Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Evolutionary biology

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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:  no consensus. ‑Scottywong | spill the beans _ 06:16, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Evolutionary biology


Abandoned mini-portal.

Crrated in August 2007 by, whose latest contrib to wikipedia was in 2017, and whose last edit to this portal was in May 2008.

Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Evolutionary biology shows ten selected article pages, but they are nearly all unchanged for between 430 weeks and 587 weeks (i.e. 9 and 11 years).

Portal:Evolutionary biology/Did you know has had no substantive chnage since 2007. The fcatoids there do not seem to be anyting gto with WP:DYK, but even if they are derived from that process, WP:DYK says "The DYK section showcases new or expanded articles that are selected through an informal review process. It is not a general trivia section". This twelve-your-old list loses the newness, so its only effect is as a trivia section.

WP:POG requires that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers". But in practice, this portal has not attracted maintainers, an it has also been shunned by readers: in Jan–June 2019 the portal got only 33 page views per day, while the head article Evolutionary biology got 322 daily views. Note that the portal has been exceptionally well-advertised, with links from [|links from 16 navboxes] and from [|8 portals], which is why its pageviews are a little above the abysmal median portal pageview count of 16 per day.

Per WP:PORTAL, "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects". But this is massively less useful in every respect than the head article Evolutionary biology and with its comprehensve sidebar Template:Evolutionary biology and its even more comprehensive navbox Template:Evolution.

This abandoned portal is a broken solution in search of a problem. Time to just delete it. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:21, 8 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete as per the analysis by BrownHairedGirl, possibly by feeding to dinosaurs. This portal lists 11 related portals, all of which are shown in tabular form below for comparison.

My conclusion from the comparison is, again, that portals in general are inadequately maintained. Creating portals may be fun, but maintaining them is work. As long as the maintenance-intensive architecture relying on subpages that are partial copies of pages, frozen in time, is used, we should be reducing the number of portals, probably greatly reducing the number of portals, because they are maintenance-timesinks. It would also be a good idea for those who like portals to redesign our portals and work on improved portal architecture, but that is also work, and it may be easier to whine. In the meantime, this portal can be deleted.

Robert McClenon (talk) 19:34, 9 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep and tag with the Update template. Then notify relevant Wikiprojects that the portal would benefit from updating. the topic meets WP:POG guidelines in terms of being broad enough in topical scope to qualify for a portal. Articles typically receive more page views compared to portals, and to increase portal page views, more links to it can be added in various articles, etc. More visible links = more page views. This has significant potential to be expanded and improved. North America1000 08:51, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Note deceit. NA1k continues their usual practice of trying to deceive participant in portal XFDs, by making an assertion based on a vague wave at WP:POG. As NA1K well knows, WP:POG requires that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers".  In this case, the portal has demonstrably not attracted "large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers": no maintenance for years, and only 18 page views per day.
 * NA1K rightly observes that Articles typically receive more page views compared to portals, but dishonestly omits the fact that this precisely why portals are required to be about broad subject areas.
 * This is happening so often that it amounts to a campaign by NA1K of lying by deliberate omission. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 11:49, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
 * NA1K is a Wikipedia admin, and is therefore supposed to act with integrity. This systematic lying is not a sign of integrity.


 * Delete per nom's clear and sensible description. The best that a portal can do on such a topic is to recycle and stir about a bit; the resulting vacuousness is rapidly seen through by every visitor, bringing the whole portal system into disrepute. Major science articles like Evolutionary biology are far superior to any kind of jazzed-up portal, whatever their merits may be on non-scientific topics. Long overdue for deletion. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:23, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep Certainly a broad enough topic, and User:Chiswick Chap way overstates the quality of the Evolutionary biology article: currently rated as C-Class by both the WikiProjects under the scopes of which it falls. UnitedStatesian (talk) 01:19, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
 * No wish to boast, but the old EB article is quite good enough to link to the dozens of other articles on aspects of the topic (think of it as a tree if you like), quite a few of which I brought to GA status actually. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:02, 26 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.