Portals Project

[Jioruji Derako]

Heya, fellow Bulbapedians and lurking forum-goers.

Let's jump right into the subject at hand. As many (or not so many) of you may be aware, on Bulbapedia's main page, there is a set of twelve links in the top right. Anime, Manga, Games, TCG... all massive parts of the franchise, yet when you click these links, they direct you not to articles, but to large, confusing categories.

The project at hand is to take a page (or, specifically, a few pages) from a couple of fellow wikis, most notably Wikipedia; a system of Portals, large generalize pages leading into the major sections.
In Wikipedia's case, these portals head into categories such as Arts and Politics. In our case, they would lead into the aforementioned twelve categories, such as Anime and Games.

Now, let me get to the part where I want your opinions. I've personally created a proof-of-concept demonstration portal purely to flesh out the style and layout, but it's by no means a finished product. We still need to decide if the style is right, if the layout is easy-to-navigate, and other such things.
So this is where I'm asking for opinions and suggestions alike.

) First off, do you like the idea of using portals for these sections?
) How do you feel about the layout I've built in the demo? Is it easy to find your way through?
) Are there sections you feel should be added/removed?

And so on. If you've got an opinion or thought, post it here! Any input is appreciated.

And expect to see more threads of this nature popping up every so often, as well. =D With Isshu around the corner, we're going to have a lot of work ahead of us, and it'll take quite a lot of hands!

 

[Zekurom]

I agree with the idea of portals. It makes so much more sense than to just have a main portal and have messy, listlike categories that the portal links to.

I'd suggest the following: If a category is big enough (let's say, with more than 100 articles), it should have its own portal. (Trading cards would be an exception to this rule, because there are just so many of them. Like, 60% of the articles are on trading cards.)

 

[Trainer-c]

The idea of having portals for the major sections of the franchise is awesome. I like the demo layout you have, it's very easy to navigate.

 

[The dark lord trombonator]

Jio's layout > TTE's. Sorry boss.

Seeing CP's version - maybe stick with one colorscheme per portal? I know it was a draft and you probably wanted to try many things, but simple colors are best. And perhaps reserve the bulba color for the welcome portal or a policy portal.

 

[Jioruji Derako]

First off, a link to CP's draft, in case anyone wants to see it. (I see he managed to fit a box around the sections, it looks pretty good.)

Jio's layout > TTE's. Sorry boss.

Seeing CP's version - maybe stick with one colorscheme per portal? I know it was a draft and you probably wanted to try many things, but simple colors are best. And perhaps reserve the bulba color for the welcome portal or a policy portal.

I like the idea of each portal having it's own colors (I assume that's what you're driving at). That would be easily workable; perhaps give just the Description box or one of the Featured boxes a darker color scheme, just to make it stand out? The different colors in CP's version are a bit bright, but they serve well to make the individual sections stand out nicely on their own.

I'd suggest the following: If a category is big enough (let's say, with more than 100 articles), it should have its own portal. (Trading cards would be an exception to this rule, because there are just so many of them. Like, 60% of the articles are on trading cards.)

That seems good, but there's a danger of having too many portals in that case. A bunch of portals can cover more than one subject (the Anime portal, for example, could cover not only the TV series, but the movies; there's plenty of room). Most likely if we have a ton of categories that fit the bill for getting a portal, a bunch of them are going to have parts in common, like in-game Moves, Routes, and so on. (these are likely big enough for their own portals, but just as an example, they could also go under the Games portal.)

 

[TTEchidna]

Having colors for individual things is our specialty. Heck, if we implement the portal idea well enough, it can trickle down into the projects that cover the portal's constituent pages...

 

[Zekurom]

That seems good, but there's a danger of having too many portals in that case. A bunch of portals can cover more than one subject (the Anime portal, for example, could cover not only the TV series, but the movies; there's plenty of room). Most likely if we have a ton of categories that fit the bill for getting a portal, a bunch of them are going to have parts in common, like in-game Moves, Routes, and so on. (these are likely big enough for their own portals, but just as an example, they could also go under the Games portal.)

Well, we'd just have to set the criterion high enough... portals don't have to be only for the biggest things.

 

[TTEchidna]

I'd at least want separate portals for the main series and side games, since they're so different. Perhaps a portal for each anime series, since each is near 200 (and for the original, over 200) episodes long. Characters... eh. Some of that is overlap. Moves... blah.

 

[Jioruji Derako]

I'd at least want separate portals for the main series and side games, since they're so different. Perhaps a portal for each anime series, since each is near 200 (and for the original, over 200) episodes long. Characters... eh. Some of that is overlap. Moves... blah.

Things like Moves could fit within the Games portal, or perhaps we should (after we set up the major portals) make a few sub-portals. Have a major portal for Anime, then have it split off into sub-portals for the various series (and one sub-portal covering just the movies). Assuming we don't stumble upon a snazzy way to fit everything into one portal; they're not going to act as much more than a table-of-contents and introduction for each area, so depending on how we do it, it might not take a ton of space to link to the categories for each anime season.