Forum:More "front pages", concise version

Forums: Index > Village Dump > More "front pages", concise version

Note: This topic has been unedited for 5266 days. It is considered archived - the discussion is over. Do not add to unless it really needs a response.

What would happen if I had my way

• create banners for "Category main pages" on the left side of the category names, top of page
• the banners will act as links to portals
• the portals will each be governed by someone (see below)
• the content of the portals will change "every now and then", I suggest weekly, perhaps mondays (something fun after the weekend)
• the idea of the portal: promote good articles that have failed VFH or never got nominated. I mean those too short, those with jokes too divergent, and so forth
• my idea is NOT that people will specifically write new content for them. Just promote what is already there, but lost among worse articles
• benefit 1: readers will have easy access to good articles that have fallen (or will fall) to obscurity
• benefit 2: the writers of the articles will feel they have accomplished something despite not getting front page

Like this, there will be somewhat more control than over News and Recent, especially Recent. Idea is that good articles, categorised, will be easier to find than until now. It will give some structure. People like categories, but now finding a good article in a category will be hard. I would like the editors of portals to do it for the readers.

What's needed now

• someone of the Cabal should tell me if it's going to happen or not
• someone of the Cabal should ask around and select the portal editors
• someone of the Cabal should tell us/them/me how many portals, and on which categories
• if this is given a go-ahead, I suggest the structure and content of the portals will be discussed separately

My idea is the portals would basically be about customary newspaper categories: politics, science, economy, stuff like that - along with those categories people are otherwise interested in.

Before you argue against...

...please take your time and read the original forum. I have addressed probably most of the counter-arguments there at some point. Note that this is the final product, crystallized (even diamondified), after discussion with those who initially got interested in what I had to say. -- Style  Guide 05:20, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I like this idea

Wikipedia has stuff like this and I think it helps, I'll look after a portal if this does get up and running. ~Orian57~ ~Talk~ 05:37 19 May 2009

As I said in the last topic, I think it's a good idea. Not banners, bleh. To get it up and running you just need to make one. If it matches one of the categories on the top right of the front page (or something more useful than Quaint, etc), I'll swap the link so it points to the portal instead. Make enough good looking portals and I'll put a link in the sidebar to a portals portal. Also, there's no reason to have just one editor per portal. It's a wiki for a reason. Dunno what that reason is, but let's just stick to that anyway. And it doesn't need to be regularly updated at all. Could even be completely random based on categories. • Spang • ☃ • talk • 05:47, 19 May 2009

I like the idea of mimicking wikipedia's portals as Spang mentioned in the other portal. I think you need one-two editor per portal for arranging it, this doesn't damage the whole wiki thing, since we do ask specific editors to do specific administrative tasks in order not to descend into total chaos. So, as long as the portals look good and encyclopedic like, I think we're good. ~ 06:25, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks all for support and help in developing the idea to something workable - I will exit stage left. If you want me to run a portal, please leave a message on my talk page. Science and Culture are my strong suits if I don't need to know anything about them. If you want me to create a portal or two, I will do that as well - but will need help or at least an idea of where to find a template to work with (since I'm not much of a sprelunker). -- Style  Guide 07:16, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Game Portal Done, More or Less

User:Mnbvcxz/GamePortal

Do I need to add anything else? --Mnb'z 17:08, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

There's two things I think need fixing - first, how do we deal with the fact that that the Science Portal looks completely different? Do we want different layouts or a standard one? Also, please remove the whoring section, we have enough of that already. ~ 17:32, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

If it's OK by Mnbvcxz: copy my Science Portal, fix it a bit, turn it into the main Games portal. If you want to keep the lists like you have now - after all, they're just lists - do it the same way as main page/recent articles does. 15-20 article links visible, and "more" after that. Same thing with each list. Looks neater. I'm convinced the portal gains credibility by having a main article. It's the customary way with newspapers and stuff. People can relate to it easily. No need to add quotes and stuff like that unless you want to.

Another way: standard layout not totally necessary. If Mnbvcxz is much against my first suggestion, I think we could make the "conservative" portals look like Science portal, and the rest according to taste. -- Style  Guide 17:49, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

In fact, if you drop the "best..." section below the rest and find something, anything at all, to fill the space on top of page, it's not much different from mine any more. Swap the places of "You gotta help us" and "Did you know" and you're done. Froget about my comments in the previous post. -- Style  Guide 17:53, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

The "whoring" section is there to find related good but not featured articles while keeping the conflict/labor required to a minimum. Basically, its like Multiliteralist's promotion section, but without the "approval by the portal owner process. I think its probably the best way to find good by not featured articles without making it arbitrary or labor-heavy. --Mnb'z 18:44, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

First up, it's not as much about approval as giving the portal jock a chance to check for typos and other obvious corrections. Second, Mordillo's suggestion might just have been about the word as well. I agree on yours being the quickest way. -- Style  Guide 18:50, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

...what about the layout business, do you think you could swap places as a quick way to make them more similar? -- Style  Guide 18:57, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not going to be on much the next few days, but I could do a layout move relatively easily. I probably need some sort of feature at the top, (along with other fixes) and that will take a while to do. I also renamed the whore section to the promotion section.
Also, I don't think the portals need to look the same, we probably should experiment with different layouts first. --Mnb'z 19:29, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, they don't have to. But they're close enough now, and besides I think it's a good idea to mimic front page - if not exactly then at least close. I would make mine almost exactly like fromt page but I'm lacking knowledge, lots of it. -- Style  Guide 19:33, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

The wikipedia portals don't look like their front page, and we have enough front page parodies as it is. --Mnb'z 05:17, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say they do, I didn't know we have, and I'll not argue about any of this any more. It's all the same to me what the portals look like. -- Style  Guide 05:54, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I will take some of that back - I had other reasons to be grumpy when I read your last post, sorry. It's not all the same to me, and I will argue, but not much. I didn't mean as a parody of front page. Instead, I think a similar layout on all the main pages is easier on the eyes (you know what's where) than a different layout on each. But it's not important enough for me to start a sandbox war. You do yours, I do mine. -- Style  Guide 07:19, 24 May 2009 (UTC)