Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:United States/archive2


 * 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 Cirt 08:43, 21 June 2011.

Portal:United States
As indicated by the [now deleted] Wikipedia milestones below, this portal has a storied history. Since its demotion in 2007, the portal has received numerous substantive cooperative updates and enhancements, including two peer reviews. Clearly, the deficiencies of the portal have been remedied, and it once again meets the criteria for featured portal status. Consequently, it is presented here as a featured portal candidate. -- RichardF (talk) 05:30, 12 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Comments on the Portal


 * I tweaked selected article 7 (the flag) a bit, and I personally would not include 13th (Shuttle–Mir Program) or 1st (Grunge music). I'd replace the current 13th with something on the moon landings, and I really don't know what I'd do with the current 1st. While Grunge is an American phenomenon, it isn't as instantly identifiable with America, at least to me, as the others are. Perhaps Jazz would be a better replacement, as it is just as American, but much more mainsteam, much more storied, and instantly recognizable by people from all nations and ages. 07:02, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Here's the Selected articles nominations list: Portal:United States/Selected article. -- RichardF (talk) 03:57, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I redesigned and updated the Portal:United States/Selected article section. Two tables similar to the one below classify all selected articles by quality and importance (to the U.S. project). Many other preferred and potential additions also are listed by quality and importance. In addition, this section now references a critical third dimension necessary to take into account when developing a balanced set of selected articles - topical contents. Sometimes, balancing the overall collection of articles across topics means making a few compromises related to quality and importance from the perspective of any particular projects or editors.  Other sources of looking for potential articles by topic include Vital articles and Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Core topics. -- RichardF (talk) 15:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Selected picture 13, the surfing one, is by far the weakest of the lot. As far as I know, surfing is not uniquely American, and there is a plethora of other US based FPs available to replace it. 07:45, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, there's no automated way for projects to track pictures by quality and/or importance. The picture noted above, File:Surfer in california 2.JPG is featured quality. That brings its inclusion down to discussions of preference. Obviously, some editors considered it to be inclusion-worthy. My preference in matters like this is to add more high quality pictures to strengthen topical balance, rather than remove any of those already included. -- RichardF (talk) 17:06, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The "On this day" section display is a calendar. You have to click on the date to get the items from the specific day. It either needs to say "click on the date" or, the better option, transclude the items for the day to the main display, so that when I go to the main portal page, I see the calendar and the day's items, no clicking required. 07:48, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I added "Click on date to view" instructions to the "On this day" header. The decision was made to use a clickable calendar because of the sizes of the lists for each day. In the current portal page format, displaying the list directly would have made it the longest section, and the entire page "too" long. An alternative would have been to use a tabbed portal page layout. That would have forced even more clicking to see content. Personally, I support the layout as is with the clarifying instructions. -- RichardF (talk) 17:43, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I’ll start converting some of the Portal:United States/On this day content over to Portal:United States/Anniversaries in a format like the featured Portal:Germany, e.g., Portal:Germany/Anniversaries/February. When I have a bit of a lead time, I’ll switch over the display. -- RichardF (talk) 19:10, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I started testing the display of Portal:United States/Anniversaries on the portal. -- RichardF (talk) 04:28, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm working on that now. If possible, use a free use image in each one and the (pictured) in the associated prompt "The state of Ohio (seal pictured) joined the union" or "Bill Clinton (pictured) became the president" etc. Also note that links don't work in scrollover text.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  04:04, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I finished the basic setup on the monthly and daily pages. I started cleaning up daily item as of the end of February and got through March. The formatting for pictures is on all the new pages and added pics to the existing ones I found. I didn't add "(pictured)" where applicable, but I can go back and do that. Even though links don't work in scrollover text, they don't hurt anything either. ;-) RichardF (talk) 04:27, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * This is such a disjointed conversation, I pity anyone that ever has to read through this thing. The way I got to this point in the edit field is through searching for ";-)". On to the matters at hand, I'm going through everything in February, adding images and cleaning things up. The only thing that was really glaring is that you didn't include Nixon's visit to China, which I consider to be one of the top five most important moments, possibly the most important moment, of Nixon's presidency. Then again, I'm an Asian Studies major, so bias it may be. That aside, you're doing a bang up job with this. When it's all over, I need to make you a nice barnstar.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  05:08, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Like I said, I started editing anniversaries for late February (26) forward. It would have taken me about a year to check up on Nixon's trip. ;-) RichardF (talk) 05:27, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The culture biography section is good on actors, athletes, and authors, but weak on any other professions that don't start with an "a". I'd love to see the photographer Roman Vishniac get an entry. We're weak on journalists, artists working in physical mediums (such as painting, photography, sculpture, etc.) although that has a lot to do with the quality of article available. Pollack, Hopper, O'Keeffe, Eakins, and Jasper Johns are rated B, Worhol a C, Wyeth and de Kooning are rated Start. We should find something though, there has to be another American artist with FA or A ranking. 08:37, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I found one, I. M. Pei, a Chinese born American architect (among other works he designed the Kennedy library.) Between Pei and Vishniac, we'll have a weak but at least tolerable showing in the fine arts. 08:52, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Roman Vishniac is at Portal:United States/Selected biography/26 in the Society - Science and academia group. -- RichardF (talk) 04:04, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I moved Vishniac over to the Culture section (Portal:United States/Selected culture biography/14). -- RichardF (talk) 02:26, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Here are the Selected biography lists: Portal:United States/Selected biography (Society), Portal:United States/Selected culture_biography. -- RichardF (talk) 03:57, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * For selected locations, a few come to mind that I'd think should be included. Among them are Honolulu (or Hawaii), Anchorage (or Alaska), Miami, and the Navajo preserve (or a different one, I only chose the Navajo because they are the most famous.) 08:59, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Portal:United States/Selected location now includes a preferred locations list based on the locations in the U.S. project table below. None of the locations suggested above are on that list.  Of course, anyone can nominate them at the link included here. -- RichardF (talk) 03:39, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Just some thoughts. None of them really break the portal, it's still very good, but until at least some of these are addressed, I can't come out in support of it gaining Featured status.  S ven M anguard  Wha?
 * Hi Sven, thanks for the feedback. Here are some comments about the Selected articles in general. The Portal talk:United States to-do list includes the following guideline: "As a guideline, let's stick to using FA-Class United States articles, A-Class United States articles, plus FA-Class biography articles and A-Class biography articles about Americans to populate each 'Selected' section where possible. The main exception could be for Top or High Importance articles of lower quality, given a consensus to do so."


 * For the fun of it, I took that guidline one step further and picked the U.S. project articles up there on both quality and importance. I then checked off those articles already included at the portal. That checklist is included below.  One thing I noticed was that not very many of these articles are included yet.  Another thing I noticed was that the lists of nominated articles for Selected articles and biographies noted above don't overlap all that much with the checklist below.


 * One thing that tells me is we really don't have all that much consensus about what's "important" to include in this portal. Personally, that's fine with me.  One way editors have tried to address that concern is create two biography sections and also include the topical subsections for them as well.  Unless an article is not very well written, I'm not so concerned about removing it for two basic reasons. First, I'm sure it had a following from somewhere or it wouldn't have been included in the first place.  Second, we can balance the overall presentation of articles by looking for additional ones of acceptable quality and importance to fill in the lower coverage topical areas.


 * See Portal:United States/Selected article/Nominations for a working example.
 * -- RichardF (talk) 03:57, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I think James Joyce will have to be replaced as a selected culture biography. The article is not tagged by WP United States and, according to the article, he seems to have no particular connection with the United States. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:04, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I removed James Joyce. If a related project tags the article, it can be added back easy enough. RichardF (talk) 15:51, 12 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Rather urgent Portal:United States/Selected biography/12 still lists Hillary Clinton as a 2008 presidential candidate and NY state senator. That needs fixing. Any other living people should be reviewed as well to make sure that the information is current.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  05:37, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Clinton's bio is updated. -- RichardF (talk) 17:24, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I reviewed all the live person bios and made several updates. -- RichardF (talk) 01:23, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Everything must be checked over

There are numerous problems with this portal that need to be addressed. The selected bios showed that this hasn't been updated in a long time, and by chance I realized that selected articles 3, 6, 7, and 10 are all depreciated (no longer FA, A, or GA.) One, the Amendment XVI article, never made it to GA, A, or FA, but is listed as such in the list you linked me to. Before this can be considered further, those must be replaced, and every single thing must be checked over to ensure that it is current and accurate. Sorry, but until then I must give a strongest possible oppose to this proceeding. I want it to pass, but it is desperately in need of a few solid hours or days of work.  S ven M anguard  Wha?  22:04, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * A starter list of current FA/A/GA quality articles can be found at WikiProject_United_States/Assessment, which I'd advise using over the current one.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  23:09, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The list I posted above is from that table. I have no problem working on the portal myself.  At the very least, this nomination got more editors to take an interest in it. -- RichardF (talk) 01:58, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The Portal:United States/Selected culture biography FA bio project lists now are updated. -- RichardF (talk) 22:03, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * My suggestions: Scrap Robert A. Heinlein, Woody Guthrie, Alison Krauss, and Sly and the Family Stone (the non FA/GA ones) and replace with I. M. Pei, Elvis, Frank Zappa, and Metallica (that balances the removal of two musicians, a band, and an artist with the additions of two musicians, a band, and an artist.) Also, you really should add Jackie Robinson. I might be able to help out on Thursday, although I'm not the best writer.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  04:53, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I still have more reviews and updates to go through with the "Selected..." sections lists. I'm going to work on those before I get to trading out/adding more articles. I know the U.S. project also is looking at ways to better coordinate article improvement drives with portal updates.  Any help with updates at any time is greatly appreciated. The more the merrier!  ;-)  -- RichardF (talk) 13:35, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I replaced Heinlein with Vishniac in the Culture section. I'll replace Vishniac in the Society section real soon now. -- RichardF (talk) 17:58, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I replaced Guthrie, Krauss and Sly with the three remaining FA-Class, Core articles - Hemmingway, Presley and Robinson. -- RichardF (talk) 18:34, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The Portal:United States/Selected biography (society) FA bio project lists are updated as well. -- RichardF (talk) 21:23, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I've reviewed every selected article for quality and importance, updated all of the nominations sections, and replaced most of the articles lower than GA-Class quality. Those remaining articles of B- and C-Class are either of relatively high importance and/or help with topical balance.  These few article can be improved by editing. The overall balancing of the selections by quality, importance and topic can move forward with enhanced information in each nominations section. -- RichardF (talk) 19:06, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * More comments on the Portal

I added links to lists of popular pages as shown below to the WikiProjects box and the nominations sections for each of the selected articles boxes. Portal:United States/Projects/Popular pages RichardF (talk) 20:38, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I was somewhat surprised to find a graph showing Pageviews for "Portal:United States" because it seems to be a bit of a rarity (at least for now) for the tool to find non-article pages. In any event, this tool makes it very easy to track three of four balancing dimensions when selecting articles for showcasing at a portal - quality, importance and popularity.  Tracking the fourth dimension, topic, still is rather tedious for complex portals like this one.  For simpler portals, the related Article lists tool might be useful at times, but I've had limited (read "no") success with it for this portal. RichardF (talk) 21:26, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It just occurred to me, I'm guessing a page has to be tagged by a participating project before this tool bothers to count how many times it's viewed... ;-) RichardF (talk) 21:31, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Portal:United States/Featured content/Articles
 * Comments by Imzadi1979
 * Personally, I hate the "On this day" set up. I don't think it's worthy of featured status. Actually, I think it's oppose-worthy on its own. There's no reason why that section can't emulate its cousin from the Main Page. It would be much more beneficial for the reader to make a version that selects only a few events for each day, and leaves the rest of them for a "More..." link. You could restrict it to just holidays and significant events, say 5–6. Leave all of the births and deaths off (except the very most significant ones like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and the like). The current calendar is not very friendly. It sits there, as if to say, "Yes, we have some important events and anniversaries to share with you, but you need to do the last bit of work to see them, unlike all of the rest of the content on this page. Have a nice day." This section is in a sense being more comprehensive than the other sections of the portal, to the detriment of the section. You don't list every FA on an entertainer or celebrity from the US, but yet the section attempts to display every important event from each day. Yes, I know that this also means that at least once a year someone would need to shift the movable holidays to the correct days for the coming year or month, and quadrennially remember to insert Inauguration Day, but P:USRD is updated monthly just for the article, picture and DYK sections. A Featured Portal should require maintenance and upkeep. The alternative is to remove the section completely until a better system can be implemented.
 * Point taken. I'll take a look at some other design and layout possibilities. -- RichardF (talk) 20:22, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I’ll start converting some of the Portal:United States/On this day content over to Portal:United States/Anniversaries in a format like the featured Portal:Germany, e.g., Portal:Germany/Anniversaries/February. When I have a bit of a lead time, I’ll switch over the display. -- RichardF (talk) 19:10, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I started testing the display of Portal:United States/Anniversaries on the portal. -- RichardF (talk) 04:28, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
 * In the Topic list near the bottom, you've got a link under "Transportation" to just the United States Numbered Highway System, but not the more important Interstate Highway System. Numbered highways in the United States would be a better link, as it then links to not just both national systems, but all of the state systems as well.
 * I switched the Highways link to Numbered highways in the United States. -- RichardF (talk) 20:22, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You have two capitalization errors. List of United States Numbered Highways, is incorrectly piped as "U.S. highways". A "U.S. highway" (note the lowercase h) is any highway in the United States. A "U.S. Highway" (note the capital H) is a component of the United States Numbered Highway System. An "interstate highway" (both lowercase) is any highway that crosses a state line, of which most US Highways are as well. An "Interstate Highway" is part of the Interstate Highway System. You have "Interstate highway" which is some odd variant of those, I assume?
 * Recapitalized. -- RichardF (talk) 20:22, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There are 34 Featured Articles on highways in the US, but I only saw a few in that list. WP:USRD might operate separately from WP:WPUS, but those articles are still related to the United States. How much applicable content from other projects has been excluded as well?
 * I'm not aware of any efforts by any editors to exclude applicable content from this portal. Are you? If so, that should be addressed with whoever is doing the excluding. Keep in mind that the portal is not "owned" by any particular project(s) or editor(s).  If you see a good way to fix something, I hope you go ahead and fix it. As far as highway-related FAs go, perhaps you can add what you consider to be the proper representation of such articles. -- RichardF (talk) 20:22, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * WikiProject United States/Quality content/FA-Class is used as the "More" link for the list of Featured Articles. Two problems: one, you're using one specific WikiProject's listing for a portal that encompasses multiple projects, and two, you aren't including the full list of US-related FAs. All 6 FAs related to Michigan highways are missing, and one just passed a few weeks ago. My serious suggestion is that any such lists like this be audited against the current WP:FA list to find the missing US-related articles, or the list be scrapped from the portal.  Imzadi 1979  →   05:47, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll assume that when you say, "you," what you're actually referring to is, "an editor." It would be unweildy and is unnecessary to audit against WP:FA. Instead, I created the table of U.S. featured articles by WikiProject with linked content that is updated automatically. I replaced the link you mentioned above and also added it to the projects box.
 * RichardF (talk) 17:32, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I updated See more [Featured lists] by WikiProject... too.

Portal:United States/Featured content/Lists
 * RichardF (talk) 19:44, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

I hope this helps, but until some of these issues are rectified, I can't support promotion.  Imzadi 1979  →   07:05, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Have you consulted the DYKs from related projects for possible additions? I didn't see anything from WP:USRD/RC in a quick glance of the list. I wonder how many other related US projects have been excluded there as well?
 * My above reply to your concerns about exclusion applies here as well. Again, anyone can add DYKs.  I happen to have focused on those that refer to "United States." Adding DYKs related to any US-related project is fine with me. -- RichardF (talk) 20:22, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, but if this portal is going to be featured, it should be representative of the topic area. The United States is broad, and you're missing topics related to the country. Until this is rectified, the portal is not feature quality.  Imzadi 1979  →   05:47, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I added a United States Did you know sections by Portal box to Portal:United States/Did you know to make it easier for editors to consider DYKs from related portals. Nonetheless, simply because many of the DYKs have a "United States" theme, that does not mean they do not represent topics covered by the related portals. The United States as a topic is inclusive, not exclusive. -- RichardF (talk) 03:03, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm curious why Plymouth Colony was put with the Selected articles, and not with the Selected locations.
 * I believe the editor who originally developed Selected locations wanted another section for cities and states. I believe that's probably the fuzziest line between where an article gets placed. -- RichardF (talk) 20:22, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Do we need both halves of Brangelina (Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt) as Selected culture biographies? It's not a big deal, but I was reloading the portal continuously earlier today to make sure that the photos and stuff from the four highway articles that were added looked ok. It took about 50 or more reloads before the page loaded the last of the four. In doing so, I saw most of the content of the portal appear, and those two articles struck me as slightly odd.
 * The main references I used when I added articles about people were the biography projects lists, in this case, Biography (actors and filmmakers). I added Bette Davis, Brad Pitt and Judy Garland to Angelina Jolie so that all four FA-Quality, Top-Importance U.S. biographies were included. -- RichardF (talk) 20:22, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest you find a replacement for one or the other. It's just kinda odd to have both halves of one couple, when there are other candidates out there that could replace one or the other. It's a little two concentrated on that couple when you could broaden the content a bit and select another actor or actress.  Imzadi 1979  →   05:47, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Ditch the popular pages links from the main page. That's the sort of self-referential or backend stuff I don't expect to see out front and center. Just because something is popular doesn't make it content we want to showcase, and vice versa.
 * Portals are for editors as well as readers, that's why information about WikiProjects is included. The tool is used by hundreds of projects, including Version 0.7 and Vital articles. I, for one, actually do consider the three factors represented on these lists - quality, importance and popularity - as valid criteria for selecting balanced collections of articles to showcase on portals. I also believe a fourth factor should be considered as well - topic. As the list of U.S.-related projects that subscribe to this tool grows, the task of balancing the portal's content across quality, popularity, (independent of projects) importance and topic (dependent on projects) becomes much more manageable. -- RichardF (talk) 20:22, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You missed my point. You've got the main page of the portal displaying links to popular pages, which I don't think it should at all. It's fine if you want to link to them on subpages for nomination purposes, but such usage on the front page of the portal isn't useful to our readers. Popular≠Quality.
 * I didn't miss your point. I disagree with it. In any event, I moved the list to a subpage and linked to it from the projects box. -- RichardF (talk) 17:32, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Related portals: There is Portal:New York Roads and Portal:Washington Roads as well. Expect a Portal:Michigan Highways in a few months when my next several FACs are nominated and close. (My personal goal is to create the portal when there are 10 FAs. There are 6 now with 5 A-Class articles and an open ACR.) As for the remainder, I'm torn. All of the state and several of the city/regional portals have flags, but none of the others have their icons in use. I'm tempted to suggest that the non-state portals should not have any flag or icon. To add in the rest would make the section too busy
 * Cool! I grew up a mile from ! :-) Countries typically have flags, so the NA icon rounds out the row. No icons in between works for me. -- RichardF (talk) 20:22, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The problem isn't the NA globe, the Canadian flag or the Mexican flag. It's all of the city flags. The usage is very... random. Some city portals get flags, some do not. Some intrastate regions have flags based on a core city, which suggests that there's a flag for the "Capital District" in New York State, when that flag is actually for Albany, only one part of the district. I'm suggesting that if you can't flag all of the non-state portals, don't flag any of them in that section.  Imzadi 1979  →   05:47, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that if a flag is available it is included. I don't consider that to be a problem, simply a state of the encyclopedia. RichardF (talk)
 * The problem is two-fold: flags used incorrectly or presumptuously and lack of uniformity/attractiveness. New York State's Capital District does not have a flag for itself. The City of Albany, New York has a flag though. This portal though is using the Albany flag as a symbol for a larger area, which is either incorrect or presumptuous. Ditto "Greater Los Angeles", the "San Francisco Bay Area", "Metro Detroit", "Dallas – Fort Worth Metroplex" using the city flags of LA, San Francisco, Detroit and Dallas respectively. I should think Oakland and San Jose residents would be unhappy to know they're in San Francisco now, as implied by using the single city's flag. Trust me, the Detroit suburbs bristle with indignation at being combined with Detroit too much, and I'm questioning using the Dallas city flag and including Fort Worth in the name. Now, you're not responsible for what the other portals do, but you are responsible for the portal you've nominated. The second issue is uniformity. One way to make things uniform would be to restrict flags to states and countries in that box on this portal. It would streamline the display. Each state flag would act like a meta-bullet point helping to separate all of the New York portals from New Mexico and North Carolina. It would also reduce the visual clutter by a great margin.  Imzadi 1979  →   00:33, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Again we disagree, in that I'm no more "responsible" for the portal than you. If you see a "problem," you're just as capable to fix it as anyone else. That said, I'm willing to cut the flags to states in that section. -- RichardF (talk) 02:31, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I will disagree with you on one key point. I didn't nominate the portal. Unless I'm mistaken, the usual pattern has always been for an editor or two to nominate something at a review process, and reviewers to offer their comments and opinions on the the quality of the subject. In this case, you've nominated a portal for featured status, and I've offered a review with all of my reasons and opinions on why it fails to meet the quality expected to that status. Yes, I can make the edits needed to garner my support, but I'm not forced to do so. On the other hand, as the nominator, you're responsible to respond to comments concerning your nomination. You don't have to agree to everything and make every change, but if you don't, you should provide a reason so that those directors/delegates/people-who-assume–the-responsibility–to-weigh–the–discussion–and–comments–and–promote-or-archive-this-nomination can decide whether or not an objection should or should not have been satisfied. That said, I stand by my comment that the extra flags in that section are both incorrect/presumptuous and unattractive. Feel free to act on this comment as you see fit.  Imzadi 1979  →   02:52, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * We agree to disagree. The city flags already are gone. -- RichardF (talk) 03:07, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Absolutely! Whether the portal gets promoted or not is beside the point, as far as I'm concerned. The mere process of putting it up already has improved it more than any other activity for quite some time. Cheers! :-) RichardF (talk) 20:22, 23 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Why are the Brit Awards showing up on the News section? Seems obviously non-U.S. Is this a problem on our end or are we depending for our content on the tagging ability of WikiNews editors? Rmhermen (talk) 20:49, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The news feed includes any articles tagged with the United States category, such as 2011 BRIT Awards highlights. When you look at the article, it has information about "Yanks," such as Rihanna and Cee Lo Green. -- RichardF (talk) 21:06, 4 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The "Anniversaries" box listings use hyphens, which should be changed to ndashes. / ƒETCH COMMS  /  19:01, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
 * It looks like is on top of that. Thanks! :-) RichardF (talk) 02:37, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Right. I'll take time. I'm also tweaking things as I go. When I hit the end of the ones that are already done, I'll keep going. It'll be a slog, and it'll take time, but we're a month ahead, so it'll get done in time.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  07:06, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I finished off all the "-" to "–" conversions I saw moving forward (including the undisplayed events). So, that should get us back to adding items to display. -- RichardF (talk) 17:17, 9 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Update: Are there still outstanding issues to address? -- Cirt (talk) 15:29, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think so but I am not 100% sure. I just checked the portal and there is nothing for today under the Anniversaries section which leaves s with 2 possibilities. 1 we can remove that section until it all gets filled in and then add it or finish filling it in. I do not know how many days are missing data though so there may be quite a few. --Kumioko (talk) 17:16, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * IIRC, between six and seven months are missing from that section. January through May are done, the rest are not. As I said on my userpage, I got called away from this midway through. I forget what it was, but if you all want, I can chrun out a few more months in about a week. Getting the whole thing done could take me through July. I've got other things I'm doing, but those have less of a deadline.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  18:57, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * That would be great and I would be glad to help out too. I think we are getting pretty close to getting this thing featured and I would hate to get this close and then just walk away. --Kumioko (talk) 19:04, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * January, the last week of May, and everything after May all need doing. Unwritten guidelines which I've been following are as follows:
 * Use ndashes, not hyphens, between the year and the event.
 * Look for diversity in subjects covered in a given date. Five civil war events in one day isn't interesting.
 * Reprase events that use colons to remove the colons. So "Civil War: The three month Siege of Whatevertown ends" becomes "The siege of Whatevertown, the longest siege in the civil war, ends"
 * Don't use the same image twice. Try not to use images of the same person multiple times. There are two already for George Washington and at least two for Eisenhower. Diversity in images is a good thing.
 * Unlink "United States". Limit linking in general by only linking important parts. I've seen anniversaries where the entire event is blue.
 * These are just things that I did. It does make the process longer, but I think it improves the final product.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  19:15, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks good thanks. --Kumioko (talk) 19:23, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * One more, I've been using (pictured) or when needed (logo pictured)/(seal pictured). For consistency, this also might be a good idea.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  00:17, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * May is finished up. Will put off January and do June next so we don't have blank space.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  19:11, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Several of my points from my oppose above still stand:
 * Update from Imzadi1979
 * Both Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are still included as "selected culture biographies". One or the other, but not both, from that couple please for the sake of diversification. There are plenty of other culture biographies that could be selected to replace one or the other.
 * There are now three transportation-related portals missing from the list, Portal:Michigan Highways, Portal:New York Roads and Portal:Washington Roads. The first of those three is currently nominated here at FPoC as well.
 * ✅ - I also broke them into a separate transportation section since there were now 4 transportation related ones. --Kumioko (talk) 20:18, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Other issues not previously mentioned:
 * Genus names should be rendered in italics. There is genus Washingtonia in the DYK section unitalicized.
 * The last few DYK sets only have a single hook. Can we add a couple more to each so that when they appear on the portal, we have more than the one hook displayed?
 * Until the rest of the anniversaries are set up, I can't support this portal being promoted. Sorry, but the content is rather incomplete, and it sets a bad precedent that half-finished work resulting in blank portal sections could be worthy of a gold star. (Yes, I know that P:MISH has two selected article blurbs missing at the moment, but even if they weren't added in the year plus before they'd appear, the portal will not show a blank and re-run the previous month's SA.)
 * " Frank Woodruff Buckles (born Wood Buckles; February 1, 1901 – February 27, 2011) was the last American veteran of World War I." Surely you mean he was the last living American veteran of World War I.
 * ✅ --Kumioko (talk) 20:12, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I think all of the location blurbs should be updated with 2010 census numbers where appropriate.
 * "Cleveland is the second largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and he 33rd largest city in the nation." you mean it's "the 33rd largest city in the nation", right?
 * ✅ --Kumioko (talk) 20:12, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


 * "Angelina Jolie (born Angelina Jolie Voight on June 4, 1975) born Angelina Jolie Voight on June 4, 1975) is an American actress" unnecessary redundancy?
 * I'm not sure I completely agree with this one but I agree that there are plenty more to choose from. --Kumioko (talk) 20:12, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * So you think the first sentence of that blurb should list her birth name and birth date twice?  Imzadi 1979  →   20:24, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ - Sorry I didn't read that close enough. I meant I didn't think it was a big deal to have her and brad. Brangelina as it were. --Kumioko (talk) 20:38, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

A thought, but File:Brockway Mountain Drive Panorama.jpg might be better in the selected panorama section (I didn't see anything of fall colors in there) and substitute File:Brockway Mountain Lake Superior.jpg or another image from commons:Category:Brockway Mountain Drive or commons:Category:Views from Brockway Mountain for the article blurb in the selection locations section.

Oppose until those items are fixed, sorry.  Imzadi 1979  →   19:43, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for taking the time to summerize your remaining concerns. Hopefully we can get all or most of those addressed. --Kumioko (talk) 20:12, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The issue of the portal not having all the applicable Featured articles has been mostly resolved. JLaTondre was kind enough to modify JL-Bot to allow content to be pulled from multiple categories (for example multiple FA categories to be used on the portal. Once we setup the page, all FA articles for the US projects should be included. --Kumioko (talk) 22:29, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Oppose per. Altough I agree that portal needs fixing, until its fixed, please bring it to WP:FPOC after the issues resolved. JJ98 (Talk / Contributions)  01:48, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I noticed that there was some concern about using the Featured content list based on WikiProject United States and I agree. So with that in mind. Do we want to include all US related projects including states or do we want to limit the scope? I have asked JLaTondre if its possible to use JL-Bot to automatically derive a list of Featured X's (articles, lists or whatever) based on multiple projects to be used on the portal. This will help to automate the task of updating the list. --Kumioko (talk) 20:22, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment about Featured articles
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.