Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Silesia

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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) 04:11, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Silesia


Abandoned mini-portal on the historical region of Silesia in Central Europe.

Created in February 2007‎ by, whose block log inclues sockpuppeteering and edit-warring, and ends in 2011 with an indefinite block for long-term disruptive editing and revert warring on Silesia-related pages.

The portal was never automated, perhaps because @Bermicourt was added as a maintainer in July 2018‎.

I dunno whether Bermicourt was aware of their appointment, but this titular role didn't end the abandonment. Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Silesia shows that all the key sub-pages remain as they were left by the disruptive LUCPOL back in 2007: /Silesia news, /Selected article, /Selected picture, /Selected biography, /Silesia topics.

WP:POG says that unless automated, the content selection should be updated monthly, or preferably weekly. Even on a monthly cycle, this pseudo-portal has missed over 140 consecutive updates. 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 Silesia and its navbox Silesia topics.

In theory, this might be a broad topic. But in practice, it has not met the WP:POG requirement that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers". Despite the labelling, this has not attracted maintainers, and in Jan–Feb 2019 got only 9 pageviews per day.

Since September 2006, the lead of the portal guidelines at WP:PG have warned editors: [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Portal/Guidelines&oldid=73728473 Please bear in mind that portals should be about broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers. Do not create a portal if you do not intend to assist in its regular maintenance].
 * But, but, but... BHG - Maintaining portals is hard work. Creating portals is fun.  Do you want to prevent burdensome fun?  Robert McClenon (talk) 18:36, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

It is time to stop wasting the time of readers by luring them to the abandoned drafts of editors who ignored that guidance, and time to abandon the magical thinking that this abandoned relic will some day magically attract magical editors who will want to resurrect it. If any editor does want to build a real portal, they will be far better off without this relic and its ancient content-forked subpages; instead they should build a modern portal without content-forked sub-pages, per e.g. Portal:Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Portal:Geophysics.

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) 17:50, 15 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Proposal. If this is deleted I'm willing to translate and adapt it's German Wikipedia counterpart, which looks mature, has better coverage and project editor tools. I'm then happy to maintain it. But I'm not willing to do any of that if it just gets culled in the next round of portal bombing. :) Bermicourt (talk) 18:02, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * @Bermicourt, thanks for that proposal. As you know, I am quite a fan of the portals which you have adapted from the German wikipedia.   They seem to me to be amongst the few portals which actually add value beyond the head article, by avoiding the built-in-anyway slideshows of articles and pictures, and  providing a really good list of topics.
 * Will they survive? I guess that depends on wider decisions.  It seems to me that the more that portals resemble that sort of low-maintenance format, the more portals can be sustained.
 * However, it seems to me that it will still be necessary to have some type of broad topic threshold, because the community can't sustain too many portals. It certainly can't maintain all the portals it has now, and I suspect that the total will be somewhere in the hundreds.  Low hundreds if the high-maintenance-squillion-subpages-format is maintained, high hundreds is it's lower maintenance.  And in that context, do the maths: ~200 countries, start adding a few subdivisions, you're already pushing the numbers.  Add in historical regions, and ... well.
 * But that's where I think things will eventually end up. I's like it to get there soon, but I reckon that the path there will be long, and that the next year or so will probably be mostly a little more consolidation as the usual crew demand to keep portals on niche topics like single musicians and small cities, and to retain any old abandoned junk 'cos some day someone might improve it, and not deprecate the sub-page format.    And then in a year or two there will another push by somebody from outside, and a big row, and some other big shift.
 * Hope that helps. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 01:04, 16 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete - Yet another portal created by a banned sockpuppeteer. There may be some conclusion, such as that portals are easy to start if one doesn't care about civility and collaboration.  I am not entirely sure what User:Bermicourt is saying, or whether that is reason to request a Relist.  It is not a reason for me to be Neutral, so Delete.  Robert McClenon (talk) 18:36, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * If you're not entirely sure what another editor is saying, why not take the trouble to find out? And you haven't cited a reason for deletion, just an ad hominem argument. Bermicourt (talk) 03:46, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Neutral: I agree with BHG's above assessment that 's portals are often among the best ones. If they're willing to bring this one up to scratch, I'm sure it would pass the breadth test.    SITH   (talk)   11:40, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment - I concur with the analysis by BHG, and that is a policy-based reason. The portal has 9 daily average pageviews, as opposed to 896 daily pageviews for the head article, indicating that it is not attracting large numbers of readers and is unlikely to attract a portal maintainer.  Does User:Bermicourt want to clarify what they are saying?  Robert McClenon (talk) 10:24, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Here's the German equivalent. My offer was to translate, transfer and adapt it for English Wiki down the line. But I'm not wasting my time if it's just caught in the crosshairs of another round of deletioneering. Bermicourt (talk) 17:05, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete These sub-/transnational geographic entities do not meet the breadth-of-subject-area requirement of the WP:POG guideline. UnitedStatesian (talk) 20:32, 22 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.