Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:California State University (2nd nomination)

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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. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 07:57, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Portal:California State University


Fully-automated navbox-cloned portal, with no curated version to revert to.

This portal builds its "selected general articles" list solely from the navbox California State University, of which it is therefore just a bloated and redundant fork. For a full explanation of why this type of portal is redundant, see the two mass deletions of similar portals: one, and two, where there was overwhelming consensus of a very high turnout to delete a total of 2,555 such portals.

Since those mass deletion discussions, I have spotted two newish features of Wikipedia which further emphasise the redundancy of this type of portal:
 * 1) mouseover: for ordinary readers who are not logged in, mouseover on any of the linked list items shows you the picture and the start of the lead.  So the preview-selected page-function of portals is redundant: something almost as good is available automatically on any navbox or other set of links
 * 2) automatic imagery galleries: for ordinary readers who are not logged in, clicking on an image brings up an image gallery of all the images on that page. It's full-screen, so it's actually much better than even a click-for-next image gallery on a portal.  This automated portal draws its image gallery solely from the head article California State University, so try the image gallery by right-clicking on California State University, and select "open in private window" or "open in incognito window", and click on any image.  Then compare that full-screen slideshow with the tiny box slideshow on Portal:California State University.

Similar features have been available since 2015 to users of Wikipedia's Android app.

This portal was previously discussed at WP:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, a nomination by me of a single page which was hijacked by another editor with the addition of no less than 52 other portals and a change of title. The resulting discussion of this sprawling, indiscriminate set was a bit of a WP:TRAINWRECK. It was closed on 11 April 2019 as keep 8 portals, including this one, but delete the remaining 45.

However, that close was three days before the close of WP:Miscellany for deletion/Mass-created portals based on a single navbox. The two WP:CENT-advertised mass MFDs have established a broad community consensus not to keep this type of automated portal. This nomination is to allow re-examination of this portal in light of that clear consensus.

I will ping the participants in the first MFD. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:49, 15 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Pinging the participants at WP:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff: ... and the closer @Amorymeltzer. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:58, 15 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete. Average six views per day, no advantages over the parent article as a landing site for the topic. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:20, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete. Cookie-cutter portal, no love detected.--  Auric   talk  01:24, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete:
 * User:SmokeyJoe is checking recent pageview metrics. User:BrownHairedGirl and I have been using a baseline period of 1 January 2019 to 28 February 2019, before the attention to the need to delete trash portals caused them to be viewed to verify that they were trash portals.
 * I see 3 average daily pageviews for the portal (even worse than SJ), and 685 average daily pageviews for the head article.
 * Because this is a university system rather than one university, the total pageviews for the system include the member universities and colleges, so that the ratio of article views to portal views is even higher.
 * Because a university system is described by multiple articles, a properly maintained portal could be useful in providing information about the system. This is not a properly maintained portal.
 * Since the nomination doesn't clearly say that it is without prejudice to a properly maintained portal, I will say that I am recommending deletion without prejudice to a properly designed and maintained portal based on future portal guidelines. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:49, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete, without prejudice against a curated portal that does considerably more than this auto-portal. We actually probably should have portals on university systems and major universities, but I agree that one this bare doesn't offer benefits over the article page (or, more particularly, its navbox).  I'm leaning toward the view that a portal needs to do more than what a single navbox does, and more than the main article on the topic does, or it is a redundant page.  I think this is a reasonable compromise position, and the various larger-scale discussions of portals on WP are basically herding us all in this direction.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:13, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I think portals on university systems and major universities is not a step towards the improvement of the encyclopedia, but a backwards step. What would they do, feature content on leading universities, and present that content stripped of explicit sourcing?  Which universities would be featured most prominently?  The room for bias and promotion is huge.  A much better idea than such portals would be to work on the article University system.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:55, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete without prejudice per SMcCandlish. A curated portal about the University of California system would be a good addition to the encyclopaedia, without any more inherent issues of bias or promotion than any other portal about multiple entities or organisations. Thryduulf (talk) 08:42, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Without more. Without less. These organisations, universities, compete for prestige and money and customers, and actively self promote. If Portals were of any visibility (use), then they would be targets of promotion. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:17, 15 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment The ITN section of this portal currently contains an article which is not (as far as I can tell) accessible from the Nav Box or either of the articles (either the main one or the specific campus mentioned). That's fine, I'm pretty sure putting a mention in the articles would be undue weight, but it is appropriate in the portal.  If the idea is that these portals are 'mini' main-pages, then this portal is doing it's job.  If I were interested in the happenings of CSU, this gives me information I might not otherwise have been able to access or connect (here on WP at least).  My rationale on the first MfD was that prima facie the topics should have portals, not that they should necessarily be in this form. I'm pretty neutral on the deletion at this point, but if that is the way it goes it should be without prejudice for recreation.  Crazynast 02:19, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
 * @Crazynas, that single article in the "In the news" section is captured by the temaplate call
 * That makes it pick up all news items in the last 45 days.
 * So I did a test of 900 days, to see what that would pick up: Portal:California State University/In the news test.
 * As you can see, it still produces only the one item.
 * So if that box had been in place for the last 900, days then it would have been empty from 30 November 2016 until 27 April 2019. It it will empty again after 11 June 2019.
 * There's no point in keeping portal pages just for that. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 16:43, 19 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete:
 * Needlessly forks content from extant navboxes.
 * Of questionable topic breadth.
 * Active maintenance is required for portals to fulfil their purpose.
 *  SITH   (talk)   11:51, 17 May 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.