Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:NASCAR

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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) 23:33, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Portal:NASCAR


Abandoned portal on a narrow topic. WP:POG requires that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers." This portal has neither large numbers of readers and no maintainers. The portal has been sporadically maintained since creation in 2010 and abandoned since 2016, save a few one-off edits. The creator left Wikipedia in 2012, but last edited the portal in 2010 six-minutes after creation. Since 2006, the lead of WP:POG has said "Do not expect other editors to maintain a portal you create" ... and this one has not been maintained by NerdyScienceDude. The page view count is quite low. From January 1 - June 30 2019, there was an average of 10 views per day to the main page (while the head article NASCAR had 1,470 views per day in the same period.) This is a stark long term decline in portal views, considering there were 18 views per day from July 1 - December 30 2015.

Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:NASCAR shows of the 19 articles, nine were last updated in 2010-11, two in 2012, four in 2015, three in 2016, and one in 2018. Five of the six biographies are virtually unchanged since 2010, while one was created in 2016. The biography for David Pearson (racing driver) fails to note his 2018 death and is virtually unchanged since 2010. The 12 pictures were all added in 2010-11. The NASCAR championship standings are unchanged since half-way through the 2013 season.

There are over 100 DYK's split into 39 blocks. The first 18 blocks date near exclusively to 2010-11, the next 11 blocks date to 2012, the next five to 2013, the next three to 2016, and a single DYK from 2018. WP:DYK states: "The DYK section showcases new or expanded articles that are selected through an informal review process. It is not a general trivia section" ... but this overwhelmingly ancient set has nothing to do with new or expanded articles, so its only effect is as a WP:TRIVIA section. There are five pieces of posted news from 2013-16, and three of these are from 2013-14 about Jeff Gordon, who retired competitively in 2015. Four out of five news pieces have a year given.

WP:POG also guides that "the portal should be associated with a WikiProject (or have editors with sufficient interest) to help ensure a supply of new material for the portal and maintain the portal.". However, while WikiProject NASCAR is active, it appears to have never actually been involved with this portal, as the portal has never been mentioned on the talk page. Its only real connection to the portal is that fan-editor Nascar1996 was a sporadic prolific contributor to both, but last edited the portal in 2017 and is semi-retired, with their last edit in February.

This portal is just a fan creation of Nascar1996 and built to their taste, which is why its articles, pictures, and biographies focus heavily on NASCAR circa 2010 or are random additions. It has never been a broad overview of the topic of NASCAR, which has existed since the 1940's. It's also why a portal on "NASCAR" has no biographies on Bill France Sr. (the founder of NASCAR), Richard Petty (seven championships and most wins ever), Dale Earnhardt (seven championships and revered in the sport long before and after his 2001 on-track last lap death), Dale Earnhardt Jr. (well over a decade was by far the most popular driver), or more than two articles that aren't about individual races.

Furthermore, NASCAR lost about 19 million early season TV viewers from just 2015-19 and some tracks are outright removing sections of grandstands due to low attendance. None of this dramatic bottom falling out of NASCAR's popularity and restructuring is mentioned in the portal. There is no reason to believe a turn around for this portal will ever materialize in the form of a team of dedicated maintainers. Years of diverse hard evidence is against this subject attracting large numbers of portal readers and maintainers to satisfy WP:POG.

It's time to stop luring readers to this abandoned junk fan-portal that clearly fails WP:POG on multiple counts. It's time to just Delete it. Newshunter12 (talk) 01:27, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete as per User:Newshunter12. There are more articles, 28, than for some portals, and more than the minimum set by the guideline.  The maintenance is inconsistent, and so is inconsistently bad rather than consistently bad.   There is no short-term reason to expect that a re-creation of this portal will address the problems.  Any proposed re-creation of this portal using a more modern design, and taking into account the failures of many portals, can go to Deletion Review.  Robert McClenon (talk) 15:42, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment – A few comments on Do You Knows in portals are in order. As User:BrownHairedGirl and User:Newshunter12 point out, the Do You Know section of the Main Page has quality criteria, so that the hooked articles are recently improved articles, and the DYK section of the Main Page is not a general trivia section.  The Do You Knows in portals are almost always a general trivia section.  However, there is neither a guideline requiring Do You Knows in portals, nor a guideline specifying that, if there are Do You Knows, they have passed any test.  They are therefore almost always a general trivia section.  There is no rule against having general trivia.  My own thinking is that portals almost always have Do You Knows precisely because providing general trivia on a one-time basis is fun for portal originators.  The Do You Knows of portals are useless but harmless.  They are neither a reason to keep a portal nor a reason to delete a portal.  Robert McClenon (talk) 15:42, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * @Robert McClenon I know my nom is long, but it's very important to understand that this portal is not at all giving a comprehensive view of NASCAR (most articles are just about individual races over a very limited span of time) as a portal should, which is a big problem, as is the sporadic now defunct fan-maintenance. Could you please re-consider going full delete on this one? Newshunter12 (talk) 16:46, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * User:Newshunter12 - Maybe when I have had time (again) to analyze all of the portals nominated for deletion (again). :-\  Robert McClenon (talk) 20:28, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * @Robert McClenon, WP:TRIVIA bans trivia in article space. The portal guideline permits it, which seems to me to be a case of WP:LOCALCON  ignoring a broader community consensus.
 * I disagree with your assertion that The Do You Knows of portals are useless but harmless. They may be harmless, or maybe not.
 * The lack of any scrutiny process means that the random trivia section of portals consists of unsourced and unscrutinised factoids. Those may be accurate, but they may also be erroneous, or simply made up.  Having examined several hundred of them in the last few months, I found the quality to be highly variable: everywhere from DYK standard to semi-literate nonsense, with a fair number of more minor failings in between.
 * It seems to me to be a defiance of basic en.wp principles tolerate these unsourced trivia sections. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 13:26, 27 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment to User:BrownHairedGirl - Point made as to portal DYKs. Correct general trivia in a portal are usually harmless.  Incorrect trivia are harmful, like incorrect information in subpages.  Robert McClenon (talk) 20:03, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Problem is that without a lot of investigation of these unsourced snippets, we don't know whether they are benign of malign. Given the lack of scrutiny of the content forks of articles, I don't rate the chances of the trivia being checked. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 21:42, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per nominator. We could have an an interesting theoretical debate on whether NACSAR is a "broad topic".  On the "no" side, it's a single country's version of subset of motorsport; on the "yes" side it was v popular. but in practice the question is moot. Regardless of whether the topic is seen as broad enough, the problem remains that portals need readers and maintainers  ... and this portal has not been maintained for nearly a decade, and it has few readers. Unless there is a team of maintainers committed to keeping this portal in good shape for the long-term, it will simply rot again.
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject NASCAR appears to be reasonably active. If a credible team of project members volunteered to take over the portal and maintain it, I would probably support keeping it. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 22:22, 27 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Note to closing admin. I don't want in any way to prejudge the outcome ... but if you close this discussion 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:Motorsport), without creating duplicate entries. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 22:23, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete Topic is too narrow to warrant a portal. SD0001 (talk) 15:08, 30 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.