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Featured portalThe Dogs 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.
Portal milestones
DateProcessResult
November 23, 2006Featured portal candidatePromoted

Notice from the Portals WikiProject

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WikiProject Portals is back!

The project was rebooted and completely overhauled on April 17th, 2018. Its goals are to revitalize the entire portal system, make building and maintaining portals easier, support the ongoing improvement of portals and the editors dedicated to this, and design the portals of the future.

As of May 2nd, 2018, membership is at 60 editors, and growing. You are welcome to join us.

There are design initiatives for revitalizing the portals system as a whole, and for improving each component of portals. So far, 2 new dynamic components have been developed: Template:Transclude lead excerpt and Template:Transclude random excerpt.

Tools are provided for building and maintaining portals, including automated portals that update themselves in various ways.

And, if you are bored and would like something to occupy your mind, we have a wonderful task list.

From your friendly neighborhood Portals WikiProject. Hope to see you there. Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   07:27, 2 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've done a quick redlink fix by adding the Fading puppy syndrome article, but it probably needs some help both in content and styling. I'm only recently returned to active Wiki-ing, and have very little real knowledge of canines, so some help in refining this article would be appreciated. :) - Kenneaal (talk) 11:22, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Scope of portal

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Northamerica1000, before now this portal has effectively been confined to domestic dogs, it appears you are broadening that scope to include wild canids. If that is your intention, then I suggest we look at changing the name of the portal to Portal:Canines. Cavalryman (talk) 00:12, 4 June 2021 (UTC).[reply]

@Cavalryman: That's an idea. I was thinking about utilizing the theme of WikiProject Dogs here, where it states atop it's main page, "WikiProject Dogs, a wikiproject dedicated to improving Wikipedia's articles relating to the family of mammals known as the Canidae and commonly referred to as "dogs", of which the domestic dog is but one of its members."
However, upon consideration, it actually seems best at this time to limit the portal to domestic dogs. As such, I have removed Dire wolf and Golden jackal from the Selected articles section for the time being (diff). North America1000 00:32, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes we broadened the scope of WP:DOGS some time ago, since it is project space we didn’t think it was necessary to rename the project. I wouldn’t be adverse to broadening the scope of the portal, it may remove some of the Western (European/North American) bias seen in the content. Cavalryman (talk) 00:39, 4 June 2021 (UTC).[reply]
@Cavalryman: Well, for now, I already have a rather full plate improving the portal under its current scope. Expanding the scope means more time, energy and work. Need more time to ponder too. I guess I'll leave it at that for now regarding the formation of an opinion regarding this matter. North America1000 00:59, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest that most people visiting the Dog portal will be looking for domestic dogs. That their wild cousins already appear in some sections of the portal content is a bonus. (Nor did we rename WP:DOGS to WP:CANINES.) William Harris (talk) 05:27, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Portal improvements

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Recent portal improvements include:

  • Overhauled portal with modernized wiki markup using transclusion from articles to display content, which provides readers with current, up-to-date information. A consensus approving the usage of transclusion templates in portals was formed at this Village Pump discussion.
  • Many high relevance new article selections have been added, including Featured-class and Good-class articles.
  • A new general images section is now present.
  • A new image banner atop the page was added.
  • A new topics section was added.
  • Additional updates, cleanup and layout changes have been performed. North America1000 01:30, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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At the WP Dogs talk page here (perm link), there has been discussion about changing the image/graphic that appears in portal links. This can easily be performed at Module:Portal/images. Below is a synopsis.

File:Aussie-blacktri.jpg
File:Dobermann handling.jpg
  • At the Dog WP talk page, another user objected to this, and the notion to add File:Dog Paw Print.png was brought forward, so this was then added to replace the dobermann image.
File:Dog Paw Print.png
To be fair, I think the pawprint is better than either of the other options on offer, a similar option is File:Dog.svg which is used at Template:Dog-stub. As suggested by Kusma here, I too think icons for the dogs portal within dog articles is an unnecessary distraction and a simple link would be better. Courtesy ping to other members of the discussion at WT:DOGS Justlettersandnumbers & William Harris. Cavalryman (talk) 04:09, 4 June 2021 (UTC).[reply]
The "portals icon" might represent WP:PORTALS, but it certainly doesn't represent anything dog-related. I am against both the paw-print icon and the "scottie-dog" icon, because these are human representations and not a dog (in the biological sub-family sense). I have no position on the deployment of either a link or an icon. William Harris (talk) 05:18, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that no image is probably best. Link is enough, it is in a box, so it is visible for the users anyway. Any picture with a particular breed of dog is inadequate because does not represent other non-related to it articles. The paw is sort of universal, but still looks like a sticker in a kids book. I suggest no picture just link, or if all the other users agree there should be a picture, then a paw. LoraxJr 06:41, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
As I said elsewhere, a main purpose of the icon is to distinguish Portal:Dogs from other pages. The best choice depends on context. If it's alongside other portals, we need an image to suggest dogs; if it's alongside doggy non-portals, we want an image to suggest portals, such as the puzzle piece icon. (Nothing so far is specific to dogs; I'd make the same point about cats or Canada.) Pictures of actual dogs look good when occupying most of a PC or phone screen but aren't ideal at 36×27 pixels. A distinctive silhouette of a dog would identify it well amongst other portals. The pawprint also works but might be mistaken for a different animal. Certes (talk) 10:19, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
File:Dog.svg
File:Black Labrador Retriever - Male IMG 3323.jpg
File:Black Labrador Retriever - Male IMG 3323 (cropped).jpg
  • Support Those editors who frequent the Dog article, including interested members of WP:DOGS, went through a consultation process recently to derive the new montage of breeds that appear in the infobox of the Dog article. The ubiquitous Labrador Retriever was chosen for "centre-stage". William Harris (talk) 10:31, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]