User:Cesdeva/sandbox14

This is the user sandbox of Cesdeva. A user sandbox is a subpage of the user's user page. It serves as a testing spot and page development space for the user and is not an encyclopedia article. Create or edit your own sandbox here.

Other sandboxes: Main sandbox | Template sandbox

Finished writing a draft article? Are you ready to request review of it by an experienced editor for possible inclusion in Wikipedia? Submit your draft for review!

How to create a portal

Before creating a portal, see Portal:Contents/Portals to check if a portal exists for the topic already.

Wikipedia:Portal/Instructions provides instructions on portals.
Template:Modern portal is not finished yet, but might be useful as an alternative style.

What content to include

Required

Introduction – This should be transcluded from the lead of the article on the same topic as the portal, unless completely unsuitable.^{weaseling to the people running Portal:Opera here.} If possible, the intro section should contain an attractive image emblematic of the topic.^{linking to instructions here could be useful.}
Categories – Links to the most important categories related to the topic.^clutter
Subportals or Related Portals (if there are any) – Some portals have these appear near the top, just below the "Introduction" (e.g. Arts or Technology). Others have them appear near the bottom (e.g., Biology or Literature). This section is not required if a topic-specific browsebar is used (e.g., Religion).^clutter
Topics – Links to the most important articles related to the topic.^clutter

Browsebar – The general {{browsebar}} and/or a more specific bar of portal links such as on the religion portals
Selected article – The first instance of the article title should link to the full article. Images should not use thumbnail formatting unless the background color of the portal content is specified as "transparent" (typically in the box-header subpage). Keep images small; 100px (as on the Main Page) is best. Remember that in compliance with WP:NFCC, non-free images cannot be used outside of articles.
Things you can do – Any relevant ongoing collaborations, as well as lists of editing requests for related articles (e.g., Star)^{should not be used unless there is a wikiproject.}
Wikimedia, Other projects, or like – Links to material on other Wikimedia projects (e.g., Arts)
Selected picture – Images should have captions detailed enough for viewers to understand the context. Be sure to test the portal at 800x600^...resolution to be sure images are not too large. Do not use thumbnails; instead, let the caption stand free below the image (e.g., History of science).^{Could probably replace this with a more useful statement}

* Portals footer – The brief {{portals}}.^clutter

Optional

WikiProjects – A list of any WikiProjects related to the topic. This may be combined with "Things to do".
In the news – Frequently updated headlines related to the topic (e.g., Politics). See the Wikinews Importer Bot for a method to automatically update a portal news section from Wikinews items.
Did you know? – Interesting trivia related to the topic (e.g., Science). The number of entries should be fixed, with old entries moved to a Read more archive. See the random subpage template for a method to display a list of randomly selected items from a group of numbered subpages (e.g., Sustainable development). This template also can be used to randomly rotate items such as images within a section (e.g., the Philosophy of science introduction).
Selected biography – Follow the same conventions as for "Selected articles."
Selected picture – Images should have captions detailed enough for viewers to understand the context. Be sure to test the portal at 800x600 resolution to be sure images are not too large. Do not use thumbnails; instead, let the caption stand free below the image (e.g., History of science).
Selected anniversaries or On this day – These should be updated automatically based on the date. For broad topics, daily content is preferable (e.g., War); for more specific subjects, monthly may be appropriate (e.g., Scouting).
Selected quotes - Add some good quotes on the topic, it can be a good additional asset to your portal (e.g. London).
Many other content boxes are possible. For ideas, see London, Cricket, and the other featured portals, or browse through other complete portals.

Article selection

For the Selected article, Selected biography or other Selected content items, find a good number^[1] of articles, as many as you can, that could be showcased on the portal. Ideally there should be a minimum of seven articles for each section.

The articles lead section will be shown on the portal, therefore choosing articles with useful and developed lead sections is essential.

Each of these articles should be:

Of high quality, either a featured article, a good article, or an article which deals with its subject substantially or comprehensively;
Describing a major topic or person notable within the portal topic area;
Have no tags displayed denoting clean-up, copyright violation, controversy or similar;^{why? most articles have tags for various reasons, this will only encourage people to take them off. Also a tag may be added later, the article should not be removed just because it's had a tag added.}
not marked as a stub.

^ Good number means about 20 articles, though this figure may vary from case to case and is intended as a rough guide rather than a hard principle.

How often to update?

The more often portals are updated, with fresh content, the more interesting they will be for returning visitors. Various schedules are available:

Fixed. This is a fully static portal, and is not recommended unless there is a good reason the portal is designed this way.
Yearly/Quarterly. This is not recommended.
Monthly. This is an acceptable update time.
Weekly. This is the prefered update time, as new content will be show to repeat visitors after only 7 days.
Daily. If you have the inclination to setup a daily update, then by all means do so.
Randomised. This is the default option for simple and/or unmaintained portals with no other update schedule.

Queue features in advance

One way to facilitate the updates is to queue them up in advance. Wikipedia contains some system variables (see Help:Variables), such as {{CURRENTWEEK}}, and {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}}. These can be incorporated into wikilinks.

For example [[Selected picture/{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}}]] would link to [[Selected picture/May 2006]] during May 2006. This link would automatically update to [[Selected picture/June 2006]] in June.

Knowing this, you can set up several of the Selected picture monthly subpages in advance. You can instead use the {{CURRENTWEEK}} variable to make the selected picture update weekly, rather than monthly.

Randomise selections

Another method to automate portals is to use technologies such as {{Transclude random excerpt}} to randomly display new content.