Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Solar System

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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:  no consensus. Some editors have volunteered to maintain this portal, which is good. However, if that maintenance doesn't persist, then this portal will likely end up back here at MfD, and the result may be different next time. ‑Scottywong | [confabulate] || 04:08, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Solar System


Abandoned portal. The 30 selected articles in the rotation date from April 2007 through January 2011. Aside from some updates in May 2007, some persistent vandalism and a decent amount of image updates, these entries have remained as they were on the day they were created. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 07:26, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Mark, is there evidence of abandonment (e.g. vandalism going unreverted for a long time, important updates not made)? DexDor(talk) 19:24, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes. A list:
 * Portal:Solar System/Selected article/1, Eris is not the largest dwarf planet. We've known since July 2015 that Pluto is larger. Eris has not been the furthest most distant natural object ever observed in the Solar System since the discovery of last year.
 * Portal:Solar System/Selected article/3, says "the only spacecraft to approach Mercury was Mariner 10 from 1974 to 1975." MESSENGER, orbited Mercury over 4,000 times in four years before it's controlled crash onto Mercury in April 2015.
 * Portal:Solar System/Selected article/8 Ceres was "recently" discovered to be round? We've known this since at least 2006.
 * Portal:Solar System/Selected article/9 Claims the only known trans-Neptunian objects are 90377 Sedna and 2000 CR105. There are now over 2500 TNOs.
 * Portal:Solar System/Selected article/10 omission of Juno visit in 2016. Eight more moons discovered.

Mark Schierbecker (talk) 05:29, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep, there are periodic edits, with an active history page and an average 68 readers a day (readers who likely gained knowledge and in-site direction from their experience with the page). Randy Kryn (talk) 21:00, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * @Randy Kryn You said you were new to portals elsewhere, so to bring you up to speed, any time you see a portal edit anywhere by 'The Transhumanist' you should disregard them. They are a portal spammer who created literally thousands of junk portals using automated software that had to be deleted at two mass MfD's earlier this year at great expense of editor time and tried to unilaterally change basically every existing portal into automated junk. Their edits mean nothing of value, and when you remove that, vandalism, and link/template changes, portals like this have rotted for years. When the very well maintained head article Solar System (it has Featured Article status) gets well over 14,000 views a day, what good is an outdated junk portal with almost no views really doing? Portals are not main space and do not have their own content - they are mere navigational devices. Everything here can be found in the head article, its versatile navbox, etc. Please reconsider your votes here and elsewhere. Newshunter12 (talk) 06:42, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Not actually new to portals, I just don't edit them regularly. 68 views a day isn't "almost no views", that's quite a lot of views over time, and a huge amount of views over more time. Portals are a navigation device, and this one is fine, educational, and gives links that readers may not easily find elsewhere. There is no need to delete this useful and interesting page. Since the portals about the Solar System, Moon, Mars, Jupiter and who knows what other swaths of the Milky Way have been put into the extinction zone, the nominators should notify the space and other appropriate wikiprojects about this deletion request. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:24, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Wikiprojects that have tagged the portal automatically have this MFD shown in their article alerts. I see that one of the portal enthusiasts has (and had at the time of your comment) also put notices on wikiproject talk pages (which doesn't usually get much response). DexDor(talk) 06:10, 21 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 low 61 views per day from January 1 to June 30 2019 (while the head article Solar System had 14,410 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 the Solar System is not a broad enough topic to attract readers or maintainers. Newshunter12 (talk) 06:42, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Move (without redirect) to WikiProject Solar System/Portal. It looks OK, but is not a useful reader navigation tool.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:04, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep. It is about a very broad subject area with a large scope of articles. The view numbers are higher than most portals. The complaints about it above are not backed up by any guideline. The demand for a certain pageview number from the people behind the mass deletion seems to increase as the number of remaining portals decreases. POG just states a portal needs to be "likely to attract large numbers of readers", which is subjective at best. And nowhere in the guideline does it state that pageviews should be compared to articles. But if I need to make a case for it, it seems this portal has large numbers of readers for a portal. It has way more readers |Category:Solar_System than the associated category as well. Given the large scope, it has the potential (likelihood) to garner more viewers than it already does. In regards to utility: The news section is useful, just like the offered navigation to basic solar system articles. I do not think this portal is particularly outdated, the selected articles can be fixed in 5 minutes, but...
 * I would be willing to update this portal periodically and expand it in time. Which I guess makes me a maintainer. --Hecato (talk) 12:46, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You are not a maintainer of this portal. Hecato has never once edited this portal and has only been on Wikipedia for about a month, so his claim to be a maintainer (which would be an indefinite and time consuming commitment) and ability to turn this portal around should be given no weight by the closer. This portal would need a team of dedicated, knowledgeable maintainers to have any hope of a re-birth, which over eight years of abandonment says will never happen. Hecato is just trying to save this junk portal from deletion with false promises meant to trick the closer. Newshunter12 (talk) 03:53, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Baseless slander. I am currently maintaining two portals (one I have recently adopted in an MfD, just like I intend to adopt this one). And I have more than 1,194 edits on Wikipedia, I am way beyond "extended confirmed user" territory. I think the demand for a maintainer of a portal is only "auto-confirmed". The demand for a "team" with any credentials is not supported by any guideline. Just another addition to the endless ever expanding list of demands from the people who vote delete on Portal MfDs no matter what. --Hecato (talk) 13:08, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Facts are not libel. The fact that you don't know what slander means also does nothing to reassure me that you are actually qualified to maintain this portal. WP:POG specifically requires portals to be likely to attract large numbers of "readers and maintainers." Over eight years of no maintainers leaves no room for guesswork. This portal fails WP:POG with or without one-off maitnence meant to stop deletion before being dumped again. Newshunter12 (talk) 17:03, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * @Hecato your vote is pure WP:ILIKEIT, not policy based, nor does it even try to link to supportive policies that we keep junk portals no matter what because there are none. We don't keep anything on Wikipedia based on WP:CRYSTALBALL that like mana falling from heaven, readers and maintainers might just appear one day. Portals stand or fall on their merits in the now, and this one falls flat. One off maintenance means nothing. This junk portal has been abandoned for over eight years. It also has low page views, which you are trying to mask using the abysmal view rate of portals in general. You also purposefully misquoted POG. WP:POG requires portals be about: "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers." No guess work is needed. Over eight years of hard data show readers and maintainers don't want this narrow portal (being broad in a literal sense means nothing here), which should be deleted per WP:POG, not kept because some want portals for everything. Newshunter12 (talk) 18:02, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Topic is broad, there are viewers, there is a maintainer. POG is fulfilled. If you think all portals should be deleted because they all have low view numbers then start another RfC. If 99% of portals fail your interpretation of POG then the problem might be with your interpretation and not with 99% of portals. --Hecato (talk) 18:21, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * None of what you said is true, as I have already explained. I will add that being broad in a literal sense and being broad under WP:POG are not at all the same thing. WP:POG isn't built around literal broadness or how interesting a topic is. Neither of those factors matter under POG. Newshunter12 (talk) 03:08, 22 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:


 * If you read my Keep !vote, I offered to maintain this portal beyond "drive-by edits" as you call it. Your question about the usefulness of this portal appears to be a question about the usefulness of portals in general which is misplaced in this MfD, take that to the POG talk page or the recent RfCs about the matter. --Hecato (talk) 13:43, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Nevermind, just noticed you copypasted this everywhere. --Hecato (talk) 14:27, 21 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment – This is a poorly maintained but well-viewed (more than 50 daily pageviews) portal. Any proposal to delete this portal should focus on whether it is doing any actual harm, such as presenting incorrect information to the reader.   Robert McClenon (talk) 13:20, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * @Robert McClenon Yes, this portal is harming readers. For example, the entry for Europa says nothing about the water vapor plumes Hubble discerned erupting off the surface of this moon, the important work the spacecraft Juno is presently doing with Europa, or the upcoming Europa clipper mission, all sourced from NASA. Instead, it wastes readers' time by talking about an orbiter project canceled in 2005. The nom, Mark, also provided other examples above. I don't have time to do this with every page on this junk portal and hope this is proof enough that when things are left to rot for a decade, unsurprisingly, they rot. Newshunter12 (talk) 18:30, 21 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment - Regarding ease of updating articles on these portals, please see my comment under Portal:Jupiter further down on this Miscellany for deletion page. --Marshallsumter (talk) 20:05, 21 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Semi-automating a portal is not a way to avoid requiring maintainers for portals, which still require regular hands on maintenance to be worthwhile for readers. Newshunter12 (talk) 03:12, 22 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. The comments by User:Newshunter12 and User:Mark Schierbecker are cogent.  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) 12:57, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep this portal is needed if the planet portals are deleted.Catfurball (talk) 23:50, 22 August 2019 (UTC)
 * @Catfurball I understand and respect your reasoning in wanting to keep this particular portal, but I believe it is misguided. The featured articles Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Solar System collectively had 36,277 views |Mars|Jupiter|Solar_System per day from January 1 - June 30 2019, while their four respective portals, all abandoned for over eight years, had 138 views |Portal:Mars|Portal:Jupiter|Portal:Solar_System per day in the same period. This dichotomy illustrates the reality that portals in general, and certainly these astronomy themed portals, are a failed solution in search of a problem. These four add nothing of value to studying astronomy on Wikipedia. The astronomy section on Wikipedia is much better off without the burden of junk portals luring readers away from the best content on Wikipedia to abandoned crud. Please reconsider your vote. Newshunter12 (talk) 03:06, 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) 01:15, 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 61 views per day, while the Featured Article Solar System gets well over 14,000 views a day and is equipped with multiple rich and versatile navboxes for all things astronomy related in our Solar System and beyond. 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) 02:30, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Marshallsumter, please explain how "the portals serve those who seek out specific sciences". DexDor(talk) 05:38, 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) 01:42, 24 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Neutral. If this portal is changed to (or replaced by) a portal that doesn't content fork old article text and there are editors interested in the topic who will maintain it (especially if portals on individual planets etc are deleted so editor time isn't spread across so many portals) then this could be kept. However I still see portals (in general) as a solution without a problem and a net negative in building/maintaining an encyclopedia; the onus should be on proponents of portals to identify what benefits they might provide to readers. DexDor(talk) 05:49, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes. Please explain the benefits of portals.  Robert McClenon (talk) 01:42, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You have created an entire RfC for that and I believe many people have answered, including me. Please stop WP:BLUDGEON portal MfDs by posting this question everywhere. --Hecato (talk) 08:15, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * User:Hecato - I wanted and still want a guideline on portals. The portal advocates apparently don't want a guideline and don't want to agree on purposes for portals.  So that means, as a matter of logic and common sense, that the purpose of each portal needs to be spelled out in detail.  I am still ready for the portal advocates to make a good case for what the function of portals is.  Robert McClenon (talk) 15:41, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * To quote yourself: Portals are a feature of Wikipedia that can be used for showcasing, navigation, instruction or promotion, and for fun. --Hecato (talk) 19:38, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I offered to maintain it above. My maintenance would, among other things, involve replacing outdated content forks. Cheers, Hecato (talk) 09:34, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I wasn't asking for outdated content forks to be replaced, but for the design to be changed so as not to rely on content forks that become outdated. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:42, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Outdated selected articles can be fixed in a few minutes with transclusions. But yes, I would also make major changes to the design of the portal. Those take time though. --Hecato (talk) 08:15, 24 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep the Solar System is a vast enough topic to have a portal. &#32; Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:04, 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. The Featured Articles Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Solar System collectively had 36,277 views |Mars|Jupiter|Solar_System per day from January 1 - June 30 2019, while their four respective portals, all abandoned for over eight years, had 138 views |Portal:Mars|Portal:Jupiter|Portal:Solar_System per day in the same period. What benefit exactly are these junk astronomy portals adding to Wikipedia? Newshunter12 (talk) 04:59, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * To the statement "the Solar System is a vast enough topic to have a portal" you answered "wrong". Intentional or unintentional irony? Randy Kryn (talk) 11:30, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * User:Randy Kryn - I think that User:Newshunter12 means that it is not a subject area that has attracted broad coverage, readers, or maintainers. It is  an empty exercise to say that a subject area is a priori "broad" if it doesn't even have broad coverage.  Robert McClenon (talk) 14:56, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Randy Kryn, not everything that (in reality) is located in the Solar System is (in Wp) within the topic of the Solar System. I don't think a reader would expect a this portal to show an article about a Polish village, a French philisopher etc. DexDor(talk) 15:28, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * If we're going to be literal, then the many readers who come to the portal daily know that what they will find there will be information and, more importantly, links, to articles about the entire array of astronomical bodies within the star system that Earth is a part of, "a vast enough topic" indeed. Why do people fight so hard to get rid of something like this rather than just up and fix it? I don't know how or else I would. It's the Solar System (and Moon, and Mars, and Asia), keeping the portal is more valuable to the project than dumping it over the side. Randy Kryn (talk) 20:45, 24 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Correct, @DexDor. Thank you for explaining to them what I meant. @Randy Kryn A huge part of why this portal needs to go is that it hasn't had any maintainers for over eight years. A large team of maintainers fixing it up and getting truly large numbers of readers is a great dream, but simply not reality, as over eight years of hard data show. This same cycle of enthusiastic portal creation, later dumping, and many years of rotting without any maintainers has happened at many hundreds of other portals as well. Why keep this crud, when the Featured Article (which means the best content on Wikipedia) Solar System has multiple rich and versatile navboxes and gets over 14,000 views a day, while this junk portal gets 61 and has been abandoned for over eight years. Portals are not content - not one iota of astronomy content is lost getting rid of this junk portal, so why keep it? Newshunter12 (talk) 03:53, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * One editors junk is another's pile of gold. 61 views a day means to some of us a large amount of readers coming to view, learn, explore links, and experience Wikipedia in the way they choose to experience it. The portal is fine for first time readers and it has both improved and gained support for maintaining it. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:55, 26 August 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete per nominator. We could have an an interesting theoretical debate on whether the solar system is "broad topic"> I'd probably say yes, but OTOH it's effectively a subset of the scientific discipline of astronomy. However, 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 questions:
 * How does abandoned junk help the reader?
 * What deficiencies in the head article does the portal resolve so well that it;s worth creating a second page on the same topic?
 * Take care answering the second question. Articles have many more portal-like features than portal fans like to acknowledge. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 23:38, 25 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:Outer space), without creating duplicate entries. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 23:40, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * No problem as there is no way this discussion has reached a consensus to delete. A good editor has offered to take care of the portal, improve and maintain it, and all of the perceived problems have, or are well on their way, to being solved. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:55, 26 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.