Portal talk:Cricket/Archive 1
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New approach to the "cricket" page
This is a new experimental approach. On searching for "cricket" users will find a reader-friendly portal to cricket pages. Please leave the page like this for at least a fortnight, though do feel free to comment on the new approach (and to improve the presentation of the portal). Thanks, jguk 21:31, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Firstly, I think the page is great. I reckon having this kind of page significantly improves the readability of the encyclopedia, and its friendlyness. What are the requirements for the "showcase articles"? Would, for example, Alan Knott be suitable? In addition, I see that you have used div tags throughout for formatting. I find these confusing and almost uneditable unless you yourself have put them together. A table would probably work just as well, and be more user-friendly. I'll have a go in my subpages. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 21:48, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Thanks for your support. I used the term "showcase articles" to mean articles not of featured status, but are not stubs, and contain a reasonable level of information about the subject. To my mind the level of quality threshold is probably lower for articles on great players or famous grounds, say, than it is for journeymen pros and the cricket ground of your local non-first-class club (though obviously others may have different ideas of what should go in there). Alan Knott would certainly qualify - feel free to add him.
- I copied the standard Wikiportal layout - hence the "divs". Though I see no need to restrict ourselves to mimickry - please improve the page as you see fit! Kind regards, jguk 22:04, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- User:Smoddy/cricket. I have made the whole layout cleaner. If you like it, I'll do the merging, if that's okay. Cheers, Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 22:26, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Go for it! Your version looks much better to me! Kind regards, jguk 22:41, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
please move this back to the regular article
all wikiportals are in the wikipedia namespace, the main article on cricket should be at cricket, this violates all wikipedia naming conventions that the main article on a topic should be at the most common name, which is in this case is cricket. it also breaks the principle of least surprise: a link to cricket is assumed to take you to the main article. all other wikiportals are in the wikipedia namespace and so it breaks that too. this is highly non-standard. please change it back. a prominent link to the wikiportal like the biology article has would be appropriate. clarkk 22:40, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Of course it's non-standard - it's an experiment:) - and a worthwhile one at that. All other Wikiportals are for the benefit of editors: this one's for the benefit of readers. It may catch on, it may not - but it does little harm to leave it for a while to see what others think. Besides, it's all about trying to improve Wikipedia - which is one reason why we're all here. Kind regards, jguk 22:52, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Wikiportals are both for the benefit of readers and editors. I'm moving it to Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Cricket. Ausir 23:01, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- I agree, this should be in the Wikipedia namespace. Relevant links to various articles should be put in the article on cricket itself (see also: list of cricket players, etc.). On top of all, it just looks bad. CryptoDerk 23:04, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, I also think that while this is a good idea and Wikiportals are good things generally, they should not be in the article space. — Trilobite (Talk) 23:05, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- That's why I think a separate namespace should be given to portals. Ausir 23:25, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
How about adding templates like the {{commons}} or {{wiktionary}} ones to articles which have portals connected to them? Ausir 23:07, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- The problem with that is that we have people that don't want any links from the main space to the Wikipedia space because it'll be harder for reusers to use Wikipedia content (see Template talk:Spoken Wikipedia). So you'll have a hell of a time keeping the link to the portal. --SPUI (talk) 23:14, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- As Trilobite said. Burgundavia 23:22, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)
Portal is less accessible than article:
- Emphasizes navigation over information on main topic. Assumes reader is interested in the whole field of cricket, rather than a weighted, narrated overview of the topic.
- Uses non-linear navigation. Emphasizes Wikipedia's medium as a website rather than taking into account reader needs. Useless for print or speech; makes it impossible to have an article named "cricket" that's about cricket.
- Violates Wikipedia:Avoid self-references; elevates contributors over readers by such phrases as "if you would like to contribute to Wikipedia's cricket-related articles on an ongoing basis, please feel free to join Wikipedia:WikiProject Cricket – a page where cricket-loving Wikipedians can say what they're doing or ask for help or outside opinions."; makes third-party use unnecessarily hard.
Disregarding the specific topic, please try to establish why replacing articles with Wikiportals (when there is extensive coverage of the topic) is a better idea for readers than regular articles. If the argument is just "see how it looks", my reply is "I don't like it". JRM · Talk 23:24, 2005 Apr 28 (UTC)
- Die die die. This sort of stuff belongs in Wikipedia: namespace. It's self-referential. We don't need a "portal" masquerading as an article, thank you very much. -Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 23:25, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- I think it actually should belong to Wikiportal: namespace, should it be created. Wikiportals are something between articles and meta pages, and are both for readers and editors. Ausir 23:28, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Please get rid of this portal, or move it to the Wikipedia: namespace. The sport article should go here, with a disambiguation notice at the top that links both to cricket (insect) and cricket (disambiguation). Readers should access articles, not horrendous meta-pages, when they type in the name of an article. silsor 23:27, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)
I concur with everyone else (silsor, Ausir, Fennec, JRM). Can't we move the portal to Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Cricket and use the {{portal}} template on Cricket (sport), like we do on People's Republic of China? Neutralitytalk 23:36, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)
I can't believe anyone would do something like this after talking it over with one person. I think that jguk and Smoddy are perhaps biased, and that jguk should have asked on village pump first. I asked why he didn't request comments on village pump and jguk wrote "putting something on the Village Pump brings out reactionaries". After jguk made this change, several people on IRC told him this was a bad idea and he proceeded to call us "reactionaries". He implored us to "see if it works" and leave it up for 2 weeks (is there any way to measure how "well it works"?) He says it's not hurting anyone (sound like a familiar argument to anyone?) He feels that the links to the most relevant cricket articles aren't clicked on enough. This is exactly what the "see also" section is for... this is what categories are for... this is what lists are for. I must stress not only that this is a poor idea (for reasons already stated by myself and others), but also just as poor are the reasoning, rationale, and argument for leaving it up. CryptoDerk 23:37, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)
- We commonly have non-articles in the article namespace - for instance, there are many disambiguation pages (like the one someone keeps trying to move here, without any discussion at all!) This one acts as a useful portal and increases the likelihood that readers will choose to read more cricket pages - they can find them much more easily. No WP principles are being abandoned - indeed, this approach puts the positive development of Wikipedia first.
- I ask that this experiment be given a chance (after all, it's much better than many a disambiguation page or many a stub that people often find after searching).
- Yes, the approach does take advantage of WP being a website. What's wrong with that? We have limited technology, we should harness that to provide as readable and informative encyclopaedia as possible. And remember the article on Cricket itself is given the most prominence. It's only one click away! Kind regards, jguk 06:27, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- I do not support this move, and would like the article to moved back immediately. I believe it was inappropriate to make this controversial move without any attempt at discussion. Specifically: I believe this "portal" page is too cluttered and too complicated to replace an article at this location. Disambiguation pages are far better—clear and concise. In addition, it is confusing to find this "web site" layout in place of the normal article layout. Furthermore, I do not believe there is any need to leave this here for a fortnight, as was requested. I believe this experiment drew attention, as was perhaps its intention, and it looks to me that the consensus is pretty clear to use the old version. There is already a similar page at Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Cricket; is there any preference to where this portal article should be moved? Jguk, it was a good idea; but there is clearly not community support now. Perhaps you can rework the page, or continue discussions on the talk pages, but you should gather more support before redoing such a change. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:51, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- I don't really care if this article is about the sport or if it's a disambiguation page; I do think the portal should go. It is confusing, and unnecessary for those people who want to read a encyclopedia article on cricket (either the sport or another meaning). The portal may be of more use to people who are following the sport, but they should not be the audience of an encyclopedia. Also, the portal is confusing for editors. (By the way, I moved the link to the disambiguation page to its standard location. It was hidden away in the portal.) Eugene van der Pijll 07:55, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- I agree with Eugene. — Matt Crypto 10:55, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- I don't really care if this article is about the sport or if it's a disambiguation page; I do think the portal should go. It is confusing, and unnecessary for those people who want to read a encyclopedia article on cricket (either the sport or another meaning). The portal may be of more use to people who are following the sport, but they should not be the audience of an encyclopedia. Also, the portal is confusing for editors. (By the way, I moved the link to the disambiguation page to its standard location. It was hidden away in the portal.) Eugene van der Pijll 07:55, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- I on the other hand think that topic-specific portals can provide a great of use to Wikipedia, and presumably so do lots of other people who have created them (see Wikipedia:Wikiportal for a list). So essentially the question is where to put these pages given that
- Some people like the pages and some people don't (no change there then!)
- They are kind of hybrid between a categorisation, an article and a wikiproject page.
- Some people don't like main-to-out-of-main links because they break reusability.
- Here are two further possibilities for starters that get consensus support .... put the page at Category:Cricket before the usual category listing (see Category:Cetaceans for an example) or put the page at Cricket (portal). Pcb21| Pete 11:50, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
A compromise
User:Smoddy/portal Right, in view of what's put above, I really think this page (Cricket) should be the page currently at Cricket (sport) (Neutrality: Cricket hasn't been a disambig as far as I am aware, and that monstrosity you created is not even practical). However, I do think that the portal has its place in the main namespace. I suggest:
- Cricket goes to Cricket (portal) with redirect deleted
- Cricket (sport) goes to Cricket with a redirect kept
- A template along the lines of User:Smoddy/portal (see right) – could be made into {{portal}}? – is positioned at the top of Cricket as would be.
This, I think, will make the portal most useful and accessible. It keeps the portal in the main namespace, as it is certainly a something for readers – every other namespace is at least partly for editors. It is a shame that other users don't like the portal's positioning, but there we go. I hope this solution is more attractive. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 13:18, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It is:
- (a) Sensible and rational to put the sport at cricket - this is, after all, by far the most common and obvious use of the term. (And note well: I am a biology person, not a sport fan, so I say this against my natural bias.)
- (b) Really, really ugly the way it is laid out right now. It's had a chance, and it fails miserably. Let's scrap the Ugliportal look right away and have a normal encyclopedia page.
Tannin 13:25, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Over a dozen people have come out against this change, with jguk's only supporter being Smoddy. I find jguk's reasoning to leave this up very poor. Even when asked multiple times how he intends to "reassess" the situation, he didn't give any answer. He didn't want to post on Village Pump about it because he was afraid of a negative repsonse. Fine. He went through with it and now the consensus is that this should not stand, therefore I'm reverting. CryptoDerk 13:40, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)
- Oh, and I should note. I'm just reverting back to whatever non-portal page there is. If someone wants to move the articles back around or however they were before, feel free, but the consensus is that the portal should not be there. CryptoDerk 13:42, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)
- Yes. Being bold is a fine Wikipedia principle, but it's important to be sensitive to the reaction. If there's significant opposition to the change, it's best to undo it and try and win people round through discussion. — Matt Crypto 13:59, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- I concur. I dislike the portal, and think the Cricket article currently at Cricket (sport) should be at Cricket, with the disambig page currently at Cricket back at Cricket (disambiguation). I think we will need an administrator to do this for us, though. --Ngb 14:10, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
My actions
Right, I have moved everything around. I have basically followed people's request that the articles be moved to their original locations. As I noted above, I have placed a line on the top of Cricket about the portal, which is now located at Cricket (portal) – I implore people: don't move it without discussion. I must say now, I think the disambiguation that temporarily existed at this page was appalling, far worse than the portal. It's one thing to do a bold move as Jguk did, one thing to move things back to as they were, but quite another to make a hashed-up disambiguation that doesn't even conform with the GFDL. BTW, the only real reasons that I have seen for the removel of the portal are a) that all the other's are in Wikipedia (that's not a good reason, see beg the question), and b) avoid self-references (I say Template:comics-stub). Nevertheless, let's see how we can go with getting some decent consensus. Incidentally, I dislike the idea that all the wikiportals must conform to one particular format – if it improves the look, we should not be constricted by rules that seem to exist entirely for their own sake. Different subjects have different needs, and different communities (cricket and biology, for example) will want different pages. That, to me, is fine. Let's not get into some kind of template:sisterproject scenario just because we want guidelines to conform to. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 19:49, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- I see no problem with putting the portal in the main namespace, especially if it gets around the "no self-references" crowd. --SPUI (talk) 20:25, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- If you look carefully anyway, you'll see <font class="plainlinks"> for the only instance of an self-referential link. An exception is made for stubs, why can't one be made for portals? (That's a rhetorical question, BTW). Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 20:30, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Critique of the portal
It looks like a really good idea, but some thoughts: 1. Ditch the black lines. 2. Slim down the showcase articles. Less is more 3. Consistent spacing on the "Browse cricket-related categories" categories. Cheers. Burgundavia 20:00, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)
- All sorted. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 20:52, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Avoid self-references revisited
I'd like to formulate the self-reference objection bottom-up rather than top-down.
In the present portal, the interests of contributors and readers are tangled up in a rotten way. Normally, everything that's good for contributors ("edit this page", "move", "discussion") can just be discarded when you don't need it, to produce a reader-only version. You can't do that with a portal because it has both parts intertwined. "Sign up for this Wikiproject"? "Showcase articles"? What's a reader supposed to do with that? What is "top cricket nations", anyway? By world rank? By popularity? Why not "top cricket players"? Should this be obvious to a reader? This looks like Cricketpedia; throwing stuff at people because we can, the choice of what goes in and what goes out determined by how neat it looks. Only the Main Page should do this, and that because it's, well, necessarily unique. Potential contributors have to come from there. Are you seriously going to argue that getting potential cricket contributors is important enough to make cricket less accessible to readers? I think we should stick to always letting readers come first.
Now, I realize this sharp distinction between readers and contributors is artificial. Many readers are contributors and vice versa (no, the reverse isn't necessarily always the case—fixing typos, for example, requires almost no reader interest at all). And some things, such as NPOV conflicts or page protection can't help but affect both at the same time. The point emphasis here is on "can't help". Portals can help it. Portals are useful, portals look nice, portals serve a need, all hail portals. But if you're going to make portals suitable for readers, you'll have to go about it in another way. Remove all Wikipedia-posturing that only contributors need; pages in the article namespace should stand on their own. Even disambiguation pages stand on their own. If all contributors died suddenly and everything but the articles and the edit histories disappeared, the remainder should still be fully usable. Portals fail this criterion and shouldn't be in the article namespace. I don't think this is just a stupid rule invented because we get off on putting everything in namespaces "the right way". It's rather because we want to express that we put the needs of the reader above our internal needs as much as possible, and the promise that the content will be as easy to reuse as possible. Sometimes we fail at it when edit wars or concerted vandalism force us to be bad hosts for a moment. But portals do this on principle, when they don't have to.
If you're going to put a portal in the main namespace (and cricket (portal) would be fine as a location), I would like to see one that does not have the words "Wikipedia", "contribute" or "edit" in it at all, and only tries its best to make the encyclopedic content accessible to the reader. That's not quite a Wikiportal as we have them now, and I don't know what would be good layout and style for them. But the portal as we have it now simply shouldn't be tossed in with the rest of the articles. JRM · Talk 21:46, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)
- I completely understand your viewpoint. I guess I for one (I cannot speak for Jguk) would be happy to have these pages in a different namespace (preferably Portal:, but that doesn't exist), but the portal is currently hidden away in the back waters of the wikipedia: namespace – how is a reader ever going to find it? If we put a link in the cricket page to the wikipedia: namespace, there will be cries of "NO SELF-REFERENCES". But these pages need to be reference from somewhere. Putting them in the main namespace seems the cleanest way to do it for me.
- I agree with you about the references to the wikiproject. I would, as an aside, remark that template:comics-stub and template:cricket stub at the very least disobey this. Nevertheless, I have deleted these self-references. I must thank you, JRM, for your considerate discussion of the matter, rather than Neutrality's highly self-centered reverting to the original status quo. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 22:20, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- I hadn't even looked at those stubs. While stubs suffer from the same problem (though, like NPOV tags, they arguably have some purpose for the reader, emphasizing that we know the article is incomplete and aren't trying to sell a few sentences as if it were the last word) soliciting people for Wikiprojects this way is really cheap. Whatever happened to the talk page? Wikipedia:WikiProject Cryptography is one of the most prominent and mature projects on Wikipedia, and you don't see {{crypto-stub}} stooping to such lows. However—one problem at a time, and let's remember that "precedent" has very little value on a wiki. JRM · Talk 23:07, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)
- 'Such lows'? You're seriously suggesting there is a large enough difference between 'you can help Wikipedia by expanding it' and 'you can help WikiProject Cricket' by expanding it that you get upset about it? (I made the change to the cricket stub to better publicise the existence of the Wikiproject and attract more contributors to it, which I think is a useful thing to do for a project, just starting out, with few serious contributors.) --Ngb 13:54, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Much better. Pages in the right place, more attractive layout. Well done people. Tannin 22:30, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- All kudos to Smoddy for the last edit. It's amazing how these simple changes make the whole thing much more palatable already. I'd like to see "WikiPortal" and "welcome to X" obsolete too, for being not informative and superfluous, respectively (can you imagine "welcome to the article on Jesus")? I've made a few edits to that effect (as well as touching a few other things), but I'm not expecting mine to be the last word. Do keep in mind that whoever comes here will do so from cricket or a page clearly describing the portal as such, so don't state the obvious. We might have a note on what a portal is at the bottom (like disambiguation pages), though some people don't even like those. JRM · Talk 23:07, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)
Despite what some might think, I do support removing explicit references to Wikipedia (when not introduced neutrally), and yes, I do think the portal is better without them. Good work. --SPUI (talk) 23:50, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Good work, Smoddy et al. I do like the idea of the portal, and perhaps others could be created for large topics. I hope they figure out the issue with self-referencing: either this article should stay here or the {{portal}} template should be allowed. — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:04, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- It's certainly looking better. I see no problem at all with a small reference to WikiProject Cricket and encouraging people to contribute to Wikipedia (though I agree it looks better without the self-references at the top). This allows us to encourage more people to become editors. Of course, these references should be discreet, which is why I'm re-adding them to the bottom right hand corner, but it's perfectly right that we should take the opportunity of a bit of self-advertising here. Kind regards, jguk 08:17, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- This is one of those things we may only be able to settle with a poll for gauging how many people feel one way or the other... I'm as violently opposed to it as you think it's a good idea. Such notices should go on the talk page, it's as simple as that. Would you be fine with somebody adding a link to Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums to the bottom of {{Album infobox}}? I wouldn't, and it's not how the WikiProject does it; instead an extensive and useful note to contributors is placed on the talk page (random example: Help!).
On a related note, the {{Album}} template acts as a portal... though a different kind than the one we're working on here. - It's not a question of how big or small the reference is, to me. There simply shouldn't be one. No individual page should solicit contributors. It looks unprofessional. "Edit this page" should be enough. Stub notices are borderline, but they're entrenched now, and have a long history. Portals don't. I'll have to put it as bluntly as possible: no reader cares about WikiProject Cricket. Our need for contributors should not override that. If you do it this way, then yes, the whole thing should be moved to the Wikipedia namespace, where all such portals reside. And that would be a loss. JRM · Talk 11:10, 2005 Apr 30 (UTC)
- This is one of those things we may only be able to settle with a poll for gauging how many people feel one way or the other... I'm as violently opposed to it as you think it's a good idea. Such notices should go on the talk page, it's as simple as that. Would you be fine with somebody adding a link to Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums to the bottom of {{Album infobox}}? I wouldn't, and it's not how the WikiProject does it; instead an extensive and useful note to contributors is placed on the talk page (random example: Help!).
- No other portal is like this - as this is the only one (other than the Main Page) which is devised with the reader in mind. (Incidentally, this also makes it unsuitable for the Wikipediaspace, which is a purely administrative area.) And it's a useful experiment to keep it. Besides, now we have this separate from the Cricket page, no-one can honestly argue that it's doing any harm. jguk 12:15, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- I have to point out that the "it does no harm" argument has never worked for anyone, as far as I recall (and I've seen it many times). Prepare to defend this on grounds of why we should have it, not because there's no good reason not to have it. Otherwise people can just throw personal distaste at you and you can't do much to oppose them. JRM · Talk 12:40, 2005 Apr 30 (UTC)
- No other portal is like this - as this is the only one (other than the Main Page) which is devised with the reader in mind. (Incidentally, this also makes it unsuitable for the Wikipediaspace, which is a purely administrative area.) And it's a useful experiment to keep it. Besides, now we have this separate from the Cricket page, no-one can honestly argue that it's doing any harm. jguk 12:15, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- As this is unique, there are no precedents to follow. Your comparison to a WikiProject Albums template is comparing apples and pears - I'm not suggesting we go adding self-references willy-nilly all over the place. I'm suggesting that, just as the Main Page makes self-references, so it is ok to have a small one here. It is small; it is in the least noticeable place; there is nothing else any has suggested to fill that place; it does no harm; the emphasis, quite rightly, is on guiding the reader round the various articles. jguk 12:15, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Disregard that example, if you don't think it applies. It's not important—though I feel obliged to point out that, except for WikiProject Cricket and WikiProject Comics, no WikiProject attempts to solicit contributors through pages in the main space. That's comparing apples and apples, and it does make sense to ask why the others explicitly chose to use talk pages for that. Your mention that "just as the Main Page makes self-references" hits the problem right on the head. The Main Page itself is unique. We're working at cross purposes: you seem to see the portal as the Main Page to Cricketpedia (well, slightly exaggerated of course), I see it as an attractive way of giving the reader an overview (more attractive than categories, at least). While we're talking precedents, I don't like the Main Page as one. JRM · Talk 12:40, 2005 Apr 30 (UTC)
- As this is unique, there are no precedents to follow. Your comparison to a WikiProject Albums template is comparing apples and pears - I'm not suggesting we go adding self-references willy-nilly all over the place. I'm suggesting that, just as the Main Page makes self-references, so it is ok to have a small one here. It is small; it is in the least noticeable place; there is nothing else any has suggested to fill that place; it does no harm; the emphasis, quite rightly, is on guiding the reader round the various articles. jguk 12:15, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Incidentally, although I would object to placing this portal in the Wikipediaspace (as it is not an administrative page), we could easily set up a new Portalspace and have the portal on Portal:Cricket instead, if that is preferred. Kind regards, jguk 12:15, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- We seem largely agreed on what it should do - ie improve access for readers to our cricket-related articles.
- The only disagreement is whether it should, at the bottom and least prominent part of the page, make a reference to the Cricket WikiProject.
- The purpose of this is to make people aware of the WikiProject so that, if they wish to contribute to cricket-related articles on a regular basis, they can choose to join it. It's about improving Wikipedia, and about encouraging readers to become writers. This should be encouraged. It doesn't detract from the rest of the portal, because of its positioning, is relevant to the subject, and is pro-Wikipedia. This shouldn't be a big deal, but I, along with a small number of others, have contributed greatly to this section of Wikipedia, and it would be great if the number of active contributors in this area could grow, jguk 13:16, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- You're entitled to your opinion, but a word of warning: lots of people will throw Wikipedia:Avoid self-references at you, and this argument will not sway them. If this is what the portal will look like, then the only thing they will accept is moving the portal to the Wikipedia namespace (or a Portal namespace, but we don't have that yet), and moving the {{portal}} notice to the talk page, I guarantee it. JRM · Talk 13:54, 2005 Apr 30 (UTC)
Well if you don't tell them, neither will I:) And it can always go in Portalspace if needs be (as noted above, it is inappropriate for something not of an administrative nature to go to Wikipediaspace - plus it means we can start with whole new rules in a newspace:) )., jguk 15:15, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Summary of suggestions
Okay, this may be completely radical (and thus unacceptable to those who worship the status quo), but hear me out. This article quite possibly does not belong in the main article space. Wikipedia: space is totally useless for a page like this. It is not a guide for editors, but a guide for readers. How would a reader, who doesn't know about the editing part of wikipedia and would never find this page otherwise, make use of it? There are two options. The first is to create a new namespace. This would not be difficult, but may require some time. The other option is to create a new project, outside wikipedia. This would allow pages to be created to link to all parts of the wikimedia empire. Would it be possible to do this? Would we then allow ourselves to put a slightly self-referential link into cricket? Or are we so stuck up ourselves that we can only do things if they absolutely toe the line with every single Wikipedia convention? One of my biggest criticisms of Britannica is their not changing with the times; I hate to think that Wikipedia would refuse to change as well. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 20:58, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
New approach to the "cricket" page
This is a new experimental approach. On searching for "cricket" users will find a reader-friendly portal to cricket pages. Please leave the page like this for at least a fortnight, though do feel free to comment on the new approach (and to improve the presentation of the portal). Thanks, jguk 21:31, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Portalspace
This page survived VfD. The issues on the VfD were not really surrounding whether this page should exist, but rather whether it should exist in the normal articlespace or not. The flavour of the comments suggested that the page might benefit from being in a new Portalspace, with the page remaining here (ie at Portal:Cricket) until such a Portalspace was formally created. If you wish to contribute to the discussion on whether there should be a separate Portalspace, please go to Wikipedia:Portalspace. Kind regards, jguk 17:05, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
Jguk, what authority can you cite in support of your move of Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Cricket? I have no firm opinion on the matter myself at this stage and don't mind where the page is located, but I noticed that your orignal move was highly controversial and created a major edit war. It is only fair to other editors that you provide clear evidence that your page move really does have community support now. Thankyou, Tannin 08:13, 25 May 2005 (UTC)