Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Christmas

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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. ‑Scottywong | [confer] || 22:36, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Christmas

 * – (View MfD)

Nineteen selected articles. There have only been two updates to these since September 2009:, Mark Schierbecker (talk) 20:40, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per the nom. This portal has been abandoned for a decade, save for some one-off updates by passing editors, and picture 3 was deleted from commons in 2012, yet the sub-page has not been updated. 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 Juliancolton, who dumped it in Dec. 2009, a few months after creation, and has made one edit to portal space in the last five years. 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 16 views per day from June 1 to August 30 2019 (despite the head article Christmas having 1,879 views per day in the same period).
 * POG also states portals should be associated with a wikiproject, but both WikiProject Holidays and its Christmas task force are inactive, the portal's only mention on each talk page was the same brief Sep. 2009 request by the portal's creator for a Peer Review of their new creation and it's only listed on the main page of the task force. 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 Christmas is not a broad enough topic to attract readers or maintainers. Newshunter12 (talk) 21:55, 15 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Question about backlinks. I don't want in any way to prejudge the outcome ... but if this discussion is closed as delete, what do we do about the backlinks?  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. in this case I think that Portal:Christianity would be the best fit.  Is that OK?. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 10:16, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * @ Brown HairedGirl  Yes, that is fine. Newshunter12 (talk) 17:08, 16 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment - Both the article and the portal in the twelve month period from Jul18 to Jun19 show a great deal of seasonal variation in the viewing. The variation of the article is what one would expect, with a high of 187,261 pageviews on 25 Dec 2018; the median is 2541 and the mean is 6898.  The portal is a little less obvious.  While viewing of the portal peaked at 190 views on 24 Dec 2018, it was higher in the first quarter of 2019 than the rest of the twelve-month period, with a daily average of 34.  Robert McClenon (talk) 17:17, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment - I have no objections to submit, as public opinion has clearly soured on portals in general, and there are perfectly valid arguments about scope and maintenance which may be applicable here. But I'll readily note that the portal deletionists have been nothing been disrespectful and flippant. In each of the discussions concerning the deletion of portals I'd created many years ago, people like have employed aggressive verbiage to suggest that I'd abandoned them with malicious or negligent intent. No, I didn't "dump" anything – this is a wiki, which traditionally meant that collaboration was necessary to bring projects to fruition. It seems that among new and relatively inexperienced users, that philosophy has sadly been lost. Nonetheless, I won't take it personally, as Newshunter12 evidently uses a boilerplate rationale that attacks all former portal creators indiscriminately. –  Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 15:58, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
 * @Juliancolton There was nothing personal about my statement above. The facts are, as your edit history shows, you abandoned this portal in 2009 and you were the one who did not heed the immediate warning stipulated in WP:POG, "Do not expect other editors to maintain a portal you create". Portals are not articles, and generally at best have had one or two creators/maintainers in their entire histories, so that when one or both goes, a rotting portal is left behind. I'm sorry that the facts don't care about your feelings, and that there are so many other portal creators who leave junk around for others to clean up, so that the above quote has to be repeatedly brought out. Facts aren't malicious, just reality, and I'm saddened that it appears you will not be one of the rare portal creators who helps delete the abandoned portal they created, however well intentioned they might have been at the time. I never said you didn't mean well at the time. Newshunter12 (talk) 17:12, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
 * You clearly don't need my help; all but a couple of the portals I'd ever substantially edited have been swiftly deleted in the last couple years. I'm not upset about it, and I don't disagree with the reasons for doing so. It would merely be nice for you and a handful of others (at another one of these discussions, some editor with whom I'd had no prior contact went out of their way to call my portal creations "a joke") to acknowledge that attitudes toward portals have changed drastically in the decade or more since I "dumped" these creations. In 2009, we had a small but thriving community of FPO contributors who would often step in and graciously help flesh out each other's nascent portal skeletons. This is irrespective of whatever WP:POG may say; that was always a crude instructional guide which represented neither site policy nor actual portal-related practices. I'm ever so sorry that your short tenure on Wikipedia has left you yet aloof and pretentious, but I'm sure you mean well, and will come to appreciate Wikipedia's collaborative culture in time. –  Juliancolton  &#124; Talk 20:39, 18 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep, nicely done portal that is almost timeless and does not contain major embarassment. Remove or update the calendar, the "things you can do" unless updated (I use a switch on Portal:Germany to hide the news section whenever it becomes too old) and consider updating the "Topics" box. No advantage in deleting this over keeping it. —Kusma (t·c) 21:35, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Your vote is pure WP:ILIKEIT and should hold no weight. As described above, this portal is an abysmal failure of WP:POG. Furthermore, try this for embarrassment: the picture at Portal:Christmas/Selected picture/3 was deleted from commons in Dec. 2012, yet this sub-page was never updated or removed because this portal has been abandoned for a decade. Newshunter12 (talk) 01:53, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Delete this portal forever.Catfurball (talk) 19:19, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete as an unmaintained portal, with no criticism of the originator, because no one is required to do anything in Wikipedia, but portals are required to have maintainers. I am sad to cast this !vote because I think that there is something magical about Christmas, and deleting the portal feels a little like Ebenezer Scrooge to the charity collectors, but Christians (and non-Christians) can celebrate the holiday without the need for a portal.  A spot-check of the 19 articles shows that they were created in 2009, and that subsequent maintenance has been minor.  Robert McClenon (talk) 14:40, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete and oppose re-creation per Newshunter12. I'm sure creating this was fun and seemed like a good idea, but since then we've learned that excessive portals are not good. -Crossroads- (talk) 06:20, 24 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.