Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Mongolia

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. — JJMC89 (T·C) 01:03, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Mongolia

12-year-old abandoned portal which never got beyond a very basic start.

Created[1] in November 2007‎ by Dagvadorj (talk · contribs), who last edited in 2014.

Converted[2] in January 2019‎ by @The Transhumanist to an automated format which drew its "selected articles" list solely from the navbox {{Mongolia topics}}. That made it simply a bloated and redundant fork of the navbox. (For a full explanation of why this type of portal is redundant, see the two mass deletions of similar portals: one, and two, where there was overwhelming consensus of a very high turnout to delete a total of 2,555 such portals).

Reverted[3] by BHG on 12 May 2019‎ to the last non-automated version.

Despite being twelve years old, this is a bare start. It's a static page, because as Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Mongolia shows, there is only one of each type of sub-page:

Portal:Mongolia/Categories, unchanged since 2008
Portal:Mongolia/Topics, unchanged since 2009
Portal:Mongolia/Selected picture, image changed once, in 2012
Portal:Mongolia/Maps, last changed in 2009[4]

That's all.

Per WP:PORTAL, "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects". But this is a massively less useful page than the head article Mongolia and its navbox {{Mongolia topics}}.

In theory, a country is inherently a broad topic. But WP:POG guides that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers", and in practice this has not had builders, let alone maintainers. If any editor wants to build a portal on this topic which actually adds value for readers, they would do much better to start afresh and build a new, low-maintenance portal. Examples of how this can be done can be seen at at the very different Portal:Harz Mountains and Portal:Geophysics. And meanwhile, the current page is just a waste of readers' s time.

So I propose that this portal and its sub-pages be deleted per WP:TNT, without prejudice to recreating a curated portal in accordance with whatever criteria the community may have agreed at that time. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:48, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Again, a valid broad area for a portal, but the original editor has not edited in five years and has not maintained the portal longer, as shown above. The alternatives are an abandoned portal, a robotic portal, or a deletion without prejudice. Do we need a list of portals that have been deleted without prejudice that are waiting for portal maintainers? Maybe. A list of deleted portals is harmless. Then Vladimir and Estragon can argue, in French, about a few of the items on the list. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:52, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose deletion - articles on Mongolia as they are already get few contributors. Sure the portal has not attracted much traffic, but its about the country. There needs to be some kind of go to for Mongolia related topics to generate interest or to have a noticeboard of sorts to add things to do. I know that many portals have been placed for deletion, but there has to be something, at least one portal where editors can go to and where they can use for editing purposes to enhance Mongolia related articles.Resnjari (talk) 07:53, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- @Resnjari: Per WP:PORTAL, the purpose of a portal is that "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects". They are not noticeboards.

If you want a meeting place or noticeboard, use a WikiProject. WP:WikiProject Central Asia is the most relevant to Mongolia, and it's not busy.

OTOH, if you want to generate interest, then the portal is the last place to do that, because as @Robert McClenon noted below, portals are almost unused. In Jan–Feb 2019, the average daily pageviews was 18 for the portal, versus 5,394 for the head article Mongolia. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:35, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User:Resnjari - Probably an accurate diagnosis. Definitely a wrong cure (like bloodletting, which was the wrong cure for many conditions 300 years ago). The probably right diagnosis is not enough articles and not enough traffic on Mongolia. A portal is the wrong cure, and isn't likely to cure anything. A portal is only in order if there is already a great slide show behind it. A portal as a cure for systemic bias sounds like it might cause iatrogenic disease. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:41, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I am looking at it from the perspective of trying to attract interest in an area that gets minimal attention. This portal will get deleted because editors state that it has been little edited etc. While other portals on topics that have to do with Europe or the Americas will remain. ok, at this point in time they get traffic, in future if traffic dips on them will the same standards be applied and then deleted. I highly doubt it. Instead notability reasons will be given and so on. The rush to delete anything and everything may end up making Wikipedia a more poorer place in the long term. That's my two cents on the issue.Resnjari (talk) 04:17, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Resnjari, try loking at instead from the perspective of readers, who have a right not to have their time wasted on an abandoned page which completely fails in its purpose to enhance.

This portal meets the scope criterion of WP:POG, but it abysmally fails the core point of POG, its lead, which currently reads bear in mind that portals should be about broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers. Portals which require manual updating are at a greater risk of nomination for deletion if they are not kept up to date. Do not expect other editors to maintain a portal you create.

It is very disappointing that some editors continue to misrepresent POG as some sort of licence to litter Wikipedia with abandoned portals, just because the scope is broad enough. POG is very clear that scope is a necessary condition, but an insufficient one: the portal must also be maintained. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:08, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

What's disappointing is that some editors seem not to take into account that many portals were created a long time ago with good faith intentions of advancing the encyclopedia project, not to limit it. Also no one can predict how long they themselves will be an active Wikipedian due to life constraints. Going by thing its most likely that this portal will be deleted. But i stand by my comments. If traffic ever droped on some of the European and American based portals in future, i will say it again, i highly doubt they will be deleted. Instead a whole host of reasons like "notability" etc will be given to keep them. Oh well, i guess this is the direction Wikipedia is moving in now. So be it.Resnjari (talk) 18:22, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Resnjari, please re-read the nomination. I didn't nominate for deletions this because of low pageviews. I nominated it because it is abandoned and of no use to readers. And over the last few weeks, I have MFDed lots of European and American portals for exactly the same reason.

I'm sure that this portal was created in good faith. But that doesn't alter the fact that it is abandoned and doesn't serve its purpose. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:28, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I made my peace with this. Whatever is going to happen, is going to happen.Resnjari (talk) 05:45, 16 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: opposing draftification in contrast to my !vote at Portal:Nigeria because of the lack of extant scope. If a maintainer wants to start maintaining it, there is nothing of value to maintain, so the majority of the building work would need to be done as well. Likelihood is that such a maintainer won't appear, so the activity requirement per WP:PORTAL won't be met, so delete without prejudice. SITH (talk) 11:15, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - The head article has an average of 5,394 daily page views. The portal has an average of 18 daily page views, which is better than most portals, but still hardly illustrates that the portal adds value. Rather, views find the article useful in itself. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:47, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Per nom. Abandoned and adds nothing over the main article+navbox. In situations like this where the main article has been tagged for years with issues and the portal is abandoned and is only a main article+navbox replication, it should be a delete; we need to focus any spare editing resources on this topic on rescuing the main article – why would any reader want to investigate this portal when the main article is tagged as out of date? Britishfinance (talk) 13:05, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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.