Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Astrology

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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) 02:25, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Astrology

 * – (View MfD)

Neglected portal.

Fourteen selected articles. Eleven were started in December 2006 through September 2007, two of which were updated in February 2011. Two were created in March 2009 and one in September 2011.

Twenty-four selected signs (most are start class or worse) created in February / March 2009. Almost no subsequent productive edits, though one entry had undetected vandalism for a little over three years. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 02:16, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per the nom. This portal has been abandoned for a decade, save for some one-off updates by passing editors. Since late 2006, the lead of WP:POG has said "Do not expect other editors to maintain a portal you create" ... and this one has not been maintained by Alex Shih, who dumped it in Jan. 2007, less then a month after creation, and has made one edit to portal space since 2017. The portal clearly fails WP:POG's requirement that portals should be about subjects broad enough to attract large numbers of maintainers and readers. This portal has had a decade of no steady maintainers and it had a very low 35 views per day from January 1 to June 30 2019 (despite the head article Astrology having 2,034 views per day in the same period).
 * POG also states portals should be associated with a wikiproject, but WikiProject Astrology is semi-active at best (no human posts in 2019), and the portal's only two mentions on the talk page were a 2006-7 creation announcement/initial work conversation, and a June 2010 lament that the portal's template picture was changed to an occult symbol. Portals stand or fall on their merits in the now, not what could someday hypothetically happen with them, and this one falls flat. I oppose re-creation, as a decade of hard evidence shows Astrology is not a broad enough topic to attract readers or maintainers. Newshunter12 (talk) 03:16, 16 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Weak Delete as an unmaintained portal as per nomination by User:Mark Schierbecker. Portal has 35 daily pageviews, which is better than most portals, and has 38 articles, which is better than most portals, but the articles haven't been maintained in a decade.  Maintenance is not just a nice-to-have but is essential.  Robert McClenon (talk) 20:29, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Note on backlinks. I don't want in any way to prejudge the outcome ... but if this discussion is closed as delete, I suggest that the backlinks be removed.  I have an AWB setup which allows me to easily replace them with links to the next most specific portal(s), without creating duplicate entries, but in this case I see no suitable alternative portals.
 * The related portals listed include Portal:Psychology, Portal:Occult, Portal:Astronomy, but each of them seems a poor fit. However, if editors want me to use one or more of these portals, I'd be happy to do so. any thoughts? --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 03:07, 18 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment to User:BrownHairedGirl or anyone - I think of astrology as one of the oldest of the occult pseudo-sciences, and would suggest Portal:Occult. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:49, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete all backlinks @Robert McClenon @ Brown HairedGirl  For starters, Portal:Occult is also at MfD (I nominated it four days ago) and it is in rough shape, so there's no point in directing people there however the MfD goes. For millennia, Astrology and Astronomy overlapped as fields (see the Antikythera mechanism), so there is sound reasoning to direct links to Portal:Astronomy. However, modern astronomy long ago diverged from astrology, so I think it's best to just delete these backlinks. Any articles that fit well enough with the astronomy portal are likely already linked to it, so there is no need to blanket add the astrology portal links to a different topic, even if a few might fit. Newshunter12 (talk) 04:12, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Mental error on my part. I had already !voted to delete Portal:Occult and didn't make the connection.  Robert McClenon (talk) 05:44, 18 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.