Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Precambrian

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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) 00:54, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Precambrian

 * – (View MfD)

Currently a pointless semi-automated pseudo-portal. Previously a poor-quality abandoned manual one.

As currently structured, this is a set of semi-automated portal built solely off an embedded list of subtopics, in the form of 9 era and periods:
 * Hadean Eon
 * Archean Eon
 * Proterozoic Eon
 * Paleoproterozoic
 * Mesoproterozoic
 * Tonian
 * Cryogenian
 * Ediacaran
 * Neoproterozoic

That's not a portal; it's just a set of the first-level subheads, which would be better represented as a single-line TOC or navbox.

This is list is set out much more clearly in the head article Precambrian:
 * A graphic at the top right of the page
 * A list of one-para intros at Precambrian
 * A broad-scope navbox at the bottom of the page: Template:Geological history of Earth

Each of those of those elements does a much better job as a navigational hub than this. I can't call it a WP:REDUNDANTFORK, because it's more like a redundant table of contents.

Before being "improved" by @The Transhumanist, this was an abandoned incomplete manual portal. Here's the last version before TTH started work on it:. Note the empty intro section, the weirdly titled section heads "Selected article on the Precambrian world and its legacies" and "Selected article on the Precambrian in human science, culture and economics", and the stack of sections below which are either completely empty or have headings with no content. This is a template which hasn't been filled in.

The manual version has few subpages: see Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Precambrian, with only 4 Portal:Precambrian/Natural world articles and only Portal:Precambrian/Science, culture, and economics articles. The last edit to any of those article pages was in December 2015.

That's how the portal was from 2015 to 2108, when TTH began morphing it into its current form. There's no version which is worth keeping; every one of them is waste of reader's time.

The topic may be suitable for a portal, if someone actually builds one which adds real value to the  B-class head article Precambrian, and genuinely meets the WP:PORTAL principle "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects" ... rtaher than massively degraded versions, like this page.

So I propose that this portal and all its subpages be deleted without prejudice to recreating a curated portal, in accordance with whatever criteria the community may have agreed at that time'. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:50, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete - The usual conditions apply, without prejudice to a subsequent manual portal. This portal was converted from one broken form to another by the portal platoon.  Robert McClenon (talk) 04:54, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete - Old portal, 22 subpages, created 2015-06-29 21:00:45 by User:Abyssal, then abandoned, then converted into this useless thing. Without prejudice etc. Portal:Precambrian. Pldx1 (talk) 08:08, 26 April 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.