Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Traditional African religions

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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:  keep. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 23:54, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Traditional African religions


Almost-abandoned and almost-unread mini-portal. Small set of unsourced content forks, and a fake DYK section. Redundant to the head article Traditional African religions, the sidebar Template:Traditional African religion and host of navboxes on sub-topics.

Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Traditional African religions shows a modest set of sub-pages, including:
 * Portal:Traditional African religions/Selected article/1, /2, /3, /4 and /5 are all unchanged since their creation in 2015, apart from a page move in 2019. They are just a set of 4-year-old unsourced content forks.
 * Portal:Traditional African religions/Selected biography/1, /2, /3, and /4 are all unchanged since their creation in 2015, apart from a page move in 2019. They too are just a set of 4-year-old unsourced content forks.
 * Portal:Traditional African religions/Did you know dislays the same items as when it was created in 2015. . 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 four-year-old list loses the newness, so its only effect is as a trvia section. In any case, I have checked all the items listed here, and none of them is derived from WP:DYK. So this is't a stale DYK page: it a fake DYK page, which has from the outset been just a trivia farm.

The portal's creator did some formatting tweaks in July 2019, but 4 years after creation the portal remains under-sized and outdated.

WP:POG requires that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers". In practice, this portal has neither: it has not attracted any maintainers apart from one return vist by the creator, and it has also been shunned by readers. In June 2019 the portal got only 16 page views per day, while the head article Traditional African religions got 846 daily views. So readers prefer the head article by a ratio of 53:1.

Two newish features of the Wikimedia software means that the article and navboxes offers all the functionality which portals like this set out to offer. Both features are available only to ordinary readers who are not logged in, but you can test them without logging out by right-clicking on a link, and the select "open in private window" (in Firefox) or "open in incognito window" (Chrome).
 * 1) mouseover: on any link, mouseover shows you the picture and the start of the lead.  So the preview-selected page-function of portals is redundant: something almost as good is available automatically on any navbox or other set of links.  Try it by right-clicking on this link to Template:Traditional African religion, open in a private/incognito tab, and mouseover any link.
 * 2) automatic imagery galleries: clicking on an image brings up an image gallery of all the images on that page. It's full-screen, so it's actually much better than  a click-for-next image gallery on a portal.   Try it by right-clicking on this link to the article Traditional African religion, open in a private/incognito tab, and click on any image to start the slideshow

Similar features have been available since 2015 to users of Wikipedia's Android app.

Those new technologies set a high bar for any portal which actually tries to add value for the reader. But this portal fails the basic requirements even of the guidelines written before the new technologies changed the game. Editors can use their  time much more productively by expanding the head article than by putting further effort into this superflous portal. Time to just delete it. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:37, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep — This is a silly nomination. We might as well close down the whole portal system since you are on a mission to delete every portal on English Wikipedia with your mass nominations - especially those relating to the African continent. This is the only major religion with over 100 million followers in Africa and the diaspora that you would like to remove from the system. This topic is very verse and I and others have been contributing and updating it. I have even been updating it in the past few days as you can see in its contribution history and sub-pages. I have not even finished yet. This nomination is driven by a particular agenda. It is not neutral. And your wording is rather aggressive. We either keep the portal system or delete everything. We cannot have nominations driven by agendas. Do you actually edit and help out with portals yourself? I mean, really helping out by updating them and doing some major works? It is very easy to nominate and delete but rather difficult to actually work on them. If I come across an article or portal and find that it has issues, I take the time to fix it rather than nominating it for deletion. Do you do the same? Further, in your haste to nominate, you left me a red link on my talk page with no link to this discussion. You also did the same on the portal's page. I had to do a search just to locate this deletion discussion. Absolutely terrible!Tamsier (talk) 14:19, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Wow, that's a nasty pile of falsehoods and ABF, Tamsier.
 * I will take them one at a time:
 * This is not a mass nomination.
 * The overwhelming majority of my MFD nominations of portals do not relate to Africa.
 * I have made no mass nominations ... relating to the African continent. Please do not tell lies.
 * I have nominated portals for other religions where they fall below POG standards. The claim that I am targeting Africa is a malicious smear designed to falsely portray me as a racist.  Shame on you for that vile personal attack.
 * The link on you talk page is red simply because of the order in which pages Twinkle makes its edit. The link works.
 * You propose that We either keep the portal system or delete everything. That is your own binary absolutism, unsupported by policy or consensus. There is  no sense in a binary choice between deleting even the good portals or keeping even the crap ones, and after ~4800 portals have been deleted at MFD in the last 4 months, it is very clear that community has consistently rejected your idea.
 * You claim that This nomination is driven by a particular agenda. Absolutely true: like all my other portal MFDs nominations it is driven by the simple agenda of upholding the portal guidelines, by deleting portals which do not meet it standards.  If you sincerely believe that there is something wrong about upholding long-established guidelines, then please make a prompt complaint at WP:ANI.  Otherwise, stop hurling false allegations.
 * I get that you created this portal, and that creators sometimes don't like their creations being deleted. But please have the courtesy to discuss the substances of the nomination, and stop trying to derail the discussion by smearing me with malicious falsehoods.--  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 14:49, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

The four portals are shown in the following table: None of the portals listed are well-maintained. Portals usually are not well-maintained. This portal is not attracting readers either. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:26, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete as per analysis by User:BrownHairedGirl, and concurring in most of her reply to the personal attack by User:Tamsier.
 * I will also take issue with the claim: "This is the only major religion with over 100 million followers in Africa and the diaspora that you would like to remove from the system."  It is true that traditional African religions have more than 100 million followers in Africa, but are not the only religions with that many followers in Africa.  There are more than 600 million Christians and more than 500 million Muslims in Africa, and there have been followers of those religions since the times of their founders.  Joseph of Nazareth took Mary, Mother of Jesus and the infant Jesus to Egypt for safety.  Muhammad sent followers to Ethiopia.  Besides, BHG is not proposing to remove traditional African religion from Wikipedia.  Only the portal, a little-used navigation mechanism, is proposed for deletion.
 * The geographic portals that have been deleted have mostly been about places in the United States, United Kingdom, and India.
 * I will agree with User:Tamsier and disagree with User:BrownHairedGirl on one useless detail. He writes:  "We either keep the portal system or delete everything."  Yes, parsing it very carefully.  We can either delete everything, or keep a system that has portals, and we are keeping the portal system.  It is individual portals that are being deleted.  Therefore that statement is true but useless.
 * Any further personal attacks will be reported to WP:ANI and may result in sanctions. If you really believe that User:BrownHairedGirl has an anti-African or Eurocentric agenda (which is nonsense), you may take evidence to that effect (other than empty claims) to WP:ANI after reading the boomerang essay.
 * The religion portals that are currently nominated for deletion include Portal:Baptists, Portal:Seventh-day Adventist Church, and Portal:Wicca. Other religion portals that are not African have already been deleted.
 * The portal lists three associated portals.


 * Don't indulge me with your silly posturing and threats. There was no personal attack, but a statement made in reference to BHG's nominations. I even made it clear right from the get go that she wants to see the end of the portal system before making any reference Africa - which I have checked before making reference to Africa. Besides, she would not be the only one who wants to see the end of the portal system if we are to go by previous portal discussions. Therefore, Africa or no Africa, she and many others wants to see the end of the portal system. I don't even have to justify myself to you. In any case, BHG is quite capable of defending her position as the nominator of this portal and many others - which she did above, although I totally disagree with most of her points. Therefore, she does not need a spoke person like yourself to come here and start throwing your weight around. Further, 2 of the three religious portals you've referenced are denominations of Christianity which has a portal of its own and is not under the threat of deletion. Name me one traditional African religious portal which has not been deleted and is not under the threat of deletion. And now the main Traditional African religions portal (the parent portal of all traditional African religions) is under threat and I can bet my life on it that it will be deleted by the end of this MFD - going by history. Furthermore, your useless table above is misleading. It does not take into account the sub-pages. Even the main page, never mind the sub-pages have have had some maintenance. Therefore, your statement that the "Only maintenance since 2015 has been 2019 page move." is false. Take a look at the contribution history and sup-pages for a clearer picture.Tamsier (talk) 10:06, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * @Tamsier, you misrepresent my views on portals, but that's not the issue here. This is not a discussion about my views on all portals; it is about this whether to delete this one portal.
 * You continue to ascribe to me some sort of anti-African agenda, which is an unfounded malicious slur you would be well advised to drop fast. I nominated the portal for the reasons stated in the nomination, which are unconnected to the subject matter: they are because the portal does not meet the portal guidelines, and the head article does a much better job.
 * Your repeated attempts to personalise the discussion have the effect only of underlining that you lack any substantive response to the actual rationale for deletion. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 15:11, 10 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment — I have updated the portal and its subpages. Hopefully the closing admin will take that into account before deleting the portal.Tamsier (talk) 23:01, 11 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep – Meets WP:POG in terms of the breadth of coverage about the topic, and also keep per WP:HEY. The statement in the table above, "Only substantive maintenance since 2015 appears to have been 2019 page move" is now outdated. The portal has been significantly expanded. For example, the Portal:Traditional African religions/Selected article subpage was created on 11 July 2019 and presently has a total of 23 entries. The Portal:Traditional African religions/Selected biography was created on 11 July 2019‎ and presently has ten selections. Regarding page views (see What links here), what the portal needs is more links to it. More visible links = more page views. Also, we now have an active maintainer, which is yet another reason to allow time for the portal to be improved and expanded. North America1000 08:38, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep - It is a broad subject area and there is an active maintainer. Portals can improve and garner more views. I don't really see the point in deleting things of value, even if they do not attract many people who look at it (yet). Do we need to save a few kilobytes of hard disk space for the Wikimedia foundation? Hecato (talk) 19:58, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep per Tamsier, Northamerica1000 and Hecato. Portal has improved so much. Senegambianamestudy (talk) 22:10, 14 July 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.