Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Failed log/August 2013

I am nominating this portal because I believe it meets the featured portal criteria. The portal includes:

• 75 selected articles, all FA quality, randomly generated.
• 75 selected biographies, all FA quality, randomly generated.
• 45 selected battles, all FA quality, randomly generated.
• 30 selected pictures, all FP quality, randomly generated.
• 20 DYK questions.
• Sections for Categories, WikiProjects, and Topics.

Any comments and suggestions are appreciated.--xanchester (t) 06:14, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Could you put links to the complete set of selected articles, biographies, battles, DYKs, as you have for pictures? This would make it easier to review the content. Thanks, Espresso Addict (talk) 22:54, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Y Done--xanchester (t) 07:37, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
• Support, the portal is really good. I'll suggest a minor point, there should be links to many more portals, including Portal:War, Portal:Military history of France, and so on. Also, (really minor), "more featured pictures" should be on one line, even when zoomed in a little. If it's possible, try to fix it. Otherwise, the portal still deserves featured status. -- ypnypn (talk) 03:53, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the suggestion. I replaced the generic browsebar with Template:Military browsebar, which links to all the military history portals. Also, by one line, do you mean that the More Selected Pictures link should be below the Read More link?--xanchester (t) 07:39, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • It seems it should be possible to fit "More featured pictures" and "Read more" all on one line. Maybe it's just my browser. -- ypnypn (talk) 14:21, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• Comments. Nice clean look. The customised header is nice. The content for articles and biographies is varied and usually relevant, and I like the inclusion of the Selected Battle.

• There are only five sets of DYKs; there must be thousands more to be mined from the archives. Suggest adding an image to each set (doesn't matter if it didn't appear with an image on the main page as long as the license is appropriate).

• Any progress here? Espresso Addict (talk) 11:56, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• This is my next task. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 17:55, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Can an image (or better a rotating set) be added into the introduction? Perhaps a set of maps over the timeframe?
• Whether or not it goes into the intro, a map would be a bonus.

• I'm not sure if we have enough really good maps. I'll have a look. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 15:10, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I found 4, and put them on rotate (better 4 than 1, after all). I'll try to get it up to 10. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 21:58, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I like the empire maps and similar (2,8-13); are there any other similar? I think the specific battle ones are less useful in context of the intro, though they would be valuable in the context of a Selected map box. Espresso Addict (talk) 11:56, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I did find a bunch; albeit on a somewhat similar theme (scroll through Francia). I'll see what I can do about more. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 17:55, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• On this day or in this week would be a very interesting addition, given the wide timespan covered.

• Interesting idea; I'll see if it's practical (it is, as you say, a wide timespan, so I have to check the day articles and see if I can extract enough). Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 15:10, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Any progress here? Espresso Addict (talk) 11:56, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Not yet; I'll deal with it after DYK. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 17:55, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't think this is going to happen: There's some major issues. First of all, if I tried to do it for specific days, I hit issues with there being at least two major calendars in use for almost all of the recent period of this portal - Gregorian and Julian - and it would suffer badly from recentism, as the more recent the event, the more likely we'd have an exact date. This might be alright, but if I couldn't find anything for a specific date, the portal breaks every time that comes up. I considered On this week and on this month as substitutes, but am not sure the latter would update enough, and to do on this week properly, I'd have to be doing arbitrary week beginnings, since (for example) which day is a Sunday will vary every year (and I have no idea how to handle leap years, or the fact that 52*7 = 364, leaving one or two extra days outside On this Week.) I think this would be better done as a list article than part of a portal. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 14:56, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Topics by country feels to overlap the categories (tho' I'm aware it is linking summary articles). Could the topics be cut in a non-national fashion for the topics box, given that the category tree gives access to the national summaries?

I honestly am not sure what you mean by "cut in a non-national fashion". Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 14:39, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• There are several ways of describing the content under the mantle of the portal, eg century, type of conflict, type of subject (eg biography, battle, weapon, war-related propaganda &c&c), rather than just repeating the links to the military history of each country, which is already readily available via the categories. Espresso Addict (talk) 11:56, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Fair point. I'll see if I can get someone in who knows about topics to do a repruning; I honestly never use them, so someone who does can manage this better. Will put a message on WP:MILHIST now. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 14:56, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• The columns persistently don't balance (right shorter).

• I can't see any other portals that have succeeded in this balance, so am going to presume it impossible. If you have an example, I'll nick their code. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 15:10, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't believe there's a code way of doing it -- it just comes down to making sure as many boxes as possible are of similar size for all the sub-selections and then moving boxes around (trying them in each column or over double columns) until the balance is as close as possible for a range of selections. Looking at it now, it doesn't seem terribly unbalanced, so perhaps it's not too much of a problem. Espresso Addict (talk) 11:56, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Suggest placing archive links at left of box to avoid unnecessary white space.

• Interesting. That's a widely-used portal template doing that; I may need to make a custom variant. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 18:29, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

•  Done. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 22:47, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Dutch 1913 battleship proposal lacks an image.

• Fixed. There weren't any good, free-licensed images, so I used a generic. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 00:40, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Basiliscus biography has a more link in addition to the read more.

•  Fixed Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 00:31, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Can the date be added to the credits for Selected Picture?

• That would be a rather non-standard usage, and might be mistaken for birth and death dates at first for the images that took multiple years. It also has the potential to be ambiguous - for example, for a photo of a statue (not in the current list, but plausible), do we give the date of the statue, or the relatively useless date of the photograph - when we may well be crediting the photographer for the image. Britain has very strong Freedom of Panorama rights, so that situation isn't horribly unlikely. But I may be overthinking. What do you think? Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 07:42, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• It's usually done as the date of the photograph or artwork in question; I suppose for a photograph of a statue one might need both, but that doesn't seem an insuperable problem, especially as you don't currently have any examples. It's fine, IMO, to put it in the text if that's appropriate, as I notice has been done for some of the paintings. Espresso Addict (talk) 11:56, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Archive of Selected Pictures has redlinks in each item for More Selected Pictures.

• Not anymore.  Done. By the way, this was a bug in a basic portal template. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 22:56, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Related Wikiprojects is rather white-spacy; can a graphic be added?

•  Done. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 15:32, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Related Portals are quite sparse; is this box even needed given that the header links a much wider range of military history portals?

• I agree, and have commented it out. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 15:25, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Espresso Addict (talk) 14:24, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is anyone still working on this? I had another look and didn't see any changes since my comments, over a month ago. Espresso Addict (talk) 02:43, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Screw it, I have a Featured portal, so I at least know what I'm doing. Let me have a look. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 15:02, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Specific comments interleaved above. Espresso Addict (talk) 11:56, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry I'm being a little slow with DYK. I'm doing this between other things. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 22:02, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Could we get an indication from those individuals who commented but didn't show whether they're inclined to support or oppose? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 06:48, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I do agree it could use more DYKs, and I'm working on getting them. Other than that, I support. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 12:07, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'll certainly support if the bulk of my comments are addressed. At the moment, I think changes are still in progress on substantive areas such as DYKs, some form of events calendar, and topics. Espresso Addict (talk) 14:04, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I need to consult someone for advice on your Topics suggestion. It's a part of Wikipedia I never use myself. Definitely need to finish DYK, events calendar may be impractical, as I detailed above. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 14:56, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm keen, personally, on calendar-related portal sections, as they cut the articles in a different way from other access methods and can, I think, be appealing to readers; however, if that's impractical in this case I won't oppose on the absence of that alone. The topics issue is, imo, key to portals functioning as a proper portal of access to the subject area. Espresso Addict (talk) 16:54, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Question: Any updates on this portal's progress? Has WT:MILHIST been notified of this featured portal candidacy discussion? — Cirt (talk) 02:05, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry, my life got really busy, but it should get done this week. And MILHIST has been informed, but they aren't always very good at speedy reaction times. =) Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 08:27, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Okay, sounds good, no worries, keep us posted, — Cirt (talk) 15:55, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Should get the work done this week. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 18:07, 11 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose and move to close - The nominator has been inactive since June, and as of right now there is work that needs to be done that hasn't been touched in some time. I'd love to see this portal become featured, but there's no point in keeping the process open if no one is working on it. Adam Cuerden showed an interest in taking this nomination over, but if he or someone else does it would make more sense to reboot the nomination from scratch, or at least stick all of the above comments in a collapse box, because a lot of the commentary is stale. Sven Manguard Wha? 06:40, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We've talked about htis on IRC, but the only real issues remaining are Topics and DYK; I think I can get through this with even a little guidance (which I've had a lot of trouble getting hitherto, unfortunately.) Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 15:32, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what you guys talked about on IRC so I will close base only on what is being said on this page. I conclude that there is no clear consensus and that this nomination has stalled, therefore it is not a successful nomination. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 18:05, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

We're going to reboot the nomination in a few days once Adam's finished with the Topics section and I've finished with the DKYs. When I wrote the above comment, I had yet to make contact with Adam and had yet to start working on the portal again, so I think that I said the right thing at the time based on the reality as it was. That being said, having a clean nomination to work from is ideal, as most of the people commenting above were commenting on something that was, at this point, a different product than it is now. Sven Manguard Wha? 19:51, 30 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Question from a MILHIST coordinator, is this conversation officially dead, because its been 2 years since anyone's posted? Because it is still in the MILHIST alerts, so if it ever passed, please pass it, if it did not, please fail it, thanks. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 12:08, 4 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]