Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Featured log/January 2013

The following is an archived discussion of a featured portal candidate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the portal's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured portal candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The portal was promoted by OhanaUnited 00:29, 28 January 2013 [1].

Portal:Society

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy ‎, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anthropology ‎, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sociology, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Human rights , User talk:Cirt ‎, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Community, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Family and relationships, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Gender Studies, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject LGBT studies, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Literature ‎, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sexology and sexuality, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Travel and Tourism , User talk:AGK ‎, User talk:Bencherlite, User talk:John Carter, User talk:Resident Mario, User talk:Elekhh ‎, User talk:Northamerica1000 , User talk:Voceditenore. — Cirt (talk) 06:34, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Self-nomination. See archived peer review. I believe the portal meets the standards for Featured Portal status. Thank you for your time, — Cirt (talk) 22:19, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment Thanks for pursuing the Featured Portal drive, and inviting feedback regarding improvements on this portal. Without having had time to look into it in detail, my first impression is that it doesn't appear specific enough and is overly heavy with articles and pictures about individuals. For instance 13 of 20 featured pictures are portraits. In related portals there is a link to "Personal life". I almost hear an echo of Thatcher's famous "there's no such thing as society". What would you think of replacing Featured biography with Featured organisation? --ELEKHHT 09:17, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think I have the same difficulty as Elekhh. I came here hoping to be able to support without much difficulty, but the selection of material needs work because if I covered up the title bar and the introduction, I would have real difficulty telling what the portal was about. Looking at the featured articles first, for now, (and only 20? I know that that's said to be the minimum, but such a broad topic as "society" can't be covered in just 20 articles, surely?) the articles chosen are unrepresentative of the topic "society" as a whole, or are overly specific. I would expect articles on broad themes about society, covering a diverse range of countries and cultures. Instead, there are two articles about US university student traditions, two articles focusing on Prince Albert Victor, an April 1st TFA blurb (Cock Lane ghost), and so on.

Perhaps it would help me understand what the portal's about if you could explain your selection criteria for this and the other sections; at the moment, it looks to be a bit of a random assortment of articles, images, sounds, DYKs, annversaries ("Dead Putting Society" - really?!) etc. BencherliteTalk 13:42, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Response to comments by Elekhh and Bencherlite
  1. I tried to include a very broad inclusion criteria, basically featured-quality content relating generally speaking about people.
  2. If you wish to make more specific suggestions about specific entries to take out, I'd be more than glad to do that.
  3. It'd really be most helpful if you had ideas about other featured-quality content to substitute into the portal, instead of those entries to remove, I'd be more than happy to immediately do that. :)
Thank you for your comments, — Cirt (talk) 17:20, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Update - 2nd response to comments by Elekhh and Bencherlite
  1. Done. Removed "Personal life" from Related portals section.
  2. Done. Went through a check of every single picture in Featured pictures section, and removed all those that were portraits of individual people. Swapped them out with other pictures from WP:POTD.
  3. Done. Removed "Dead Putting Society", from Portal:Society/Selected anniversaries/November.
  4. Done. Removed all Featured articles mentioned specifically as complaints, above.
  5. Done. Added ten (10) more entries to Featured articles section, mainly culled from the Culture and society section at Wikipedia:Featured articles. We now have a total of thirty (30) entries in the Featured article section.
Hopefully this has addressed above suggestions. :) — Cirt (talk) 19:18, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the changes, the featured pictures section looks much better. However overall I think it is still a lot to do to get the portal more representative of "society". I think part of the problem is the selection criteria having been FA-articles only, even if these are of low-importance within the scope of the relevant WikiProject. I think including more core articles for this topic, even if they are GA "only" would benefit the portal. In various sections, there should be place for Sociology, Feminism, Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, Polyethnicity, Greeks, etc. Is a pity the article feedback tool has only been enabled on article and help pages but not on portals. I am sure there would be interesting feedback from the 40K/month viewers of this page. --ELEKHHT 00:16, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, thanks for those specific suggestions, I'll get right on adding those entries into the portal, we'll drop it down to allowing GA and FA class entries. Standby please for next update. :) — Cirt (talk) 01:58, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
2nd Update - response to followup comments by Elekhh
  1. Done. Expanded selection criteria, now includes both WP:FAs and WP:GAs.
  2. Done. Increased dynamism to portal, now has Forty (40) selected articles, 40 selected bios, 40 selected quotes, and 40 featured pictures.
  3. Done. Added all entries suggested by Elekhh (talk · contribs), above, to portal, those were: Sociology, Feminism, Émile Durkheim, Max Weber, Polyethnicity, Greeks.
— Cirt (talk) 04:39, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think is clearly improving. I would hope to see more involvement from related wikiprojects, as well as article improvement drives for key topics such as Social class, Social movement, Urban sociology, Ethnology, Polygamy, Folklore, Chicago school (sociology), Popular culture, Georg Simmel, Auguste Comte. Maybe for now these could replace narrower topics in the DYK section. In the meanwhile some minor issues:
  • FA3 is identical with FA25
  • Images of people could be used when illustrating FA20-Tamil people, FA29-Taiwanese aborigines (plural), FA30-Toraja ...
  • Biographies selection appears to have US+UK bias with over half of the articles relating to one of the these
  • The "Recognized content" section doesn't fit well in the layout.
  • The "Related portals" section is very long. Maybe is worth considering trimming it to the core groups (i.e. Books, Film, Literature, Music, Theatre are sub-topics of art and culture). There are more directly related portals which are not currently linked, such as Portal:Social movements.
  • As previously with FPs, Illustrations in the DYK sections are not suggestive of society, only 2 of 20 DYKs illustrate "groups of people" vs. 11 portraits.
Sorry I only have time for critique. Hope these suggestions are useful for further improvements. --ELEKHHT 22:45, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, will get on addressing these additional helpful points, soon, and provide further updates, back here. :) — Cirt (talk) 01:15, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Had a minor side-track digression doing some quickie updating responding to helpful suggestions and Featured Portal maintenance at Portal talk:Norway, will get back to addressing above recommendations in detail and reply here, soon. :) — Cirt (talk) 19:54, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Response to 3rd set of comments from Elekhh
  1. Done. Thank you for pointing this out! Fixed FA25, moved a selection from FA40.
  2. Done. Good suggestion, replaced with images of multiple people together, as suggested.
  3. Note: Unfortunately as this is English Wikipedia, most of our best quality content will be related to UK / US, however if you have more specific suggestions for additional high quality articles to add into rotation, I will gladly do so! :)
  4. Done. Thanks, I've gone ahead and fixed the layout for "Recognized Content".
  5. Done. Trimmed the "Related portals" section, per your recommendations, and also added some, per suggestions from Elekhh (talk · contribs), above.
  6. Done. Removed all illustrations in DYK section of single persons only. Replaced with alternative illustrations, in most cases pictures of multiple people together.
Hopefully this is now satisfactory, — Cirt (talk) 21:15, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak support Thanks for all the changes. I think visually it starts to work and the content matches the quality of featured portals. I still find its focus on "Society" weak, as many articles would perfectly fit in other portals, while more specific articles haven't been included due to low quality. Instead of having a non-featured portal about society what we have is an attempt to have a featured portal about a very wide range of topics related to society. At this stage Bencherlite's test (cover up the title bar and introduction, and tell what the portal is about.) can work if lucky (ex. FA: Free Association of German Trade Unions + FB: Max Weber + FP: Batak warriors) but fails if not so lucky (ex. Postage stamps of Ireland + Albert Einstein + a natural gas pipeline explosion). Overall I find it much better than it was at the start of this process. Much appreciate your hard work. --ELEKHHT 02:36, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, I will continue to address your helpful suggestions and update back here, — Cirt (talk) 18:56, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Response to 4th set of comments from Elekhh
  1. Done. Removed Postage stamps of Ireland from article selections. Please note that this particular article is currently displayed at page Wikipedia:Featured articles under Culture and society subsection, see link at Wikipedia:Featured_articles#Culture_and_society.
  2. Done. I've removed Albert Einstein from bio rotations.
  3. Done. Gone ahead and removed the natural gas pipeline explosion from selected picture rotations.
I hope this is helpful towards improving the portal in line with above suggestions from Elekhh (talk · contribs), Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 19:06, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Copying below comments by Ipigott posted on his talk page. Hopefully is of help. --ELEKHHT 04:42, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for suggesting I look at the Society portal. Well, I've had a look and my first impressions are that it is not too bad as it is. I also see that it is a candidate for FA and that quite a bit of improvement work has been completed as a result. My main problem with the page is the explanation of the portal's coverage. The way it is presented at the moment is "as long as a piece of string" as they say. That probably explains why you can get right down to categories like "Women in Denmark". I was quite surprised, for example, to see that if you go through Category:Corporations you can also turn up Category:Mergers and acquisitions, which seems to me to be rather outside the scope. Maybe a bit more emphasis on the areas which are seen as priorities for the project would be a good idea. I don't think the last sentence is really appropriate either: "A 'society' may also be a group of social organisms such as an ant colony, or any cooperative aggregate such as, for example, in some formulations of artificial intelligence." [...]--Ipigott (talk) 13:23, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting points, thanks, but as for the last sentence, we defer to what's already written in the main core article's lede intro section per WP:LEAD, but I'll go ahead and remove it. — Cirt (talk) 09:42, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Trimmed last sentence of intro lede section. Any other specific suggestions would be most appreciated, — Cirt (talk) 09:43, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Support - acknowledging that my primary reservations are not so much about the quality of the portal in and of itself, but the not unreasonable question regarding how to determine what are and are not subjects of particular importance to "Society" in general. I actually have the same sort of general reservations regarding a lot of other portals of broad scope, like the religion and philosophy portals. I acknowledge the probability that the portal nominator has already done this, but if there is any way to access a major reference work more or less specifically relating to this topic, to see what are subjects are considered significant enough for inclusion in it, that might be useful. John Carter (talk) 16:37, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that most of the featured content for this portal was drawn from articles already displayed at Wikipedia:Featured articles under Culture and society subsection, see link at Wikipedia:Featured_articles#Culture_and_society. — Cirt (talk) 16:48, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Changing earlier opinion, based on response. I have recently started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion#How to achieve goals for 2013? regarding maybe bringing a bit more concerted attention to major content specifically related to topics of importance to major portals, and maybe generating a bit more effort to bringing more portals up to FP status. Although I am in no way saying that any such discussion would be necessarily required regarding this portal, I do think that, maybe, some of the same actions might be useful for portals related to other topics as well, possibly including this one. John Carter (talk) 17:43, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the quality improvement to this particular portal is part of the Main Page Featured Portal drive. :) Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 17:45, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured portal candidate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the portal's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured portal candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The portal was promoted by OhanaUnited 00:29, 28 January 2013 [2].

Portal:Bollywood


I'm nominating this for featured portal because I believe that it meets the criteria at WP:WIAFPo. It has 15 selected biographies, 16 selected articles, 15 selected pictures and 21 DYK hooks. It is quite low maintenance. Thanks and regards. — Bill william comptonTalk 15:43, 23 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Addressed comments from Crisco 1492 moved to talk

  • Support - I understand well that consensus is a minimum of 20 pieces of selected content, all of GA or FA quality. However, WP:FPO? does not indicate a minimum number (or even that there is a minimum number) and as such I think this portal matches the criteria as they are written. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 22:14, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I am expecting to see no less than 20 contents in each area (per norm). OhanaUnitedTalk page 05:30, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • At 1024x768, the selected picture spills out of its space and covers the text to its right. It works properly at higher resolutions. Chris857 (talk) 01:45, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've tried everything— changed the width of left side and the layout for pictures, but the problem doesn't seem to be on the wane. The code is similar to other featured portals. Do you know how to solve this? — Bill william comptonTalk 12:29, 5 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Have the respective talk pages of relevant WikiProjects to this topic been notified with a neutral, matter-of-fact notice of this ongoing Featured candidacy discussion? Not mandatory, but suggested and recommended, — Cirt (talk) 03:29, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, missed the update in a 10,000+ watchlist! I informed the Indian Cinema Task Force at the starting of this nomination. Should I ask each one to comment here (of course the most prolific ones)? — Bill william comptonTalk 13:18, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Cirt, do you happen to know how to resolve problem raised by Chris857? — Bill william comptonTalk 13:33, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure, depends which picture it was? I'd suggest informing matter-of-factly a few more talkpages of relevant WikiProjects. — Cirt (talk) 03:35, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
All pictures in a low resolution of browser. I've notified WP:INDIA, WP:FILM and a few users from WP:ICTF. — Bill william comptonTalk 15:37, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Query and support. Have you thought about the scope of this portal? Do we have any delineation? Bollywood is strictly speaking the Hindi film industry based in Mumbai. On the other hand, in a broader sense, other language films from India can also be considered as Bollywood films, especially by persons not much aware of the difference. Moreover, there are overlapping personalities/production houses that are involved in both Bollywood and other language industries. Personally I have no objection linking other language film/personality articles to this portal, since portals merely acts as an introductory place. However, in that case, good articles on film/personalities of other Indian languages can be added to the list in this portal.
IMO, we can make the scope broader. Indeed there are entries in this portal already which indicates such broader scope. For example, Satyajit Ray, who was not a Bollywood person in the strict sense, is listed as a featured article here. I think, we can continue to do so.
Apart from the nitpicking above, I think the portal meets the Featured Portal criteria. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 19:50, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Good pint. If the scope is not changed, some modifications need to be done. Two DYKs also are non-Bollywood type. "...that Gangavataran was the first sound film, and the last film, to be directed by Dadasaheb Phalke?" and "... that Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray (pictured) made his last documentary in 1987 on his father, as a tribute to celebrate the centenary of his birth?" I dont mind on broader scope covering complete Cinema of India. But Bollywood is the popular term all around. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 05:15, 19 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Dwaipayan to some extent. However, the scope of this portal is limited to Hindi cinema and people (or events) who influenced Indian cinema as a whole. It's virtually impossible to draw the line, particularly when there's no physical thing like "Bollywood". Contributions of Ray and Phalke is not limited to any regional film industry. Phalke was like founding father of Indian cinema (if my knowledge serves me correctly) and something equally well can be said for Ray (who also worked in Hindi cinema). — Bill william comptonTalk 15:19, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have no problem with the current scope of the portal. And as I have stated above, the portal seems to meet featured portal criteria.--Dwaipayan (talk) 15:24, 7 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for being late to get back to you. The list of recognized content showed an extensive list of GAs. Have all of them been incorporated into portal components? OhanaUnitedTalk page 06:47, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose Weak oppose With a very few exceptions images are remarkably low quality, and none of them is featured quality. The portal being about cinematography I find this a problem. Also, as noted above, there are articles for which is not clear how they are related to the topic. Another such example is Ravi Shankar. --ELEKHHT 07:56, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Though Shankar is not known for his film compositions, he has been composer of Anuradha, Meera, Neecha Nagar and probably more. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 09:06, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't dispute that, but if that's nowhere in the portal mentioned than how would the reader understand? The text also does not reflect his recent death. --ELEKHHT 13:15, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oh okay! I thought you are objecting his inclusion itself. I have now made the necessary changes after his death. But as said, his connection with Bollywood is just marginal and hence i don't find it worthy of mentioning these three films in the summary. But technically he fits in the Bollywood set. His Apu Trilogy work is however mentioned. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 15:21, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for being unresponsive. I'll try to answer all the questions in one post but it may take a week. I'll be active after the Boxing Day. — Bill william comptonTalk 12:21, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Responding to your question, I don't expect images to be featured, but satisfy criteria 1(b) - and be "aesthetically pleasing". Currently almost all illustrations are low quality snapshots from press conferences. The exceptions are SP 1, 2 and 8. The most sub-standard ones are SB 6, 7, 9, DYK 3, 5, 6, SP 6, 7 ... --ELEKHHT 20:32, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'll replace them as soon as possible. Thanks for your cooperation. — Bill william comptonTalk 06:32, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Responding to your most recent question, there is a guideline with examples on Commons which explains many aspects of what makes an image good or bad. --ELEKHHT 05:51, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've replaced some images (especially in the SP section). Can you take a look? — Bill william comptonTalk 07:51, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I had. The SP changes are a clear improvement. By the DYK and SB I don't see significant difference. I appreciate your effort, and am aware of the difficulty to get good images, but overall while the portal is good, I don't find it "an example of Wikipedia's finest work", mostly because the wast majority of its illustration is low quality snapshots from press conferences. This gives undue weight to a single aspect of Bollywood, it is not aesthetically pleasing, and looks bit like a fan blog. Personally would find it better to have no images at all where no good images can be provided, for instance in the DYK section. In any case I changed my position to weak oppose, and accept that others might have different opinion. --ELEKHHT 09:16, 1 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured portal candidate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the portal's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured portal candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The portal was promoted by Cirt 15:28, 30 January 2013 [3].

Portal:Cheshire

The Cheshire Portal was created by Ddstretch and has been maintained & expanded by me on behalf of Cheshire WikiProject. It is low maintenance with a fully automated rotating content system. The portal underwent a very helpful peer review in 2010 by Bencherlite and a featured review that year, and I believe only failed at that time because I was on an extended wikibreak and unable to attend to the relatively minor concerns raised. The stats are:

  • 32 selected articles (all FA/GA);
  • 23 biographies (mostly FA/GA, with a few B class for balanced coverage);
  • 34 32 pictures;
  • 14 lists (the majority featured);
  • 180 172 DYKs (almost all from the main page);
  • 16 14 quotations;
  • 167 164 calendar items.

All suggestions from the two reviews have been incorporated, and I believe the portal meets all the criteria for featured portal status. Espresso Addict (talk) 19:44, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support as I did before. Some dablinks fixed but otherwise nothing that I could find to impede promotion. Well done and welcome back. BencherliteTalk 20:12, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • That was quick! Thank you for all your assistance in getting it up to the standard. Espresso Addict (talk) 21:43, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just one question: How do you intend on keeping the "Newest articles" section current? Portals are built nowadays to be pretty maintenance free, and this seems like a pretty high maintenance item. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:46, 2 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's actually not very much work, as new articles from the Cheshire project are already tracked at the project page. It might be possible to adapt the relevant project section so that the information is transcluded directly from there, but at the moment I'd prefer to do it by hand, as it enables customisation of the length of time the new articles are featured there, as well as giving a bit of flexibility in the column lengths. Unfortunately the bot-created list generates far too many false positives to be useful. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:47, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Before I support this, please more fully populate the "Associated Wikimedia" section. Portal:Massachusetts/Associated Wikimedia has some of the other projects that you should consider including. I would think Wikivoyage and (ugh) Wikinews are a must, at the very least. Sven Manguard Wha? 20:48, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have added Wikivoyage. Before I nominated the portal, I pruned the Associated Wikimedia to remove those with little or no Cheshire content. Unfortunately, few of the sister sites except Commons have very much that's related to the county Cheshire; many of the hits are spurious. I'm chary of replacing Wikinews, as it never had more than extremely occasional coverage and, as far as I can tell, has only had two peripherally Cheshire-related items since 2009 (for some reason the dates displayed in the search are incorrect). Espresso Addict (talk) 13:04, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

PROMOTED by Cirt [4]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured portal candidate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the portal's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured portal candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The portal was promoted by Cirt 01:18, 31 January 2013 [5].

Portal:Massachusetts

previous FPOC (08:59, 25 February 2008)

Over the past few months, I've been working on getting Portal:Massachusetts up to FP status. It contains:

  • 20 Selected articles, all of FA or GA status
  • 20 Selected biographies, also all of FA or GA status
  • 11 Selected pictures, all of FA status
  • 10 sets of 5 DKYs
  • 12 sets of 4 "in this month" items
  • 15 Selected locations
  • a board of state facts, which I haven't seen anywhere else, but really like the idea of

I have gone over everything myself, and largely redid it from scratch. Cirt provided invaluable help at Wikipedia:Portal peer review/Massachusetts/archive2 for this effort.

Purely by coincidence (as I joined this year on impulse), this is a WikiCup nomination. While I did a lot of the work before 2013, considering the ungodly amount of time I spent on the "in this month" items yesterday (you don't want to know), I feel justified in claiming it for points for this year.

Without further ado, I hope you support this. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:43, 2 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by ypnypn
Incidentally, I have also reworked (a portal) in the past few months, which is a candidate now also. I also joined the WikiCup more or less on impulse. As far as the portal goes:
  1. The introductory box is really, really long. On my browser, it takes up an entire screen. Maybe instead of just copying the lead, you could summarize the topic (with some interesting stuff thrown in) in a paragraph or two? There is a link for readers to find out more if they want to.
  2. The Related Portals box comes out a bit awkward, since there's a line break halfway through. I understand the logical purpose of it, but on some zoom settings it just doesn't look good at all.
  3. Also in that box, is US Roads really so related to Massachusetts?
  4. The navbox on the bottom seems redundant to the topics section above.
  5. In the WikiProjects section, ummm... Universities???
  6. The Selected Locations is a nice addition, but I think you should only include those of at least Good Article status, or at a minimum B-Class. Hingham Bay is only start-class.
  7. The state facts section makes the portal unique, but I'm not sure it actually improves the portal. Maybe if some of the facts were unusual (species of cod, state fossil, full-time professors, etc.) it might be interesting, but as of now, it's somewhat dull (in contrast to the rest of the portal).
  8. I think the first word in the portal should be linked to the article - similar to the Selected Articles, Locations, etc.
  9. I noticed that on the entire portal, there isn't even one map of the state.
Sorry for being so critical: the portal really looks great, but there are enough issues here that I'm not sure I can support its candidacy. I'll be glad to change my mind if possible. Good luck -- YPNYPN ✡ 01:20, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
My responses, in the number order you gave:
  1. Noted by you and the person below. Will change. I'm wordy, I like wordy, I forget sometimes that some people don't like wordy.
  2. Fixed.
  3. It was there when I started, and while it didn't seem the most compelling choice, I didn't see any compelling reason to remove it. There are U.S. roads in Massachusetts.
  4. I was thinking the same thing. Since the bottom one is a template used elsewhere, and is rather well done, I feel that if we're going to remove one, it should be the topics section.
  5. There are over 200 universities and colleges in Massachusetts, the highest concentration of higher education in the United States, possibly the world. I think it's a good fit.
  6. I tried to go for diversity of location, and while I think I avoided linking to flagrantly broken articles, if I limited only to B-class or above, I wouldn't be able to pull off a balance of locations.
  7. The point of a portal is to provide information about the subject, in an appealing and easy to absorb way. A selection of practical, need to know facts seems like a more useful thing to have then a listing of what, say, the state soil is (it's "Paxton Soil Series", by the way).
  8. Fixed.
  9. Seems like a good thing to have, no? I'll try and add one in when I redo the top section.
Thanks for the review. I'll let you know when I'm done with your suggestions. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:16, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In the lead, the term "least extensive" is a bit ambiguous, how about just using "smallest"? Also, what is "high technology"? -- YPNYPN ✡ 15:25, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
For the map, I was hoping for something that would show a non-American where Massachusetts actually is. File:Massachusetts in United States.svg, which appears in the infobox of the main article, might be a good choice (perhaps as the inset). -- YPNYPN ✡ 15:27, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've changed it to smallest, linked high technology, and swapped maps. Thanks again for this. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:18, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

All of the issues have been addressed, and overall the portal looks excellent. Support featured portal status. -- YPNYPN ✡ 00:35, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Espresso Addict

Comment. Nice variety of Selected articles/biographies/locations; I particularly like the fact that there are biographies of women, sometimes in sadly short supply in featured/good content. (Is there a reason for excluding Bette Davis?) Personally I'm not bothered by inclusion of non-GA/FA content in the Selected locations, as long as the linked content is of a decent standard (preferably B class). I fixed one typo, but the portal generally appears well copy edited, with rollover captions supplied for images and credits for the Selected pictures. The following are mostly fairly minor issues...

  1. Is dark blue a Massachusetts colour? It's a fairly conservative colour choice.
  2. Can you expand the Selected pictures? It felt an odd constricted selection without any buildings, landmarks, or geographical features. I don't see any reason for the pictures all to be featured, as long as they are attractive and encyclopedic; the criteria for featured pictures tends, I think, to produce a rather biased set of images.
  3. A map would be useful.
  4. Introduction takes up most of my (fairly high-res) screen. Suggest reduce so that at least the beginning of the two subsequent portal items is visible.
  5. There are spaces of ~1 cm at the top of many boxed items (except the Selected picture, and boxes that start with bullet points). Also space under the introduction before the 'Show new selections' link and at the bottom of the Things to do box. (I'm using Firefox.)
  6. Selected picture, biography, DYK all need link to archived items.
  7. Selected article blurbs might be a little overlong. I counted a selection and they were all at or over 300 words (the guideline is 200 words max). The same is true of Selected locations. The biographies seem to be a more appropriate length.
  8. Blurb for Ellis Paul cuts in an unfortunate place and feels unfinished.
  9. Right-hand column appears consistently significantly shorter, often by more than the height of the DYK box. You might put In this month into a single RH column? (This might well disappear if the Selected article/location blurbs were significantly reduced in length.)
  10. DYK would benefit from images. They need not have appeared on the main page, as long as the license is ok and the image works at 100x100px.
  11. Is there a reason for gating In this month at 4 items? There are presumably many more. These items should probably end in a full stop as they are full sentences. Images might work well here, too.
  12. The list of topics probably shouldn't be duplicated with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts box at the bottom of the portal. I'd suggest removing the latter.
  13. Image captions (rollover text) should not end in full stop unless full sentences.
  14. Miles should probably be given in full or abbreviated throughout for consistency.
  15. Under Selected articles archive, the 'More selected articles' link is redlinked. Likewise Selected locations.
    This was a bug in the template; I fixed it while fixing the rest. 23:08, 19 January 2013 (UTC)~
  16. Fascinated to find the origin of gerrymandering is American, but should the newspaper in this picture blurb be the Boston Gazette, per the linked article?

That's all for now. Hope this helps in improving the portal still further. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:55, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My responses, in the number order you gave:
Bette Davis was not included because "born in Massachusetts" is, to me, not enough of a tie to the state to warrant inclusion. I wanted people that were strongly linked to Massachusetts. I ended up discarding several media personalities and sports stars for this reason.
  1. Dark blue is, in fact, a state color. Kinda. The official colors are "Blue, Green, Cranberry", but outside of the WMF logo, those really don't work well together. Dark blue is what makes up the bulk of the state seal and the part of the state flag that isn't background, so I felt it was an apt choice. When I started on the portal, it had gold borders, but they looked horrid so I removed them.
  2. Perhaps. I'd prefer to use FPs whenever possible, although it would give me an excuse to remove the unruly-shaped ones already in there. I'll think about it.
  3. Noted above, will deal with that.
  4. Noted above, will deal with that too.
  5. I have no idea how to fix that. I don't know portal template syntax. The only one I was able to fix was the gap between the introduction and the rest. I'll ask Cirt for help.
  6. That one has bothered me, but again, I have no idea how to fix that. I'll ask Cirt for help.
  7. Yeah, they are long. I tend to write long. I'm not sure it's a problem though, and at this point it would be difficult to change them.
  8. Added an extra line on about Mr. Paul's success.
  9. There are three especially tall images that can throw the balance off. There is no way, save removing the images, to fix this. Adding content on the other side will mean that there will be a large imbalance in the opposite direction 8/11ths of the time.
  10. I disagree. There are already plenty of images, and I don't like messing wit DYKs; once they've been published, I feel it's wrong to change them, even to add an image.
  11. In this month took a day and a half to populate. I really don't ever even want to think about that section again. That being said, the reason I capped it at four was because I did consider putting it on the left hand column, but I couldn't get the balance to work. I don't want to add images here either. At a certain point, it becomes visual pollution. 100px images are generally useless, and it's cleaner without them.
  12. I removed the former.
  13. I'll look into that and fix it.
  14. ?
  15. It works perfectly fine from the main portal. I'm not sure why it's redlinked once you go in further. Again, it's likely template syntax. I'll ask Cirt.
    I got this while fixing the other portal. Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:08, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  16. I took the spelling from the file description page.
Thanks for the review. I'll work on some things and get back to you. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:49, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So I think all that's left is to:
  1. Redo selected pictures selection
  2. Get rid of that torrid green border in the selected pictures section
  3. Get a link to the archives for DYK
  4. Sort out the 1cm gap issue
I can do the first and only the first of those; someone with more expertise in portal template syntax will be needed for the other three. Sven Manguard Wha? 03:27, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Having another look... (Same order as above.)

  1. I'm ok with the colour, if it's a state colour. It does look a bit bland, though. Was the gold really terrible?
  2. Still waiting on Selected pictures.
  3. I appreciate the location map in the facts box, but a map somewhere actually showing the state a little larger than a grain of rice would be nice too.
  4. The intro still seems overlong. Without scrolling, I get only 3 lines of the Selected article, which is not enough to see whether it's of interest. (And my monitor is reasonably high in vertical resolution.)
  5. I have no idea how to fix the 1 cm gap; I've tried fiddling with the most obvious parameter to no avail, sorry. You might try asking Bencherlite; he was very helpful with the formatting issues on the Cheshire portal.
  6. Still waiting on link to archives for DYK.
  7. Selected article/location blurbs still seem substantially overlong to me. Some of the Selected article choices take up the entire screen depth, and the great majority prevent anything but the box header being visible for the next item.
  8. Column balance is still off. I did a lot of refreshes and right was invariably shorter, usually by at least the depth of the In this month box. (With a short image, it was light by the entire In this month and nearly all of DYK; with a tall image it was still somewhat shorter.) Could something from the lower section be moved up to the right-hand column? WikiProjects, perhaps?
  9. I don't understand the attitude to not altering the main page DYK hooks; not changing the meaning is one thing, but not adding an image? But I won't insist. However, without images in either DYK/In this month boxes, there are no images in a broad part of the middle of the portal, from the map in State facts for nearly two screenfuls to the stock graphics of the Related portals/WikiProjects. Perhaps one of the image-including sections could be swapped with either DYK or In this month?
  10. I hate to think how much time I've wasted spent on the In this month events on the Cheshire portal. It took about 6 weeks to develop, involving the whole Wikiproject. The full sentences thing still needs fixing too.
  11. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts box has an odd "Note: Municipalities not listed have a town meeting form of government" at the bottom, which was one reason I preferred the portal-customised topics box.
  12. "Miles" vs "mi" is probably because the unit conversion template is being used inconsistently.
  13. There are still redlinks for More... in the various archives.

Hope this helps! Espresso Addict (talk) 01:27, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The redlink issues should all be fixed. If there's more issues, leave a message on my talk page. Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:09, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As with last time, I swapped your bullets for numbers, so I could respond in order:

  1. Yes. Very much so yes. Definitely yes. Yes.
  2. I'm up to seventeen now, with sizing normalized, and added in some landmarks. If you've got suggestions for more, I'd be happy to put them in.
  3. Done. Now the first map has a friend.
  4. I've trimmed it a tad, though it pained me to do so. I will trim it some more when I recover. Done, I think.
  5. I have a feeling that I am going to have to create a new template, it seems to be the fault of the default templates.
  6. Done.
  7. I will get to this soon.
  8. I believe I've fixed this by overhauling the selected pictures.
  9. The in this month section now has images. Since it's below the DYK section, the image balance thing should be fixed.
  10. Periods are in.
  11. Fixed that.
  12. I still need to find what you're referring to. Oh.
  13. Adam got this one for us.
Everything but 4, 5, 7, and 12 is done. I'll keep working on it. Sven Manguard Wha? 04:47, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think everything is done. The portal is balanced, the content is manageably sized, and all of the typical components are in. Besides that, it just looks good. Sven Manguard Wha? 20:42, 20 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
2. I like some of the additions a lot, but others are a bit low in quality (10 is largely out of focus, 16 & 17 are rather dull). Also, not sure whether they did this before, but some of the wider images are now breaking out of the box?
3. The new map is excellent, thanks. Unfortunately, it too is poking out of the box.
7. The article blurbs are still rather longer than I believe is optimal, but at least now the top few lines of the next item are showing, thanks.
10. I'd prefer more items here, particularly as it goes over two columns and so won't affect the balance, but perhaps that is a section that can be developed more slowly.
12. I've fixed another one.
That's it! I'll be happy to support if you remove/replace image 10, which made my head ache, and fix the images poking out their boxes. Cheers, Espresso Addict (talk) 13:55, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
2. I picked 10 because it was a QI or VI (I forget which) on Commons. 16 and 17 are the only ones that aren't FP/ComFP/QI/VI, and it shows. I'll remove number 10 now.
2/3. As for the poking out of the box, my screen is 1600x900, which I know is large. I actually optimized the portal for 1280x720, which is, as best as my research could tell, what would be considered a decent resolution for computers purchased several years ago. Things start to protrude once you get down to resolutions lower than that, but I felt that I had to balance the ability for people to see the images clearly with compatibility, and let's face it, people with old 800x600 monitors (yes, they still exist) are going to have problems viewing Wikipedia project-wide. I feel bad for people who are operating 1024x768, but the only way to accommodate them is to make both the images and the maps uselessly small.
10. Thanks for the compromise. It was hard for me to cut what I did cut as it is.
12. Thanks.
Alright, so I swapped out 16 (which was meh, but at least good quality) for number 10, and scrapped 17. I trimmed down some of the wider images. Although I wasn't seeing issues before in 1280, I figured this would help anyways. If I run across any more anniversaries, I'll add so that we might get five a month eventually. I've been trying to track down a anniversary calendar, but have yet to find a good one. Additionally, I will keep an eye out for more high quality pictures to put in. Thank you for the review, and all the help throughout this process. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:32, 21 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've still got the map sticking well out of the box. I don't think it's so much the screen resolution as the fact that text columns are optimally read with a maximum column width of about about 10–12 words (what you get in a paperback), so forcing column width with fixed images that are significantly wider than that impairs readability, whatever the screen res. Looking at the Image use policy, it says maximum 400 px (which this exceeds) but that's for a single column layout. Is there any clever way of lining the two up so that they stay together if people prefer the columns wide, but separate if they narrow them? Or you might try swapping the State facts into the wider left-hand column? Or simply putting one of the maps at the bottom of the box?
Everything else is looking fine. Espresso Addict (talk) 08:31, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
How about now? Sven Manguard Wha? 00:12, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's very strange when the second image flows over! Have you tried float left? (As currently used to make the graphics in the Wikiprojects box flow.) Espresso Addict (talk) 10:46, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't want it to look like I'm passing the buck, but at this point I really don't have a solution that I know how to implement. If you can think of a better model, please implement it. I want the portal to work, but I've reached my template competence limit. In case the edit summaries haven't given it away, all of the advanced template coding mumbo-jumbo I have is taken from other portals. Sven Manguard Wha? 00:23, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's pretty much my approach too! If you're happy with the simple solution I've implemented, I'm happy to Support. Espresso Addict (talk) 13:13, 25 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I can live with it. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:03, 25 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]


PROMOTED by Cirt [6]

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