Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Julius Caesar

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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. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 00:43, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Julius Caesar


Another junk portal, created by @The Transhumanist (TTH) apparently to boost the numbers in his "newsletter". Contains a useless subset of this rich topic, created in the same slapdash way as Portal:Shipwrecks (see MFD:P:Shipwrecks) and Portal:Habitats (see MFD:P:Habitats) and Portal:Electricity (see MFD:P:Electricity).

It goes like this: I verified that's how it was done by copying the list from the portal into WP:AWB, and using AWB's "list compare" to compare two. Perfect match. Five minutes after the first save, in two more edits he's saved the embedded list, which now looks at first glance like a curated portal.
 * 1) TTH creates the portal page, using {{subst:bpsp4}}, which draws its "selected articles" list from.
 * 2)   resolves to Template:Julius Caesar.  That page was then a redirect to Template:Julius Caesar (play), so the portal will have consisted solely of topics about Shakespeare's play.
 * 3) To create a list, TTH then does a quick screenscrape of the eponymous Category:Julius Caesar, dumps that into the portal page's "Subtopics" section, and changes the list-making code to use the embedded list.  In the case of Portal:Julius Caesar, that reads:
 * 1) One more edit to remove Portal:Julius Caesar from the list of subtopics
 * 2) and 12 minutes after that, another edit to remove Julius Caesar from the list of subtopics

(I have since hacked the Lua Module:Excerpt slideshow so that portals built in this way are tracked at Category:Automated portals with embedded list. Some of them seem okay, but others are junk.)

In some cases, this technique produces a reasonably coherent list of subtopics which would be better done as a navbox.

But in this case it only gathered the sweepings of the topic.

Category:Julius Caesar is the parent of a deep category tree. But I rapidly spotted that TTH has simply used the base category, and taken nothing from the subcats. Some list-making confirmed that, and also allowed a quick check: 11 of the 72 pages displayed as "subtopics" are tagged or assessed as stubs:


 * Battle of Zela
 * Battle of the Arar
 * Ganymedes (eunuch)
 * Mamurra
 * Rufio (officer of Caesar)
 * SS Giulio Cesare
 * Siege of Massilia
 * Siege of the Atuatuci
 * T. Rice Holmes
 * The Death of Julius Caesar
 * Tusculum portrait

But that's not the worst of it.

TTH's selection consists only of those which have not been properly categorised by diffusion into subcats. If you wanted to chose a set of what are likely to be the least developed articles on Julius Caesar, TTH's drive-by screengrab would be a good approach.

So once again, this is a portal which looks like it's curated, but is actually just disguised spam. It's hard to see how even its creator could have thought that this drive-by junk served any purpose other than boosting the count of the new "portals" which he listed in his "Newsletter". It's in issue #28, just below the heading "10,000 portals, here we come...", which boasts "We're at 5,705 portals and counting."

Once again, never mind the quality, just count the numbers ... and leave others to clean up the tsunami of spam.

I am unsure whether Julius Caesar is a suitable topic for a portal. I am not a fan of single-person portals, because if expanded beyond the person and their career, the sweep can become sprawling life-and-times-of-X scope, with no clear boundaries; they risk framing history through the prism of one of many actors. But this isn't my area of history, so I won't try to judge what to extent that applies here.

But regardless of whether there could or should be a portal on Julius Caesar, this piece of indiscriminate spam is worse than nothing. So I propose that this junk pseudo-portal be deleted per WP:TNT without prejudice to creating a curated portal not based on a single other page, in accordance with whatever criteria the community may have agreed at that time. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 23:51, 6 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Note A previous portal at this title was created on 27 January 2019 by, and speedy-deleted by User:Bbb23 on 3 February 2019 after Emoteplump was blocked as a sockpuppet. That version drew its list of articles from the navbox Template:Julius Caesar, which at the time was all about the Shakespeare play. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 23:52, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Discussion (Portal:Julius Caesar)

 * add your keep/delete/comment here


 * Delete with a silver bullet. This is a zombie portal that has been re-animated by magic after being killed.  It may have been a zombie or other monster from the beginning that was itself created by a zombie.  It is also a single-page robotic portal (and a robotic portal is sort of like a golem), and they are at best mirrors of the navbox or category or list, never adding anything.  As BHG says, we don't need to argue at this time about whether this great man is an appropriate topic for a portal.  We don't need this type of portal.  Robert McClenon (talk) 03:43, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete - tu quoque, Caesar. Pldx1 (talk) 10:49, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep As noted in the nomination, "Category:Julius Caesar is the parent of a deep category tree." That suggests there is sufficient scope for a portal to exist. The rest of the nomination is concerned with how the portal was created and what it currently contains, which are content issues not deletion issues, and as such should be addressed by appropriate tagging and editing. WaggersTALK  15:54, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
 * @Waggers, articles are content, so deleting them removes content.
 * Portals are not content, so they are not covered by content-based aspects of deletion policy. They are a navigational device and/or a showcase for existing content, so the case for their existence depends on whether they do that well enough to add value per WP:PORTAL: "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects".    If they don't do that, they should be deleted, just like we routinely delete redundant or non-defining categories.
 * In this case, all we have is yet another bundle of drive-by spam from the portalspammer. If someone wants to build an actual portal on this topic, they can re-create the shell simply by entering {{subst:Basic portal start page}} and pressing save, which will be a trivial start to the hours of work needed to build an actual portal.
 * In the meantime, keeping this page live misleads readers into thinking that there is an actual portal here ... when all they will find is spammed junk.
 * The community has already made it very clear that it doesn't want to retain the spam in the vague hope that some day, somebody might build a real portal on one of the ~4,000 spammy shell created by TTH. Sadly, a small number editors seem to have an IDHT problem with that, and seem to be mounting what looks a bit like an attrition strategy to retain the last of the spam and waste the tine of readers. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 16:16, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I haven't referred to any specifically content-oriented aspects of the deletion policy but to general principles that apply as much to portals as anywhere else. This entire nomination is based on what can be seen at the portal; the selected articles, pictures etc and frequency of updates. You can't update a shell or a framework, (other than changing colours and formatting etc) so the argument that "portals are not content" makes no sense in the context of a nomination that is all about the content of a portal. 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  16:56, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Nonsense, @Waggers. Portals have no content; they simply direct readers to content elsewhere, or display content which is located elsewhere.  If you disagree, then please show me the content in this portal.
 * As to the DP, even if it applied to portals which consist solely of code (like this one), WP:DEL-CONTENT says very clearly "Disputes over page content are usually not dealt with by deleting the page, except in severe cases".
 * Like most of he other pseudo-portals which you advocated keeping today, this a severe case. It is drive-by spam, crated by a mass spammer, which provides readers with a grossly misleading picture of the topic.
 * Yet you continue to point to WP:DEL-CONTENT as if it placed a total ban on deleting junk pages, which it explicitly doesn't. Please read policies before wandering around cherrypicking them.
 * I repeat: if you are trying to discredit the Portal Project by representing it as the defenders of spam and decade-old rotten junk pages, then you are doing a great job. Otherwise, not so good. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 17:08, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Of course portals have content. WP:POG is a content guideline, it says so at the top. We don't have content guidelines for things that don't have content.
 * Describing good faith page creation using a few tools as "spam" is just an example of WP:YELLVAND. It's a totally inaccurate mischaracterisation.
 * None of what you've said has convinced me there's a policy based reason for deleting this portal; in fact, quite the opposite. <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  07:33, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
 * More nonsense, Waggers.
 * People can put whatever tag they like at the top a guidance page, but it doesn't alter the fact that portals are not content. We could put a label on a photo of a plate of fish and chips saying that it's actually a spy photo of the first fully electric moonrocket, but it will remain a meal on a plate.
 * As to spam, TTH himself listed this page only 9 days after its creation as as part of his never-mind-the-quality-just-count-the-numbers campaign to create spam portals. See his so-called "newsletter" #29: 10,000 portals, here we come... We're at 5,705 portals and counting. There is  clear community consensus to a) topic-ban TTH as a portalspammer; b) mass delete his spam.  Waggers continues their campaign of disruption against the consensus.
 * So I'll ask again. @Waggers, What on earth are you actually trying to achieve by keeping this spam?  In what way does this benefit our readers? --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 17:13, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I've already answered that. <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  11:05, 9 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment. Looking at the size of the category I think Julius Caesar might be a suitable portal topic, particularly if one broadens the scope to the Roman empire under his rule, which doesn't seem unreasonable in this case. In this case the scoop method of getting topics hasn't worked quite as poorly as in the other examples I've looked at because the category structure is not so complex and many of the major topics are under the top-level category. I don't think it would be too hard to improve, but it would need someone to do it. Anyone out there? Espresso Addict (talk) 17:06, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep While this was created with automated tools after reading over all the relevant guidelines this seems to have enough content to warrant a portal. I also agree with above.    Alucard 16  ❯❯❯ chat?    12:08, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment - Veni, Vidi and I don't trust my eyes (to be added as a featured quotation). Pldx1 (talk) 12:26, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete. Useless portal with no clear boundaries. I edit pages on the Roman Republic and there is currently a dearth of editors on the subject; so nobody will curate this portal. Recently, several single character portals on Roman people created by TTH have been deleted, see Tacitus and Plutarch. I strongly suggest we do the same. T8612  (talk) 12:55, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Buckshot06 (talk) 16:12, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per T8612. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:02, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete Julius Caesar may well be a suitable portal topic, but the contents of this portal are not even vaguely acceptable due to the automated methods which were used to create it. The list of "subtopics" is not really a collection of subtopics at all, rather just a category dump. The likes of Caesar, Life of a Colossus, Flavius Licerius Firminus Lupicinus and Kjárr are not topics within the Julius Caesar topic, rather they're examples of articles with some connection to Julius Caesar. "Battles of Julius Caesar" or "People associated with Julius Caesar" would be examples of real subtopics. Various other articles listed are just things which happen to be named after Julius Caesar, such as MS Giulio Cesare, and don't have much relevance here at all. Per WP:POG the selected articles section is supposed to be populated with articles of at least C-class, it isn't. I don't think the current contents would be of use to anybody trying to create a suitable portal here, anything which could be reused is easily resurrected, and someone who edits within the topic area thinks it's "useless".  Hut 8.5  12:55, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete: generally speaking, individuals don't garner the scope of coverage necessary for a portal. However, I am willing to take for granted that this is not the case, given that this is one of the most written about individuals of all time.  However, the method by which this portal was constructed means that, due to the way categorisation works, the portal just craps out something that's ever so remotely linked to the topic at hand.  So dynamite is probably the way to go, of course, with the proviso that thoughtful recreation followed by manual maintenance and curation is allowed.    SITH   (talk)   13:04, 12 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.