Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Inland Empire (2nd nomination)

 __NOINDEX__
 * 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. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:04, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Inland Empire


Static min-portal abandoned since 2009, about the Inland Empire region of Southern California.

Created in December 2009‎ by, who has not edited since 2010. No maintainer since then.

The list of sub-pages at Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Inland Empire is sparse and neglected:
 * Portal:Inland Empire/Did you know, with 7 items, but unchanged since its creation in December 2009‎
 * Portal:Inland Empire/Selected article, with only tweaks since its creation in December 2009‎
 * Portal:Inland Empire/Selected photos, also with only tweaks since its creation in December 2009
 * Portal:Inland Empire/Places of Interest, again with only tweaks since its creation in December 2009
 * Portal:Inland Empire/I.E. Cities, lots of tweaks 2009–16, but still displaying 2007 and 2009 data

So there is no rotation of content and no slideshow, just an outdated static page.

It was converted in January 2019 by (later blocked as a sockpuppet) to an automated format which built is selected articles lists solely from the navbox Template:Inland Empire, of which it was therefore just a bloated content fork. (For a full explanation of why this type of portal is redundant, see the two mass deletions of similar portals: one, and two, where there was overwhelming consensus of a very high turnout to delete a total of 2,555 such portals). The automation was reverted by BHG on 12 May 2019.

Per WP:PORTAL, "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects". But this is massively less useful in every respect than the B-class head article Inland Empire, with its 5 navboxes: Inland Empire, IE Radio, Inland Empire Sports, Colleges and universities in the Inland Empire, and IE Mass Transit.

Two newish features of Wikipedia mean that those navboxes fulfil most of the functions which portals previously tried to provide:
 * 1) mouseover: for ordinary readers who are not logged in, mouseover on any of the linked list items shows you the picture and the start of the lead.  So the preview-selected page-function of portals is redundant: something almost as good is available automatically on any navbox or other set of links.
 * 2) automatic imagery galleries: 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.

Similar features have been available since 2015 to users of Wikipedia's Android app.

So while a region of 4 million people qualifies in theory as a broad topic, the head+article + navboxes set a high bar to clear to make an "enhanced 'Main Page'" for the topic. Maybe someone will think of some way of doing that, but in the meantime it is not fair to readers to waste their time by luring them to to this ten-year-abandoned relic.

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) 03:24, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete - There are two choices of what to keep. The first is an abandoned heritage portal.  The second is an automated portal by a banned sockpuppet.  Neither.  Delete.  Robert McClenon (talk) 06:25, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete: portals require active maintenance in order to fulfil their purpose as a relevant, up-to-date, subject-specific microcosm of the Main Page. At present, this is just a fork of five separate navboxes.    SITH   (talk)   12:09, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete - Abandoned draft of a portal, 12 subpages, created 2009-12-16 01:13:55 by User:SoCal L.A.. Never went alive. Nothing to keep. Nuking was correct, but its further navbox automation was not. Portal:Inland Empire. Pldx1 (talk) 16:43, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Neutral. I never use them & am not sure what function they fulfill. Thanks. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 20:48, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment: User:BeenAroundAWhile The reason why you don't know what function portals fulfill is that they don't fulfill a function.  There were a few mistakes that were made when Wikipedia was built by time-travelers that cannot be reversed now, and having portals appears to be one of them.  Robert McClenon (talk) 02:49, 17 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.