Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Figure skating

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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. — xaosflux  Talk 17:09, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Figure skating

 * Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:43, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:43, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Draft portal abandoned since 2007.

Created in October 2006 by, content added later in 2006 by.

As can be seen from Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Figure skating, there i sonly one each type of subpage: one /Selected article, /Selected athlete, one /Selected picture.

The last change of content to any of them was in late 2007.

WP:POG says that unless automated, the content selection should be updated monthly, or preferably weekly. Even on a monthly cycle, this pseudo-portal has missed over 130 consecutive updates, and it is time to stop wasting the time of readers by luring them to this abandoned draft.

Per WP:PORTAL, "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects". But this static display of two excepts and one picture is a massively-degraded version of the head article Figure skating. It offers far more sampling of sub-topics, much better navigation thanks to Template:Figure skating, and far more pictures. Note for ordinary readers who are not logged in, clinking on an image brings up an image gallery of all the images on that page. It's full-screen, so it's actually better than even a click-for-next image gallery on a portal, let alone a purge-page-to-see-next gallery.

I assume that Wikipedia's coverage of figure skating is broad enough to sustain a portal, if and when some editors choose to actually build and maintain it. If and when that happens, it will take only seconds to build the framework from a clean sheet, so there is no point in continuing to waste the time of readers on this abandoned draft in the hope that 12 years of neglect is about to end.

So I propose that this portal and its sub-pages be deleted per WP:TNT, without prejudice to recreating a curated portal in accordance with whatever criteria the community may have agreed at that time. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:34, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete as an abandoned heritage portal with no history of maintenance. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:35, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep Broad enough topic, can be salvaged through editing and issues highlighted with tagging, so deletion is not necessary to clean it up per WP:ATD. WaggersTALK  12:28, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
 * By salvaged, @Waggers means "completely rebuilt from a blank sheet", because a set of 12-year-old content forks is no base from which to start building a portal which might actually add value for readers.
 * In the meantime, it is disruptive to continue to waste the time of readers by luring them to a page which has been abandoned for 12 years.
 * The notions which Waggers suggests of editing and tagging are implausible to the point of fantasy, because:
 * There is no tag to identify long-term abandoned portals, and no category to track them, because the WP:WPPORT has never throughout its history engaged in any systematic quality-monitoring of portals
 * Category:All portals currently contains 1,331 portals, of which 1,074 are in Category:Unassessed Portal pages. That's 81% of portals to which to no assessment rating has ever been assigned. The portals project has simply never done basic monitoring of quality, let alone tracking of specific problems, which is why hundreds of abandoned portals have rotted for up to 13 years
 * Building a decent portal which would actually add value to readers takes time and research, and knowledge of the topic. Waggers has not identified any editor with the skills and commitment to build and maintain a portal on this topic.
 * For the last 2 months, I and other editors have worked in good faith to try to clear out the automated portalspam created in the last year, and ten the abandoned junk which has accumulated over a decade of neglect. It has been my hope throughout that this would leave a core of portals which add some value for readers, and could be built on.  But if members of the portals project are going to oppose the cleanup of abandoned junk without a mechanism, plan, or topic-skilled editors to fix them, then it may be time to abandon this approach and simply propose mass deletion of most portals.  --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 15:57, 10 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete Can be more than adequately covered by Portal:Sports. UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:12, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment - The above exchange between User:Waggers and User:BrownHairedGirl appears to be a canned dialogue, with a lengthy realistic reply to a good-faith but useless and time-wasting reliance of theory over practice. Perhaps Alternatives to Deletion needs clarification, because it is so often quoted by those arguing to keep something that is not useful and  instead needs dynamiting.  Waggers appears to be stating that the breadth of the topic is the only factor to consider in portal deletion, and that any portal on a broad topic should be "salvaged through editing and issues highlighted with tagging".  What if the issues have been there for years, which they have?  Is Waggers proposing that we keep hundreds of tagged unmaintained portals for more years?  Who will be doing the editing?  The Keep rationale by Waggers is in good faith but is otherwise unrealistic, and BHG has it addressed in more detail than should have been required (except that various portal advocates keep offering similar useless rationales).  Robert McClenon (talk) 00:17, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Robert McClenon, that's a fair summary and goodness knows repeating the same conversation on multiple MfDs has been draining when a central discussion would be far more constructive. Suffice to say if the page had indeed been adequately tagged with no improvement over several years, I would probably support deletion on that basis, but that isn't the case here. W<b style="color:#97E">a</b><b style="color:#86D">g</b><b style="color:#75C">ge</b><b style="color:#83C">r</b><b  style="color:#728">s</b><small  style="color:#080">TALK  15:57, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
 * User:Waggers - I understand your argument that we need to wait a reasonable amount of time for a portal maintainer. I just find it, as User:BrownHairedGirl says, to be magical thinking.  We aren't likely to find them just by tagging the portal.  Editors don't come to Wikipedia to maintain portals.  They come to Wikipedia to maintain articles.  See WP:Waiting for Portal Maintainers.  It is like waiting for Godot.  The audience and the protagonists wait for two hours for Godot.  Sometimes we have been waiting for portal maintainers for two years, sometimes for ten years.  Robert McClenon (talk) 22:27, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Robert McClenon My view is that waiting alone is not enough. There are plenty of editors around who are interested in maintaining portals - I'm one of them but I'm not alone - and it doesn't hurt to ask around to see if someone would be willing to take it on before nominating for deletion. Deletion should be a last resort, but with so many of these nominations it seems no effort has been made to seek someone willing to make the necessary changes. Sure, if nobody's interested, then delete. But it's a simple courtesy to ask around a bit first, perhaps by posting at relevant wikiprojects (including the portals wikiproject). <b style="color:#98F">W</b><b style="color:#97E">a</b><b style="color:#86D">g</b><b style="color:#75C">ge</b><b style="color:#83C">r</b><b  style="color:#728">s</b><small  style="color:#080">TALK  15:32, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
 * User:Waggers - Asking for portal maintainers is a good idea. The question is when to ask and how long then to wait for them.  The possibility of finding a maintainer is why I deferred !voting on Portal:Nigeria to see if someone would come from WP:WikiProject Nigeria.  Is there a WT:WikiProject Figure Skating?  If so, let us ask, and response time from active WikiProjects is quick.  I do take strong issue with your previous suggestion that the lack of a maintainer can be dealt with by normal editing and tagging.  I also take issue with any related idea that this MFD should be closed as Keep or as No Consensus simply to look for a maintainer.  If you think that finding a maintainer may take ten days, for instance, that is compatible with relisting this MFD.  I take strong issue with closing this MFD because a portal maintainer will show up.  How are you suggesting we look for a portal maintainer, and how long should we wait?  Robert McClenon (talk) 15:54, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
 * We have already waited for 12 years. I think that's way more than enough. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 15:58, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Robert McClenon I think it's reasonable to ask at both wikiprojects (yes WT:WikiProject Figure Skating exists), with a timeframe measured in months or weeks (not days or years). The portals project has a huge scope and is very busy, and WT:WikiProject Figure Skating isn't hugely active (but not quite dormant) so I think it's reasonable to be fairly generous. Obviously that's just my opinion; it would be good to get a consensus based guideline set up. <b style="color:#98F">W</b><b style="color:#97E">a</b><b style="color:#86D">g</b><b style="color:#75C">ge</b><b  style="color:#83C">r</b><b  style="color:#728">s</b><small  style="color:#080">TALK  08:45, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
 * @Waggers, WikiProject Figure Skating was automatically notified 4 days ago, when WikiProject Figure Skating/Article alerts was updated by bot. The project is almost inactive: WT:WikiProject Figure Skating has had only twelve edits in the last 12 months, and two of those 12 edits were to notify of this discussion. I see no reason to hang around and set up some bureaucratic process of keeping this abandoned page in limbo for months on the off-chance that the std notification process is not long enough. But even if a magicak maintainer does magically appear out of nowhere after 12 years of neglect, there is no point in keeping the existing pages. Per my comment below, anyone trying to build a half-decent portal would do much better to start afresh than to try to breathe life into this abandoned relic. I remain sad that Waggers is wasting so much of is time wandering around MFD looking for any pretext to keep on wasting readers's time with pointless, abandoned portals. As I have noted before, if Waggers's aim was portray the portals project as the Find-Any-Random-Excuse-To-Retain-Abandoned-Junk Project, he'd been doing a great job.  Otherwise, less so. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 13:12, 14 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete - Abandoned draft of a portal, ONE article, ONE picture, ONE athlete, created 2006-10-06 23:48:25 by User:Geoboe84. Never was a portal in any meaning of this term, nothing to keep. Seeing User:Waggers describing this empty thing as something the WikiProject Portal is proud of... looks as a sneaky way to campaign against the whole portal space. Portal:Figure skating. Pldx1 (talk) 13:32, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete: per WP:POG and WP:PORTAL (scope and lack of maintenance).   SITH   (talk)   12:51, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment WT:WikiProject Figure Skating was only notified of this nomination yesterday. <b style="color:#98F">W</b><b style="color:#97E">a</b><b style="color:#86D">g</b><b style="color:#75C">ge</b><b style="color:#83C">r</b><b  style="color:#728">s</b><small  style="color:#080">TALK  08:45, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Not true.  @Waggers, the WikiProject Figure Skating was automatically notified 4 days ago, when WikiProject Figure Skating/Article alerts was updated by bot. @Robert McClenon's note on the project's talk page was only an additional notice. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 12:59, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Further Discussion of Portal:Figure Skating

 * Comment - I think that the real disagreement is how long and how to wait for a portal maintainer. User:BrownHairedGirl has nominated this portal for deletion, without prejudice to re-creation.  User:Waggers says that this portal should be kept, and that the need for a maintainer can be dealt with by editing and tagging.  WT:WikiProject Figure Skating has now been notified.  Waggers says that this MFD should be closed as Keep, because we can assume that the portal maintainer will show up within a few months.  I assume (is this correct) that Waggers would agree to a Conditional Keep that specifies that the portal can be renominated in 60 days if it has no maintainer.  I propose that the portal be relisted a maximum of twice, once on 17 May and once on 24 May.  These portal MFDs are not being closed any sooner than that anyway.  So I propose that, after relisting twice, unless it is being maintained, this portal be Deleted, without prejudice.  I think that this narrows the scope of disagreement, which is that the issue is how and how long to wait for a portal maintainer.  Robert McClenon (talk) 12:35, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
 * @Robert McClenon, that proposal would make some sense if upgrade was the path to achive:
 * a portal which actually meets WP:PORTAL, "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects", i.e. a portal which adds some value for the reader
 * A portal which is actually maintained
 * However, the skeleton we have here contains very little, just some massively-outdated content-forked sub-pages, and a framework based on the high maintenance model of content-forked sub-pages.
 * Posrtalspace is littered with the abandoned relics of portals built in this way. The evidence of the last decade shows that is simply too complex and too labour-intensive to sustain this model except in a very few cases where there is a highly-committed maintainer.
 * So if anyone wants to build a portal which actually adds value, they would do way better to start afresh, and build from the ground up a more sophisticated and more easily-maintained portal. There are several available models, but here is a pair of v difft examples: Portal:Geophysics and Portal:Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
 * Even if a maintainer does show up, there is simply no need to retain this abandoned version. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 12:48, 14 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks Robert McClenon, I think that's a fair summary and 60 days seems like a reasonable timeframe. <b style="color:#98F">W</b><b style="color:#97E">a</b><b style="color:#86D">g</b><b style="color:#75C">ge</b><b style="color:#83C">r</b><b  style="color:#728">s</b><small  style="color:#080">TALK  15:07, 14 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment - User:Waggers says that the need for portal maintainers should be dealt with by normal editing and tagging. I will point out that the usual Twinkle tagging capability is not enabled for portals.  (I know that it can be done manually.  I know.)  Robert McClenon (talk) 13:08, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
 * @Robert McClenon, similar assertions have been made many times by @Waggers.
 * However, Waggers has never identified any of the following:
 * Tags to mark an abandoned static portal
 * Categories to track such abandoned static portals
 * Active teams of editors fixing such portals
 * Active recruitment of maintainers to ensure that these complex manual portals are maintained. I have just created Category:Portals with named maintainer and Category:Portals with no named maintainer.  Automatically populated, so every page in Category:All portals should end up in one or the other when the pages purge in a day or two.  Here's the live count of Category:Portals with no named maintainer:.
 * So all this "tag it and await the fix" stuff looks like fantasy. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 14:34, 14 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Robert McClenon Quite right, there might be a way around it in the Twinkle preferences or it might need some config work elsewhere, but for now I'm afraid it is indeed a case of manually adding appropriate tags like, , etc. to the pages/sections that need work - but that's not exactly an onerous task and certainly a better use of time and effort than a lengthy MfD discussion.  <b style="color:#98F">W</b><b style="color:#97E">a</b><b style="color:#86D">g</b><b style="color:#75C">ge</b><b  style="color:#83C">r</b><b  style="color:#728">s</b><small  style="color:#080">TALK  15:14, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
 * User:Waggers - I respectfully disagree that the tagging is a better use of time and effort than an MFD discussion. It is true that it uses less time and effort, but the tagging is a minor useless expenditure of time and effort.  An MFD discussion is eventually closed, and either establishes that the page is to be kept, or actually gets rid of crud.  As User:BrownHairedGirl asks, who will expand the lists, expand the sections, et cetera?  Godot?  The 19th Infantry Battalion?  A unicorn?  The spirits called by Glendower from the vasty deep?  Willy on Wheels?  The tagging is not an onerous task.  The real harm that it does is the assumption that the spirits will come from the vasty deep.  Robert McClenon (talk) 23:29, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Robert McClenon Simple: the same people that add to lists and expand sections in the other workspaces. Editors like us. Sometimes articles and other content sit for years with maintenance tags on them; that's no reason for them to be deleted. Wikipedia is a work in progress. <b style="color:#98F">W</b><b style="color:#97E">a</b><b style="color:#86D">g</b><b style="color:#75C">ge</b><b style="color:#83C">r</b><b  style="color:#728">s</b><small  style="color:#080">TALK  15:00, 15 May 2019 (UTC)


 * @Waggers, how on earth do you think that adding to a page which almost nobody ever reads a cleanup tag which creates no relevant tracking category is going to make any difference?
 * This more fantasy. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 16:48, 14 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment - So far we have four Delete !votes and the nomination, which make five, and one Keep !vote. The two viewpoints have been clarified:
 * The Keep position is to wait 60 days for a portal maintainer to volunteer themselves, and after 60 days another MFD can be posted.
 * A Delete editor has agreed that this MFD can be relisted twice, to run until 31 May, to wait for a portal maintainer. If there is no portal maintainer, the portal will be deleted without prejudice to a future portal.
 * I think that this summarizes and clarifies the views. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:01, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment. An even better tag could be as follows:


 * A large crowd of maintainers will surely appear in the next future. Pldx1 (talk) 11:14, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

<div class="xfd_relist" style="border-top: 1px solid #AAA; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAA; padding: 0px 25px;"> Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Seems like there are some people who are willing to wait for a maintainer and some others who think this is a redundant portal. I think we need some more input to clear up which side is favoured.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:43, 17 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete. Per nom. Abandoned portal.  Adds nothing over the WP main article+navbox (which thankfully are quote decent), but its lack of support will only depreciate the integrity of the main articles in the eyes of the reader.  If somone really wants to take it on great; but that does not seem to be happening. Britishfinance (talk) 13:53, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Leaning delete, but without prejudice toward keeping it or recreating it if it's maintained. This is certainly a viable portal topic, but a 2006 draft no one does anything with is pretty pointless.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:37, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment - The portal has an average of 18 daily pageviews, while the head article has an average of 974 daily pageviews. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:28, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Question - What happened on 26 January 2019? The daily pageviews of the head article, Figure skating, peaked at 4,988 daily pageviews.  Was there a major competition event?  (I know that January is the northern winter, which is when figure skating is most popular, but all of January 2019 and February 2019 is the northern winter.)  Robert McClenon (talk) 19:28, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment - In my opinion, the real question, as expressed in The Problem with Portals, is whether someone wants to maintain the portal as a hobby. A portal is a miniature Main Page, and a Main Page is labor-intensive.  Robert McClenon (talk) 19:28, 18 May 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> 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.