs about the subject" is again convention, not gospel. This is different, which is good.
  • "Comprehensive overview of politics coverage" is rather large, but as far as I can see it does exactly what it says on the tin - a comprehensive overview. But, take a look at Template:London topics as guide for a format that consumes less space.

BUT

• • I agree that the WikiProject box is currently pretty useless. Move the WikiProject links from "Useful links" to the WikiProject Box, and remove the external links. This is a portal for Wikipedia, not a portal for the internet.
  • Regular updates are essential - politics is constantly changing and this will shift from being a good portal to a dated one very quickly. New articles are created all the time - it is important that the portal stays on top of it.

As I have said above, I feel that conventions are beginning to take to prominent role in these Portal nominations. I must urge users to read the featured portal criteria and not assume anything is in it that is not. Particularly regarding picture archives, I really doubt how important they are to the portal, and I seriously doubt how useful they are to Wikipedia. DJR (Talk) 21:21, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Err, how about criterion #1? Not being up to par with the other featured portals—whether due to formal requirements or informal conventions—is a perfectly good reason to deny promotion. Kirill Lokshin 22:46, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Criterion #1 reads "It should exemplify our very best work, representing Wikipedia's unique qualities on the Internet". I'm not entirely sure how this portal cannot qualify within the criteria - it has many featured articles, a clean interface and provides links to all sorts of articles, categories and contributory aspects. As for "not being up to par with the other featured portals" - I'm again not sure how you are basing this. If you are suggesting that conventions form a "par", then I'm afraid we fundementally disagree on principle. Conventions are there to be broken - formal requirements are the only thing that this portal should be judged by. As so long as my "BUTs" are addressed from above, I cannot see how this fails in any of the formal requirements. DJR (Talk) 09:12, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Conventions are there to be broken for good reasons, no? Not merely because the portal maintainer is unwilling to do the necessary work? I cannot, quite honestly, see what profound design decision would dictate omitting something so basic as a usable archive page. Kirill Lokshin 11:34, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Right, archives are now in much better order. There is now the text that appeared on the portal on the archive page, and there is a picture archive as well, although it currently only has one entry. Content has been rotated today, not by myself I should add. External links have been removed, and the Wikiproject box improved. Hope this addresses the majority of your concerns. --Wisden17 14:01, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Wisden17 for your work on the archives. If for no other reason, the archives are useful to keep track of what's already been featured on the portal, so we don't mistakenly feature the same article twice. --Aude (talk | contribs) 17:07, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

• Support

This politics portal is very pleasing to the eye and well layed out. The content is presented in a clear manner and is relevant to the topic. I would disagree with the comments about the links since the links are to web sites of well known news agencies and therefore are in my opinion cannot be contentious.

--Newton2 22:12, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

One could make an argument regarding which "well known news agencies" were selected ;-)

More troubling, though, is the fact that we're linking to a blog—and a fairly partisan one; that, at least, needs to be removed. Kirill Lokshin 22:52, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

• Support. This portal has recently undergone major improvements, including putting the selected picture and article on regular rotation schedules. The portal has a number of regular maintainers, who see to it that the news is kept updated (super important). The comprehensive overview is also useful to readers. --Aude (talk | contribs) 16:27, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Support Rlevse 12:06, 7 June 2006 (UTC)