Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Portals
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 | The following is a draft working towards a proposal for adoption as a Wikipedia policy, guideline, or process. The proposal must not be taken to represent consensus, but is still in development and under discussion, and has not yet reached the process of gathering consensus for adoption. Thus references or links to this page should not describe it as policy, guideline, nor yet even as a proposal. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia's Manual of Style applies to portals, with a few alterations explained on this page. |
| Manual of Style (MoS) |
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The Wikipedia Manual of Style (MoS) is the style guideline for all of Wikipedia's content aimed at readers, though it is written primarily with Wikipedia articles in mind. While portals are not in the main (article) namespace, they also contain reader-facing content; therefore, they should generally follow the MoS guidelines, with some alterations as explained on this page.
Purpose of portals[edit]
While articles exist to display content to the reader, portals are intended to help readers find their way around Wikipedia. Unlike categories, which serve a similar purpose, portals are composed of free flowing text. This allows information to be presented in an accessible way, but also means that there is more need for stylistic guidance. In general, it is best to follow the same rules across all user-facing pages, in order to maintain clarity and consistency for readers. However, some of the provisions of the Wikipedia Manual of Style do not make sense for portals, because they organize other content rather than communicating information themselves. Additionally, the conventions for portals are not as standardized as those for articles, so editors writing portals have greater freedom to adjust the style of a portal to fit the nature of the arranged content.
Portals are not intended for optional printed use. They are entirely for use within Wikipedia, and need not comply with any constraints of style that are intended to make an article suitable for use in a paper format, or any environment where the links will not work.
Alterations[edit]
Layout[edit]
Portals are not articles, and do not require sections to be separated by heading markup (==Heading==); the most common approach[a] uses <h2>...</h2> headings within a box layout. Nor does portal content need to be in a specific order. However, use common sense: introductory material should be at or near the top, and external and sister project links should be at or near the bottom (or in a utility sidebar, depending on page layout).
Layout should be usable on mobile view, as this has become a very popular access method.
When to use bold text[edit]
Bold text may additionally be used for links to indicate the main article or page which included content relates to. This facilitates readers' ability to verify the portal content, by finding and following a prominent link, and checking the references there.
Self-references[edit]
Self-references may appear in sections which encourage editing, such as those listing wikiprojects or tasks to be done, to facilitate navigation between portals, or to elicit feedback from readers.
Instructional material[edit]
Some explanation of how to use a portal or how to use the content in a portal may be appropriate in order to better guide readers.
National varieties of English[edit]
Consistency between all sections of a portal may not be possible, especially if the portal is arranged geographically or when transcluded content is used. However, use a consistent variety within a section, and portal-wide if there is no good reason to diverge.
Other issues[edit]
Portal page titles appear in articles using {{Portal}} or similar templates. These should follow the MoS guidelines, including those on capital letters and dashes, as well as the applicable criteria in the article titles policy, and any relevant topical naming-convention guidelines.
Section headings in portals should be treated as heading-like material, and as such should follow the section heading advice regarding sentence case, redundancy, images, and questions, where this does not adversely affect their utility to the reader.
Portals need to follow Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility, including in choice of colours with sufficient contrast, readable font sizing, and avoiding misuse of tables for layout.
Auto-collapsed content: Some navigational aids such as category trees, lists of navboxes and index or outline lists may be too long to be included in uncollapsed state.
Banner images should either fit the page width or box width, or remain within the bounds of the visible page. They should be compatible with mobile view.[b]
Other exceptions may be needed from time to time as the MoS evolves, so that portals can best fulfill their purpose; these should be discussed and added to this page if there is consensus to do so.
See also[edit]
- Wikipedia:Portal guidelines
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Portals
- Category:WikiProject style advice – advice for articles is generally also suitable for portals
Notes[edit]
- ^ As used in
{{Box-header}}and similar templates - ^ Mobile view can be tested on a desktop system, with the "Mobile sidebar preview" option under "Testing and development" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets. This requires the Vector (default) skin.