Help:Portals

Portals exist as a gateway to a subject area on Wikisource. In physical library terms, they serve as combinations of a card catalog, special collection, display area and/or bookshelf.

How to link to portals
Works within the main namespace can link to portals by use of the portal parameter in the page's header:

If the page is to be linked through the header portal parameter to more than one portal then list them using a forward slash ("/") as a delimiter like so:

|portal=portal name/portal name/ ... /portal name

One work can link to several portals (see Plain sister for more information). Links to portals will appear in the notes field of the header above sister links to other projects.

Portals will have some standard navigational links to parent portals in the header (usually based on the class and subclass of the portal). Other links, to sister portals, child portals or just similar portals can be part of the main body of the portal or in a special section (such as a see also section or box).

Other pages on Wikisource can link to a relevant portal by the use of the portal parameter in the header, by the use of a standard wikilink.

How to find portals
The Portal namespace can be accessed in several ways.

There are two main portals intended as entry points into the Portal space. These are the top-level Portal:Portals and the bottom level Portal:Index. The former only lists classes, from which a user should be able to navigate to any portal on Wikisource. The latter is a complete list of all portals on Wikisource, in order of class and subclass.

Another complete list of portals is the portals category, listed alphabetically as normal for a category. Alternatively, all portals within a specific class can be seen in the Portals by class category. All portals should be automatically categorised into both the first and one of the second categories.

Navigating the Portal space


Portal space is structured into a five layer hierarchy. The top layer contains only the one, main portal, Portal:Portals. The main portal links to every portal in the second layer. The second layer is made up portals corresponding to the 23 classes used on Wikisource, based on the 21 classes of the Library of Congress Classification system. These in turn link to the portals of the third layer, which are made up of portals corresponding directly to the individual subclasses. The fourth layer is made up of an unlimited number of child portals within the subclassification. The fifth layer is made up of an unlimited number of grandchild portals, expanding on topics in the child portals (these portals will link to the child portal in their headers rather than to the class and subclass as normal). Technically, a chain of grandchild portals is possible beneath a child portal but this should be rare.

Where there is not enough material to justify a standalone portal, the is included in the next level up. In some cases, the third layer may be circumvented, with the class portal linking directly to the child portal(s). When enough material has been collected, a new portal can be created in order to index it.

In addition to this, portals should link to similar portals on Wikisource to allow readers to browse or locate specific information. These links do not need to be restricted to the same layer or branch of the hierarchy, nor restricted in any other way.

Separate to this hierarchy (or beneath it) is Portal:Index. As the name implies, this is a list of all portals on Wikisource, which can be used to easily find and navigate to any portal if direct linking from one to the other is not possible. The portal categories can be used for the same thing. The class and subclass portals (second and third layers) are shown in bold in the Index, with the class portal listed first. Child and grandchild portals are listed in normal typeface beneath the corresponding subclass; grandchild portals are listed in parentheses (or brackets) after the child portal.

All portals should have links in the header to the corresponding class portal and, where appropriate, subclass portal. These are repeated in the header bar and in the box to the left of the notes field. The box also has links to the the main portal and to the index. (As mentioned, grandchild portals link to child portals instead.)

Portals should also link to portals of the same topic on other projects, either sister projects of the same language (eg. Wikipedia) or Wikisources in other languages (eg. French Wikisource). This is done in the same way as it would be in any other page. At the same time, it would be helpful to add a link back to the Wikisource portal from these other projects.

Subject
A portal should have a specific subject, which will be its title. The contents of the portal will be related to the subject and the portal will link to similar subjects to allow a reader to navigate around the portal space.

This subject should be unique to prevent duplication. Before creating a new portal, check to see if a similar portal already exists or not. Existing portals may have a slightly different title than the one you have in mind but still have the same contents.

Necessary parts
In addition to a unique subject, all portals on Wikisource must have:


 * 1) A portal header template.
 * 2) * Subpages should use the portal subpage template instead.
 * 3) * Portals for a country may use the specialised national template.
 * 4) A classification (or call number)

Style
All portals should use the portal header. Beyond that, the content of the portal depends on the style chosen. Please remember that portals should be easy to understand for a completely new visitor to Wikisource attempting to read about a certain subject area.

Wikisource index
The most common style on Wikisource. This style takes the form of a list of works as bullet points, broken into subsections of the subject by headings. Works are normally listed in order of publication date, from the earliest to the most recent.

To create a portal such as this, you only need to start by adding the following code to the top of the page:

This is an intermediary version of portal header, a template that has more parameters available if necessary. This header should be followed by a simple bulleted list of works that apply the the chosen subject. Each entry is normally formatted as follows: * Work, year by Author

If including a link to a portal in the index of works, it helps to distinguish it from direct links to works by making the link bold and including the Portal prefix rather than hiding it (ie. Portal:Caliphs rather than Caliphs ). If the link is separated from the main body, such as in a "see also" section, this is not necessary.

The list may, therefore, look something like this:-

Section A

 * Work, year by Author
 * Work, year by Author
 * Work, year by Author
 * Work, year by Author

Section B

 * Portal:Portal
 * Work, year by Author
 * Work, year by Author

Hybrid & other
Some portals take elements of both the index style and other styles. Portals can also have a unique style as long as they fulfill the functions of a portal (organising works, guiding readers, easing the navigation of the portal space etc).

A simple way to create a portal such as this is to start with the Wikisource index style of portal and use templates and/or tables to create specially formatted areas or boxes within the index.

Classification

 * See Help:Portal classification for more information.

Wikisource uses a locally adapted version of the Library of Congress Classification system to organise portals. This system is intended to make navigation within the portal space as simple as possible using a reliable and recognised classification system. Therefore, each portal needs a classification. This takes the form of a 2-3 letter code, made of a class and a subclass. The full list of possible classifications are listed at Help:Portal classification and Portal:Index, except for the Law subclasses which are listed separately at Portal:Law/Subclasses (class K has more than the average number of subclasses).

Choose a class
The first step in classifying a portal is to select the class. The corresponding letter forms the first part of the call number, which completes the class parameter of the portal header.

Choose a subclass
The second step in classifying a portal is to select the subclass. Each class has a different number of subclasses, using different combinations of letters. The corresponding letters form the second and, optionally, the third part of the call number. In the portal header, the first letter completes the subclass1 parameter and the second letter completes the subclass2 parameter.

Indexing the portal
Once a portal has been created and classified, please add it to Portal:Index, under the subclass, in alphabetical order with other portals.

When to create a new portal
New portals should only be created if there are enough works to be indexed. They should not normally be created in anticipation of future material, as portals can always be created once this future material exists. Creating too many new portals too soon can serve to dilute the overall subject area. Lots of similar portals with only a handful of works in each makes browsing and searching the portal-space tiresome and reduces the basic usefulness of an index. There is no minimum number of works for a portal. However, at least having the number of works in the high single figures, if not double figures, is recommended.

There may be some special cases where a portal should be created even if there are only one or two relevant works. For example, if the author of a work is an organization rather than a person, then a portal should be created for that organization to function as the "author" page linked to that work.

If an existing portal is getting too long, subsections from that portal can be split off and used as the base for a new portal. This should not, however, leave the original portal empty or nearly empty. The concept of "too long" and which subsection(s) to split off are a matter of individual judgement and up to the editor.

If you cannot classify the portal
If you cannot find an appropriate classification for the portal, leave the class parameter blank. This will automatically categorise the portal into Category:Unclassified portals. From here, another user will be able to find the portal and complete the classification process.

Categorization
Portals should be categorised in the same manner as any work on Wikisource, see Help:Categorization for more information. Additionally, the portal header will automatically categorise the portal into Category:Portals and a class-based category such as Category:Law portals. The most appropriate way to categorise a portal is into the nearest equivalent category. For example, Portal:Physics should be categorised into Category:Physics. If there is no equivalent category, the nearest potential parent category may be appropriate until such a category has been created.

Subpages
Subpages should use the template portal subpage and are automatically categorised into Category:Portal subpages (if the normal portal header is used, it will also categorise the page in this way). Subpages can be used for several reasons, including the creation of appendix-like support pages and obvious subdivisions of the main portal (ie. year, reign, session etc). As with creating new portals, subpages should not normally be created if it will take material away from the main portal page or dilute the material in any way.

Non-works in portals
Portals do more than just list works and they should be of use to both readers and editors. As well as works, they can link to and display any other pages and material on Wikisource. For example, a portal may also include:


 * Lists of authors.
 * Links to wikiprojects.
 * Links to similar portals.
 * Links to current proofreading projects.
 * List of things to do or works in need of attention.
 * Links to relevant help pages.
 * Links to relevant process pages.
 * Featured works, authors, projects etc
 * Brief helpful descriptions or explanations (copying this from wikipedia and using the wikipediaref template helps to keep these verifiable and potentially easier to keep up to date).
 * Images and other media, if appropriate.
 * Anything else of interest appropriate to the subject.

Sister links
Portals can have sister links, links to "sister" projects such as Wikipedia, Wikibooks et al, just like any other page on Wikisource. In the case of portals, it is useful to link to similar portals on other projects if they exist. Some of the sister projects use different namespaces and not all use portals. Wikipedia, Wikiversity and Wikinews use portals. As well as portals, Wikiversity also has the School: and Topic: namespaces fulfilling slightly similar functions (and to which it may be better to link). Wikibooks uses the Subject: namespace to sort its content in a way that is similar to Wikisource portals.

As well as placing a link from the Wikisource portal to equivalent pages on sister projects, it helps to place links on the sister projects back to the portal on Wikisource. Individual pages, such as Wikipedia articles, can also link back to a Wikisource portal. In the case of Wikipedia, the template can be added to the external links section of the article (or similar). If the article does not have the same title as the portal, the format of the template is.