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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. There is no argument that this portal is unmaintained and serving inaccurate information to readers. There is less agreement on what should be done about it, but I feel that there is a strong enough consensus that the portal should be deleted in its current form and recreated in a more maintainable form at such time that there are editors who are committed to maintaining it regularly. ‑Scottywong| [confabulate] || 20:18, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Weather

[edit]
Portal:Weather (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Neglected portal with over 2100 subpages.

Twenty-nine never-updated selected articles created in 2008 through 2010.

Twelve never-updated selected bios. Seven created in 2008, five created in 2009. Like selected articles, no hub for these.

Errors

Mark Schierbecker (talk) 04:28, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep WP:SOFIXIT.--Jasper Deng (talk) 10:41, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - This is a very broad topic with dozens of quality articles to choose from. I do think WP:SOFIXIT applies as the "errors" presented can be updated/fixed through transclusions so they appear on the portal in real time. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:56, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as per User:Mark Schierbecker with high explosives and fire, but without prejudice to a new portal as described below. A jungle of subpages does not necessarily mean that a portal should be kept. It may only mean that one can get lost in it. In the first half of 2019, the portal had an average of |42 pageviews, which is moderate for portals, but is not good compared to 1434 for the head article. (Besides, the viewing of the head article is not the best measure of interest in the topic, because readers don't always look up weather, because they look up specific types of weather.)
    • Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Weather/ leads the unwary (or wary) editor into a maze of subpages, which includes 157 Featured Articles, 42 Featured Lists, 23 Featured Pictures, 382 Good Articles, maybe 366 On this day entries (I didn't count, but it does include Feb 29), maybe 1098 On this day lists (I didn't count, only multiplied 366*3), 32 selected pictures, 13 biographies, and 29 selected articles.
    • The advocates of portals have correctly observed that there is more than enough material to support a portal. There is more than enough material in which big cats can hide, and eat the unwary editor, and in which vandalism goes unnoticed. In its present condition, so fix it isn't feasible, and requires so slash and burn it first.
    • This portal should be deleted in its current form, without prejudice to a new portal that does not use content-forked subpages, and that has a maintenance plan. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:42, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per WP:ATD. UnitedStatesian (talk) 20:10, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete the hundreds-of-subpages portal (as a maintenance nightmare), but allow creation of (or convert to) a better structured portal. DexDor (talk) 21:47, 18 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I probably should stay at least 10' feet away from Portal: namespace deletion discussions, but to me, the usefulness of this portal doesn't really make sense. To my layman's understanding, focusing on high or low pageviews is almost a kind of a red herring...what matters to me is (a) who is maintaining the portal(s) and (b) what sort of maintenance is being done? Sure, Wikipedia notionally has no deadlines, but that to is a bit of a cop out by the "keep" camp. If no one or few people are maintaining the portal, or if the portal is getting only trivial/routine maintenance, then it reflects poorly on the encyclopedia. Non-current or outdated information is arguably worse whether something gets pageviews or meets WP:GNG. Thus, for me, those are all side issues worth considering, but the crux of the matter, if no one's bothering to maintain something beyond updating categories, replacing and updating tags, and other routine maintenance, then turf it. As BrownHairedGirl has demonstrated, editors, and even administrators, as I understand it, have automated or semi-automated scripts and tools that can create well-designed (or poorly-designed, as the case may be) portals in mere minutes, so there is no harm in deleting it without prejudice to letting someone try again later. On that note, it seems to me that we need some sort of WikiPortal Council that has the power to declare portals inactive and subject to removal after a period of time—just like the WikiProjects. This way, anyone could still create a portal and we should make the process simple and non-bureaucratic, since Wikipedia is notionally "not a bureaucracy," but we should require someone to demonstrate they've got a small team (at least a few people) of humans irrespective of how many bots and scripts they have to maintain it on a regular basis. Doug Mehus T·C 02:49, 20 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Doug Mehus Pageviews are an important metric for measuring reader and editor interest in a portal, and if the topic is broad enough to warrant a portal. If a portal has low views (say under 100), history has shown innumerable times it will end up being abandoned by editors because why would they want to maintain a fluff addition to Wikipedia essentially no one reads compared to head articles of vastly higher quality and viewership? I don't have a link, but this dovetails nicely with @Britishfinance's theory of the "rational abandonment" of portals by editors and readers. Newshunter12 (talk) 16:32, 20 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Newshunter12: Okay, fair enough. So, in a essence, pageviews are a leading indicator to a probable deletion based on historical trends. Editors see low pageviews, so they don't put much effort into the portal. That said, I noticed Portal:Banks is a bot-maintained portal that has a heavy European bank biased preference to selected articles and, personally, I wouldn't use that portal despite its recent edits and creation (or re-creation, as seems to be the case). BrownHairedGirl, have any thoughts on Portal:Banks?Doug Mehus T·C 16:39, 20 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Doug Mehus Correct. It's also a big problem that most portals were created in momentary bursts of enthusiasm by a single editor who soon moved on after creation, since that was the easy and fun part, and any future contributing editors saw the combination of low pageviews and incredibly often sheer brokenness of these portals, and abandoned them to. Newshunter12 (talk) 16:54, 20 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Per nom and Dmehus, which I think gets to the core issue. An abandoned/unmaintained portal is a problem and depreciates WP in the eyes of the reader (e.g. would be keep the main page if its last edit was 7 years ago); and as Doug Mehus point outs, a bot-driven portal is an easy thing to re-create if human maintainers step forward to look after it. Britishfinance (talk) 10:36, 20 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per the nom and Doug Mehus. Decade long abandoned portal with a massive, unworkable set of sub-pages. Portals stand or fall on their merits in the now, not what could someday hypothetically happen with them, and this one falls flat. That a great new or refurbished portal could be made about this topic one day is pure WP:CRYSTALBALL, unsupported by the decade of abandonment of this portal. Newshunter12 (talk) 16:32, 20 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep SOFIXIT, just as Jasper and Knowledgekid already said. Lepricavark (talk) 06:29, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. But the core problem we see at portal MfDs, is that maintainers/topic enthusiasts/WikiProjects never appear to FIXIT – outside of mass-updates across a range of portals by a non-maintainer/non-topic enthusiast/non-WikiProject, these things aren't touched? As Dmehus notes above, they can be easily recreated if maintainers/topic enthusiasts/WikiProjects appear to FIXIT, however, in the meantime, abandoned portals depreciate WP in the eyes of the reader. Britishfinance (talk) 11:32, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is a personal opinion to say abandoned portals depreciate WP in the eyes of the reader and has no basis in fact. Deletion should be a last resort measure, I have seen no efforts taken to help improve something before throwing it away. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 14:48, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment in reply to Knowledgekid87 I believe this is a misunderstanding of how Wikipedia's decision-making works. Not every deletion discussion must be justified by an established policy since, notionally, consensus can change at any time, which includes deviating from policies. Thus, if the arguments are sound, reasonable, and convincing, virtually anything can justify a deletion or keep decision and we don't need to wave the all-encompassing WP:IAR or WP:NOTBURO policies, either. It's just a matter of whether the arguments are sound and logical. To add to what Britishfinance said, not only can semi-automated scripts and tools re-create these deleted portals when willing maintainers step up to the plate, but we can also, as I understand it, undelete deleted portals. I assume WP:REFUND applies to the Portal: namespace, BrownHairedGirl? This would solve the problem of unmaintained portals and likely satisfy all parties (including those voting "keep" but who do not wish to step up and maintain the thing). Doug Mehus T·C 15:54, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment also in reply to Knowledgekid87, I acknowledge your challenge to my statement, however, having over the last few weeks read through the major RfCs on portals in the community, I do think that a high % of WP editors have a low opinion of portals as a tool? And the low support by editors and readers is also reflective of this? Perhaps, as part of the Scottywong workshop, a couple of "survey questions" should be asked about the existing portal structure from editors? e.g. do you use portals, what is your view of portals (grade 1 to 10), would you ever maintain a portal? etc. Might help? Britishfinance (talk) 16:19, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I mean it cant hurt to take a straw poll. I disagree that all portals have a low opinion as tools though based on the portals that have been kept so far. Having something in place in the form of guidelines is better than nothing at all. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:23, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note to closing admin. I don't want in any way to prejudge the outcome ... but I usually ask that if you close this discussion as delete, please can you not remove the backlinks? I have a bot (BHGbot 4) which allows me to easily replace them with links to the next most specific portal(s), without creating duplicate entries.
In this case I don't see a suitable alternative, so I propose that the backlinks just be deleted. Other suggestions welcome. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:04, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note that there is also a redirect from Portal:Weather & Climate, but no backlinks from reader-facing pages. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:17, 21 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@GreenMeansGo:, respectfully, I'm confused by this comment and !vote. How do you consider there has been no "policy-based deletion reason"? Lack of maintenance, lack of upkeep, low pageviews, and triviality, as I understand it, separately or when conjoined, do very much make a deletion argument valid. Irrespective of this, deletions can occur on solid arguments regardless of established policy. Put another way, if there has been a very solid argument for deletion that isn't specifically identified in a formal policy, deletion can still occur. I'm going to invite Britishfinance in here to peer review this reply, as he or she has contributed to way more XfD discussions than I have. Doug Mehus T·C 20:15, 29 November 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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