This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Portal. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
This statement in the lead is another part of WP:POG that needs another look: ...likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers.
No portal can at present expect to achieve this. The best possible portal on the broadest imaginable subject cannot attract many readers because readers are hardly offered them. On most topics the main article attracts 100+ times the pageviews of the corresponding portal, because a search on that topic presents readers with the article, not the portal. Editors aware of this are unlikely to devote much effort to a portal for the sake of a very sparse readership.
Most of the deletion nominations currently appearing at MfD make great play of these pageview statistics, just as though readers at large were aware of portals and had chosen to avoid them. The fact is that very few readers ever get to inspect a portal to see if it's useful to them or not: any such inspection would swell the pageview figures. The MfD arguments from pageviews are fallacious.
The answer would be to alter search engine functioning to give portals a fair crack of the whip. However, this is far from straightforward, as we cannot expect either editors here or staff at WMF to start considering ways and means until there is a consensus that portals are worth the effort. To seek such consensus would require us to have produced high-quality portals on a range of topics, designed to resist the criticisms repeatedly levelled at portals in general, and to satisfy the community that portals can add real value for readers, as an overview of all aspects of Wikipedia's coverage of a broad topic.
It's a relevant point to bring up at MfD, because it's the reality of how things work now and unlikely to be altered, even if the WMF was interested (and why would they be?) Portals and outlines seem like wikignome cataloging that doesn't mirror real-world behavior of readers; there's a reason why web portals and directories died decades ago, because search engines were a better way of getting to the single targets (articles) people wanted. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchstalk17:50, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
I agree that page views content on the guideline page should be edited to reflect actual reality, rather than being based upon a desired, but unattainable goal to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers. Portals almost always receive less page views compared to articles. As a comparison, many WP:STUB articles often receive very few page views as well and have few or no active maintainers, but this is not a valid rationale for their deletion. Furthermore, the notion of any sort of required maintainer goes entirely against the grain of WP:NOTCOMPULSORY. North America100006:48, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
How refreshing, Der W. F., to see a civil and reasoned response on this issue of Portals! – Granted, if a reader comes to WP to find out specifically about the 2015 Women's Junior African Volleyball Championship, they can easily home in on our article, bypassing portals, navboxes, category trees and the rest. The type of reader I have in mind is someone who maybe doesn't yet know much about (say) volleyball, but wishes to explore the sport through Wikipedia. Searching on "volleyball" will bring them to what is, rightly, a lengthy article going into detail about the rules and tactics. Only at the very end do they come to some navigational aids guiding them to aspects of the sport not covered in the article itself.
A well-designed portal can benefit such a reader by bringing together different elements of Wikipedia's coverage in an attractive, compact package, from which they can branch out in any desired direction. But to achieve a portal system that is high quality, useful, and used, will require a real upsurge of active interest among all those who voted last year not to ENDPORTALS: Bhunacat10 (talk),08:24, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Some portals seriously lack links to them, such as links placed in article namespace that link to the portals. This is often a reason that portals receive low page views. More visible links = more page views. North America100010:30, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
I totally understand that view, and see in theory the point to it. The problem is it's not based in a pragmatic evaluation of how our readers use our site, but rather the orderly way we’d perhaps like them to. The only portals that have any level of readership (or can actually approach regular articles) are the ones right at the top of the main page. Otherwise, discoverability is virtually non-existent. You can argue this is a problem you can solve, but dumping a bunch of portals that are still relatively low-traffic on the main page is essentially taking attention away from the rest of the content and making user experiences worse by requiring more clicks to get to stuff. It's a similar problem with stuff like outlines that practically serve no real purpose because no one uses them. This isn’t even a problem that’s solely an issue with these "out of article space" content—people go to specific film articles rather than the general and more broad articles on Wikipedia as well, but I think the simple argument against portals and the like is that they are timesinks that are fundamentally generating more views and time and attention debating their existence than they are actually serving readers. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchstalk13:31, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
User:Northamerica1000: I'd argue the bit about low-traffic stubs actually suggests places where merging or other strategies are a better option than low-traffic stubs that are never going to get improved (if they can, someone can spin the content out.) Centralizing and concentrating content is always a good idea for a general encyclopedia. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchstalk13:36, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Oppose removal, and ping some participants in recent MFDs: @Robert McClenon, Pldx1, UnitedStatesian, Britishfinance, and StraussInTheHouse to alert them to this proposal. This text is long-standing, and the plea to remove it is clearly a WP:GAMEing exercise, as evidenced by Bhunacat's comment that because the quoted text is being weaponised as an argument for deletion, it should be struck out for the time being. That's hilariously self-serving reasoning, which amounts to "if a utility test results in junk being deleted, abolish the test so that we can keep the junk". #YCMTSU
As David Fuchs notes above, the reason that portals get low page views is that editors don't need them to navigate. Most web portals were killed in the late 1990s when Google provided decent search, and Wikipedia portals are no exception: they are unused because there are better ways to navigate.
It's amusing to see NA1K trotting out the old chestnut that more links means more portal views. That's obviously true, but also highly misleading, because even the most highly-advertised portals still achieve risible pageviews. For example, there are 9 portals linked in the absolutely prime place on the main page: the top right. The mainpage averages over 15 million pageviews per day, but the portals linked there get between 694 and 2,480 views per day, which is a range of between 0.0046% and 0.017%. That's even less than the common ratio between portal and head article of between 0.05% and 1%.
I agree with Bhunacat about one thing: to achieve a portal system that is high quality, useful, and used, will require a real upsurge of active interest among all those who voted last year not to ENDPORTALS. But a year after ENDPORTALS, that hasn't happened. Huge numbers of portals remain rotted and abandoned junk, and most others offer too little added value to interest readers. But instead of trying to define what would actually make a useful portal, portal fans have mostly been engaged in various forms of denial. Bhuancat has been angrily defending an automated navbox clone which they created, obliviously to the utter pointlessness of its redundancy. NA1K is running is running around creating yet more swathes of content-forked sub-pages, despite being well aware that the whole model of displaying previews is pointless now that preview is built into the Wikimedia software.
And now we have a proposal to try to deal with the fact that most portals are on topics where readers don't want portals by ... yes, removing the test that portals should actually serve a need. This is utterly ridiculous. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 12:49, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Oppose removal but require one or more additional reasons for Portal deletion. An under-construction portal that has 17 pageviews a day will still get over 6,000 views in a year, and that number will presumably grow as the portal is improved and more broadly advertised, and as the portalspace becomes more focused on topics that are so broad that the article + template coverage has shortcomings. UnitedStatesian (talk) 13:26, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Oppose removal. Having participated in Portal MfD discussions, I am waking up to the fact that we have a material problem with hundreds of abandoned portals on WP. I don't mind a low-traffic stub that meets notability; properly constructed, it does not detract or diminish the integrity of WP in the eyes of the reader. An abandoned portal, however, is not the same thing, and is a problem.
We have hundreds of portals that are out-of-date cut-and-pastes of the topic's main article+navbox. To a casual reader, their abandoned state gives the impression that WP is a failing/dying enterprise. To the extent that Portals might have once made sense (e.g. a mini-main page for dedicated/enthusiastic editors of a large topic; a time when our ratio of content to editors was much smaller), that rationale barely holds now. Facebook is a far better platform for such enthusiasts (and they run large pages that link into WP articles as needed).
I see Portals being defended at MfD that have not been touched (in a material sense) for over 5 years, and where the main article is itself heavily tagged for issues? Not only do we need the current wording maintained, but we also need additional wording on Portals to ensure the forces of creative destruction, that are such a fundamental part of the success of Wikipedia (and why my parent's expensive old Encyclopedia Britannica set is now junk), are supported. The ever-increasing ratio of content-to-editors, means that we should decisive here. Britishfinance (talk) 13:54, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Comment - An analysis of the Portal:Companies, The most visited portal. (Excluding the main page portals, which together concentrate more than 70% of the portal pageviews space, See Popular portals). Is an obsolete portal, which can not, even with such a broad topic, list more than 10 featured articles. Attempts to turn it into a single-page portal were summarily reverted in a witch hunt against single-page portals, like Portal:Martial arts and Portal:Human sexuality. What is wrong? The most visited portal is a cadaver? There are portals about US state roads with more subpages than monthly pageviews.Guilherme Burn (talk) 14:28, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Regarding the failure of central directories in general, they've evolved to more targeted curated pages. Listicles have arisen as a compact way to present a set of related facts that has high searchability. Meta-review sites have gained in popularity to sift through comprehensive reviews versus ad fodder. Influencers are now pivotal to reaching millennials. Thousands of one-size-fits-all portals that draw automatically from other pages doesn't fit this trend, but carefully chosen portal topics with hand-curated content does. isaacl (talk) 15:55, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
@isaacl, the problem on en.wp with the notion of carefully chosen portal topics with hand-curated content is that
v few portals (maybe a dozen or so) have significant quantities of hand-curated content. The rest have just collections have random articles added to random lists as busywork
Yes, you don't need to repeat your concerns regarding portals that do not have hand-curated content, or on page views. Rest assured, I have read all of your comments and understand them. isaacl (talk) 16:54, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
In the interest of conciseness, I refrain from repeating the discussion context in each of my posts. I've already spoken out elsewhere against portals that aren't hand-curated, and given my opinion on page views as a metric. isaacl (talk) 17:40, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Oppose removal - Most of the existing portals are no more navigation tools... or never reached such a state. Most of the time, the reader is facing an abandoned draft, or an abandoned wreck: nothing to see-- or a set of outdated snippets. Readers are learning quickly: it would be stupid to try once more, the odds are so low. Don't imagine other reasons for such abysmal page views for quite all portals. If we don't remedy to this pattern, the only foreseeable future for portals is to rot in oblivion. This should be the concern, and the duty, of the keep !voters, but their business model looks rather as "vote and pray for better days". And mumble when delete !voters don't do the work in their stead. But sorry, peons are on strike! See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Korea for a typical case. Pldx1 (talk) 17:33, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
Oppose removal: I think it's incredibly well-worded. It is there because it is intended to be used as a rationale to identify portals which are unsuitable and thus ought to be deleted, the venue for that is MfD, so I don't see how this is weaponised as a deletion rationale. That's like saying Wikipedia:Notability is weaponised at AfD. It's not, it's serving its intended purpose and doing it well. The current system of articles, timelines, navboxes and template panels, along with MediaWiki "preview" features work far better as a way to impartially show readers relevant content. I'm against ending portals completely, but in the vast majority of cases I don't know why anyone would stick to updating a page that nobody uses instead of getting a template to do it for them. SITH(talk)13:32, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
Remove: See Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions#Nobody's working on it (or impatience with improvement). That phrase was clearly there to explain why a portal has to be about a broad subject (because, by being broad, it can be easier for it to get readers and maintainers), not to state that a portal should have readers and maintainers or otherwise it should be deleted (a troubling notion if it is put under closer scrutiny). In fact, there are tools to create automated portals, so that once they had been set up they don't really need maintainers. The 5 Pillars explain that, regarding policies and guidelines, "The principles and spirit matter more than literal wording". --Cambalachero (talk) 12:45, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
The automated portals have nearly all been deleted. First at two mass deletions (one, and two), and then at hundreds of discussions of smaller groups. Cambalachero is entirely right that "The principles and spirit matter more than literal wording". The principle here is that set out in WP:PORTAL: "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects". An abandoned portal which adds nothing to the main page, or which is out of date and misleads readers, is no enhancement. We shouldn't waste the time of readers by luring them to a pseudo-portal which is just abandoned junk. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 16:02, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
I'm not talking about portals that are automatically created, but about portals that automatically renew their contents each time someone visits them. A maintainer may add new content to the queue, but in the meantime the portal does not look bad to the casual reader. This seems as if I built a city and left it in the dark during the night because I do not have an army of lamplighters to susbtain a large system of gas street lights, ignoring that I could simply install electric lamps that work without manual intervention. Cambalachero (talk) 16:34, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
There seem to be two distinct questions here, and their answers may differ. Putting aside the reasonable but minority viewpoint that the entire namespace should be scrapped, I hope we can all agree that broad subjects deserve portals but narrow subjects do not. Of course, we have different thresholds for "broad". That leaves the question of automation versus manual maintenance. At one end of the spectrum we have the opinion that not having been edited recently is a sufficient rationale for deletion, even if the portal reflects changes in the pages it transcludes. Others feel that portals should be judged on their content, without needing to consult the page history. "Automation" is also an ambiguous term. It earned a bad reputation from the semi-automated mass creation of portals on narrow topics, seemingly done without previewing the output. But automation has other facets, such as the use of excerpts which reflect the latest version of the advertised article whilst neatly avoiding unattributed copying. Such improvements should not be reasons for deletion; in fact they might even raise a marginal portal's standard above the deletion bar. Certes (talk) 17:31, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Certes, I agree that some measures of automation are helpful. In particular, the automated extraction of lead excerpts is a vastly superior way of building a portal than creating a forest of content forks. However, that's a bit of a diversion from what's being discussed here, and Cambalachero seems to be missing the point. The wholly-automated portals are nearly all gone. Other portals are being deleted as unmaintained or abandoned because no new content has been added to the queue for years, or because the content there is just a set of outdated content forks. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 17:43, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
"Fork" is another ambiguous term which may be causing confusion. Many portals have content forks in the sense that they contain text pasted from an old version of an article's lede. That problem is soluble and should be a reason to improve rather than delete (without prejudice to deletion for other reasons). "Fork" is also used to indicate that part of a portal, typically a "Selected articles" panel, bases its choice of articles on a template such as a navbox. I think we disagree on whether the use of a template in this way is grounds for deletion. Certes (talk) 22:46, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Oppose Removal and improve - Not only I agree with the above arguments for keeping as I suggest a more objective writing to avoid future invalidation of current MFDs.Guilherme Burn (talk) 19:20, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Oppose removal and recognise the important fact: It is central to the premise of a portal, and the failure of the whole portal concept. Oppose hiding the reasons to wind back portals. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:46, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Analyzing the Guideline
The guideline in question is really a three-part rule, which says that portals should be on broad subject areas that will attract large numbers of readers and portal maintainers. The first part of the guideline is the term "broad subject area", which is being used by the defenders of portals as an abstraction. The second and third parts of the rule are the concept of a large numbers of readers, and the need to attract a portal maintainer. The underlying reason why pageview statistics are being quoted is to refute empty statements that a given area is a broad subject area and so needs a portal.
Multiple types of problems are being identified in MFD, including portals that have very few viewers, and portals that have no portal maintainer. Often but not always the same portal has both problems. If the guideline should be revisited, its three parts should be discussed separately.
Philosophers make a distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge, between knowledge that is available in advance and knowledge that must be based on observation. A particular topic is often said to be a broad subject area, and so the subject should support a portal. It is possible to decide a priori that particular types of subject areas, such as countries, or big cities, are broad subject areas, possibly by estimating the number of articles about the subject, via categories, or via links, or an outline. It is not possible to decide a priori that a subject area will attract readers and portal maintainers. That must be observed, and assessed a posteriori. The a priori statement that a subject area is a broad subject area only addresses one-third of the guideline.
Changing the Guideline
The suggestion is made that the guideline in question needs to be amended or struck for the time being because it is being used to "weaponize" deletion discussions. Is anyone being threatened with the weapons? Is it being suggested only that the reference to a large number of readers be suspended, so as to support portals that no one uses? Is it being suggested also that the reference to portal maintainers be suspended, so as to keep portals that are abandoned? Most of the deletion discussions are about portals that are seen a posteriori to be abandoned. Is it being further suggested that portals no longer need to be about "broad subject areas"?
If it is only being suggested that portals which do not attract large numbers of readers be kept, what will the purpose of these portals be (if not for readers)? If it is also being suggested that portals which have no portal maintainer be kept, what is the purpose of these portals (other than as litter on the information superhighway)?
Robert McClenon (talk) 19:39, 6 June 2019 (UTC)
If it is also being suggested that portals which have no portal maintainer be kept, what is the purpose of these portals. I think this is a very important point. As noted many times in Portal MfDs, "portals are not content" (and not even a stub article), they are dynamic mini-main pages for a given topic. If there is no clearly identified owner and active updater of a Portal, can it really exist?
I believe almost all of the Portals at MfD fail this test. Even where a good-faith editor comes out as a Keep for a Portal and is put to them to take on managing the portal to make it viable, they often decline, this being a representative example: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Umayyad Caliphate.
We should consider a rule that a says a portal abandoned for 7 years (e.g. no material content-based edit; ignore housekeeping etc), AND no identified editor-owner today who will commit to its upkeep, gets deleted? I believe that hundreds of WP Portals would fail this test today. Britishfinance (talk) 11:54, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
We cannot say a priori that articles which are unmaintained are of no use because it is not the purpose of articles to be updated. We can say that of portals because they are navigation tools which require regular updates in order to fulfil their reason for existing. I propose something being added along the lines of If a portal has not meaningfully changed or been updated in the past year, a portal can be deleted, provided the maintainer is notified first. Although this may lead to people just updating their portals every 11 months. Ugh. SITH(talk)13:32, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
Removing Disputed Tag
I have boldly removed the "Disputed" tag from the guideline page. I think that most of the community agrees that we should have some portal guidelines. What that tag on the whole guideline meant was that it was disputed whether there are portal guidelines, and I don't think that is a real position. I suggest that advocates of portals who think that too many portals are being deleted should either suggest some constructive changes to these guidelines, or should recognize that there are a lot of cruddy portals that are candidates for deletion, or maybe should start actively maintaining more portals, or should suggest some constructive changes to these guidelines, or should leave them alone. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:09, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
Absolute nonsense. It failed early in its proposal cycle, and it has never had support of more than a few enthusiast, much to the grief of the encyclopedia. It failed. To reverse the historic failure, you need an RfC. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:15, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
Agree its simply not working...no movement forward. A few have been banned a few more have given up and moved on to other more productive things. Only people still around are people that dont edit portals or those advocating for them but not willing to help. My guess would be to start over at the project page and see if we can come up with some guidelines that all can live with...join us at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals# Single-page layout portals are dead? about trasclution. --Moxy🍁
It's very concerning that your deleting portal after portal but have no clue how to fix them or are aware of how to inform the community that a portal needs updating. Really not sure you should be involved at all if you're not aware of some basics..... at the MFD I giving you some examples of how to fix the portals and how to tag them.--Moxy🍁13:41, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
Ancient History Question
Can someone please direct me to when what have been passing as the portal guidelines became a failed proposal? I have not succeeded in tracking down the failure. I see that the key operating sentence that has been the basis of all discussions about the deletion or creation or retention of portals is: "Please bear in mind that portals should be about broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers." That sentence was added to the guidelines by User:Quiddity on 3 August 2006. I don't see where the discussion was that caused either that sentence or the whole guideline to be a failed proposal. Will someone please provide me with a link or diff? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:53, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
Thank you, sort of, User:SmokeyJoe - It appears, from reviewing the talk page archives, that there either never was a formal discussion of the guidelines, or that the discussion was somewhere else. In any event, I can't find where that guideline failed discussion, so I am guessing that it failed discussion because it was never formally discussed. Unless someone else proposes something constructive, I will throw in an RFC to implement the current version of the portal guidelines as guidelines, so that any alternate versions can be discussed at the same time if they are proposed almost immediately after the RFC clock starts. Does anyone else have a different constructive idea? Robert McClenon (talk) 20:20, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
In the meantime I reverted the addition of the "failed" tag. This page hasn't been a proposal for 13 years, so marking it now as a failed proposal is not appropriate, IMO. But if there is talkpage consensus to do so, if course I would have no issues with applying such a tag. @Robert McClenon: where to you intend to open the RfC? UnitedStatesian (talk) 04:34, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
If consensus for broad community support has not developed after a reasonable time period, the proposal is considered failed. If consensus is neutral or unclear on the issue and unlikely to improve, the proposal has likewise failed.
After the proposal first failed, the page was abandoned as a backwater. Someone slipped the guideline tag on, but it never had consensus. Portals are moribund, and they never did have support. They were an idea, but they do not come close to serving their nominal purpose. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:56, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
They got a lot of support in WP:ENDPORTALS (and in the 12 years preceding), the outcome of which we are stuck with until a future broad community discussion comes to a different conclusion. UnitedStatesian (talk) 05:18, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
The ENDPORTALS showed that the notion of wiping ALL portals was not supported. It did not demonstrate that this page has consensus support as a guideline. A reasonable guideline would recommend when a portal may or should be created, and when not. And many other things that this page woefully fails to fulfill. One thing I would submit is that there are zero wanted missing portals, and that if any guidance is needed, it is on the scope reduction of existing portals. And in the meantime, the progress of Portal MfD shows the guideline to be of pariah status. Either it needs massive improvement, or tagging as failed. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:50, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
It has a completely dubious history, the last couple of years have shown that it has no credibility. What limited serious proposal stage it went through failed. Every point you raised far above I answered. Now you want to deny that there is any dispute over its standing as a guideline, and you want to soft protect the wording. I'm confused. I can only guess that you don't want to address the issue seriously until after all portals have been put through MfD? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:45, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
Commentary on Portal Arguments
That is an interesting conclusion by User:SmokeyJoe immediately above, and I will comment on it. This pseudo-guideline, although never formally approved, had been used as a guideline for about a decade. It was then called into question by portal advocates, one of whom said that it should be suspended because it was being used to weaponize deletion discussions, and they then put the disputed tag on it, which I then reverted, but which is now back on. So we don't have a real guideline and have never had a real guideline. But the problem had been that the pseudo-guideline said that a portal subject should be a broad subject area that would attract readers and portal maintainers. The portal advocates were fine being able to wave their hands and say that a given topic was a broad subject area, until other editors began using a quantitative approach, and began using pageview metrics, as well as counting months without maintenance. When portal skeptics began quantifying the concept of a broad subject area, portal advocates said that the guideline should be suspended, so it has been found to have never been a real guideline.
I am willing to put an RFC tag back on this pseudo-guideline and get it approved after all, but it seems that the idea of an RFC on the present page does not have support. So in that case, we have no guideline, which means that portal deletion can use common sense, which is trending toward deleting little-used and little-maintained portals.
Just need to work on the page.....gear it towards what is needed in a portal to keep it update. We need to fix what the criteria are so deletionest cant use it in a bad way,,,should be greadre towards improvement and sustainability over deletion criteria. As on now 70 percent of the portals are gone and all will be gone because of the attribution loop hole that is now being used. We need to setup a tag system to indicate to editors and readers things may need updating or the format change to deal with attributions.--Moxy🍁21:31, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
What Moxy means is that he wants the guideline changed so that it prevents the deletion of crap which has been abandoned for a decade.
Per WP:PORTAL, "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects". A set of a dozen decade-old content forks is not an enhanced main page, and I strongly object to any attempt to rig the guidelines against cleaning out that sort of junk. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 00:16, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
"This pseudo-guideline, although never formally approved, had been used as a guideline for about a decade." To a massive, monumental failure. I feel a little guilty, having encourage TTH to develop auto-portals, but I don't think that limits me from observing that the guideline approval process for this page never succeeded, but in fact failed, before the guideline tag was surreptitiously added, to the detriment of portals. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:48, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
Dispute that this is a guideline
I call this guideline’s status disputed. It was never approved by the community, if fact it was rejected. It then took a sleepy backroad route avoiding the {{rejected}} tag to later, quietly, be tagged {{guideline}}. As a guideline referred to frequently from MfD, it is demonstrably of pariah status. It commands no respect, and gives poor guidance. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:14, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
SmokeyJoe, some of the guideline does command respect, e.g.:
The requirement for creators to maintain portals
the requirement for broad topics
the requirement that portals must attract readers and maintainers
the requirement that portals must be regularly updated.
The real problem here is not with the guideline. The problem is that the portals project has never upheld the guideline, which is why editors from outside the project have been busy for three months at MFD removing crud which should have been cleared out long ago.
As of now, the total number of portals is 1023, which is a 30% fall from the total of ~1500 before the automated spam began. All these deletions have been happening because the guideline is finally being upheld. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 01:01, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
"some of the guideline does command respect"? Really? Evidence? Even if you point out evidence, no series of true statements justifies the guideline tag without community input, especially with a history of community rejection as a guideline. "Commands respect" would mean that a link to WP:POG would correlate with the !vote matching the MfD outcome. It doesn't. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:09, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
"The requirement for creators to maintain portals"? Not true. Creators don't own pages, including portals. A portal could be maintained by another. A portal could be maintenance-free. One auto-portal experiment failed, but one experiment doesn't make a proof.
"the requirement for broad topics". Without a definition of broad, it is useless guidance.
"the requirement that portals must attract readers". Not well composed, nonsense. Is it the job of a portal to attract? Does this mean a portal should generate notices? Should it generate spam emails? Should it encourage visitors to tells their friends to come look to?
"the requirement that portals must attract ... maintainers"? This pre-supposes that portals need maintenance, and I disagree that portal maintenance is a good idea, certainly not a base level requirement.
"the requirement that portals must be regularly updated"? Does this include auto-updates? What is so wrong with a static portal? Is this related to a wish for flashing lights and fluttering ribbons to attract attention?
I think everything, including your points, is unfounded by the failure to answer the most basic question: "What is the purpose of a portal". The purpose of the main page is to provide an interesting Wikipedia landing page. Portal:Biography? What is its purpose? Does it help in finding biographies? Over 1000 land there daily, but does landing there help them? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:57, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
BHG, I see you are repeatedly using these POG lines to argue deletion of portals, and then portals are deleted. A correlation, but causal? I think the portals, most of them, need deletion (archiving could have been done), because they are a failed experiment and are not compatible with being Wikipedia content for readers, and you POG line fails are lesser reasons, not fundamental reasons. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:06, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
One odd rational is deletion of City portals for being small is scope...that long ago was determined to be great candidates for portal creation. City portals literally can lead to thousands of pages ...bios, geo articles, history articles, political articles, culture articles, sports articles, etc. Again really not sure the deletion noticeboard should be spearheading the so called cleanup when there is zero attempt to fix the content involved as per Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion and WP:PRJDEL. So perhaps best to look at portals as a whole and if the community really wants them all gone. The main problem is the majority of content editors never look at the deletion board and don't notice what's going on till its too late....and then they are confronted with a note saying don't recreate said portal that again is not how things work here. --Moxy🍁13:45, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
I literally see red most mornings when I get notification of undone edits restoring an ancient portal which goes straight to MfD, but I think we just need to be patient for a little longer. Soon, one of two things will happen. One possibility is that the handful of editors who support these MfDs will accept that they have deleted all the portals they can, and will leave us to resume more positive work. The other is that they will succeed in deleting so many portals that we can clearly demonstrate to the community a blatant breach of ENDPORTALS and get the process stopped and perhaps reversed. Either way, we can look forward to a time when WikiProject Portals will no longer be dominated by editors who would prefer to delete the entire namespace. Certes (talk) 14:12, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
@Moxy: I don't know where or when you claim that city portals were determined to be great candidates for portal creation, but assuming that there was some broad consensus for that, policy is that consensus can change. And in this case it clearly has changed, because the evidence is that after of 14 years of creating city portals, the vast majority of them have been long abandoned in a pitiful state. It is sad a small minority of portal fans continue to bemoan the deletion of this abandoned junk which is shunned by readers.
@Certes: it's astonishing that after all this time you still show little or no sign of having actually read the proposal and closure of WP:ENDPORTALS. That was a proposal to delete all portals, and it was rejected. That consensus to not delete everything was not a consensus to keep every piece of abandoned junk in portalspace.
The reversion of the navbox-cloned automated portals was completed about a month ago, so if you are seeing that most mornings, then you must be time-travelling.
The 13-year failure of the portals project to clean up the abandoned junk is what led to this cleanup. The continued moaning of some portal fans about the ongoing cleanup is a sad indicator that the portals project has yet to move the mentality which led to the disastrous automation spree: never mind the quality, just count the the numbers.
I don't know how long the deletion process will continue. Every time I think we are nearing the end of the tunnel, another layer of abandoned junk comes into view. But my guess is that there are another few hundred to go, leaving us with perhaps 700 or 900 portals.
When that cleanup process is complete, the next issue is what portals should actually do now that mouseover-preview has rendered redundant the hideous model of content-forked sub-pages which change only when the page is purged. Those editors who want to work on portals could be having that discussion now, and examining whether the mega-navbox model of e.g. Portal:Harz Mountains and Portal:Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is more widely usable. But the fact that most of the active portal fans prefer to moan about the cleanup of abandoned junk suggest to me that the phase will again be led from outside the project. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 21:44, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
The issue is not so much a need for an owner or continual updates. Rather it's getting the editors interested in a given topic area to support all of the pages associated with that topic. Take navigation boxes as an example: some need regular periodic updates based on scheduled events, others stay the same for long periods of time. So some need regular maintenance, while others may just need some guards against vandalism. But they aren't in danger of being deleted, because the interested parties who would weigh in at a deletion discussion are the ones who decided on the appropriate navigation boxes to have. Those who are vested in seeing portals continue should go work through the different topic areas and solicit the editors in those areas for their support and collaboration. Yes, it kind of sucks to have to do so many at once right now, but it's a necessary tax. Failing to pay it at creation time just defers it to being paid later. isaacl (talk) 21:45, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
@Isaacl: why would the editors who work on creating and maintaining content want to divert their time and energy into building and maintaining portals which add no value for readers, and are almost unread?
Unless and until the portal fans gain broad community support for some model of portal which actually meets the WP:PORTAL principle that "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects", then portals will continue to be a sideshow where a limited number of portal fans scurry around doing a few tweaks to a set of pages which hardly anyone uses and which few other editors see any value in maintaining. So they will continue to rot. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 22:13, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
That's up to them to decide. If they don't want to spend energy into developing something called a portal, they don't have to. If they want to, then it's their time to invest. Exactly as how navigation boxes are managed. isaacl (talk) 22:40, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
Indeed. And if they choose to let portals rot so that they are no use to readers, then the community is entitled to delete the abandoned or useless portals. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 23:01, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
Yes yes portals are crap and useless we get your POV....but you really think that your rationale is still valid consider all the protest? As mentioned before.... we should be following the guidelines that are outline for any other type of page. I know you think your doing right by our readers....but the community has said otherwise very recently. Just like mass deletion..... the community starting to protest this verture of yours. --Moxy🍁01:08, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
Please don't put words in my mouth. I don't think all portals are crap and useless.
The MFD nominations I make are based on the long-standing portal guidelines, and the community gets asked about every single portal which is proposed for deletion. That's what MFD is: a community process.
As to the community starting to protest, what I see is a small number of portal fans objecting to long-standing portal guidelines being upheld. And no, the community has never said no to the principle of deleting portals which don't meet the guidelines. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 12:27, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
We are asking for you and friends to try and help fix them..... or at the very least give people notice so they have time fix them. Your all or nothing position is contrary to how things work here. --Moxy🍁21:57, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
User:UnitedStatesian, “failure of a dispute to be reslved does not mean it is a failed proposal”, true. Failure to achieve consensus support after a reasonable time means that the guideline proposal has failed. For 13 years, this proposal never gained support. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:43, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
User:SmokeyJoe I disagree. This page described how portals operated for 12 of those 13 years. At no point in that time did anyone object to it, questioned that it was a guideline, or open a talkpage discussion to propose a better, improved version. And many of the participants in the WP:ENDPORTALS discussion referred specifically to this guideline. There does not need to be a page where people !voted their approval in order for it to be a guideline. UnitedStatesian (talk) 04:52, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects
Let us try to look at this claim logically and without undue emotion.
There are two main properties specified here, one of them with two requirements. They appear to all be required (necessary).
Enhanced "Main pages".
In what way should they be enhanced, that would not be more appropriately done at the topic title page in mainspace?
It might also be useful if it was made clear and unambiguous what is meant by "Main pages" in this context.
Specific broad subjects. This is a slightly self-contradictory requirement, as broad and specific can have somewhat opposing meanings.
specific subjects:
specific: clearly defined or identified. synonyms: particular, specified, certain, fixed, set, determined, distinct, separate, definite, single, individual, peculiar, discrete, express, precise[2]
broad subjects:
broad: covering a large number and wide scope of subjects. synonyms: comprehensive, inclusive, extensive, wide, wide-ranging, broad-ranging, encyclopedic, all-embracing; general, universal, catholic, eclectic, unlimited; cross-disciplinary, interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary
I assume that the first meaning of broad is the one we are intended to use. but it would help if we were more specific. (there are several other meanings which appear irrelevant, so I left them out)
What are people's opinions of, after a portal is deleted at MfD, recreating it as a redirect to a higher level portal? Examples would be redirecting deleted U.S. State portals to Portal:United States, or deleted India state portals to Portal:India. My current view is this would usually do a disservice to our readers, as someone following the link is likely to be disappointed that the broad higher level portal does not have the specific information they are probably looking for. I also think it is contrary to the MfD consensus; if the consensus of !voters and the closer felt a redirect was the best option, the MfD discussion would have been closed as "Redirect to . . .", not as Delete. Thoughts?
This seems to be exactly my proposal of March 2017 at Wikipedia_talk:Portal/Guidelines/Archive_6#Portals_are_moribund. Archive moribund portals by redirection to viable portals; or failing that, by redirection to the parent article. If there were broad agreement to do this, then MfD would not need to be part of the process.
If the redirect to a viable portal would be a "disservice" (does this speak to the general failure of portals to serve their ostensible purpose?), then don't do that redirect. Consider redirecting to the parent article. Generally, I think this is more likely to be a good service, navigation from articles is very good, better than from Portals, more NPOV-compliant for example.
I advise against trying to read any depth of consensus from the many MfD discussions, as they are poorly participated. I think the limit of reading is that most of these portals are not a good idea, going forward. I think they are generally silent on options such as redirection, and when I've mentioned redirection no one engages. Post deletion, creation of a redirect has always been considered an acceptable editorial action, barring the reasons to delete a redirect. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:21, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Discussion of New Guidelines
I have started discussion of new guidelines at Village pump (policy). My intention is, in about a week, to start a Request for Comments on three or four alternate sets of portal guidelines. One of the candidates will be the current guidelines (or long-term pseudo-guidelines). A few other candidates can be proposed. I see that one idea is that of User:SmokeyJoe who will limit portals to those linked to the Main Page. Other ideas have included that every portal should be sponsored by a WikiProject. Alternatively, some guideline that is more permissive of portals may be considered, such as one that accepts regional portals.
The only viable portals are the front page portals, which roughly correspond to Vital 1 articles, which corresponds to portals currently achieving 1000 views per day (rounding to the nearest 1000). These are:
The free-for-all Portal creation allowed by this pariah guideline is demonstrably a monumental failure. As pointed out in MfD after MfD, portals are barely viewed compared to their parent articles, and they are neglected. Was it ~500 portals per active portal editor, using a very low threshold for active portal editor?
Archive all other portals. Re-create them ONLY of they are worthy of being listed with the other front page portals, meaning they are philosophically distinct, well recognized as a top level subject, and are not subject to whole-portal biased POV attractiveness. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:25, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Any proposal to delete/orphan/hide 99% of portals is effectively a re-run of WP:ENDPORTALS. If you feel that community opinion has reversed since 2018, I suggest that you raise another RfC to overturn the current consensus. Certes (talk) 07:32, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Indeed, that appears a good way forward. Reversed community opinion? No. WP:ENDPORTALS was fatally flawed by including these Front Page Portals. There is an obvious role for these Front Page Portals going forwards. The trend at MfD shows no sign of relaxing before reaching these portals. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:38, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
I am not aware of any assurance that we are approaching the last few MFDs. A statement by User:BrownHairedGirl may be misinterpreted. She has said that she has, more than once, thought that she is almost finished nominating portals for deletion, and then she repeatedly becomes aware of more unmaintained cruddy portals. The "assurance" may be a wishful-thinking misinterpretation of her statement. She has never said that she intends to finish at some particular time, but only that she hoped to be finished and then saw that the job was bigger than she thought. I am aware of many more portals for which I am prepared to !vote for Delete or Weak Delete if someone else nominates them. I know that I am surveying portals, and am currently at 467, of which at least a hundred more should be deleted. There is a difference between Assuming Good Faith on the part of editors who reasonably disagree, and wishful thinking that misinterprets what the other reasonable editors have said. I am aware of no assurances that we are approaching the end of the cull. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:13, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
What assurances? What is the criteria being used for the nominators. If the nominators have a criteria, I guess that is the de facto line. Are many-portals advocates not defending portals due to this assurance? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:50, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Agree with SmokeyJoe, I for one have given no such assurances. There are still a lot of portals (including at least one newly recreated one) that IMO do not cover broad subject areas, a set which overlaps but does not exactly conform to the set of portals that are abandoned/unmaintained. But disagree with SmokeyJoe that this guideline allowed the free-for-all creation; in fact members of the creation team made major undiscussed edits to the guideline (since reverted) in order to give cover for the free-for-all. UnitedStatesian (talk) 14:51, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
@Certes, see the comments by Robert McClenon, who gets it right. I have several times given estimates of where I think that final numbers will fall, but the last few times I have noted that my previous estimates shave been wrong because we keep finding yet portals which are abandoned, stillborn, or otherwise fail POG.
The answer is that I will continue to bring substandard portals to MFD for as long as I find them. There are currently 904 remaining portals, and I personally know of at least another dozen which I will bring to MFD when I have time. Beyond that, we'll see what we find.
One of the great sadnesses for me in all this is the sheer sullen passivity of the portal fans. Certes has repeatedly labelled the deletion of abandoned portals as a "war of portal", a term which he first applied to deletion of the automated portalspam unleashed by TTH. This unreasoned kneejerk defence of any page in portalspace has been repeatedly rejected at XFD, and it's very sad to see any adult continuing with such nonsense.
Other portal fans moan about the alleged evils of "deletionists". Others such as NA1K pop up at MFD to moan that assert that they personally believe that a certain type of topic is axiomatically "broad", despite the clear evidence that a portal massively fails the requirements of POG.
What's missing in all of this is any active assessment of portals by the portal fans. How many still use the redundant content-fork model? How many have been abandoned? I see absolutely zero sign of any of portal fans been trying to answer this sort of question. So far as I can see they have no vision for portals and no plan, let alone a broad community consensus for either ... just a reactionary desire to stop the deletions of a type of pages which they eroanly like creating, but which readers don't want. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 14:40, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
Many of the lesser portals should be merged into the Front Page Portals. Also, Portals should not be linking to WP:Space, including the WP:WikiProjects. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:53, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Regarding your last point - is there any problem with a portal having a link to the corresponding wikiproject (a small advert for a single wikiproject) ? DexDor(talk)11:47, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
That sounds ok. If it were clear that the link was taking the reader from the Portal to Wikipedia backrooms, that would be ok, good even. I was browsing portal links, and found whole lists that were unexpectedly taking me to WikiProjects, which are not reader pages, and worse they are mostly inactive. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:01, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
I disagree with this proposal; it reverses cause and effect. The main page portals get lots of views because they are on the main page; I believe if we put Portal:Briarcliff Manor, New York on the main page it would get thousands of daily page views also. The question is, if the main page portals were removed from the main page, would their viewership drop to the very low background level also? UnitedStatesian (talk) 14:51, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
The choice of these several portals is not really because they only achieve 600+ views per day. It derives from past sensible decisions, is extreme high visibility, on the main page, as to what are the most important set of different portals. Now, as we see that by being located on the top of the main page, they still only get 1-2 thousand hits per day, this says that there is only very limited interested in browsing portals. It would be improved with better presentation, eg a heading “Encyclopedia entry portals”, and that might be a good suggestion for change of the main page, at the moment they are words hanging with little context. Another to put this is: There should only be so many portals as belong being listed at the top of the main page. All other portals should be converted to belonging under these portals, or deleted. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:54, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
What do you mean by "belonging under these portals"? If you mean that the others are linked to from the 8 top level portals (possibly via intermediate portals) then that may already be the case - e.g. Portal:Technology currently has links to 28 related portals. DexDor(talk)05:56, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
What do I mean? I am a little bit brainstorming and not entirely sure myself. I know that when I go to a portal, Portal:Technology for example, what I find is not what I think one should find on entering a navigation portal. There is too much information, a variety things of interest that I might follow if I didn't arrive with some kind of interest, but there is a lack of logic that I can follow to what I think I want.
Portal:Technology#Related Portals seems to be a semi-random mix of guesses of what I could also be interested in. It seems peculiar to find Portal:Geography as a related portal when Portal:Geography is already a top level portal. The related portals are a mix of price and broad, it feels very half done, in fact nowhere near half done.
Under Portal:Technology, on its front page, I expect to find easily navigable, logically organised, sub portals of specific technologies. There may be crossover with geography, but geography is not a subtopic of technology. Bridges is too specific at this level. War is way too broad to be considered a technology subtopic. Radio, television and telecom are way too similar to be worth listing together at the top level of technologies.
I'm afraid, there more I look at portals, the more I find them frustrating. So many good intentions, so little discipline. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:32, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
Do not expect other editors to maintain a portal you create.
It implies that the community does not want new portals, but will give you leeway if you are actively working to make it good. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:09, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
Indeed it does. However, that's not the way Wikipedia works: pages outside userspace are collaborative projects rather than personal responsibilities. The creation of a new portal might provoke outrage from a few vocal editors, but the community has never deprecated it. Certes (talk) 10:34, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
In any other context, that comment by Certes would be a extraordinary remark.
Hundreds of portals have been created over the years by a lone enthusiast, and then left to rot as the creator moves on to other interests, or stops editing.
That's why over 600 such old portals (out of a total of 1500) have been deleted at MFD in the last few months: they were abandoned and did't attract readers.
Out of a total of 1,500 portals, that 40% ratio of abandoned junk is appalling, and that's not even the full extent of it. There are at least 50 more portals which have failed my preliminary checks and which as time permits I will scrutinise further for probable MFD.
It seems to be a matter of zero concern to Certes that such a high proportion of portals are abandoned junk. The portals project has never even done any systematic assessment of the state of portals; when I checked last week, ~73% of portals were in Category:Unassessed Portal pages.
Per WP:PORTAL, "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects". But the Wikipedia main page requires huge amounts of work; it is maintained by several large teams of busy editors. A mini-mainpage also needs lot of ongoing work if it is going to value over the head article. Yet for years, reader have been lured to hundreds of pages which fall abysmally short of that goal, but the reaction of Certes to this sea of abandonment is that is simple that it's not expressly forbidden.
It is a very useful warning. When you create (or take over) a portal, you should be aware just how much work that is going to be in the future. If you are lucky, others might help (depending also on the subject area and how well tied in your portal is with a WikiProject or other group of editors), but you should expect to do all of the necessary maintenance work for the next five years or so, or not create the portal. —Kusma (t·c) 12:39, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
I believe the sentence's origin comes from the 2 May 2016 version that BrownHairedGirl reverted to in September 2018. The related sentence isn't introduced in 2 May 2016; I'm just noting that it predates all of the current discussions on portals. In that version, the sentence reads as follows: Do not create a portal if you do not intend to assist in its regular maintenance. I think there's a more literal reading of the sentence than some of the portal-specific interpretations being offered. Just like any initiative, until you have people signed up to help and are following through, don't assume they're going to appear. isaacl (talk) 13:46, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
I thought Wikipedia was suppose to be a collaborative project where we all chip in to help better this project? Has Wiki turned into a bureaucracy and "you do your thing and I'll do mine" all of a sudden? If so, what are we all doing here?Senegambianamestudy (talk) 06:15, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
I do not see portals as part of the project, it is an overlay that only exists by force of will; in theory or implementation they are not collaborative content and highly vulnerable to deletion. The creators who arrive and are persuaded this is a worthwhile endeavour, that preservation as articles or other cited content as part of wikipedia's processes is a reasonable expectation, are being misled and should question how they invest their time. Portals are near-deprecated, if there were one or two retirements then they might be used as editor collaboration pages (again). cygnis insignis18:53, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
Regional Portals
Some editors have stated that particular levels of regions should have portals. User:Kusma wrote (in April, in an MFD): "all countries should have portals". User:Northamerica1000 wrote: "I consider U.S. states to meet WP:POG guidelines in terms of being broad enough in topical scope to qualify for a portal." Such statements raise a two-part question, having to do with people, and with policies.
Who Should Do What?
The first part of the question is: Who is expected to do what in order to provide the portal? Should Wikipedia provide and maintain a portal? Should Wikipedia provide a portal without maintaining it? Should Wikipedia provide a portal, contingent on having a portal maintainer and a portal maintenance plan? Should the Internet, of which Wikipedia is a prominent site, provide a portal? If only that, the government of the nation, state, or province can and almost certainly does provide and maintain a portal in the form of its web site, as do lesser regions such as counties, cantons, districts, communes, cities, towns, townships, boroughs, and villages.
If Wikipedia is expected to provide and maintain a portal, how can that obligation be reconciled with Wikipedia is not compulsory? If Wikipedia is only expected to provide an empty portal, what good is that? It appears that the implication is that Wikipedia is expected to provide a portal to a maintainer and to continue to keep the portal facing outward toward the readers whether or not it is being maintained. Portal advocates who think that particular levels of regions "should have" portals should clarify what obligation they are implying and on whom.
Impact on Policies and Guidelines
The second part of the question is how the idea that countries or states "should have" portals should be reflected in Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. At present, the page that is designated as the Portal Guidelines states that portals should be about broad subject areas that will attract readers and portal maintainers. Portal advocates have focused on the reference to "broad subject areas" and have disregarded the two-part reference to readers and portal maintainers. At present, the status of the portal guidelines is in dispute. Those who would like to retain existing regional portals, and possibly create more regional portals, may either deal with the existing guidelines or propose to revise them. If they prefer to deal with the existing guidelines, there are two issues. The first is that the status of the guidelines is in doubt, appearing to have been a failed proposal. The second is that the existing document refers to readers and maintainers, who cannot simply be assumed or willed into existence. Since the present (contested) guidelines refer not simply to broad subject areas, but to broad subject areas that will attract readers and portal maintainers, any specific portal can be shown by observation not to be attracting readers or maintainers.
The other option for the advocates of regional portals, or for anyone who wants to provide better guidelines with regard to portals, would be to publish a Request for Comments to implement new portal guidelines, either the old guidelines, or a slightly revised version of the old guidelines, or an entirely new set of guidelines. In that case, advocates of regional portals should be on notice that the new guidelines either should explicitly identify certain subjects that are considered portal-worthy even without maintenance, or it can be understood that regional portals, like other subject areas, are only considered to be broad subject areas if they demonstrate that they attract readers and maintainers.
Robert McClenon (talk) 15:05, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Regions should not have portals
Regions should not have portals. Countries certainly should not have portals, because countries have strong biased POV attractiveness. Country portals read like tourism glossy brochures. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:25, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Regions that have either governments or tourist bureaus can always provide their own on-line tourist brochures on the World-Wide Web, and Wikipedia can always link to those from the External Links section. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:05, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Tourism is only one of several aspects of a country. There is also history, politics, culture, sports, geography, society, economy, and a long etc. Cambalachero (talk) 15:21, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
Alternatives to deletion
I think too many people remain oblivious to the merits to exhausting alternatives to deletion before seeking deletion. It has a strong policy basis, in WP:ATD. Jumping straight from structural disputes to deletion is very divisive, is damaging to editors on the XfD losing side, and when overdone results in the loss of good work that could have been reused elsewhere. XfD discussions are strongly time-limited, closers are encouraged to make rough consensus calls, and doing this repeatedly is not a collegial method of consensus decision making.
At per my recent post at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Seventh-day Adventist Church, I am thinking that for not horribly failing portals, they should be moved into the WikiProjects they serve. Within the ProjectSpace WP:WikiProject titling scheme, they can exit the failing premise that they are proving suitable reader-facing material.
As mentioned above and many other talks most would have no problem with this but the deletion board is not even aware of what to do for attribution to keep these let alone even going to try to fix any problems or agree to giving any time for a fix. Your best bet is to try and be ahead of them fixing or moving portals they have not seen yet....once at the deletion board it's all over even if you put effort in to fix them.--Moxy🍁01:27, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
Once a viable ATD (alternative to deletion) is proven, it becomes a compelling argument at XfD. Hypothetical ATDs are not compelling, especially if ignored by everyone else. "Keep" arguments, if unpersuasive, are not read as steering majority "delete" arguments to an ATD middle ground.
I propose that middle rank portals, like these, should not be deleted if judged unsuitable as reader-facing. Instead, Move Portal:X to WP:WikiProject X/Portal. This will largely depopulate PortalSpace, without having anything deleted, and the page can continue to serve all the editor-related purposes. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:52, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
This would be a great alternative and many projects could take the time to improve them. As of now things like Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Military of the United States that could have been moved are being deleted for no attribution dispte what can be done to fix that with ease as pointed out during the RfC. Really not a good idea to let portal deletion be done by only 2 or 3 votes....so anything that might help ease the tention between proponents and deletors would be great.--Moxy🍁03:27, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
An idea is to tag portals that need work with the {{Update}} template and then notify relevant Wikiprojects about a portal's need for updating, expansion, cleanup, general improvements, etc. North America100004:58, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
This template, when used on portals, should categorize the portal as being identified as needing updating. After one year that will be good evidence that the portal is moribund. Should it then be deleted, or moved inside the WikiProject? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:36, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
Regarding a one-year mark, I'd have to think this over more, but WP:DEADLINE comes to mind. There is no deadline, at least theoretically. However, I understand that users want portals that are complete, useful, factual and up-to-date. A one-year timespan would be fair in terms of allowing some time for improvements/updates to actually occur. North America100005:53, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
Seeking harmony with WP:DEADLINE, and WP:Preserve, WikiProjectifying neglected update-requiring portals is a solution, no? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:01, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
Could be. I don't want to rush to a snap judgment, and will think it over. At any rate, thanks for sharing your ideas. Ideas are a good thing, and can lead to solutions. North America100006:32, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
Despite all NA1K's clamouring for tagging portals with {{update}}, the bottom line is that NA1K won't even support Wikiprojectifying portals which remain abandoned for a year after being tagged.
In other words, NA1K wants abandoned crap portals to continue to be advertised to readers indefinitely, regardless of how crap they are or how long they have been abandoned ... and regardless of the possibility of them being moved to another place where they could be developed.
This approach brings zero benefit to readers. It simply underlines what long been clear; that NA1K and many other vocal portalistas are simply engaged in a circular exercise of keeping portals because they like making portals, without regard to reader benefit. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 09:01, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
I have some ideas for this, but they might be flawed, so feel free to criticize. If a portal is inactive with an {{Update}} template for a certain amount of time (let's say 1 or 2 years for the sake of the argument), then the maintainer(s) get a notice on their talk page, to which they can respond by editing the portal or giving a good reason for there being no edits (maybe the portal does not require updating for whatever reason). If they do not respond in any way after 14 days, then the Portal is moved to the draft space, or maybe to a newly created "inactive portal" space. There should be a longer grace period for inactive portals than the usual 6 months draft space time. They are not exactly drafts and we decided they were useful or valuable at some point in time. Maybe it could even be indefinite for historical reasons.
Moving a portal to this other space would make the portal link template in articles hide the link to the portal just like if it was deleted, so it is removed from the user space, but still available in the editor space. If another editor wants to take over and they are happy with the quality of the portal, then the portal can be moved back into the proper portal space.
There should also be a clear and easy way for other editors to see what portals need attention and to take over as maintainers. Maybe a centralized technical wiki page where portals are listed by their last edit time and number of maintainers. The rules for adopting a portal should be clear cut to encourage portal adoptions and to avoid angry exchanges between new and old returning maintainers. It would also be good if there was some kind of noticeboard that allows maintainers to look for co-maintainers. --Hecato (talk) 06:51, 16 July 2019 (UTC) (Note: edited 20:05, 16 July 2019 (UTC) )
Thanks Hecato.
* A portal must have a list of maintainers?
* I don't think that a portal the maintainer-challenge should be applied if the portal doesn't have the {{update}} tag.
* No, please do not use DraftSpace, WP:DUD and DraftSpace is only useful for COI article writers. Every Portal surely should have a WikiProject, why not use the WikiProject subpages?
* {{update}} tag categorization should make it easy to navigate to portals needing updating.
* The rule for adopting a portal should include adding your name to that list of maintainers? Apart from that, why should there be rules?
Regarding having maintainers, the {{Portal maintenance status}} template is relatively new, created on 9 June 2018. It is quite likely that many users don't even know about its existence. People aren't going to be adding their names to a template they don't know exists. Another matter is that per WP:NOTCOMPULSORY, requiring maintainers is not particularly policy compliant. Conversely, we do want people to maintain portals to keep them in shape. North America100007:44, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
Yet more tendentious nonsense from NA1K.
If an editor is actually maintaining a portal they will be aware aware of {{Portal maintenance status}} having been added to the portals, and they will be aware of whether the portal is categorised in either Category:Portals with no named maintainer or Category:Portals with no named maintainer. NA1K wants us to believe that there are editors who are actively maintaining a portals but are unaware of any of this, which is implausible.
This is probably about the millionth time that NA1K has set out deceive editors by claiming that there is some incompatibility between requiring that a portal have maintainers and WP:NOTCOMPULSORY. That is patently untrue, because there is no element of compulsion on any editor to sign up as a maintainer, or to continue to maintain beyond the point they want to. This has been pointed out to NA1K at many discussions, who never replies, but simply continues to repeat the same falsehood whenever NA1K believes that it is convenient to do so.
One of the biggest problems in discussing the future of portals is the ongoing problem that most such discussions include participation by NA1K, but NA1K is a liar, by which I mean that NA1K repeatedly makes statements of fact which they know to be demonstrably untrue. This systematic deception poisons the atmosphere. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 19:17, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
Given the recent exchanges in the MfD section I assumed a portal needs to have at least one maintainer. Excuse my ignorance, I am a relatively new user. Please tell me if there was some consensus decision on this. Maybe some portals do not need maintainers. This could be marked somehow in the portal.
I agree that portals might be left alone if they do not have an Update tag. That is probably a good idea to avoid moving portals unnecessarily. We don't need to fix a problem that does not exist.
Moving the portal to a dedicated "inactive portal" space would make it easier to keep track of such portals from a technical standpoint. Also I fear declaring the portal to be the "property" (can't think of a better term) of the WikiProject might discourage outside editors from being brave and take over the portal. I do not want portals to be shoved into a dark corner and forgotten about. But if a dedicated "inactive portal" space is impossible, then using the WikiProject might be the second best option. I can already see some problems with sub-page moving though.
In regards to rules, I was thinking about such things as allowing the new maintainers to make drastic changes to the layout without talking to the old maintainers. Or allowing new maintainers to take over before it actually gets so far and the portal gets moved, to avoid red tape. If there is a rule for such things, then the new maintainer is not perceived to be "stealing the portal" from the old maintainers. --Hecato (talk) 08:00, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
They are not always an exact match and some Projects might be related to several portals if the scope of the project is wide enough, like science for instance. Also I want to make clear I would only support moving portals if it was for the sake of improving them and then moving them back into the regular portal space. I would not support it as a way to get rid of a portal indefinitely. --Hecato (talk) 09:48, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
Of course not all portals have exactly matching WikiProjects, and in these cases the default move Portal:X --> WP:WikiProject X/Portal wouldn't apply. However, I suspect that in the vast majority of no obvious match, the portal was never a good portal by any measure.
You say "I would only support moving portals if it was for the sake of improving them and then moving them back"? Do you mean that you would oppose moving a reader-inappropriate portal to a WikiProject to preserve its editor benefits? If that is the general sentiment, then straight deletion at MfD will be the common outcome. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:32, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
WikiProjects should be allowed to create a copy of a portal that was voted to be deleted from the Portal space if they want to, assuming the Portal was not deleted for copyright violations or other violations that make content unacceptable everywhere on Wikipedia. I think that would be a better solution. Moving a portal in the way you have described should not be part of an MfD discussion though. --Hecato (talk) 12:06, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
Not all portals need regular maintenance. Today's version of Portal:Mathematics will still be as valid in 2029. A fast-moving field of study needs regular updates, and many portals have been deleted because they became outdated, but "no maintainer" is not in itself a valid argument for deletion. Certes (talk) 10:46, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
Agreed, some fields are not changing very often and could already have most articles that would be worth creating about them. --Hecato (talk) 09:48, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
A really simple Alternative To Deletion of a portal would simply be "working harder". But practice has proven that while "keep !voters" are not so rare to appear, people willing to maintain a given portal to the point of really doing the job aren't falling from the sky like a hard rain. More than often, a given portal was the emerging part of a WikiProject. But most of these WikiProjects are past and gone, i.e. dead without any hope of resurrection and so is the related portal. Moving a defunct portal from Portal:Defunct_Portal to Wp:WikiProject_Defunct/Defunct_Portal would stop luring the readers by pretending that Portal:Defunct_Portal remains an actual navigation tool (if it ever was), and would provide a better place to let it rot in oblivion. But this would require to patch each and any template, to be sure they will also work in the new space. Is there any keeper who want to spent any part of their precious time to patch what requires to be patched ? Revisiting Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Korea gives some hint about that: since 19 April 2019, the keepers haven't been able to fix all the outdated snipets of this portal. May be they are waiting for someone else to come and do the job in their stead... but peones are learning! Pldx1 (talk) 08:55, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
I am not the only editor who stopped improving portals after the pages were deleted, reverted or "alternative-to-deleted" (overwritten by a redirect). As deletions seem to be slowing (April: 4328; May: 689; June: 244; July 1–15: 68) we may soon be able to revert that spiral of decline, if editors can find the motivation to resume their thankless task. Certes (talk) 10:55, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
Average daily pageviews of portals on en.wikipedia in April–June 2019@Certes:, you continue to confuse cause and effect.
The deletion of so many portals has happened because the neglect has been systematic and long-term. Any idea that a twelve-year-old-pattern of neglect is the product of a 4-month cleanup process is tendentious nonsense.
The reality is that the spiral of decline is more than a decade old. It has four components which all feed off each other:
editors don't maintain portals
editors don't make links to portals
readers make little use of portals, even when they are linked.
the multi-subpage design of most portals is an outmoded disaster. It requires high maintenance, but makes maintenance hard. New technology means that it adds no value.
So those of you object to deletions: what exactly are you trying to achieve?
Wikipedia clearly still has far more portals than readers want to use, and far more that editors want to maintain. New features have made the multi-subpage model of portal redundant, yet we still have prominent members of portals project scurrying around doing the busywork of creating yet more of these redundant content forks, and piling on the maintenance nightmares ahead.
After months of researching portals, and endless discussions, I have yet to see any plausible case for how most of even the remaining set of portals are a net positive to Wikipedia. Overwhelmingly, they are not being read, and they are not being maintained.
Various mantras are trotted out by portalistas, but never tested
"involve WikiProjects", say the portalistas. But the related WikiProjects are almost always moribund or not interested in the portal".
"make more links to the portals", say the portalistas. But the evidence is that even massively-linked portals still have pageview levels somewhere between the pathetic and the abymsal.
"tag it with {{update}}, say the portalistas. So where is the evidence that this works? Where's the evidence that if the remaining few hundreds abandoned portals are tagged with "update", that they will be updated?
So what exactly is going on here, Certes?
94% of portals get an average of less than 100 page views per day. Do you think that is enough to justify keeping all those portals?
What do you propose to do about the redundant content fork model of portal?
The portals project is over a decade old, but still has no systematic process of rating portal by quality or importance, let alone with community support
In short, there is no vision, and no plan. All I see is small group of editors who enjoy creating and or editing the unreferenced edifices which they call portals, and who stridently resist any intrusion into the thoroughly unencyclopedic hobby which the pursue on Wikipedia's servers.
Thank you for the detailed reply. In view of the astonishing personal attack on my colleague above, I see no point in continuing this conversation. Certes (talk) 00:05, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
User:Certes - Indeed. There is no point in continuing a conversation when it continues to have the same untrue statements repeated over and over. {User:BrownHairedGirl]] was patient with User:Northamerica1000 at the beginning of this discussion of portals in April and May, until the same statements kept being repeated in spite of definitive evidence to the contrary. I would prefer that User:BrownHairedGirl find some way of making her case that doesn't appear to be a personal attack, BUT the problem is simply that what BHG is saying is true and what NA1k is saying is incorrect and has been shown to be incorrect. I would prefer that she find some way of making her case that doesn't appear to be a personal attack, but I don't know how I would do that either. The truth is that untruths are being used repeatedly, and that is an ugly truth. Yuck. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:02, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
There is no deceit in my !votes. Portals have always typically received less page views compared to articles. It appears that those for the deletion of most portals feel that portals should somehow receive identical page views as topical articles, but this occurs very rarely. Sometimes, portals receive low page views because 1) it may be a niche topic that many people may not be interested in, and 2) a portal may have relatively few visible links to it, whereupon people don't know it's there. North America100004:07, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
Despite that denial, there is repeated deceit in NA1K's !votes, and repeated deceit in the comment to which I am replying:
NA1K writes It appears that those for the deletion of most portals feel that portals should somehow receive identical page views as topical articles. This is more deliberate deceit: a calculated misrepresentation of the views of other editors. I have followed MFD niminations of portals closely for 4 months, and at no time have I suggested, or seen anyone else suggest that portals should somehow receive identical page views as topical articles. This is pure fabrication by NA1K. It is yet another deliberate untruth designed to discredit.
WP:POG requires that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers". Note that phrase "large numbers". It does not say "large numbers when compared with the abysmal pageviews for other portals". I have repeatedly invited NA1K to open a RFC to propose changing the wording to their preferred stipulation, but NA1K has not done so. Instead the persists in the serial deceit of pretending that the guidelines already say what NA1K would like them to say, by omitting the actual text of the guidelines. This is deceitful.
Average daily pageviews of portals on en.wikipedia in April–June 2019 Then we have the deliberately misleading halftruth, when NA1K writes have relatively few visible links to it, whereupon people don't know it's there. NA1K repeatedly asserts variants of a claim that more links to a portal means more page views, whereas the pageview data actually shows that portal page views are almost all very very poor, and are largely unresponsive to links.
All these points have been raised with NA1K repeatedly and civilly, However, NA1K repeatedly declined discussion of them, and instead continue to assert falsehoods.
That is why I have reluctantly shed my assumption of good faith. An editor who was actually interested in truth would either correct their assertions or at least discuss them. But NA1K simply continues to repeat them ... and in this example here, NA1K ups the ante by simply lying about the views of other editors.
To provide some context, see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Biochemistry, where I have been falsely accused of being a "liar" several times, in addition to that in this thread. Perhaps other uninvolved users can provide some input here about this. I am typically open to discussion, but it appears that those in disagreement aren't willing to discuss matters in a calm, civil manner. I may not discuss the MfD further here, but I am still interested in discussing Alternatives to deletion for portals here. North America100004:25, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
Perhaps consider changing your approach. There is no reason to "call" anybody anything, and plenty of ways to voice your opinion without attacking others. Attempts to label, stereotype and caricature users in a negative manner is not a very functional approach. See also: WP:AVOIDYOU, where it states in part, "editors should be civil and adhere to good etiquette when describing disagreements". North America100005:01, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
NA1K, as above, I will change my approach when you stop telling lies.
Nothing in any Wikipedia policy supports your practice of repeatedly stating as facts things which you know to be demonstrably untrue. No amount of WP:ABCXYZing from you alters the fact that your systematic lying is disruptive. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 09:45, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
Under your line of logic, then the {{Orphan}} template should not exist. If a portal were to have zero links to it in other areas of Wikipedia, it's common sense that it would receive low page views. Conversely, if 1,000 links exist linking to a portal, strategically placed in highly topically-aligned areas that receive decent traffic, it's common sense that page views will quite likely increase, at least sometimes. Makes perfect sense, really. Also be sure to check out WP:ORP, where it states, "Orphaned articles, since they have no links to them from other pages, are difficult to find, and are most likely to be found only by searching, or by chance. Because of this, few people know they exist, and therefore, they receive less readership and improvement from those who would be able to improve them (bold emphasis mine). This also makes perfect sense. I'm no liar, and your insults are wholly inappropriate and do absolutely nothing to improve the encyclopedia. I anticipate that you may reply with yet another long rant of anger, which I won't be responding to if occurrent. Rather, I'm interested in discussing alternatives to deletion for portals, the topical focus of this thread, with those that are actually interested in this topic. Bye. North America100019:35, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
Comment. Having participated in several portal MfDs (and read the main background notes on portals), I haven't seen any let-up in (1) the lack of interest in editors in maintaining portals, and (2) the lack of interest of the readers in using portals. This seems a dominant trend, that has only increased in intensity over the last decade? There are unusual corners of Wikipedia that, for reasons unknown to me, have strong levels of activity by cores of dedicated editors; however, portals do not seem to attract this kind of support.
I think Wikipedia's format (and WPs restrictions re copyvio of images), make it an inferior platform for fan-portals on topics; Facebook (and many others) offer much richer platforms (with no image copyvio issues) for fans to develop and maintain a portal (and they can still link into Wikipedia as needed). Ultimately, when canals were surpassed by roads, nothing that was done by canal owners to improve them had any impact on the outcome. Unfortunately, nothing I have seen or heard so far has given me any hope that portals are not canals. Britishfinance (talk) 00:36, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
Some canals remain important. It would be absurd for someone to propose filling in all canals. When the proposal to fill in all canals is rejected, it would also be silly to say that it means that canals should continue to be supports as previously. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:26, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
It was not cost effective to fill in canals. I think abandoned portals lower the reputation and impression of Wikipedia in the eye of the reader, and make us look like a failed project; however, they are easier to get rid of than a canal (or viaduct etc.). I have not yet seen a good arguement that says that portals have a future on WP – almost all of the arguments I see put forward for keeping portals are based around hope that things will improve; but they have been declining for years, and at an increasing rate? Britishfinance (talk) 10:59, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
I don’t think there’s any case to deprecate the Main page portal, although the DYK looks more trouble and negatives than its worth. Same with the main page linked portals. Wikipedia_talk:Portal/Guidelines#Only_Front_Page_Portals. I’m quite serious there. Only the top portals are worthy. All others should be WikiPeojectified or deleted or archived. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:55, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
Obviously, I am not including the Main Page here, and there are a small list of useful/healthy portals; however, I think on the rest we are agreed. However, I am mindful that Northamerica1000 does not hold the same view, and, I think (?), believes that many should be kept/tagged, in case editors who might support portals emerge. Britishfinance (talk) 13:09, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
I thought for ages that it was far too extreme, far too radical a cull.
Average daily pageviews of portals on en.wikipedia in April–June 2019 However, I have come to see your idea more favourably, largely because I finally got round to making a graph of portal views. It seems to me that the data supports either your proposal or something close to it, because only a small proportion of portals have reached the critical mass of "large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers" required by POG. Nearly all the rest are either caught in a self-sustaining cycle of low pageviews and low maintenance, or are sustained despite low pageviews by a lone enthusiast on whom the portal is dependant.
That's why nearly two weeks ago I suggested at User talk:BrownHairedGirl#Unwanted_portals that maybe the time has come for a deep cull of the long thin tail of that graph to the right. I suggested a multi-option proposal. As you can see, the response from those who I asked for feedback was mostly equivocal, and I think my draft was a bit too complex, so I haven't pursued the idea.
I want to add the point that the top portals are not simply relatively popular due to being linked from the mainpage, they were judged to be worth linking from the main page.
RfCs? They are not good for open or undefined questions, or for proposals from a single person. I think RfCs often fail because they lock in early badly phrased questions. Can we workshop the question before launching an RfC? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:21, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
Sure, @SmokeyJoe. I fully agree that a badly-designed RFC is a nuisance, and that RFCs work best when prepared by a group.
I agree that poorly defined RFCs are problematic. At the same time, sometimes workshopping an RFC becomes an exercise in exercise. I think that it is time to put something forward. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:07, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
User:BrownHairedGirl needs to change her approach
BHG is being heavy handed. I think the worst of the portals are gone. Portal proponents are brow beated. What is going on here is far from consensus decision making. There are two sides, and neither side is thinking compromise. My particular problem is BHG soft protecting the page, first from the {{disputed}} tag, and now from editing to being it back to reality. It’s absurd to insist that this page holds the consensus of a guideline. It’s absurd to think that this page should be silent about deletion of portals. I feel the BHG has a very narrow view of the path ahead, and as such she should not be controlling of what happens. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:35, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
@SmokeyJoe, the heavy-handedness lies in the fact that a few editors have taken it upon themselves to unilaterally rewrite guidelines. Joe has repeatedly done this, most notably adding to guidelines a section on ATD on the same day as he started a discussion on it. This is not consensus-building; it is trying to create fait accomplis.
I can see several ways ahead, and am very happy to discuss compromises. Only yesterday I wrote a long reply to Certes asking their views.
Joe sincerely believes that the current guidelines do not have consensus. I disagree, but have not in any way set out to give Joe a hard time about that. I simply ask that if Joe wants to downgrade this guideline or make major changes to it, then they should formulate a clear proposal and seek a consensus with a much broader basis than the regulars on these pages.
The reality is that: I have not made any unilateral changes to the guidelines; I have repeatedly encouraged editors to formulate proposals for the ways ahead; I have suggested various possibilities. So it is deeply perverse that someone who has repeatedly engaged in unilateral rewrites of guidelines is accusing me of being heavy-handed and controlling. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 12:34, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
Less that is doesn’t have consensus, although it doesn’t, more that it is useless. Wishwashy ambitions that have clearly failed. Easily improved, but you are reverting due to “no consensus”. Demanding an RfC to document that portals can be deleted? Heavy handed and controlling, yes for sure, that’s my impression. Maybe I am missing a lot of important conversations elsewhere. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:17, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
(ec) @SmokeyJoe, I don't agree with your view in this area. As far as I can see, BHG has gone to extraordinary lengths with analysis, comment, and the conducting of RfCs etc. in the area of portals. Whether you agree with BHG or not (and I must say that I mostly do), I personally have never seen another editor on Wikipedia take such care and attention in a topic-area as BHG has done.
I feel the portal discussion is at a crux stage again. Further analysis and thinking have been done in this area (mostly by BHG, but there are others who have joined BHG with more analysis), which does ask the question of whether there is (or ever was), a point in the vast majority of WP portals (obviously, outside of Main Page and other notables).
As I read it (and I could have read this wrong), the objections from the other side, are something like "you might be right, but let us just tag them for issues, and see if editors who will support portals emerge". Where the "sparks" are flying between these two views is: (1) editors who support portals disappeared a long time ago (+7 years), and (2) while waiting for (1) to revert, we have hundreds of abandoned portals that make WP look like a failed project (and we have a group, with BHG, who are willing to do the clean-up work now). Britishfinance (talk) 13:29, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
I would like a quick consensus, it is tiring to make edits related to portals that are summarily reversed. WP:POG is doing a disservice to all users, friends or enemies of the portals.Guilherme Burn (talk) 16:43, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
User:SmokeyJoe - I have very little idea what your agenda is, except that it appears that you have a poorly stated agenda, and, in this respect, unfortunately, you appear to have the same problem as the portalistas. They haven't explained what the value of portals is, and so they are unhappy when portals get deleted, but User:BrownHairedGirl and I don't understand what is being lost. You haven't explained what you are trying to do with this guideline, and so you are unhappy when User:BrownHairedGirl and I don't understand why you are trying to downgrade this guideline and rewrite it; and so you seem to be complaining and whining that BHG is being heavy-handed, but you haven't explained what you are trying to do, other than perhaps interfere with the objective of cleaning up portal crud. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:35, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
User:SmokeyJoe - I have some more hope that you may explain your approach and agenda than I do that the portalistas will explain what their objectives are, but I am waiting for you to explain what your approach and agenda are, rather than just having you get in the way. Lead, follow, or get out of the way. I see that User:BrownHairedGirl is trying to lead. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:35, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
What is a "portalista"? Is this some means to classify all portal contributors together using a single word, or does it mean something else? Would you refer to article contributors as "the articleistas"? Should article contributors also all get together to explain what the value of articles is? To provide better context, please define your meaning of this. North America100019:54, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
Well, I am interested that User:BrownHairedGirl has been referring to portalistas for a few weeks, and no one has asked her what she means. I am using the term to refer to those who regularly argue in favor of portals, and against the deletion of portals, including crud portals. If she has a different meaning, perhaps she can correct me. We know what the purpose of articles is. They are the encyclopedia, and are about notable subjects, describing them from a neutral point of view. (If you have a different idea, please explain.) I also know what the purpose of links is; they are the principal method of navigation. I also know what some of the purposes of categories are. They have multiple functions, including navigation, and maintenance of the encyclopedia. I don't know what the intended purposes of portals are, except for the main page, and so I am asking. It appears that other editors, who regularly defend portals, know what their purpose is, but have difficulty in explaining them to me. I am interested that BHG has been referring to portalistas for a few weeks, and no one has asked her what she means. I have been, for about three months, referring to the portal platoon, which is a subset of portalistas. The portal platoon consists of those editors who recklessly created thousands of portals in late 2018. Maybe BHG can better explain who she thinks are the portalistas. Maybe the advocates of portals can better explain what they see as the purposes of portals, but I was more hopeful about that a few weeks ago than I am now. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:14, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
I also use the term to refer to those who argue in favour of crud portals, the abandoned portals and those with narrow topics.
But the core point of what I mean by it is the editors who persistently argue for portals for the sake of portals, rather than assessing them by their success as tools. The portalista may or may not explicitly assert that a portal is type of content, but they still try to preserve even abandoned junk portals as if they were actual articles rather than rusty signposts or broken shop windows.
Portalistas are usually, but not always, people who like creating and tweaking portals. They show much much more concern for their ability to continue doing that than for the reader who is lured to page a whose is only purpose is as a showcase and/or navigation aid, but which has failed for a decade for do either.
These portalistas are appalled and outraged that hundreds and hundreds of MFD discussions have actually applied a long-standing part of the portal guidelines, viz the bit of WP:POG which requires that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers". They fume in exasperation at the sheer wickedness of anyone who would actually uphold the guidelines which the portal project itself has had for years.
There is a small but vocal hardcore of editors who are on a spectrum between agnostic and angry about the very existence of the long-standing guideline that portals need to attract lots of readers. This is the funniest type of portalista: their horror at the notion that a magazine-format page might need a decent cluster of readers to justify its existence gets expressed in some very odds ways.
One of the most hardcore variant of portalista believes that deletion of any portal is an aggressive attack on them personally. The battleground atmosphere surrounding portals was started months ago when a still-prominent portalista pronounced that the deletion of even the automated spam was a "war on portals". Others have popped up in similar vein from time to time, sometimes using different terminology but usually with the same incandescent rage that a portals on some narrow topic which was neglected for years has been "attacked" by "deletionists". This type of portalista often has poor spelling and types WITH THEIR CApS LOCK mOSTLY On.
Then, of course we have the ultra-portalista, who has taken to simply making things up in order try to stop the deletion of abandoned crud. This one simply lies in order defend the indefensible, and lies repeatedly, and gets very self-righteous when challenged.
But the most common and defining feature of the portalista is the most surprising one: that most of them display very little care or clue about the state of portals. They don't engage in proactive assessment and grading of portals. They don't identify outdated content forks. They don't tabulate the number of incoming links to portals. The don't track portal readership. They nearly have nothing to say about the many problems of the redundant fork model of portal which dominates portalspace. They are apathetic about how the built-in preview-on-mouseover renders the display-an-extract model of portal redundant.
In short, the portalista is normally a creature of great lethargy and apathy. This lethargy and apathy allowed portalspace to deterioriate to the point where it was nearly TNTed completely in early 2018. The same lethargy and apathy meant that they mostly just nodded when a smooth-talker came along and signed them all for a sustained exercise of mass spamming.
And now, nearly 6 month after the flood of portalspam was finally halted, the portalistas still have not even hint of a plan ... but plenty of indignation that their neglected walled garden is being cleaned up by others. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 22:24, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
Very glad to see you say it's a derogatory term. Wow that we are all aware it's a slur can we not use it? --Moxy🍁22:32, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
Robert McClenon, I don't think anyone thought it would serve much purpose to ask BrownHairedGirl about her terminology. As illustrated above, it's only provided another opportunity for all the faults of others to be aired. But we've heard these views many times already (well, except the one about editors commenting with caps lock on; I can't recall any one in these discussions doing that, but maybe in the deletion discussions?), so reading it again hasn't moved things forward. Giving a label to your opponents with whom you find fault just perpetrates an us-versus-them atmosphere, which doesn't foster a collaborative environment. isaacl (talk) 23:04, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
@isaacl, for 4 months, I have been accused of waging a "war on portals", repeatedly denounced as a "deletionist", and and more piles of abuse hurled my way than I could bear to count.
I have had countless occasions where I have spend several hours assessing a portal before bringing it to MFD with a detailed account of my research into it, only to have a barrage of portalistas falsely accusing me of "knee jerk nomination", "five-minute hatchet job" etc.
Throughout that time, I have exercise restraint in how I respond, and tried to keep dialogue going. But the last few weeks have seen something new: NA1K has escalated their long-standing slipperinesss to an overt campaign of outright lying and deceit, and none of the portal fans has had the integrity to ask NA1K to desist. The abuse was one thing, but the systematic deceit is disgraceful.
Rest assured, I know what's happened, so you needn't go through the litany again: I've been here. I understand that both sides have felt they've reached out for discussion, and I appreciate why the other side often hasn't reacted positively to these attempts. I've made suggestions that I think would have helped but have fallen by the wayside; it's just the way it is. It's understandable that complaints have been expressed, but continuing to air these grievances hasn't worked so far. Something else needs to be tried. isaacl (talk) 01:18, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
Formalizing (again)
I have published a Request for Comments at Village Pump (policy) to give this guideline, that everybody thought was a guideline for 13 years, the status of a guideline. Those who don't want it can !vote against it and propose something else. Lead, follow, lead in a different direction, follow in a different direction, or get out of the way. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:39, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
No, everyone did not think it was a guideline, only those who looked saw the guideline tagged had been slipped in. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:04, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
You links are next to useless. Who are they meant to inform? What happens if I follow them? What section? What happens when any threads are archived. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:04, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
I think any and all Portal guideline RfCs should be held on this page, or subpages of this page, not at a village pump, and not in userspace. RfCs held here should be advertised at the village pump, and can be transcluded to the village pump, but the village pump is no place for considered discussions. Userspace is bad for being the wrong place, and being a place controlled by the userspace owner.
Both in deletion discussions and on this talk page, there is sometimes mention of the need for links from article space to portals. My question is exactly what is being discussed. Is the idea that the head article should have a link back to the portal from its See Also section, and that any other articles that are within the scope of the portal may likewise link back to the portal from the See Also section? If that is what is intended, I agree that, if there is a portal, there should be links to it, as navigation aids, similar to the use of categories and navboxes and other linking mechanisms. I doubt that such links will significantly increase the viewing of the portal, but I agree that if there is a portal, it should be linked to as a navigation aid. If something else is intended, such as links within the body of an article, I disagree. I think that the absence of links from articles to portals is not a reason to keep an underviewed portal, but I agree that articles should link to portals that exist.
If the portal is deleted, will a bot automatically delete the links? If not, can that be a requested task for a bot? For that matter, can a bot populate articles with links to portals?
Robert McClenon (talk) 22:56, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
The lack of links to portals is the main reason for lack of views, and this is half the problem with the state of portals. The other half of the problem is that portals fork content and do so without sources meaning that they can become disconnected from content policies and present content to readers in a way that would be unacceptable in mainspace. I don’t think it is ok to fix the first problem without fixing the second. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:44, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
@SmokeyJoe, I disagree that lack of links to portals is a major problem.
The major problem with portals is that very few of them add any value for the reader, so readers don't want to visit them even when signposted. Web portals faded out rapidly because deep linking and powerful search made them redundant, and readers who visit Wikipedia portals will usually come away disillusioned because most of them are so poor.
For evidence of that assertion, just look at the abysmal pageviews for the portals linked prominently on the main page. Way more than most portals, but way less than other mainpage elements. And crucially, after trying those portals, readers aren't exploring other portals.
What a great idea to create infuriated edit wars in quite all articles. Adding each and any wreck of a former portal into the "see also" section of as many articles as possible! This would skyrocket the edit counts of the adders, and the volume of controversies as ANI: he dared to add his so shitty portal to my so nice article! Perhaps, should we start by increasing the number of admins to deal with the mess this will create. Pldx1 (talk) 11:04, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
To answer RM's technical question, nearly all of the portal links are implemented using the {{Portal}} template, which suppresses the display of a redlink for any of the listed portals that do not exist; it also normally lists the portals to the right of the see also section; see United Kingdom#See also for an example; the template link to the deleted Portal:Commonwealth realms is not displayed. I am less concerned that such links will cause drama, mostly because that horse as already left the barn: the portals team used a bot to add many thousands of such links to articles already (as well as categories; if you beleive the documentation the tempalte is used on 7.7 million pages), and if they noticed, any editors who objected just reverted the adds. UnitedStatesian (talk) 12:12, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
The reason portals have no views anymore is they are not seen by 60% of our readers.....not cause they don't want them or add no value or other BS....it's very simple no one sees them to use them.....like the Wikipedia app....simply not used by many.--Moxy🍁23:08, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
So why bother? 60%? Or is it 99.60% who never see a portal? When using Wikipedia as a reader, I sure never see Portals. I land on a page from google, and may read around the topic by following a few wikilinks. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:29, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
Agree ....mobile readers don't see the portals and of those 40 percent using desktops only 2 percent will scroll more then 2 times to even make it to see the portal ....same now goes for navtemplates at the bottom of pages. ..again not seen in mobile versions thus why they are not used as the once we're. Noting to do with quality or format or any other guess....simply not seen.--Moxy🍁01:37, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
I believe that prior to this discussion a standardization in all portals of the "related portals" and "subportals" sections should be discussed, so that the reader could navigate through all the portal space from a single portal. For example {{Portals tree}}Guilherme Burn (talk) 15:20, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
Usually portals are linked from articles via Templates like Portal and Portal bar. Now and then a link is also included at the bottom of a navbox. I am not aware of other ways to link to portals from the article space, though we could probably come up with some other ways that keep the separation of content and navigation clear, while also being more obvious than a small box at the very the bottom of an article. As other users have already pointed out, another issue is that such templates are often hidden in mobile view. --Hecato (talk) 09:43, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
Coverage of Culling Portals.
I have re-added this section, against User:BrownHairedGirl's wishes. The page is in a poor state. It needs edits and whole new sections. It should not be WP:Soft protected. Discussion should be on this talk page, not thrown to the wind in a multitude of RfCs, one for every editors every idea.
Portal culling is real. Does anyone dispute this?
There are frequently used reasons for deletion of portals, old and new, one paged and many pages. Does anyone dispute these.
WP pages exist primarily to document, to reduce entry barriers for newcomers. The may describe best practice, but they do not prescribe anything.
Discussion on this talk page not focused on an improvement to the page is like ship without a rudder. Page edits are what grounds discussion.
I think the section is more suitable for the WP:WikiProject Portals page, as it is mainly discussing process issues. Yes, the reasons for deletion could be flipped around as advice on how to avoid deletion, but I think it would be better to integrate this with the other sections on this page as affirmative, "what to do" guidelines. Per the bold, revert, discuss cycle, personally I would prefer to leave the page in its previous state until after discussion. isaacl (talk) 02:09, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
I understand why edits are trying to be implemented....talks are not moving forward. Tainted by personal innuendos with the same rant over and over. Can't do much when talks are dominated by polarized editors over letting others chime in . Walls of text with very little movement towards the solution discourages all from participating.....but a great tactic to have the status quo.--Moxy🍁04:08, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
Walls of text, partially repetitive, on multiple pages. Obfuscation. Normally, when someone calls an RfC, I will wait for it to be closed, but now I have lost count of them. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:24, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
There hasn't been any talks on this section. In its current form, it isn't really a set of guidelines, but a description of events. Like I said above, yes, I know what's been going on. I've been here. Let's try to break the endless cycle of complaining about each other. Yeah, I know it's not fair. Life's like that. isaacl (talk) 07:26, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
I understand your perspective. Nonetheless, as I stated, I think it would be better to recast the content from the section into guidance that is integrated with the rest of the page. isaacl (talk) 07:26, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
"recast the content from the section into guidance that is integrated with the rest of the page"? Sorry, I find that hard to follow. Do you mean take the content of the Culling section, recast it? "into guidance that is integrated"? There is no deletion reasons guidance elsewhere. "rest of the page"? What page? This page? That page? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:42, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
Rather than having a new section, I think the guidance in WP:Portal/Guidelines should be expanded as necessary so that a new portal fallowing its advice will be less likely to be deleted based on the observed criteria from recent deletion discussions. For example, the "Article section" section under "What content to include" can be modified to provide guidance on having broad coverage of different points of view related to the topic. isaacl (talk) 08:11, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
I have reverted @SmokeyJoe's unilateral re-addition to the guidelines of a section which he wrote. Joe is of course is entitled to propose the addition of a new section, but now that it has been contested, Joe should follow the BRD cycle. Joe's repeated unilateral additions without consensus are not part of the BRD cycle. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 11:39, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
I have discussed, here. I am waiting for any substantive comment from you. isaacl seems to be saying that he would rather see it interspersed with the other section, which is a question of style, not a challenge to including it all, and if only he engages, I am happy to work with that. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:49, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
@SmokeyJoe, the substantive issues are simple enough.
The first part of it is a description of what has happened. It does not guide.
The ATD chunk does not address the need for ongoing maintenance, and seems to suggest that a one-off driveby edit can "fix" a portal.
OK thanks. Wikipedia:Portal/Guidelines#Portal_culling re-added attempting to accept and comply with these points. I agree with the points. The guideline is for moving forward. An essay can be written on the history, this might be a good idea. WP:ATD I guess is sufficiently implied with the section titled as "culling" instead of "deletion". I am disappointed at so few comments to my suggestion to move middling quality portals from Portal:X to WP:WikiProject X/Portal. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:36, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
Reverted again.[4] @SmokeyJoe, a discussion does not consist of you responding to each comment by unilaterally implementing your preference on how to respond to that comment. Please start discussing, and stop the repeated unilateralism. --BrownHairedGirl(talk) • (contribs) 12:04, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
This “guideline” is crap, and needs fixing. You are soft protecting it, reverting due to solely due to no consensus, you are making no attempt to find consensus through compromise, berating and abusing your opponents. You are being disruptive. Sequential MfDs are a very poor substitute for consensus. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:40, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
Far above are several threads on "Portal creation and deletion criteria" proposals. I see a lot of considered comment there. Would it be good to have each summarised? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:43, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
Regarding the culling section: might as well leave it there and let people know ahead of time that portals should be complete, updated periodically, etc. Why waste users' time who may not know better, create an incomplete portal, or not update it from time-to-time, only to have their work later deleted per various "per nom" and "I concur" !votes at MfD? Being up front about matters on the guideline page is better than saying nothing. Furthermore, the "Linking to portals" section on the page would benefit from more information, to better-guide users about linking to portals so they're seen and used. North America100009:01, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, I think listing the common reasons given for past deletions makes sense and the headline "Portal culling" seems accurate, proponents of culling use that language themselves. But I also agree with the reverts of user BrownHairedGirl, just adding content to a guideline page without getting a consensus first is not a good idea. --Hecato (talk) 09:30, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
My personal preference is, where feasible, to tell people what to do rather than what not to do, so I'd rather have guidelines about what editors should do that will avoid the issues that have come up in deletion discussions. If we were to have a separate section, since the guidelines are long-lived, I would suggest calling it something like "Deletion of portals" rather than "culling". isaacl (talk) 17:39, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
An idea is to tag portals that need work with the {{Update}} template and then notify relevant Wikiprojects about a portal's need for updating, expansion, cleanup, general improvements, etc. North America1000 04:58, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
