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

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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. ‑Scottywong | [spout] || 03:57, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Mars


Abandoned portal. Two selected bios from 2010. There are currently seven selected articles in the rotation. Four are never-updated entries from 2007 and three are from 2010. There are also 17 articles out of the rotation from November 2007 to August 2010. I checked all and found no significant edit history. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 06:27, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per the nom. This portal has been abandoned for over eight years. It clearly fails WP:POG's requirement that portals should be about subjects broad enough to attract large numbers of maintainers and readers. This portal has had over eight years of no maintainers and it had a very low 29 views per day from January 1 to June 30 2019 (while the head article Mars had 5622 views per day in the same period). Portals stand or fall on their merits in the now, not what could someday hypothetically happen with them, and this one falls flat. I oppose re-creation, as nearly a decade of hard evidence shows Mars is not a broad enough topic to attract readers or maintainers. Newshunter12 (talk) 18:01, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep (there is no link to this nomination on the portal so as of now it's a null nomination), the portal has been maintained and watched, and 36 viewers a day is a good amount of readers who gain individually from coming to the page. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:13, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * There is a link from the deletion notice on the portal to this discussion. Sometimes a new XfD notice shows a link that is red, but still works; presumably this is a bug in Mediawiki. DexDor(talk) 05:53, 21 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment – I have a question for the Delete editors, and two questions for the Keep editors. For the Delete editors, is this portal doing any actual harm, such as presenting incorrect information?  For the Keep voters, has any last-minute editing addressed the concerns of the Delete editors that this portal is not being maintained and is not likely to be maintained in the future?  For the Keep voters, what is the actual value of this portal, as opposed to that of the head article and the related articles?  What is the portal actually doing (and has it been doing it for the months or years that it has been neglected)?

The following table compares planetary and solar system portals: Robert McClenon (talk) 13:15, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete this portal on another world or worlds, without prejudice to a new portal using a design that does not rely on forked subpages. In an area where knowledge is expanding as rapidly as the astronomy of the solar system, mostly via robotic exploration, providing links to copies of obsolete content forks is harmful and is inferior to allowing readers to view the articles, which are being updated to reflect discoveries.  Portals for areas as broad as other worlds are desirable, but not these portals that contain obsolete information. Robert McClenon (talk) 12:54, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete this portal not needed.Catfurball (talk) 00:00, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep I believe the deleters have misunderstood the purpose of the portals. I can supply an example of how a likely student would search Wikipedia for information and miss the portals completely! But, the portals serve those who seek out specific sciences! Cheers! --Marshallsumter (talk) 01:13, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
 * @Marshallsumter There is no misunderstanding by delete voters. This junk portal has been abandoned for over eight years and gets only 29 views per day, while the Featured Article Mars gets well over 5,600 views a day and is equipped with multiple rich and versatile navboxes for all things Mars and astronomy related in our Solar System. Why would we want to divert students and other readers away from our best content to an abandoned portal? This junk portal is a failed solution in search of a problem. Newshunter12 (talk) 02:43, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
 * User:Marshallsumter writes: "I believe the deleters have misunderstood the purpose of the portals. I can supply an example of how a likely student would search Wikipedia for information and miss the portals completely! But, the portals serve those who seek out specific sciences!" It is very likely true that I, as one of the deleters, have misunderstood the purpose of the portals.  I can see that I don’t understand their purpose, and that their advocates are passionate about the need for specific portals and for portals in general.  So, can you or someone actually explain to me what purpose portals serve, especially in the context of astronomical portals?  Either portals have a technical value that hasn't been explained adequately yet, or perhaps they are supported only because they are technically neat.  I may technically disagree with the reason, but I would prefer to understand how I can reasonably disagree with other editors than just to have very little idea why they want portals. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:34, 24 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete as it is not well-maintained. The article Mars can explain it better. For the images, just use a gallery section. Nigos (t@lk • Contribs) 06:18, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep the Mars/Mars exploration is of high-enough enough interest as a topic to have a portal. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:05, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * @Headbomb Wrong. WP:POG states portals be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers." Broadness under POG has very specific criteria and subjective broadness like you applied means nothing.This junk portal has been abandoned for over eight years and gets only 29 views per day, while the Featured Article Mars gets well over 5,600 views a day and is equipped with multiple rich and versatile navboxes for all things Mars and astronomy related in our Solar System. This junk portal is a failed solution in search of a problem. Why keep luring readers to abandoned crud that misinforms them? Newshunter12 (talk) 05:08, 24 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete per nominator. We could have an an interesting theoretical debate on whether an uninhabited planet is "broad topic", but in practice the question is moot. Regardless of whether the topic is seen as broad enough, the problem remains that portals need maintainers  ... and for a decade, this portal has not been maintained. Unless there is a team of maintainers committed to keeping this portal in good shape for the long-term, it will simply rot again, and continue to lure readers away from an excellent FA-class head article to a rotted portal.
 * It is depressing to see that in this discussion, like so many previous discussions, some contributors evade the simple and obvious primary question: how does abandoned junk help the reader?. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 23:09, 25 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Note to closing admin. If you close this as delete, please can you not remove the backlinks?  I have an AWB setup which allows me to easily replace them with links to the next most specific portal(s) (in this case Portal:Solar System, or it's deleted Portal:Outer space), without creating duplicate entries. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 23:10, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep per others above. Mark for requiring updating. --Hecato (talk) 14:35, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * It's been abandoned for over eight years and now you want more time to fix it up somehow someday with a mythical torrent of maintainers? Newshunter12 (talk) 17:08, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks Hecato, collaboration is the name of the game at Wikipedia and you seem interested in checking in on this fine portal. Some say this portal has been abandoned (although the history clearly says otherwise), like Mars itself, but...there are clear signs of life! Randy Kryn (talk) 03:14, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Randy, you continue to misunderstand the history because you as you yourself have acknowledged, you misunderstand the structure of portals. Over the years, there have been bouts of editing to the page Portal:Mars, but that page is only a shell, so those edits are only formatting.  The actual contents of the portal are in subpages, which the nominator noted were abandoned for about a decade.  --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 04:07, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for teaching me. At the same time you seem to continue to misunderstand the concept of collaboration and the ability of Wikipedians to fix what others perceive as broken. Regarding the subpages, the key word is "were". Caring editors who fix nominated pages such as this should receive the credit, and the save. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:16, 27 August 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.