Portal:U2[edit]

If possible a full review for the project, to see if something's missing. I would like to take it into Feature Portal Status. Miss Bono ^[zootalk] 12:54, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Right now it has:

• 26 Selected articles, all FAs or GAs
• 8 Selected biographies, all FAs or GAs, except for Brian Eno (B-class but "almost essential"), Bono (B-class but "essential"), The Edge (C-class but "essential"), Dave Fanning (B-class but it has a good lead section)
• 16 17 Selected pictures (out of ca. 300), all from Commons
• 11 sets of five DKYs (33 appeared on the Main Page as part of Did you know?; all others are from WikiProject U2 Newsletters)
• 191 quotes taken from U2's related articles and materials from Wikipedia and Wikiquote
• The standard suite of portal items (related contents, categories, associated Wikimedia)

Thanks in advance. –pjoef (talk • contribs) 09:39, 5 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Notified: (Portal peer reviewers/volunteers: User talk:AGK, User talk:Bencherlite, User talk:John Carter, User talk:Espresso Addict, User talk:Sven Manguard, User talk:Nishkid64, and User talk:Resident Mario); (Portal's contributors/developers: User talk:Moxy, User talk:Keilana, User talk:Smithcool, User talk:Merbabu, and User talk:Koavf); (WikiProject U2 active members: User talk:Cullen328, User talk:Difop, User talk:Dream out loud, User talk:Lemurbaby, User talk:Melicans, User talk:PBASH607, User talk:Teancum, User talk:Ultra Violet Light, and User talk:Y2kcrazyjoker4); (Related WikiProjects: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Alternative music, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ireland, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Irish music, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Musicians, *Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rock music, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U2) –pjoef (talk • contribs) 14:53, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: Have you notified talk pages of relevant WikiProjects with a neutrally worded notice and link to this discussion? — Cirt (talk) 17:08, 13 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  Reply: Hi Cirt, thanks for your hint. I think we have followed all the steps described in Nomination procedure, except for the very last line ("...request feedback on the discussion pages of related articles, portals, and/or send messages to Wikipedians who have contributed to the same or a related field, including the list of portal peer review volunteers.") I am going to see if it is possible "to neutrally spam" some portals and/or wikipedians. Thank you very much.
  P.S.: Is it enough to ask for the opinions of the active review volunteers? –pjoef (talk • contribs) 08:18, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I would recommend posting to talk pages of relevant WikiProjects, as well. User talk pages of those you think would be interested is fine, as well, — Cirt (talk) 18:11, 15 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Sven Manguard

I almost wish you hadn't pinged me, because this portal has of my pet hates in it. But I'm here, so here they are:

• I can't get behind the idea of fake DYKs. If it didn't run on the main page, I don't want to see it in a DYK section in a portal. This is because, unlike fake DYKs, real DYKs go through a vetting process in which both the facts are verified and the wording is worked on. The matter of representing something as something it is not, which is also an issue here, is secondary to the invariable quality gap between real and fake DYKs. Examples:
  • The first DYK I got was "... that Larry Mullen, Jr. and U2 teamed up with Michael Stipe and Mike Mills from R.E.M. to form the group Automatic Baby for the sole purpose of performing "One" at the MTV inaugural ball?". This has way too many links, way too many bolded itmes, and links to Automatic Baby, an unsourced stub.
  • The second DYK I got was "... that Adam Clayton's once missed a concert due to a hangover?". This is a grammatically incorrect phrase.
  • The third DYK I got was "... that Dublin's Windmill Lane Studios is regularly visited by tourists wishing to view the U2-inspired graffiti adorning the walls?". This is an actual DYK, but for Windmill Lane Studios, not U2. It is, in my mind, absolutely unacceptable to change the bolding on a DYK. There is only one acceptable change that you can make to a DYK, and that is to removed the "(pictured)" if you're not using the picture. Anything else is misrepresenting someone else's work. That DYK was for Windmill Lane Studios. Someone worked on Windmill Lane Studios, and you've minimized that work by messing with the bolding.
  • Similarly, the fourth DYK I got was "}... that the lyrics in the U2 song "No Line on the Horizon" were inspired by an image of a place "where the sea meets the sky and you can't tell the difference between the two"?". This is again a real DYK, and again, you've messed with the bolding, this time by adding it to U2.
  • Similarly again, the fifth DYK I got was "... that both the Angelina Jolie Trapdoor Spider and Bono's Joshua Tree Trapdoor Spider inject their prey with venom after ambushing it from their burrows?". Here you've changed the bolding and changed the wording of that DYK.

I didn't think that it was possible for me to get seething mad from doing a PPR, but there's a first time for everything. I really can't get behind the way you messed with the published DYKs. More importantly, if this portal were nominated for featured portal before this is fixed, I would oppose it over this issue.

Okay, now that that's over, onto non DYK issues!

• I get the feeling that you just cut and pasted the lead sections of each article to make the selected article and selected biography excerpts. While it's fine to take from the leads (it's what I do), you do need to edit them down (or up) so that they're all roughly the same size. For example, "War", "Moment of Surrender", and "Running to Stand Still" are half the size of "The Joshua Tree" and "Zoo TV Tour". This, of course, means that if "War" runs, the left column is going to be significantly shorter than if "Zoo TV Tour" does. Combine that with the same thing happening to an even greater degree in the selected biography section ("Larry Mullen, Jr." is a third of the size of "Brian Eno"), and, if you get a bad dice roll, with a small entry on the left and a large one on the right, you're going to wind up with one column being six inches longer than the other, which doesn't look good. Pick a size (say "five lines on my screen) and try to get every entry at withing ± half a line from that size (or pick a word limit like 200 and try to get between 185 and 215 for each one).
• Your selections for "Related portals" puzzle me. I get the first four, but I don't understand why those eight rock bands (or seven and Cher) are the ones most closely related to U2. Just because it's also a music portal doesn't mean that it needs to be added in to that section. If there's a reason for them, it's fine, but if it's just because they're other music portals, I'd remove them. Consider adding some or all of Portal:Ireland, Portal:United Kingdom, Portal:British Army, Portal:British politics, and/or Portal:Terrorism, considering that many of U2's notable works touch on the Troubles.
• Many of the "Associated Wikimedia" links aren't valuable. Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikivoyage, and Wiktionary have no coverage of U2. Wikidata, which does have coverage of U2, is missing however.
• I appreciate that there are not FPs to choose from for this portal, but when there aren't FPs, I'd still like the images to be as high quality as possible. Some of them images are quite poor in quality, and should be replaced.

I can't think of anything else at the moment. I do have to say that the portal formatting itself is well done, with the rounded edges and the custom logo. I also think that your Topics section is top notch, and could serve as a model in my (eventual) FPO guide. Let me know your thoughts below, Sven Manguard Wha? 17:15, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Responses by pjoef

Thank you Sven for your prompt reply (and for all the hints, of course).
First of all, I would like to say that I was not the original nominator, but I did a bit of work here for U2's portal, for which I take full responsibility.

1. DYKs – All DYKs, except for those that were featured on the Wikipedia main page (here is the list of the DYks I found out and added to the portal), were taken from the project's published newsletters, but I have also maintained all the DYKs that were featured on the portal before my "intervention" (here is the last version/revision before my very first edit; at the time, c. 2007, this section and its process, as well all other parts of the portal, were not automated, so we have to go back in its history to rediscover all of them.) The bold and link issues are all my fault! I thought that in a Wikipedia portal all the parts regarding U2 (in this very case) needed to be put in bold-face and possibly linked to their proper articles (if they exist). I will take into account all your recommendations and see what I can do (this will require some time).
2. Lead sections – Yes, you are totally right because I really did this. I've copied the lead sections of the featured articles to the portal. In my humble opinion, the featured part/excerpt and the lead section of its own article must be the same, as an exact copy (except for citations/references), and they must be updated together. Of course, this will produce bad results in the heights of the two columns, as you properly said. I think that I'm going to expand all the shorter excerpts, but possibly all the relative leads (or I will tag them for expansion).
3. Related portals – This is a last minute edit (of my own, of course). I've replaced Music (it's featured at the top of the page) and Bryan Adams (sorry for that Bryan) with Aerosmith and Cher simply because these two portals, Aerosmith and Cher, point to this one and I've returned the favour. I've also moved all music genres' portals to the first row and in alphabetical order, and other bands/musicians on the other rows, also sorted alphabetically. I will check this out very-very soon.
   I've a question about this (related portals). Do you think it is better to replace the code of this section with ((Related portals))? I have fixed and shortened its code just today and it seems to work fine.
4. Associated Wikimedia – This issue has been fixed by Koavf. Thank you, Koavf!
5. Featured images – The criteria I used for the selection of the images is always the same (featured images [unfortunately, none at the moment], previous portal's contents/images, images used within the newsletters). I agreee with you, they all need to be as high quality as possible. I will check them out.

Once again, thank you for all. –pjoef (talk • contribs) 19:58, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Espresso Addict

Was pinged to take part in this review, which is not normally an area I read, so forgive me if my comments seem inappropriate.

• The colouring is eye catching. I find it a bit over-contrasted but this might just be my inexperience in this content area.
• The introduction is too large. It takes up the whole screen at my resolution, which discourages readers by failing to offer hints as to what is on offer. Ideally it should occupy no more than a third of the screen. The text itself is not overly long, but the red band with the logo could be slimmed, and the image slightly reduced and put with the text wrapped around it.
• Some of the blurbs are way too long. The agreed limit for Featured portals is around 200 words. Personally I invariably rewrite the lead of the article to the custom length. The variation is bound to cause a problem for column balance.
• I'm not as vehement as Sven Manguard about editing DYKs; I think minor edits to customise to the portal use can be justified, and sometimes major edits are needed (eg when an old DYK has become outdated). However articles that weren't the original DYK target article should definitely not be bolded. I do agree that using non-main-page items is dangerous, as it misses the review by multiple pairs of eyes of the formal process.
• If you plan to go to Featured review, then you probably need to increase the number of biographies. Eight is fine for a normal portal but featured reviewers are usually looking for 15 to 20. Personally I'm happy with B class articles being included, as long as they are good quality (no tags, properly cited), but I know others disagree.
• Some of the Selected images are not of sufficient quality. #2,8,10,11,12,13,14,16 particularly caught my eye; #4 could do with better cropping, and #5 is rather dull.
• Red linked image credits need to be delinked.
• Selected picture images need mouseover text.
• I don't like the bundled quotations format. It would look better, I think, to have individual quotations with the lines properly represented.
• I know from experience that this can be a pain to maintain, but a news section would greatly increase the utility of the portal to readers and give people a reason to keep on visiting.
• There's a white band behind Archive/nominations ... Read more.
• The archive pages could probably remove the contents listing.

Hope this is useful in continuing to develop the portal. Espresso Addict (talk) 12:59, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Responses by pjoef

Very-very useful, Espresso Addict, thank you so very much!

1. (Colouring): What about replacing the grey background colour with white, so we'd have the same colours used for the logo? (Done! Any better?)
2. (Intro); The logo has been resized to 120x120 (from 200x200). Any better? A smaller image of the band placed on center top of the page makes no sense to me. I will try to move it on the right side of the intro.
3. (Blurbs): On the other side, having the same lead sections would make the development and the maintenance of the leads of the articles in the main namespace (and within the portal) much better and easier, which is not a small thing.
4. (DYKs): I have recently replaced all the DYKs that appeared on the Wikipedia Main page with the original text, and removed the bold face from others (taken from the published WP U2 Newsletters; they also had a "sort of" review).
5. (Biographies): There are a dozen of candidates for this section, but their respective articles in the main namespace require to be expanded. The problem with B-class articles is that the most of them (or all) are "vital articles". Can you imagine this portal without the articles about Bono or The Edge? This should be another good reason for developing these articles as soon as possible.
6. (Images): I'm going to remove the red links and adding the captions and alt attributes (alternative text for images) wherever they are missing. Regarding the quality of the images, I will take note and see what I can do.
7. (Quotations): I'm a bit confused about this, is there an example somewhere that I can see? I can enclose each quatation into a DIV or a TABLE with different and alternate background colours and margins and borders and whatever for each row, move this section on the left column, which is a little bit larger than the right column, or on top (just above or below the intro) and at full page width, show only one quotation, and, of course, all possible combinations of the previous.
8. (News): Well, I've removed (hidden) that section mainly because external news about U2 need citations and there are not so many news on the WikiProject front. We maintain a news section for the WikiProject Newsletter, so it is not a problem, but what about the references?
9. (Mystyrose band): Isn't good? I was going to use it for quotations … I'll wait for your reply then.
10. (Contents listing within the archives): They could help when we add new items (articles, pictures, DYKs, and etcetera), and for test purposes. If you were talking about the contents on top of DYks and Quotations subpages then they do the trick (they are transcluded into the portal main page).

This is a question that I have already asked on here. Do you think it is better to use the template ((Related portals)) for that section?
Please, forgive me for getting you involved in this review. Happy editing! –pjoef (talk • contribs) 20:04, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Pjoef - I think Espresso Addict is referring to this line. Is it removable? Sven Manguard Wha? 21:55, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sure! Thank you. –pjoef (talk • contribs) 07:58, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]