It's my view that our systems for co-ordinating both readers and editors
are currently poorly organised. I'll describe what each of these things
attempt to achieve (as I see it) and then explain why this causes
several problems and suggest solutions.
Categories are in theory perfectly simple. [[:Category:English Poets]],
for example lists all our articles on English poets and does nothing
else. We also , however, have categories pretending to be portals.
[[:Category:Mathematics]] is the perfect example of this - there is a
perfectly good Portal stuck on to the top of a perfectly good Category.
The Mathematics Portal actually redirects to it.
We also have straight-forward Portals, which are purely (or almost
purely) designed for readers. The [[Portal:Cricket|Cricket Portal]] is a
good example of one of these. It contains an introduction to the topic,
a few pictures and links to some of the more important related articles.
The only item which is not aimed solely at readers is an invitation to
participate in the associated WikiProject.
We also have WikiPortals. These contain the same sort of stuff as
Portals but with extra bits thrown in, aimed at editors. To pick a few
examples at random, the [[Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Brazil|Brazil
WikiPortal]] invites people to add information to a list of
Brazil-related stubs and contains a little information about when it was
made and who runs it, The [[Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Physics|Physics
WikiPortal]] has a brief 'things you can do' list and the
[[Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Music|Music WikiPortal]] links to connected
WikiProjects.
WikiProjects aim to "help coordinate and organize article writing". Lots
of these are aimed purely at getting articles on the same subject to
share a format/layout etc. [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mountains|The
mountains WikiProject]] for example is 90% instructions on how to set
out articles on mountains, 8% administration and 2% links to resources
for article writing. The only thing in the
[[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Archaeology|Archaeology WikiProject]] is a list
of articles that people might like to contribute to.
Finally, there are also [[Wikipedia:Regional_notice_boards|Regional
Wikipedians' Notice Boards]]. These contain all sorts of lovely stuff -
articles to create, expand, pictures to find, relevant peer reviews,
articles for deletion, featured article candidates and so on.
The problem as I see it is that the functions of these things overlap,
making the system as a whole overcomplicated. I'll now list the three
main problematic areas and suggest solutions.
1. Categories and Portals are essentially coming at the same job from
different angles. They both provide topic-based navigation, Categories
with the emphasis on being comprehensive and Portals with the emphasis
on providing an attractive interface. At the moment our Categories are
far more developed than our Portals, but given enough time there
probably would (or could) be a portal covering each Category. There are
two obvious solutions to this and at the moment we're doing both
inconsistently. We should either decide to split the two up completely
as is done in [[Portal:Cricket]] and [[:Category:Cricket]] or put them
together one one page as at [[:Category:Mathematics]]. My personal
preference is to keep them separate but with prominent links between
them, but either solution would be acceptable. The system as it stands,
however, is illogical and confusing.
2. Portals and WikiPortals are more or less the same thing. The editor
related content in WikiPortals is useful but certainly not the sort of
thing we should be presenting to the public. I think we should take all
the reader-orientated content from our WikiPortals and transfer it to
Portals. One link inviting people to edit is probably acceptable, as at
the Cricket Portal, but certainly no more. What is left can be
incorporated somewhere else, which leads me to...
3. Our editor-orientated pages. Here we have Noticeboards and
WikiProjects doing the more or less the same thing - co-ordinating
editors' efforts in a certain field. Regional Wikipedians' Noticeboards
I think are a great idea, except for the first word. I see no reason why
the Noticeboard concept should be restircted to regions. I think it
would be equally applicable to any other topic area. I discussed
mountains earlier and I think the content at the Mountains WikiProject
could quite easily be incorporated into a Mountains Noticeboard
(possibly on a well-marked subpage) which would also allow for the
inclusion of information such as that currently on the Regional
Noticeboards - requested articles, articles for expansion, up for
featured articles etc. These could also include any information left
over from the relevant WikiPortal.
Basically, I think we should attempt to simplify the system and organise
it along more logical grounds. This would help our readers to navigate
the site and find the content they want and also help our editors to
create this content.
Comments and criticism etc welcome
(Also posted at the Village Pump)
Adam
(Cherry blossom tree)