Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/2 abandoned UAE portals

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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. It's not so clear whether these topics meet WP:POG based on the discussion, but most people clearly feel that it is in too poor a shape to be kept. This is to no prejudice towards recreation with proper curation Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 08:24, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

2 abandoned UAE portals


Both are abandoned drafts, created in late 2010 by, and abandoned since.


 * Links
 * 1)  — Head article Dubai — sub-pages: Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Dubai
 * 2)  — Head article Sharjah — sub-pages: Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Sharjah

Eachs offers only one selected picture, and one selected panorama

In terms of text content, in each case there is is one of everything: one selected article, one news page, and one DYK page. All have been static for years.

A first glance at Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Dubai is deceptive. There are three article pages — /1, /2, /7 — but each contains the same text on the same article: List of tallest buildings in Dubai. /1 was trimmed, but the two lengthy paras which remain appear identical to the first two paras of the other pages.

WP:POG recommends that the selection of articles should be updated at least monthly, preferably weekly. But there has been no change of topic in any of these for years.

These are both reasonably broad topics. But their abandonment as drafts means that they have abysmally failed to deliver anything remotely resembling the guiding principle of portals, as defined by WP:PORTAL: "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects". In each case, the head article does a vastly better job both as a navigational tool and as a topic sampler.

It is theoretically possible that editors may yet appear to build and maintain portals on these topics. The evidence of the past decade suggets that thsi is highly unlikely, but it is theoretically possible ...

So I propose that both portals and their sub-pages be deleted per WP:TNT, without prejudice to recreating a curated and maintanied portal in accordance with whatever criteria the community may have agreed at that time. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 20:31, 9 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete - These are not broad topics, being only parts of the UAE, and they are not being maintained. A word from the maintainer could change my !vote to a Weak Delete.  Robert McClenon (talk) 23:39, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep and update, especially Dubai. Broad enough topics for a portal, can be salvaged through editing and issues highlighted with tagging, so deletion is not necessary to clean it up per WP:ATD. WaggersTALK  12:30, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
 * By salvaged, @Waggers means "completely rebuilt from a blank sheet", because a set of 9-year-old content forks is no base from which to start building a portal which might actually add value for readers.
 * In the meantime, it is disruptive to continue to waste the time of readers by luring them to a page which has been abandoned for 9 years.
 * The notions which Waggers suggests of editing and tagging are implausible to the point of fantasy, because:
 * There is no tag to identify long-term abandoned portals, and no category to track them, because the WP:WPPORT has never throughout its history engaged in any systematic quality-monitoring of portals
 * Category:All portals currently contains 1,331 portals, of which 1,074 are in Category:Unassessed Portal pages. That's 81% of portals to which to no assessment rating has ever been assigned. The portals project has simply never done basic monitoring of quality, let alone tracking of specific problems, which is why hundreds of abandoned portals have rotted for up to 13 years
 * Building a decent portal which would actually add value to readers takes time and research, and knowledge of the topic. Waggers has not identified any editor with the skills and commitment to build and maintain a portal on this topic.
 * For the last 2 months, I and other editors have worked in good faith to try to clear out the automated portalspam created in the last year, and ten the abandoned junk which has accumulated over a decade of neglect. It has been my hope throughout that this would leave a core of portals which add some value for readers, and could be built on.  But if members of the portals project are going to oppose the cleanup of abandoned junk without a mechanism, plan, or topic-skilled editors to fix them, then it may be time to abandon this approach and simply propose mass deletion of most portals.  --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 16:08, 10 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Weak keep In line with my opinion on Portal:Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but slightly more certain this time. I believe these are broad enough topics for portal content, particularly Dubai.  Mar4d  ( talk ) 15:59, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
 * the nomination agrees that these are broad topics. However, the problem is that they have almost no content, and are of no value to readers.
 * So please clarify.   Are you actually committing that you will update and expand them to point of actually adding value, and to maintain them in the future?
 * Or are you simply hoping that leaving these abandoned shells in place will somehow lead to magical editor with the relevant skills and subject knowledge will magically appear out of nowhere, and end the decade of abandonment?
 * Please clarify. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 16:14, 10 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment - The magical editor with the relevant skills and subject knowledge will only magically appear out of nowhere if the proper incantation is performed. That is, the proper magician will only come when another magician summons them by magic.  Robert McClenon (talk) 00:24, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment - Portal:Dubai was the abandoned draft of a portal, 16 subpages, created 2009-07-08 19:11:10 by User:MoHasanie. One can discuss about the broadness of the topic. One can also notice that, after a first revival, a full rewrite was undertaken 09:59, 13 July 2018 by TTH, so that Portal:Dubai is now based on Outline of Dubai. This is not described by BGH in her analysis, this was not her main argument. But it is amusing to see that none of the keep !voters User:Waggers or User:Mar4d have noticed this "revamp". Ah la la. Pldx1 (talk) 22:07, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete- Abandoned draft of a portal, 16 subpages, created 2010-12-08 11:22:03 by User:Mar4d. Never was a portal in any meaning of the term. Nothing to keep. Using seed=17 with only ONE article seems to be a joke, but this is not sure. Portal:Sharjah Pldx1 (talk) 22:07, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete:
 * WP:POG requires that portals have a broad selection of content. These potentially do, but that requires a maintainer to actually do it.  Machiavelli in The Prince had this nailed (around p. 50 IIRC).
 * WP:PORTAL requires that portals are actively maintained to fulfil their mini Main Page purpose. Not the case here.
 *  SITH   (talk)   11:38, 14 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete both as unmaintained portals too narrow in scope to meet WP:POG. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 03:02, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete. Per nom. Portals should only be kept where they are active (the whole point of having a portal vs. just the main article+navbox); no point in generating temporary activity to get through an MfD to maintain one when it has no longer-term future/support in WP. We should be smart about how we use our ever scarce editing resources, and avoid situations where an abandoned/out-of-date portal can depreciate the integrity of the main article (and WP), in a reader's eyes. Britishfinance (talk) 12:54, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * 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.