Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Failed log/October 2007

I've been working on this portal for quite a while now. It looks aesthetically pleasing, and it is regularly maintained. --Bolonium 03:29, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. How about wait until portal peer review is finished? You are requesting peer review and featured portal candidate on the same day. OhanaUnitedTalk page 16:57, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That would be best. --Bolonium 20:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Self updating through February of 2008. It also has a wikiproject to mind it. It is as good as Portal:Hinduism which is featured. -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Secisek (talkcontribs) 15 October 2007

Neutral and Comment Oppose . Instead of using the "archive" format, use random portal component. Why? Random portal component allows you to show 20 different articles randomly, while archive system shows the same one throughout the month. OhanaUnitedTalk page 15:50, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I had set it up with random portal and the subpages still exist, but after looking around at other featured portals it seems archive was more extensively used. Other thoughts? -- SECisek 18:38, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You should take a look at the Hinduism portal, that's how random portal actually works. Archive method was commonly found in older portals, as random portal component wasn't completed until later. OhanaUnitedTalk page 15:50, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Again, is there consensus? The sub pages already exist, but we would like to know consensus before we switch the format. -- SECisek 19:58, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
See Portal Pakistan's nomination. I can find more in past failed nominations because of this reason when I have more time. Now I read over the criteria and realize that portal does not satisfy 3a. To display a topic in broad details, you need more than just a selected article, picture, and bio each month, hence I switch from neutral to oppose. OhanaUnitedTalk page 16:48, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yet there are clearly Featured Portals that use this system (I studied several before construction) - surely this can not be a reason to fail the portal or numerous portals (Portal:Christianity, Portal:Scotland, Portal:London, many, many others) would have to be downgraded. Are there other problems? Your opposition is based on a misundestanding of criteria 3a which states:


This criteria is not about displaying broad details, but ensures that the topic is broad, e.g., Anglicanism Portal (broad) versus St Mary's Anglican Church Portal (narrow). Thank you in advance for any further suggestions. -- SECisek 16:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why I say this portal is narrow? Because if you update things once a month, there is no new content until it's chosen. Randomization saves all the trouble. You just need to pick 6 articles, put them in, and you come back 6 months later and put up new ones. Another great example is Portal:Africa. Notice how despite its look of an archive system, it actually incorporates randomization. 33 featured articles in a year (assuming the editor only updates the selections once a year) cover lots more topics than 12 articles a year (assuming one per month). Same principle applies to biography, picture, and DYK. OhanaUnitedTalk page 01:36, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You make a good case and I am not trying to cause trouble here. that said, I would just like a second oppinion before I make the switch...I got burned so bad with conflicting advice on the FAC process that I gave it up for good and just edit to GA. As i said, sub page already exist for the articles. -- SECisek 01:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: I personally prefer nomination-selection process for selected article, biography and picture over a random rotation process, especially for new and/or growing portals. While the random rotation process allows the portal admin to worry less about portal maintenance, a well executed periodic nomination-selection process forces the portal admin to create and develop new components for the portal, which in turn enriches wikipedia. I also agree that on a randomly rotated portal components change more frequently giving greater variety to readers. But as long as there is an archive, this does not seem to be a big issue. To sum up my point - a well executed selection-nomination process is equally good (if not better) than a random rotation process.
Saying so, the nomination page of this particular portal does not have evidence that a regular effective nomination and selection process is currently in place. That is a valid limitation for this portal to be featured. Arman (Talk) 03:04, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I also agree with SECisek about the definition of broadness in relation to Featured Portal Criteria. Broadness referes to the topic area, not the number of selected articles / pictures etc. Arman (Talk) 03:25, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There are numerous active editors in the connected Wikiproject. As articles are edited to GA, they will automaticaly be nominated and added to the portal. When we have enough recognized content, perhaps we could switch to the random system. The project is growing, we're getting 3 or 4 GAs a months and have at least one nominated at all time. Featured stauts would help the project move forward. -- SECisek 04:34, 24 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The best way for us to asses the broadness of a topic area is by how many/how good the selected content is. Joe I 07:12, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - things to fix:
  • Showcased Anglican content should be changed to Intro(which that first box actually is) or to THE ANGLICANISM PORTAL instead of having that above it.
  • Anglicanism should be bolded as well as linked.
  • The intro needs expansion.
  • Target articles in selected articles/bios should be bolded as well as linked.
  • Pics in articles/pics should have no seen caption, instead it should be a tool-tip type caption.
  • The more button wastes alot of space. It should be moved directly after the sentance, with a ... added afterwards.
  • The archives of articles/bios/pics do not sync up. There is Portal:Anglicanism/Article Archive(with only 2007 articles), Portal:Anglicanism/Selected article/2007(no links to 2008 or main archive) and Portal:Anglicanism/Selected article/2008(with no link to 2007 or main archive). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Searchme (talkcontribs) 07:45, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cats - the way you have it set up, a category tree would work best, if not remove the category prefix as this is implied.
  • Pics require a credit/source caption.
  • The Jan 2008 pic is dead.
  • Edit links in all archives do not lead to where they are supposed to.
  • Please make all selected pics the same size.
  • DYK's archive is blank. Please add atleast the current ones. Would like to see an update history before promotion.
  • DYK's should have a {{*mp}}
  • Topics is really thin, I'm not real familiar with the subject, but the must be more you could add.
  • I also agree with the others about rotation/maintenance and broadness. I much prefer a random rotation, tho that alone will not fail this portal. If you really don't want random, I would need to see an update history, instead of a one time five month blowout. Joe I 07:39, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I made a number of the changes suggested, but I can see where this going and I do not wish to pursue this nomination further. Some of the suggestions above have no connection whatsoever to Wikipedia:Featured portal criteria other clearly conflict with usages at existing Featured Portals such as Portal:Christianity which this one was largely modeled off of. Best. -- SECisek 22:38, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've been working on this portal for a few weeks now, and I believe it meets the Featured Portal Criteria (WP:WIAFPo). Let's see what the community thinks! For the record, it's based on Portal:Alternative music. Dihydrogen Monoxide (H2O) 00:00, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose: It is a good start. But, for the following reasons I think the portal is still not ready to be featured as one of the best portals on wikipedia:
    • The portal is heavily tilted towards Rock and Pop. Very limited (if at all) information is available about other genres i.e. indegenous, country and jazz music. Also, other than the related articles on AC/DC and Bon Scott, the entire portal caters for recent trends in Australian music (90s or later).
      • I'm aware of this issue. However, as GA and up articles are displayed on the portal, I don't have huge amounts of control over what shows up there. I could go and get some other Australian music articles to GA, but it's unrealistic to expect someone to create a full perspective on the topic themselves - I'm just working with what I've got.
        • Please don't take this personally. No one is accusing you for not finding all the right components. The skeleton of the portal, which you have created, is perhaps good enough for featured status. But the fact of the matter is (which you also agreed), there is not enough good material on wikipedia at this point in time to have a balanced portal on such a narrow topic. The portal needs to be evaluated based on its usefulness and representativeness, not only on its looks. Hence this portal, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be ready for a featured status yet. Arman Aziz 05:50, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • I'm not taking it personally, no. It's just that with the backlog around here, I don't want to have to wait forever to get it featured if it meets the criteria. Speaking of which, there is no mention in the criteria of representativeness. Usefulness is there, yes, but as I said before I really can't control what articles appeared on the portal. I doubt we'd ever have many GAs on some of the Australian music topics - there just aren't editors interested in that area. So I do what I can, but sometimes we just can't live up to the criteria word for word. Dihydrogen Monoxide (H2O) 06:00, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Several selected images on the roster don't seem impressive from image quality perspective. (e.g. big day out 2006 crowd, Tim Rogers, TZU, The Go-betweens, Ben-Lee).
      • Some bad images have been removed/resized - there were issues with commons at some stage, I believe.
    • The news section could use an archive. It also should have a track record of good maintenance (for at least 3 months).
      • The news section has only been running for a short amount of time, but archives will be implemented as soon as is relevant.
    • A "Did you know.." section could add value to the portal.
      •   Done
    • The intro section of the portal seems casually written. It could be improved.
      •   Done
On the whole, the portal seems far away from a balanced representation of Australian Music.Arman Aziz 02:12, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Responded to comments. Dihydrogen Monoxide (H2O) 05:01, 18 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hey water, I do feel that the images are concentrating on rock genre. Mind if you add something else such as Image:Sydney Opera House Sails.jpg? Also try rearrange components so that both left and right side balance out. Include a "show new selection" on the portal (see Portal:Environment. When these are done I'll support this nomination. OhanaUnitedTalk page 16:43, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • There currently is a show new selected content link under each content box, but yeah, I'll move it up to the top. And I've been meaning to get more images for different genres for a while....SPEBI! :) Dihydrogen Monoxide (H2O) 23:12, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • The Opera House is already a selected article, so I don't think that that image would work... perhaps another Australian icon that somehow represents the Music of Australia in some shape or form? Sebi [talk] 05:51, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Opera House is now a selected image, not article. Dihydrogen Monoxide (H2O) 06:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • How about some Live Earth concert, Sydney pictures? There should be plenty images around. OhanaUnitedTalk page 22:13, 25 September 2007 (UTC)\[reply]
            • Not apparently, all the CC ones I can find on Flickr either forbid derivatives, making them unavailable for use here. Other ones we can use were photos of the concert in London, so they're no good either... ~ Sebi [talk] 21:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • Switching my stance, I'll support OhanaUnitedTalk page 06:15, 6 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object, things to fix:
    • Music of Australia should be linked in the first line of the intro.
    • Selected article titles should be linked in the first sentence.
    • If possible the same pic shouldn't be used twice, AC/DC and Bon Scott
    • Article pics should not be thumbed with captions.
    • Crowded House has two selected articles, ah, one's a list, it should be advertised as such. Maybe add the table in the intro of List of Crowded House awards as the pic.
    • Crowded House has two pics that could be used.
    • A nominations section/page needs to be created for the articles and pics.
    • Both selected pics and articles archive pages should provide a link to the subpage, such as Portal:Numismatics/Selected article.
    • Any bolded title in selected pics should either be linked or unbolded.
    • There shouldn't be two captions on selected pics(one explaining the pic one explaing the article), this is selected pics so the only caption should be for that.
    • The more link isn't nessecary in selected pics since it's for pics not articles, tho I see no problem keeping it.
    • Two pics have unlinked credits.
    • News needs an archive.
    • News needs a read more type link to the source.
    • DYK needs an archive.
    • Category:Music venues in Australia deserves a spot in the topics box.
    • An associated wikimedia box needs to be created.
    • I think that about sums it up. Joe I 03:31, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]