Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Syrian Civil War

 __NOINDEX__
 * 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) 03:39, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Syrian Civil War

 * – (View MfD)

Delete One hopes that this conflict never reaches the breadth of the Crusades, World War I or World War II; for now, horrific as it is, it falls well below the breadth-of-subject-area requirement of the WP:POG guideline. And when a conflict is ongoing, and edits are "subject to active community-authorised discretionary sanctions," it is particularly critical that a portal be updated frequently and balance be ensured, neither of which are happening here. UnitedStatesian (talk) 06:47, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete - As noted by User:UnitedStatesian, the subject of the Syrian Civil War is subject to community-authorized discretionary sanctions, restrictions on battleground editing about real battlegrounds. The history of this portal shows that history, along with allegations that one of the editors is a paid agent of the Syrian government.  Wikipedia needs neutral articles on the subject, although neutrality is difficult to achieve.  A portal is an unnecessary target.  This portal has 24 daily pageviews in Jan-Jun19, as opposed to 6830 for the head article.  Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Syrian_Civil_War shows 5 articles, 2 biographies, and 2 images, but one of the articles is a duplicate, so that there are only 6 articles, 14 short of the minimum of 20.  (Maybe it is hard to get images of battle back from the battlefield.)  This portal falls short of portal guidelines both in having low readership and in having too few articles, and is an unnecessary target for battleground editing when neutral point of view is the second pillar of Wikipedia. Robert McClenon (talk) 12:32, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
 * @Robert McClenon Actually, there are vast numbers of pictures and videos from the battlefields and wake of this conflict, but no one has cared to put them here. Newshunter12 (talk) 05:57, 8 September 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:Syria and Portal:War), without creating duplicate entries. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 21:27, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per the nom and Robert McClenon. This portal clearly fails WP:POG's requirement to have large numbers of readers, have at least 20 articles (it has six), and is not presenting a comprehensive or neutral view of the conflict. The far more viewed and comprehensive C-Class head article Syrian Civil War does a far better job explaining this conflict then this portal does. I Oppose re-creation of a portal about this bitterly contested ongoing conflict, since it is an unnecessary draw for battleground editing and has also failed these points of POG since it was created. Newshunter12 (talk) 05:57, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose Neutral - one has to take into account that currently portal:Syria is utilizing the flag of Ba'athist Syria, while former territory of Syria is divided to 4 parts, each with its own government - Ba'athist Syria, Turkish occupation of Northern Syria, Idlib and Rojava. It is not correct per WP:NPOV to put Syria portal (now used for Baathist Syria) to describe Syrian Opposition & Turkish occupation of North Syria related pages and neither Syrian Salvation Government-related ones. This barely goes ok with Rojava, which is still regarding itself as Autonomy of Baathist Syria. In any case, taking a look at the Syria portal (describing Baathist Syrian Arab Republic), we have only 17 daily pageviews in Jan-Aug19, as opposed to 25 daily pageviews for Syrian Civil War portal. Syrian Civil War is the largest and most complicated conflict of the 21st century and has sufficient information to be covered as portal. If anything, then portal:Syria should be erased.GreyShark (dibra) 06:58, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
 * @GreyShark You seem to have some strong feelings about this topic, which is fine, but Wikipedia is not the place to push a POV, however right or wrong. Looking over Portal:Syria, it appears to fail WP:POG as well (abandoned for about six years, low readership, etc.) and I will nominate it for deletion soon, after drawing up a nom. Your main point of contention seems to be that this portal balances out the bias of the country portal - would deleting both satisfy your concerns? Newshunter12 (talk) 20:14, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Syria has now been created. Interested editors are welcome to join the discussion there. Newshunter12 (talk) 22:43, 8 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I think by deleting both, the bias issue will be answered.GreyShark (dibra) 11:41, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
 * My vote changed to neutral due to nomination of portal:Syria for deletion as well.GreyShark (dibra) 11:46, 9 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete, and oppose re-creation. Low readership + poor maintenance = clear fail of 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".
 * Portals are under-scrutinised and under-maintained, so are wholly unsuited to highly-controversial topics like this. The fact that we have allegation of involvement of a POV-pusher, and complaints here are about alleged lack of neutrality (even tho the portal is flagged with Syrian Civil War sanctions), shows that the portal is unsustainable. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 05:19, 11 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete - Selected article #2 is about a rebel group that no longer exists. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 05:24, 13 September 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.