Template talk:Portals

Grouped List?

Why aren't the Portals on this template grouped? No one wants to skim it alphabetically, especially if they're after something other than a geog entity.

This is not done, but it's IMO a big improvement & almost surely scalable. (I commented out Philosophy (under Other), presuming that a Portal requires more than a Cat.) I almost left "Other" very larger, but i ended up grouping nearly all the less "instrumental" cultural artifacts under culture; the most controversial aspect may be either that or "Fictions" (which of course overlaps importantly with Literature).

I'm not sure if Culture should be alph'd before Geog, or if be everything else should be secondary to that Big Dog that evidently predominates in people's interest in the concept.

• Geography:
  • Africa: Algeria - Morocco - South Africa
  • Asia:
    • Bangladesh -
    • China: China (PRC): Hong Kong
    • India - Iran - Israel - Malaysia - Palestine - Singapore
  • Europe:
    • European Union:
      • Estonia - Greece - Hungary - Ireland - Poland - Spain - United Kingdom
      • Romania: Bucharest
    • Belarus - Russia - Ukraine
  • North America:
    • Canada: Quebec: Montreal
    • Caribbean - United States
  • Oceania: Australia - New Zealand - Philippines
  • South America: Brazil - Colombia
• Culture:
  • Art -
  • History: Biography
  • Literature - Music -
  • Sports and games:
    • Baseball - Chess -
    • Computer and video games: Final Fantasy
    • Cricket - Football - Formula One - Pokémon
  • Stories: Doctor Who - James Bond - Star Wars
• Science:
  • Archaeology - Astronomy - Biology - History of science - Mathematics - Physics - Scientific method
• Society
  • Business and Economics - Law -
  • Schools: University
• Technology:
  • Agronomy - Aviation - Engineering -
  • Information technology: Cryptography
  • Medicine - Trains
• Other:
  • Personal life - Pornography -
  • Religion: Eastern Christianity

The reason the Template is not grouped is because when wikiportals first started an alphabetical list was enough, and when more were added a grouped template was created at {{main portals}}. Wherever you would like to see the sorted template instead of the alphabetical I think it would be a good idea to switch it over. - Trevor MacInnis(Talk | Contribs) 01:22, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

OK, the answer is inertia.

Template:Portals is in use on about 150 non-talk pages.

Template:main portals is in use on:

• Main Page (simple layout)
• Wikipedia:Browse
• Wikipedia:Wikiportal
• Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Aviation

I don't know if that is just more inertia, or bcz the person who built it used a Model 29 TTY (no lower case), and most editors understand why lower case was invented.

There seems to be no reason to perpetuate the alpha version, now that the effort needed to reorganize the groups is so much less than the effor of getting them out of alpha order. The way this is done is to replace the alpha version text with the grouped version text, without changes of names. If there is still need for an alpha version, that will become clear, and we can worry about whether the cases needing alpha are more than those needing grouping, i.e., which version should get the old title in order to minimize the number of edits needed.

(Which grouping scheme is best is less of an issue: the answer is surely neither, and we'll never see a final version; except for those wanting all caps, i'd suggest tuning the one above as involving the lesser effort.)

--Jerzy•t 07:06, 2005 August 23 (UTC)

Multiple Views of Grouped List?

All I have to say is "Whoa! that's way too big for a portal footer!" It's so big that I've switched the Trains portal to use {{Main portal}} in the footer instead.
slambo 10:36, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

The following is almost the result of

1. discarding

   everything below the top level from every top-level Portal except Technology and Other, and

   everything below the 2nd level from every Portal in Technology except Trains

   (and the process could have been carried further if Trains were deeper in the implicit tree),

   then

2. "turning the tree 90 degrees" (mostly by merging adjacent lines), and
3. tacking Other on at the bottom.

(It differs from that strict algorithm in that i exercised some discretion, by leaving Cryptography in place.)

Geography - Culture - Science - Society - Technology

Agronomy - Aviation - Engineering - Information technology: Cryptography - Medicine - Trains

• Other:
  • Personal life - Pornography -
  • Religion: Eastern Christianity

I think that if you adjust your browser window's width, it'll show you how it'll look if you put a self-sizing box of your choosing around it (in contrast to the bulleted part sticking way out to the left as here).

That's modelled after the indexes at the top of each LoPbN page, for example Template:List of people Ste. The LoPbN ones are to a large extent automatically maintained, and something similar may be appropriate for these if they are used.

I'm saving the above as Template:Portals view: Technology, and suggest it for any Portals whose maintainers share Slambo's concern, among "Technology" and those just "below" Technology -- that is, at this moment, among Technology, Agronomy, Aviation, Engineering, Information technology, Cryptography (bcz i bent the algorithm to include it), Medicine, and Trains.

Technology (in its current form) will hopefully turn out in the long run to be a special case, in that it has so few Portals directly below it that also have Portals below them. Unless this turns out to be a waste of effort, i'll do one for Europe that will demonstrate what Technology doesn't need, and no page in the LoPbN tree uses: a view "down" as well as "up" and "sidewise".

--Jerzy•t 22:07, 2005 August 23 (UTC)

That is much more concise and more appealing to use on the portal, but I'm not so keen on the Other section's position. As it is, it looks like it was tacked on as an afterthought. I'm not sure what would make a better solution for it right now, though. slambo 13:11, August 26, 2005 (UTC)

List of portals

I moved the text to Wikipedia:List of portals and linked to that list, but it was reverted. I would regard that the better choice. --80.135.15.147 21:57, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

The new category style for the template

File:Template talk Portals 20051031.png

Overall, it's not too bad, but there are a few changes that should probably be made to the categorization of the portals within the template. The Carribbean is not a continent; I'd suggest the section should be renamed to something like "Multinational regions". And while we're at it, we might as well re-order the subsections of Geography by the size of the region being discussed; list the multinational regions first, then nations, then subnational regions then cities. Finally, all of the entries in "Miscellaneous" will easily fit into the other categories as follows:

• Aviation, Cryptography and Trains - all into Science and Technology
• Eastern Christianity, Esperanto, European Union and Schools - all into Society and Culture
• Speculative fiction - into Sports, Games and Entertainment

Thoughts? slambo 18:03, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I don't like the new theme, it makes something wrong in Portal:Mars (see the page footer, I'm using Safari, I'm not sure if it works correctly in other browsers). -- Yaohua2000 18:25, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I didn't really like the styling of the re-design so I re-did it myself. I should have read the discussion here beforehand mind you - I agree with all of slambo's comments above. So I'll do them now! Yaohua2000 - the Portal:Mars link works fine on IE, Yahoo! Browser, AOL and a couple of other browsers I've got on my system... I think it might just be a Safari-issue. Deano 21:23, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I tried again using Firefox on my Mac, it works fine, but incorrect in Safari. Screenshot on the right, note the position of the the category bar. -- Yaohua2000 21:40, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Does that only happen for Portal:Mars? Becuase if that is the case then it is an issue with the portal's script, not the template... Deano 21:46, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I think the caption "Browse by Themes" is not necessary, since most of portals has its own box template, and the caption and the theme (color, background, and etc) should be managed by the portal itself. This template is better to only provide content, but not format. -- Yaohua2000 21:59, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

addition of new portals

We are having a discussion at WP:P about whether or not incomplete portals should be added to the namespace. The consensus is that the namespace should contain NO portals that are a)pointless (i.e. lack enough potential to be worth creating), b) incomplete OR c) low quality should be included in the namespace.

All portals are listed at WP:P - when a portal is good enough to be in the namespace then it can be added. But at present, neither Portal:Christianity or Portal:Bucharest does not qualify due to section a) the latter due to section b). So they have to be removed! Deano 12:48, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Hello Deano. The point you raise about Portal:Christianity being "pointless" is somewhat puzzling - are you suggesting that a historical and global religion with over two billion adherents does not deserve a portal of its own due to lack of potential? Consider that now various other religions have also become emboldened to set up their own counterparts; Islam and Portal:Judaism have recently been established, and the Eastern Christianity has been in existence far longer. Are people suggesting that such portals, which have fascinating histories and have influenced people throughtout centuries are really "pointless"? There should not be a "separation of Church and Pedia" - of course, religious beliefs should not influence editing decisions, but neglecting them is blantantly POV. With such a rich and varied history, major religion portals certainly have potential and are not pointless. Brisvegas 10:06, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm gonna level with you mate. I have no idea what I was talking about when I wrote that. If someone else had written that, I'd have responded exactly as you did. But I do stand by what I said about Portal:Bucharest. Deano 17:57, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for reconsidering your position. It is good to see you are an open-minded person. :) Brisvegas 07:34, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Portal:Galicia

i really don't think this qualifies for the namespace for now, so if there are no objections that haven't been covered at WP:P then I'll remove it. Deano 21:08, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there should be a portal for Galicia, and this really highlights the need for some kind of approval mechanism before portals can be created. Otherwise we'll end up with almost as many portals as articles as everyone seems to want a portal for their favourite topic area. Worldtraveller 22:32, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

My sentiments echoed exactly! Deano 22:45, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. I'll try and get started on that this week.--cj | talk 04:14, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah, yet another pointless portal: Water.--cj | talk 04:22, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Removed Portal:Mythology

Per discussions here and at WP:P, I've rolled back the change that added Portal:Mythology to the template. Only the intro section has anything filled in (and the section name is even misspelled), the rest are all red links and the code on it is messed up so that the columns aren't displaying properly. Slambo (Speak) 16:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi, please have a look at the user's talk page User talk:83.56.141.30. BTW, the portal has been improved. --Roland2 17:34, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

That was fast. Mucho better; objection withdrawn. Slambo (Speak) 17:57, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

(Just to avoid confusion: It was not me who improved this portal ... --Roland2 18:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC))

Remove caption "Browse by Themes" and the frameborder?

They don't make sense and aren't necessary, since most of portals has its own box template, and the caption and the theme (color, background, and etc) should be managed by the portal itself. This template is better to only provide content, but not format. — Yaohua2000 01:32, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I would tend to agree, but rather than completely remove them, wrap them in <noinclude></noinclude> tags so that only the content is normally included. Slambo (Speak) 18:23, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

done. — Yaohua2000 19:15, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Religion portals

as everyone will have noticed there has been an influx of religion-oriented portals. Several were severely below-par when they were added to the namespace, but most seem to be up to scratch. I ran JuanMuslim through what was needed... but we'll see in the long run how it all pans out. Deano 18:15, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Navigation vs. Category

You guys have the navigation and Category, Category:Portals, in one template. That is fine for the portals, but some userspages are using the template for the navigation and showing in the category. There is probably more than one way to fix this. Please fix this. -- Fplay 02:01, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Try to be like Portal:Browse

There has a been a minor reorganzation for the groupings. I will implement on this template. -- Fplay 02:23, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Interwiki

Please add [[vi:Tiêu bản:Các chủ đề Wikipedia]]. User:Es.ntp. 118.68.61.132 (talk) 08:10, 14 February 2009 (UTC).

Done. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:28, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Hellenismos portal (new)

I made the Hellenismos portal. Portal instructions say to add a link to {{main portals}}, but it looks like I should not take that literally because that page looks like a technical reference. I am adding it to 'Portal' anyway; if step 8 should have been done somewhere besides this discussion board, please let me know.--Dchmelik (talk) 11:07, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 12 March 2016

9D1974DEC692BF54 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.190.199.53 (talk) 09:59, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

 Not done since the request is not clear. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:08, 12 March 2016 (UTC)