User talk:Cesdeva/sandbox11

• I think one of the most important things we can do here is to provide some examples of what we/the community actually think are good portals. Then we can write rules to guide people into copying them. JLJ001 (talk) 22:03, 21 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@JLJ001: That's a good idea, let's look into that. I was thinking now would be a good time to touch-base. Clearly we are on the same wavelength, but is there anything I've written that you disagree with or think could be tweaked?

Also I was thinking that everything down from the 'How to create a portal' section, including 'What content to include', could be split off to another page. It kinda goes off-track from the clear policy points we are making. We could even scrap most of the rubbish in those sections and merge any remainder into Wikipedia:Portal/Instructions here. What do you think? Cesdeva ^(talk) 18:51, 22 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I agree, it stops being a policy page and starts rambling into being a how to guide. Considering we probably need all new instructions anyway we may as well just scrap it and keep it focused. JLJ001 (talk) 19:03, 22 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I've split it off to Sandbox 14 for the time being. Cesdeva ^(talk) 19:14, 22 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@JLJ001: We are nearly finished, apart from adding examples of good portals. Let me know when you think it's done. Do you want to jointly propose this draft in an RfC? Getting this freshly ratified by the portal community would be a good move. Cesdeva ^(talk) 07:44, 23 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think we have got all the key things in there now (other than examples of good portals). An RFC seems a good idea, do you have any idea where would be the best forum for this?. JLJ001 (talk) 08:03, 23 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia talk:Portal guidelines would be the most appropriate place to host it. Then simply a link could be posted on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals. Cesdeva ^(talk) 08:59, 23 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Seems good. I have posted on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals to get input on what portals should be included, but if you like we could do the RFC first and fill those in later, since that's more likely to affect to "how to build a portal" instructions than these fairly generic guidelines. JLJ001 (talk) 09:14, 23 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That's fine by me. I'm just going to add an extra point to the guidelines about transcluding excerpts. Cesdeva ^(talk) 09:19, 23 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• How does one bridge editing and reading by banning red links? wumbolo ^^^ 14:43, 23 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Wumbolo: "bridge editing and reading" in this guideline means linking to Wikiprojects and help pages, while also providing links to pages to read and topics to study. Some Wikiprojects may chose to curate lists of redlinks (like the Women in Red project), but portals should not contain redlinks themselves. JLJ001 (talk) 14:59, 23 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The "How to Create" section

Hey guys, so if the "How to Create" section is going to be split off into another page, it should probably be linked to from the main document. Something like:

For specific guidance on portal content creation, see How to Create.

Also, I think we should incorporate earlier proposed suggestions into the portal notability section. — AfroThundr ^(talk) 15:00, 23 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• To clarify, what is being proposed is matching what was generally agreed on in the RFC. JLJ001 (talk) 15:12, 23 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Portals must:

1. be related to a notable topic (i.e., one with an article that is not likely to get deleted)
2. have a parent portal (so, no "orphaned portals") [edit: except for a small number of "top-most" portals — see discussion below]
3. have no missing/broken sections (like this)

Then perhaps this can be better explained in the text by adding those to User:Cesdeva/sandbox11#Criteria to have a portal? — AfroThundr ^(talk) 17:26, 23 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I totally agree that it should be linked.Cesdeva ^(talk) 20:09, 24 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Passing notes

• Leave notes in this section if you simply want other editors to know your trail of thought .

My logic by saying that CSS is preferable to HTML for presentation is that this will deal with excessive </br> and nbsp; while at the same time giving a nod to 'external style sheets' which will likely at some point be possible for templates. Cesdeva ^(talk) 19:15, 24 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Stratch that. The newly reworded version by JLJ001 is better and less objectionable.

@Cesdeva:I hope you continue developing new portal guidelines. We need them. But Criteria 1 (Each portal must feature a notable matching topic with a title that matches the portal title; The main topic article should be minimum B-class.), which already caught my eye in the RfC to discontinue portals, is very problematic.

First, portals don't need to address the same practical issues of scope as articles do, and for this reason they have sometimes been organized on different terms. Sometimes they combine a few related topics (all examples are Featured portals): Portal:Library and information science, Portal:Law of England and Wales. Sometimes the parent topic is by its nature a disambiguation page: Portal:Bengali cinema. Other times the namesake article would be of very odd scope: Portal:California roads (and many others).

The other issue is with the B-class requirement. It's exactly broad topic articles that are often neglected and in bad shape. For example, of the eight portals linked from the Main Page, only three meet this requirement: Mathematics, Science, Technology.

Thirdly, I would argue that, contrary to what seems obvious at first, the main article of the portal is often not very relevant to that portal at all. Think about Portal:History. I'd reach that portal to read about actual historical eras and events, but the main article is about the academic field that studies such things. Few people are interested in what a biography is and would instead like to read well-written biographies at Portal:Biography. Readers of Portal:Books are probably more interested in specific works than the intricacies of binding.

In general, I imagine people who click on a portal link are not terribly interested in reading a snippet of the lead of its parent article. Say I was extremely versed in football biographies and I click on portal link to Portal:Association football; I wanted to find topics about football I didn't know existed, but instead I'm presented with a definition of a sport I already know well. a radical solution – and I think we live a moment of radical solutions in terms of portals – would be to ditch the idea that portals are married to some main article and think of something entirely new. In the mean time, I hope that proponents of guidelines think about the few points I've presented above. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:29, 27 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Finnusertop:

Thank you for your illuminating post.

I agree about the lede excerpt. In addition i'd summise that the most used links to portals are at the bottom of the main article; that means the reader has already scrolled through that article content, and maybe even read it. No point displaying it to the reader again, especially not in the most prominent position on the portal.

As for the 'notability of a portal topic', that's a real tricky one.

My intuition is that the underlying thought is that we need a way to safeguard against the creation of weirdly scoped portals like Portal:Fish in the Little Mermaid movie or Portal:Jean Claude Van Damme martial arts moves

IMHO, 'creation discussions' for portals would be good. Like AfD but at the beginning of a portal's journey. This way the community could regulate what gets created and what doesn't. It would probably just be a flame-war of shallow arguments, but ultimately I think it would work. It's been 13 years and we have ~1500(?) portals, and I'd imagine the majority weren't created recently. Stopping creation of weird portals is less of a pressing issue than people imagine.

As such I'm not too fussed about policing creation, but as you mention, it is of a concern to some editors.

I've been waiting to see if User:pbsouthwood has any further thoughts on this topic.

I'm in no rush to propose this draft. It's here for the community to see, edit and discuss. So hopefully once it does end up in an RfC, people will be familiar with the points contained in it. Kind regards, Cesdeva ^(talk) 21:58, 27 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It may also be worth noting how different types of portal can be built, for example Portal:Suffolk, Portal:Cornwall, Portal:Nanotechnology, and Portal:Opera are all quite different. It's a hard task to get a one size fits all guideline without giving carte blanche to create "anything". JLJ001 (talk) 22:04, 27 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I definitely agree that we need to have a "notability" standard for portals, Cesdeva, and that this may be better implemented by vetting portals before creation (in theory, we do this for WikiProjects, here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals). I just wanted to point out that your criteria in this proposal is not realistic.

Overall, I think the recent portal RfC allows – even forces – us to radically re-think portals. I'm afraid that tinkering with the current guidelines will not get us far and the community will be left divided into portal-lovers and portal-haters and perennial discussions about discontinuing the system ensue. I'm starting to think that severing this tie between a portal and its "main article" might be an opening that allows us to think portals anew. Portals try to mirror articles, and that's why they fail. I think we should quite frankly turn the tables and do something very WP:NOT with them. I've thought about turning them into mini-Reference Desks, mini-Signposts with editorial commentary, replacement for the failing Wikinews, the proverbial bathroom graffiti wall ... simply anything but what they are right now. They need to be "the wiki way" without being articles. They need to make readers get a glimpse behind the curtain and engage them as future editors. It's just brainstorming, of course, but that's what we need right now. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:16, 27 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That is good thinking. I agree that portals could be "more" than they are at the moment, although I am not sure what more they will be. Portal:Suffolk is probably the best example of how I see portals right now. A kind of Wikiproject - topic bridge. JLJ001 (talk) 22:24, 27 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I had a few thoughts on portal content and layout today which are undeveloped, but I will put them here in the spirit of brainstorming, as it is quite possible that someone else will see a better way or where to go with the idea.

If one starts with an outline list for a topic, which has several sections, some possibly with sub-sections, and possibly sub-sub-sections and produced a intro with a topic scope definition and extract from lead of the primary article, then a box for each subsection, also with a scope definition paragraph , a transcluded lead from a random selected article within the section scope, and a collapsible list of the other articles transcluded from the outline list section, we end up with a topic taster (the random? lead) and a list of related topics and subtopics at one click. In effect, each box would be a subportal of the main portal covering that part of the topic. Conceptually this could be recursively nested to several levels, but I don't have any solid ideas on how this should be done, I just have this vague picture of a tree, like a category tree, which opens up in more detail as one digs deeper. With a structure like this it could be possible to transclude whole portals into others to build a metaportal for a higher level topic. Very vague at this point. Maybe not practical, but who knows. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 16:16, 28 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Finnusertop, I use B-class as an example of what I consider to be a well enough developed article that can be achieved without great difficulty, but a sufficiently high bar to filter out some types of dilettante portal creation. If the topic is not notable enough, or doesn't have enough referenced material available for a reasonably well constructed and complete article, why would a portal be justified? If the lead article still needs to be developed to B-class the putative portal creator would be encouraged to apply a reasonable level of attention to the material first, and this would possibly be reflected in the quality of the resulting portal. I am open to persuasion that other methods may work as well or better.

I don't think portals should mirror articles, they should be a meta-structure that is about a nested related group of topics which is sufficiently complex to need a navigation guide, and should be targeting the reader who is relatively inexpert in the subject, but also a handy reference for the expert who wants to see what we have available.

I also see potential for interaction between user and creator. A place for feedback and requests beyond the scope of talk pages, but that is also a very vague idea at the moment. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 16:16, 28 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Pbsouthwood: I'm working on a weird portal interface, which could (in general form) be a portal for other portals. Say 'Science' was one of your 'metaportals' and all the other sub-portals were linked by those buttons. Cesdeva ^(talk) 17:18, 28 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That could be a very useful feature for further subdivision of links away from Portal:Contents. Good idea. JLJ001 (talk) 17:21, 28 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking of something with an intro to the main topic, and an intro to each subportal, possibly based on the transcluded lead section of the subportal's lead article, and a collapsed listing of the subportal's contents at the top level of subdivisions. Each would have a link to the subportal page where the process could be repeated if appropriate. Each level of portal would also have bottom level content if appropriate. In this model, a subportal is a portal linked from (one or more) containing portal, and a bottom level portal is a portal which has no subportals. A recursive structure, like a category tree, but more user-friendly and informative. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 17:34, 28 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I had a go at adding intros but the template was only designed for holding titles or small captions. I'll add a fix for that in the sandbox version, but not sure how clean all that text will look. Cesdeva ^(talk) 18:05, 28 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It occurs to me that the guidelines will have to take note of the growing idea that some portals will be marked as "maintained" and have what are more or less portal specific guidelines / portal maintainers, there aren't enough people working on it for this to be an issue now. But gazing into this little round piece of glass, I can't help but thinking at some point people will fight over who is the "portal maintainer" for Portal:Fascism, possibly asserting it gives them some control over content. Can we clarify that this marking system is only supposed to apply to purely technical issues such as the usage of templates and subpages, not the content of the portal. And, that consensus can be sought to agree on a particular layout via an RfC if it becomes particularly contentious. The role of the portal mainationers themselves is purely that of keeping the portal free from errors and up to date, and does not give any additional editorial influence. JLJ001 (talk) 12:53, 29 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The 'lead editor', and other similar terms, are rather disconcerting but WP:OWN is well-regarded and understood, so there shouldn't be any problems from individual editors. It's when you get groups of editors forming walled gardens, that issues arise. I doubt we'll have this issue in portal space, and there are admins about who are adept at dealing with this. Cesdeva ^(talk) 13:22, 29 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In my case, 'lead editor' was pretty much a euphemism for 'no one else bothers to do any maintenance'. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 17:55, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]