Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Elbe-Elster Land

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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. If anyone wants any subpages moved to a WikiProject or user subpage, request at WP:REFUND or my talk page. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 00:59, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Elbe-Elster Land


At |Portal:Elbe-Elster_Land 3,178 lifetime page views this may be among the least viewed portals out there. This portal was last substantially edited the day it was created in July 2017. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 06:12, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep. Reader viewings are not important. Portals are not articles; they are designed 1) to assist projects in the creation and improvement of balanced topic coverage and 2) like categories, as navigations aids. They're not even in reader space, so they're never going to get huge numbers of views. Meanwhile I'm using these Germany-regional portals to expand coverage by e.g. reducing the number of redlinks. So you may not see edits to the portal, but you will see dozens of article creations/expansions thanks to the portal. Bermicourt (talk) 06:21, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Neutral at this time, reserving the right to change to a Keep or Delete. This portal and this nomination are something of a naming problem, and a problem in general.  The portal was renamed from Elbe-Elster to Elbe-Elster Land with the comment 'Move to match article title', but there are articles with both titles, and neither of the articles is about what is usually known in German as a Land, that is, a state of the Federal Republic of Germany.  (The Federal Republic of Germany consists of 16 first-level self-governing administrative subdivisions that are comparable to states of the United States, India, or Australia or provinces of Canada.)  Elbe-Elster has 6 pageviews in Jan-Feb 2019, and Elbe-Elster Land has 1 average daily pageview.  The portal has 5 daily pageviews.  (At least the portal doesn't have only a small fraction of the pageviews of the articles.)

Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Elbe-Elster_Land shows very few real articles. It shows an index, Portal:Elbe-Elster_Land/Index, which consists mostly of red links. Most of the entries appear to be navigation templates that consist mostly of red links. Inspection of this list shows that it is mostly a list of requested articles. At least it doesn't consist mostly of partial copies of pages.

The comments of User:Bermicourt are useful and informative because they provide another rationale for portals, as a guide for the creation of articles. The lists of articles still consist mostly of redlinks two years after creation of the portal, which shows that portals either are not an effective way to promote the creation of articles, or are a very long-term solution to a need for articles.

Reader viewings are important. Portals should be about broad subject areas that will attract readers and portal maintainers. This portal is attracting neither, but I am reserving the right to state a position on this portal in the next few days. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:51, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment. I am unsure about this one, so I will think out loud here.
 * On one hand, it has utterly abysmal pageviews: |Portal:Elbe-Elster 4 per day in the month of June 2019, which is barely above background noise.
 * On the other hand, it is one of number of portals created by Bermicourt which use an innovative format handily described by @Britishfinance (in a discussion on my talk) as mega-navbox.
 * This format has been adapted from the German Wikipedia, and it has several advantages over the dominant portal format on en.wp of multiple subpages:
 * It doesn't use content forks
 * It doesn't involve a forest of hard-to-maintain and hard-to-watchlist subpages
 * It avoids the arbitrary selections of topics which is a problem of the subpage format
 * It doesn't involve a lot of processor-intensive parseing of subpages an/or articles, which makes the other formats slow to load
 * It does display upfront to the reader a full list of available topics, which the subpage portals don't
 * It is well-adapted to the new technologies, especially preview on mouseover
 * As Bermicourt notes, it also displays redlinks, which helps readers and editors identify gaps to be filed.
 * But, but ... BIG BUT ... readers still don't want it. All of these mega-navbox portal lovingly created by Bermicourt have pageviews at least as poor as the antiquated subpage-style portals.
 * Which brings me back to the fundamental problem with portals: readers don't want them. A whopping 94% of them have less than 100 pageviews per day, and only those prominently advertised on the main page top 500 views per day.  By contrast, the head articles on the topics of most of them have at least 1,000 pageviews per day.
 * Average daily pageviews per portal in April–June 2019.png That in turn brings me back to my general conclusion about Wikipedia portals: that they are a solution in search of problem. The stats shout through a megaphone that readers don't want portals on wikipedia any more than they want portals elsewhere on the web: they use searching and links to find new content, and wikipedia provides excellent search and excellent cross-linking.  Portals linger on because a small group of editors like creating them, rather than because they meet any reader need.
 * So ... much as I like Bermicourt and admire the diligent innovation here, I still just can't see why this almost-unused portal should be kept. Bermicourt's defence above is that the portal is an article creation list not primarily intended for readers. I find that unpersuasive: if it's not intended for readers, then it fails the WP:PORTAL principle that "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects".  If, as Bermicourt seems to be saying, this page isn't trying to do that, then it doesn't belong in portal space; it's a list which should be moved to project space.
 * Bermicourt, I am leaning towards delete. Do you want to add anything to dissuade me? --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 01:37, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm somewhat late to the portalskepticism debate. Are you aware of any prior deletion discussions for portals that use the stripped down (German Wikipedia) format? Mark Schierbecker (talk) 06:30, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
 * @Mark Schierbecker: this is the first I have seen. I wasn't following MFD very closely for a few weeks from mid-June, but apart from that I have been watching closely for the last 5 months.
 * @Bermicourt could probably give a definitive answer. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 09:41, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment. Thanks for you input. Just to clarify: the German word Land is used in a variety of ways and not just to mean federal state which, properly, is Bundesland. Land is often used to describe a region with no clear administrative boundaries. I used to live in Celler Land around the town of Celle. There are dozens of regions called e.g. Osnabrücker Land, Bersenbrücker Land, Land Hannover, Berchtesgadener Land, etc., and there are articles on many of them at German Wikipedia.
 * The creation of numerous articles on a topic is, of course, a long-term activity - there is no shortcut, they take time! But if we delete utility portals like this, project editors will have no clue about the coverage and what's missing - it'll take even longer to achieve Wikipedia's aims. Bermicourt (talk) 07:32, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
 * @Bermicourt, you make a good case for existence of these lists of links.
 * The bit I don't see is the case for putting the list in portalspace as what you call a utility portal. Since this is a tool for for the assistance of project editors, surely it belongs in project space? --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 09:48, 16 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Regarding page views, see What links here and notice the minute amount of pages that link to the portal. To increase page views, visible links such as that at right need to be added to various related articles and category pages, etc. More visible links to the portal = more page views. It's very simple, without more visible links to the portal, people won't know it's there, thus leading to minor page views. This has been an ongoing problem with portals; people create them, but the wikification necessary to support them is not adequately performed, and then they're nominated for deletion per having low page views. Cheers, North America1000 14:07, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Was asked to comment here...when adding links to portals only the inline-version is seen in mobile view (now 60 percent of our readers) see WP:PORTL for how-to.... as of now not one incoming link is visible to most of our readers in this case.-- Moxy 🍁 20:56, 16 July 2019 (UTC)


 * . I see your logic. I've never really considered the raison d'être for portalspace. My initial reaction is that could be a major reason why it has become so contentious. If the aim is primarily to showcase topics in an interesting and attractive way, encouraging readers to explore articles on Wikipedia, then they should be in mainspace. Or at least be as prominent in searches as their main article and well linked (as suggests). If the aim is as a utility portal, then I agree it makes more sense to put them in project space or at least to link them in a far more comprehensive way from project space. IMHO only the navigation function pushes the case for portal space in the same way as categories are in category space. But to be truly useful as navigation aids, they need to be linked to all relevant topic articles as categories are. I guess, an argument for portal space is that it can be used for all 3 purposes at once, but only if well-linked. Bermicourt (talk) 14:26, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
 * @Bermicourt, my first serious dealing with portals was 2–3 years ago, when I was adding portal links from category pages on a big scale.  I was surprised to find that even portals which were massively linked as a result of my work still had atrocious viewing figures.  For example, I created many tens of thousands of links to Portal:Years, but it remained almost unviewed.
 * That's why I supported outright deletion as the last-worst binary choice in the ENDPORTALS RFC. I could see that most of them weren't working. and since my preference of a massive cull was not working, wiping the slate clean seemed better than the status quo.
 * I'd probably have left it at that, if it wasn't for the advent of the automated portalspam, and the subsequent dramas as the community moved to cleanup after TTH.
 * In hindsight, the crucial event in all that saga was the narrow defeat by portalistas of the proposal to speedy delete all TTH's portal creations. At the time, portalistas thought that they secured a good outcome, and that the RFC closer had done them a huge favour by deciding that the almost 2:1 majority didn't amount to a rough consensus. But in practice what it meant was that the spam got cleaned up only because a bunch of editors spent time studying portals, and scrutinising lots and lots of them.  I have personally studied well over a thousand portals in detail: their pageviews, their incoming links, the history of every page within them, and the editors involved.
 * And a bunch of things became v clear to those who did study the portals: with v v few exceptions, editors don't maintain portals, and readers don't use them.
 * So the portalista's narrow defeat of the WP:X3 speedy deletion proposal led to editors who were basically critics of the automated spam becoming experts in the portal system as a whole. And they didn't like what they found.
 * I think this is all good news, because the greater the number of editors who understand any given area of wikipedia, the better. But those don't want any cleanup don't like the scrutiny.
 * @NA1K says . At MFDs, NA1k repeatedly says variants of "more incoming links! links bring readers!".  That's true to some degree, but sadly NA1K's mantra remains wholly oblivious to the evidence that it actually makes very little difference.
 * Take for example Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Romanian football. There were over 4,000 links to that portal, including from nearly every single article on Romanian football, but it still got only 14 pageviews per day, and its content had been abandoned for years.
 * Or look at Portal:Cheshire. Diligently maintained, even polished by Espresso Addict, but it has still got only an average of 17 pageviews per day in January-June 2019.  NA1K would suggest "more links", but actually there are lots of links to Portal:Cheshire: including 1521 from articles, and 244 from categories.   Links from talk pages etc brings the total up to 5,830 links.
 * Look around other portals, and you'll find the same thing: see even where there are plenty of links, the pageviews are still abymsal. See that graph I posted above. That's the reality of how little readers use portals.
 * And please don't try the "search should return portals" thing again. When readers search for content, they should find content, which is in articles.
 * NA1K again notices part of the problem, when they write This has been an ongoing problem with portals; people create them, but the wikification necessary to support them is not adequately performed, and then they're nominated for deletion per having low page views.
 * But if you look at graphs of average daily pageviews of portals on en.wikipedia in April–June 2019, and see how 94% of them get less 100 pageviews per day and 84% get less than 50 views per day, then you can see that this is not a matter of a few portals being badly linked. It's that readers simply don't want wikipedia portals. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:28, 17 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment (and question). I do like 's portals, and I find the concept of a "mega-navbox" a useful concept.  There is no content fork issue, and because it is so focused on structured links, there is also less issue of stale/out-of-date content here that would detract from WP's image in the eyes of a reader (per many other portals).  However, yes, per, it seems that readers don't seem to use these types of portals either? I wonder if the answer is to get this portal content back into a series of structured mainspace navboxes (and a master navbox to navigate amongst them)? There is no navbox on the main Elbe-Elster Land article?  It is a pity that navboxes don't seem to pop-up on all types of devices, as I find them very useful? Britishfinance (talk) 16:43, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete (as a portal) with no objection to the info in the portal (e.g. lists of mostly redlinks) being moved to more appropriate namespace(s) e.g. Article/Wikipedia/User. Portal namespace is the wrong location for to-do lists; the normal location for them is as part of a wikiproject. Placing to-do lists in a portal very much muddles the distinction between portals and wikiprojects and in practice such to-do lists on portals are rarely updated by anyone other than the portal creator and often rarely updated (e.g. this to-do list in another portal was last updated in 2009).  If portals are showcasing quality content (in a particular topic) (for readers) then there should rarely be a good reason to have a redlink on a portal; how often do you see a redlink on the main page? DexDor(talk) 17:45, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete, but move the list to a WikiProject. WP:POG requires that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers". However, this portal has attracted almost no readers, and no maintainers other than its creator.
 * Is creator describes its main purpose as being an aid to editors expanding coverage of this region, but that is a very task to the core principle of WP:PORTAL, viz that "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects". The Wikipedia main page requires huge amounts of work; it is maintained by several large teams of busy editors.  A mini-mainpage also needs lot of ongoing work if it is going to value over the head article.
 * The mini-mainpage portal is probably a failed concept, but this mega-navbox isn't working either. Time to delete it. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 01:23, 17 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Request that we put this on ice until the fundamental purpose of portals is decided. We've binned the spam portals, but we don't have consensus on what portals are for and our individual POVs keep driving our 'votes'. If the consensus is to delete this one, could we please at least move the content to e.g. project space so it can continue to be useful, rather than just flush it down the plughole? Thanks. Bermicourt (talk) 06:41, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I see no reason this couldn't be moved to a project space as long as the active contributors to that project would host it. Which project(s) do you have in mind? Could this be done to all similar Germany miniportals you've created?
 * Fwiw I think portal supporters have been hindered by their own lack of agreement as to the purpose of portals. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 07:00, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * @Bermicourt, I see no reason why we cannot do both tasks at the same time, i.e purge the most failed portals while also considering any proposals anyone may have about the purpose of portals.
 * I strongly disagree with your statement that individual POVs keep driving our 'votes'. What I see happening is that a small group of portalistas are ignoring the established policies and guidelines, in order to try to keep the portals which they like creating.  It has been very clear at MFDs in the last few months that the "keep" !votes come overwhelmingly from a small crew of portalistas, i.e. those who create and maintain portals.  There is almost no support for the portals by readers, or by people active in the WikiProjects which cover the portal's topic area.  (Even the MFD where one editor engaged in a huge exercise of spamming and blatant canvassing is notable for its failure to attract more than a tiny number of defenders of the portal).
 * So we have a pointless loop where the few portals which are kept are being kept solely because the portal-creators want to keep them. I hope that in time, more of the portalistas will come to recognise the folly of this circle, and in particular the self-serving folly of NA1k's risible insistence that low page views meet the POG guidelines because all portals get low pageviews.  (It's a bizarrely stupid stance, because it renders that part of the guideline pointless).
 * There is a long-standing guideline about the purpose of portals, in WP:PORTAL, viz that "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects". While other proposals may be considered, in the meantime we can continue to delete portals which fail that requirement, for the reasons set out in WP:POG: that they are unmaintained, and/or have too narrow a topic, and/or have low readership.
 * As above, I think that this index of mostly redlinks would make a great addition to a WikiProject. If Bermicourt wants to identify the WikiProject, then I will be happy to help do what other editors did for other portals: move the sub-pages to a new location, where they can be repurposed.  The portal will still work, using the redirects, until it is deleted. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 08:36, 17 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete Way too narrow a topic to support a long-term portal. There is very little sustainable content here, there is no sign of portal maintenance and upkeep, and all of the topics are covered by the much broader Portal:Germany. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 02:53, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete - Yes, per WP:POG pageviews and narrow topic are a reason for exclusion.Guilherme Burn (talk) 11:38, 18 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.