[Wikipedia-l] Ideas for the portal page (was Re: [Intlwiki-l] Re: "We started in January 2001..." )

[Daniel Mayer]

On Saturday 12 October 2002 12:33 pm, Anthere wrote:
> The www.wikipedia.org is a very important address.
> Must be used accordingly. 

I agree - the PR value of that address should be shared.

>What is important in
> wikipedia (for users) is first of all *content*. Hence
> it is maybe not best that this address is used for the
> foundation, which should come far after contents.

I don't think any suggestions thus far would have www.wikipedia.org /only/ be 
about the Foundation. The portal page should also be a portal to the 
Foundation. Besides I don't see much difference between the Wikipedia Project 
and the Wikipedia Foundation; one is the body, the other is the head. They 
are therefore part of a whole. 

> The actual page as proposed is not containing any
> content, just info about the concept of Wikipedia
> (very important I agree nevertheless) and redirection
> to other places.

This is true.

> What makes Wikipedia different from other
> encyclopedias ?
> *reactivity*. Because we do not rely on paper (bought
> once in a lifetime) or peer review (hence delays in
> publications), the power of wikipedia is that we can
> come up with an actual subject very quickly.

Again, very true.

> So why wouldnot this "portal" page be, in particular,
> a place where actualities are on the front ?
>
> People would maybe put www.wikipedia.org as a place
> (link) where to drop by very frequently to keep
> updated with info probably less biaised than their
> newspaper, and with much more background ! The news
> wouldnot be as quickly there as in www.lemonde.fr but
> within a couple of days is much much better than much
> encyclos can do.

But Wikipedia is not CNN and each Main Page of most of the active language 
projects already have "current events" listed.

> Then, why would not these links toward actual subjects
> or background subject of actual issues, be in several
> languages when available
>
> Something like
>
> Current events
> * Israeli-Palestinian conflict (English) -- "title in
> spanish" (spanish)
> * John Walker Lindh (english) -- "title in japanese"
> (japanese)
> * Claus von Amsberg (English) -- Claus von Amsberg
> (néerlandais)
> * Bertrand Delanoë (français) -- Bertrand Delanoe
> (English)
> * Nobel Prize (English) -- Prix Nobels (français)
> * Eldred v. Ashcroft (English)
> * Jimmy Carter (English)
>
> my excuses, I don't necessarily the translations for
> each langages.

This seems like duplication of part of each language's Main Page and therefore 
would be difficult to maintain if done manually. There will also be 
translations of the project overview on the portal page in several different 
languages, no? The current events section of each would have to be updated.

> The idea is just to
> * provide content
> * put current events coverage or background in the
> front, something other encyc can't offer
> * made obvious several langages are available
> * put each of these langages at the same level
> * generate a little bit more of competition and
> collaboration between each langage if they want to
> have at least one page in their langage here
>......

Don't get me wrong I like the basic concept but I'm just not sure it would be 
practical. Maybe some php magic can be done that automatically takes the 
current events section of each Main Page of each language project and then 
displays the results in a box on each language version of the portal pages... 

That way a person at a glance will be able to see the current events listing 
for the whole project. That would be most cool. 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)