Forum:Main page and portals

At some point in the future, we should probably re-examine what sort of content we want to link from Wowpedia, and which of the existing portals are actively maintained/worth maintaining.

Some things that seem annoying to me:
 * Portal:Mists of Pandaria is a barely-updated collection of "new stuff!" links (or sometimes just text) that was perhaps relevant around the time of the MoP beta. Portal:Cataclysm is in a similar state.
 * Spotlight on Wowpedia still focuses on the last BlizzCon. I could replace it with FA, but that rotation hasn't been touched since 2008.
 * Mists of Pandaria information center on Wowpedia is primarily a collection of links to MoP scenarios/dungeons/raids/arenas/battlegrounds/factions. These were relevant around the beginning of MoP, but instead of condensing them as time went on, we've only added more links to things introduced by the 5.x patches; now, this seems like a waste of space

What do you think should be linked from Wowpedia, and which, if any, of the other portals are useful to you? — foxlit (talk) 20:13, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I would possibly think that newer content, like what warlords is bringing should be linked on the main portal. And as for the expansion portals, they seem to clarify the new additions and such that was added (also like a summary), while the main articles provide a more in-depth. 20:57, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * It's somewhat obvious that as WoD gets closer, we'll add additional links to WoD stuff to the main page. The question really is what WoD content is worth highlighting on the front page? Do we want a list of characters featured in WoD content (like, say, Ji Firepaw for MoP)? A list of new races? A list of instances and reputation factions? How long do we keep each (if any!) of those things around for -- until the expansion is released, the first patch, or all the way until the next expansion? — foxlit (talk) 00:27, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * How about the main (big) changes that is upcoming for the expansion? 20:47, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm just going to leave this here: Wowpedia/WoD, with the intention that it'll eventually replace the MoP box on the front page. Please feel free to populate it with main-page-worthy content. — foxlit (talk) 21:58, 9 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm ambivalent regarding the MoP information centre. At this point in the expansion it certainly feels like very old news, but I suppose it would be useful to anyone returning. It does serve to bring together links to current and current-ish content though, like dungeons, raids and factions.
 * I totally agree that the spotlight should be updated, I've been thinking this myself for some time. Whether we need to always have a 'spotlight' when there hasn't been a really big news story for a while is debatable. I'm also not sure what exactly the purpose of the spotlight is - to highlight the event, or feature a page? Isn't this what news items do? If it's just a special news item, it should really be turned into a news item (and the spotlight box removed) when it's no longer news.
 * Featured article sounds like a great idea to me - would it really take so much effort to get moving again? Some of our articles are impressive and interesting and could do with being featured.
 * Regarding other portals, I personally never even see them, except occasionally to fix them up with minor edits. But then I navigate primarily through my watchlist and recent changes. -- Taohinton (talk) 14:14, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Spotlight is essentially the Featured Article spot that we sometimes hijack for specific front page-worthy news. It really should revert to FA (or vanish) after its content becomes aged. Adding new FA entries is relatively straightforward (create e.g. Wowpedia:Featured articles/Pet battles with the article's preview, add it to Template:FA (find a friendly admin to do that)); I don't know how much effort it'd take to persuade people to do that. — foxlit (talk) 23:33, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I think the main question would be frequency. Finding an article to feature once a month shouldn't really pose a challenge. Once a week might take a bit more effort. Even the former would be a good addition to the front page, in my opinion. -- Taohinton (talk) 02:08, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Also interested in thoughts on the following potential set of portal changes: — foxlit (talk) 22:08, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Portal:World of Warcraft and Portal:Warcraft universe merge into a single portal.
 * Portal:Mists of Pandaria, Portal:Cataclysm, Portal:WotLK, etc, are merged into the relevant expansion articles (probably by providing a features introduced / story progression summary section that would cover the expansions' patch content), and deleted.
 * Project:Community portal absorbs Help:Contents, which disappears from the Navigation links.
 * Portal:Technical support gets poked with the sharp end of a stick. Is that thing still alive?
 * The "Wowpedia content portals" box disappears from Wowpedia; those links are already present right under the Wowpedia logo.