- The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result of the discussion was Rationale: I have not been able to find anything equivalent to a notability guideline regarding portals, this makes it difficult to evaluate whether arguments are backed in policy. I have looked at the guidelines for portals, which clearly state that portals should not be created except by someone who intends to maintain it. Maybe someone intended to in this case - but they didn't. However I am not convinced by the arguments about inaccuracies and lack of links. Inaccuracies could have been fixed in the time it took to produce this MfD - especially by the nominator who is apparently knowledgeable about the subject. Fixing it is always a prferable solution when possible. In this case it is. Therefore my closure will be a conditional keep. It will be conditional on the stated will of one or more of the voters to edit the portal adding links and making its contents more accurate. If this is done within a week from now I will not delete the article, but if there is not substantial progress within that time I will delete it and it can be recreated only by someone who intends to maintain it. I must say that it is slightly strange to me that none of the keep voters have taken any steps to improve the portal during this MfD - that would have immediately invalidated the deletion rationales - this leaves me with considerable doubt whether the keep voters are willing to put actions to their words. The result therefore is Delete unless substantial progress by december 4th 2011. ·ʍaunus· snunɐw· 02:09, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Portal:Wicca
- Delete as nominator. It feels slightly odd to be listing this, as I am myself a practising Wiccan and a long-time and very active contributor to Wicca and the family of articles that cluster round it. However I was unaware of this portal until very recently and on looking at it I am struck by its low quality and usage. The main page was edited once in 2009, once in 2010 and twice in 2011 until I added the MfD template. The text on the main page and also on the selected article it displays is very poor, unreferenced and needing a lot of work to bring it up to the standard of the main space article.
- You might ask, if it so little visited and edited, why bother with it? Why not leave it to gather dust? The problem for me is that there are very many links from key articles via the {{Portal|Wicca}} template that appears on many of them. Now some of the mainspace articles are very good, and I don't think the portal stands comparison with them. But rather than going through each article and deleting the portal template, I'd prefer to get a view in principle about the portal and its viability. I will post a neutral notice about this MfD at the relevant Wikiproject and also on the talk page of anyone who has edited the portal within the last three years. Kim Dent-Brown (Talk) 21:07, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
- Delete unmaintained portal with few to no links. Ten Pound Hammer • ( What did I screw up now?) 02:52, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
- Delete per nominator; the page adds absolutely no value to someone desiring to learn about the religion and that isn't likely to change. More broadly, I have never been clear on the role of the portal namespace. The name "portal" suggests that readers will find the page first and use it as a gateway, but I've never seen a Wikipedia portal pop up in my search engine results. They are easy enough to locate via internal links, but in general even the best of them are not a priority to the community; the number of featured portals makes that clear. Who uses these pages?--~ T P W 12:35, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
- I agree. Portals seem to be found only through the little tiny side-box at the bottom, and they don't turn up in search engines. They're near impossible to find, and almost every Portal I've seen has been untouched for years. Ten Pound Hammer • ( What did I screw up now?) 19:26, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
- Comment – Portals actually do turn up in search engines. Here's an example for the Wikipedia Ecology portal, typing "Ecology Portal" in Google, in which it's the first result: [1]. It's a little exaggerated to state that none of them turn up in search engines, when they actually do. Northamerica1000 (talk) 00:00, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
- True, but is it possible to find portals by a Google search that doesn't include the word "portal"? The fact that these pages are called "portals" in Wikipedia-speak isn't necessarily known to the general public. -- Metropolitan90 (talk) 09:14, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
- Keep. There are over 100 links to this portal, and while the portal need a little work, there is no valid reason to delete it. Not being very familiar with wicca myself, I can say it was very useful in getting a brief overview of the topic. Portals don't always need to be "touched" or worked on for years if they are designed well. This one just needs a little tweaking to be in this category. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 05:23, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
- The thing is that not being very familiar with Wicca, you won't realise that the brief overview it gives you is very inaccurate and poorly written! You get a much fuller and more balanced overview of Wicca by looking at
the article than you do by looking at this portal. The 100+ links to the portal are almost all from the {{Portal|Wicca}} template on many articles; I don't think it says anything about the credibility of the portal, more about article drafters copying categories, portals and 'see alsos' from one article to another. I fear this portal does need more than a little work, and a little tweaking will not suffice because it is not in fact designed well.
Kim Dent-Brown
(Talk) 11:53, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
- I never said it was designed well, just that it gave me a decent overview. It certainly needs to be brought inline with the recommended guidelines for length of entries, and it definitely needs to be better organized. However, those are fairly simple changes, and whether it's similar to the wicca template or not is really irrelevant. Portal links often overlap those found in navbox templates covering a similar or the same topic. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 22:41, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
- The thing is that not being very familiar with Wicca, you won't realise that the brief overview it gives you is very inaccurate and poorly written! You get a much fuller and more balanced overview of Wicca by looking at
the article than you do by looking at this portal. The 100+ links to the portal are almost all from the {{Portal|Wicca}} template on many articles; I don't think it says anything about the credibility of the portal, more about article drafters copying categories, portals and 'see alsos' from one article to another. I fear this portal does need more than a little work, and a little tweaking will not suffice because it is not in fact designed well.
Kim Dent-Brown
(Talk) 11:53, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
- Delete per nominator and TPW. It hasn't been significantly edited since 2008. -- Klein zach 14:09, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
- Keep; I would much rather see the portal updated by a knowledgeable Wikipedian than deleted. —Entropy ( T/ C) 21:15, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
- Delete. I would also much rather see the portal updated and maintained, but that just isn't happening. bd2412 T 17:45, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
- The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result of the discussion was Rationale: I have not been able to find anything equivalent to a notability guideline regarding portals, this makes it difficult to evaluate whether arguments are backed in policy. I have looked at the guidelines for portals, which clearly state that portals should not be created except by someone who intends to maintain it. Maybe someone intended to in this case - but they didn't. However I am not convinced by the arguments about inaccuracies and lack of links. Inaccuracies could have been fixed in the time it took to produce this MfD - especially by the nominator who is apparently knowledgeable about the subject. Fixing it is always a prferable solution when possible. In this case it is. Therefore my closure will be a conditional keep. It will be conditional on the stated will of one or more of the voters to edit the portal adding links and making its contents more accurate. If this is done within a week from now I will not delete the article, but if there is not substantial progress within that time I will delete it and it can be recreated only by someone who intends to maintain it. I must say that it is slightly strange to me that none of the keep voters have taken any steps to improve the portal during this MfD - that would have immediately invalidated the deletion rationales - this leaves me with considerable doubt whether the keep voters are willing to put actions to their words. The result therefore is Delete unless substantial progress by december 4th 2011. ·ʍaunus· snunɐw· 02:09, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Portal:Wicca
- Delete as nominator. It feels slightly odd to be listing this, as I am myself a practising Wiccan and a long-time and very active contributor to Wicca and the family of articles that cluster round it. However I was unaware of this portal until very recently and on looking at it I am struck by its low quality and usage. The main page was edited once in 2009, once in 2010 and twice in 2011 until I added the MfD template. The text on the main page and also on the selected article it displays is very poor, unreferenced and needing a lot of work to bring it up to the standard of the main space article.
- You might ask, if it so little visited and edited, why bother with it? Why not leave it to gather dust? The problem for me is that there are very many links from key articles via the {{Portal|Wicca}} template that appears on many of them. Now some of the mainspace articles are very good, and I don't think the portal stands comparison with them. But rather than going through each article and deleting the portal template, I'd prefer to get a view in principle about the portal and its viability. I will post a neutral notice about this MfD at the relevant Wikiproject and also on the talk page of anyone who has edited the portal within the last three years. Kim Dent-Brown (Talk) 21:07, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
- Delete unmaintained portal with few to no links. Ten Pound Hammer • ( What did I screw up now?) 02:52, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
- Delete per nominator; the page adds absolutely no value to someone desiring to learn about the religion and that isn't likely to change. More broadly, I have never been clear on the role of the portal namespace. The name "portal" suggests that readers will find the page first and use it as a gateway, but I've never seen a Wikipedia portal pop up in my search engine results. They are easy enough to locate via internal links, but in general even the best of them are not a priority to the community; the number of featured portals makes that clear. Who uses these pages?--~ T P W 12:35, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
- I agree. Portals seem to be found only through the little tiny side-box at the bottom, and they don't turn up in search engines. They're near impossible to find, and almost every Portal I've seen has been untouched for years. Ten Pound Hammer • ( What did I screw up now?) 19:26, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
- Comment – Portals actually do turn up in search engines. Here's an example for the Wikipedia Ecology portal, typing "Ecology Portal" in Google, in which it's the first result: [1]. It's a little exaggerated to state that none of them turn up in search engines, when they actually do. Northamerica1000 (talk) 00:00, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
- True, but is it possible to find portals by a Google search that doesn't include the word "portal"? The fact that these pages are called "portals" in Wikipedia-speak isn't necessarily known to the general public. -- Metropolitan90 (talk) 09:14, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
- Keep. There are over 100 links to this portal, and while the portal need a little work, there is no valid reason to delete it. Not being very familiar with wicca myself, I can say it was very useful in getting a brief overview of the topic. Portals don't always need to be "touched" or worked on for years if they are designed well. This one just needs a little tweaking to be in this category. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 05:23, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
- The thing is that not being very familiar with Wicca, you won't realise that the brief overview it gives you is very inaccurate and poorly written! You get a much fuller and more balanced overview of Wicca by looking at
the article than you do by looking at this portal. The 100+ links to the portal are almost all from the {{Portal|Wicca}} template on many articles; I don't think it says anything about the credibility of the portal, more about article drafters copying categories, portals and 'see alsos' from one article to another. I fear this portal does need more than a little work, and a little tweaking will not suffice because it is not in fact designed well.
Kim Dent-Brown
(Talk) 11:53, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
- I never said it was designed well, just that it gave me a decent overview. It certainly needs to be brought inline with the recommended guidelines for length of entries, and it definitely needs to be better organized. However, those are fairly simple changes, and whether it's similar to the wicca template or not is really irrelevant. Portal links often overlap those found in navbox templates covering a similar or the same topic. ··· 日本穣 ? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 22:41, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
- The thing is that not being very familiar with Wicca, you won't realise that the brief overview it gives you is very inaccurate and poorly written! You get a much fuller and more balanced overview of Wicca by looking at
the article than you do by looking at this portal. The 100+ links to the portal are almost all from the {{Portal|Wicca}} template on many articles; I don't think it says anything about the credibility of the portal, more about article drafters copying categories, portals and 'see alsos' from one article to another. I fear this portal does need more than a little work, and a little tweaking will not suffice because it is not in fact designed well.
Kim Dent-Brown
(Talk) 11:53, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
- Delete per nominator and TPW. It hasn't been significantly edited since 2008. -- Klein zach 14:09, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
- Keep; I would much rather see the portal updated by a knowledgeable Wikipedian than deleted. —Entropy ( T/ C) 21:15, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
- Delete. I would also much rather see the portal updated and maintained, but that just isn't happening. bd2412 T 17:45, 23 November 2011 (UTC)
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.