User:Northamerica1000/Portals

2019 portal matters

 * User:Scottywong/Portal guideline workspace

Synopsis
I recently expanded, updated, and cleaned-up some portals, in part per ongoing complaints at MfD that many portals are outdated, receive inadequate maintenance and are "junk". All of the work I performed was reverted by one user in a series of rapid, drive-by edits where the user reverted dozens of hours of work I have performed on portals over the course of months, all in one day. The articles added included a diverse array that were directly aligned with WP:POG, the now non-guideline, failed proposal page, where it states, "A portal helps to browse on a particular subject, hence the subject of a portal should be broad so that it presents a diversified content." Featured- and GA-class articles were also added, in accordance with the "Article selection" section at WP:POG, which states that articles should be "of high quality, either a featured article, a good article or one which deals with its subject substantially or comprehensively."

When the reversions of my work was performed, a copy/pasted edit summary was posted, one after another, stating, "Revert undiscused change of format; unexplained, sneaky addition of dozens of articles which are neither listed anywhere visible nor disclosed in edit summaries, let alone discussed" (example diff). However, prior to the reversions, I had already posted commentary on most portal talk pages regarding the changes that I performed and in many cases also included a list of articles added to the portal on the talk page. The additions certainly were not "sneaky", and were also clearly denoted in edit summaries that were left.

It does not appear that the reverting user scrolled down to check the results of the reversions, and it does not appear that talk pages were checked first to see if any notification or discussion had occurred regarding the portal improvements. One result of this is that afterward, several portals were left in a broken and/or erroneous state.

Portal:Ontario provides a particular example. The portal was tagged as needing updating on 14 August 2019, with an initial note stating, "update=yes|note=No maintenance since 2014" in the Portal maintenance status template atop the page (diff). The edit didn't take as expected, so the user then added the Update template directly (diff). So, I performed updates to the portal in August and October 2019. All of the work was then erased with one drive-by edit (diff). Now, the update template is back on the portal, after it was already carefully, thoughtfully and significantly updated. Many of the additions had been in place for almost two months, and the portal receives a decent number of daily page views, so people were seeing it, and there were no concerns posted on the talk page whatsoever about the portal. Update templates can only work when the actual updates that occur are not rapidly removed in a series of mass, drive-by reversions.

At MfD, an unfortunate vicious circle now exists amongst some users who are typically for the deletion of portals, in which a lack of maintenance is cited as a rationale for portal deletion, and when said maintenance is performed prior to a portal being nominated, or after a first MfD discussion is closed with an end result of a portal being retained, the edits are eagerly reverted in a rapid, drive-by fashion, hypocritically preventing any maintenance from occurring in the first place, and thus further qualifying them for deletion.

The second example in the paragraph above occurred in the case of Portal:Language, in which the MfD discussion was closed with a no consensus result. At the discussion, the reverter opined for deletion, stated in part that the portal was lacking in articles and maintenance. Afterward, I performed maintenance edits to address this matter, and then the opiner at the MfD reverted that work (diff), with an edit summary stating, "Revert undiscused change of format; unexplained, sneaky addition of dozens of articles which are neither listed anywhere visible nor disclosed in edit summaries, let alone discussed", despite that a detailed message was posted at Portal talk:Language prior to the reversion. Furthermore, clear edit summaries were left stating the changes that had occurred, and a list of articles is easily viewed by selecting the "edit" link on the page and simply scrolling down.

Ordinarily, I would perform fixes to correct the errors that the reverting user left in their wake. However, it seems quite possible that the user may then make accusations of edit warring if I were to do so. At the recent ANI discussion regarding the matter here, I posted lists of broken portals and errors that occurred from the mass reversions that needed to be corrected, in hopes that the matter would be addressed by other users, but I didn't get a chance to get through the rest of the list of portals that were reverted before the discussion was closed.

In my view, it is apparent, that the overall consensus at the ANI discussion in the "Should the mass portal reversions be reverted, to restore portal improvements that occurred?" section here was for the mass rapid reversions to be undone, but then the discussion was closed.

After the reversions, the user did not leave messages on talk pages to discuss matters, for almost all of the portals listed above. So, I would then have to start the BRD process for almost all of these, an extremely time-consuming process, particularly compared to the ease in which the reversions were performed, whereby a copy/pasted edit summary was left and the user then clicked on a blue button. Not sure if I want to waste more of my lifespan on portals in this type of manner.

Above is a table and list of portals that were mass reverted.

Incomplete list of portals I have not contributed to significantly that utilize various transclusion templates

 * Portal:Cornwall
 * Portal:Erotica and pornography
 * Portal:Nudity
 * Portal:Climbing
 * Portal:South East England/Selections/Articles
 * Portal:Oxfordshire
 * Portal:South East England
 * Portal:Berkshire
 * Portal:Buckinghamshire
 * Portal:East Sussex
 * Portal:Hampshire
 * Portal:Kent
 * Portal:Oxfordshire
 * Portal:Surrey
 * Portal:West Sussex
 * Portal:Isle of Wight
 * Portal:Underwater diving
 * Portal:Reptiles
 * Portal:Geophysics
 * Portal:Painting

Additional reversions after the initial reversions listed above

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Opinion about portal editors from other users
   "I didn't agree not to refer to portalistas, and I have done it again, and I will whenever I think it is in order, although I will alternate it with portal platoon. In any case, my point is that tagging with the update template doesn't do anything. If a portal has rats, it should be torn down, and if tag it to be torn down, at least someone may wave a wave a dead rat." – Diff

   "However, the well-reasoned rationales that are seen as oppressive by portal fans are oriented primarily to middle editors and secondarily because portal skeptics, being reason-based, need to persuade each other." – Diff .... "There are two related but different abilities that H. sapiens has that other primates do not, to use language and to think or reason. Deletion rationales that are based on thinking are oppressive to a primate who only wants to use language without having thought behind it." – Diff

   "Portalistas are usually, but not always, people who like creating and tweaking portals. They show much much more concern for their ability to continue doing that than for the reader who is lured to page a whose is only purpose is as a showcase and/or navigation aid, but which has failed for a decade for do either." .... "This type of portalista often has poor spelling and types WITH THEIR CApS LOCK mOSTLY On." .... "But the most common and defining feature of the portalista is the most surprising one: that most of them display very little care or clue about the state of portals." .... "In short, the portalista is normally a creature of great lethargy and apathy." – Diff