Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Maryland Roads


 * 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 promoted by OhanaUnited 03:28, 20 August 2012.

Portal:Maryland Roads
This portal covering roads in Maryland is modeled after P:USRD and P:MISH, which are both featured portals. The selected article is updated monthly like the two featured portals. Maryland has a large and growing base of quality articles, and all the selected articles are GA or better. The selected articles have been scheduled through December 2013, and there are still more quality articles that can be used for the coming years. In case a selected article has not been created for a given month, the portal has coding to generate the selected article from the previous month to avoid a redlink. The selected picture and did you know? sections change randomly every time the portal is loaded, with room to add more to be randomly generated.  Dough 48  72  03:26, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Suggest you leave notices at talk pages of relevant WikiProjects. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 22:58, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I updated USRD Announcements to notify WP:USRD.  Dough 48  72  23:59, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
 * There might be other related WikiProjects whose talk pages could also use notices. :) &mdash; Cirt (talk) 14:06, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Notified WP:WPMD as well.  Dough 48  72  16:49, 24 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure that the discussion for P:MISH was FPoC's finest moment - just one support for the nomination, and to my mind an insufficiently unanswered question (from me) about whether a portal based on the roads of one US state meets the requirement that a featured portal "covers a topic that is sufficiently broad and prominent to justify it as an entry point". But there seems little point in rehashing that argument now, even if it means that we're subjected to such boring photographs as Portal:Maryland Roads/Selected picture/5 (can't you do any better for this one, please?!).  My comments on this portal are as follows:
 * The selected articles had a few red links, which I removed per WP:FPO? "Red links are limited in number and restricted to aspects that encourage contribution." Links in blurbs don't really fit the bill; redlinks in a "to do" list or a "missing articles" list would.
 * Thank for for removing the red links.  Dough 48  72  16:42, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I dislike seeing phrases in the selected article for January 2013 "however, this project is currently on hold" because who knows what the position will be by then or whether anyone will check and update the portal if the situation has changed. I would suggest avoiding language that can be out of date by the time of appearance.  See also May 2013 "A new bridge over the Potomac River is currently under construction. In addition, relocation of the highway from I-68 south into West Virginia is under consideration."
 * Removed speculative phrases from selected article hooks.  Dough 48  72  16:42, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * According to MDRD, there are 44 GAs and 4 FAs within the scope of this portal; it's a shame that there isn't a box displaying them all. Have you considered using User:JL-Bot/Project content to generate and maintain such a box automatically?
 * Added a section showing FAs and GAs. The bot still needs to generate the content though.  Dough 48  72  16:42, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Otherwise, it looks good. BencherliteTalk 10:00, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the review, I have replied to the above comments.  Dough 48  72  16:42, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * In which case, support. Well done. BencherliteTalk 19:01, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose – for now . Comment –  At the time of this post, the portal's graphic layout could use improvement. All of the images for the portal's selected articles are tiny, and should be enlarged so readers can better view the images that are there to complement the context of the text (See section 1(b) at Featured portal criteria).  The Did you know section needs expansion, and currently has only 7 entries. There's only 10 selected pictures, which is minimal; expansion to better cover the topic is in order. The portal's subpages are not categorized.  Northamerica1000(talk) 13:30, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Out of interest, can you point me to any point in the FPo criteria or guidance for portals (Featured or otherwise) which says that portal subpages have to be categorised? I'm unaware of any requirement; I know that some people do it but I don't know why it should be required particularly when, as here, all the subpages in a particular topic are transcluded onto a parent page e.g. [[Portal:Maryland Roads/Selected picture. BencherliteTalk 13:45, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I added the category "Maryland portals" to some of the portal's main subpages. Part of my comment above has been struck. Northamerica1000(talk) 07:11, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The selected article pictures are at a small resolution in order to not distract from the text. I do not see an issue with the number of Selected Pictures and Did you know? hooks as they are set to randomly change over every time the portal is loaded and there is always room to add more. What is a good amount of Selected Pictures and Did you know? hooks that a Feautred Portal should have?  Dough 48  72  15:56, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The number of Selected pictures and Did you know entries that should be in portals is somewhat subjective, relative to the topic of the portal. It's my opinion that these sections should be expanded, because the amount there is rather sparse, and doesn't represent a comprehensive enough overview of the overall topic. Perhaps the Did you know's aren't as important, because due to the narrow focus of the topic, there's only going to be a certain amount of content that can be found to populate this section. However, the Selected pictures could easily be expanded to offer a more comprehensive coverage of the overall topic by browsing some of the articles listed at Category:Roads in Maryland by county and Category:Interstate Highways in Maryland. Of course, it may be difficult to find featured images of roadways in Maryland, but the Selected pictures section would definitely benefit from expansion. Northamerica1000(talk) 07:34, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Regarding the miniscule images in the Selected article entries, they're so small that they appear generic. Slight enlargement to perhaps 130x130px would make them viewable for readers. At the size they're at, they're not particularly viewable. See examples below:

— Northamerica1000(talk) 07:52, 13 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't limit image selection to just Featured Pictures though; all of the U.S. Roads WikiProject only has 2 current FPs for the entire country. I would expand the selection though; P:MISH had its first year and a half of monthly updates scheduled before nomination, meaning it had almost if not twice the number of images in place already.  Imzadi 1979  →   07:42, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
 * I have enlarged the pictures in the selected articles to 130px. As for the Selected Pictures and Did you know? hooks, would you like it if I doubled the current amount, increasing the amount of Selected Pictures to 20 and the pages of Did you know? hooks to 14, for a total of 42 DYK hooks?  Dough 48  72  14:15, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for adjusting the image size for the selected articles selections. Expansion of the Selected pictures selections to 20, in a way that covers different geographic regions of Maryland and the expansion of the did you knows to 10 entries will change this initial oppose to a support. Northamerica1000(talk) 06:20, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Increased the Selected pictures to 20 and the Did you know? to 10.  Dough 48  72  01:22, 15 June 2012 (UTC)


 *  Support  the Portal:Maryland Roads being listed as a featured portal on Wikipedia. (Struck my initial oppose !vote above). At this time, it is my opinion that the portal meets all five points of Wikipedia's Featured portal criteria. Many thanks to User:Dough4872 for the work to improve this portal, and in the process, Wikipedia's overall content for the public. Northamerica1000(talk) 11:01, 15 June 2012 (UTC)


 * In selected articles, the link says "Past selected articles" and that page's intro states "The following is an archive of articles that have appeared on the Maryland Roads portal", yet it is displaying future articles. Could you fix this? OhanaUnitedTalk page 03:05, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Fixed to remove past tense.  Dough 48  72  16:42, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
 * You know the word "archive" means a collection of records that already happened, right? You shouldn't be using that word when most of your items are forward-looking. OhanaUnitedTalk page 02:47, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Changed to "selection".  Dough 48  72  04:15, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

A summary of current !votes for Portal:Maryland Roads, to clarify due to the length of this section.
 * Summary of raw !votes for Portal:Maryland Roads
 * Support: 3 (one from the nominator, and from User:Bencherlite and User:Northamerica1000)
 * Oppose: 0
 * — Northamerica1000(talk) 11:14, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.