Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Togo

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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. Re: BHG, don't worry about this one, I have an AWB setup with the same functionality, and there are only a handful of incoming links. bd2412 T 19:07, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Togo

 * – (View MfD)

Neglected, almost unused mini-portal on the African country of Togo.

It was created in 2010 by a prolific creator of portals who was sadly a massively less diligent maintainer thereof. built this one, and also created Portal:Burkina Faso, Portal:Gabon, Portal:Mauritius, Portal:Niger, and recreated after deletion Portal:Sudan and Portal:Botswana. All six of those portals have already been deleted due to their abandonment. The lead of WP:POG has warned since 2006 "Do not expect other editors to maintain a portal you create", and it's a pity that this editor seems to have been as unaware of that guidance as the many other portal creators who similarly abandoned their creations.

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 fails on at least two of the three counts:
 * 1)  Broad topic . Togo is classed by the UN as one of the Least Developed Countries.  With a 2017 population of 7,965,055, it's one of the smallest countries in Africa.  Added to Wikipedia's well-documented systemic bias against Africa topics, it's unsurprising that Wikipedia's coverage of Togo is very poor. Category:Togo articles by quality shows that there simply are not enough quality articles here to make a viable portal
 * 2) * Category:C-Class Togo articles (population: )
 * 3) * Category:B-Class Togo articles (population: )
 * 4) * Category:A-Class Togo articles (population: )
 * 5) * Category:GA-Class Togo articles (population: )
 * 6) * Category:FA-Class Togo articles (population: )
 * 7)  High readership . Clear fail. The portal's January–June 2019 daily average of only 9 views per day is trivially low.
 * 8)  Lots of of maintainers . Clear fail. The minimal level of content is unchanged since 2010, apart from minor edits to one page.  The only maintenance has been formatting tweaks to the main portal page.

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, WikiProject Togo appears dormant. The last non-announcement post on its talkpage was in 2016, and as far as I can see there has never been an actual discussion there (where one editor replies to another editor). So there is no prospect of WikiProject support for the portal.

Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Togo shows a limited set of sub-pages. All were created in Feb 2010 by User:Belovedfreak: Unlike the forests of fake DYKs on many other portals, these 3 are genuine. However, they are also ancient: /1 was on DYK in 2005, while /2 and /3 were on DYK in 2010. . Per WP:DYK, "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 decade-old list loses the newness, so its only effect is as a trivia section.
 * 3 DYK pages: Portal:Togo/Did you know/1, /2 and /3. Each had a single formatting tweak in 2018, and no other changes since 2010.
 * 5 article pages: Portal:Togo/Featured article/1, /2, /3, /4, /5. The only edits since 2010 have been driveby trivial edits to /1 and /3.  The other pages are untouched.
 * 3 biog pages: Portal:Togo/Featured biography/1, /2 and /3. All are wholly unchanged since 2010.

So this whole portal is just a wrapper around content forks created in 2010. It still has only 8 topic pages (the minimum is 20).

Time to stop luring readers to this decade-old relic. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:19, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete as per the analysis by User:BrownHairedGirl, without prejudice to creation of a future portal that does not use forked subpages, and that has a maintenance plan. As noted, only 9 daily pageviews of the portal, as opposed to 1709 for the head article.  I disagree in detail as to whether Togo could be a broad subject area.  A future portal design using categories could have 59 articles that would not have to be forked (if the portal platoon were trying to improve the design of portals).  However, it isn't implemented as a broad subject area, with only 8 articles that have not been updated since 2010.  This was a national portal, or at least was intended to be a national portal.  A future editor with a better design that does not use subpages (and preferably uses categories) and involves a maintenance plan should be welcome to create a new portal. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:42, 1 September 2019 (UTC)
 * @Robert, I think that this topic area illustrates well how the whole concept of portals needs a fundamental re-think, rather than just an adaptation of the decade-old failed model.
 * The 59 C-class-and-better articles would all fit neatly into a single navbox.  That would be:
 * Only one page to maintain, with the simple navbox syntax and none of the complex markup of a portal page.
 * Show up-front a list of all the pages in the set
 * Have a built-in excerpt preview
 * Be available on every page in the set
 * Maybe call it a "portal box". Simple, lightweight, and vastly more useful. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:01, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
 * @ Brown HairedGirl  I agree with all of your points. Portals on topics like this are fundamentally unhelpful for readers compared to the benefits of one navbox. I would also point out that as your timestamp says, BHG is number one on the issue of portals! Newshunter12 (talk) 02:07, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, @Newshunter12. If I had waited 6 more minutes would I have license to kill the portal?  --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 02:22, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
 * @ Brown HairedGirl  Of course! As my username suggests, I could've even helped.  Newshunter12 (talk) 02:33, 2 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete per the thorough and highly detailed investigation of the portal by the nominator, BHG. Portals stand or fall on their merits in the now, not what could someday hypothetically happen with them, and this one falls flat. It's just a useless time suck that lures readers to an abandoned Bonsai portal. I oppose re-creation, as a decade of hard evidence shows Togo is not a broad enough topic under WP:POG to attract readers or maintainers. This portal is a solution in search of a problem. Newshunter12 (talk) 02:07, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Maybe cool it on the copypasted "oppose recreation, not a broad enough topic" text. Countries are obviously broad enough topics from portals — the real problems are that there's no maintainer and not enough material at this time. — python coder (talk &#124; contribs) 00:16, 6 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:Africa), without creating duplicate entries. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 00:12, 8 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.