Appropedia:Portal
From Appropedia
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- This page explains portals. To find a portal, see the List of portals or Category:Portals.
[edit] What are portals?
The idea of a portal is to help readers and/or editors navigate their way through wiki topic areas through pages similar to the Main Page. In essence, portals are useful entry-points to wiki content.
At the moment, Portals are a new addition at Appropedia, and this page has been added to help provide guidance. Not all the elements are in place yet, but rather and wait till they're all there, this page will help get there.
The concept of a portal originated in the Polish and German Wikipedias. In early 2005, the portal concept was imported to the English Wikipedia and the first Wikiportals were established. Later that year, a special namespace (Portal:) was created for portals.
Portals began to be used at Appropedia in early 2007.
[edit] How to find portals
Eventually, many portals will be used for the links in the nav bar as soon as they are "ready for prime time." All portals are listed at the directory of portals, which should also detail their founding dates and whom you can contact with regard to a particular portal. If you have created a portal, please list it there. Portal:List of portals will list all portals of reader-ready quality.
[edit] How to create a portal
There is no single standard design for portals, but the most widely used layout is the "box portal". The use of this design is recommended due to the ease with which it can be created and maintained. For further ideas on portal design, browse some Wikipedia portals and see the featured Wikipedia portals. Wikipedia's instructions page will probably also be helpful until we develop our own.
[edit] How to make a good portal
Most portals contain the following for readers:
- A selected article and/or picture
- Links into the main for the topic and possibly subcategories (some portals actually appear in the description page for the main category)
- General info about the subject, or links thereto
- Links to other portals (using templates) and for editors.
- Links to related projects.
- Links to specific articles or tasks
- Collaboration of the week, month, etc.
Portals will also be key pages for creating and promoting initiatives to fill the related categories with appropriate articles (or add it to the portal's "todo" list so visitors can help out).
[edit] How to get involved
Just as with Appropedia at large, portals can be edited by anyone. However, it is important to pay due regard to the established work of others. Editors are always needed to maintain individual portals; if you would like to participate in the upkeep of a particular portal, note your intention on its talk page, list yourself as a maintainer in the directory of portals, and get to work!
[edit] See also
Most of the text for this page was taken from the Wikipedia page on what a portal is.
