Wikipedia:Portal peer review/British Army/archive2

Portal:British Army

Hi. I'm after possible improvements and ideas before I nominate this portal for featured status. Jhfireboy Talk 15:07, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hossen27

Very sound portal

Not much wrong here.

I made a few mostly minor changes to the layout and removed some redlinks.

just a few more things.

make all the images in the selected articles the same size (around 200px), just for consistency. Done to 350px
try to make the selected articles similar lengths, keeps the portal looking more uniform even though it automatically refreshes the content.
Its not a necessity (in my opinion) but adding the source of the selected photo is always a nice touch. see Portal:Military of Australia/Selected picture for examples. Done

Go ahead and put it up for feature review if you think its ready. They will find the other little things that need a change that I missed in my 10 minute check.

Well done Hossen27 (talk) 02:13, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kirill Lokshin

A very nice portal, as Hossen27 says. There are a few things that may need some fiddling, though:

The background color seems a bit dark for me; it's difficult to read the blue links on it, at least on my screen. You might consider using a lighter shade of khaki instead. Done
Selected pictures do, generally speaking, need sources. Done
The "Things you can do" box shouldn't contain anything that's already been done. Done
I'd avoid using thumbnail markup inside the boxes, for consistency; the captions can be positioned under the image via a table instead. Done
The main portal navbar ("Culture · Geography ...") appears twice; I'd suggest removing the one at the top, to avoid needing the horizontal line there. Done
A list of major topics would be good (and is likely to be requested during the featured portal review).

Keep up the good work! Kirill 02:56, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cam

Well, as mentioned by Kirill & Hossen27, really good portal. However, there are a few minor things that I think could use some improvement.

Kirill, you're not alone. it's difficult to see the blue links on my screen too (despite the fact that I have brightness turned to absolute max). Might I suggest a lighter colour. Done
The "Related portals" seems a bit out of place. I'd argue that it is taking the place of something more important, such as Featured Article or Featured Event or something along those lines Done (incidentally, I notice you don't have a "featured event", perhaps you should add that).
I think the whole page could benefit from a re-arranging of the boxes. Generally, Featured Article is the first one on the portal in most cases, rather than the featured picture. Done

Other than that, however, I think this thing's pretty much ready for Featured Portal nomination. Excellent work. Cheers! Cam (Chat) 04:11, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kyriakos

Good work so far. The portal is looking good, I just a few comments:

As mentiond above I would standardize the size of the images, I personally think that 150 px is a good size. Done to 350px.
As stated by Kirill, a major topics section would be great as looking through several of the MILHIST Featured Portals they all have one.
You might like to get rid of the thumb on the images. Done
I would be good if you added images for every article when possible. In the selected units, Royal Horse Artillery and Scots Guards don't have images, when their symbols could possibly be used.

Otherwise, the portal looks very good. Kyriakos (talk) 07:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Gaia Octavia Agrippa

Very good portal. Only one problem and that is with the colouring. It is not very easy to read the first section. Can i suggest that you use something other than blue on green as the background. Great content though. Gaia Octavia Agrippa^T | _C 20:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC) Done[reply]

BusterD

Some good work here. Building a new portal is a lonely task. Much of what I'll suggest is intended to invite the casual reader to participate. I personally think that there's way too much background color showing (Selected picture, for example), but that's an artistic choice, and not by any means a deal killer. There are several issues that will come up during any promotion process and must be resolved in some way, if my recent experience at P:ACW is indicative. I'll also suggest you look at Portal:Norway (a newly featured portal maintained by User:Cirt, a frequent FP commenter) for examples of what is expected in that process.

Current style is that instructions appear on each content page. See how I've adapted this for Portal:American Revolutionary War/Selected event (in Kirill's new portal effort).
A page layout is also a good idea (same examples), in order to make it very easy for a new portal contributor to make finished, correctly styled entries all by themselves.
A redundant link to each subsection entry (look at the page code for Portal:American Revolutionary War/Selected event to see what I mean) is another handy handle a new editor can use to see exactly where to click.
Your "Things to do" subsection references things to do on the portal itself, and strangely, that's not the task the section normally performs in a featured portal. Look at similarly intended (but very different from each other) subsections in Portal:Comedy and Portal:American Civil War. I'd use a {{todo}} template on subpages to tell the new editor what tasks need doing. On the main page subsection, I believe the accepted style should be pointing the editor toward helping content-area articles. If there was a British Army task force, you could simply transclude their to do list. Since you have a Britsh military history task force, you can pull from that. Keep the red-links to high-priority requests.
IMHO, you're going to need way more selected sub-articles and pictures. Six of each is a very small number. Size of each entry should be roughly similar; right now when one cycles the selection, page composition varies widely, when it should be fairly stable. Read current FP process to see what metrics are currently being applied to such issues. It's a good idea to start reading FP process anyway. Done - now have ten sub-articles and pictures.
Maybe it's my browsers or platform, but the "Show new selections" link is partially hidden behind the two top subsection boxes. Done - I have tried three browsers that do not show this mistake.
Intro box needs a footer: (More about the British Army)

I suspect there's more to do, but since you need many more sub-articles and pictures, remind me to look again after you've built those quantities up a bit. BusterD (talk) 00:17, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This looks better. I'm not sure what the ideal number of entries will be, but keep adding a few a week, and then you're ready. Expect some sharp critique at featured portal (you'll be busy for a week or two); the accepted practice is to self-nominate your own work, so you can choose your moment. Congratulations on important work done well. BusterD (talk) 23:58, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Alexf

Very nicely done. My only complaint, one already noted by other editors, is the dark green background at the top provides low contrast and makes it hard to read. -- Alexf⁴² 11:59, 15 July 2008 (UTC) Done[reply]