Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Australian rules football

 __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:  delete. ‑Scottywong | [speak] || 17:16, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Australian rules football

 * – (View MfD)

Neglected stillborn portal. One never-updated selected article created in April 2010. Portal:Australian rules football/AFL and Portal:Australian rules football/AFL last updated in 2017. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 20:03, 15 October 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:Sports), without creating duplicate entries. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:27, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment - The following table is provided for comparison of the portals for two forms of football and Portal:Sports. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:43, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep AFL is a very limited sport in range but it's still a broad enough topic to have a portal on. The problems here can be easily fixed. SportingFlyer  T · C  04:52, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I've gone ahead and updated the portal. Shouldn't be any problems with it anymore. SportingFlyer  T · C  05:01, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Australian rules football

 * Question - Does User:SportingFlyer (or any other participating editor) plan to fix the issues with this portal within six days? If so, I will defer my statement.  Robert McClenon (talk) 05:59, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment - I will review the updates to the portal before making a final !vote. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:04, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
 * It would be quite helpful if you would post anything you find unacceptable about it. I'd be willing to fix it up to make it acceptable. The fact AFL isn't played outside of Australia shouldn't have any bearing on whether this is kept, as it's the most popular sport in Australia, and there's quite enough subject material for a topic. I can't adopt too many of these portals, but I'm more than happy to take the lead on this one (and invalidate some of these !votes that nobody cares.) SportingFlyer  T · C  12:47, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Also, in terms of "narrowness," the project contains over 17,000 Aussie rules articles that could potentially be featured. Portal:Apples had what, ten? SportingFlyer  T · C  13:37, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
 * a narrow topic covered in copious detail due to en.wp's systemic biases is still a narrow topic. This is still about one sport in one upper-middle-sized country.  Australian rules football is only a level-4 vital article, i.e. in the 1,000–10,000 range of priority topics. We currently have only 569 portals, after deleting most of those on more minor topics, which had nearly all failed just as this one has. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 14:00, 16 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete. This is a narrow topic, as as even its defender User:SportingFlyer acknowledges above AFL is a very limited sport in range. Australian rules football is little played outside of Australia; the article Geography of Australian rules football says in its lead that "overseas players make up less than 2% of the total players worldwide".
 * The history of the last 6 months of intensive scrutiny of portals at MFD has repeatedly shown that narrow topics very rarely attract either large numbers of readers or enough maintainers to ensure consistent maintenance. In this case, in the 12 months to the end of September 2019, this portal got an average of only 11 views per day, which is barely above the background noise of editors poking about. (I took a 12-month period to average out any seasonal variation)  By contrast the head article averaged 1,340 daily views in the same period.
 * It has also had minimal maintenance. As sometimes happens, the MFD nomination has triggered a driveby update.  I am unpersuaded that the use of a "black box" format (with no visible list of selected articles) is actually any improvement, and SportingFlyer's edit summary added FA and GA articles, and a random list of B-Class articles which I know are personally important topics seems to me to be very poor basis for article selection, esp given SportingFlyer's comment above that there shouldn't be any problems with it anymore. If readers are to be lured to a portal, it needs to consist of more than a quick and unlisted random selection made with a comment which implies that it is "done".  That is just a recipe for further decay.
 * To be sustained, a portal needs active involvement from a related WikiProject, which can assess articles by quality, supply maintainers, and monitor article selection. In this case WP:WikiProject Australian rules football seems uninterested in the portal. A search of the project's 7-page talk archive for "Portal:Australian rules football" reveal only two hits: in 2006, and one in 2010 one in 2010 (there's also a some mentions in a 2011 discussion on the same page.  A search for the shortcuts "Portal:AFL" OR "P:AFL" gives only one hit, from 2006.
 * Similarly, Portal talk:Australian rules football last had a non-announcement post back in 2010. This portal has never been an actively collaborative exercise
 * So readers don't want the page, and editors have shown a consistent long-term non-interest in its fate. One rushed fix by one editor is no long-term cure.
 * All the evidence shows that like so many portals on narrow topics, this one is failed solution in search of a problem. There is no evidence that readers want it or that it resolves any deficiencies elsewhere. The B-class head article Australian rules football with its WP:SUMMARYSTYLE structure and its navbox Template:Australian rules football does a vastly better job than the poral at the key portal tasks of showcasing and navigation. It's very unfair to readers to lure them away from a well-maintained headed article to a long-neglected skimpy portal.  Time to just delete it, and remind anyone interested that their time would be much better spent bring the head article up to FA standard.  Improvement there will reach over 100 times as many readers, and promotion to FA class will multiply that figure several times over.  --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 10:40, 16 October 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:Australia + Portal:Sports), without creating duplicate entries. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 10:44, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete. Portal adds nothing above the Mainarticle+Navbox (and the navbox is really good, which I think kills any non-fansite purpose of the portal; in fact the portal just pastes in the Navbox as a core part).  Most importantly, despite being a potential fansite, the portal has failed and outside of mechanical edits, has lost any real support since 2010.  Again, we don't need to score own goals against ourselves here – keeping an outdated/unmanned dynamic portal on what is also a reasonably narrow topic, makes no sense.  Nobody wants to really look after this (which is needed for a portal), and nobody wants to read it (the purpose), makes no sense either. Britishfinance (talk) 11:06, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Additional Comment. As I have summarised on Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Massachusetts, this portal has also been "rationally abandoned".  For content, the well structured Main Article (which is subjectd to regular scruitiny and has mouseovers for links) is better. For navigation, the excellent Main Article Navbox (which by its transclusion, is also scruitinised and kept up to date) is better. And for article cataloguing, the structured director in WikiProject Australian rules football, is also better (and not POV'ed/forked).  There is no reason to use the portal when the Main Article+Navbox+WP Project give a superior service.  And this is not going to change for this portal ... it is only going to get worse. Britishfinance (talk) 17:19, 18 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment to User:SportingFlyer and anyone else: First, I won't argue that this is a narrow subject, because I don't think that the concept of "broad subject area" (which has no force anyway) should be decided a priori.  Second, my major concern about this portal is that it only has one selected article.  I don't see how to display the Featured Articles or Good Articles.  Third, I am not interested in portal DYKs.  They are normally used as an excuse for a general trivia section, which is discouraged.  Fourth, I am still deferring my !vote.  Robert McClenon (talk) 18:10, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete this portal is flat like a pancake.Catfurball (talk) 19:33, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per nominator, per the delete votes above, and per the fact that there is no good reason to keep such a portal as this. Low page views and the condition it is in mean zero value is added by such a portal. There is no policy or guideline which suggests this portal should exist. Portals are not content, like an article is, since they are for navigation instead. It is therefore improper to use rationales meant for keeping articles to argue that this failed navigation device should be kept. Although I am sure SportingFlyer means well, past MfDs have shown that trying to save portals at the last second generally doesn't make them viable long term (and as BHG notes, effort is much better spent on the article). Simple assertions that the topic is broad enough are entirely subjective; rather, that it is not broad enough is demonstrated by the lack of pageviews and maintenance. The community's consensus not to delete all portals is not a consensus to keep all portals. Content forks are worthless, since they go out of date, preserve old and inferior versions of article content, add pointlessly to the maintenance burden, and are vandalism magnets; therefore they should not be saved. I support replacement of links rather than redirection, to avoid surprising our readers. -Crossroads- (talk) 22:58, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment Well, this is seriously frustrating. Knowing full well consensus is how Wikipedia operates, I fully expect this to be deleted based on the responses so far, and I'm still struggling to figure out exactly why. Let's take a look:
 * Neglected stillborn portal - With the use of the word "stillborn," the nominator implies the portal was created in 2010 - it was created in 2006 and had a number of sub-pages created and updated. Vandalism has also been reverted quickly. It needs some TLC, but it's not as if it's just been sitting here for ages.
 * Too narrow - as I've shown, there's a WikiProject dedicated to the sport and more than 17,000 articles directly related to the portal. The navigation needs a bit of cleanup, but footy's absolutely major here. None of the other !voters even appear to be from Australia. Is gridiron too narrow of a portal topic even though it's only played in the United States?
 * Too narrow (pageviews) - a low number of pageviews shouldn't be a reason for deletion per WP:NOTPAPER
 * Doesn't attract a large number of readers - not a reason for deletion
 * The update/article selection isn't okay - I have fixed the article selection to display the GA and FA articles, along with several important B-Class articles I know personally to be important (some of the major clubs from around the country.) The use of the "black box" template format's not great, but it's a marked improvement from the way we typically have updated the featured articles, and I'm doing my best to learn how to edit this template to fix its one issue.
 * The WikiProject doesn't care - The portal's used as an intro to the sport on the project's web space, and actually functions effectively in that regard. Furthermore, the WikiProject needs a bit of work - sports topics in general need more users focused on not only creating featured articles, but reviewing featured/good articles, and I noticed several misclassified articles as I was picking articles for the topic box. A good portal could actually go a long way in encouraging and highlighting good footy content.
 * Unfair to readers - I disagree - even with a slight update, the portal currently does a decent job of telling whoever is there about the sport.
 * Outdated/unmanned portal/nobody wants to look after this - I am actively nominating myself to rebuild and maintain this thing.
 * Flat like a pancake - nonsensical.
 * Adds nothing - again, I disagree, otherwise I wouldn't be self-nominating to improve and maintain it.
 * Content fork - Content forks are related to articles; portals themselves highlight content instead of forking it


 * I do agree with the idea that it's "improper to use rationales meant for keeping articles" to argue here, but basically I'm up against four delete !votes which are all WP:COMMONSENSE arguments which boil down to WP:USELESS. As someone with a vested interest in the topic, I'm willing to continue to improve this - my initial attempt at improvement (fixing the featured article box, copy-editing, and future-proofing some of the content) isn't meant to say "this is okay now." It's meant to say, "I see this portal being useful and I'm willing to maintain this." Since this is a consensus-based project, the fact I'm up against other !voters who don't see the value, including one who will go as far as to willingly mock those who see the value in portals, means it's not worth my time to continue to improve this portal until this is closed. But it also shows a failure of consensus to respect a minority viewpoint which wants to actively improve the project, especially considering there are no policy guidelines here for us to respect (it's not as if I'm arguing an article passes WP:GNG when it clearly doesn't.) SportingFlyer  T · C  05:36, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
 * . Understand your sentiments, but I have a suggestion. I think that many WP portals have fallen between WP navboxes (who can now do most of the "directory work" of portals, unless the topic area is massive and the portal itself becomes a "mega-navbox"), WP Projects (who catalogue all the grades of articles on the topic but in a better way), and non-WP fansites (if you are a fan of a topic, better to set up a Facebook-type page and link into WP for articles, but you avoid the WP copyvio issues on graphics/pictures etc.). Therefore, I think that editors who want to make a portal work might get better reward revitalising the WP Project pages (in a way, portals should be a subset of WP Project pages).  Just a thought? Britishfinance (talk) 13:19, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The last time WikiProject Australian rules football was edited for content was almost 2 years ago. I can't see a future for a portal, if its WP Project page is dying.  I think in the heirarchy of what should be saved, a maintained WP Project page is better, with less issues over forking etc (and it may attract new editors)? Britishfinance (talk) 13:23, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your suggestion, but I still think this portal should be improved beyond merely listing the navbox for navigational reasons, and help fix a problem (not enough FA/GAs in footy though there's a number of potential candidates, since part of the goal of a portal should be to highlight good content.) The project's not dying, though - there's 23,000 pages, 17,000 articles, all of them have been assessed. Just because the front page hasn't been updated doesn't indicate it's dying. The talk pages are decently healthy. Furthermore, I think it's a logical fallacy to assume the project would be better off updating the main page instead of updating the portal. They can both work hand-in-hand. SportingFlyer  T · C  03:03, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * If the topic WP Project Page is dying (which I think would be a real problem), it should be fixed. The portal is of a much lower order.  This portal is abandoned (by editors, readers and topic enthusiasts), and will stay so despite band-aids from well-meaning editors, for the same reasons that we are seeing so many abandoned portals:
 * 1. Main articles are a better structured naviagtion through a topic (and are more regularly scanned for WP:PAG) (where a main article is in poor state, the topic portal has an even bleaker future).
 * 2. Navboxes are a better navigation tool (and as a transcluded template across WP, are also more regulatly checked and updated).
 * 3. The Project pages are better non-POV'ed/forked directories of FA/GA etc. articles in a topic - and if the Project page is dying, it should be saved.
 * This is the logical and rational reason why we have such widespread abandonment of portals on WP - their purpose has been made redundant. Any work done on them will be wasted as this trend is only increasing.  Look at the work the TH did - total waste of time, had no effect on this trend. Britishfinance (talk) 11:41, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Again, we share different opinions - looking at the WikiProject Football page, that page is relatively stable as well in terms of content, with most of the updates discussing feature articles. Also, the improvement of the WikiProject page and the improvement of the portal do not need to be mutually exclusive. Your arguments about all portals being redundant isn't currently the consensus of the project, either. As it stands, a general consensus still sees the value of portals - in this event, why would we not be able to have a portal on a topic with a comprehensive amount of content? SportingFlyer  T · C  11:51, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Why not? For all the reasons set out above.  The topic is too narrow, the WikiProject isn't interested, readers don't want it, and after many years of neglect only one editor is interested in maintaining it, who has been unable to demonstrate how it could add value for readers and who has denied the need for ongoing maintenance (see, Shouldn't be any problems with it anymore). --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 12:14, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * , of course we can share different opinions. However, per my conclusions above (and also articulated on Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Massachusetts), these portals are "rationally abandoned".  Why would any WP editor support a portal with the Main Artile gives better structured content (and subject to proper scruitiny, is more up-to-date, and has mouse-over links to wider topics), the Navboxes give better navigation tools (and being transcluded, as also more scruitinised and more up to date), and the WP Project Pages have a fuller structured non-POV'ed/forked categorisation of the topic articles.  In these cases, the portal's abandonment is rational, and not due to fashion, habit, other reasons that we hope will change etc.  WP editors have been "rationally" making the right choices with portals - which is too ignore them in favour of Main Article+Navbox+Project Page development, which is now superior. Time spend by an editor on a portal when these superior replacements are not available, will be wasted. Britishfinance (talk) 18:10, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * So you're commenting not on this portal, but rather you think all' portals are useless. SportingFlyer  T · C  00:40, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
 * No, my comments at this MfD are specific to this portal. However, the drivers of the long-term abandonment of this portal, despite the vibrancy of the topic, have parallels to many other WP portals.  In many cases, WP portals are an inferior technology/tool to other WP options (per above), and editors and readers (and even the vandals, who have ignored this portal - but not main article), are voting with their feet. Britishfinance (talk) 16:14, 25 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Response to SF's bolded points:
 * Neglected stillborn portal
 * The portal was indeed born with only a small set of topics, and was still in that state even after the 2010 expansion. The portal has indeed been neglected for years.
 * Too narrow
 * WikiProject dedicated to the sport ... but as noted above, it has shown almost no interest in the portal.
 * more than 17,000 articles directly related to the portal. That is a symptom of the well-documented systemic bias of en.wp's editors. The narrowness is a property of the topic, not of the coverage, and the numbers don't make the topic any less narrow; they just make it a narrow topic covered in copious detail.
 * The navigation needs a bit of cleanup, but footy's absolutely major here. None of the other !voters even appear to be from Australia. Unintentionally, SF has reinforced the narrowness argument, by confirming that this topic is of significant interest only to Australians, who make up only about one in 300 of the world's population. And of course only to those Aussies interested in sport.
 * Too narrow (pageviews)
 * a low number of pageviews shouldn't be a reason for deletion. On the contrary, low pageviews has been a factor in the deletion of many hundreds of portals, because a) it is evidence that the portal is not fulfilling its role as an "enhanced main page" for the topic, an b) because low readership nearly always leads to low maintenance, which is indeed the case here.
 * Doesn't attract a large number of readers
 * not a reason for deletion. Repeats the previous point, and again misses the key issue that portals are not content, which belongs in articles.  Portals are tool, which serve no purpose if unused.
 * The update/article selection isn't okay
 * I have fixed the article selection to display the GA and FA articles, along with several important B-Class articles I know personally to be important. Again, we see a portal's content being selected by the personal preference of one editor.  However, well-intended that editor, it still means that what is claimed to be a showcase is in practice a subjective personal choice of one editor, made without any evident input from the wider WikiProject which shows no interest.
 * learn how to edit this template to fix its one issue. The black box isue is not a function of the template, which is just a wrapper around calls a Lua module which does all the work. SF's failure to see the distinction indicates a long path to a fix, which requires Lua programming skills, and those will not be learnt at the Teahouse
 * The WikiProject doesn't care
 * The portal's used as an intro to the sport on the project's web space -- misses the point that the project has shown almost zero interest in maintaining the portal.
 * Also misses the point that if the portal is a tool for the project's internal uses, it should be moved to project space, as has been done with several German portals
 * Unfair to readers
 * even with a slight update, the portal currently does a decent job of telling whoever is there about the sport. On the contrary, one editor's subjective choice of a small set of articles displayed one at a time with no statement of their significance is a terrible way of telling people abut the sport.  The head article does a massively better job.
 * Outdated/unmanned portal/nobody wants to look after this
 * I am actively nominating myself to rebuild and maintain this thing. The history of portals is littered with portals where one undoubtedly sincere and enthusiastic editor. But those portals are thereby wholly dependent on that one editor, so when that person's interests or energies move on to other pages or other topics or away from Wikipedia, the portal rots.  That's why portals need actively engaged WikiProjects, which this one doesn't have.
 * Adds nothing:
 * I disagree, otherwise I wouldn't be self-nominating to improve and maintain it.. That is just an assertion; it is neither evidence not reasoning. As is usually the case with such defences of portals, SF doesn't even try to identify what value the portal tries to add, let alone analyse whether it succeeds. So far as I can see, all the portal actually adds to the head article is:
 * A list AFL teams, which could be provided with a single link
 * An excerpt from the lede of a single article of unexplained significance, which is redundant to the preview-on-mouseover built-in to the Wikimedia software for all not-logged-in readers
 * So basically the only two things the whole portal adds to the head article is two links. That doesn't need  a standalone page.
 * Content fork:
 * Content forks are related to articles; portals themselves highlight content instead of forking it. Actually, like most most portals, this one has been based on content forks, which have rotted.
 * Look, I get that SF is an enthusiastic fan of the sport. But this is an encyclopedia, not a fanzine, I don't see any sign that SF is either looking beyond their own personal enthusiasm or actually engaging with the criticisms.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by BrownHairedGirl (talk • contribs) 12:10, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Look, this should be a really simple deletion discussion. Is the topic broad enough for a portal, and will the portal be maintained? I believe the answer to both is a clear "yes." Most of these criticisms are not criticisms that Australian Rules Football should not have a portal, but are rather criticisms of portals in general - the only argument here that actually relates to Australian Rules Football is whether the topic's broad enough. I'm also frustrated you're choosing to move the goalposts on several things, including the article selection being down to my "personal preferences" (it's not "preference", they're either FA/GA articles, or clubs with B-class articles). I'm also livid about the criticism about "asking for template help at the teahouse." I know how to program, I've never worked with template code before, I asked for someone to point me in the right direction, and in any case the author of the template is looking into cleaning it up anyways. SportingFlyer  T · C  00:40, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
 * SF, it's a pity that you misrepresent the concerns as relating to all portals, and continue to overlook the specific issues relating to this portal.
 * A narrow topic covered in copious detail due to en.wp's systemic biases does not become a broad topic. The broadness of a topic is a properly of the topic, not of the efforts of editors.
 * It is not possible to say with reasonable certainty that the portal will be maintained. We have no inters whatsoever from a supporting WikiProject.  We do have a good faith assurance from one editor, but only one editor … and the2019 MFD archives are littered with deleted portals where one editor sincerely set out to maintain a portal, but for whatever reason didn't do so. Wikiedia has no mechanism for key man insurance, but we can decide not to rely on any one person, however sincere they are.
 * The choice of articles is explicitly a personal preference of SF, who wrote articles I know personally to be important. The topic has 94 B-class articles, 11 GAs, and 4 FAs: a total of 115 articles from which SF has chosen 18 on the explicit basis of their personal judgement.    It is  bizarre that SF denies this, and simply untrue that any goalposts have been moved, because these concerns have been consistently expressed by me and by others.
 * As to the Teahouse matter, I commented civilly on what SF set out and remain very surprised by the choice of venue for technical advice. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 16:14, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
 * And it's a pity that the conversation has delved into the minutiae of portals instead of looking at whether the portal is broad enough to be kept (it is - whether the topic is "narrow" is subjective, but I've continually demonstrated there is enough content here to feature and enough content here to provide a useful navigation structure continues to be ignored - as I've noted, would gridiron be considered a narrow topic, even though it is only really played in the US?), and whether it will be maintained going forward, which it will. I just want to get to work updating it. SportingFlyer  T · C  00:13, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
 * SF, we are not discussing gridiron here, but if you really want to make that comparison, please note that the population of the US is a whole order of magnitude greater than that of Oz.  So that comparison is not to your advantage.
 * As to the rest, you continue to engage in the fallacy of proof by assertion. You simply ignore the counter-arguments made above, such as the difference between broad topic and copious coverage, and the fact that this is basically just a sub-topic of Australia.
 * I will simply note your final phase I just want to get to work updating it. That much is very clear.  However, it is also very clear that the long-term complete lack of interest from the WikiProject makes this just your personal hobby, unsupported and unscrutinised by anyone else.  Aside from the key man problem, the poor quality of reasoning deployed above gives no reason to believe that SF as lone maintainer would have the critical thinking skills needed to maintain balance while working alone.
 * For example, SF claims that the portal could "provide a useful navigation structure", but has not identified any way in which its current role as a showcase for random articles could be turned into "a useful navigation structure". -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 14:50, 21 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete - Unfortunately, User:SportingFlyer, who is offering to upgrade and maintain this portal, does not understand what is meant about content forks, and that ignorance is not a good sign about their ability to maintain the portal. They write:  Content fork - Content forks are related to articles; portals themselves highlight content instead of forking it.  No.  When a traditional-style portal with subpages is created, the subpages are static forks of the content in the selected articles.  This means that when the articles are updated, the subpages are not updated, and so the subpage content becomes obsolete (referred to as subpage rot).  The lack of understanding of this problem by someone who has taken part in numerous portal MFD debates and plans to maintain a portal causes me to lack confidence in their ability to understand the issues.  The readership is low.  I have not reviewed other recent updates to the portal.   Robert McClenon (talk) 03:10, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Seriously? A delete vote which essentially functions as a personal attack because you don't understand policy? See Portal. The version I've already updated uses the selective transclusion as described in that link, meaning the information isn't "forked" but is instead dynamic. We're working on improving that template now. SportingFlyer  T · C  03:34, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * SF, Portal is not, as you incorrectly assert, "policy". Nor is it a guideline.  It is an information page, and is tagged as in need of update. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 11:10, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Imprecise choice of words on my part, but it doesn't change my point that these aren't technically forks. SportingFlyer  T · C  11:51, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * A copy of content on another page is a content fork. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 12:10, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The mention of content forking arose in connection with subpages that were copies of article pages. These are content forks, and there have been very many MFDs in which the disconnect between the copies and the original page, which is a content fork, has caused "subpage rot", such as but not limited to failure to list dates of death.  The statement that portals highlight content rather than forking it neglects this serious problem.  It is correct that the workaround for this problem is transclusion, which indeed does not fork content.  The statement that portals do not fork content, when some do and some do not, showed a failure to understand the problem.  If transclusion has now been implemented (which I have not yet checked), that immediate issue for this portal has been addressed.  However, such a completely inaccurate statement was indicative of a general lack of necessary technical understanding.  Robert McClenon (talk) 20:48, 18 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep Still useful, can be improved. It's a fallacy to think that everything needs constant updating, though some updating to sporting portals is a good idea.  All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:06, 18 October 2019 (UTC).


 * Delete largely per BHG and Crossroads. SD0001 (talk) 20:55, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per the nom and @ Brown HairedGirl . This Bonsai portal is long abandoned (drive-by maintenance at MfD means nothing), almost unread, and is about an incredibly narrow topic unlikely to attract large numbers of readers and maintainers. No Wiki-Project involvement either. The same reasons 900 other junk portals have been deleted in the past six months. Newshunter12 (talk) 07:30, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep A need for improvement is not need for deletion. Some things do not need constant updating. But if they do need improvement we should update them instead of deletion. Wm335td (talk) 21:27, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment. That is a valid arguement for an article but not for a portal; an abandoned portal is a problem E.g. would be keep the Main Page if its last edit was a decade ago? Britishfinance (talk) 15:00, 4 November 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.