Forum:Portals

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I was thinking about creating new portals, however, they require a good bit of work to create. And I think Zana Dark is the only who knows how to format them correctly. Anyway, does anyone still care about the portals?

If not, I think it will be easier to create templates of featured articles, like I added in Category:Anatomy to do the main purpose of portals (i.e. direct readers to good articles.) --Mn-z 02:28, March 16, 2010 (UTC)

I'm looking forward to Portal 2, myself.--<<>> 03:19, March 16, 2010 (UTC)

1. What new portals do we even need?
2. Are the current portals being maintained? As far as I can see (which isn't particularly far, admittedly) they haven't been changed much since they were set up. Maintaining portals takes time (as I recall from when I bothered with UnBooks, Why? and HowTo, and I don't think enough of the portals we already have are maintained, so why not keep those up-to-date and use those to direct readers to good articles? --UU - natter 09:39, Mar 16

I change the featured articles on the arts portal from time to time, though admittedly not as much as I probably should. I stumbled across the TV portal last week and it hadn't been changed since it was set up, so I made some changes there as well. I think we could do with getting a few more people involved in maintaining them, but I'm not too sure how we could go about that as it's not the most interesting task in the world. Rabbi Techno kvetch Contribs FOXES 09:53, March 16, 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and also - I took over the Why and HowTo portals after discussion with Mordillo and have been changing the features weekly. I just need someone to wrote some decent articles for them now, as we're starting to run out of featurable stuff! Rabbi Techno kvetch Contribs FOXES 09:55, March 16, 2010 (UTC)

I'm not surprised - I changed 'em monthly and still was running out of featurable stuff! --UU - natter 10:04, Mar 16

I might start borrowing and adapting some suitable articles from mainspace, thinking of it. I'm sure a few could be adapted and put to good use. Rabbi Techno kvetch Contribs FOXES 10:06, March 16, 2010 (UTC)

I'd do something about it if I'm allowed to, and if someone would give me some pointers, since I'm still inexperienced. I spend a lot of time on this site mostly doing nothing, anyway. I'm also supposed to be studying now but my lecture slides are not loading. If you don't want me, that's ok too because I'm still sort of a noob, and I don't know much coding except to steal other people's templates. ~ 13:16, Mar 16, 2010

Feel free to fiddle about with the arts portal if you want - I try to change the features once a month or so, if you want to do them too - so they change more regularly - then great. :-) Rabbi Techno kvetch Contribs FOXES 13:25, March 18, 2010 (UTC)

I have my portals set up so that they do not need constant maintenance. Basically, the idea to to help the reader find good articles on a given subject. --Mn-z 23:09, March 16, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I saw that "choose option" thing, but there are only the same four articles, anyway. Many recent featured articles are related to the portals, but they're not there. The recent unNews hasn't changed for a long while as well, the same for the featured pic. I thought that the idea should be to help readers find as many good articles as we can, instead of just ten or so. When I was a lurker here I spent the most time browsing the FA and QFA archives, and that is probably the best way to find good articles, but perhaps we could also do the same for the portals to have a list of all the good articles pertaining to the portal. ~ 10:31, Mar 17, 2010

Oh, actually, the game portal is well set up by mnbvcx, right along the lines of where I was thinking. ~ 12:37, Mar 17, 2010

1. What new portals do we even need? --UU - natter 12:58, Mar 17

We don't really "need" any of them. However, I think the narrower portals can be helpful. --Mn-z 00:31, March 18, 2010 (UTC)

About the first post... Zana Dark doesnt look like the only one who can format them because it looks like Silly Angel created at least two... and he was a relatively inexperienced user.

Portals are good for directing and controlling what articles users experience and see, but too many of them looks bad because, as mentioned above, some are not even maintained User:Rifting 12:28, March 18, 2010 (UTC)

I did the Religion Portal at the behest of Zana Dark. It's got some automation, and I've been maintaining it intermittently. I will put it on my to do list to check it out for problems and to update it. It seems like the same could be done with some of the other templates, but I'm not volunteering. Cheers! Rev. Zim_ulator (Talk) I am the dirt under your rollers 16:30, March 18, 2010 (UTC)

What would be nice is if we could get the entire process to be automated. It probably would be possible but would require a proper voting process or at least a highlighting process for the articles. User:Rifting 18:21, March 18, 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we could create an automated process. And even if we could, it might be too hard on the servers. I also really don't think a "vote for highlight" system for each portal will work either. Getting people to vote on the real VFH is hard enough as it is. VFG has been basically dead since its creation with brief exceptions. For the good by not featured, I set the portals I created to more or less a free for all. I haven't got any edit warring [that I know of], but that is in part because the portals are rarely edited. --Mn-z 00:56, March 19, 2010 (UTC)

We might be lacking sports, technology, health and maybe sex. ~ 04:13, Mar 20, 2010

I recognize "technology", but the rest are gibberish. You're talking crazy! Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 06:49, March 20, 2010 (UTC)