Wikipedia:Featured portal review/Disasters

The following is an archived discussion of a featured portal review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

Portal:Disasters

Fails 1(d) ("Well maintained"). The "Selected article", "Selected picture" and "Selected anniversary" sections have all been redlinks since August 2008, so well over a year; DYKs have not been added to since 2006 when the portal was nominated. Left messages with WikiProject Disaster management and Nishkid64 (FPC nominator) 10 days ago, but no response or action visible. Have left messages about this FPR with both. Bencherlite^Talk 14:04, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

• That doesn't look good, does it? I might have time to do some work on this portal (my interest in this topic area has been re-awakened by watching a documentary about the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami - the 5-year anniversary). Could someone help out by making a list of what things need: (a) doing to bring this up to the required level again; and (b) what needs doing regularly (e.g. every day, week, month, year)? Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 22:51, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Sorry for not getting back here before now. I've redirected the Jan 2010 redlinks to Jan 2007 selection to I have no great experience of portals, but have put together one myself relatively recently. I followed a lot of the formatting / coding of Portal:Nevada in particular, which was recently made a featured portal.
    1. Ideally, you need a decent list of quality content (FA / GA) to work from. You can generate one in your userspace or in portal space using User:JL-Bot/Project content. You can then check which articles ought to be showcased but aren't, and which ought to be retired (if any) – I gather that portals are meant to showcase FA/GA level articles, or B-level at a pinch.
    2. Next, the major change since this portal was featured back in 2006 is the use of {{Random portal component}} to save having to update the subpages every month. You can probably simply move the selected article and selected pictures from (e.g.) "/October 2006" to "/1", "/November 2006" to "/2", etc. For the selected anniversary, you could move the pages to {{CURRENTMONTH}} subpages. Once the random components are in place, nothing critical should need doing, apart from adding new pictures / DYK / quality content every so often.
    3. You can update the DYK list by working from the JL-Bot output.
  • Hope this helps. Bencherlite^Talk 00:20, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
    • Thanks! That's very helpful. I'll try and do something this week or next weekend, unless someone else makes a start before then. Carcharoth (talk) 04:00, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
      • No problem. When the bot runs, it should generate something at Portal:Disasters/Recognized content for you. Bencherlite^Talk 08:44, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Still the same problems, 2 1/2 months after nomination at FPR, and 19 months after the redlinks started to appear. Whatever happened to "Featured portals that require maintenance and are not updated for three or more months are summarily demoted" in the Featured portal criteria? Bencherlite^Talk 08:59, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Sadly, I haven't found the time yet (how long does it take to repair a portal like this?). I would make a new promise to do something by Wednesday (I have some free time coming up next week), but I've learnt not to keep promising to do something when it turns out I didn't have the time after all. :-( If you want to do something, please do. If it needs to be de-featured, that's not a problem (clearly it can't stay featured in its current state). What I will do is take a quick look and see how long it will take to fix at least the redlinks problem. Carcharoth (talk) 05:56, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm having a look now. Carcharoth (talk) 07:01, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I did discover that there is now a Wikipedia:WikiProject Earthquakes and I've left a note there to ask if anyone there is interested in maintaining the portal (ideally Wikipedia:WikiProject Disaster management would, but no-one really responded to that note). Carcharoth (talk) 12:02, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I might be interested. ceranthor 12:48, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

• Comment, I am willing to improve this portal up to a featured standard. I've just finished one selected article, and I'm sure I'd be able to get more done today. Hopefully by Monday I will be able to improve it significantly. ceranthor 13:05, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

• Cough? Bencherlite^Talk 14:33, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
• COUGH?? Bencherlite^Talk 23:25, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought I'd mentioned here that it was on my to-do list. Unfortunately, I also thought I mentioned that I didn't have the time to improve it at the moment but I'll try to get to it as soon as possible. In other wods, I can't fix it up before it's delisted. ceranthor 23:29, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Wasn't having a go at you, I assure you. It was a complaint directed towards the failure of the Featured Portal system that allows such an inadequate portal to remain for months – 20 months after the "selected content" sections became permanent redlinks, and over 3 months since the matter was raised here. Would one of the Featured Portal directors care to explain this, with particular reference to "Featured portals that require maintenance and are not updated for three or more months are summarily demoted" in the Featured portal criteria? This has been eligible for summary demotion for 17 months! Bencherlite^Talk 23:36, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Note: Left a query for Carcharoth (talk · contribs) and Ceranthor (talk · contribs) to ask if they intend to work on this portal. -- Cirt (talk) 00:03, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

No time (or motivation) to work on this at the moment. It should (as Bencherlite said) have been defeatured ages ago. The trouble is, if it gets defeatured and only then do people start working on it to get it back to featured status, that will look a bit bad. But if that is what is needed, that is what is needed. If I do work on it at a later date, I won't claim any credit for it, as I should have worked on it earlier. Carcharoth (talk) 00:09, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Update: Posted notices for J Milburn (talk · contribs) and Yomangan (talk · contribs). (Both were listed as previously being involved with the portal, at Wikipedia:Portal/Directory) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 00:21, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Good idea. Perhaps the suggestion to check the Directory could be added to the instructions to nominators. Bencherlite^Talk 00:26, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Nod, that is a good point. No objections here. :P -- Cirt (talk) 00:27, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Added, although I must confess that I only saw Nishkid64's name there, even in some old page revisions that I checked, so I'm not sure where you spotted their previous involvement. Better eyesight than me, probably - or did you get confused with sharks, the only portal in the directory where their names are on the same portal? Bencherlite^Talk 00:56, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, those folks were listed for Sharks. I will de-feature this now. -- Cirt (talk) 01:02, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

• De-featured. -- Cirt (talk) 01:02, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

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