Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Biochemistry

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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:  no consensus. ‑Scottywong | confer _ 06:19, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Biochemistry


Static micro-portal abandoned since 2007. Note that it was named Portal:Metabolism until moved to its current title in May 2019.

Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Biochemistry shows a tiny set of subpages, with only one Portal:Biochemistry/Selected article, whose text has not been changed since 2007.

The lead of WP:POG says "Portals which require manual updating are at a greater risk of nomination for deletion if they are not kept up to date. Do not expect other editors to maintain a portal you create" ... and this one has not been maintained.

WP:POG requires that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers". But in practice, this portal has not attracted maintainers, and it has also been shunned by readers: in June 2019, the portal got only 2 page views per day, while the head article Biochemistry got 1,378 daily views. (Update: the view counter wasn't working as expected. See full details at )

Per WP:PORTAL, "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects". But the Wikipedia main page works because it is the product of a lot of hard work every day by several teams of skilled editors; few portals get anywhere near the level of attention required to make them work. In this case, the head article Biochemistry is a massive enhancement on the portal. The head article facilitates navigation by a sidebar plus navboxes, and an embedded list; and because it is written is in summary style, it showcases the other key articles related the topic.

This abandoned pseudo-portal is simply a waste if the time of readers, and of any editors who link to it or may be tempted to tweak it. It's long past time to just delete it. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:34, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete – I concur with the analysis by BHG. This portal lists 5 related portals, so I have provided a brief comparison.  The metrics listed below are for the period of 1 Jan 19 – 28 Feb 19, when the portal in question was named Portal:Metabolism, and the pageviews shown below are not as bad as those reported by BHG, but still do not justify the portal.  Some portals are stillborn.  This portal, based on its (renamed) subject matter, may be not so much stillborn as a failed experiment in alchemy.

I am not nominating either Portal:Chemistry or Portal:Biology for deletion, and do not plan to maintain either of them, but traffic to the subject portal can be redirected to either of them as long as they exist. The portal architecture relying on partial copies for subpages is a failed experiment, but this is a portal that doesn't have the subpages. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:27, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep. The driver for my moving the Portal to an obviously much broader topic was to see if the rename (along with the contemporaneous restructuring/revitalization of WikiProject Molecular Biology) would drive more improvement and pageviews; I think seven weeks is not nearly long enough to give such a process time to operate and assess its results. Since there is no deadline, I would ask that discussion of this portal individually be postponed for 12 months. UnitedStatesian (talk) 13:43, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * @UnitedStatesian, there is no deadline, but there is also no policy of Waiting for Godot. After twelve years of abandonment, there is no sign of any maintainer, or any WikiProject wanting to take it on.
 * There is so little here that it would be a trivial matter of a few seconds' work to recreate the portal if anyone wanted to build something which actually adds value. The current portal is light years away from the WP:PORTAL principle that "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects", and it is not fair to our readers to keep this pointless mini-portal for another year in the unevidenced hope that magic maintainers will magically appear, and that they will magically have the skills to overhaul a portal built on an outdated framework but lack the skills to build one from scratch using more modern tools.  That's a deeply implausible proposition.
 * Most of the portals brought to MFD have never been assessed before, either at MFD or by any quality assessment process ('cos the portals project has never done any systematic quality assessment other than the defunct featured portals process). The community clearly does not have infinite resources to repeatedly reassess portals, and MFD should not behave as if there were an infinite number of editors willing to plough through the debris of a decade's neglect. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 15:49, 9 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment – I understand that User:UnitedStatesian appears to be trying to preserve as many of the remaining portals as possible and slow the rate at which portals are being deleted. However, their request to delay the decision on whether to delete Portal:Biochemistry is a good-faith misguided diversion.  There are at least three problems with this portal.  First, it doesn't have enough articles.  It has 1 rather than a minimum of 20.  Second, its architecture, like most existing portals, relies on subpages that are partial copies of pages, and this architecture is a failed experiment.  Third, it doesn't have enough readers.  UnitedStatesian is trying to address these problems by renaming the portal from Portal:Metabolism to Portal:Biochemistry, and by re-activating WP:WikiProject Molecular Biology.  The renaming is likely to have some impact on the third issue, the lack of readers.  The re-activation of the WikiProject is more likely to improve the viewing of Portal:Molecular and cellular biology than of Portal:Biochemistry.  However, only real portal maintenance will address the first problem, the lack of articles, and even then the portal will have a flawed architecture.  Nearly all of the heritage portals that are being discussed at MFD have the flawed architecture, so that we cannot and will not be deleting all of them.  However, this portal has only one subpage, and renaming it is the equivalent to changing the name on the birth certificate of a stillborn child.  I don't see the point to waiting three months or six months or twelve months to see whether readers will read a portal consisting of one subpage.  Adding subpages to the portal would be more productive, but I would suggest that User:UnitedStatesian look for other portals that were actually started to improve.  Robert McClenon (talk) 18:59, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Your understanding of what I am "trying to" do is incorrect, as should be evident by the number of portals that I continue to bring to MfD, along with my delete !votes on other nominators' MfDs. I played no role in reactivating WP:WikiProject Molecular Biology; that was other editors. UnitedStatesian (talk) 04:19, 10 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment, primarily to User:UnitedStatesian – What I wrote apparently does not say what I meant it to say. That is, it is my fault that you misinterpreted what I wrote.  I meant that, of the editors who have been nominating portals for deletion, you are now trying to preserve as many portals as possible.  I didn't mean that you were defending portals in general.  Some editors are.  I meant that you are trying to slow down the rate at which portals are being deleted, as opposed to the portal fans, who are trying to stop the deletion of portals and are using empty arguments to that effect.  I still think that you are wasting your efforts in renaming a portal with only one subpage and with a failed design.


 * Regarding Page Views – Portal:Metabolism, which redirects to Portal:Biochemistry, has received 414 page views in the last thirty days. This is in part because after the portal was moved to its new title, the mover did not bother to update the portal links in various areas to read as "Biochemistry", such as articles (e.g. see the See also section in this perm link). No offense intended, but as such, actual page views for the portal are being seriously misrepresented in the deletion nomination. . The redirect goes directly to the Biochemistry portal, which are ultimately page views for the portal. Cheers, North America1000 23:54, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * It is not that I "did not bother", it is that WP editing guidelines specifically instruct all of us to "Do not 'fix' links to redirects that are not broken". UnitedStatesian (talk) 04:16, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * It's all good, but for what it's worth, WP:NOTBROKEN is about articles, not portals. Fact is, the word "portal" is not present there at all. Furthermore, at WP:NAVNOREDIRECT regarding "good reasons to bypass redirects", it states, "In other namespaces, particularly the template and portal namespaces in which subpages are common, any link or transclusion to a former page title that has become a redirect following a page move is to be updated to the new title for naming consistency." The point is that the portal receives many more page views than is stated in the nomination. All of this is yet another reason why portals should not be moved around so casually. Cheers, North America1000 04:33, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The word "page" is there, which covers portals. UnitedStatesian (talk) 04:35, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Better to follow what it states "In other namespaces", particularly since portals are specifically stated there, rather than based upon the word "pages" being present in a different area, which is simply referring to advice and disambiguation pages plurally. North America1000 04:39, 10 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Neat statistical trick there by NA1K. It seems that the pageviews counter has not been including views for the redirects. Thanks to @NA1K for spotting that ... but a wee WP:TROUTing to to NA1K for a) using a different period, and b) citing the total pageviews for the whole period, when all the rest of the figures used are the daily average across a period.
 * So, to make a valid comparison, we need to use the same statistical base for all usages. So I'll take again the daily averages for the month of June.  That gives us the table on the right.
 * That shows the combined views for the articles Biochemistry + Metabolism as 3,256 but the combined views for Portal:Biochemistry + Portal:Metabolism as only 16.
 * So readers prefer the articles by a ratio of 203:1. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 18:20, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Personally, if this were my nomination, I would strike the part in the nom stating, "in June 2019, the portal got only 2 page views per day", because it's erroneous and misleading. That's just me, though. Cheers, North America1000 19:44, 11 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep and tag with the Update template. Then notify relevant Wikiprojects that the portal would benefit from updating. the topic meets WP:POG guidelines in terms of being broad enough in topical scope to qualify for a portal. The number of page views stated in the nomination remains incorrect, and as such, is misleading. Furthermore, articles typically receive more page views compared to portals. To increase portal page views, more visible links to it can be added to various articles and other pages. More visible links = more page views. North America1000 08:57, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
 * @NA1K, as you very well know, it is untrue to say that topic meets WP:POG guidelines in terms of being broad enough in topical scope to qualify for a portal. You know very well that POG defines this as WP:POG requires that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers", and you know that this has attracted neither viewers nor maintainers.
 * Why do you repeatedly tell outright lies about the guidelines? -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 05:12, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Select [►] to view subcategories
 * Comment – See the category tree below for topical coverage of the topic on English Wikipedia. My !vote stands: the breadth of coverage is adequate to qualify for a portal. Guidelines are just that, guidelines; they are not ultra strict, absolute policies. Being accused of being a liar above is very sophomoric and a disappointment to see here. It's the kind of behavior that turns people away from Wikipedia. Very sad, and I won't be responding to such worthless, WP:BAIT remarks. Also, the number of page views stated in the nomination continues to remain incorrect, which is misleading. Cheers, North America1000 18:10, 13 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Reply to the liar Northamerica1000. I don't often call people liars, but when an admin repeatedly and systematically asserts claims which they know to be false, then it is appropriate to use the term per WP:SPADE. Sadly, NA1K now has a long record of lying about the portal guidelines, and such systematic dishonesty in consensus-forming discussions drives people away from Wikipedia.
 * NA1K was one of the editors who last month advocated at WT:Portal/Guidelines the removal of the requirement to have large pageviews. That proposal was overwhelmingly rejected, but NA1K dishonestedly proceeds as if it there was a consensus in favour of that failed proposal.
 * It's also shocking that NA1K claims that Guidelines are just that, guidelines; they are not ultra strict, absolute policies. The reality is that at the top of WP:POG,  there is the standard guideline notice which says "It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply."
 * Instead of arguing for occasional exceptions, NA1K ignores the guidelines every time, and instead of attempting to follow them NA1k tries hard to misrepresent them through omission and selective quotation. Instead of applying common sense, NA1K claims that the abysmal pageview for a portal are no problem because other abandoned portals also have abysmal pageviews.
 * NA1K's game-playing approach is well-illustrated by their posting here of the first level of the category tree, with 34 categories. That tells us little except how the category tree is organised, but hey it's 34 links presented so that it fills up half a screen, which it it's a handy substitute for a reasned, policy-based argument.
 * AS NA1K well knows, the test of broadness is not solely the number of articles. It is that that portals should be broad enough to "attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers". This one doesn't, and all NA1K's arguments are just a smokescreen of deceptions, omissions, sophistry and lies to obscure the simple fact that after ten years this portal is unmainatined and almost unread.
 * NA1K is one of a small and dwindling crew of portalistas who like working portals because portals are a backwater where the portalsistas don't apply the usual standards of sourcing etc, and the portalistas have for over a decade created walled gardens with little scrutiny because hardly anyone reads the portals in which they do their busywork.
 * So when face with scrutiny, the response of NA1k and her small crew has been a variety of deflection techniques. NA1K tried depopulating tracking categories; tried gutting the guidelines; and when both those exploits failed, has now resorted simply to walls of FUD. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 12:35, 15 July 2019 (UTC)




 * Yawn. Yet more garish, subjective shaming, blaming and apparent WP:BAITING, apparently and unfortunately BHG's modus operandi now regarding any and all portal editors. Resorting to calling people a liar on a public noticeboard is juvenile and entirely ad hominem, a cheap logical fallacy. Consider taking a break from scolding others, maybe improve an article, or something.


 * Regarding the laughable notion, "NA1K is one of a small and dwindling crew of portalistas who like working portals because portals are a backwater where the portalsistas don't apply the usual standards of sourcing": actually, I'm a proponent of sources being included in portals, rather than omitted. I guess you'll just say anything. You seem to enjoy villainizing any and all portal editors, apparently per a potential confirmation bias that all portals, portal editors, and anything portal are somehow bad. Whatever. Consider checking out the lighthearted advice at Advice for hotheads. Also, please seriously consider trying to treat users more respectfully. Meanwhile, I'll continue to remain calm and civil in deletion discussions.


 * If you're able to discuss the portal itself without resorting to walls of personal attacks, it's possible I may respond further here, but otherwise, I'll decline to gratify any additional ranting. It's wrong, and it's not improving Wikipedia, it's polluting it. North America1000 10:57, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
 * @NA1K, there is nothing calm and civil about your sustained practice of telling lies about policy and guidelines, or of trying to paint me as a baddie for calling you out on that.
 * I repeat: NA1K tried depopulating tracking categories; tried gutting the guidelines; and when both those exploits failed, has now resorted simply to walls of FUD.
 * Please stop polluting Wikipedia with your lies and FUD. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 01:40, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

NA1K's latest FUD tactic: statistical deception
Here's another example of the FUD tactics of deception being used by the admin and serial liar User:Northamerica1000.

In the nomination posted in good faith the pageviews for the portal, and for the head article. As with every nomination, in each case I linked to the query, to facilitate verification. NA1K spotted that there was a higher pageview count for the previous title. I thanked NA1K for that, and promptly created a table comparing pageviews for both portal and article, using old and new title. That table is at, and I have added a note about it to the nominating statement.

That shows daily averages for the month of June 2019, just as the original nomination did. NA1K has offered no comment on that table.

Further up, @Robert McClenon has posted a table comparing the pageviews of portals. Again using the daily averages which allow comparison of periods of different length.

But now NA1K has posted a box purporting to offer pageviews which have not been counted in other stats.

This is deceptive in three ways:
 * 1) I have already posted comparative table of pageviews. The box posted by NA1K falsely implies that there are omissions in those stats, but NA1K has not identified any omissions.
 * 2) NA1K posts the total pageviews for a period, rather than the daily averages used by every other editor who has posted stats.  This has the effect of making it falsely appear that NA1K has discovered some massive, gamechanging set of uncounted pageviews.
 * 3) NA1K has posted stats for the period 2019-05-15 to 2019-06-15.  The stats table I posted is for the calendar month of June, that being the most recent complete month before the nomination.  Changing the period of comparison without reason or explanation id a classic FUD tactic

NA1K's conduct really is getting out of hand. Serial lies about the portal guidelines. Attempts to gut the guidelines. Attempts to depopulate or delete portal tracking categories. NA1K's repeated bogus claims taht WP:NOTCOMPULSORY bans any requirement for a portal to have a named maintainer.

And now an exercise in statistical FUD. Is there no limit? -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 02:41, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * My table above is for the period from 1 January 2019 to 28 February 2019 in order to avoid the complications of the renaming of the portal. Any argument that my metrics need to be adjusted because of the renaming of the portal is incorrect.  Robert McClenon (talk) 03:17, 18 July 2019 (UTC)


 * I won't be responding further to personal attacks. North America1000 06:39, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * @NA1K, it should be very clear from what I wrote that I don't want you to respond. I want and end to your lies and your FUD and your systematic decitfulness at MFD. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:14, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

NA1K's latest: Improved the portal
I have cleaned up, improved and expanded the portal a bit. It definitely has room for more improvements, and I will continue to work on it after posting this. I feel that the portal has potential to become a significant resource for Wikipedia's WP:READERS. If it is retained, this would allow time for it to be entirely overhauled, further improving it. I also added a link to the main article's See also section (diff), which unfortunately, previously lacked a link to the portal. Bye. North America1000 06:00, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * As NA1K well knows, the test for portal is much more specific than what NA!k feels.
 * WP:POG requires that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers".
 * NA1K does not even try to offer any evidence to show that the portal might now satisfy that guideline.
 * A one-off set of tweaks by one editor does not amount to "large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers". -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:11, 19 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment to closer – Since I've been maligned here in such a crude, uncivil and unnecessary manner, a closing statement. Under BHG's line of logic, then the Orphan template should not exist. If a portal were to have zero links to it in other areas of Wikipedia, it's common sense that it would receive low page views. Conversely, if 1,000 links exist linking to a portal, strategically placed in highly topically-aligned areas that receive decent traffic, it's common sense that page views will quite likely increase, at least sometimes. Makes perfect sense, really. Be sure to check out WP:ORP, where it states, "Orphaned articles, since they have no links to them from other pages, are difficult to find, and are most likely to be found only by searching, or by chance. Because of this, few people know they exist, and therefore, they receive less readership and improvement from those who would be able to improve them" (bold emphasis mine). This also makes perfect sense. I'm no liar, and the constant insults posted here and elsewhere are wholly inappropriate and do absolutely nothing to improve the encyclopedia. I anticipate the potential for yet another reply with yet another long rant of anger, which I won't be responding to if occurrent. Bye. North America1000 05:35, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Let's get this back on track...

 * Keep primarily for the reasons given by User:UnitedStatesian. The portal was moved to a very broad subject, Biochemistry. A topic with a wide array of interesting articles, media and material that can be included in the portal. And I believe there is enough room for improvement, which at least one editor appears to be engaged in already. So, to me this MfD appears to premature from the get-go. --Hecato (talk) 10:37, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * @Hecato, WP:POG requires that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers". Where is the evidence that this portal is likely to "attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers".
 * Average daily pageviews per portal in April–June 2019.png So far it has no maintainers, and almost no readers. As you can see from the graph, most portals have almost no readers.
 * So what evidence do you have that this portal will be the exception which will "attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers"? -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:19, 19 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The guideline merely states that a portal should have a broad subject area. Which this portal has, so the guideline requirement is fulfilled. Regarding pageviews: Beyond the precondition of a broad subject area, being able to attract a large number of readers and maintainers certainly depends on the quality of the portal and the placement of visible links in the article space leading to the portal. Which are issues that can be improved by editing. --Hecato (talk) 13:44, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Hecato writes: The guideline merely states that a portal should have a broad subject area.
 * This is plain false. Hecato has snipped off the rest of the sentence,  which explicitly adds criteria for assessing broadness.
 * It is sad to see the portalistas continuing to engage in such flagrant dishonesty. Have you no shame? --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 13:09, 26 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment - User:BrownHairedGirl, User:Northamerica1000, User:Hecato - Please do not insert third-level headings into an MFD. They gum things up.  I had to change them to fifth-level headings.  Robert McClenon (talk) 23:57, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete – When User:Northamerica1000 says that they have improved the portal, they have actually improved it more than they have mentioned. It no longer has the old heritage-style design with partial copies of pages that amount to content forks.  It now has an embedded list of 20 articles, one of which is selected randomly when the user brings up the portal.  The problems with the portal included that it had a low pageview rate, and that it had both a failed design relying on copied subpages and a failure to implement that design because it had only one subpage, and that it had no history of maintenance.  The design has been modernized, and it now has 20 articles accessed via an embedded list.  There is still no reason to expect that the renaming will result in much of an improvement in the pageview rate.   This portal is no longer as much in need of deleting as it previously was, but there is still no plausible argument for keeping it.  The effort made by User:Northamerica1000 might have been better applied to a more viewed portal that is also abandoned, such as either of this portal's sister portals, Portal:Chemistry and Portal:Biology.  Robert McClenon (talk) 00:59, 20 July 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.