Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Asia

 __NOINDEX__
 * 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:  no consensus. This MfD has attracted one or more maintainers to update the portal, which is good. However, if that maintenance doesn't persist after this MfD is over, then this portal will likely find itself back at MfD soon, and the outcome may be different next time. ‑Scottywong | [squeal] || 03:37, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Asia


Stillborn portal. Ten selected articles created in 2011, never updated. Twelve out of fourteen never updated selected bios created in 2011. The other two were created in 2012 and never updated. Ban Ki-moon is not leader of the UN. Shahrukh Khan entry is completely broken. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 03:13, 19 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment – As of this post, in the last thirty days, the portal has received an average of 96 page views per day and 2,983 actual page views – see Pageviews Analysis. North America1000 06:12, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per the nom. While it's true this portal has a much higher viewing rate than most other portals at 84 per day from January 1 to June 30 2019 (while the head article had 6621 per day in the same period), it still fails other parts of WP:POG, which states portals should be about a "broad subject area, which is likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers." (Emphasis mine) This portal has been abandoned for nearly seven years. High viewing rates are a big negative when the information being displayed is outdated or inaccurate, such as with this portal. How much damage has been done to Wikipedia's reputation for quality when readers saw this junk portal, we will never know.


 * One off maintenance is not enough to stave off deletion. This portal would need a large team of maintainers to meet WP:POG and it doesn't have it as a decade of hard evidence shows, so it is time to delete it. Remember, crud, even high viewed crud, is still crud. Newshunter12 (talk) 07:09, 19 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep Subject is obviously broad enough. WP:POG requires "maintainers", not a "large team of maintainers" as User:Newshunter12 falsely states.  UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:08, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * @UnitedStatesian WP:POG specifically requires large numbers of readers and maintainers, as I quoted above. Such a large number can fairly be described as a team. This point is rather moot, given that this portal has no maintainers to speak of. Thanks for your WP:ABF vote, not based in reality. Newshunter12 (talk) 16:14, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * "Large numbers" applies only to readers, not maintainers. There was no assumption of bad faith on my part; you made a good-faith error, as we all do from time to time.  UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:20, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * On the contrary, @ UnitedStatesian, you are mistaken and @Newshunter12 is correct. "Large numbers of A and B" means large numbers of A and large numbers of B. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 02:54, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * User:UnitedStatesian, User:BrownHairedGirl - I think that the "large numbers" qualifier can be parsed either as applying to readers or as applying both to readers and to maintainers. However, "maintainers" is definitely a plural noun.  It certainly requires that the portal have multiple maintainers.  And if the guideline isn't a guideline, that is common sense.  The idea of one portalista signing up to multiple abandoned portals is silly.  Robert McClenon (talk) 02:07, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I think we agreed that the "p" word could be taken as an epithet by some, and thus shoud be avoided. That said, I agree more than one maintainer is required by WP:POG, but this portal has that, especially since WP:POG says nothing about "signing up", nor does it say the only action that qualifies as maintenance is creating new subpages (some editors at MfD seem to believe that). I also think a single editor, if that is all that they wanted to do, actually could maintain every current portal (I have over 3,000 pages on my watchlist, and I am sure there are many editors with many more than that.)  Impossible with 5,000 portals, impossible with 1,500, but once you get below 800, becomes much more tenable for a single dedicated editor (especially once such an editor no longer has MfDs to contribute to).  Who are we to stand in such an editor's way? UnitedStatesian (talk) 02:31, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * @UnitedStatesian, POG exlicitly requires "maintainers" (plural), not a lone maintainer. The reasons are simple nad obvious:
 * A portal with a single editor rots once that editor moves on to other things. WE have seen this cycle play out in hundreds of totted portals brought to MFD.
 * Multiple editors are more likely than a loner to ensure balance coverage. I mean balance mot just in terms of NPOV, but also of geography, recentism, and a spread of topics.  For example, several recent regional portals have had a biography section top-heavy with sportspeople, others with recent stars of popular culture.
 * Most recent MFDs have focused on the immediate issue of abandonment and under-development. But those complete-fail issues mask the deeper problem that selection of topics is the crucial editorial role in a portal. It requires both broad knowledge of the portal's subject area, and multiple voices. Sadly, it is exceptionally rare to see any discussion on a portal's talk page of the selection of topics.  That leaves portals as a soapbox for a lone maintainer. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 12:03, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * @UnitedStatesian I disagree on POG, but that's not important. You still haven't addressed the no maintainers for nearly seven years issue, which is a clear failure of WP:POG. Newshunter12 (talk) 17:41, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The guideline is disputed with ongoing discussions on the talk-page, so how can you use it for weight? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 01:17, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * User:Knowledgekid87 - The WP:POG is disputed because of issues about whether it was ever properly adopted. Now the portal platoon are arguing against adopting it because it contains common-sense guidance that doesn't support crud portals.  But if it isn't a valid guideline, then there isn't a guideline, and then we should Use Common Sense.  Unfortunately, the portal platoon have not provided a common-sense explanation of what theUnit value of portals is.  So we can either use the long-standing but now disputed guideline, or we can use common sense.  Robert McClenon (talk) 02:07, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * @Knowledgekid87, a small number of editors who opposed the deletion of even abandoned junk portals have made repeated efforts to  strip WP:POG of any provisions which would facilitate the deletion of abandoned junk.  Their proposals are a million miles from achieving consensus.
 * If and when POG is gutted as they wish, the revised POG should guide MFD. Until then, use the guideline as it actually is.
 * And at all times, please take a very hard look at why you advocate the retention of a navigational tool which has rotted for a decade. I look forward to your explanation of why readers are helped by being directed away from well-maintained articles to abandoned junk portals. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 02:42, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * There are many portals that are abandoned and should be deleted, you are correct. This particular one though shows some potential, I do not see why automation isn't a viable solution to get editors interested in subjects and Wikiprojects. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 13:18, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * @Knowledgekid87, I don't rule out automation in theory, but in practice nobody has yet produced a form of automation which adds value. The automation experiment last year was a failure, not just because it was abused by a spammer to create thousands of micro-portals, but because it added no value. I can imagine that a massively more sophisticated type of automated portal might add value, but that's a kind of sci-fi type of vision of a very different future.
 * But whether automated or not, I see zero evidence that any portal has ever helped to get editors interested in subjects and Wikiprojects. The act of visiting a portal means that the reader is already interested in the topic, and very few readers view any portal at all. In January–June 2019 the Wikipedia main page averages |Main_page over 16 million views every day, but the same period, the average total daily views for all currently-existing non-mainpage portals was only 107,331.  That's only 1.5% of the mainpage views.
 * In case of Asia, the portal's January–June 2019 daily average was only 84 views, compared with 6,621 views of the head article Asia. So readers choose the head article in a ratio of 85:1, and rightly so: the head article does a portal's job vastly better than the portal page. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs)
 * Portals have to be visible to readers on all articles under the scope, its why some portals have hundreds of pages associated with them and get hundreds of views. This process can easily be done with a bot and is working with larger more stable portals. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 15:44, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * My own experience of adding tens of thousands of links to portals is that they made remarkably little difference to page views. It would be easy to run a test by getting a bot to add lots of links to a few selected portals and monitor what happens, but I have yet to see any such test being run, so we have no evidence to support these assertions.
 * I am getting weary of editors defending portals by saying variants of "they just need more links". This portal has existed for thirteen years, but nobody has bothered to even ask for bot job to it.  That's just another variant of lack of maintenance.
 * There always seems to be some excuse made for the lack of portal pageviews and maintenance. It would be great if instead of trotting these excuses, the defenders actually did something to apply these magic fixes which they claim are available. Then we would have some evidence of whether they actually work.
 * I suspect they will make little difference, because the fundamental problems with all portals is that a well-built Wikipedia head article is itself an excellent portal, so readers don't need a crudely designed standalone page proclaiming itself as a portal. But hey, do the experiment and try to prove me wrong. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 17:00, 20 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment – This is a poorly maintained but well-viewed (more than 50 daily pageviews) portal. Any proposal to delete this portal should focus on whether it is doing any actual harm, such as presenting incorrect information to the reader.   Robert McClenon (talk) 22:33, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep, per above comments, and per topic. Wikipedia doesn't just go around deleting portals about continents. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:17, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep - WP:POG on a whole is disputed and outdated (hence the tags there). - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 01:15, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment to User:Knowledgekid87 - It is sadly amusing when portal advocates now start arguing that because of problems with the adoption of the portal guidelines thirteen years ago, they now are disputed so that they cannot be quoted in portal deletion discussions. Since there is no alternative guideline, if there is no guideline,we should Use Common Sense, and that means that unmaintained portals are problematic.  The need for maintenance of portals is not just a matter of a questioned guideline.  It is common sense.  By the way, I haven't yet !voted because I am still waiting for more discussion of what to do about a highly viewed but poorly maintained portal.  Robert McClenon (talk) 00:31, 22 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:TNT, and redirect to Asia, without prejudice to re-creation if and when there is evidence that a team of maintainers will actively manage the portal.
 * So long as we have portals, the inhabited continents should be among the set of portals, even if (as I hope) the set is massively shrunk. However, that does not justify keeping a portal which is unmaintained. Unless a portal is actually maintained, readers should not be lured away from well-maintained articles to badly-designed abandoned portals. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 02:51, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The history page seems to show it's maintained. At least that's how I read it (I don't edit portals often so may be mistaken about how much maintenance and vandalism-watch is required to be an active portal). And having looked at the portal for the first time it seems to have interesting and appropriate articles, images, and links for a quick overview of a topic. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:05, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * @Randy Kryn, it seems that you misunderstand how portals are built. Most older portals, such as this one, are built using a baroque collection of sub-pages, which you can view at Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Asia. Those sub-pages contain the actual content, and it is their neglect which is described by the nominator.   It sounds like you were looking only at Portal:Asia, which is just the shell that ties tie together, and has had many formatting tweaks. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 09:29, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Portal Asia is what is nominated for deletion. When I looked at it the page seems fine and educational. If some subpages need fixing beyond repair, then the nominator should put those particular subpages up for deletion. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:30, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * User:Randy Kryn - No, no, no. The portal doesn't do anything without the subpages (except display errors).  If we were to nominate many of the 24 subpages for deletion without nominating the portal, it would break the portal, which would then definitely need deleting.  Portals are complex.  Sometimes they are too complex to be easily maintained, and require a lot of work.  Robert McClenon (talk) 02:07, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * User:Robert McClenon Your statement is incorrect. The portal will still function even if all but one of each type of subpage is deleted.  It will not give any errors unless there are NO subpages of a given type (and I don;t think the nominator asserts that every subpage is hopelessly problematic. You should not dismiss User:Randy Kryn's suggestion so flippantly. UnitedStatesian (talk) 05:24, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I wasn't dismissing their comment, but their comment misses the point, which is that it is not any particular subpage that is a problem, but that the subpages were not being reviewed or updated. They apparently do not understand the complexity of subpage-based portals.  It took me months to understand just how bad that design is, also.  Robert McClenon (talk) 12:22, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * That contradicts what the nominator wrote; Mark specifically identifed 2 problematic subpages, which could be fixed (preferable) or individually deleted. We're just responding to the nomination. UnitedStatesian (talk) 14:07, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Portal:Asia is a transclusion of lots of sub-pages.  The set stands or fails as a whole, so as with hundreds of other multi-page portals brought to MFD in the last 6 months, the whole set is up for deletion. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 13:15, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I see what you mean, but it seems that an editor over at the Jupiter portal deletion discussion went in and fixed what was wrong in under an hour. Having no knowledge of page coding, is what they did at the Jupiter deletion request possible to do here? In the same way? "It's all Greek to me", but wondering if that Jupiter portal save could be doable here, and throughout Mars and the Solar System, by the same editor, or other editors who know about the goings on behind the scenes (where I but fear to tread, I'd trip over a loose code and break something) to duplicate the whatever-they-did at Jupiter? Randy Kryn (talk) 02:39, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You are of course correct that all the remaining maintenance issues could be fixed with very little time and effort. That does not matter one bit to the !delete voters in this discussion. Nor to the closing admin. UnitedStatesian (talk) 05:32, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * That can't be true. If such a major portal (it's about Asia for goddesses sake, one of the seven continents and not the least of 'em) can be fixed with "very little time and effort" and not, as WP:TNT says "For pages that are beyond fixing, it may be better to start from scratch", then instead of deleting the portal and the others (I see they want to take apart the Canada portals in a rash of nominations that even a bot would have a hard time keeping up with) they'd be cheering and asking for someone to fix it who knows how. Kind of like a barn raising. Randy Kryn (talk) 10:49, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It is true. I and several other editors (more than a sufficient number) would be happy to take on and complete the maintenance effort (and to train other editors to do so) if we did not have to "beat the clock" that starts once an MfD discussion is created. (already did it once - I had help - with Portal:Nigeria).  UnitedStatesian (talk) 14:01, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * @UnitedStatesian, Asia is one of the WP:Vital articles/Level/2, i.e it is one of the 100 subjects on which Wikipedia should have corresponding featured-class articles. It is in the top 10% of portals by pageview.
 * Yet it has been rotting for years.
 * So when I hear all this "give us time" commentary, I despair. Surely a decade is enough time?
 * The persistent problem at MFD is that editors want to keep portals which neither they nor anyone has paid any attention to before. If the portals project did any systematic monitoring rather than just moaning about its inability to completely halt the deletion of abandoned junk, the this would have been flagged up as a high-importance portal, with relatively high pageviews, but in big trouble: no maintainers, and way out of date.  Heck, the process of scrutinising and deleting abandoned portals has been underway for six months now, and sooner or later someone was going to start looking beyond the low-pageview zone to see what shape the more important portals are in.
 * But instead, time and time again the response is along the lines of "if only we had known".
 * That simply isn't credible.   The portals project should have known,  and if it didn't know about this one being in trouble, why should we think it's not going to simply rot again once this MFD has closed?
 * A portal needs a team of maintainers, with an involved WikiProject. This one has none of those things ... and unless that problem is resolved, there is no basis for keeping a portal. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:08, 25 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep. This is just getting silly at this point. If a major continent with the majority of the human population on it is not about a broad enough subject area, then nothing is. I said before that POG is getting (ab)used to delete the portal space (except maybe for the few portals linked from the front page), this is best demonstration I could ask for. There are readers, it's broad. The few issues it has can be fixed by editing. Keep it. --Hecato (talk) 13:18, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * @Hecato, precisely nobody in this discussion has suggested or asserted that the topic is not broad enough. Making your !vote on the claim that they have done so is such an extreme straw man that it indicates either very severe reading comprehension problems, or extreme dishonesty.
 * Please take some time to actually read the discussion above before you disrupt it with misconstrued nonsense. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 19:14, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * POG demands Broad topics that are likely to attract readers and maintainers. If Asia is not such a broad topic then nothing is. As I see it this sentence just exists to prevent people from making portals about unimportant topics nobody cares about. You interpet it to be a demand for X number of viewers and Y number of maintainers (though you never defined any numbers for X or Y that would satisfy you). --Hecato (talk) 19:35, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Oh dear, Hecato. It seems that you have still not read the discussion, but it still has precisely zero editors suggesting or asserting that the topic is not broad enough.
 * That sentence does exist not just to prevent people from making portals about unimportant topics nobody cares about, but to ensure that those portals which do exist are actually maintained, and have enough readers to justify their existence.
 * It is quite remarkable how resolute you are in your determination to avoid the simple fact that portals need maintenance, and nobody has wanted to maintain this one.
 * As to pageviews, somewhere over 100 a month seems so far to be probably about the point of viability. However, I haven't done much of assessment of the portals around that threshold, because my focus has always been on the poorest-quality portals. Removing them is unnecessarily time-consuming, because there is a small crew of editors keen passionately defend even long-abandoned portals with low-single-digit pageviews, but I will persevere until the junk is gone. Then there will be time to see where to draw the lines which are still too far off. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 23:33, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * So 6.19% of portals are (maybe) allowed to survive. Good to know. --Hecato (talk) 00:05, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Interesting. Where did that number come from?  The stock market as random number generator?  Robert McClenon (talk) 19:35, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The source is user BrownHairedGirl's own statistics --Hecato (talk) 09:18, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Sigh. Hecato, I don't have a numerical target. I just want to have only portals which are both well-maintained and well-used. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:35, 22 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete. The entire portals idea was silly to begin with (just make better baseline articles: Asia had 6500+ views yesterday alone and Portal:Asia is a distraction on the way to the better and better-maintained content), but even if we're keeping portals the current page should redirect to Asia until a fully updated and well staffed portal page is made. — Llywelyn II   13:16, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment - Portals should be about broad subject areas that will attract large numbers of readers and portal maintainers. That is a three-part test.  However, we have seen that arguing a priori that a subject area is broad does not necessarily result in broad portal coverage.  This portal has 24 articles via content-forked subpages, and that is fewer articles than the continent deserves.  Is there a plan to re-architect the portal and to expand its coverage?  The portal has not been maintained since 2012.  I do not want to recommend deletion of a portal that has more than 75 daily pageviews and covers such a large portion of the Earth, but I am not seeing a plausible plan to improve the portal, except maybe by whirling dead rats.  Robert McClenon (talk) 19:30, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep this portal is needed if many of the country portals in Asia are deleted.Catfurball (talk) 23:40, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Question, including for User:Catfurball - What is the value of this portal for countries in Asia that do not have portals? (Also, what is the value of this portal for countries in Asia that do have portals?)  I see that users think that this portal has value.  Can someone explain to me what its value is, other than that some users like it?  Robert McClenon (talk) 01:04, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Are you asking that question because you are genuinely interested in an answer, or so that whoever answers can have their answer and themselves WP:BLUDGEONed by other editors? UnitedStatesian (talk) 01:50, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
 * User:UnitedStatesian - I can't speak for other editors. I am genuinely still waiting for explanations of the needs for and purposes and value of portals.  I can see that some editors think that portals have considerable value, and I can see that some editors are passionate about the need to keep existing portals, and possibly to create more portals.  They haven't explained the reasons for portals and the reasons for their passionate support of portals so that I can understand.  So I continue to infer either that they haven't explained their reasons, and that maybe they need to explain better, or that their reason is only that portals are technically neat.  I really would like to know what the stated need is for this portal.  You have been a critic of portals and now are a defender of portals.  Maybe you can explain?  Robert McClenon (talk) 22:29, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I may technically disagree with the reason, but I would prefer to understand how I can reasonably disagree with other editors than just to have very little idea why they want portals. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:15, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * OK, I'll cautiously answer: I think WP:Portal states it pretty clearly: "Portals serve as enhanced "Main Pages" for specific broad subjects. Portals are meant primarily for readers, while encouraging them to become editors of Wikipedia by providing links to project space." I look at it this way: if you were producing an online encyclopedia that just covered Asia, what should its main page look like? Whatever you imagine that to be, is what, ideally, Portal:Asia should be: just like Main Page, it would have selections of the best Asia content, Asia news, Asia "on this date", Asia DYK, and most importantly, links to areas where Asia-related collaboration takes place (including other wikimedia projects) (whether the current Portal:Asia does all those things effectively is irrelevant because we can get from here to the ideal through maintenance). The Asia article does not do all those things, and in fact does an especially crap job of drawing Asia-interested editors into contributing to the project.  I think there is significant value because many readers/potential editors come to WP with specific interest areas that are poorly served by Main Page. The other implication is that there is no value to portals like Portal:Briarcliff Manor, New York and similar.  I believe my many MfD nominations and !votes have been consistent with the above views:  Baby, bathwater, all that. UnitedStatesian (talk) 03:32, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * On the contrary, @UnitedStatesian, we can get from here to the ideal through maintenance is the absolutely critical problem.
 * We need to get there through maintenance, and — crucially — we need to stay there through ongoing maintenance. But yet again, we don't have maintainers.
 * The mini-Main page model which you describe is highly labour-intensive. Several huge teams of editors work very hard to sustain the wikipedia Main Page, while an individual portal doesn't need such an army, it does need a permanent garrison.
 * But instead of a permanent garrison, the portal is unmanned.
 * And so far, I see no reason to believe that it will ever have a permanent garrison. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:41, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, I believe most of the ongoing maintenance work of portals can quite effectively leverage the work being done by the Main Page and featured article teams. The portal DYKs and news are fully automated from the main page for many portals, article updates are already automatically reflected onto intro, article, bio and other subpages for many portals, leaving only the addition of additional featured article content to each portal as the single manual step. Since we average fewer than one new featured article a day across the entirety of English Wikipedia, this is very easy to do for a particular portal.  There were such interested maintainers (more than sufficient, in my view, for what I expect will be the final population of portals), though some recently appear to have been driven away from those efforts. UnitedStatesian (talk) 04:59, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * @UnitedStatesian, if I understand you correctly, you seem to have a vision of mostly-automated portals being maintained by a skeleton crew of portal specialists who run around a wide set. That seems to be what NA1K had in mind when they signed up as "maintainer" (scare quotes) of no less than 42 portals.  Thankfully, NA1K repented of that folly when it was challenged.
 * I am unpersuaded that the automation you talk of is a great solution. Automated DYKs and news items still require manual filtering, and for a broad topic such as Asia, automated filters will still generate a huge number of false positives if drawn loosely, or false negatives if drawn tightly.
 * But those items are only fluff. The core of any portal is selecting articles from C-class and higher to present a good overview and sample of the topic.  I have done that job professionally, and it is a non-trivial task which requires specialist topic knowledge.  It is absolutely not a matter of robotically selecting only FA-class articles: we saw at WP:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Donald Trump how relying only on FA/GA articles produced a hideously POV selection.
 * I remain astonished and appalled that after all the drama of the last 6 months, we still have editors who believe that the long-term failure of so many portals can be resolved by a combination of automation and portal-enthusiasts unencumbered by subject knowledge. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 13:40, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Portal:Donald Trump is another of your red herrings. Of course when the subject area is narrow, the FAs/GAs are almost certain to provide an unbalanced view of the subject.  But those portals, appropriately, will all be deleted if the WP:POG guideline is applied.  On the broad-subject portals that remain, you are not able to demonstrate a resulting unbalanced view that you are trying to use to scare people. UnitedStatesian (talk) 14:44, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment: I'll just note that if this conversation thread is representative, User:UnitedStatesian needs to either review WP:AGF before discussing portals with the rest of the editors or take a break from the internet and review h(is|er) priorities. There are vandals and trolls on Wikipedia, granted. They aren't found in the middle of process pages and administration subsections. Everyone here is trying to improve Wikipedia in complete good faith and should be addressed as such. — Llywelyn II   10:48, 27 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment to User:UnitedStatesian - In that case, we can at least agree to disagree as to whether this portal has value. I don't see Portal:Asia encouraging readers to become editors.  Also, as User:BrownHairedGirl notes, we need the editors to maintain the portal as soon as the portal is opened, not in the future, and we have seen that portals don't attract maintainers in a foreseeable future.  At least you gave me an answer with which I can disagree, which is more than we can say for the long-time portal advocates.  Robert McClenon (talk) 01:01, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete without prejudice to a redesigned portal not using forked subpages, and preferably with a maintenance plan. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:01, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment - Perhaps actually seeing a few poorly maintained and well-viewed portals deleted may be the only actual incentive for the portal advocates to get their act together and propose improved design rather than quick fixes, numbers games, and whining. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:01, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * @Robert McClenon, they don't just need improved design. As we have discussed before, the really crucial need is active, ongoing maintenance by a team of maintainers who know the topic well.  All of that (except, bizarrely, the "know the topic" requirement) has been part of POG since before Noah took up boatbuilding, but advocates of portals just don't seem to get that point, let alone embrace it. It really beats me how something so basic should be anything other than uncontroversial. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 01:17, 25 August 2019 (UTC).
 * User:BrownHairedGirl Yes. That is the maintenance plan to which I referred above.  I have been focusing mostly on the need for improved design, but the need for a maintenance plan is just as great.  The main page, as you mention, has a small army.  Robert McClenon (talk) 03:15, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep - There already seems to be consensus of the imprortance of the topic - the only issue is maintenance. The portal can be improved and most parts can be automated so to reduce the need of regular active maintenance. I am committing to spend some time on this over next couple of months.  Arman  ( Talk ) 04:56, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Update - I believe I have already addressed the major quality and update concerns. If specific issues remain, please let me know here or on the Portal talk page.  Arman  ( Talk ) 11:34, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you Armanaziz. I came back to the page to look around and am surprised this nomination hasn't been withdrawn yet. With your work I'd hope that would happen and think the nominator would say "Job well done!" Randy Kryn (talk) 15:08, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * A driveby lick of paint does not resolve either the lack of ongoing, long-term maintenance, or the lack of WikiProject involvement, both of which are required by WP:POG. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 04:20, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Fixes are not a "drive by lick of paint" (yuck), they are good faith collaborative edits by Wikipedians who care enough to make them. Again, thanks to those who fixed what's wrong with this portal, and those who've said they'd continue to help care for it. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:35, 27 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep a useful and needed portal. Wm335td (talk) 19:10, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The seven year abandonment by maintainers and detailed article Asia say otherwise. Newshunter12 (talk) 02:06, 27 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Relist this MFD. The Keeps and the Deletes are approximately equal.  I happen to think that the Delete arguments are stronger, and that the Keep arguments amount to more quick fixes with no expected follow-through, but that is a call for the closer.  Robert McClenon (talk) 23:21, 27 August 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.