Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Moon

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. ‑Scottywong | [soliloquize] || 04:02, 28 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Moon[edit]

Stillborn portal. All selected articles were created between December 2010 and August 2011. None were updated. Both DYK sets were created in 2010 and never updated. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 07:12, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per the nom. This portal has been abandoned for over eight years, save for pictures added in 2014, most of which aren't viewable. It clearly fails WP:POG's requirement that portals should be about subjects broad enough to attract large numbers of maintainers and readers. This portal has had over eight years of no maintainers and it had a very low 31 views per day from January 1 to June 30 2019 (while the head article Moon had 10,708 views per day in the same period). The head article, which is a Featured Article, also has a detailed and versatile set of navboxs, so this portal is a failed solution in search of a problem. Portals stand or fall on their merits in the now, not what could someday hypothetically happen with them, and this one falls flat. I oppose re-creation, as nearly a decade of hard evidence shows the Moon is not a broad enough topic to attract readers or maintainers. Newshunter12 (talk) 18:25, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and will watch the discusssion. There is activity in the history including updates and reversion of vandals, so there are maintainers. And 31 viewers a day is a fine group of readers who view the page. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:05, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment – I have a question for the Delete editors, and two questions for the Keep editors. For the Delete editors, is this portal doing any actual harm, such as presenting incorrect information? For the Keep voters, has any last-minute editing addressed the concerns of the Delete editors that this portal is not being maintained and is not likely to be maintained in the future? For the Keep voters, what is the actual value of this portal, as opposed to that of the head article and the related articles? What is the portal actually doing (and has it been doing it for the months or years that it has been neglected)?

The following table compares planetary and solar system portals:

Title	Portal Page Views	Article Page Views	Baseline	Comments	Notes	Articles	Ratio	Percent
Outer space	13	1254	Jan19-Jun19	Portal has long history of renaming			96.46	1.04%
Jupiter	16	5908	Jan19-Feb19	Originator inactive since 2011. Last tweaks 2017. 17 articles and 8 bios, all selected in 2011.	A navbox would serve the purpose.	25	369.25	0.27%
Mars	31	6496	Jan19-Feb19	Originator inactive since 2015. No maintenance since 2011.		9	209.55	0.48%
Stars	34	3021	Jan19-Feb19	Originator edits sporadically. Last maintenance appears to have been 2015.		44	88.85	1.13%
Moon	37	7516	Jan19-Feb19	Last maintenance 2014.		14	203.14	0.49%
Solar System	65	6496	Jan19-Feb19	Originator last edited in 2007. Last maintenance 2011; news appears to be up to date, but that is view of Wikinews.		30	99.94	1.00%

Robert McClenon (talk) 13:18, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Robert McClenon Yes, Robert, this long abandoned portal is doing a lot of harm to readers. For example, the Orion spacecraft news in the portal is dated to October 2010 and misses nearly nine years of this program and the delays it has had. It projects the first manned launch in 2016, yet as of 2019, it is projected to happen in 2022. The Featured Article Moon, with over 10,000 views a day from January - June 2019, is monumentally better for readers than this portal is. Newshunter12 (talk) 10:27, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Not !voting yet, but here's what the portal has that its articles don't:

News section (updates automatically; most recent story is from earlier this month)
DYK section
1st level category tree visibility
Display of all related featured content and good articles, with links to same
Link to collaboration locations. UnitedStatesian (talk) 00:37, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@UnitedStatesian Nice try pretending that this portal is unique in any way besides being outdated junk, which is a characteristic many portals share.

Do a google search for news or pick up a newspaper.
DYK section of this portal all dates to 2010 and is acting as just WP:TRIVIA.
One click to access the category tree from any related article.
The best quality content is easily accessed through navbox links countless articles share with Moon.
Article talk pages have links to all related Wiki-Projects.
The Moon (a Featured Article with over 10,000 views per day compared to 31 for this portal) and related articles haven't been abandoned for over eight years like this portal has.
The head article, unlike this portal, is not a failed solution in search of a problem. Newshunter12 (talk) 10:03, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, as per User:Newshunter12, this portal on another world or worlds, without prejudice to a new portal using a design that does not rely on forked subpages. In an area where knowledge is expanding as rapidly as the astronomy of the solar system, mostly via robotic exploration, providing links to copies of obsolete content forks is harmful and is inferior to allowing readers to view the articles, which are being updated to reflect discoveries. Portals for areas as broad as other worlds are desirable, but not these portals that contain obsolete information. Robert McClenon (talk) 12:53, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete this portal not needed.Catfurball (talk) 23:55, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I believe the deleters have misunderstood the purpose of the portals. I can supply an example of how a likely student would search Wikipedia for information and miss the portals completely! But, the portals serve those who seek out specific sciences! Cheers! --Marshallsumter (talk) 01:10, 23 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Marshallsumter There is no misunderstanding by delete voters. This junk portal has been abandoned for over eight years and gets only 31 views per day, while the Featured Article Moon gets well over 10,000 views a day and is equipped with multiple rich and versatile navboxes for all things Moon and astronomy related in our Solar System. Why would we want to divert students and other readers away from our best content to an abandoned portal? This junk portal is a failed solution in search of a problem. Newshunter12 (talk) 02:30, 23 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User:Marshallsumter writes: "I believe the deleters have misunderstood the purpose of the portals. I can supply an example of how a likely student would search Wikipedia for information and miss the portals completely! But, the portals serve those who seek out specific sciences!" It is very likely true that I, as one of the deleters, have misunderstood the purpose of the portals. I can see that I don’t understand their purpose, and that their advocates are passionate about the need for specific portals and for portals in general. So, can you or someone actually explain to me what purpose portals serve, especially in the context of astronomical portals? Either portals have a technical value that hasn't been explained adequately yet, or perhaps they are supported only because they are technically neat. I may technically disagree with the reason, but I would prefer to understand how I can reasonably disagree with other editors than just to have very little idea why they want portals. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:38, 24 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per others above. UnitedStatesian's list of unique features in particular. Do a google search for news or pick up a newspaper is a ridiculous argument. We might as well tell people to "go to a library" or "watch a documentary" instead of reading the Wikipedia article about a topic. The whole point is that it is content from the Wikipedia and its sister projects, collected and showcased in a central location (i.e. a portal).

The Moon is an important enough, broad subject area to make a portal about. Just this implementation is not all that great. Like many portals it is too generic and does not offer the reader a deep enough engaging exploration into the topic scope. It has significantly fewer readers than the article, but that is true for all portals. It is more indicative of poor integration of portals in general. Most people do not even know they exist. Mobile viewers never even get to see the template links. Around 900 people looked at this portal in a month though, so it is not like nobody looked at it. Just fix the potentially outdated content forks with transclusions of the respective articles so they are always up-to-date and mark the portal for a potential overhaul so it can serve better to showcase, navigate to and promote Moon related topics and projects. As long as it is not dysfunctional or displaying misleading information, there is no harm in having it, even if it could be better. Things could always be better. Use it as a base to build upon. --Hecato (talk) 23:11, 24 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Hecato That's a lot of words to just say you WP:ILIKEIT this portal. I also resoundingly debunked UnitedStatesian's above points and showed how this portal adds nothing for readers that isn't better done/found elsewhere, like the Featured Article Moon, so your vote should hold no weight. There's also nothing wrong with telling anyone that if they want news on a topic, that a newspaper or a Google search of news sources would be a good idea. No one should get all their information from one place, including Wikipedia. By the way, most information on Wikipedia comes from the very same news sources you don't want people to be encouraged to read. Newshunter12 (talk) 04:27, 25 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

All arguments you disagree with are WP:ILIKEIT for some reason. To repeat myself: the primary point of portals is to showcase and navigate to content of the Wikipedia and its sister projects. This portal offers such showcasing and navigation. And all content on wikipedia comes from sources. The point of Wikipedia is that these sources have been vetted and their information amalgamated, to produce an encyclopedic article (or news story). So the users don't HAVE TO go to these sources themselves. The point of an encyclopedia is convenience; of course they can go and do their own research if they want to. If it is an important issue, then they probably should. But if they just want to see our most relevant articles, categories, current events and news about the topic, then hopefully they can go to a well-designed portal. --Hecato (talk) 08:13, 25 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keepist votes not based in policy or reality are WP:ILIKEIT, so please don't blame the messenger of bad news. And no, this portal does not offer anything useful. This portal has been abandoned for over eight years and has been misleading readers the whole time, while the exquisite and well read Featured Article Moon and its versatile set of navboxes and sister Featured Articles like Solar System do a wonderful job of informing readers about Astronomy. Again, what do we need this crud portal for besides to please the whims of some editors who like portals and want to keep crud for unexplainable reasons? Newshunter12 (talk) 08:36, 25 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I understand you are against portals in general and would rather just have the article space. I explained the point of portals, if you wish to repeat the same talking points that you repeat in all portal MfDs then feel free, but I will not respond a third time to the same noise. I have explained the value of this portal, you responded with your usual "I don't care, portals are useless, go to articles". This portal offers value, I have said my piece. --Hecato (talk) 08:45, 25 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User:Hecato - Where have you explained the value of this portal? You have explained the importance of the topic. Evidently the portal platoon thinks that the value of portals is either obvious or mystical. I have not seen an explanation of why a portal is a better way to convey information about the subject than the article. Do you want to try? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:50, 27 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Neither the portal or article has to be better, they are two ways that readers choose to view information and both are valid. Hecato, thank you for your contributions and interest in keeping information flowing! Randy Kryn (talk) 03:08, 27 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. We could have an an interesting theoretical debate on whether an uninhabited natural satellite is a "broad topic", but in practice the question is moot. Regardless of whether the topic is seen as broad enough, the problem remains that portals need maintainers ... and for a decade, this portal has not been maintained. Unless there is a team of maintainers committed to keeping this portal in good shape for the long-term, it will simply rot again, and continue to lure readers away from an excellent FA-class head article to a rotted portal.

It is depressing to see that in this discussion, like so many previous discussions, some contributors hope that a driveby fix at MFD magically resolves all the problems. In reality, all it does is to reset the clock on a cycle of decay.

Portals don't just need driveby fixes to stave off deletion. They need active, ongoing maintenance, by a team of maintainers (note the plural; see POG). WP:POG also says that "the portal should be associated with a WikiProject (or have editors with sufficient interest) to help ensure a supply of new material for the portal and maintain the portal." But in this case, the WikiProject_Moon is clearly not interested in the portal. Before the MFD notice, the last mention of the portal on its talk pages was in 2011, at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Moon/Archive_1#Portal:Moon ... and the only previous mention of the portal was in 2007.

So this portal clearly fails POG.

Wikipedia already has an excellent featured-class head article: Moon. It's time to stop luring readers away from that excellently-maintained and highly-scrutinised article to a portal page which was abandoned for about a decade, just because it had a quick lick of paint when it came under scrutiny. Portals require long-term maintenance and curation by editors with expertise in the topic, and the evidence overwhelmigly shows that those requirements are not met in this case. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:01, 27 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Quick lick of paint (yuck)? Contributing editors who've helped to fix the problems brought forward by this nomination (and much thanks to them, not criticism) have done a good job, and the history page shows that the portal had not been abandoned for the last ten years.
(playing along with the separate paragraph thing) Readers choose how they read Wikipedia, and the Moon page as well as the portal have different things to offer.
Nothing wrong with either. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:10, 27 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Randy, nice rhetoric, but no beef. Clearly, you still don't understand the nature of portal structure, which is why you still don't undrestand how the content was abandoned.

Rhetoric aside ... where are the multiple maintainers, as required by POG? Where is the WkiProject involvement, as required by POG? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:50, 27 August 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.