Help:Portal review

Background and overview

When the portals began to be created on a large scale (and migrated from earlier pages in the Wikisource namespace) a review system was included to provide some oversight. There are two parts to this:

1. A reviewed parameter in the {{portal header}},
2. The {{portal review}} template for use in the Portal talk namespace.

The portal header will categorise portals into Category:Portals needing review until the reviewed parameter has been set. The portal review template is for logging details.

Process

The process for reviewing a portal is:

1. Review the portal: check that everything is correct
2. Update the {{portal header}} to record the review:

   | reviewed = yes

3. Either add the {{portal review}} template to the portal's talk page or edit it if one already exists.
   1. Fill in as many details as appropriate
   2. Enter your username in the reviewer parameter:

       | reviewer   = [[User:ReviewerUsername|ReviewerUsername]]

4. Done.

Review

Some things to be reviewed:

Classification

See Help:Portal classification for more information.

One of the main things to review is the classification of the portal and whether or not it is correct. Wikisource uses a variation on the Library of Congress Classification system, which means for the most part that system can be referenced to find the right code. There have been some modifications, however, which as recorded on Wikisource:Portal classification system adaptation. A portal under review will probably already have a classification. To check if it looks correct, a reviewer could, for example:

• Browse the Library of Congress Classification for that subclass and see if the portal would logically fall into that subject area.
• Search the Library of Congress catalog for that subclass (click Brief Search, set Search Type to "Call Number Browse (LC Classification No.)", enter the subclass and search).
• Use the Library of Congress catalog to search for examples texts from the portal to see their classification.

Some judgement is required from the reviewer.

NB: For the time being, Wikisource only needs to classify portals at the subclass level; that is to say, only by the alphabetic portions of the Library of Congress Classification. So, a portal in the subject area "Costume. Dress. Fashion" would have the short classification GT rather than a full classification in the range GT500 - GT2370.

Content

Check that the portal has content and that it is correct for the portal's subject area. Also check that any sister project or external links are appropriate. A work listed on a portal will normally have more information that just the link, including date of publication, author and occasionally a small amount of description information of potential readers.

If the portal has no content, please add the {{populate}} template to the page. There is no minimum number of texts for portal but at least 3-5 is a good rule-of-thumb.

Layout

The portal just needs to be legible. Useful headings allow the reader to find things within the subject area. If the contents of one section is disproportionately large, it might help to break it down into smaller sections (or even split it off into a separate portal).

There is no fixed system for headings. Some possibilities are:

• Chronological (by era, century, etc)
• Geographical
• Taken from the Library of Congress Classification outline
• Chosen by the user as deemed appropriate

Categorisation

The portal should be categorised as appropriate. For example, Portal:Science fiction is categorised into Category:Science fiction. Some categories are automatically added by the header template.

If appropriate, the portal can be placed in front of the alphanumeric list by sorting it with just a single space. For example:

[[Category:Category name| ]]

Symbols may be used instead of the space; an asterisk or exclamation mark are common. These will appear in the category after the space but before the numbers and letters.