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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. This is a tight one - both the "keep" and "delete" sides make some reasonable points, with the fundamental question being whether the content is useful enough to counter concerns over the lack of ongoing maintenance on the portal, risk of vandalism, and the fact that there is very little precedent for portals on individuals. Overall, assessing the balance of arguments as well as the headcount, there is a narrow consensus to delete.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:21, 17 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Donald Trump[edit]

Portal:Donald Trump (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
(Time stamp for bot to properly relist.) Go Phightins! 03:12, 24 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ingrained with WP:NPOV failure throughout. A POVFORK of the article Donald Trump. Barely viewed, it serves no purpose, and it just a project liability. The purpose of Portals was to stimulate interest in Wikipedia topic expansion, and article expansion on this topic is absolutely not a problem due to lack of interest. SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:27, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it obviously is a fork of other Wikipedia pages.
Why POV? Why is it not WP:NPOV compliant? Because it is Wikipedia-editorialisation. The presentation is not external-source based. It gives WP:UNDUE visibility to what Wikipedians think is important. While the forking of the parent article lede, as tranclusions is fine, what follows is not bias-free. What struck me to start with is the listing of Good Articles. Taking a wide-eyed reader perspective, going below the fold, and there is a list Good Article dot points: Crippled America; Impeachment March, Insane Clown President. This listing is out of context, is not reflective of NPOV rules as applied to articles. It instead reflects what Wikipedians think worthy to work on to elevate to Good Article status, it is Wikipedian biased. This is inherently a problem, subject to biases, and unconnected to sourcing as the basis of WP:DUE. If this were intended for editor consumption, it would be ok, but it is not, it is intended for readers.
It is a poor excuse that no real readers read it. What value it has for editors should be moved to WikiProjects, and value there is for readers should be at the parent article. Navigation from the parent article via wikilinking, navigation templates, and the category system, is structurally rigorous, unlike the structure of a portal that reflects editor bias. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:14, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • To clarify after talking to BHG, the POVFORK, NPOV failure argument does not imply any POV pushing or lack of the best good faith by anyone. I see it as deriving entirely from unconscious bias. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:31, 6 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Deferring !vote for more information from other editors. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:18, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - this is better than many/most portals - although still having minor faults (e.g. displaying "{{{1}}}" and currently for me displaying two photos of the same thing next to each other). I'm not convinced the portal (currently) has a POV problem (e.g. it currently includes "Trump has made many false or misleading statements during his campaign and presidency."). The quotes may (I haven't checked) all be quotes by, rather than about, Trump but that may be what any readers of the portal would expect. I think a case could be made to delete all single-person portals (especially for recent/living people), but this MFD nom isn't convincing. DexDor (talk) 07:20, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. This portal shares the basic flaw of most old-style (pre-automated) portals, viz. that it forks the MOS:LEAD of Wikipedia articles to a set of subpages of the portal: Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Donald Trump. Those subpages are unreferenced and under-scrutinised.
The subpages system was set up in good faith as way of building portals, and in most cases it seems that in practice the only significant problems relate to maintenance, as the snippets in the subpages tend to ossify.
However, cases like this illustrate how a portal could be used for POV-pushing purposes, both in the selection of topics and in the wording of the subpages. If a miscreant chose to target the head article Donald Trump, that page has 2600 watchers who will soon revert; but while Portal:Donald Trump doesn't show a count of watchers, the page stats show only 56 editors having edited the page, which is probably similar to the number of watchers. Meanwhile the subpage Portal:Donald Trump/Selected article/1 has been edited by only one editor, so any miscreant wanting to use the portal as an attack vector would likely be undetected if they chose that path.
In Jan–Feb 2019, the portal got only 59 pageviews per day, so there can't be many editors monitoring its output.
It is possible to reduce the vulnerability by automating the creation of excerpts, thereby making subpages redundant and I will now do a demo of that. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:41, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Article subpages bypassed, in this edit[1]. However, that leaves the 14 selected quote pages, the 7 selected picture pages, and the 4 "Did you know" pages as vulnerabilities. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:56, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep – Trump qualifies for a portal as per meeting Wikipedia's Wikipedia:Portal/Guidelines: enough content available about the subject, a broad topic relative to the significance of the subject, and a decent amount of Recognized content. How is this a POV-fork? The content in the portal is rather neutral, and does not come across as hand-picked to present a particular point-of-view. The portal provides an objective overview of the subject and present POTUS. Concerns about page views can be alleviated by adding links to the portal to various related articles, templates and category pages. More links = more visibility, which directly equates to more page views. North America1000 11:09, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • The Portal Guidelines have been characterised as having pariah status. They are a set of instructions for what Portal advocates want to do, and they do not reflect or advance Wikipedia objectives. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:18, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This portal looks good and has been improved to address the criticism made in the nomination. (Further comment withdrawn after noticing that the nominator's criticisms were directed at an old version of the portal.) Certes (talk) 11:22, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Certes: my tweak addressed only part of the vulnerability. As noted above, the 14 selected quote pages, the 7 selected picture pages, and the 4 "Did you know" pages remain as unsourced an probably unwatched pages, vulnerable to attack; and the portal itself is so little watched that a stealthy addition of an inappropriate item to the list of selected articles might go undetected for some time. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:00, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • As with most portals and some other derived content, there are a couple of dilemmas. Do you automate DYK/ITN, or leave a manually created version to rot? Do you worry that a page is likely to deteriorate because no one looks at it, or decide not to worry because no one looks at it? There is a case for "might get vandalised later" becoming a valid deletion rationale, but if so then we should consider an RfC on mass-deleting little-watched pages from all namespaces. Or just pre-emptively protect high-risk pages. Certes (talk) 12:27, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • Certes, you seem to be assuming that the choices are either automation or let it rot. Which is interesting, because as you know WP:POG says that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers". However, this one attracts neither viewers nor -- as you acknowledge -- enough maintainers to avoid the expectation that it will rot.
So basically you are telling us that the available options if we keep the page are both poor, and that we may need to revise protection policy. So you have persuaded me to choose a better option. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:45, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@BrownHairedGirl: You're undoubtedly far more expert than I on protection policy, but with regard to BLPs, I would be prepared to IAR preemptive protection of little-watched subpages on a polarising BLP if that proved necessary. Espresso Addict (talk) 12:59, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The main Trump portal page gets about 50 edits a year and, of course, also changes when transcluded pages are edited. The nominator considers that level of activity as Barely viewed, which I can't really argue with as it's an opinion rather than a fact, so I'm simply commenting on that basis. Certes (talk) 13:07, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Espresso Addict, preemptive protection of little-watched subpages on a polarising BLP if that proved necessary???? If proven necessary, it's not pre-emptive. And once the subpages are protected, maintenance will become even harder.
@Certes, my comment barely viewed is not an opinion, it is a fact. One view of the portal for every 839 views of the head article. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:37, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Well, a valid interpretation of "barely viewed" would be the absolute number of hits, rather than the relative, imo. And maintenance isn't necessarily needed for (1) pages that extract from a dynamic source; (2) images that continue show that they showed; (3) quotations that the subject said and can't retract that fact; (4) main-page DYKs that ran and aren't date sensitive. In this case I doubt getting an admin maintainer would be too tricky. Espresso Addict (talk) 13:50, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to do absolute number of views, I went too look for some obscure topic in upstate NY. I thought I'd look at a ridge on the Erie Canal, but didn't find any, so I took the first school I found: D'Youville College in Buffalo, with 51 pageviews/day. The portal barely exceeds that obscure school.
Some maintenance is needed on subpages, as comments become outdated. And a watching eye is need for vandalism.
The head article is so heavily watched that that it subject to disputes and sanctions; meanwhile with the portal, all we have is an observation that a maintainer would need to be actively recruited ... which just reinforces my point about the POG guidance. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:53, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I've had a couple of discussions where I essentially challenged editors to bring Portal:Donald Trump to MfD; I didn't expect to be taken up on it. Does it meet the current guidelines: clearly yes. The problem with PoV is true for all polarising political figures, but is particularly difficult where the subject is living and doubly so when they are in office and when elections are upcoming. If stealth vandalism is an issue, could we edit-lock the subpages? I'm not sure how major a problem vandalism is on portal subpages in general. I've just gone through all the text subpages of one of my portals, looking at the history, and found literally no vandalism at all over its more than a decade of existence. I'm gonna say this in bold, sorry: If this portal is deleted it is because it is found to pose insuperable problems with PoV pushing/vandalism of a BLP, NOT because it's on a single individual. As portals go, the hits are quite healthy, and as one would expect, very variable (range 21–177 since start of the year)[2]. Espresso Addict (talk) 12:49, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Espresso Addict: you ask Does it meet the current guidelines?, and answer clearly yes.
But as far as I can see, clearly no. See WP:POG, that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers"
  1. The single person Donald Trump is not a "broad subject area". The scale only becomes big by widening the focus onto his whole administration, but a focus on topics that are broadly about him and his career gives us about 100 or 200 pages. In an encyclopedia with nearly 6 million pages, that's narrow.
  2. It demonstrably does not "attract large numbers of interested readers". Your comment on that is qualified by as portals go, which is a bit like describing something as "quite dry, as things in the ocean go".
  3. It also doesn't attract maintainers. Only 8 selected articles? That first-draft levels of maintenance. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:51, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
100 or 200 articles? Wikipedia:WikiProject Donald Trump counts more than 1,000 articles. There were so many articles that Trump's navbox was split into five navboxes a long time ago: generic Trump, business, family, media and presidency. The Trump sidebar includes only articles of greatest importance, based on editorial judgment and breadth of coverage by sources, and even with this severe culling it includes about 100 entries. If there are any arguments for deleting this portal, lack of subject matter is surely not one of them. — JFG talk 18:55, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I admit I didn't actually look at it in detail. Insert comment here that breaks the BLP guidelines. It does seem to have only had 8 selected articles before Transhumanist took it over. But Wikiproject Donald Trump exists, and has tagged more than a thousand articles/&c (though I note there's a lot of categories/redirects in there), and there are >20 project-tagged FA/FL/GAs , so I'd assume that one of the many editors who work in the area of US politics could flesh it out in a flash. Espresso Addict (talk) 14:34, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Espresso Addict: Came here from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics/American politics Now I am sad because you didn't challenge me to nominate this portal because I totally would have. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 20:14, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I was unimpressed by the nomination, and unsure what option to support, but the points made by Certes crystallised my thoughts: this portal just has too many downsides. So despite I think that the nominator is at least pointing in the right direction: this is a delete.
WP:POG says that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers". The narrowness of the topic is self-evident: it covers only one of the 45 holders of a political office, and its scope is elegantly covered by a single navbox: {{Donald Trump}}. WP:PG's warning against narrowness is also supported by the fact that this page attracts neither interested viewers (only 59 views of the portal per day, compared with 49,479 per day for the head article) nor maintainers. We have already deleted dozens of portals on individuals for similar reasons, and should do the same here.
Per WP:PORTAL says that "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects". But with only 8 rotating selected articles and the next one viewable only after purging, this page offers no enhancement of the B-class head article. The head article covers far more topics without needing to refresh the page to view the next one; it has far more pictures; and with the sidebar Template:Donald Trump series and the comprehensive navbox Template:Donald Trump, it provides massively better navigation than the portal.
So as well as being a narrow topic, this portal is redundant. All of its objectives are better served by other pages.
And as a neglected page on a very high-profile person, it is highly vulnerable to attack, a vulnerability which portal advocates tell us can be reduced only by reducing quality, and eliminated only by pre-emptive protection (which policy doesn't allow).
The result is that this portal is all downside with no upside. Time to uphold policy on narrow-topic portals, and also listen to our readers ... and just delete this barely-used fork. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:28, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - This disaster is one of the best possible argument for a whole deletion of the portal space. Keep it absolutely ! I like to see this rationale endorsed (at least partially) by User:DexDor, saying [this one] is better than many/most portals. And I like also the !vote: this portal provides an objective overview of the subject and present POTUS, by User:Northamerica1000. May I respectfully underline that Portal:Donald Trump itself, this would-be best thing ever from the discovery of kimchi, is far from concurring. According to Portal:Donald Trump/Selected article/4, the actual POTUS had to wait until 2017-04-01 before being in charge.Pldx1 (talk) 13:54, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • <joke> Canvassing comment - All of the politically correct people should vote "delete" since Portal:Donald Trump is likely to assert that Trump is the current POTUS even six months after the end of his term. </joke> Pldx1 (talk) 13:54, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks to BHG for fixing that problem by deploying the despised semi-automation tools. That addresses the new points hastily invented after the original deletion rationale was so easily solved. The only argument now left is that one of the most important world figures with his own WikiProject is too narrow a scope. Certes (talk) 15:05, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It often happen that a bad nomination leads to scrutiny of the page, and other issues are discovered which lead to a delete "!vote", just a good nomination may overlook issues which lead to a "keep". It's thoroughly ABF to call the results of that hastily invented, any more than "keep" !votes derived from scrutiny are hastily invented.
Every XFD should scrutinise involve such scrutiny, and smearing it as "invented" is a very nasty way to approach a consensus-building discussion.
And as you know, the original rationale was only partially solved. As I noted above, the portal still draws on 25 subpages, which are attack vectors. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:25, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep – The political ascension of Donald Trump since 2015, and the relentless press coverage of anything related to his person or his presidency, have made him indeed a "broad topic area". The Wikipedia:WikiProject Donald Trump currently tracks more than a thousand articles. While I personally fail to see how portals in general are not redundant to WikiProjects, this particular portal certainly needs to stay around unless all portals are some day obliterated from enwiki. — JFG talk 19:03, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • JFG, what does “Wikipedia:WikiProject Donald Trump currently tracks“ mean by tracks? I think it means “lists”, bot updated, with nearly no one watching. Both the Portal and the WikiProject are moribund, but at least the WikiProject doesn’t pretend to be a useful page for readers. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:45, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      "Tracks" means "maintains a list of". Sure, the list maintenance is automated, so what? My point is that it shows the breadth of coverage of Trump-related topics on enwp, which is an argument to keep portals (having broad subject scope and many articles). — JFG talk 00:33, 6 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      So what? Automated listing somewhere of the current state of affairs is not human editors watching for problems, or looking at trends. I think these tracking tools don't even keep records, they are just the current status. This is not editorial control. it is laissez-faire. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:34, 6 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. When saying Thanks to BHG for fixing that problem by deploying the despised semi-automation tools, User:Certes has proved how wrong BHG was when trying to fix anything in this portal. The usual way of doing of the portal-fans is simply to wait until other people do the job in their stead, rather than doing the job by themselves. And then, they only have to say: better, better, so strike your !vote. They can even add a sarcastic comment about the despised tools. What could be described as semi-automated when replacing a list in a subpage by the same list in the main page? Here is the code: {{Transclude random excerpt | paragraphs=1-3 | files=1 | more= | Trump National Golf Club Westchester | Trump International Hotel and Tower (Chicago) | Donald Trump presidential campaign, 2000 | Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign | Melania Trump | Business career of Donald Trump | Donald Trump (Last Week Tonight) | Trump Tower | }} . Pldx1 (talk) 19:25, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. There isn't a valid reason to have this portal, there are presidents who definitely have done more that a portal would be good for, there is enough work for Wikipedians to deal with Already. - Nolan Perry Yell at me! 22:47, 4 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Honestly, I am starting to think Portals of living people are entirely problematic considering our biography of living persons policy. It's just to risky having these sorts of portals, and I can't really get the thought out of my head that we can't meat WP:BLP in this current system of semi-automation (problematic) or manual subpages (which by some conventions do remove references for better display-- also problematic). –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 02:21, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - not strongly, just does not seem a good fit for WP:POG. Also, implementation seems a bit of work needed ... e.g. Portal topics line doesn’t fit the portal content or look like a great list; listing some GAs seems random rather than selecting interesting topics; listed articles are not in alphabetic order and I noticed at least one duplicate (at Insane clown)... The WikiProject page seems a better choice for now. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 06:26, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yeah, who decides which topics/pages get listed, and in what order? It’s ripe for bias. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:18, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. There is more than enough content, both available and used, to sustain a portal and I see no evidence of any POV problems, and the errors mentioned by others seem to have been fixed. The question of who gets to choose what is displayed in what order is not a reason to delete this more or less than any other portal about any topic that is possibly controversial, as the answer is that, just like like articles, it can be decided by consensus - and there is an active WikiProject that has members from across the political spectrum. It's true that most individuals cannot sustain a portal on their own, but whatever your opinion of Trump it is unarguable that he is not most individuals. Thryduulf (talk) 11:01, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don’t believe that there are many wikipedians who care to be involved in a Trump WikiProject or Portal who don’t care enough either way to be impartial enough to construct a Wikipedia commentary on him while pretending to be neutral. The articles being worked on are not an unbiased selection. Wikipedia should get right out of this business. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:28, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • I note that you believe Wikipedia should get right out of the business of making neutral encyclopaedic content about notable topics available to readers (there is a strong community consensus that portals are part of the encyclopaedia), but could not disagree more. If you disagree that the portal is neutral then you need to discuss that with other editors. Thryduulf (talk) 13:14, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • Largely, neutrality is achieved by tying content, and content weighting, to sources. Portals remove explicit sourcing, and choices of featured and list articles are too disconnected from sourcing. For Portals such as Mathematics, this is not a problem, but for contentious living people, it is. Portals are inherently NPOV weak spots, as well as WP:V weak spots as pointed out by others.
          Portals are part of the encyclopedia? Are you confusing them with Wikipedia:Outlines, which are in mainspace? They are also a nice idea that doesn’t work. Do you mean Portals are part of the encyclopedia as navigation tools, like categories and navigation templates? I think they are not similar, unlike categories and navigation templates, there is no evidence they actually serve navigation, as no one uses them.
          Articles exist for making neutral encyclopaedic content about notable topics available to readers, with explicit sourcing, with core content policies (WP:V, NOR, and NPOV) carefully applied. Portals are a failed experiment. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:28, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
          • While you are entitled to your belief that portals are a failed experiment, the consensus of the community does not support that view. I am not confusing them with outlines or anything else - everything on Wikipedia that is reader facing is part of the encyclopaedia (and some stuff that isn't is too as supporting infrastructure, but that's not relevant to portals). Thryduulf (talk) 15:47, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            @SmokeyJoe: You are arguing convincingly that portals are useless in general. I happen to agree with this opinion, but indeed the community has decided to keep portals alive at this time. If we're going to have any portals at all, then the Trump portal is a legitimate one with broad-enough subject matter: it largely meets current community criteria for any subject to have a portal. — JFG talk 00:38, 6 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
            • Many or most portals are useless, I'll argue that. Main page is a portal that is not useless. Portals Portal:Mathematics, Portal:History, & Portal:Science also have strong merits, and each receives thousands of views per day. The community decided to not delete all portals, a completely expected decision. If all PortalSpace were to be deleted, I would want these preserved, probably in mainspace, like Main page.
              Portal:United States is what I call borderline. Less than 250 views per day. It competes with and detracts from Portal:Society Portal:Politics. It is moderate inherent NPOV, the United States is a moderately emotive subject, adored by some hated by others. The NPOV problem of unconscious bias by the small number of self selected editors who work on it and its associated GS articles is a moderate problem.
              Portal:Donald Trump is a severe NPOV problem. The unconscious bias by the small number of self selected editors who work on it has created with a different skew on the topic than one receives from the article Donald Trump. It is less broad than Portal:United States, and completely within scope of Portal:United States.
              When you say "legitimate", are you referring to compliance with Wikipedia:Portal/Guidelines aka WP:POG? That is a pariah-status guideline. It is a set of instructions on how to continue with past practice. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:29, 6 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
              If the portal guidelines are bad, let's change them. Personally I don't care about portals at all, this one or others. I'm just saying that if we don't nuke them all, I don't see a strong argument for nuking this one. — JFG talk 01:36, 6 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
              There has been more portal discussion than I have read, I may have missed important arguments, but my leaning is to !vote to keep the highest level Portals, broad academic fields, Portal:Science, Portal:History, etc. These highest level portals have greater than 1000 page views per day, which is a correlating statistic, not defined requirement. None of these highest level portals will be polarizing topics (as portals are NPOV compliance weak points), none for any single person (no independent Portal:Muhammad), and for sure none will be a living person (no Portal:Donald Trump).
              If the portal guidelines are bad? 01:51, 6 September 2006‎ Wikipedia:Portal/Guidelines

was de-tagged as historical by User:Ragesoss, summary "removed historical tag; this was not intended as a proposed Wikipedia Guideline, but merely guidelines as in advice for portal creators". I completely agree with him, it was not written as a guideline, it doesn't function as a guideline, and it was never advertised as a guideline. It has for 13 years been a backwater page for a backwater namespace. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:42, 6 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Thryduulf:, I am surprised by your assertion to @SmokeyJoe about his beliefs, in which you say "you believe Wikipedia should get right out of the business of making neutral encyclopaedic content about notable topics available to readers".
I have seen no such statement from Joe, but may have missed something. Please can you post the diffs to support that claim?
It would be an oddly extreme position, since the whole purpose of en.wp is supplying neutral encyclopaedic content about notable topics. So if your description is right, then we should move directly to a WP:NOTHERE CBAN of @SmokeyJoe ... but you should either supply the diffs to support that big claim, or withdraw your assertion.
What I have seen from Joe is his belief that WP:ENDPORTALS reached the wrong decision, and that the use of portals to showcase and/or navigate portals is a failed experiment. While Joe is fully entitled to that belief, I think that Joe should more clearly accept the consensus of the ENDPORTALS decision, and work within it unless and until it is overturned.
However, he has raised some important points here about how the structure of portals can create NPOV issues. Those issues may or may not be resolvable in this case (I fear not), or they may point to a need for wider discussion about whether portals are a suitable mechanism for presenting the existing content on some topics.
And ENDPORTALS was simply a decision not to delete all portals. It does not in any way preclude decisions that portals with particular characteristics are inappropriate, or that some individual portals are inappropriate. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:46, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@BrownHairedGirl: SmokeyJoe's statement is the one immediately above my comment [3] Wikipedia should get right out of this business [of portals], portals present encyclopaedic content about notable topics - whether you think they do it well or badly, it is unquestionable they do. The ENDPORTALS discussion came to the clear consensus that portals are a legitimate part of the encyclopaedia so arguments predicated on them being otherwise (as almost all of SmokeyJoe's are) are unsupported by that consensus and should not hold weight in deletion discussions about individual portals. SmokeyJoe does make some arguments about the nature of this specific portal (which are the only ones that are relevant) but all of them are based on subjective opinions and, even if they are problems, they do not require deletion of the portal to resolve: if SJ, you or anyone else feels the selection of articles is not NPOV then discuss that on the talk page explaining why you think that is the case (deletion is massive overkill), if you feel the articles themselves are not NPOV then you need to discuss that on the talk page of the articles concerned (deletion of the portal cannot fix this). The aspersions about editors interested in the topic area are at absolute best irrelevant. Thryduulf (talk) 18:27, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
User:Thryduulf - It appears that you are twisting what User:SmokeyJoe has said so as to be almost the opposite of what he said, and that is enough to make me question your good faith. SmokeyJoe never said that Wikipedia is not in the business of presenting neutral encyclopedic content. He did say that we should get out of some business, but that business appears to mean either presenting biased content as neutral content, or making an elaborate judgment as to what mixture of content is neutral (that is, what synthesis to do). If it isn't clear what I am saying, maybe I need to develop a parse-tree. But it appears that you are twisting the words of User:SmokeyJoe, and I wonder why. I know why you would twist the words of User:BrownHairedGirl, but I don't see what User:SmokeyJoe has done to get you to try to misrepresent his positions. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:34, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I haven't !voted on either the Trump portal or the Obama portal yet. (I did vote on Mr. Obama and Mr. Trump.) Robert McClenon (talk) 18:35, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I am not intentionally twisting the words of anybody, here or elsewhere (and I would really appreciate an end to your assumption of bad faith towards me, it is not accurate) - my interpretation of what SmokeyJoe said is that Wikipedia should get out of the business of portals. The entire point of portals is to present neutral encyclopaedic content to readers. The clear inference of that is that Wikipedia should not be in the business of presenting neutral encyclopaedic content to readers. If that was not the intent behind his words then he is perfectly free to correct me and explain what he actually meant - at least so far he has chosen not to do so. Thryduulf (talk) 18:41, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Please get off Thryduulf's back about this layered misinterpretation. I read Thryduulf as arguing that Portals are part of the public-facing content, connected to mainspace, and (in my words), content policies NPOV, V and NOR, and BLP, permeate portals and they are compliant. I disagree. Portals, having disencumbered themselves from sourcing rules, have a separation from WP:V and BLP, and worst, NPOV, and are not like mainspace in ease of applying content policy. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:26, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not trying to get in the middle of whatever seems to have developed above, but I do want to state my own opinion on a narrow matter that was recently brought up. I just think that the equation of reader facing content with encyclopaedic content is slightly absurd. The main page is in no way a part of this encyclopedia nor in of itself additional content. It just serves it as an integral part of this project to build an encyclopedia. Portals can matter (which I agree that they do), and they can be individually worthy of inclusion on this website additionally. However, calling them encyclopedic content is at odds with their purpose; which is not to be articles, but to be in service to our articles and readers (in some form or fashion). All the ENDPORTALS RFC had established was they they were worthy for inclusion in this project (not more nor less). –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 00:03, 6 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • This seems to be a disagreement about terminology and whether you definine "encyclopaedia" to be "a collection of encyclopaedia articles" or "a colleciton of encyclopaedia articles and associated structure". I would very much count things like the index, title page, introduction, and appendicies as part of a paper encyclopaedia even though they are not encyclopaedia articles; and likewise I consider things like the main page, portals, redirects and (content) categories as part of the encyclopaedia. Similarly I include portals in the term "encyclopaedic content" because they contain and display encyclopaedia articles even though they are not articles themselves. This difference in terminology is potentially confusing, but not material to whether this portal should or should not exist - I think we can all agree that portals are a reader-facing part of the project to build an encyclopaedia. Thryduulf (talk) 13:04, 6 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as creator, as others have stated, there is an active WikiProject and plenty of content to sustain the portal, POV or other issues should be discussed elsewhere (even though I don't see any issues with that as-is). - CHAMPION (talk) (contributions) (logs) 09:24, 6 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The status is set to "active". Did you want to change it?--Auric talk 21:57, 27 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nomination; major unreferenced WP:BLP and WP:NPV issues, and one not-yet-full-term president (out of 45) or one country (out of ~200) does not meet the breadth-of-subject-area requirements of the WP:POG guideline. UnitedStatesian (talk) 04:23, 9 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Arguments have been made for retention and for deletion. In my opinion, subjects that are typically the subject of battleground editing are not useful for portals. Such subjects include areas that have historically been real battlegrounds that are the subject of ArbCom discretionary sanctions. American politics since 1932 is subject to discretionary sanctions, and Mr. Trump is the most polarizing figure in a country whose political landscape is far too polarized. It is hard enough for the Wikipedia community and Wikipedia administrators to deal with battleground editing without a portal as another focal point. I think that I will express the same opinion on any other polarizing American politicians. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:23, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - It is best to avoid creating portals for individual people, especially if they are living. SD0001 (talk) 18:30, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - The nominator says that this portal is barely viewed. Not really. It has 59 average daily pageviews. That is very high for a portal. To be sure, the head article has an average daily 49,479 daily page views. That's a ratio of 839:1, which just illustrates that portals are a nothing feature. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:38, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • This portal has been viewed much more since the date of this MfD nomination, 4/5/2019. Before that, the daily views were less than 40.
Wikipedia's single functional portal, aka Main Page, Daily average: 16,470,971
This portals parent article, Donald Trump, Daily average: 39,150
This portal is barely viewed. It is content-policy non-compliant (lack of explicit sourcing), and is a huge NPOV vulnerability. It currently exhibits the unconscious bias of anti-Trumpism, due to the tendency of Wikipedians to work with more interest on Trump-critical articles, and for a Portal to reflect the set of good articles more than the preponderance of external independent sourcing (like the parent article does). If anti-Trump malicious person has bothered to take advantage of the vulnerability of this Portal, is because they have no reason to think that anyone cares about it. 40 views per day is is more easily achieved with back alley graffiti.
If 59 is "very high for a portal", then the typical portal is pretty sad. In my perusing of portals and their page views, I think a suitable threshold is more like 1000 views per day. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:03, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Per What links here, there are presently 214 main namespace articles that have a link to the portal. Adding more links to articles tends to increase page views, whereas lesser visible links equates to lesser page views. North America1000 09:42, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Only 54 of the current 1214 portals exceed 100 view per day. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:35, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
User:BrownHairedGirl, yes. That’s right. Thanks for the link, is it exactly what I am speaking to. The top portal, Main Page, is not listed, the top three are funny Portals but ok fine, the next seven are exactly the broad topic inherently NPOV suitable Portals that are great for navigation. After #10 there is a big step to the lesser portals. Keep Portal:Geography, Delete Portal:Society and all lesser portals as failing their basic reason for existence. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:45, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@SmokeyJoe, I think we should continue this discussion, but take it somewhere else. Is WT:WPPORT okay with you? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:58, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Extremely useful "Trump news tracker" since Trump is the most newsworthy person in the history of the world. It's also completely NPOV because Portal:Current events is maintained by many editors, who all value NPOV. wumbolo ^^^ 23:01, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • If there is a prize for hyper-extreme WP:RECENTISM, Wumbolo has just won it. Forget Stalin, Jesus, Buddha, Hitler, Mohammed, Lincoln, etc ... just look at the now. -BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:30, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @BrownHairedGirl: Perhaps you just fell victim to Poe's law in Wumbolo's rationale? — JFG talk 14:28, 19 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Possibly, @JFG. However, if that sort of hyperbole was the intent, then it fails in ASCII text. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)
  • Delete. The topic of DT is mostly a subset of the topic of US presidential politics in the 21st century, which is a subset of the topic of US politics, which is a subset of politics, which is a subset of the scope of the whole encyclopedia. When the term "broad subject area" is used in conjunction with "main page" it's reasonable to interpret "broad subject area" as meaning one, or possibly 2-3, levels down from main page (i.e. it's not about how many articles there are about the topic).  Viewed in that way DT (or any other single person) is not a broad subject area. In addition for a living person there are BLP/POV concerns and a strong likelihood that the portal will not be maintained (e.g. Obama's portal still said he was president for months after he wasn't).  Having a clear rule of no portals about individual people would help to avoid further discussions about deletion of such portals. DexDor (talk) 19:31, 20 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - I think it's already consensus that portals about biographies do not meet WP:POG.Guilherme Burn (talk) 19:48, 23 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Many biographies don't meet POG but it's not axiomatic that none of them do. For example, Jesus is obviously a a broad topic which could satisfy WP:POG. Certes (talk) 21:00, 23 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Jesus and Muhammad belong in Portals Christianity and Islam, which belong in Portal:Religion. So many thinly sliced subportals hurt the higher portals. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:59, 23 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: I'm not seeing exactly what I would call consensus here ... not sure relisting is going to get there, but, before closing as no consensus, figure it's worth one more shot
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Go Phightins! 03:12, 24 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral: if portals are for anyone, they're for Donald Trump. There are a ton of articles on him, his stuff, what he's done, what he's said, because everything he does is basically inherently notable because of the media focus on him. No doubt, this portal could be improved bigly, but the usual concerns don't seem to apply. At a glance, I can't see any issue in terms of POV such as the way content is selected, but please ping me back if I'm missing something. SITH (talk) 11:15, 24 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I just noticed this quote: Donald Trump warrants a portal (if we have portals). There is enough depth and breadth of articles and reader and editor interest around any recent US President. Its source may surprise you. Certes (talk) 22:03, 24 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. This is a topic that is by definition narrow; it's a person. It's a broad person, but I can't see how that tallies with WP:POG. Ralbegen (talk) 22:51, 13 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, we should not have portals about any living person. Marcocapelle (talk) 13:02, 15 June 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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