Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Classical architecture

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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. Seems like most people here think that WP:POG is not met/the portal is redundant to another one. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 13:10, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Classical architecture

 * – (View MfD)

This is a semi-automated portal created and abandoned by TTH. It is solely built off of Outline of classical architecture and an embedded list inside the portal.


 * New Classical architecture
 * Atlas (architecture)
 * Classical order
 * Euthynteria
 * The Institute of Classical Architecture and Art
 * Superposed order
 * Term (architecture)

As it is a semi-automated creation (the list is just a duplicate of the articles within Category:Classical architecture), I propose that this portal be deleted without prejudice to recreating a human-curated portal, in accordance with whatever future criteria the community may have agreed to at that time. &#8211; MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 02:58, 26 April 2019 (UTC) In conclusion, this portal is currently indiscriminate when it should be selective. &#8211; MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 04:38, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete duplicates scope of Portal:Architecture. Only allow recreation if/when that portal is so awesome and full it needs a spinout and interested editors agree in a talk discussion. Legacypac (talk) 03:15, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete  - Automated portal,  0 subpages, created 2018-09-15 09:56:37 by User:TTH, useless navigation tool, redundant to the existing articles and navboxes, and of lower quality: Portal:Classical architecture. Pldx1 (talk) 08:19, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete - No need for this when we have Portal:Architecture (without regard to whether we need that portal). No need for portals based solely on outlines (without regard to whether we need Outline of Classical Architecture).  No need for robotic portals.  Robert McClenon (talk) 18:32, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep. I'm not aware of any consensus that outlines form an inadequate basis for a portal. There is plenty of material on Classical architecture. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:54, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
 * the goal is to gain consensus for that. I just read your comments here. This is textbook WP:REDUNDANTFORK. I would say that the purpose of a Portal and an Outline should not be conflated. Outlines are supposed to reflect our wide coverage of a subject through an empirical list, but Portals are supposed to a place where readers can find our quality content on a topic. Copying from one to make content for the other simply does not work (just how it would not work were this a navbox).
 * But if it were selective it would still be argued for deletion on grounds of being a subset! These arguments are getting like a key where all the routes lead to DELETE PORTAL. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:45, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Were the contention being made that I feel that this is too small of a scope, I would agree with you. However, I do not feel that is the case here. This is still a semi-automated portal creation. All TTH did was use {{subst:Basic portal start page}}, figured out that Template:Classical architecture is a redlink, and just applied User:The Transhumanist/QuickPortal.js (my guess). There isn't much to this portal tbh it seems. You are very welcome to restart this portal in a non-semi-automated fashion per the nomination statement. &#8211; MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 05:57, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The Transhumanist is one of the authors of the outline. One of the sensible ways of creating a portal (and indeed it is hard to see how to do it without at least doing this very roughly) is to create (on paper or in one's head) a rough outline. The Transhumanist and others put these outlines into mainspace, while mine reside on my laptop hard-drive. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:16, 27 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't mean to argue with you, but I feel like you misunderstand the purpose of outlines. Per WP:Outlines, Most Wikipedia outlines are reverse outlines. Traditional outlines are usually created as a planning tool for a writing project, such as for writing an essay assigned to students by their teacher, or by an author writing a book. Such outlines are developed before the document is composed... In academic and writing fields, reverse outlines serve as a revision tool, for improving an existing work, and while they work well for this purpose on Wikipedia, Wikipedia outlines are intended as published documents in their own right. They may be called portals outlines, but these were not intended to serve the purposes of portals. The similarities between them are there, yes I admit. Combining both leads to an inferior version of both. &#8211; MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 00:27, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't use mainspace outlines at all, so may well be misunderstanding what they are for, but a well-constructed outline seems ideal fodder for a portal, at least if combined with a quality filter. Personally I'd take the outline lists and hard code them into the portal for ease of editing, but that would also fix them in stone, which is the problem with ageing portals. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:07, 28 April 2019 (UTC)


 * That seems more of a concern with portals without maintainers. This is why we need to keep only the ones crafted from hand in a not-even-remotely-automated process. I'm bouncing around some ideas for what that could look like through User:MJL/Handle portals with care. My vaguely I am thinking it will probably need (1) several templates, (2) a gadget or userscript, (3) a css page, (4) a bot to monitor this process, and (5) a site-wide 60-day RFC to determine consensus on the whole thing (with like monitors/clerks throughout) . That's just what I have off the top of my head tbh. &#8211; MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 01:17, 28 April 2019 (UTC) Scratch some.of that. It a little much. &#8211;  MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 01:25, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep. I considered !voting delete on the grounds that the list collapsed above is short, but then I scrolled down and found plenty of other article excerpts, neatly organised.  In general, outlines seem to make a good basis for a portal.  As for redundancy: yes, the same articles lie beneath, but the portal has a very different presentation which may attract readers to explore the subject further in a way that a dry list of wikilinks can't.  It's like categories and navboxes being "redundant": they may contain similar articles but they do different jobs.  I suggest getting a third opinion from some architecture experts, and I'll happily change my mind if they disagree with me. Certes (talk) 10:01, 27 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Portals based on outlines are not a good idea. For example, Ancient Greek/Roman building types include an Orchestra. &#8211; MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 06:02, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the bug report. I have unlinked Orchestra from the outline.  Many of Wikipedia's pages have inappropriate links (I lost count of how many primates delivering mass I fixed) but improving them is often a better solution than deleting the page. Certes (talk) 09:54, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Apparently the orchestra is part of a Greek theatre equivalent to the stage. I have amended the outline. Espresso Addict (talk) 11:14, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Question., I am currently preparing my next nomination. However, I upon reviewing this edit, I realized something. If I wikilinked orchestra, wouldn't that just bring us back to where we started? If I wasn't aware of this conversation, and I stumbled upon that outline, I'd have done it by now. It's not incredibly obvious on either Outline of classical_architecture nor Portal:Classical_architecture the two pages are even related. &#8211; MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 19:10, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Someone editing with knowledge & care should never link orchestra (the modern meaning) to orchestra (the part of a Greek theatre)! It's not like Legacypac's newspaper example, where an innocuous edit had unforseen consequences. It's not clear what one does about careless, poor edits -- the same is true of someone who, say, wrongly changes stats in the lead of an article that's extracted into a portal. The downside of getting updates is getting vandalism and bad edits too. Espresso Addict (talk) 19:31, 5 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep Portal looks good, provides relevant information. The deletion rationale does not seem like any reason to delete a portal to me.--Paul McDonald (talk) 21:51, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete Portal is redundant to Portal:Architecture, contrary to the WP:POG guideline's prohibition. UnitedStatesian (talk) 19:41, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Which part of WP:POG prohibits this portal? POG is about portal content.  The only argument in there against retaining this portal might be the subject of a portal should be ... broad.  There is no prohibition on a portal being a subset of another, e.g. Portal:India within Portal:Asia or Portal:Physics within Portal:Science. Certes (talk) 19:56, 2 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Portals ". . .should not be redundant to another portal, should not cover too narrow a scope . . ." UnitedStatesian (talk) 01:57, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * prohibit was probably a bad choice of words, UnitedStatesian. WP:POG simply just advises against these types of things for the reasons you just outlined. &#8211; MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 02:17, 5 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete. Redundant to the broader and older Portal:Architecture, which gets 10x as many page views. If we are going to have portals at all, they should be ones that can attract some readers. --RL0919 (talk) 20:34, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete. Just another drive-by spammed fork of an existing page, iced with a few additions from a category screen grab.    A actually-curated portal on this topic would look very different, and in the meantime the older Portal:Architecture does a better job than this iced spam. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 02:43, 10 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.