Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Disasters

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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 | [comment] || 17:55, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Disasters

 * – (View MfD)

Portal:Disasters is a well-viewed unmaintained portal. It was originated in 2006 by an editor who edits two to three times a year and last edited this portal in 2008. The portal had a history, as some portals did, of monthly selection of an article of the month, anniversaries, and a picture of the month, until August 2008. There were drive-by updates of the month in January 2010 and August 2010. Nothing substantive was then done to the portal until 2018, when User:The Transhumanist "simplified" it, leaving it with one selectable article. So it has one article, dating to 2010. The portal has been tagged since June 2018 as "broken" due to a color combination problem that is an accessibility problem. (This shows that tagging of portals has no effect.) (The problem may be that there is too little color contrast, so that the color combination requires trichromatic vision.  Not a serious problem because the colors don't really matter, but illustrates that tagging of portals doesn't work.)  The portal had an average of 73 daily pageviews in the first half of 2019, as opposed to 1671 for the article. This portal is well-viewed as portals go, but is not maintained and does not have a current selection of articles. This portal should be deleted, without prejudice to replacement by a portal with a modern design that does not use subpages, and with a maintenance plan with at least two maintainers. Consideration might be given by a re-creator to using current events of disasters for news. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:16, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per Robert McClenon. Fails WP:POG, as it has demonstrably not had maintainers, nor that many views compared to the articles on the topic. I concur with these requirements for replacement. -Crossroads- (talk) 22:29, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per the nom. Portals stand or fall on their merits in the now, not what could someday hypothetically happen with them, and this one falls flat. It's a useless time suck 19 articles short of POG's minimum of 20 that lures readers to a decade long abandoned portal, and damages Wikipedia's hard won reputation for quality. I oppose re-creation, as a decade of hard evidence shows Disasters are not a broad enough topic per WP:POG to attract readers and maintainers. This portal is a solution in search of a problem. Newshunter12 (talk) 02:49, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep - WP:POG is not a Wikipedia policy or guideline as it has not been vetted by the community as being so. This is a well viewed portal as mentioned that just needs updating and effort put into it. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:02, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Note on POG. It is true that WP:POG has today been downgraded to an information page, per the belated closure of WP:POG2019RFC.
 * However, if POG is no longer a guideline, then we apply WP:COMMONSENSE.
 * In the last 6 months, over 850 portals have been been deleted for failing the principles set out in the nomination. Community consensus on those principles is very clear and very stable.
 * Without a guideline, we apply WP:COMMONSENSE. Those advocating "keep" make no attempt to explain why they think that a portal on a narrow topic, abandoned by its creator with no WikiProject support and no active maintainers is worth keeping.  The nomination offers clear reasons for deletion; the "keep" voters are simply taking a WP:ILIKEIT stance. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 18:45, 26 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment Surely disasters counts as a wide topic, there seem to be rather a few of them with articles.  Oxon Alex    - talk  18:21, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete - This portal isn't working. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 15:57, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep. Broad scope and well-viewed. Last time I checked, maintenance is not a criteria for deletion. And even if you want to argue down this path, The Transhumanist updated the portal (or in nom's words, "simplified") in 2018 yet the tone in the nom seemed to discount that effort. OhanaUnitedTalk page 19:51, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
 * TTH's 2018 edits left it as a static page displaying only one article. There is no list of alternative articles, not even one a refresh-for-next article.  Just one article on this allegedly broad-scope topic.
 * I read OhanaUnited's approving comment that TTH updated the portal simply as an illustration of the abysmally low standards which portal fans apply to portals. That's why so many of them have been deleted. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 20:36, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
 * User:OhanaUnited says that maintenance was not a criterion for deletion the last time they checked. Maybe they should check again and see that there no longer is a portal guideline, but that the information page says that portals should reflect broad topic areas that will attract readers and maintainers.  Since there are no guidelines, we are instructed to use common sense, and common sense says that unmaintained stuff should be tossed out, like multi-year-old lunches in the company fridge.  Robert McClenon (talk) 23:35, 3 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Note on backlinks. I don't want in any way to prejudge the outcome ... but if this discussion is closed as delete, I propose that the backlinks should be removed.  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, but in this case I see no suitable alternative. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 14:31, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete Not quite as undermaintained as to get tagged a total disaster on its own, but it's still clear that there is literally zero interest in maintenance here. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 06:51, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete. Yet another under-maintained portal which wastes readers' time.  It has been abandoned for years, and WP:WikiProject Disaster management shows zero interest in developing and maintaining it.  The "keep" !votes come from the usual small crew of portal fans who offer no plan for developing and maintaining the portal, and seem determined to ignore the fact that hundreds of portals like this have been abandoned for years while the faithful hoped that Godot would finally show up to make a page worth visiting, and the hang around to stop it rotting all over again. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 15:16, 2 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per Robert McClenon. Any better-maintained alternative can be taken to WP:DRV. ToThAc (talk) 19:23, 3 October 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.