User talk:LesleyW/RomePortal

Should there be a "Roman" portal?
Hi folks, I'm contemplating the possibility of creating a portal for Ancient Rome, to replace Roman, which is a disambiguation page and has nearly 400 links pointing to it from articles (not counting the ones from Talk or Wikipedia pages).

If I was to go ahead with this, I would need help from other people on the content, as I don't know too much about the subject matter - my motivation for doing this is because it seems to be needed, and I believe I can figure out the technical aspects of making it happen.

Some possible issues:
 * 1) It needs a suitable name. I'm thinking "Ancient Rome", but there may be other options. My intention would be to redirect Romans to the portal so that every vague reference and accidental linkage to "the Romans" would end up in a suitable place.
 * 2) I think it would be appropriate to include Byzantium, and maybe Ancient Greece if it doesn't already have a "home".
 * 3) Other uses of the word Roman currently listed on Roman would probably be moved to Roman (disambiguation), which is currently a redirect.
 * 4) I would not like to become the sole maintainer. I would be willing to continue doing technical stuff, but selection of featured articles and suchlike should be done by somebody who can tell whether or not the content is accurate.

For examples of existing portals, see Portal:Egyptology, Portal:Star Trek, and many more are listed at Category:Portals.

I am interested in opinions on this idea, and I invite discussion on the topic at my test page User:LesleyW/RomePortal. Please feel free to copy this notice to other places where it might be noticed by knowledgeable people. I will be away for the next few days, and will pick up discussions early next week at the latest.

--LesleyW 21:47, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Copied from WP:HELP
I've been looking at some of the articles that link to Roman (a rather detailed disambiguation page with lots of links), and its history. All of the articles that I have looked at so far (maybe ten, I know it's a small sample) have very general references to "the Romans". I believe that people will continue to write "the Romans..." and link to Roman without giving it a second thought, as they should be able to do. Therefore, I now think that one possible solution is that "Roman/s" could redirect to a portal on Ancient Rome, but no such portal exists as yet.

My question is, what requirements need to be met for the operation of a portal? Would it need a maintainer, or can it be set up so that no maintenance is necessary? Is there a proposal discussion process that should be followed before going ahead? --LesleyW 27 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Portals are intended to be reader oriented and Ancient Rome sounds worthy of a portal to me. Most, though not all of the portals listed at Wikiportal have maintainers associated with them, though WP:PORTAL suggests that they should be set up to be low maintenance. There doesn't seem to be a formal process to go through before creating a portal and instructions for creation can be found at Wikiportal. --GraemeL (talk) 14:01, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Direct links to portal boxes
I don't know if it's my ancient Mozilla browser or something else, but when I click the edit links, the URLs get screwed up. So I'm putting direct links here as the boxes get created.
 * Portal:Ancient_Rome/Intro
 * Portal:Ancient_Rome/Categories

To-do list

 * Write proper intro
 * Expand list of categories

Discussion welcome
Please add any questions, discussions, or opinions here. --LesleyW 22:00, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I think a portal, "Ancient Rome," would be a great idea, but you mentioned including Ancient Greece and Byzantium, neither of which I think is particularly applicable. Ancient Greece especially should ideally have its own portal as it really doesn't have too much in common with Rome. There would be a little bit of overlap (Greece as a Roman province, etc), but I think that's better than unnatural compression of what is a very broad subject. (Unsigned comment by Jackson 2005-11-29 12:53:59)


 * I also think it's a good idea to create such a portal; esp. to link "the Romans" there: to present the available information on Ancient Rome in an organized manner is much more helpful than simply a list of links or even an introductory article "the Romans".
 * There is a portal on Rome in the German Wikipedia, though its main goal is to coordinate efforts to improve the articles related to Rome; it also encompasses medieval and modern Rome (the city).
 * Ancient Greece and Byzantium shouldn't be covered as a whole, I think - maybe some subjects which belong to both areas (e.g. the Eastern Empire until Heraclius, or "Greece under Rome"). Varana 15:37, 30 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Oh yes! I definitely think there should be a portal for Ancient Rome, due to the huge number of articles and the incredible importance in history. I'd be happy to help out. Give me a holler. My warm regards, Dennis Nilsson. Dna-Dennistalk - contribs 05:36, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Roman disaster
So I was about to tackle the Roman dab page - rather a train wreck right now - when I saw your note. If I pare down the links on that dab page, will that upset your Rome portal project at all? I'm figuring 3/4 of the links on the page right now will have to go, as most of them are unlikely targets for someone who just types in the word "Roman." | Klaw ¡digame! 03:51, 30 December 2005 (UTC)