Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/11 biography portals each based on one navbox

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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. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 05:14, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

11 biography portals each based on one navbox


These are all part of a mass creation of portals based on a single navbox. That is, in each case the list of selected articles (using Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow or Transclude linked excerpts as random slideshow) is drawn solely from a single navbox. For example, Portal:Boris Yeltsin is based solely on Template:Boris Yeltsin.

This makes each of these portals merely a fork of the navbox, with much less utility than the navbox because:
 * the navbox displays a full list of the articles. The portal displays only one page at a time, out of a randomly selected subset of up to 50 articles.
 * the navbox should be present on every page in the set. The portal always requires navigation to a separate page.

The topic's main page works much better as a navigational hub, because it includes:
 * both the topic navbox and related navboxes
 * A full summary of the topic rather than an excerpt of the lede.
 * A preview of any link is already available by default to users who are not logged in, simply by mouseover of a link. So the snippet view function of the portal is redundant.

I propose deleting all these portals in one go because,
 * 1) Being each built on a single navbox, they add no navigational utility, and are an inferior fork of another navigational tool
 * 2) Portals are not content; they are merely a means of navigating between content.  So their mass deletion removes precisely zero encyclopedic content.
 * 3) The pages were rapidly mass-created. They were all created by the topic-banned portalspammer @The Transhumanist, who describes the creation process as taking betwen one and two minutes per portal (Have you tried creating 500 portals? It is rather repetitious/tedious/time-consuming (from 500 to 1000 minutes)) .  It would be a severe waste of the community's time to spend more collective time assessing each of them individually than was spent on their creation.

There are varying views on whether the topic of a single person is is sufficiently broad to satisfy WP:POG, and whether any or all of these topics should be the subject of thoughtfully-designed and properly-curated portal which used a selected article list extending way beyond the navbox. So, as in the two mass nominations, I propose that these pages be deleted without prejudice to recreating a curated portal not based on a single navbox, in accordance with whatever criteria the community may have agreed at that time. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 03:17, 24 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Note that
 * 1) All of these portals would have been included in the mass nomination of portals at 1,390 WP:Miscellany for deletion/Mass-created portals based on a single navbox, if they had not been already under discussion (see #2 below). That WP:CENT-advertised discussion was extraordinarily well-attended, and it agreed by an overwhelming majority to delete all those 1,390 portals which are WP:REDUNDANTFORKs of a single navbox, so that principle clearly has broad community consensus.  A week later, WP:Miscellany for deletion/Second batch of mass-created portals based on a single navbox agreed unanimously to delete a further 1,165 such WP:REDUNDANTFORK portals.
 * 2) All of these 11 portals were part of a batch of 17 portals discussed at WP:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:T. E. Lawrence, which closed as "no consensus".  I am renominating them now because the broad community consensus on the principle was established in a close only 3 days after after the close of the discussion on the batch of 17.
 * 3) The other six portals in the batch of 17 have not been included in this discussion, because they have already been renominated separately
 * Portal:Ruhollah Khomeini
 * Portal:Douglas MacArthur
 * Portal:Kim Il-sung
 * Portal:Muhammad Ali Jinnah
 * Portal:Abdul Hamid II
 * Portal:Saddam Hussein

Pinging the closer of the previous discussion, @Amorymeltzer and all the participants:. — Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 03:32, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Discussion (11 biography portals)

 * add your keep/delete/comment here


 *  Comment Delete. If these portals (not yet listed) are all automated based on a single navbox, then I withdraw my earlier objection to their deletion in light of the clear community consensus that has subsequently been established. I reiterate that some at least of the topics seem to me suitable for a hand-curated portal. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:40, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, @Espresso Addict, and sorry I didn't add the list before the nomination went live. It's there now.
 * I am inclined to agree that some of these topics may merit a hand-curated portal. Queen Victoria, for example, possibly Thatcher. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 03:53, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
 * As I recall, Queen Victoria, Princess Diana & Margaret Thatcher were the ones I thought might be viable, but I can't readily assess some of the others (I know Kohl is very high status in Germany). To my surprise, Victoria gets a lot more hits than the other two, but I think there's a television show on QV running at the moment so that might be transient. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:08, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Kohl was Chancellor for 17 years, and a key figure in the Reaganite Cold war, the Glasnost era of Cold war decline. He oversaw German reunification, and was a major player in European enlargement and integration, so his regime was very significant.  However, I'm less sure that we have enough detailed coverage of him to justify a portal.  It's easy for a single-person portal (or category) to become a coatrack for all the events in that era, even tho the articles may have little focus on him. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 04:21, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
 * And Germany–France relations, according to my German friends... But looking at the category we don't seem to have enough coverage on en-wiki, unless one were to go with his Chancellorship and include all his cabinet members. (That's one reason why I dislike bundling – except in cases like these where the problem is creation method – and bulk creation because each (potential) portal needs to be considered carefully on its own merits.) Espresso Addict (talk) 06:06, 24 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete Some of the topics may warrant a portal, but I'm fine with bulk-deleting bulk-created portals. SportingFlyer  T · C  03:55, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete - I concur that we do not need single-navbox portals, and am relying on the analysis of BHG. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:02, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete. (Invited.) I suspect Queen Victoria could have a portal, but these are pretty much useless. IMO, all automated portals based on a single navbox should be deleted unless created by a editor who shows credible experience in editing within the topic.  As I haven't seen any of those, I consider it possible that such might exist, and I'd have to look at it separately.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 04:22, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete all Some big names are in the list but the articles handle each topic better, and each topic is far too limited in scope. Navboxes handle navigation and are easily found by readers. Johnuniq (talk) 04:56, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Just to say as the closer of the previous MfD, as similarly noted elsewhere, I've no problem with this whatsoever. ~ Amory  (u • t • c) 09:45, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Amory. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 11:45, 24 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete these portals as useless navigation tools, redundant to the existing articles and navboxes, and of lower quality


 * - Automated portal,  0 subpages, created 2018-12-30 04:14:16 by User:TTH : Portal:Sun Yat-sen
 * - Automated portal,  0 subpages, created 2018-12-30 04:14:49 by User:TTH : Portal:Corazon Aquino
 * - Automated portal,  0 subpages, created 2018-12-30 04:16:19 by User:TTH : Portal:Nicolae Ceaușescu
 * - Automated portal,  0 subpages, created 2018-12-30 04:17:10 by User:TTH : Portal:Helmut Kohl
 * - Automated portal,  0 subpages, created 2018-12-30 04:17:25 by User:TTH : Portal:Boris Yeltsin
 * - Automated portal,  0 subpages, created 2018-12-30 04:17:38 by User:TTH : Portal:Leonid Brezhnev
 * - Automated portal,  0 subpages, created 2018-12-30 04:19:29 by User:TTH : Portal:Diana, Princess of Wales
 * - Automated portal,  0 subpages, created 2018-12-30 04:19:45 by User:TTH : Portal:Margaret Thatcher
 * - Automated portal,  0 subpages, created 2018-12-30 04:20:21 by User:TTH : Portal:Queen Victoria
 * - Automated portal,  0 subpages, created 2018-12-30 04:20:45 by User:TTH : Portal:T. E. Lawrence
 * - Automated portal,  0 subpages, created 2018-12-30 04:22:23 by User:TTH : Portal:George Marshall (director)


 * Pldx1 (talk) 10:09, 24 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment. It took quite 2 minutes to build the Portal about this poor Princess killed by a treacherous French bridge. Eight times more than the portal about this Boris Yeltsin. How relieved should be her soul by this posthumous honor ! Pldx1 (talk) 10:09, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, we did try to tell Boris that he'd get more attention if he wore prettier frocks, but he didn't get off the plane. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 11:44, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete all per nom. Thanks to nom and Amory for keeping track of this.    SITH   (talk)   12:13, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep all - these all have a significant number of related articles so are good candidates for a portal. They might need some work due to the way they were created, but that's not a valid reason for deletion. WaggersTALK  10:53, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Waggers, your assertion that that's not a valid reason for deletion is simply wrong. The consensus to delete automated portals forked off navboxes was established only two weeks ago at one of the biggest-scope and most widely-attended MFDs ever. Community consensus on this is very clear. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 01:50, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it.</b> 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.