Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:University of Houston

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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) 04:46, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Portal:University of Houston


Mini-portal with only 5 selected articles and 5 selected biogs, abandoned since 2008. Redundant to the head article University of Houston and its good navbox Template:University of Houston.

Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:University of Houston shows the slim list of the sub-pages, including:
 * 5 selected articles and 5 selected biogs, nearly all unouched for 586 weeks, i,e, since their creation in April 2008‎
 * Portal:University of Houston/News: last new addition was in Apr 2008.  The 4 items listed as "news" are dated 2007 and 2008
 * Portal:University of Houston/Did you know: no new aditions since 2008. 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 11-year-old list loses the newness, so its only effect is as a trivia section, contrary to WP:TRIVIA.

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:University of Houston, 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 University of Houston, 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. They make redundant the whole model of one-at-a-time excerpts on which this and most older portals were built. Only the mega-navbox style portals such as Portal:Mecklenburg-Vorpommern are suitable for the new era.

But this portal fails the basic requirements even of the guidelines written before the new technologies radically changed the game:
 * WP:POG requires that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers" ... but this portals has been unmaintained for nine years, and it has abysmal page views. In Jan–Feb 2019 it got an average of only 5 pageviews per day, less than a third of the abysmal median for all portals of 16 views/day and a trivial 0.66% of the 757 daily views for the head article.
 * WP:POG requires that portals have "a bare minimum of 20 non-list, in topic articles". But after ten years, has only ten articles.

This portal was previously discussed in April at WP:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, a nomination by me of a single page which was hijacked by another editor with the addition of no less than 52 other portals and a change of title. The resulting discussion of this sprawling, indiscriminate set was a bit of a WP:TRAINWRECK. It was closed on 11 April 2019 as keep 8 portals, including this one, but delete the remaining 45.

However, in the discussion only two editors referred to this portal: @Hut 8.5 and  @Kusma, who both noted that this portal does have some human curated content.

It was wise to defer for further scrutiny of any human-created portals in that sea of automated spam. However, after closer scrutiny, the human-curated content here turns out to be minimal, and wildly outdated. Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:26, 3 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Pinging the participants at WP:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff: ... and the closer @Amorymeltzer.  --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 21:29, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete without prejudice per WP:POG unless any interested editors start maintaining and expanding it it. Revision history shows that the portal was overhauled by TTH; the pre-overhaul design looked better, but the post-overhaul usability is better. Either way, the amount of content is lacking. I don't doubt that it's possible to meet the 20 selected articles guideline (as well as other POG recommendations), but it does not meet that criteria at this time. If that changes, I'll flip my !vote to keep. If not, I'd prefer that - if deleted - any editors who would like to would have the option of making a newer, better portal in the future. Brendon the Wizard  ✉️ ✨ 23:37, 3 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment on DYK sections in portals. Thanks for the ping, BrownHairedGirl. No opinion on this portal, as I know little about US universities. However, the rationale relating to stale DYKs is not applicable. The policy the nominator quotes is about the main-page DYK section, and is intended to indicate that main-page DYK section applies only to new articles (and more recently also) newly promoted Good Articles ostensibly to encourage creation of new articles but also to avoid the project being utterly flooded and unable to review suggestions (see their talk page passim); this section is a rolling single-appearance section on the main page where articles are not usually featured more than once. The usual practice in multi-subpage portals is to use the main-page reviewed DYKs to make multiple (often many) sets of DYKs that have appeared on the main page. In a portal, the purpose is not to highlight new content, but rather to highlight a wide range of interesting facts about topics within the portal's topic area, which often have articles of insufficient quality to highlight individually as blurbs.
 * Clearly it is beneficial if new DYKs that appear on the main page find their way to portals. However often there are long spells in which no main-page DYKs appear, or in which all DYKs within a given topic are created by the same editor, so using only DYKs that appeared in the last month/year would result in a limited, biased or null set. Moreover, if static sets are being used, one needs to collect 4, 5 or more new DYKs (with a usable free image if one is included) before a new set can be created. To show that the maintainer of this portal had not been carrying out this function, the nominator would need to find at least four DYKs that postdate the last set created. As it happens, in this case there seems to be only a single non-randomised set, so that should not be hard to do.
 * Also WP:TRIVIA states at the top "This style guideline deals with the way in which these facts are represented in an article, not with whether the information contained within them is actually trivia, or whether trivia belongs in Wikipedia." [emphasis added] and thus clearly does not apply to portals.
 * More generally, I feel that the inclusion of BrownHairedGirl's opinions on what portals in general are suitable for existence is unnecessary. She is entitled to her opinion, as I am to mine, but repeating it on every single one of her many nominations creates an oppressive atmosphere and discourages discussion. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:43, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
 * More because it amuses me than because it is directly relevant, I note that the tooltips/mouseover function that the nominator mentions is currently stuck on 27/28 June and is continuing to promulgate vandalism, BLP violations & wrong information at present; see Village pump (technical), Phabricator T227033 & T226983 and main-page errors. While I'm here, I would also encourage to get my user name right first time if he intended to actually ping me, as opposed to appearing to ping me. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:05, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
 * @Espresso Addict, I have seen very many odd opinions expressed in portal MFDs ... but none so odd as the idea that presenting info on relevant technical developments creates an oppressive atmosphere and discourages discussion.  That really is bizarre.
 * As to DYKs, it's not complicated. The purpose of DYK is to highlight new articles.  The hooks are simply a way of presenting those new articles; they are not the purpose of the entries.
 * So the use of five-, ten- or even 14-year-old DYK entries in portals entirely misses the point of DYK. It's all about new articles, not the factoids.
 * If you believe that portals are somehow exempt from the article-space principle of not collecting trivia, feel free to start an RFC, and see if you find a consensus for it. I would personally advise against doing that, because it will only highlight yet another of the ways in which portals have been developed without regard to basic content policies (sourcing is another key example) ... but if you really do want to press the point, then RFC is the way to go. --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 13:50, 6 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. CoolSkittle  (talk) 23:52, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete and with prejudice (meaning do not allow re-creation unless with explicit consensus to do so). Only the most broad subject areas can sustain a portal, narrow focus portals have no chance of meeting their ostensible purpose.  These narrow portals, if they weren't to be near-completely ignored, would like any active fork detract fro the parent article, as well as being a POV magnet.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:06, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete as per analysis by BrownHairedGirl and comments by SmokeyJoe. The discussion of DYKs is a tempest in the wrong teapot; DYKs should have very little effect for or against a portal.  With only 10 articles and an average of 5 daily pageviews, this portal is a failure.  Robert McClenon (talk) 03:34, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment - I disagree with User:Espresso Addict that User:BrownHairedGirl is discouraging discussion. On the contrary, by discussing the merits and demerits of portals, she is encouraging discussion, which doesn't seem to be happening constructively in the policy forums.  Not every editor is taking part in every portal MFD, and so there is no guarantee that any particular editor has read her views on portals in another MFD.  An editor who has read her position repeatedly can recognize that many of the same issues apply to many portals, and a closer is expected to act as though they are closing each MFD without having read any other MFDs.  Robert McClenon (talk) 03:40, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep The appropriate venue for an MfD coming so soon after a previous MfD closed as keep is DRV, not a new MfD. UnitedStatesian (talk) 02:37, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment - I think that User:UnitedStatesian is right. Striking Delete.  User:Amorymeltzer - Are you willing to re-open and reclose the previous MFD as No Consensus, in which case this can go forward, or should User:BrownHairedGirl take this to DRV?  Robert McClenon (talk) 15:02, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * @Robert McClenon and @UnitedStatesian: only two editors in that discussion even mentioned this university as a possible exception, and their concern was clearly expressed as marking it as a separate type of page to the the 45 automated ones. How on earth does it help anyone to go through the bureaucracy of a  DRV merely to reconsider an exception to a WP:TRAINWRECK, when all participants in that trainwreck have been pinged? --  Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 15:16, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Question for User:UnitedStatesian - Is that a Keep, or a Procedural Keep? Do you really want this portal kept, or do you only mean that this is being handled wrong?  Robert McClenon (talk) 18:00, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think there is a difference. Community consensus was to keep, and nothing has changed since then.  I am assuming the closing admin did not simply count !votes. UnitedStatesian (talk) 18:19, 7 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment - Although User:Amorymeltzer had an impossible job with that train wreck, I think that they either made a good-faith error in closing it as Keep for some of the universities, or they meant to close it as No Consensus for them. User:UnitedStatesian - Are you actually arguing that UH should be kept, or are you ready to go to DRV to overturn the keeps in favor of No Consensus?  This portal needs deletion.  The question is just how to do it.  Robert McClenon (talk) 18:13, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Especially if you think the closing admin made an error, you should go to DRV, not MFD. UnitedStatesian (talk) 04:29, 9 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete as per analysis by User:BrownHairedGirl and comments by User:SmokeyJoe. Oncorhynchus mykiss to User:UnitedStatesian for wikilawyering.  Robert McClenon (talk) 22:09, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Note to Closing Admin – If this MFD cannot be closed as Delete solely because the previous MFD was closed as Keep (rather than as Procedural Keep or as No Consensus), then please advise me and I will request Deletion Review of the earlier close, and will, if necessary, submit a third MFD nomination. It is my opinion that there was not a consensus to Keep this portal (although there was not a consensus to Delete it), and a new nomination should be permitted.  Robert McClenon (talk) 03:21, 10 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.