Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Featured log/May 2007

Portal:Fish

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The Fish Portal was created and has been maintained since December 2006. It has had a portal peer review as well as personal reviews by several experienced portal editors mostly in December 2006 and January 2007. Their suggestions and concerns were addressed and the portal went though significant changes according to the reviews. Although back then some of the reviewers suggested this portal should be nominated for the featured status, I felt I wanted to wait for while to show that it's not going to end up being another dead portal. Now the portal fish is about 6 month old and has had consistent monthly updates and maintenance as well as a group of loyal readers who have been participating in the nomination and selection process of monthly contents for various sections of the portal. I think it is ready and I would like nominate it for consideration for the featured status.

Here are some facts about the fish portal:

  • Four monthly sections of the portal (Selected article of the month, Selected fish of the month, Selected picture of the month, Selected quote of the month) have systematic nomination and selection process by the readers as can be seen here. As the portal is now 6 month old, each of these four sections has 6 items in the archives.
  • "Selected fish of the month" is a fish article (species, genus, family, etc.) while "Selected article of the month" is any other article (fish in culture, fishing, fishkeeping, fish as food, etc.). This is also explained in the nomination page.
  • The Fish Quiz, added to the portal in March, acts as a fun, interactive version of DYK and also helps generate new items for DYK. It's by far the most popular section of the portal and is currently hosting the third quiz tournament already.
  • DYK is a bit unconventional in design that it has a small fish image for each DYK item, rather than having few, large selected images like most other portals. This is for two reasons: it fits aesthetically with the portal design and it helps as quick visual aids to readers so that they would have some ideas what kind of fish to the DYKs are talking about. However, if most reviewers would rather see the conventional fewer, larger images, I'm willing to change it accordingly.
  • "Things you can do" is a template shared by both the portal and WP:FISH.

I'd appreciate it if you could spare your time to comment and vote on this nomination. Thank you a lot (and feel free to particate in the The Fish Quiz too if you'd like). --Melanochromis 22:33, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Portal:Scotland

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This portal, on the nation of Scotland, was recently revamped by myself and Anthony. It now features a more eye-friendly layout, a better structure for automatic updating of the selected article, picture and quotes based on CURRENTWEEK and CURRENTMONTH. This is based around the archive structure (article, picture and quotes) which make it easy to update with new content to keep the portal dynamic.

All in all, I believe this portal meets the featured portal criteria - it is based off the base portal template and has good structure therefore; it has a broad scope of content; it has Wikiproject links; it is well-maintained, with (at present) three month's worth of content stored ready for automatic switchover, with no shortage of available options to add (and will be done in the near future); it is attractive and pleasant on the eye; and it promotes Scottish content in what I believe to be a very good manner.

I hope that you can spare a couple of minutes of your time to comment on this FPOC. Cheers, Daniel Bryant 02:52, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note from co-author: the selected articles, quotes and pictures have now been set up ~ Anthony 17:21, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do something about those three stubby paragraphs in the lead. Add examples for "inventions and discoveries".
  • I'm getting tired of saying this, but "Topics" > "Main topics"/"Major topics".
  • Create a place where people could nominate articles, pictures, and quotes. It may or may not be on the same page as the archives.
  • I don't see any reason that this should be done. This is a pesky practice of un-necessary self-referencing that is present on too many portals, IMV.--cj | talk 12:23, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree this is a bit self-referencing practice, but portals normally contain a lot more such content and sections (e.g. "Things you can do", "Featured content"). It is essential readers become aware of this system without needing to look at the talk page. Michaelas10 12:35, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I disagree: the readers don't need to know about the maintenance of portals. Things you can do sections are a different kettle of fish insofar as they are fulfilling one of the fundamental functions of a portal – to promote contribution to the encyclopædia.--cj | talk 13:12, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with Cyber - the maintenance and discussion over content of a page should occur at the talk page, not the content page; hopefully we can come to a compromise over this - your requested edit, a location to nominate Selected Pictures/Quotes/Articles, but in a more appropiate location? ~ AGK 17:06, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm unsure editors could quickly realize it should be done in the talk page, since the vast majority of the portal link it from the sections (e.g. "Archive • Nomination"). Noting them about the maintenance of the portal directly would bring more good than harm. Michaelas10 17:25, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • That is a trend consistent throughout the encyclopedia - maintenance/content discussions are undertaken at a talk page; however, would a note at the bottom suffice? ~ AGK 18:21, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep date formatting constant.
  • "Related portals" should be threated as a "See also" section; I recommend having it nearly in the bottom of the portal.
  • No, you're using the CURRENTWEEK, CURRENTMONTH system, which is great, but randomisation is easier. Say there are no updates for a while - your whole portal then shows up as ugly redlinks. With {{random portal component}} you won't have this problem. If you want to see how it's done, check out P:CHEM </plug> :) – Riana ऋ 03:38, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh, I see. Well, it's too late to change it now, but that's an ingenious idea which I'm sure both myself and Anthony will remember in the future if we decide to revamp another portal :) Cheers, Daniel Bryant 03:48, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yeah, I wouldn't recommend changing it now - it's a pretty laborious process to get off the ground initially! Once it's in place, though, you'll wonder why you ever did it any other way :) – Riana ऋ 03:52, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A few small things:

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Portal:Solar System

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I have finished addressing all of the comments at its peer review. I think Portal:Solar System should be featured because I put hard work in it to ensure that it is well-designed, good-looking, and unique. It meets all of the featured portal critera as I went through the list.

This portal showcases the best articles on the subject. All the planets and dwarf planets combine with the Sun forming a featured topic. This is showcased in the "Article of the Month" section. Once Earth finishes its FAC, the rest of the queue will be complete. Currently it only goes up to Venus because Earth's introduction might be rewritten and there is still plenty of time before the portal page gets to Earth. Most featured pictures on the subject are included in the "Picture of the Week" section. All featured articles on the subject are included in "Major Topics" and bolded to draw attention to them. Contribution is encouraged by an organized box titled "What You Can Do," which (even with the title) encourages participation more than on the average portal.

The Solar System portal is is useful, attractive, ergonomic, and well-maintained. This portal covers a broad topic (the Solar System) and provides many links to enable people to go exactly where they want. It encourages people to participate in the many space-related WikiProjects, not just the Solar System one. A plethora of images are used, especially with links in the right column, to make an ordinarily dull page look more interesting. It is organized layout means that boxes with links are on the right and bottom while the changing content people would read and check regularly is on the left. This logical organizational scheme increases its usability by allowing people to read down only one column if they're looking for something specific.

This portal is well-maintained in that it will not run out of images anytime soon (and when it does, there are more out there and it can cycle back to old images as wel) and "Article of the Month" will never run out because there are so many articles on the topic. It would take over 7 years to just go through those in the "Major Topics" box. I am willing to check up on this portal periodically to ensure that it doesn't run out of content to feature and stays up-to-date.

In addition to all of the above, the Solar System portal's content is designed to point the viewer into other locations. It does this using almost every method available to a portal. In summary, this portal is designed to be a central point for people to go to if they're interested in learning about the Solar System. — Pious7TalkContribs 02:06, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • A very good portal, I cant see anything wrong here. Hossen27 04:47, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Two things first:A nomination page/procedure should be added for articles and pics, and the small font for "Small bodies" in the topics, should be changed to match the other headings. Again, Portal:Space exploration and Portal:Space should be added. Question, the project, Wikipedia:WikiProject Solar System, shows only 43 total articles. How can this possibly be enough to support a portal? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Searchme (talk • contribs) 05:49, 1 May 2007 (UTC).[reply]
    • I fixed the font. The nomination page/procedure is currently not necessary at the moment - the article cycle should last for many months (currently it is going through the Solar System featured topic in order). Similarly, this relatively new portal is going through the featured images relating to the Solar System and there is no demand to start a proccess for image nominations until it is closer to running out in a few months. I added links to the portals. Wikipedia:WikiProject Solar System only shows 43 total articles because it covers only general articles - there are many articles on Wikipedia related to the Solar System not under that project. This is more of a problem of the WikiProject and not the portal (I do link to related WikiProjects in the appropriate box, not just the Solar System one). The space-related WikiProjects are curently being reorganized, hopefully that fixes problems with lack of coverage in some areas and too much overlapping coverage. — Pious7TalkContribs 20:50, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • I have gone through and added roughly 20 articles from the Solar System category to the WikiProject's coverage. I will add more from subcategories and this portal when I have the time. It would help if I were given a minimum number so I can stop after a certain point as there are probably a lot of articles that can qualify and it would take a lot of time. — Pious7TalkContribs 14:39, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - A really neat portal. --Vaishu2 08:49, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support It is overall a nice portal. Good work. Joe I 04:11, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]