--- koyaanisqatsi(a)nupedia.com wrote:
Anthere Wrote:
--- Gareth Owen
<wiki(a)gwowen.freeserve.co.uk>
wrote:
Anthere
<anthere5(a)yahoo.com> writes:
But, from a conceptual point of view, that is
certainly not a portal. That's
an *english* main page, with links to other
languages. Sorry, but I like
words to be used in their context.
What the hell *is* a portal (besides a internet
buzzword from about 1997)
Is this type of question designed to make me sound
as
if I had absolutely no idea what I am talking
about,
or not worth listening because not using the best
word, or designed to slow down any thinking process
by
drawing out a *detail*, or what ??
If such is your concern, explain *yourself* what
*you*
think is a portal, or better, explain what should
be
www.wikipedia.org page to your opinion.
Anthere, I took the question to be sincere, though
not especially diplomatic. :-) I also don't know
what a portal is--I *think* I do, but I'm usually
only partly right when I *think* I know something,
and so I'm usually mostly wrong.
Yahoo is a portal, right? ... Or no?
kq
Okay. Most of the time a portal is defined as a site
which is a convergence of various entities. A Web site
being useful like starting point, a door open to a
world of information.
Now, the goal of a portal is not only to lead people
to other places (by links leading to other sites), but
also to keep them a little bit (by providing little
services, such as emails accounts, news, weather...).
Meanwhile, people look at your ads and you make money
(along other ways).
Yahoo is not only a portal, but as far as I know, it
is considered the first portal ever. I remember going
on it while it was not called Yahoo yet (I don't
remember the name it had then, but it was another
name).
But Yahoo is a very horizontal portal, not
representative of what wikipedia could be of course.
It is certainly following this open directory
definition. It is providing lots of info on very
various subjects.
Other types of portals follow a different design,
there are vertical, meaning they offer info on very
precise subjects. Some are shared by only a limited
number of people sharing the same interest, and offer
them internal ressources (such commercial info,
customer info, specialized info they can pick up).
They can also be meeting points where there is mixing
of data between several parties. In the farming world,
where farmers are physically very isolated from the
other parties (cooperatives, counsellors, seed firms,
heavy equipement...), these types of portals,
platfarms for data management, are getting rather
numerous.
Here's a totally bare portal I often go to
http://www.agriculture.com/worldwide/index.html
- Just provides a dozen of digested hit news from
Reuters.
- links to the different partners sites (all ag sites
from all over the world)
- and somewhere hidden behind, some more stuff to try
to keep people up a little bit longuer
The type of page proposed on
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_to_do_with_www.wikipedia.org
does follow exactly the definition of a portal ahma
* quick information (characteristics of the project,
number of "partners", when each started, maybe the
number of articles we are currently having in the
base...)
* links to all the "partners"
* some information behind (foundation, list of
participants, mailing list)
See? it is just a portal!
Just a gateway to the real stuff, on the
xx.wikipedia.org
I don't say it is necessary wrong. I use portals quite
a lot myself, but I use them 'cause it makes sense to
go each time to the portal, because I use *several* of
the links available on the portal.
In Wikipedia case, most people will only go to one of
the links most of time. So a portal is not very
interesting maybe? Except if on the second connexion,
the user is directly brought to the right
xx.wikipedia.org. Otherwise, it is a lack of time.
But if on the second connexion the user is brought to
the
xx.wikipedia.org, he will rarely go to the
www.wikipedia.org and maybe is it loosing something.
No ?
Besides, you will notice I used the word "partners". A
portal tends to atomize things rather than to
interlink them.
Does what I say make more sense now ? Do you think I
am wrong in my feeling or not ?
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