Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Failed log/May 2009

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 not promoted by Cirt 07:13, 27 May 2009 [1].

Portal:Dungeons & Dragons

I'm nominating this portal for Featured Portal status because... well... I think it meets the criteria. :) It's relatively new, but I've been putting some work into it and will be willing to do whatever I can to help make it Featured. There are a few things which I would like to mention before they come up here:

There is a small number of images. The vast majority of Dungeons & Dragons-related pictures are used under fair-use, and therefore aren't appropriate for use in a portal. I've included what images I can in the Selected Pictures section, but that's all that I really can do.
Not all of the "Selected articles" and "Selected rulebooks" are GA-Class or higher... there are a few B-Class articles. This is because I wanted to have a good number of selections, to make it feel random, but the project doesn't have enough GAs and FAs to have all of the selections be of such quality. As the project gains more GAs and FAs, I'll replace the B-Class articles from the selections with the new higher-quality articles.
The "News" section does need to be updated manually. Per the Featured Portal Criteria, this should only be a problem if it goes without updates for a long period of time. I hope to update it at least monthly, if not once a week. Some of the archives of the news have longer delays because it was created before the portal was and, therefore, wasn't considered to be as important to keep updated.

(also, for some reason the Featured Portal Candidates preload didn't come up properly when I created this page from the {{FPOC}} template; my apologies if there is any incorrect formatting, and feel free to correct it). –Drilnoth (T • C) 21:45, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: The nom page appears to be formatted properly. Cirt (talk) 22:17, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks; just wanted to be sure. –Drilnoth (T • C) 22:50, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

A good way to get comments going on this page is to leave a neutrally worded notice at the talk pages of relevant WikiProjects informing them of the ongoing discussion. Cirt (talk) 02:37, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, but unfortunately the only really relevant WikiProject (the D&D project) consists of about me and two others, who are already aware of this discussion. –Drilnoth (T • C) 02:40, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Try these:

Wikipedia:WikiProject Role-playing games

Wikipedia:WikiProject Board and table games

Wikipedia:WikiProject Games

You could leave messages at the talk pages of all those. Cirt (talk) 02:54, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh. Right... Thanks! I don't have time tonight, but I'll leave notes tomorrow. Thanks! –Drilnoth (T • C) 02:55, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Plus you could probably branch out into things besides games, such as sci-fi/fantasy projects, or even novels, video games, and anything else substantially touched by D&D. BOZ (talk) 03:06, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Query

Have the above WikiProject talk pages been notified, in addition to the others suggested by BOZ (talk · contribs) ? Cirt (talk) 08:11, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oops! This fell off my radar (too much to keep track of! :) ). I'll post something to them right after going through the rest of my watchlist. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 14:42, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've posted at the talk pages mentioned above and at the VG project's talk page. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 14:56, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Could there be a little "trophy case" (prime articles) section with FA/A/GA articles listed? Just an idea. Or maybe a little box with all of the top-importance articles (like Dungeons & Dragons itself, and Gary Gygax, TSR, etc.). Thoughts? — Levi van Tine (t – c) 16:39, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The "main topics" box should contain most (if not all) of the Top-importance articles, and high-quality articles are typically being cycled through as the "selected article" and "selected rulebook", although if you'd like I could still add another box in (maybe under "main topics") for "best articles", or something like that. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 16:44, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would hesitate to use the actual TSR article as an example of quality content, as it needs a whole lot of work. I think we can add Dave Arneson as we have really rebuilt that one nicely (I expect it to pass GA when it gets reviewed). Greyhawk is in decent shape, and we may or may not be able to get that one to GA soon. The other top-importance articles which are not already GA or better do need some work. Neverwinter Nights 2 has had a lot of work put into it (thanks Mr. VanTine!), and should pass as a GA soon enough. I'd say, otherwise, we don't necessarily have any articles I'd like to tout just yet which aren't already on the portal. BOZ (talk) 02:35, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. I just revised the selections so that they are all GA or higher quality; I'd personally prefer to keep it that way (making sure that each article has had some outside review), so I think that adding Arneson and NWN (and, hopefully, SoZ) if/when the pass makes more sense than adding them now... they might go through a slightly unstable period during the reviews. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 02:51, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's fine; also, keep in mind how many GA's we accumulated in the nearly six weeks since you proposed the portal here - we now actually have barely enough GAs that we can stock the portal full of them. :) BOZ (talk) 02:53, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion - See for example Portal:Norway/Content, at Portal:Norway. Cirt (talk) 11:43, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the tip; my feeling is that we don't have enough quality articles to make a page like that work yet, but once we have some more it would certainly be a good idea. Right now all of our high-quality pages (except for two which relate to the project only a tiny bit) are already in the "selected article/rulebook" cycles. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 14:32, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Images missing credits

Images at Portal:Dungeons & Dragons/Selected picture are missing proper credits. See Portal:Sustainable development/Selected picture for a good model of how to go about addressing this. Cirt (talk) 21:03, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks; I'll add those later today or tomorrow. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 22:25, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done; credit added for all selected pictures. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 16:50, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: D&D draws upon a rich fantasy tradition. Many of the things they draw on are in the public domain. So, images such as File:Dwarf.jpg, File:Louis Huard - Giant Skrymir and Thor.jpg, and so on could reasonably be added, so long as you add explanatory text about the D&D versions of the creatures depicted. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 13:22, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I have thought about that, but I kind of feel like many D&D creatures have relatively significant differences from their standard fantasy cousings... dwarves and elves look and act different, especially with 4th edition. I wouldn't really be opposed to adding such images to the portal, but I'm not sure if it would entirely make sense, either. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 14:52, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - With only seven pictures in rotation at Portal:Dungeons & Dragons/Selected picture, this is quite a small amount of pictures. Generally it's best practice for featured portal candidates to have at least 10, and preferably 20, free-use pictures in rotation. See for example, Portal:Oregon/Selected picture. Cirt (talk) 15:49, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - Thanks for the note; in that case I will add some more images in later today, like the ones that Shoemaker's Holiday mentioned. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 16:07, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I also think it'd be better to have a "More" link linking to the articles, rather than a "Nominate" link - it seems a little awkward to anyone used to other portals. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 17:44, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Should I just remove the "suggest" link then? Right now both of them should be going to the same page... I can't really anticipate anybody really nominating an article for this portal, and if they do they can use the talk page, which is why I didn't create a separate page. The "Suggest" links were just included in the pre-made portal template. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 20:23, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Perhaps instead just substitute with the portal templates used at Portal:Education ? Cirt (talk) 21:41, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - Hmm... some of those ideas are good. I'll work on this tomorrow (sorry; got kind of sidetracked). –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 21:43, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Would you like a hand? As a long-time player and DM (albeit, mainly in homebrew worlds, not the official ones) I can probably help out a bit. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 12:43, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All are welcome. :) BOZ (talk) 21:35, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Working on this, but haven't had a lot of time - the WP:NOT stupidity is causing massive annoyance. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 00:40, 14 May 2009 (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 not promoted by Cirt 11:45, 4 May 2009 [2].

Portal:The Beatles

This portal covers an important topic (The Beatles is consistently one of the most-read articles on Wikipedia), and is reasonably broad in its scope, containing information on Beatles' songs and albums, as well as all related personnel. Opinion on the design is split - in the peer review it was suggested that it be changed, but an off-site discussion last night sugegsted that all it needed was a change in border colour (which has been done, along with a change in the background colour of the boxes). I believe the layout is attractive, ergonomic and useful - it is not dissimilar to that of the main page. Much of the portal is randomised, so little maintenance is needed besides the updating of the collaboration per month ~~and a change in DYKs every now and then (I'm working on randomising that too)~~Addendum: DYKs now randomised - the number of DYKs will increase over time. I have checked it against much of the manual of style, as have reviewers, and found no significant issues. Images are included wherever a free one is available, and all are credited to their uploader, and to a source if it was not the uploader's own work. The portal is not self-referential, except in the welcome note, collaboration section and links to sister projects/portals. as well as a link to the relevant WikiProject - again, engouraging collaboration. Therefore, I believe this portal meets all the featured portal criteria and should be promoted. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 15:19, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I sometimes see red-links on image credits. What you can do is link it to user talk to avoid red links from showing up while still giving credit. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 16:10, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK -

Doing.... Dendodge Talk^Contribs 16:15, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done - I think. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 16:45, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

This portal is still up at WP:PPREV, with unaddressed issues there. One of these two discussions needs to be closed before this can continue. Cirt (talk) 22:59, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'll close the peer review - the reviewer's opinion differs from that of many people, and through off-site chat we have come to a compromise. So, yeah, that can be closed. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 01:21, 2 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment

Audio sample - subsection appears to have fair-use media clips in portal space. Fair use applies to article-space, not portal space. These should all be removed. For example, File:Heyjudesample.ogg, etc. Cirt (talk) 13:33, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I checked before I did it, and it appears that linking to the file description page is allowed, just as it is when linking to a file to discuss it in the Wikipedia: namespace. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 18:16, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree. Not really in the best spirit of fair use. Best to remove it, and keep portal-space for free-use only, ideally all free-use from stuff hosted at Wikimedia Commons. Cirt (talk) 01:41, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'll change it to 'selected song' and link to the song article only. Densock|Dendodge^{in public} 11:38, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay thanks that will work great. Cirt (talk) 13:26, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Jh12 (talk) (addressed)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Comments by Jh12

My only real problem with the different style of this portal is that it is difficult to edit the selection being displayed. I can't simply click an edit button and make changes to the Introduction or the displayed article like at Portal:Theatre. Done
It might be better to have just one Show new selections button like at Portal:Criminal_justice because Show another picture implied to me that clicking it would only refresh the image, not everything else. But when you click Show another picture, the entire portal is purged. Done
Please expand Portal:The Beatles/Did you know to at least 10 selections. Done
Also, add rollover captions for every image in the portal so you don't get a filename when the mouse is placed over them. You already have the captions in Portal:The Beatles/article. Done
Finally, you will want to match the Things you can do section with the rest of the portal. Not done - I removed it instead.

--Jh12 (talk) 20:02, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done them all now, I think. I removed the "Things you can do" section, since it seemed redundant to the todo list. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 15:29, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looks a lot better, but then is there any chance of making the todo list match the rest of the portal? It looks out of place at the bottom with an all-white background. --Jh12 (talk) 14:34, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's a separate template which is used all over the place - I might be able to make the contents separate from the border, then just transclude them directly. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 16:26, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done - is it OK now? Dendodge Talk^Contribs 16:39, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Thanks for working on my concerns. --Jh12 (talk) 16:44, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Note: Placed notice about this discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Musicians, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject The Beatles. Cirt (talk) 13:30, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Notice also placed at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Music/Noticeboard#Featured_portal_consideration_of_The_Beatles_portal. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 21:03, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - And at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous). Cirt (talk) 02:34, 19 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Spiby (talk · contribs) (addressed)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Comments Since this discussion needs some more input I'll post a few thoughts. The welcome message reads "...the hub of Beatles related topics" which made me think of everything Beatle (the members, songs and albums). Each member is represented in the article-section, and some select songs in the song-section. This led me to wonder were the albums are. I know none of the articles on the Beatles' albums are GA or FA, some even have unreferenced-tags, but in my opinion it would be nice (and more comprehensive) if at least some of the albums were part of the selected article-section, which now seems to be simply a selected biography.

Secondly, the selected songs-section is very short. The sentence "Eleanor Rigby featured on the Revolver album, and appeared as the B-side of Yellow Submarine." does not make me ache to learn more. If longer (a few sentences), possibly including something like "it features a double string quartet arrangement by George Martin, and striking lyrics about loneliness" it would be more interesting.

The core articles-section takes up a large part of my screen, and I was going to suggest you sort them like Portal:Film or Portal:Norway, but then I noticed this portal uses the same style as Portal:Music, so never mind about that.

These are just some personal opinions, feel free to ignore them if you want to :) ☺ Spiby ☻ 15:28, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Doing... I, personally, prefer the current core articles layout - it keeps consistency across music portals, and is easier and nicer to read. I will work on the rest, and if anyone else agrees with you on the core articles layout (effectively outnumbering me), I will change it. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 15:40, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done - I can't think of any better way of doing it - I don't really want the song hooks to be much longer than a normal DYK hook, so there's enough to interest the reader without telling them every interesting fact that's in the article. How is it now? Dendodge Talk^Contribs 18:53, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good work, thanks for implementing my suggestions! I've got one more question though, why does Portal:The Beatles/audio/4 link to a person and not a song? After all, there's a million Beatles songs to choose from, and all the FA-class Beatles articles are about songs. ☺ Spiby ☻ 13:10, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Better now? I changed it to "Something". Dendodge Talk^Contribs 16:48, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support Looks great now, good work! ☺ Spiby ☻ 14:08, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Missing a Related WikiProjects section, something like at Portal:Sustainable development. The most recent newsletter links to a newsletter from November 2008 ... Looks like there is a more recent one, Wikipedia:WikiProject The Beatles/Outreach/Newsletter/Issue 017, probably due for another more recent issue though. If this is something that the project cannot maintain (already) on a regular basis, might think about doing away with it so that the portal does not have stale content on its main page. Cirt (talk) 21:39, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Yeah - that was my fault. I was supposed to do the last few newsletters. I'll start compiling a new one. I'll also start a "related Wikiprojects" section. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 22:39, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Actually, I'll do it tomorrow. I'm too tired to start sifting through Google News now. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 22:41, 19 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Done - I haven't compiled a newsletter, I just added new news stories to the news section and removed the mention of the newsletter. I'll add more whenever anything interesting happens (not very often, as the band hasn't existed for 40 years =P ). Dendodge Talk^Contribs 22:19, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - Okay thanks for the update. Cirt (talk) 22:45, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
How many supports does a portal need to become featured? I know it works on consensus, not pure !vote numbers, but this has been up for nearly 3 months with no opposes, so should we consider passing it? Densock|Dendodge^{in public} 12:47, 27 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think portals should have high quality articles, per criteria 1a. So oppose for now. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:42, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Of the selected articles number 1-3 and 5-9 are GA, number 4, 14-19 and 21 are B-class, number 10-12 and 22 C-class, and number 13 and 20 Start-class.

Of the selected songs number 4,5 and 10 are FA, number 6 and 8 B-class, number 11 C-class, number 1,2,7 and 9 Start-class, and number 3 Stub-class.

Maybe selected song 3 and one other (1,2,7 or 9) should be changed to Real Love (John Lennon song) and The Long and Winding Road (both FA)? ☺ Spiby ☻ 12:13, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ok -

Doing... Dendodge Talk^Contribs 22:24, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not done. I didn't add them initially because our policy is to only include songs with audio samples. I have "the Longa nd Winding Road" on my laptop, so will create a sample of that when I get chance, then I can add the article. I can't, however, add one to "Real Love", as I don't have the Anthology albums yet (I have the DVD, if anyone knows how to rip audio from that). Dendodge Talk^Contribs 22:35, 28 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have now replaced "Help!" with "The Long and Winding Road", and will do "Real Love" when I get back from New York on Sunday. Dendodge _T\^C 18:30, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are you kidding me? Stub and start class have no place in featured portal, and probably C-class too, unless the scope of the portal is really narrow (but not true in this case) OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 07:16, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be many songs in Category:GA-Class The Beatles articles that could be used. (Rain (The Beatles song), Free as a Bird ...) ☺ Spiby ☻ 10:45, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There you go, 40 GAs + 5 FAs are more than enough for selected articles, and this situation is a lot easier than some other portals. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 21:37, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(Dendodge here - I don't want to log in from the hotel, even with Densock) I'll sort all that stuff when I get back from New York, unless anyone else wants to do it for me. (Where's the tilde on an American keyboard?) --216.254.83.95 (talk) 13:02, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's the key to the left of number "1" on the keyboard (not keypad). You have to use shift key to get the tilde. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 17:58, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'll start the overhaul now. Dendodge _T\^C 16:12, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Query

Any updates on this? Cirt (talk) 08:11, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've been really busy IRL lately, so haven't been able to do any work on the portal. Maybe we could close this (however you like—pass or fail) with the assurance that I'll sort it by June (I should be back to full-time editing by then). Dendodge _T\^C 19:16, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.