Community Portal update
By Ardi
If you saw the editor’s note last week for my article, you would now know that the Community Portal now has an ongoing sandbox here with an introduction about it.
The Sandbox RR uses an “Around the Wiki”-style from the main page. There are a few items from the old Community Portal at the bottom that will be used in other places. Feel free to give him any comments on the talk page of his sandbox here.
Please note that the set-up of RR’s sandbox is temporary and will eventually change as things progress.
I just got an interview with the man himself, RR.
What was your inspiration for the sandbox?
It was the new Main Page. The "Around the Wiki" section impressed me as to how simple and elegant it was in presenting links to the major areas of the wiki.
Earlier this year, the Main Page was primarily lists: lists of community news, lists of what's new, lists of how to get to the sections of the wiki. May 9th was the first time that we began using pictures to help visually demonstrate what the links were for.
Today, we have a Main Page that is much shorter yet conveys more useful information. The design of the sandbox complements the Main Page.
What else do you intend to add/change in your sandbox?
I have a list of pages on this wiki that need to be linked to by the Portal. They are pages such as Point of View, our page naming policy and the Manual of Style. I also have a folder on my computer with lots of text files that tell me how to make links to Wikipedia, how to put in tags, how to work with tables, how to put in references, etc.
These are the things that I've had to piece together over the past year and teach myself how they work. The Community Portal will help everyone out by showing them those same things.
Do you have an idea of what you plan your sandbox to look like? If so, could you give me a description?
Beyond visually matching the Main Page, the Portal can be thought as the hub of a wheel, linking out through spokes to the main help and "how to" pages.
The following questions were asked by Topher208, our local crat and the one who delivers the Gazette to your user talk page:
Why are we updating the Community Portal?
The Phineas and Ferb Wiki was created in March 2008. The Community Portal was automatically created at the same time, giving us a basic set of starter materials. Things like what the last 10 pages to be edited were, listing article stubs so they could be expanded and "dead end" pages.
The Portal states that it is a place to organize and discuss projects for the wiki, but we've grown beyond that and developed our own "PF Projects" for that purpose. Because of this and because nothing has been done to improve the Portal since it was created, it is long overdue for an update.
Who is the Community Portal for?
I see the Portal being used by newcomers and experienced members alike. For the newcomers, it will collect Help pages together into one location for them to use. Long-time members will still benefit from the links to the Forums and to places like the new "Filling in the blanks" area which shows the pages that need attention.
Why should users be excited about having a Community Portal?
When you visit the Main Page, you get to see the areas of the wiki that everyone knows about: episodes, songs, characters, news, etc. The Portal will lead them to the behind-the-scenes areas of the wiki, the areas that they might not know are there. For instance, I didn't know that there were videos that show how to edit pages and upload videos. I only found them because I stumbled across them.
It will be a central reference point that makes it easy to find the info that has been scattered throughout the wiki.
How far along is the design so far?
I'd say it's about 90% of the way done. We need a few more links to cover some topics, but not many. The rest of the work will be in the pages that the Portal links to. For example, "Standardizing content" needs to incorporate the things I listed before (last 10 edited pages, list of stubs, etc.). That’s where I will need help.
What still needs to be done, and can regular users help with its design?
We need to finish gathering the help pages that are scattered across the wiki. Some can be found through the Help category, but not all.
Next, we need to write some new articles to cover the "how to" subjects. For instance, what templates have we created and how do you use them in a page? How do we want the episode and character pages to look? How should song lyrics be written? That sort of thing.
Can regular users help? Definitely. In fact, it's required in a sense. Not because it's mandatory but for other reasons.
The first is due to the nature of a wiki itself. This is a community of people working together to build the pages. If one person does all the work, then the community does nothing. That person might as well put everything up on their own private website that no one else can see.
The second reason has to do with burnout. I started working on the portal because I said I would do it a couple of months before. I was also getting to the point where I felt like I was spending more time cleaning up problems on the wiki than I was adding to it. So I dove in last week and made that my main focus.
But I think that if I continue working on this to the exclusion of all else, I will reach the point where I can't stand working on the wiki. I don't want that to happen, so I'm more than willing to share the load and get some fresh ideas in.
Any final words?
I’ve laid the groundwork. Now it’s time for everyone to chip and finish the Portal.
To see the latest work, visit the sandbox. Comments and ideas for what to include should be posted on the Discussion page.
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![[Topher208]](http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/common/avatars/8/8c/88085.png?20091107225716)
