User talk:Thebiguglyalien/Portal sample

I'm hoping that this portal design, based on the main page, offers a better alternative to the messy portals that have previously been used. Any suggestions on how to improve this design are welcome. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 19:32, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

This is a very nice layout. I imagine that like portals many of the items would be preprogrammed to rotate in and out regularly, particularly the "On this day" ones. As there are plenty of underused or less active portals, the time frames may do with changing (e.g. "This week's featured article"). -- Reconrabbit 16:28, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, the idea would be to make it as low-maintenance as possible. For smaller portals, I'm wondering if it might be better to consolidate them and have a few main portals that cover the basics instead of a huge number of them that don't have much content. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 17:18, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

Could be done. Portal:Lagomorpha was deleted recently but I don't see why it couldn't be included in Portal:Mammals. The issue comes with "how are these going to be implemented when regular old portals still exist" and "are these going to be linked from articles in any different way" (in the sidebar? in See Also?) -- Reconrabbit 17:40, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

Well that's the hard part, isn't it? The existing format is messy, and it's not widely supported by the community. If there's support for it, I see this as an overhaul for the current portal system. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 18:04, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

As I understand it this is fundamentally an aesthetic change, which makes evaluation somewhat tricky; de gustibus non est disputandum.

As I recall in previous discussions there were some who preferred a more mega-navbox feel, and sections like Things you can do were intended to help tie in the portals with associated WikiProjects. Times change, tastes change and it's always been difficult to get input from people who approach the project mostly as readers anyway.

Somewhat more objectively, the research I've seen suggests that most visitors tend not to do much scrolling, so a more compact layout may be worth pursuing from a navigation standpoint solely for that reason.

I'll leave a pointer at WT:PORTAL, since the VPI post has not thus far anyway attracted much attention. 184.152.65.118 (talk) 22:27, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

Thank you! I left solicitations for feedback at VPI and WikiProject Portals, but wasn't sure where else might be useful. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 00:36, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

Unfortunately it does not look like there is much interest in this, so I would just be bold here, and start rolling out the automated version since it seems there are at the very least no real objections at this time. Something like Portal:Biography, where there's been recent attempts at reworking, and hence more watchers who can offer input, may be a good place to start. 184.152.65.118 (talk) 20:20, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

It would be easy enough to replace the front-end, but part of the reason I was hoping for feedback is that there's a technical side to keeping it updated automatically and giving it the list of entries to draw from (which itself would need to take into consideration that articles are promoted and demoted). That's not something I'd be able to implement efficiently. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 18:09, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

If memory serves NA1K was responsible for the current setup and would be best positioned to offer help but is currently on wikibreak. You might try the talk pages of some of the people who used to work on back-end ideas at WT:PORT. Another option would be to seek out help for the sandboxed version at WP:VPT and get that running in the automated form you intend before rolling out. Even that would be a lot of work admittedly. 184.152.65.118 (talk) 01:22, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

I felt that the sample closely resembles the Main Page, maybe too much resemblance? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 13:40, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

That's the intention, it's supposed to be an extension of the main page for a specific topic. I wouldn't object to some variations though so it stands out as distinct visually. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 14:48, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

I feel like it's too much resemblance that people will have to do a double take to see which page they're on. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:10, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

OhanaUnited I took your advice and tried something a little different, making this sample a half-way point between the main page and the current portal design. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 18:04, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

I like this design. So how will the page automatically purge the server at 00:00 every day to rotate the items? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 13:06, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

You're right, the main page is a type of portal too, and the most visited one at that. So it has been refined over the years with readers in mind. I think you did a very good job. Ⰻⱁⰲⰰⱀⱏ (ⰳⰾ) 02:15, 28 November 2025 (UTC)