Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Cold War

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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: delete. — JJMC89 (T·C) 04:09, 24 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Cold War

Portal:Cold War (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Abandoned micro-portal.

Created[1] in August 2006‎ by Hires an editor (talk · contribs). It was never automated, but some formatting tweaks were reverted[2] in April 2019‎ by @BusterD in the belief that they were automation. (That seems ti be to be mistaken; they look to me like good cleanup).

Formatting aside, this portal is roughly is it was back in 2006. A few boxes, each with static content: there is no alternative either by a slideshow or by purging the page.

The list of sub-pages at Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Cold War shows a sparse set:

So this portal fails in many ways.

  1. WP:PORTAL says that "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects". But this is massively less useful in every respect than the head article Cold War, with its exceptionally comprehensive navbox {{Cold War}}. For readers who are not logged in (i.e. the vast majority), every link is previewed on mouseover. Try it yourself by right-clicking on {{Cold War}}, select "open in private window" (Firefox) or "open in incognito window" (Chrome), and watch how every one of the 362 links in that navbox gives you a preview.
    Then look at the built-in-slideshow in the head article. Either open a private window for Cold War, or just directly click this link: Kanye West#/media/File:Kanye_West_at_the_2009_Tribeca_Film_Festival.jpg.
  2. WP:POG#How_often_to_update? says that unless automated, the content selection should be updated monthly, or preferably weekly. Even on a monthly cycle, this pseudo-portal has missed over 150 consecutive updates, and it is time to stop wasting the time of readers by luring them to this abandoned draft.
  3. The lead of WP:POG requires portals to be actively maintained. It currently reads bear in mind that portals should be about broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers. Portals which require manual updating are at a greater risk of nomination for deletion if they are not kept up to date. Do not expect other editors to maintain a portal you create.
Similar wording has been i place for over 12 years. The lead of the September 2006‎ version says 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. Do not create a portal if you do not intend to assist in its regular maintenance.
It is very disappointing that some editors continue to misrepresent POG as some sort of licence to litter Wikipedia with abandoned portals, just becuase the scope is broad enough. POG is very clear that scope is a necessary condition, but an insufficient one: the portal must also be maintained.

This is clearly a broad topic, but breadth alone doesn't satisfy the guidelines. WP:POG requires that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers". This has not attracted maintainers.

So I propose that this portal and its sub-pages be deleted per WP:TNT, without prejudice to recreating a curated portal in accordance with whatever criteria the community may have agreed at that time. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:11, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete - As BHG says, a broad subject area is currently defined as a necessary but not sufficient condition to justify a portal. The broad subject area head article has 8,465 daily page views. The portal has 34 daily page views, which is higher than most portals. We are seeing that broad subject areas attract large numbers of interested readers for articles. They do not attract large numbers of interested readers for portals. Maybe nothing does. Maybe we should stop looking for broad subject areas and should conclude that portals may be a hobby for editors who want to maintain them. If so, that further means that the portal platoon's creation of thousands of portals was nonsensical pollution. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:30, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete:
  1. Clearly unused or at least usurped by the MediaWiki preview function as evidenced by the page views.
  2. Lack of curation or working automation has resulted in failure of a portal's stated purpose of being a mini Main Page.
  3. No prejudice against thoughtful recreation with either manual curation or working automated curation to enable the fulfilment of its purpose, as the topic could plausibly be broad enough.
SITH (talk) 11:16, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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.


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