Wikipedia:Portal peer review/Archive/August 2009

Portal:Poland

Initially, I wasn't really a big fan of the Wikipedia portal concept. But since there already was a Poland portal, completely defunct, I thought I might try to revamp it. It turned out to be quite fun, actually. I learned some new things about my own country in the process, and even more about Poland's coverage in Wikipedia. It helped me notice a systemic bias caused by geographic origin and personal interests of the most prolific Polish contributors. Apparently, most are history buffs from either Silesia or Lesser Poland, which would explain why virtually all quality Poland-related articles are about history; and why there's a geographic bias towards southern parts of the country.

Anyway, I tried to do my best, starting on 1 May. There are now four sections with fully randomized content: 21 GA or better historical articles, 10 GA+ biographies, 11 selected locations and 34 QI+ pictures. Additionally, a DYK sections with five most interesting Poland-related hooks selected monthly from the Main Page DYK; and "Poland now" highliting recent, on-going and/or scheduled events and holidays.

So far, I've been almost alone working on this, so any comments or suggestions are welcome. — Kpalion^(talk) 08:57, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You can add some B-class articles to selected locations if you wish, as long as they are in good quality. I don't mind seeing an occasional B-class articles if they are important. Article quality may not accurately reflect its importance. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:52, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really understand what you mean because almost all of the selected locations are C-class. We currently have no geographic Poland-related articles of higher quality, so C-class are as good as you can get. Perhaps you meant selected bio, where almost articles are GA or better? As of now, we don't have any more Polish biographies that are GA or better, so including B-class articles would indeed be the only way to expand this section. We've alreay made one exception for John Paul II – a B-class article, but good and important enough to be included. Is that what you are suggesting? — Kpalion^(talk) 15:09, 1 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Classical music

I'm hoping to take this to P:FP soon, and I'd like a thorough peer review to ensure its pass. Thanks! :) —La Pianista ^(T•C) 04:36, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This should probably have a sound section: We do have quite a lot.
- Will add when the February selections come out. Is this good enough? —La Pianista ^(T•C) 22:11, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Done. —La Pianista ^(T•C) 02:20, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Did you know sections contains facts not referenced by the articles linked, e.g, no description of The Deliverance of Theseus appears... anywhere, that I can find. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 11:46, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Removed that one, and will see what else I can do. Thanks, SH. :) —La Pianista ^(T•C) 22:11, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest you create your own bespoke "Associated Wikimedia" box and get rid of {{WikimediaForPortals}} as the only links that currently work from that are Commons and Wiktionary. At least with a bespoke box you can specify targets individually. You could also set the images in selected articles to not use the thumb parameter but just stand alone if you so wish. Nanonic (talk) 17:27, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Done I think. —La Pianista ^(T•C) 18:39, 7 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's better not to use the thumbnail marking for pictures, see Portal:Fish for presenting Selected pictures. feydey (talk) 19:19, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Jh12

I'm going to judge this portal against many of the featured portals I've looked over, Wikipedia:Portal guidelines, and Wikipedia:Featured portal criteria. I'll try to start with the biggest suggestions first:
I highly recommend converting from selections by year/month to randomized selections: see Portal:Islam, Portal:Criminal justice, Portal:Sustainable development, and Portal:Japan. All of these portals are easier to maintain and they allow a reader access to all of the content that has ever been available on the portal instead of just static selections for one month. All of these portals also use a layout system for their randomized selections, with instructions on how to add a new selection. (Portal:Criminal justice/Selected article) Per Wikipedia:Portal guidelines; I don't think thumbnail formatting should be used in any of the selections for article, biography, and picture; instead, see the layout system used by Portal:Criminal justice/Selected picture.
So I would recommend getting the layout system in place in the selection subpages, editing the main portal page to use {{Random portal component}}, and adding a big Show new selections button like the portals I've listed to check that everything works. For this portal, you should have at least 10 randomized selections each for Selected article, Selected picture, Selected biography, Selected sound, Selected Quotes (Portal:Oregon), and Did you know... (Portal:Islam). Also note that after that is done selections should be changed to be of similar size: under Portal:Classical music/Selected biography/Archive, the selection for Schoenberg is much larger than the one for Beethoven
Selected picture needs credits like at Portal:Schools
The portal needs a Topics section per Wikipedia:Portal_guidelines#Required
Having a Project introduction box seems a little too self-referential for me. I think you should add a Things you can do box instead like at Portal:Sustainable development or Portal:Peru. Most of the featured portals I've seen separate Portals and Project more clearly so you may wish to change this box to a separate Wikiprojects box and remove them from Related portals like at Portal:Criminal justice or make it look like Portal:United Nations
I recommend having a featured content section like at Portal:Islam
I think selected article, biography, and picture should all have in-text bold links to that particular article like Portal:Oregon and Portal:Islam
- Done.
Add a {{browsebar}} to the top of the portal like at Portal:Criminal justice or Portal:The Beatles
- Done. —La Pianista ^{♫ ♪} 05:40, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For additional content, you could also add a Selected anniversaries selection like at Portal:Oregon or Portal:Schools
It may take awhile to get all this stuff done, but it could lead to a much more polished portal and a smoother featured review. In my opinion, the primary issue is getting at least ten randomized selections for all of the important boxes and ensuring their selection quality (i.e. only GA or FA articles for Selected article like at Portal:Criminal justice/Selected article Best of luck! --Jh12 (talk) 17:00, 3 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment – Jh12 has many good comments that will take some time to implement. Usually, since the listing has been inactive for 1 month and 11 days, it would have been archived. However, from her talk page, La Pianista will not have Internet access possibly until June 14. [sd] 21:30, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What with with the likes of Stravinsky, Debussy... in the Notable composer list... while REALLY notable ones aren't in the list ?! Pardon my rudness, but I just went to modify the list. If you guys are okay with... I could have removed Chopin in the list in the same move as well. YES, he is an important pianist composer, I didn't say less. But What about Beethoven then? He WAS the GENIUS PIANIST COMPOSER. So, Chopin does not deserve to be in the list. Sorry, again, for the highlight.Reiko-chin—"I wish I was an artist to be able to be an anarchist and live like a millionnaire..." (talk) 08:43, 2 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We no longer accept portals that run on monthly-update system because, as demonstrated in the selected biography, once the portal no longer is maintained, it will be out of date within 1 month or less. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 06:17, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Free software

Hi all. I've been working on Portal:Free software (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), sporadically, for some time now, with Featured portal status as the ultimate aim. I solicit input with a view to filing a FPO nomination after all issues have been resolved. What issues, if any, would result in a nomination failing if it was filed with the portal as it currently stands?

Thanks for all input, —AGK 12:28, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, just took a quick skim over it. The page format looks good, very well structured. The OS section looks a little disorganised to me. And maybe try another color. Everyone is using blue. Uniqueness counts if your going for featured.Drew Smith W hat I've done 14:18, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your input, Drew; I'll take steps to implement your suggestions. AGK 16:07, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please refrain from using monthly-update format as we'll be slowly phrasing it out. We are having problems with people maintaining it each page. Instead, people select about 20 articles and it will be displayed randomly. Maintainers only need to update it every few months yet the portal remains stable. In short, change it from monthly to the archives format. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 04:26, 31 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Primates

I've been making this portal for a while and hopefully I made it easier to maintain than other portals. It includes selected pics, selected articles, selected species (with IUCN status!), DYKs, news, projects, categories, and other basic portal items. Nomination procedures seem easy to do, IMO but I can take any suggestions. Zoo Fari 23:13, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]