Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Tennis

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: keep. Consensus to keep - broader discussions about portal space should take place elsewhere. (non-admin closure) —Ganesha811 (talk) 13:38, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Tennis[edit]

Unmaintained and out of date—the "Upcoming tournaments" section includes tournaments that became defunct 5+ years ago—so does a disservice to readers and reflects poorly on Wikipedia. Receives just 20 views per day despite being linked on 55000 pages including articles that get millions of views a year, e.g. Serena Williams. Letcord (talk) 12:50, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: Redundant and inferior to Tennis and Wikipedia:WikiProject Tennis. SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:01, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This lack of non-redundant scope cannot be fixed. Attempts to make it look useful are a waste of time, and for any reader they distract them from the mainspace article, and for any editor it distracts from the WikiProject. SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:08, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Another useless portal SK2242 (talk) 14:31, 10 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

400,000 views on the pages it’s linked from and only 25 click through to the portal. How could anyone even think of keeping this? SK2242 (talk) 08:45, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@SK2242: Could you further quantify your assertion that the pages that link to the portal received a combined total of "400,000 page views"? Also, is your metric per month, daily, weekly, which one? As of this post, the Tennis article receives an average of 1,622 page views per day. As such, your 400,000 figure makes little sense here without quantification of the rest of the articles. Also, portals are a supplemental means to navigate Wikipedia. It's natural that the main article will receive more page views than its portal. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 13:14, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep When you have an article that has been here and been used (by no matter how few) for 15 years you would never just delete it. Perhaps someone would want to fix it up better. I would redirect it to Tennis or Outline of tennis until such time that someone would like to tackle an upgrade. Fyunck(click) (talk) 03:27, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Is there any reason to think that will happen? Portals are slowly dying, not being built anew. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:13, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have suggested redirecting as a method of archive before, but no one interested in portals seems interested. I guess it’s not as if there is actual unique content in the portal, so it doesn’t matter. SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:48, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@SmokeyJoe: But redirects are cheap. They give an added bonus that if someone does want to take on the updating it can be done in the same style and not from scratch. And yes it archives which is important. It seems like a no brainer to me that we would redirect the page unless someone wants to do the work right now. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:39, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:13, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep –

I removed the outdated Tournaments section (diff). This took a matter of seconds to accomplish.
The portal contains links to high-quality subject and biographical articles.
The portal is a useful navigation tool.
The portal would benefit from more links to it in articles, which would then increase the page views it receives. The portal actually has only 1,015 links to it in article namespace.
The link count cited in the nomination are mostly from the portal template being on the Wikiproject banner template on talk pages, but most readers to not read or navigate from talk pages.
The portal was significantly updated in May 2020. See the page's Revision history for more information.

– North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 13:03, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The outdatedness of the tournaments section reflects the Tennis WikiProject's total disinterest in maintaining this portal; your removal of it doesn't change that. All the high-quality subject and biographical articles are already linked at WP:TENNIS. The "only" 1,015 articles that link to the portal receive 400,000 page views a day; of which 25 (0.00625%) click through to the portal, so in practice it's not a useful navigation tool. "Significantly updated", perhaps, but evidently not by an editor with a enough knowledge of the subject area to realize that a key section was completely out of date. This portal is obviously not wanted by the tennis-editing community, and that is reason enough to delete it as they're needed to keep it properly up-to-date. Letcord (talk) 14:08, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Easy updates not being done is a sign of its failure.
The mainspace page is where quality links are to be found.
If it is useful for navigation, why isn’t it used for navigation?
The portal would benefit? Does Wikipedia exist to benefit portals? More links from articles would detract from the quality of articles. SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:12, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Portal:Tennis:
- In 2021, the portal had 18 average daily pageviews, and the article had 2034 average daily pageviews. In 2020, the portal had 16 average daily pageviews, and the article had 1776 average daily pageviews.
- The number of viewers who find it a useful navigational tool is less than 1% of the viewers who read the article. Portals have two limitations as a navigational tool. First, they only permit the viewer to view the pages that the portal maintainer has already selected, which is less flexible than the use of links or categories. Second, they are only used by viewers who know about and use portals in the first place.
- There is no regular portal maintainer. The portal is maintained occasionally, ~~especially when there are questions about whether to keep it~~, by ~~the WP:Portal rescue squad consisting largely of~~ User:Northamerica1000. Northamerica1000 likes portals. User:Northamerica1000 maintains portals either randomly or when they are questions about whether to keep them, functioning as an unofficial WP:Portal rescue squad.
- Deletion of a portal does not delete encyclopedic content. It only deletes a navigational tool to information that is normally navigated using links or categories.
- Portals evidently have some mystical value. Some readers and editors either have no use for mysticism, or prefer organized religion.
- There are no guidelines for the keeping or deleting of portals, so that the main guideline is to Use Common Sense.

Robert McClenon (talk) 14:37, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – regarding "The portal is maintained occasionally, especially when there are questions about whether to keep it" above, this is the first time the portal has been nominated for deletion. The portal was not nominated for deletion when I improved it in May 2020. It is quite misleading to suggest otherwise. Also, I am not a member of any rescue project on Wikipedia. It is misleading to suggest otherwise. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 15:01, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Question – This portal, despite its above-average quality, fails in the usual questions, which have already been widely discussed, unnecessary complexity, excess links, narrow topic (Portal:Sports would be enough), lack of Wikiproject integration and unreferenced content, an example, the quote [1], which does not exist either in the Biographed article or in Wikiquote. The question is... like this portal, It's a problem a portal that was not created and maintained by the related Wikiproject? Analyzing [2] and [3], recently content portals are not being created and maintained by related Wikiprojects.Guilherme Burn (talk) 23:56, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep as I feel the arguments presented here are the same as Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Maryland. The standard arguments being "portal topic is too narrow, that there are only a few page views, and that in its current form the portal is selective in a non-NPOV way" versus "broad enough to justify a portal, that the portal can be fixed and that the deletion arguments are not grounded in policy". - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:18, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What benefit does an abandoned portal not curated or maintained by editors knowledgeable in the subject-area and not viewed by anyone bring? The years-outdated tournaments section demonstrates that such a portal can be a serious liability, so there should be a clear benefit for it to be worth keeping. Or is there no circumstance in which you'd not vote "keep" for a portal that passes your subjective "broad enough" threshold"? If so just say that.

There is no specific policy for deleting a portal AFAIK, so arguments cannot be "grounded in policy". Letcord (talk) 16:41, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Again... you are throwing out the same arguments. There is nobody stopping anyone from maintaining the portal until it meets standards so its a WP:SOFIXIT situation. Your reasoning of page views, maintenance and out of date info is actually covered in arguments to avoid for deletion discussions. These are surmountable issues. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 18:59, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
What same arguments? I asked you specific questions. ATA is an essay tailored for content-deletion discussions. Portals are not content. Letcord (talk) 23:21, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As I said, your arguments about management and dated information. WP:ATA does apply here as portals are considered content on Wikipedia, and the lead of the essay specifically states "this page is tailored to deletion discussion". - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 23:51, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's an essay that "has not been thoroughly vetted by the community" which explicitly says "just because an argument appears in this list does not necessarily mean it is always invalid" and that it is "tailored to deletion discussion, be that of articles, templates, images, categories, stub types, or redirects" i.e. not portals. You haven't answered the question about what clear benefit this portal provides that outweighs the cost of it being so unmaintained by knowledgeable tennis editors that it has sat displaying misinformation for 5+ years, something completely antithetical to Wikipedia's purpose as an accurate compendium of knowledge. Letcord (talk) 00:29, 13 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Robert McClenon. Those claiming that portals are "useful" have not provided sufficient evidence, whereas the <20 pageviews a day are more than sufficient evidence that the portal is not benefiting anyone as a navigational tool. The argument that "you wouldn't delete an article that has barely been touched in years" is not valid since an article serves a vastly different purpose than a portal. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 16:38, 18 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Maintained portal. It wasn't even that out of date before nominating it for deletion. The personal attacks towards Northamerica1000 here, and the framing that portals would be deleted if not for the one-person "portal rescue squad" only coming to save them when they're being nominated for deletion, are not acceptable. Deletion discussions very often result in rapid improvements being made, this is normal (WP:UDAC). I find it unconvincing that those who are quick to say "portals are not content, there are no deletion criteria for portals, they can be deleted per common sense" (really meaning per WP:IDONTLIKEIT) are appealing primarily to the same arguments used at the RfC to delete all portals (that portals are dying etc). I will never understand why those who feel very strongly that portals ought to be retired have to be so unnecessarily hostile and aggressive about it (accusing those who wish not to delete them of believing they "apparently have some mystical value" - really?). The proposal to delete all portals failed spectacularly years ago; arguments along the lines of "portals are useless" aren't enough to delete any specific portal. Vanilla Wizard 💙 20:50, 18 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I do want to add in response to the nom's The outdatedness of the tournaments section reflects the Tennis WikiProject's total disinterest in maintaining this portal; your removal of it doesn't change that. - that's not how it works. I've participated in my share of portal MfDs over the years, and if a portal's only issue is that it was outdated (rather than fundamentally broken, unfinished, etc), then one person going in and fixing it up is enough to make it perfectly fine and no longer worthy of deleting. You can't go from saying "it's outdated" to saying "well, the project wasn't keeping it up to date." We don't care who fixes it up, all that matters is that it's up to standards. Vanilla Wizard 💙 20:55, 18 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I can say that actually because the removal of that section was only sparked by myself, a tennis editor, pointing out its outdatedness in this deletion discussion. If I hadn't done so then that completely false info would have remained proudly on display for who knows how long, and to what benefit? This kind of maintenance can only be done (or requested to be done) by tennis editors, so if none are interested then the portal cannot remain up-to-date and should be deleted. The RFCs, which were for the binary deletion of all portals at once, have no impact on specific portal deletion discussions and the validity of arguments made therein. If there are no specific deletion criteria for portals, then "IDONTLIKEIT", "portals are useless" etc. are arguments as valid as any, though they're not ones I've put forth here. Letcord (talk) 05:41, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep most of the arguments put forwards for deleting this are actually arguments against portals in general. That's not something which can be settled at the level of an individual MfD, and an RfC on that topic produced a consensus against deprecating portals, so it's fair to say that arguments that portals should all be deleted go against community consensus. Pageview counts are fundamentally not a reason for deleting something. We are here to build an encyclopedia, and if something is encyclopedic then it has a place in that encyclopedia, regardless of how many people read it. If the number of people reading Wikipedia dropped sharply we wouldn't go and delete a bunch of articles. Hut 8.5 17:07, 20 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep My thanks to the nominator for pointing out an important error and to NA1K and others for fixing it and making other improvements. That just leaves the standard "delete because it is a typical portal" rationale. As Hut 8.5 points out, that proposition is better debated (and indeed has been discussed repeatedly) at a namespace-wide level. Certes (talk) 20:51, 22 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep –Pageview counts have never been a reason for deleting Wikipedia pages. And the number of views is not zero which means somebody might be taking an advantage from the existence of such a page. If something is not updating for a considerable time, the only option we have is not deleting whole page. User North America has shown an example of what we can do above. Modifications to the structure of the portal is not something forbidden in Wikipedia as far as I know. Randeer (talk) 08:09, 25 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Wiki "Project" is not interchangeable with a "Portal". One is supposed to cater for (wannabe) editors, not readers. This deletion proposal is then clearly made out of some geeky hostility (editor rather than reader hat on) towards portals: for editors it may appear like two places serving more or less one purpose. That's why no reason was presented that specifically alleges is something wrong with this portal and instead was basically focused on what was wrong with portals in general. The appropriate action should have been to propose amendment of rules or elimination of Portals in the appropriate Wiki portal :). —Loginnigol 13:35, 26 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete but mostly because I think Portals in general should all be deleted. casualdejekyll 16:16, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Casualdejekyll: Why do you feel that an entire namespace of Wikipedia should all be deleted? North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 13:18, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Portals are rarely maintained, never actually used, and have slowly been deteriorating. Being removed from the Main Page was really the nail in the coffin on any chance of them recovering, I think. casualdejekyll 13:33, 6 May 2022 (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.