Portal talk:London

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The London Portal is a featured portal, which means it has been identified as one of the best portals on Wikipedia. If you see a way this portal can be updated or improved without compromising previous work, please feel free to contribute.

This article is part of WikiProject London, an attempt to expand, improve and standardise the content and structure of articles related to London. If you would like to participate, you can improve the article attached to this page or sign up and contribute in a wider array of articles.

This talk page is for the Portal about London. Ensure this portal's details are listed in the Portal directory. For discussion about Portals generally, please see the WikiProject on Portals.

Shortcut: P:L

To immediately see any changes to template articles, purge the page.

Contents 1 London! 1.1 Slow wiki 1.2 Layout 1.3 Inter-language 2 Formatting Layout 2.1 Colour Scheme 2.2 Yellow (well... gold!) 2.3 Quotes 3 Map 4 Format Problems 4.1 Syntax 5 Featured Articles 6 The Great Schism 7 Divs and borked 8 Just a word of thanks and congratulations 9 New box on definitions 10 Idea Store, Whitechapel

[edit] London!

ARRGH! Can someone who knows something about these crazy boxes please help sort some of this out? I decided that there was no way NYC deserved its own portal if London didn't have one, but it turns out they're quite difficult to get the hang of... Deano 09:09, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't know much, not having used them before, but I have made some changes:

• Moved TfL to below boroughs, because on Firefox the borough stuff was bleeding right into the TfL box. (That borough map is not as pretty as NYC's, but they do have only 5 boroughs. We ought to get the Thames into it, though.) Can't seem to get an extra line break between Featured Article and London Boroughs though. Odd.
• Moved the standard London template right to the bottom. It's fairly ugly again, and it's just boilerplate that doesn't say anything that isn't in the map, plus it breaks the layout.
• Corrected a number of typos

Further:

• How do I edit the topics box, can't seem to get at it? Typos: Millennium mispelt twice, African and Corporation mispelt (giving bad links).
• I like the idea that NYC has, of pointing the borough stuff to the Category: pages, may do that. In my local borough, have already rationalised Hackney to point to the borough. It was originally pointing to Hackney Central, we have the same problem elsewhere, like Islington.

Tarquin Binary 18:35, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for all the corrections - the whole thing was littered with them! Too much copy-pasting methinks! I was getting a bit stressed near the end coz I finished the Topic list at about 4pm and clicked "Save", but Wiki was down (again) and I lost everything. 4 hours work disappeared! Anyway, I've done it again now... its pretty long though...

Going back to your points-

• I totally agree about the borough map - I just copied it directly from the main article. There doesn't seem to be much better out there on wiki...
• I quite like the standard London template - it's quite simple and has lots of straightforward information. I stuck it at the top because it broke the monotomy of the box structure, and also provided lots of major links nice and early. Having said that, most of it is repeated in the Borough box...
• Editing the Topic box - quite complicated as I discovered this morning! You have to go to Template:London topics and click "Edit Page" there. I had to go on one hell of a wild-goose chase to find that for the NYC one!
  • I've corrected the links on that box - as I said earlier it had caused be copious amounts of grief throughout the day... but several edits later and I think it's pretty much there. Having said that, I wouldn't bet against there being a few disambiguation issues.
• I think the NYC page has got it a lot easier when it comes to boroughs - they've only got 5 to deal with whereas we've got 32... it'd start looking a bit monotonous and cramped if we just plainly list them à la Portal:NYC. But we do need to expand the Category section big-time - there are loads that could go in, it's just a matter of finding them!

A couple of new things - I think we should attempt to clarify some short-term goals that need looking at - in terms of just getting the portal up to standard. After that we've got to start looking at making all the other stuff work too, but I reckon sorting out the portal would be quite good. Interestingly, Portal:Scotland (why is there no England?) is quite good!

Oh and finally, I got fed up of typing the whole thing out every time, so (for now), you can use the shortcut P:L to go staight to the Portal.

Deano 19:27, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually the infobox isn't that bad. I'm just not a big fan of infoboxes in general - the district ones, in particular, really annoy me, the info is nearly all inaccurate (given the utterly notional nature of what constitutes a London district, as opposed to boroughs that have firm boundaries) or redundant. And who in the world needs to know the grid reference as the first thing for a district (even if this was meaningful anyway)? They are not ugly in themselves, but they lead to ugly layouts. So I've got a general thing about dumping necessary but dull info at the bottom of pages when I can. As for this one, I think your general box layout is perfectly fine and did not need interrupting with a different style of box. Consistency is a good rule when designing pages.

Anyway, I have actually done a whole load of the categories. I used aliases and an intro to avoid the hideous 'London, London, London...' that might have resulted. Moved the parent cats to below, because surely a user wants to know the sub-cats first.

The borough map is fine on its usual page, I think, I just don't know that it works on this page.

Will check the edit on the topics. Oh, and I will look out a 'did you know' factoid just for fun. Tarquin Binary 19:52, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Oh, don't know why, but my sub-cats edit is not showing, even though you can see it on an edit. Tarquin Binary 20:01, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Slow wiki

Yeah just ignore that - its Wiki being slow. It used to take about 10 mins in the morning before changes on the link-pages actually showed up on the Portal. By the way, I've moved the night photo of the HoP from the main article to the featured article, and just stuck in a randon replacement of London from the ISS. Deano 20:09, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Heh. While you were doing the 'did you know' box, I was prepping one myself about London Bridge, which is ready to go too. It's no problem, I've saved it, and we can change round some time (weekly cycle, maybe?). BTW, need question marks. Have we got an airport pic? Tarquin Binary 20:40, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Further, filled out your spare box with my factoid stuff. After all this is a portal launch so we might as well push the boat out, and it improves the layout some. Plus I took the Vicky Park pick, so a bit of vanity there :) Tarquin Binary 20:48, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

All for now. Need beer. But congratulations again on a great idea. (Have to do something about that transport fixation that all us Londoners seem to share though - we've got a pic of a station, a bit on airports and a bit on a road bridge, OK for now, though.) Tarquin Binary 20:48, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Beer, thats a good idea. How do I purge the cache - I cant see my changes to Portal:London/Transport. This layout is really hard... Justinc 21:14, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

That seems to be a function of Wikipedia itself taking its time. Had the same prob. Oh, OK, I see your Purge link, got it now. I don't want to wreck the layout now, since you've evened it up nicely, but was wondering about adding a CC template:

Also think concerned people should be alerted to putting all the sections on watch (as far as I can see you can't add the thing as a whole to your watchlist). It's likely to be quite high-profile, so there's going to be a lot of messing around - for good and evil. The pop figures on the top box keep being flipped around already on the London entry.

Tarquin Binary 22:40, 27 October 2005 (UTC) (Idly musing over said beer)

[edit] Layout

"I don't want to wreck the layout now, since you've evened it up nicely" WELL... about that... I may have just wrecked it again by adding some text about our featured picture. On the UK Portal page they'd done it like that, so I thought what-the-hey! Well it could be a blessing it disguise - there's now the perfect amount of space for you to stick a CC link in...

Incidentally, I think I've got the whole thing on my watchlist as the original creator - every edit to every section has flashed at me so far so I think that should be okay. But yeah, vandalism is gonna be a pain. Never mind - where there's pain there's gain!

Deano 22:48, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

CC template added. Don't know if things are in the right order, but all the ingredients seem to be there. I don't suppose it's worth worrying about evening out those columns actually, as long as they're approximately right, because the text and pix to the left are hopefully going to change frequently. Airport stuff looks good now. Tarquin Binary 23:04, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Inter-language

It looks fine, love the red! Could probably do with a description of the image at the top though - what exactly is it? -- Francs2000 21:18, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Its a giant firework in the shape of London. Justinc 21:39, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

How about a link to the inter-language links on the "London in Wikipedia" section? You can make a sub-page for them or put them on the talk page maybe. -- Francs2000 21:20, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

It's a picture of London from the International Space Station. But yeah I'll stick a caption in. Deano 21:42, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

What exactly do you mean when you say "You can make a sub-page for them or put them on the talk page maybe"? I'm confused! Deano 22:52, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

What I mean is that you can create a sub page at Portal:London/London on Wikipedia/Languages (or whatever you want to call it) or you can add this list to Portal talk:London/London on Wikipedia and just link there. It'd be worth having the list available though. -- Francs2000 10:27, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Like this. -- Francs2000 11:35, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

AH! That's wicked - thanks for doing that! Another piece of the jiqsaw slots into place! Deano 13:54, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Formatting Layout

Well I have learned more about how to do fussy layout things that I had been meaning to do for a while. Just removed the section edit links from the Things you can do box, very obscure. Hey its already looking better than New York. The airport picture is broekn though now - better fix it. Justinc 23:11, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

even more obscure - fixed it but not quite sure why that worked. Justinc 23:19, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

It's looking really cool, I like the fact that it's quite different from the average portal. The extended DYK about London Bridge is a great idea. the wub "?!" 23:15, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Colour Scheme

What are the colours of London??? We need to decide a three-tone colour scheme for text/fill/border... I reckon red and white looks quite good for the fill/text but Texas are doing it three-toned are theirs looks pretty good! If we're feeling seriously crazy then we can go 5-toned and have background colours for the text boxes... but that is going seriously crazy... Deano 23:21, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Check out Web colors. Can't go wrong! Deano 23:34, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Nothing official (currently Greater - or Inner - London has no official flag or crest, amazingly enough) but, actually, you have it right already! They are generally agreed by cultural commentators like Peter Ackroyd as pillar-box red (the dominant colour), plus white and blue, the latter two for the Thames. Take a look at the GLC crest on the London template at the bottom of the page. To that you might add gold for the City and the crown of the Saxon kings (also on the crest). Here is the crest being used for lack of an official one:

Tarquin Binary 23:38, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Pale gold then :) Works OK for me, except for that damn borough map. Think you should keep a white background there, pending a better map, maybe. Not sure about the white borders we're getting round the pix either, sure there must be a fix for that, though. Tarquin Binary 23:46, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm really not sure now, think I preferred the plain white background (I'm one of those 'less is more' people). Mainly I think the tint creates more problems than it solves. But everyone has an opinion on style :) Tarquin Binary 23:54, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I've left it in "lemon shiffon" - #fffacd - a pale yellow/gold. You may have noticed the period when it was "gold" - #ffd700 - which looked pretty impressive although quite contraversial. If there is a definite remedy for the white borders and fills, then I'd suggest going with the outright gold. It has serious class-factor! Having said that, white may well be the way to go. Cut the crap. I'll change it back to that for now. Deano 23:56, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Leaving it to you, as the original creator. Just had to throw in my 5p worth. White is playing it safe, I know, except it's not white it's very pale blue, so much for my eyes. Hmm - maybe the audacious thing to do would be to use proper white... Tarquin Binary 00:00, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Didnt see that revision, where the streets of London were paved with gold. Actually I was wondering about a quotes section, but its bedtime. Justinc 00:08, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Yellow (well... gold!)

Ooh, shiny. -- Francs2000 18:54, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Well that's the colour scheme sorted out, methinks... the formal scheme is gold and blue - colours of Imperial London, while the boxes are St. George's red'n'white! Sorted! Deano 19:03, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Having said that, I'm veering towards a light blue instead of the gold - the colour of Tower Bridge or something... what do you think? I reckon it'd look quite good with the navy border... Deano 19:08, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Quotes

Room for one quote under the wikiquote box... cant get the boxes to centre though. Justinc 00:34, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Heh - 'When a man is tired of editing the London Portal, he is tired of life'. Tarquin Binary 00:42, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Blimey - I put in the last comment before I'd even checked what your quote was. Spooky! Tarquin Binary 00:44, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Nice job on the quote/other wiki box. Perfect fit too! But I reckon we need to incorporate the poem "London" from Wikisource into it somehow - after all it is a part of wikimedia... Deano 13:54, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Map

I can make a version of the map with a transparent background if that would help? Morwen - Talk 11:02, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Crumbs - didn't occur to me you could do that with PNGs (never use them, particularly since the Unisys patent expired on gifs thought PNG was well and truly a dead duck). Oh well, forgive my ramblings, excellent idea, I'd say. I still might have a go at generating a more compact version when have time. Tarquin Binary 11:09, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I think we need to clarfiy exactly what we want from our map.

• All the London boroughs
• The river Thames
• Transparent background
• Preferably something that looks classy à la Portal:NYC

Any more?

Deano 13:54, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I like the image on p. 29 of todays Guardian - doesnt show the Borough borders, but shows the locations. Must work out how to do SVG... Justinc 21:05, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay I have uploaded an extremely crude map of the GLA area. See Image:GLAMap.PNG. The borders need clearing up, and numbers need to be added to refer to the boroughs. BUT, it has the all-important Thames and looks cleaner than the current model... Deano 21:35, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Format Problems

Basically I've added a link to Wikisource:London along with the other sister projects. However, that makes the box a bit too big, and I (innocently) thought it'd look better if the "Other Projects" box went the entire width of the page (above "Topics"), and the sister-proj links were side by side.

I tried to do that, and failed. Miserably. They won't budge from the right hand side of their box. Check out Portal:London/Other Projects and have a look at the history to see what I mean.

Anyway, I've reverted it back now. But if anyone knows how to put them side by side then I reckon that'll look better. Deano 17:19, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Been away, taking shots and going a bit of Hackney and Peckham stuff, but it's looking good, I'm glad you went for the straight white background in the boxes, very classy. But I am still having Firefox problems, unfortunately. (It's fine in Explorer, by the way.)

Firstly, the top line on the top box bleeds into the photo a bit - a small thing. But far worse, the borough map is half off the screen to the right. I've tried to figure out why, but it's late and it's not obvious to me at all. Just thought I'd alert you to it, Deano. Will have another look tomorrow. Tarquin Binary 02:28, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up... I decided to (proverbially speaking) fight fire with fire... by radically changing the box format... Basically I decided that the "London topics" box was far too cumbersome... so I am going to attempt to break it down into subject areas... and given that Transport is such a beloved topic for us, there was no better way to start! So I've taken all the transport stuff out of the bottom template and created a new one for our transport box. That also meant removing the old TfL template, which I was not a great fan of anyway. Of course, this made the whole box a lot bigger, so I moved it down to the bottom. This lead to all kinds of box-lining-up issues, so I played around moving boxes all over the place for a while. The obvious was to move the Olympics box, but the page looks quite bare without the beautiful London 2012 logo at its intro... so I kept that where it is. You can probably figure out the movements yourself! Deano 21:38, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Syntax

Firefox problem now fixed. With a box spanning 2 columns you do not need the <div>, and it throws FF off. Checked on IE, though linespaces look unequal there, it's pretty much OK. I do not have a complete grasp of syntax here (my HTML's pretty good, but this is different), but I have noticed your top 2 lines:

{| width="100%" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="10" style="background:#87cefa; border-style:solid; border-width:3px; border-color:navy;"

| width="55%" valign="top" style="padding: 0; margin:0;" |

...have no close curly bracket, nor is there a closure for them later, looks wrong. I'll educate myself further on this later... Tarquin Binary 06:39, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Yeah that looked wrong to me too... I just followed the Wikipedia instructions from WP:P and that's what came out! Who knows?! Deano 17:23, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Featured Articles

Am I right in thinking we decided on having a new featured article (and picture) once a week? If so, we are due an update tomorrow... any suggestions? The obvious ones are the famous sights... Tower Bridge or the London Eye... but they're all obvious - I reckon we need something foreigners won't know about but is still interesting and comprehensive...

Perhaps we can copy other portals whereby there is a system of electing articles to be featured... In fact, several other portals have a Collaborative Project of the Week and a ~~Wikipedians Noticeboard... should we set these up? Deano 20:20, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

This is what is known as inventing a stick to beat your back with. :) I suggest leaving it a week, maybe two, before such necessary updates, I'm guessing the portal hasn't registered much with London people, let alone those outside, yet. Good idea to publicise it more among the UK wikioids, first. Then, I think, elections might be rightfully held. Tarquin Binary 01:28, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

How about now? We're coming on one month... Deano 23:55, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Great Schism

Well as you will have noticed, jguk - creator of Portal:Cricket - has made some alterations to the format of this portal. I personally was slightly surprised at the amount that was removed... but then what do I know?

Over at WP:P we are trying to reach a consensus about how portals should work... this could be a major issue as I believe the style of this portal as of my last edit was better than that of present (sorry jguk!)... I believe that portals should be given a significant degree of autonomy to make themselves more appropriate for their content, and to save from boredom...

Anyway, views are needed - do we revert back to our old format and I'll hold the fort at WP:P... or do you think it is indeed an improvement? I won't be changing anything until we reach a consensus here.

Deano 23:06, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I would be inclined to revert it. He has simply deleted lots of good stuff. About the only thing I agree with is the removal of the list of other portals at the bottom; also perhaps the London box at the bottom isnt necessary as a lot of links are duplicates, but moving it up makes no sense. And as there are no guidelines on Portal style and content I think this is pretty much out of order. Justinc 01:07, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

And looking on WP:P I dont see any reason. We can tighten it up a bit, but the idea is to be reader oriented and that has to go beyond what the category system offers, more than just lists. I would say that Cricket has too many lists... Justinc 01:12, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Justin. We did end up with two 'did you knows?', because I was working on one at the same time as you, but now we haven't any. There seems to be this total list obsession on Wikipedia sometimes, no consciousness that people might actually want something to read, look at, engage with. And I've said that about the London infobox already. I think we need fewer infoboxes less prominently displayed, don't need to big them up. I vote revert too. Tarquin Binary 07:00, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Additional: OK, cut one of the two 'did you knows', though (can be mine, I don't care) - we need to refresh these from time to time, so having one is reserve for now is a good idea. Also lose London Infobox. Apart from that, I'd revert it. OK, and lose the 'Other portals' list too. Tarquin Binary 12:46, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Okay I've reverted it back - I think I am going to demand autonomy for portals to follow their own structure (within limits) if we do manage to establish a clear portal criteria. For the purposes of everything more-or-less lining up, I have left both "Did you knows" for now - we can solve that later. However, it is made much more difficult by the reluctance of the sister-project boxes to horizontally line up (i.e. appear on the same line)... does anyone know how to solve this? Also, I noticed the main London page now has a link to wikibooks - we should probably whack that in too... Deano 17:34, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Divs and borked

I think there was some change in mediawiki and div no longer needs a close or something. Its messed up the page - will have a look at it, but I am not sure whats up, so help needed. Justinc 00:52, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Apparently there are technical issues that may be fixed, but just possibly there are really errors in the markup too. Its too late to change anything else today, when it may just fix itself. Justinc 01:19, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

All seems okay to me... must have been fixed! Deano 18:43, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Just a word of thanks and congratulations

Not sure if I should be adding this here precisely, but please move or remove if I've erred. I just wanted to give a word of congratulations on an attractive and inspiring Portal page. The "blue background" border box looks great, and the "London Topics" template you put together is a brilliant idea. Since two days I am putting together a "Paris Portal" so I hope you won't mind if I use the latter idea there as well - what a great way to keep with the "wiki look" in saving tons of space! I thought it best to let you know ahead of time and give credit where it's due : )

Thanks and take care you all,

ThePromenader 11:33, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks mate - much appreciated! Good luck with Portal:Paris... shame about the Olympics though ;)!!! Actually having said that, I've just taken a look at your page at it is very impressive indeed... very impressive! All the best - Deano 20:17, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Add my congrats. (Only just noticed it was a featured portal after the Xmas break.) Nice one! Tarquin Binary 11:56, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I too would like to offer my congrats on this. Great work! --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 19:02, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks - all we need now is a few more people to contribute to our monthly votes and things will be looking really good. I should take this opportunity to thank User:Ham for his help in maintaining the portal - much appreciated! DJR (Talk) 19:20, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New box on definitions

I propose adding a new box all about defining London and it's myriad of aliases and sub-division. I'm presuming that anyone who reads this will ignore it, and I'm really typing it just so that I remember it next time I log on... but if anyone wants to beat me to it then I will be over the moon! DJR (Talk) 23:17, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Could you outline your idea in more detail? I'm not quite sure what you intend. The portal is pretty full-up as it is.--cj | talk 05:23, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Well have a look at London#Defining London. The term "London" doesn't really refer to anything in particular - it's more a concept that an actual entity. The only thing that officially exists under the name "London" is the region... My suggestion is to disambiguate the term a little on within the Portal. DJR (Talk) 15:59, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't see the necessity of defining London here though. Surely it is not harmful to cover "London" in every respect? However, if you want to go ahead with the idea, I'd suggest restricting any clarifications to the intro box, rather than creating a new one.--cj | talk 09:58, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Idea Store, Whitechapel

The Whitechapel Idea Store has been nominated for a Stirling Prize. If anyone's in the area, would it be possible to get a picture upload for my article? Many thanks. --Mcginnly | Natter 10:01, 25 August 2006 (UTC)