Forum:The portals

Expanding on the ideas originally discussed here, I'm purposing a redesign of the Portal pages. Here's a mock up of what I have in mind, more of less:


 * Portal:Database (Hub of in universe info, idea is to replace/expand on the welcome panel currently on the main page)
 * Portal:People (People portal with production lists removed and randomized FA)
 * Portal:Society and Culture (Merged with the current Arts portal, randomized FA)
 * Portal:Science (only real difference is the new nav bar)
 * Portal:Technology (new nav bar and randomized FA)
 * Portal:Alternate Reality (Production info moved elsewhere)
 * Portal:Star Trek (containing panels from the main page)
 * Portal:TV and films (The TV and film info from the current Star Trek portal, randomized FA)
 * Portal:Merchandise (Info from the current Star Trek portal and AR portal, randomized FA when other FAs get blurbs)
 * Portal:Production (A cast, crew, and behind the scenes portal, randomized FA)
 * Portal:Editing (purposed hub for editing, contains links from the current main page, recent changes, and several FA pages)

Some of these still require a lot of work before they would be ready to go, some could "go live" now, but all together this should be enough to give an idea about the overall idea in the redesign, which is to reduce the size of the overall portal pages, expand on sections of portals that can be, and eliminate or reduce wasted ones, mainly Art.

I would appreciate it if comments/questions/accusations about individual portals be place on the individual talk pages, to make it easier to address them, but accusations/questions/comments on the overall idea are welcome here. - 12:51, December 3, 2011 (UTC)


 * Is the idea to just have the three top-level portals on the main page, and all others only on those portal pages? I'm not sure that's sensible, because a portal that isn't well-visited now would be even less-visited "buried" another level deep If individual portals don't work we could work on merging some or replacing others by new ones, but I think a good number of portals should be accessible from the main page. -- Cid Highwind 16:46, December 3, 2011 (UTC)

My thinking is that the only the top three would be linked from the "slider". That doesn't necessarily exclude further links on the main page, but the (current) links in the site wide navigation menu make the need for any other links somewhat redundant. The subs of Star Trek would just replace the current options in that menu, and Arts would be replaced by Editing. - 17:05, December 3, 2011 (UTC)

Revised

 * Portal:People (People portal with production lists removed to "Star Trek" and randomized FA)
 * Portal:Society and Culture (Merged with the current Arts portal, randomized FA)
 * Portal:Science (only real difference is the new nav bar)
 * Portal:Technology (new nav bar and randomized FA)
 * Portal:Alternate Reality (Production info moved elsewhere)
 * Portal:Star Trek (A cast, crew, and behind the scenes portal, randomized FA)
 * Portal:TV and films (The TV and film info from the current Star Trek portal, randomized FA)
 * Portal:Merchandise (Info from the current Star Trek portal and AR portal, randomized FA when other FAs get blurbs)

I've now revised this to not work with a new main page layout, since that seems unlikely now. The only main differences between this and the original is that the Star Trek portal would be where most of the production information is (eliminating the "Production" portal as a stand alone), and that the "top" portal for in universe ones (Database) is no longer required for linking purposes. I've also removed the editing portal, since while it is a good idea, the recent (and history of) dpl problems makes it rather problematic to get to (it takes twice as long to load as any other page on average). - 10:04, February 11, 2012 (UTC)

Last call on this. Just to clarify, Template:FeaturedPerson would be merged into Template:FA, all the sub-portal pages would be merged into the portals (Portal:Science/Featured -> Portal:Science/Related portals -> Portal:Science/Categories -> Portal:Science), and the all the second level portal templates would be merged into Template:Portal (Template:Portal second level/Arts -> Template:Portal second level -> Template:Portal). Template:FeaturedPerson display would be merged with Template:Featured article/doc, and all the temps would of course be merged with the main portals. - 00:26, February 18, 2012 (UTC)


 * All of this seems a bit above my pay grade, but it sounds OK to me.--31dot 01:12, February 18, 2012 (UTC)