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*Nb. The ] was closed with a '''keep''' result. <span class="smallcaps" style="font-variant:small-caps;">]<sup>]</sup></span> 08:19, 19 July 2019 (UTC) *Nb. The ] was closed with a '''keep''' result. <span class="smallcaps" style="font-variant:small-caps;">]<sup>]</sup></span> 08:19, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

== Removal of portal links after deletion ==

On 30 July 2019 (UTC), ] was deleted per the discussion at ]. Firstly, I entirely understand why the portal was deleted, particularly per it not having been updated and not having much content. Regarding page views, it's possible that the portal didn't receive many page views because there wasn't much content for readers to go back to see from time-to-time, but I digress.

Part of the nominator's deletion rationale stated, "this portal should be deleted without prejudice to re-creating a portal maintained by a volunteer..." (et al.). By inadvertently clicking on the "contribs" button of an !voter at the discussion, I noticed that shortly after the portal was deleted, the user has removed many portal links to the Vermont portal. When a portal is deleted, the portal links simply go blank on pages, so it's not particularly necessary for them to be quickly removed.

The topic itself (Vermont) meets ] in terms of being broad enough in scope to qualify for a portal, so I find it concerning that many links to it have been quickly removed. If anyone were to re-create a new, updated, maintained Vermont portal, the removal of the links to it simply creates a bunch of unnecessary extra work that will need to be redone. Also, if the portal were to be recreated, and the links are not re-added, it could naturally lead to lesser page views, which could then lead to a vicious circle of it again qualifying for deletion per low page views.

Interested in other's thoughts about this matter. Should links for portals that meet WP:POG's broadness criteria remain in place when said portals are deleted? I think they should. Cheers, <span class="smallcaps" style="font-variant:small-caps;">]<sup>]</sup></span> 08:02, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Revision as of 08:02, 31 July 2019

WikiProject Portals Talk Pages


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To discuss work on the portals, and project administration, including policy issues.


Portal Design
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Existing and potential portal design features and support tools. Technical stuff.


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General portal topics and announcements that don't fit elsewhere

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WikiProject iconPortals  
WikiProject iconThis page is within the scope of WikiProject Portals, a collaborative effort to improve portals on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PortalsWikipedia:WikiProject PortalsTemplate:WikiProject PortalsPortals
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See also: List of Portals

This is the talk page for discussing WikiProject Portals and anything related to its purposes and tasks.
Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15Auto-archiving period: 30 days 


General discussion threads

This section is for all other general discussions that don't fit elsewhere.

Concerning portal guidelines and topic minimums (eom)

Guideline discussions announcement

Proposal to shut down or reform this WikiProject

The discussion has been closed and archived to Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive307
This section is transcluded from Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive307. (edit | history)

I know, me proposing shutting down a WikiProject I'm in? What am I thinking?

Well, I mainly joined to make sure things would go smoothly after that RfC to delete all portals - clearly it has not. As thus, I think a solution (among the others) would be to shut down the WikiProject responsible for many of the bad portal creations. Right now it appears all its doing is creating new portals, not maintaining or improving them - which is what a WikiProject is supposed to do.

However, a less extreme solution would be to reform the project to actually maintain and improve the portals it creates, and creates portals sparingly. I'm fairly certain a task force making sure portals meet standards would be beneficial to the issue, and also making it clear that not everything needs a portal.

I'm going for the latter option to reform - however, I'm going to leave the shutdown option up in the air in case people find good reason for it to be considered.


Addendum 13:48, 15 March 2019 (UTC) - Since I forgot to clarify (trout Self-trout) here's two examples of reforms I could see being useful:

  • A quality scale for portals, like we use for articles - this could help with knowing which portals are good and which ones need improvement
  • Dividing the Project into task forces to make sure necessary tasks for the maintenance of portals are completed, as right now they clearly are not
  • Sub-reform for this would be to make a task force that deletes bad portals that don't meet quality standards and are not needed

Hopefully this can help clarify this proposal somewhat - if none of these can be done reasonably (which I doubt they can't) the shutdown option should be considered.

Kirbanzo 23:01, 14 March 2019 (UTC)


Survey on sub-proposal to shut down WikiProject Portals

SNOW No
There is a strong WP:SNOW consensus against shutting down WikiProject Portals. (involved close) — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 15:39, 20 March 2019 (UTC) (non-admin closure)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Widely misleading arguments. This is a widely advertised and widely participated discussion. It came from a VPR discussion, linked from the very beginning. There are far more non-Admins than Admins involved here. Try to stick to facts. Legacypac (talk) 23:23, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Support opposed to portals, they harvest legitimate contributions yet the creators expect them to be automatically protected as legitimate contributions and outside of normal guidance on creation. There are cadres of users who think this is what[REDACTED] is about, or at least it is a way of making a big splash without knowing anything but how to tweak code (and then wikilawyer when challenged). cygnis insignis 06:10, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose Punishing a whole community for the actions of one person is not reasonable. WaggersTALK 16:49, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose per above. It's getting cold out... SemiHypercube 16:52, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose In the grand scheme of things I'd like to see portals deprecated, but doing so is not where the community is at right now. If there is consensus to keep portals, having a wikiproject to maintain them seems like a good idea. I also feel cold... Wugapodes 06:47, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Survey on sub-proposal to reform WikiProject Portals

  • This is related to the discussion as the WikiProject is headed by the user being discussed here. Kirbanzo 13:48, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
    • Wikprojects are a collection of editors, not just one person. There is no evidence presented that there is any admin action required regarding the WikiProject as a whole collectively (not that I can immediately think of what that action could look like if it were), and there isn't even consensus that admin action regarding the single editor is required. Thryduulf (talk) 13:57, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Support. I’ve been doing some reform work of this type by creating a page to clean up some of the damage done to the older portals. WikiProject Portals has an assessment page but I’m not sure how much it gets used. — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 19:49, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
    • It took quite a lot of discussion to form a consensus for those assessment criteria. Any portals would need to be evaluated against them to ensure they meet at least minimal quality standards (not including the other criteria in the portal guidelines). It will take a while to go through all of the portals and rate them on the quality scale, and that is one of our backlog tasks. — AfroThundr 19:48, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Support in theory. It makes more sense than the above "I disagree with you so I will try to just erase you" bullshit. However, it's not at all clear that the wikiproject, as such, needs any "reform"; rather, some specific decisions and actions taken by its participants have turned out to be controversial, and the community will discuss that (hopefully in a more sensible venue like WP:VPPOL), and the wikiprojects should abide by the result of that process. We don't have any indication this would not happen, so there isn't actually a "reform" to perform, nor is there yet any consensus of what form that should take anyway. Some people here seem to be under the impression that WP is going to come out against portals; others that it'll be against automated portals; others that it'll be against portals on minor topics (and sub-sub-sub-topics) that people aren't likely to seek a portal for; others that nothing is actual broken; others that .... There isn't a single direction of "reform" being proposed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:03, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose The way to reform a project is to get involved with it. We've already had multiple discussions about how the project should be structured and how it should operate on the project pages themselves, and further suggestions there are always welcome. But proposing "reform" without specifying what particular changes are being suggested isn't exactly helpful. WaggersTALK 16:53, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
Exactly right, Waggers, exactly right. You've hit the nail on the head. ~Swarm~ {talk} 18:22, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
But is you see little need for portals why get involved? Legacypac (talk) 23:18, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
Nominating hundreds of portals for deletion is getting involved. If you see little need for them then fine, live and let live, they're not doing you any harm. The community has decided to keep portals, so either you respect that consensus and ignore them, or you respect that consensus and get involved with resolving whatever problem you have with them. WaggersTALK 12:58, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Qualified support. The current project is far from perfect but it's hard to give unqualified support without a statement of specific reforms. We don't want thousands more portals, but last year's RfC shows that it would be equally inappropriate to "reform" into WikiProject Nuke All Portals From Orbit. I removed my name from the project's roster when portal creation grew rapidly. Since then I have done some maintenance but I see little point in improving pages that other editors are working so hard to delete. I could rejoin a project that combined improved existing portals with the right blend of identifying poor, narrow portals for deletion and creating portals in small numbers where clear gaps exist. Certes (talk) 13:32, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Qualified support per @Certes:. As a participant in the Portal project, I would encourage them to adopt a more rigorous process for creating new portals, including qualifying criteria, and also for the maintenance of portals by the relevant project members. I'm disappointed that, while this discussion is going on, at least one portal that I help with has been nominated for deletion (it's not one of the automated portals created by TTH which is subject of a deletion nom that I support). Bermicourt (talk) 11:45, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Discussion on proposal to reform WikiProject Portals

  • Transcluded to Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Portals. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 23:36, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
  • No, do not transclude important discussions from AN to the relevant talkpage. Hold the discussion on the relevant talk page. Transclude to here is there is good reason, which there is not. Holding hte discussion here means watchlisting it doesn't work, and it wont be archived in the right place. Shutting down a WikiProject is not in scope for WP:AN. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:20, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
  • The Portals Wikiproject members can't even come up with a proper new guideline for what topics get a portal even when faced with a village pump imposed moratorium. The discussion is all over the place with no focus. Heck they did not even follow their old guideline about picking subjects broud enough to gain reader and editor interest. The only thing they appear to agree on is MORE MORE MORE and using WP:VITAL as a to do list. Their newsletter said they are pushing to 10,000 portals (off a base of 1500 old line portals). Now the number of portals will shrink until and unless they get new guidelines passed by an RFC. Legacypac (talk) 09:57, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
  • That old guideline wasn't generally followed, ever. That's because portals (except those on the main page) get about 1 to 3 percent of the amount of traffic that their corresponding root articles get. In other words, "not a lot". That's because almost all their traffic comes via WP internal links. Almost nobody googles "Portal". So, for the vast majority of topics, large numbers of readers and editors will never be forthcoming, and never were. Out of the 1500 portals, about 100 had maintainers (maintained by around 60 editors), and maybe 20% of them regularly edited the portals they maintained.
The WikiProject, and the community, need feedback in the form of hard numbers, in order to get a sense of what will even get used. How hard would it be to make a chart listing all the portals in one column, and their page views for the past month in the second column, and then sort the chart by the second column? That might provide some insight.    — The Transhumanist   11:05, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Sigh. :TTH, you had this data already. You know that portal pageviews are miniscule. At the RFC on deleting the portal namespace, stats were posted on pageviews, and not even all the portals linked from the front page had decent viewing rates.
Yet despite knowing all that, you personally created thousands of new portals, despite having all the evidence in front of you that they are useless.
And when I presented the evidence to you again, and asked you to desist, you were furious. Instead of assessing the issues, you posted multi-screenfull unfocused ramblings replete with shouts of "bias", "personal attack" etc.
The problem is not any shortage of information. The problem is that as @Legacypac notes above, the discussions in the WikiProject have no focus, no regard for available evidence, and no respect for community consensus.
Legacypac and usually disagree, but in this case we see exactly the same problem: a WikiProject which has a long and sustained track record of being utterly incapable of acting responsibly wrt the page within its purview.
This is not solely TTH's doing. TTH bears by far the highest responsibility because TTH has been both the most prolific creator and the most angry objector to calls for restraint, but several other regulars at WikiProject Portals have been equally unfocused and equally bonkers. For example:
So the community simply cannot rely on this group to set and uphold resposnsible guidelines. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:53, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
@BrownHairedGirl: I make the proposal 5. And it was a proposal. I Support a reform in WikiProject Portals. My idea is the existence of approximately 1000(level 3) single page portals layout, directly linked in tree model with the main page. The role of the wikiproject should be to organize this tree and develop tools to transform all portals into single-page layout portals.Guilherme Burn (talk) 12:11, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
@Guilherme Burn, no technical diversions. My point is not about how the portals operate; it's about their scope. And 20 pages is insanely narrow. A 20-page portal is just an bloated navbox. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:36, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
@BrownHairedGirl: I'm trying to figure out how you've come to the conclusion that WPPORT completely ignores evidence and consensus. The project discussions I've participated in have been rational and reasonable, and far from unfocused. Also, please try not to conflate individual editors' behavior with the project as a whole. I've seen no evidence that the WikiProject has acted irresponsibly regarding the Portal system. If you're referring to the several thousand new portals created by TTH, you should keep in mind that WikiProjects don't have any actual authority to dictate who can and can't create something (even if we were opposed to creating new portals). That's what guidelines are for.
We've been working to develop updated criteria for the Portal guidelines since November (rebooted from even earlier discussions in April) - which you already know, since you've participated as well. We're still working on the guidelines so that we have better, more concrete criteria to judge new and existing portals against (and which would make MfD easier for those that fail). Once we've developed consensus on these, they can be applied to the namespace to fix the portals that can be fixed, and remove the ones that can't (new or old). (Side note: Anyone with input or ideas is welcome to participate at WT:PORTG.)
Actions in the Portal namespace itself (for most of us, it seems) has mostly been technical fixes and tweaks to our tools. Also, your not agreeing with particular proposals does not make those proposing them irresponsible or incompetent. Talk pages are a place to discuss new ideas so that we can find the benefits and drawbacks of each. If we constantly had to worry about being labeled as irresponsible or incompetent for suggesting something, we'd never have any new ideas or get anything done. I've made plenty of suggestions that didn't pan out later, as I'm sure you have, and everyone else here. That's how we learn what works and what doesn't and build a better encyclopedia. In the end, that's what we're all here for right? — AfroThundr 19:48, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
@AfroThundr3007730: that's not at all how it looks from outside.
  1. Last year, the project began developing automated portals, whose advocates claimed need little or no curation. No attempt was made to hold an RFC to determine whether the community found these automated portals to be a worthwhile addition. (I think I see an emerging consensus that they are not useful, or maybe useful only in some curcumstances)
  2. Following the WP:ENDPORTALS RFC which decided not to actually delete the whole portal namespace, the project decided to massively expand the number of portals, despite the clear evidence at RFC that many editors wanted fewer portals. At no point did the project initiate an RFC to establish whether there was a community consensus for the project's enthusiasm to bizarrely interpret "don't TNT the lot" as "create thousands more".
  3. You are right that a WikiProject has no powers of restraint on an individual editor. However, the project does have an ability to watch what is done, and to act a venue to monitor inappropriate creations, and to initiate cleanup as needed. I see no sign at all that the project has done any of that ... and on the contrary, when outsiders have challenged TTH's sprees of portalspam, other project members have rallied to TTH's defence.
  4. Even now, as a cleanup is underway, I see next to no assistance from project members. V few even comment in the MFDs. For example, take the most extreme case so far: MFD Portal:University of Fort Hare, an utterly absurd creation for which there exists precisely zero relevant selected articles ... yet none of the project regulars is visible.
    In my view, a WikiProject which shows zero interest in removing inappropriate pages within its scope is dysfunctionally irresponsible.
  5. The project's efforts to develop guidelines have been exceptionally poor. The discussions have been rambling and unfocused, with a persistent failure to distinguish between factors such as technical ability to create, availability of editors to maintain and monitor, actual usage data, etc.
  6. Above all, none of the proposals has been put to an RFC to gauge community consensus, so the guideline discussion have effectively been the work of a small group of editors who are united by a common desire to massively increase the number of automated portals.
  7. The result of this failure has been a walled garden of thousands of micro-portals, sustained only by the enthusiasm of the portal project ... and the absolutely inevitable massive shitstorm at the village pump.
What this needs now is a structured RFC, which brings together some or all of the proposals made at the project, adds proposals from outside the project, and seeks a community consensus. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:18, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Single-page layout portals are dead?

I would like to convert some abandoned portals to the Single-page layout. But first I'd like to know.

Single-page layout are dead? Is there still interested editors in this?

Why portals that I improved using Single-page layout tools like Portal:Martial arts and Portal:Human sexuality went summarily reverted to the old worst versions?Guilherme Burn (talk) 17:08, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

I am still interested in improving single-page portals but am waiting to see which ones survive before resuming work. Certes (talk) 17:57, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
Some of the better portals are single page ones but, like Certes, I'm waiting to see where we stand when the dust settles on portal creation/deletion. Bermicourt (talk) 18:29, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
For the future. ..if any the {{Transclude random excerpt}} family of Temps will be the way forward.--Moxy 🍁 02:39, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I think as stated, your generic question needs to go to the broader community. As you know there is currently a strong preference for multi-page portals (only 36 of the 961 portals are single-page); perhaps all single-page portals are now permanently tainted by the mass creations (though I note a number of single-pagers have survived MfD: Portal:Andes, Portal:Sex work, Portal:Volleyball, Portal:Wind power, etc.). I think if there is broad talkpage consensus on a portal-by-portal basis that a subject's single page portal is superior to the current multi-page version, I for one would not have an issue with the conversion of an existing multi-page portal to single-page; the problem from before was that apparently no editors interested in a subject were consulted before the subject's portal was converted to single-page, and this should never happen again. UnitedStatesian (talk) 03:53, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
The only way forward be it on one page or with subpages is via transclusion as portals with the old style copy paste are now being deleted for copyright vios (i.e Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Military of the United States). There won't be much left when the deletion board people are done...but transclusion can save some I would image.--Moxy 🍁 04:06, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
The sub-pages in that portal had (probably) been copied without attribution so that doesn't say anything about pages copied with attribution. Note: WP:CWW says "pages that contain unattributed text do not normally need to be deleted". DexDor 12:07, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Attribution was never given in any portal it was implied because it's actually a snippet of the page in question....just a new deletion reason with no merit....like page views that they calculate after portals are no longer seen in mobile view. Can't do much at a noticeboard that most editors avoid on purpose.--Moxy 🍁 21:30, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
There's nothing at CWW saying that portal subpages are an exception to attribution rules - although it does appear harsh to just delete such pages (or even the whole portal) on that basis. DexDor 05:23, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
Yup harsh is right ..Zero effort to help from them..would be so easy to replace the sub-page with a transclusion..or add attribution as we normally do in article as per WP:RIA "pages that contain unattributed text do not normally need to be deleted. Attribution can be belatedly supplied". Again that said its clear they are currently dead as a concept because of lack of communiinterestest and the fact deletion happens so fast 6-7 days. We need to develop real guidelines so the next generation and deletors have better guidance....need to empower both sides with real guidelines over vague wording from over ten years ago. --Moxy 🍁 01:26, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
Not only harsh, but counter-productive. Replacement by transclusions solves the problem better. Theoretically, portals like these might have been produced by prefixing the excerpt templates with subst:, and use of subst: elsewhere doesn't trigger deletion for CWW. Certes (talk) 06:13, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Honestly, analyzing the discussions in the MFD, in WP:POG and the pageviews I think more and more that the format of "content portals" has no future, let's be honest, even main page portals are abandoned by wikiprojects, are redundant with articles and have low indices of views. The future may be in portals of utilities like Portal:Current events, Portal:Contents and Portal:Featured content. We can think of single page portals that instead of providing content provide utility, such as Portal:Did you know or Portal:Welcome (for beginners), etc.Guilherme Burn (talk) 13:35, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

And why do those "utility portals" need to be in a completely separate namespace? Why not just Current events, Misplaced Pages:Contents, and Misplaced Pages:Featured content? UnitedStatesian (talk) 03:32, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
Many other language wikipedias (even those that have a portal namespace) don't use portal namespace for such pages - e.g. dk:Misplaced Pages:Aktuelle begivenheder. DexDor 05:01, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Comment 1 - Portal:Climbing was a newly created portal, virtually a single-page portal that presents good layout ideas.Guilherme Burn (talk) 14:07, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Comment 2 - I propose to merge Portal:Women's association football into Portal:Association football, if approved may be an opportunity to convert the second into a new single-page portal. You agree? Guilherme Burn (talk) 14:07, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Sorry to say but no one left here from the project to help or comment as the project has been overwhelmed by deletionist . I would say go a head but most likely will still be deleted best move on to other endeavors.--Moxy 🍁 21:29, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Portal DYKs

I have become so weary, stressed and depressed over the seemingly implacable drive to delete portals that I have withdrawn from participating in MfD for the sake of my mental health, but responding to a recent ping I found that a new argument has emerged re portal DYKs. I've put some notes under Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:University of Houston but don't intend to pursue this further. Best of luck, Espresso Addict (talk) 01:20, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't blame you as I have felt the same way. Sadly our withdrawal from the project is just what the deletionists want. Bermicourt (talk) 06:18, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
I agree with the notion that the DYK section in portals is fine and perfectly functional as a means to highlight interesting factoids and facts. At MfD, there's been an unfortunate synthesis of policy to apply DYK content as it applies to Main page to portals (see Misplaced Pages:Did you know); portals are not Main page. One of the first things I read when reading portals is the DYK content, when present. DYK sections in portals increases their overall scope, making them more comprehensive, and also makes them more interesting for Misplaced Pages's WP:READERS. North America 16:03, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
I enjoy browsing old DYKs too; they have always seemed a strength of the old-style portals, not a weakness. As an aside, readers here might be interested in the broken tooltips saga (these are the reader previews that are alleged to make portals redundant); see my further remark in the Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:University of Houston. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:13, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Ditto all the above, it's difficult to keep morale up when faced with a determined deletionist onslaught (which generates it's own self perpetuating pile-on). Illegitimi non carborundum I say. I know that I'm risking the indignation of the usual suspects with this post. Interesting point about the Broken Tooltips Espresso Addict, the existence of which is a major deletion rationale of more recent MFD's, to the point of becoming a broken record. It's also interesting to note that logged-in users do not have the same luxury it would seem. You're either an "editor" or a "reader" apparently, which is just bollocks.--Cactus.man ✍ 22:25, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
@Cactus.man: I don't know why MfD nominators don't stick with just "fails to meet portal guidelines; not substantially updated since ". Those who favour deletion of all/most portals would still vote to delete, those who favour retention would still have to demonstrate that the rationale was unfounded, and the repeated weight of the heaped up deletion rationales would not feel so oppressive.
And good point that editors overlap strongly with readers. I can never leave this place behind because I use it every day as a reader even when I'm trying to quit the editing addiction, and I never log out because my password is so strong I can't type it accurately. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:33, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Espresso Addict, well, given the history of this MFD storm and slowly changing deletion rationales by nominators, I think it's case of moving the goalposts to match one's deletionist agenda, whether they're real and valid goalposts or not. Who can really score a goal through imaginary goalposts anyway, "Hmm, isn't it" (Fast Show reference).
Good to meet a fellow reader, BTW :) --Cactus.man ✍ 00:36, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
My OH (who doesn't edit) has been talking about boiling frogs... Espresso Addict (talk) 00:46, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
I use a separate Firefox profile for editing Misplaced Pages. Visiting Misplaced Pages just to read happens on my normal profile where I'm not logged in and see tooltips, but I expect that many editors rarely see pages as a reader would. I did make a systematic attempt to improve portal DYKs but I too feel discouraged from editing portals which will be deleted. Indeed, I left Misplaced Pages entirely for several weeks at the height of the argument. I have to agree that the goalposts have moved. Portal:Donald Trump was once used as the example of a portal everyone agreed would never be deleted. Now it's gone, and and it is being proposed with a straight face that keeping just eight of the 1500 900 portals meets the consensus not to ENDPORTALS. Certes (talk) 07:34, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Sorry you feel this way. Do you really think the system of portals was working? Who agreed that Portal:Donald Trump would never be deleted? I never saw that assertion.
I think Portals need a major renovation. I regret that auto-portals were such a bad idea. I wish we could discuss it seriously, patiently, and not at MfD. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:43, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
That was probably my fault. As I recall, I essentially dared folk to nominate it for deletion, anticipating storms of protest, and someone took me up on it; checking I see it was you, SmokeyJoe. I think the discussion revolved around BLP issues and potential for PoV pushing, which is not unreasonable. Espresso Addict (talk) 06:30, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
I had, despite my intentions to avoid all Portal MfDs, got involved in Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Narendra Modi, where I see I was alone with my argument to archive not delete. Narendra Modi has POV-attractiveness issues, leader of a billion people and almost revered by most of the educated. Then someone, User:Pldx1, brought up Portal:Donald Trump with what I read as a sarcastic challenge, and I looked and saw a serious possible challenge: Portal:Donald Trump listed a series of FA articles that looked like bias to DT criticisms. I felt that reflected editor bias, I think Wikipedians on average differ from the average American in their attitude to trump. In contrast, the Donald Trump did not prominently list the select FA critical articles. In an article, Misplaced Pages can defend accusations of bias by saying article content reflects the best quality sources. In portals, there is no anchoring to sources. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:44, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
Well, there is anchoring to sources, via the article (history), but it can take a bit of finding if the source has since been deleted from the article. The notion that a complete list of Misplaced Pages FAs on a topic might constitute a BLP violation is an interesting one, and for once I mean that non-ironically. (The portal list was actually a mirror of the Wikiproject, which still exists, if you want to pursue it further.) Espresso Addict (talk) 08:07, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
The listing of Trump associated FA articles is a bit of a POV issue, a completely understandable Wikipedian bias for the best wikipedians (FA developers) to work on articles they think are important. Not a BLP violation. The BLP issue was that the Portal subpages could be attacked without people noticing, a hypothetical, but one that I think would be worse if the Portal had more reader exposure. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:23, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
I can't see that as a deletion rationale. Surely we could protect them proactively, instead. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:17, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
Protection, to protect content fork snippets from BLP attacks? That’s an idea, a little contrary to not creating barriers to newcomers. I thought article excerpt transclusions was a better idea, but the rushed mass implementation caused that to blow up. Tentatively going back to that idea ... I think content excerpt need to be much briefer, like one sentence, like what we have on DAB pages, and that choices of what to link and excerpt should be based on categorisation trees, not article quality. Choosing by article quality introduces Wikipedian bias. Choosing the best quality articles doesn’t expose readers to content that they are tempted to fix and improve. I think there is too much overlap between Portal look and WikiProject front page look. I think there is merit in the style of WP:Outlines, although they are not good as they are. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:30, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
We still have the option of replacing copied wikitext by transclusion templates. I don't think that particular use of automation is being used as a deletion rationale, and portals use plenty of other templates without adverse comment. Certes (talk) 07:46, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Yes, indeed, I was quite sarcastic when having the impression that some people would use different criteria for keeping/deleting Portal:Narendra Modi and keeping/deleting Portal:Donald Trump. At 10:13, 3 May 2019 (UTC), the former was a sea of red links (due to a simple resurrection after a long sleeping period as a redirect) while the later was "slightly outdated" to tell it mildly. The ensuing discussions have at least resulted into having the same arguments and the same result for the two portals. This is surely a good thing. Pldx1 (talk) 08:46, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Template:featured portal

With the recent exclusion of portals tagged with {{featured portal}} I don't see sense in keeping the old featured portals with this template.Guilherme Burn (talk) 19:57, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

The historical reference function can best be fulfilled by Template:WikiProject PortalsGuilherme Burn (talk) 22:00, 5 July 2019 (UTC).
I'd oppose this. It states that the portal was peer reviewed in the past, and forms a visual reminder to MfD nominators & participants, most of whom would not look at the portal's talk page. A comparison with de-featured articles is not apt, as these are +/– never targeted for deletion after de-featuring. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:21, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Also Oppose. WHY?? , there's no need to remove information that's relevant to the Portal history.
This is just more absurd deletionist nonsense and superfluous to our encyclopaedic aims. Why don't you go and do some useful work instead of suggesting ideas that would screw up the Portals history?worthwhile for a change. --Cactus.man ✍ 00:48, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
Oppose per Espresso Addict. and yes, per Cactus.man, I agree that no need exists to remove relevant portal history. North America 13:14, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
Maybe the first step to a "new featured portal" is the re-exam of the old one, so I brought it to discussion. I do not understand the irritation in certain comments.Guilherme Burn (talk) 19:10, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
It is the interaction of your suggestion with the ongoing portal deletion efforts that I think is generating irritation. Espresso Addict (talk) 22:13, 6 July 2019 (UTC)
@ Guilherme Burn I have just read your post this evening, and I think it may be directed at my comment? Espresso Addict sums it up perfectly for me. It's a case of extreme irritation that, despite Portal deletion nominations having died down recently to a trickle, there was this sudden outpouring of (IMHO) nonsensical proposals (merge all Portals into subsets of the Portals listed on the mainpage, then your suggested deprecation of the historical marker shown on Portals that were once Featured). Its as if there's nothing else going on right now than needs attention. I got a little bit too riled up, and realise now, with hindsight, that my comment was a bit over-aggressive. I was not intending to suggest that you don't do any other useful work and I apologise if that's how it came across to you. I have re-factored my comment to be a bit less confrontational. Best wishes. --Cactus.man ✍ 18:34, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
It's all right @Cactus.man:;)Guilherme Burn (talk) 12:24, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
Oppose. I'm similarly irritated with the relentless and enormous movement of goal posts here, so don't feel alone User:Cactus.man. There are serious questions which deserve to be raised and fully discussed about portals. This is not one of them. BusterD (talk) 18:53, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
Oppose. for the reasons outlined by Espresso Addict. For the record, I am also irritated by this unconstructive proposal. Voceditenore (talk) 06:10, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Delete. Guilherme Burn is right. We shouldn't be tagging the face of pages by an assessment process which has been discontinued. Portals require regular updating, so a portal which met FP standard two years may be well below that standard now. The best solution would be to tag the talk pages with something like a Template:Former featured portal, so the fact of it being a former FP is recorded .... but it's completely wrong to keep it on the face of the portal. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:08, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Removal of portal links after deletion

On 30 July 2019 (UTC), Portal:Vermont was deleted per the discussion at Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Vermont. Firstly, I entirely understand why the portal was deleted, particularly per it not having been updated and not having much content. Regarding page views, it's possible that the portal didn't receive many page views because there wasn't much content for readers to go back to see from time-to-time, but I digress.

Part of the nominator's deletion rationale stated, "this portal should be deleted without prejudice to re-creating a portal maintained by a volunteer..." (et al.). By inadvertently clicking on the "contribs" button of an !voter at the discussion, I noticed that shortly after the portal was deleted, the user has removed many portal links to the Vermont portal. When a portal is deleted, the portal links simply go blank on pages, so it's not particularly necessary for them to be quickly removed.

The topic itself (Vermont) meets WP:POG in terms of being broad enough in scope to qualify for a portal, so I find it concerning that many links to it have been quickly removed. If anyone were to re-create a new, updated, maintained Vermont portal, the removal of the links to it simply creates a bunch of unnecessary extra work that will need to be redone. Also, if the portal were to be recreated, and the links are not re-added, it could naturally lead to lesser page views, which could then lead to a vicious circle of it again qualifying for deletion per low page views.

Interested in other's thoughts about this matter. Should links for portals that meet WP:POG's broadness criteria remain in place when said portals are deleted? I think they should. Cheers, North America 08:02, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

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