Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Algebra

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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) 06:35, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Algebra

 * – (View MfD)

Bonsai portal on the mathematical topic of Algebra, with low readership, abandoned 7 days after its creation in 2008. Only 8 sub-topics (last addition 2008) and a set of six fake DYKs.

This portal was created on 6 April 2008‎ by, who also created the sub-pages. However, their last edit to any part of the portal was on 13 April 2008 (see their portal-space contribs). Since late 2006, the lead of WP:POG has said "Do not expect other editors to maintain a portal you create." I will AGF that despite being the creator of 4 portals (Portal:Mathematical analysis, Portal:Algebra, Portal:Topology, Portal:Discworld) and editor of many others, Tompw somehow managed to remain unaware of that prominent guidance.

Whatever the reasons for the creator's rapid abandonment, portals need ongoing maintenance, and this one hasn't had it.

Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Algebra shows a slim set of sub-pages:
 * /Selected article/1, /2, /3, /4, /5, /6, and /7 were all created between 8 and 11 April 2008 by Tompw. /8 was created on 13 April 2008 by .  Since those first few days, the only edits to any of them have been trivial, such as formatting and disambiguation.  Nobody has updated any of the content, apart from reverting a significant amount of vandalism
 * Portal:Algebra/Did you know consists of six items. Five were added on 8 April 2008‎ by Tompw, and one in  January 2015‎ by an IP. All other edits have been minor tweaks. This set of 11-year-old entries has no connection to the scrutinised curation process at WP:DYK, which exists to showcase new or expanded content.  This is just a set of factoid selected and summarised without scrutiny, usurping the good name of WP:DYK to create a set of random WP:TRIVIA.

The trivial number of sub-topics and the long-term abandonment is presumably what led @The Transhumanist (TTH) to "restart" the portal in September 2018‎. However, that "restart" consisted of simply turning the portal into an automated tool which drew its list of selected articles solely from Template:Algebra. That made the portal just a pointless, bloated clone of the navbox. This type of bloated redundancy was overwhelmingly rejected by an exceptionally high turnout of editors at two mass MFDs in April 2019 (one, and two), so in May 2019 I reverted it to the last pre-automation version.

That placed the portal back in the abandoned state, and since that revert in May there hasn't been any edits at all (as far as I can see).

WP:POG requires that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers". It also guides 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". This portal fails on at least three of the four counts:
 * 1)  Broad topic . I'm not sure.  Category:Algebra looks very well-populated. This may indicate a broad topic, or maybe a narrow topic covered in copious detail.  But either way, it matters little, because of the next three points.
 * 2)  High readership .  Fail. The portal's January–June 2019 daily median of only 34 views per day is low.  The head article Algebra gets 1,966 views/day, i.e. 58 times the readership of the portal.
 * 3)  Lots of maintainers . Fail. Only trivial changes to the portal since  the creator abandoned the portal on 13 April 2008.
 * 4)  Associated WikiProject . Fail. There is no WP:WikiProject Algebra, and WP:WikiProject Mathematics doesn't seem interested. A search of WT:WikiProject Mathematics talk archives for "Portal:Algebra" gives only three hits (one is duplicated, so total=4) . There is a complimentary passing mention in 2009, and these two posts from 2019: a Feb 2019 lament about the flood of portalspam, with subsequent discussion, plus an April 2019 question by Legacypac asking "Which of these approx 30 Portals does the math project provide support to or are you interested in managing?". Legacypac's plea brought only one response, and no offers of maintenance.

It's long past time to stop luring readers to this 11-year abandoned page. The only actual value it adds for readers is Portal:Algebra/Topics, and that would be of far more use to at least a hundred times as many readers if it was used to expand the slightly skimpy navbox Template:Algebra.

Time to just delete it. I also oppose re-creation, because of the long-term failure to meet the fundamental requirements for a portal. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:50, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Note to closing admin. I don't want in any way to prejudge the outcome ... but if you close this discussion as delete, please can you not remove the backlinks?  I have an AWB setup which allows me to easily replace them with links to the next most specific portal(s) (in this case Portal:Mathematics), without creating duplicate entries. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:52, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per the thorough and highly detailed investigation of the portal by the nominator,  Brown HairedGirl . Portals stand or fall on their merits in the now, not what could someday hypothetically happen with them, and this one falls flat. It's a useless time suck that lures readers to a decade-long abandoned Bonsai portal and damages Wikipedia's hard won reputation for quality. I oppose re-creation, as over a decade of hard evidence shows Algebra is not a broad enough topic under WP:POG to attract readers or maintainers. This portal is a solution in search of a problem. Newshunter12 (talk) 02:32, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Algebra Portal

 * Delete - Another unmaintained mathematics portal. --Robert McClenon 21:27, 14 September 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.