Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Singapore

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured portal candidate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the portal's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured portal candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The portal was not promoted by OhanaUnited 18:13, 23 December 2013‎ [1].

Portal:Singapore[edit]

I have been working on this portal and believe that it now meets the Featured Portal status. It contains:

  • 20 Selected Articles
  • 20 Selected Biographies
  • 20 Selected Pictures
  • 15 Selected Panorama
  • 10 Sets of 5 DYK lists

I had some helpful comments by Sven Manguard in the previous portal peer review, and I have implemented his suggestions. Although the portal is not really frequently edited, I modified it so that it requires little maintenance, if at all.--Lionratz (talk) 05:08, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As I said in the PPR, I'm not the most thorough of reviewers. I recommend asking Espresso Addict for his assessment. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:32, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Looks pretty good, I like the simple colour scheme, that the selected articles are mostly GAs, and the idea to have a selected panorama. The weaknesses are mostly related to the general weaknesses of portals on en.wiki (i.e. mostly random content rather than maintained content, focus on selected articles and minimal index function only, reliance on the disappointing content of Wikinews, etc), and probably can only be overcome with a more sweeping improvement drive of portals. Otherwise, some very minor suggestions:

  • The intro does not mention the population of the island-state while less important figures such as GDP and foreign reserve are included
  • Added the population figures.
  • In the selected articles section, SA8 Durian - is not explained in the blurb how this relates to Singapore. I think if included a more customised blurb is needed.
  • Done. Have changed some references to "South East Asia" to Singapore, as well as to add some Singaporean examples.
  • In the DYK section, "Singapore" is overlinked
  • Removed all links to Singapore
  • The inclusion criteria for the "related portals" section is unclear, with many but not all Asian countries included. I would suggest less "see also" type links is better, and limit the listed countries to Singapore's neighbours (Malaysia, Indonesia), and countries with which Singapore has strong cultural or economic ties (i.e. India, China), etc.
  • "Related portals" is a term commonly used on many portals (eg: Portal:Indonesia and Portal:Norway), so I don't really think that there is a need to change it. The portals were included on such a basis: Asia (Singapore is part of Asia), Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam (fellow member states of ASEAN, as well as the Hong Kong, Taiwan (Singapore's direct economic competitors; all share a very similar culture and a history of friendship), India, People's Republic of China (reasons as mentioned by you), Japan (Singapore and Japan share deep economic and cultural ties, and the fact that Singapore was only ever invaded by Japan)

Hope some of the above is of help. --ELEKHHT 00:09, 25 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments. Have addressed the individual points above.--Lionratz (talk) 02:03, 25 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Nice work, I think it is better now. --ELEKHHT 14:01, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. Simple striking colours, useful map in the introduction, good length blurbs. I like the panoramas.

  • Is the wide fixed width necessary? If the width of the panoramas is a problem, they can be given a scroll box.
  • I thought it would look nicer if the whole image is ahown. Anyways, the whole length is intended as a sort of division between the content side of the portal and the projects side of the portal--Lionratz (talk) 03:03, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The styles of the headers for the boxes are different for In this month & In the news (lower case italics) than the other boxes.
  • In this month section needs a copy edit. It uses a hyphen as a separator; should be en rule or colon. Date ranges should use an en rule. In this month sections are usually organised by day in the month, not by year. Items use both present tense and past tense; needs standardisation. Can more items be added to the short sections?
  • Done. More entries not feasible unless we really want to go into much less important anniversaries. Singapore only has a recorded history since 1819, after all.
  • I'm not convinced of the utility of using Wikinews for In the news. The most recent item is over a month ago, and others go back over a year. Few if any items appear strongly linked to Singapore.
  • Same old argument. I think that a RfC or a proposal at the Village pump would be in order. For this portal, can we not go there?--Lionratz (talk) 03:03, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it means that it is not simply the opinion of one reviewer. As it does not add anything to the portal, there seems to be no compelling reason to include it. Also, IMO it is not a generic issue: Wikinews is strongly biased towards a number of topics, so might be ok for portals like Disasters, but that doesn't mean that it helps make other portals featureable. So why not just simply remove it?--ELEKHHT 14:01, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Removed and shifted In this month to the right.--Lionratz (talk) 01:18, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Did you know & In this month need links to their archives.
  • Can images be added to the Selected biographies?
Some have free images, but Sven Manguard mentioned that whether pictures are included or not should be standardized.--Lionratz (talk) 03:03, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Can you give a date in the credits for Selected picture & Selected panorama?
  • In Selected articles, can pictures be added to Cabinet of Singapore, Toa Payoh ritual murders and I am Not Stupid?
  • Not possible. I could add a picture of Singapore's Parliament house for the Cabinet of Singapore (that is where the cabinet sits anyways), but for the latter two, I cannot find any free images that can be used.--Lionratz (talk) 03:03, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Image mouseover text should not have full stops unless full sentences.
  • Yip Pin Xiu Selected biography has red links.
  • Several of the Selected biographies cut off in an odd place.
  • In DYKs, Speakers' Corner image has incorrect mouseover text. Singapore Power Building lacks mouseover text. Limicolaria flammea mouseover text needs a capital.
  • Related portals could do with the two rows being better balanced.
  • I don't really get what you mean. Can you elaborate?--Lionratz (talk) 03:03, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • At the default width, the first row has eight items, the second has four. Espresso Addict (talk) 13:16, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hope this is of assistance in improving the portal further. Espresso Addict (talk) 14:29, 25 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the long time it took for me to reply; I was swamped by my real life commitments. Thanks Cirt for the reminder. Added some replies above.--Lionratz (talk) 01:18, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, you're back, Lionratz! It's been such a long time since we were both active! I must admit I've forgotten what a few of my above points were about. I do still think someone who knows about access issues should take a look at the fixed-width panorama; it might be an unnecessary access problem for those on old-resolution screens. Perhaps an expert could weigh in here?
Personally I would much prefer to have images in the biographies -- it makes the people come alive, in a way text can't -- even if a few were missing. You can always use images that represent the people (eg institution named for them, place associated with them) or just replace the bios with no plausible free image. I'd also suggest adding an image to Cabinet of Singapore in articles, as there's one available.
Re the bios cutting off oddly: I can't recall which I meant originally. Rereading, several of the earlier ones seem to have the problem that there's an initial general summary paragraph, followed by a second paragraph which starts with the beginning of their life (often the least interesting part) and then stops abruptly. Examples include Ho Yuen Hoe, Gan Eng Seng & Reginald Hugh Hickling. Denise Phua Lay Peng also seems to have got a bit scrambled. The other thing I note rereading is that you sometimes use the forename to refer to people, which isn't usual practice. (I don't think it's just that I don't understand naming order conventions, as it includes Westernised forenames.)
As to the related portals box, you could trim the number, make the flag icons smaller, or use a table structure to put them into two rows of six. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:34, 1 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some comments:
Otherwise, this portal looks very good. -- Ypnypn (talk) 00:29, 29 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have taken the liberty to fix the issues that were raised by you for the nominator. OhanaUnitedTalk page 02:31, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Did you check wikisource project link?!Gire 3pich2005 (talk) 21:34, 14 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Thanks OhanaUnited for the help!--Lionratz (talk) 01:30, 1 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like progress is being made here. Perhaps User:Sven Manguard and User:Espresso Addict could revisit? — Cirt (talk) 21:10, 13 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You caught me at a bad time, actually. I'm checking to make sure nothing is on fire, but I can't spend too much time on it tonight. Just going on first impressions, I have the following thoughts:
  • Excellent work choosing visually appealing, high technical quality images. That's what I'm looking for when there aren't relevant FPs. That being said, I really don't like selected image 4, because the side of the building and the wire crossing the bottom half are distracting (and the caption doesn't mention that the image was taken from the balloon, which made things confusing).
  • The Wikiversity logo you're using in the interwiki section is wrong. You need File:Wikiversity-logo.svg, which looks totally different. I've renamed the file you're using so that people won't make that mistake in the future.
Detailed comments to come. Sven Manguard Wha? 01:58, 14 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • [To Cirt] I had another look on 1 November (see above comments); on a quick look, it doesn't seem as if those comments have been addressed as yet. Espresso Addict (talk) 02:37, 14 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Lionratz and Espresso Addict - I checked the panoramas on several common small resolutions (1024 is the smallest width still in common use, 1280 is the smallest width Wikipedia works well on in Vector). On 1024 the portal itself doesn't crimp to the screen size (compare Singapore with Boston). That being said, a large number of portals don't work in 1024 with Vector, and that shouldn't be held against the project as a) People using 1024 should not be using Vector, and b) people using 1024 should not be using 1024. In 1024 if you scroll horizontally all the way to the right, you get a perfectly decent looking portal with nothing cut off (you just don't see the Vector navigation bar on the right). So, IMO, it's fine in 1024. It's also fine in 1280. Even the widest selected panoramas don't go off the sides in either resolution. I'll check other things after lunch. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:16, 14 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pardon me, Sven Manguard, I dont really get what you are talking about (too much technical stuff...) So do I need to make any changes and if so, is it possible to give me some tips on how to do so? Thanks! To others, will be looking through your comments in the next few days. I am being swamped with real-life commitment now.--Lionratz (talk) 01:35, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Espresso Addict, perhaps you could help with posting some specific comments, below, on what is left to address for Lionratz ? I'm just trying to keep things moving along here, — Cirt (talk) 18:49, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Bullet-pointing the outstanding issues from my comments of 1 November, for clarity. My main problem is with the biographies.
  • Images in the biographies; personally I would much prefer to have these -- it makes the people come alive, in a way text can't -- even if a few were missing. You can always use images that represent the people (eg institution named for them, place associated with them) or even just replace the bios with no plausible free image if other high-quality biographies are available.
  • Some biography blurbs still cut off oddly. Several of the earlier ones seem to have the problem that there's an initial general summary paragraph, followed by a second paragraph which starts with the beginning of their life (often the least interesting part) and then stops abruptly. Examples include Ho Yuen Hoe, Gan Eng Seng & Reginald Hugh Hickling.
  • The blurb for Denise Phua Lay Peng also seems to have got a bit scrambled.
  • The blurbs sometimes use the forename to refer to people, which isn't usual practice. (I don't think it's just that I don't understand naming order conventions, as it includes Westernised forenames.)
  • I'd also suggest adding an image to Cabinet of Singapore in Selected articles, as there's one available.
  • The related portals box still looks messy and unbalanced. You could trim the number, make the flag icons smaller, or use a table structure to put them into two rows of six.
Espresso Addict (talk) 20:38, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Espresso Addict, much appreciated. Lionratz, please update here when you feel these are addressed, — Cirt (talk) 00:50, 22 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Lionratz, any updates on this? — Cirt (talk) 05:00, 20 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Closed as not promoted. OhanaUnitedTalk page 18:13, 23 December 2013‎ (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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