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 . ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:26, 5 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Billy Ocean (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Far too narrow a scope for a portal: only 18 articles. A set with this low a number of pages is better served by a head article and a navbox. We already have both: Billy Ocean and Template:Billy Ocean. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:36, 24 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

PS This is simply a fancier navbox, located on a lonesome standalone page rather than handily appended to an article. I see nothing in WP:Portal guidelines#Purposes_of_portals to support this usage of a portal as a fancier navbox. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:44, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per nomination. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:23, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. This is a new portal which currently only utilises the links from the corresponding navbox, but there are further articles that would be appropriate for inclusion in the portal (such as places, people or events related to the subject); besides which, 18 is still a decent range of articles on which to build a portal. A portal is more than a summary of the core subject and a collection of related links; "a head article and a navbox" do not serve the same purpose or provide the same user experience as a portal. WaggersTALK 12:50, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Waggers: please can you expand on that? When the portal has the same scope as a small navbox, what exactly does it add other than a bit of information about the main subject plus a snippet on the subtopics? As far as I can see, what you are describing is simply a fancier navbox, located on a lonesome standalone page rather than handily appended to an article. I see nothing in WP:Portal guidelines#Purposes_of_portals to support this usage of a portal as a facier navbox.

Where is the evidence that readers actually jump to a separate page to see this fancier navbox on a tiny scope? Where is the consensus that portals should be bloated with tangential articles (places, people or events related to the subject)? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:57, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• I think @The Transhumanist: has already addressed that very clearly at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Body piercing. Selected pictures, recent events, "did you know", and a far more immersive & deeper user experience than a simple list of links, to name a few. Let's not repeat the exact same discussion on every single MfD. A portal is NOT the same as a navbox and does not serve the same purpose. WaggersTALK 13:03, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• @Waggers: Lemme take those points one at a time:

1. "selected pictures" can also be achieved by use of images in the head article
2. "recent events": en.wp is not a newspaper, so the chances of an article on a recent event when the whole set includes only 18 articles are vanishingly small
3. "did you know": same as recent events. In any given month, the chances of a DYK are tiny. I did a rough calculation, and suggest a probability of 0.0078, which is once every 128 months.

So basically we are looking at at a fancier navbox on a standalone page. WP:Portal guidelines#Purposes_of_portals does not show any consensus to use portals in this way. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:28, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@BrownHairedGirl, Waggers, and Finnusertop:

• No, not really...

1. Pictures in the head article are thumbs, not nice big slideshow pics like in portals. Also, they are crammed in the margin or shoved in a gallery at the end. On portals, they are stacked on top of each other, sharing the same frame for you to click through them. It's an alternative format.
2. Whether or not a portal's topic is covered in the news department, is outside the control of portals. Some topics are more likely to come up than others, and is dependent a lot upon what is popular at the moment. But, by having many portals we ensure that we capture the news - the reports appear in whatever portals they match the titles of.
3. Did you knows are actually a lot more likely to occur than news, and we generally go back 36 months on those (just 45 days for news). That's why adding more parameters often pays off nicely in results for DYK in portals. We tried going back 120 months, but the servers time out - they only give lua 10 seconds, or thereabouts, to do its thing.

Portals are defined by their design. The main difference between a navbox and a portal is format. A portal includes the navbox, and reads it and whatever other sourcepages we specify, and displays the excerpts from the links we tell it to look for (they look for list items, or links - including embedded links). We aren't limited to navboxes as the source, it's just that the creation template starts out with the eponymous navbox by default. It's totally expandable. But the point of portals is how content is displayed, and what content is displayed. Navboxes are just a list of links, while portals present that, plus prose and pics. A sampling of the subject for which the portal was named for.    — The Transhumanist   14:43, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@The Transhumanist: Wow! This gets more and more bizarre. Techincal explanations, while avoiding the why would we need this for such a tiny scope.

1. You don't dispute my calculation that the likelihood of a DYK for this topic area is about once every 128 months. You just blame the software for not allowing you to use servers resources to trawl even deeper for the needle in a haystack.
2. "having many portals we ensure that we capture the news". Uorry, but that is utter nonsense. The likelihood of a new item being picked up by a portal depends on the scope of the portal, so twenty portals which each have a scope of less 50 articles will pick up the same number of news articles as a single portal of ~1000 articles. To pick up news items in portals, you need broad a comprehensive set of broad-scope portals, not a proliferation of micro-portals which burn up server resources in a futile quest.
3. Your point about pictures in large formats rather than thumbs is simply a technical explanation of the feature, not a justification for why this should be desirable. The policy at WP:GALLERY is very clear: "Wikipedia is not an image repository" and "Articles consisting entirely or primarily of galleries are discouraged, as the Commons is intended for such collections of images".
4. Of course you are not limited to a navbox as the source. So where is the evidence that for this topic there is some large repository of directly-relevant articles which have not been included in the navbox? As far as I can see you are just making a vague wave to an untested possibility that there might be more. If you have more to offer than wishful thinking, then please present it.

So we are left with the central issue. This is just a fancy navbox, and I see nothing in WP:Portal guidelines#Purposes_of_portals to support this usage of a portal as a fancier navbox. You still offer no evidence of any consensus to use portals in this way, and no evidence that readers want portals-as-micro-scope-alt-navboxes. WP:PORTAL's opening words are A portal is a "doorway to knowledge" ... but this is just a doorway to a tiny little near-bare cupboard. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:31, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@The Transhumanist:: fixing ping. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:56, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

A navbox is a list of articles. Portals display prose content. Paragraphs. In the form of excerpts. As a sample of a subject's coverage on Wikipedia. They always have. And, we find that having the computer copy and paste (via transclusion) rather than have editors do that manually, is much more efficient. So, rather than an editor reading a navigation template, picking a topic, then going to the article and copying its lead to the portal... We have a computer do that. That doesn't make an excerpt slideshow a navbox. It makes the slideshows presenters of material about topics listed in navboxes. So, your description of portals' main features is thin rhetoric. Navboxes, amongst other sourcepages, power portals. That's the best innovation we've had on portals so far. Where better to find the article titles to extract excerpts from? Categories. :) And yes, we are working on that. ;) The more places from which we can harvest article titles, the better.    — The Transhumanist   00:14, 26 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh. @The Transhumanist: this is not a discussion about how portals are constructed. It is about why anyone thinks this one should exist. So please stop spamming the discussion with irrelevant technicalities.

You simply ignored what I said and called it something else. I was showing how navboxes and portals are two different animals. A portal provides another way to display the material about the subject. In prose format (portals display content), rather than link format (navboxes display links). A slide show lets you browse excerpts instead of links. That's why this portal should exist: it complements the root article by providing the rest of the subject on a single page via a convenient interface (slideshows).    — The Transhumanist   04:21, 28 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Where are the articles to expand this portal? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:45, 26 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've answered that question in my initial response above. But more to the point, why does it need expanding? This nomination is primarily based on the premise that the number of selected articles is too low, and that indicates too narrow a scope. As I've said above, I don't think the number of selected articles is too low, and even if it were, that's not the only measure of the scope of a portal. There is no policy or guideline that sets out a minimum number of selected articles required for a portal to exist, nor any other definition of the minimum scope required for a portal to exist. These manifold MfD nominations are based on your personal opinion, not on any guideline or policy. As User:Godsy says, let's get an agreed guideline in place and then we can determine which portals meet it or fail to.WaggersTALK 12:27, 26 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - If there is to be a minimum number of articles within a portal's scope for it to be appropriate (or some other broadness of topic clause), then a guideline should be established to that effect. Handling them individually without established guidance is undesirable and inefficient. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 21:29, 25 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • The absence of a guideline shoukd not dissuade editors from making a commonsense judgement about utility. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:47, 26 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

*Keep as per the consensus over at some Wikispace which I forgot where consensus was to keep these - I personally disagree with it but hey ho, If you want portals deleted then it might be worth reopening another RFC on it but as it stands keep pretty much per the rfc and above. –Davey2010^Talk 01:20, 27 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• • @Davey2010: the RFC is arhived at WP:ENDPORTALS. However, you misunderstand its conclusion, which was to clearly reject a proposal to delete the whole portal namespace. That decision not to nuke the lot does not by any stretch amount to a consenus to keep every single micro-portal which has been created on a drive-by spree. This is a discusion about deleting one portal, on its merits (or lack of). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:30, 27 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ah thank you I'll have to save that, Yeah not sure why but I didn't think we dealt with Portals here and so I assumed it would of needed to go back to a portal discussion, Okie dokie Delete all as per BHG. –Davey2010^Talk 02:38, 27 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Davey2010: would you mind amending your !votes in the other discussions? I don't think a closer will necessarily look at this thread when closing the others. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 09:45, 28 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
        • Apologies for the delayed reply, Done just now, Thanks, –Davey2010^Talk 01:44, 29 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep – It's a new portal and is a useful navigational aid for those interested in the subject. Allow time for expansion, rather than seeking deletion so quickly. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 03:13, 27 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply. Scope assessment should have taken place before creation, and in any case is readily evident: it is an assessment of existing and potential en.wp content, not a trawl for sources. No modification or development of the portal page is needed to assess the adequacy of its scope. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:44, 27 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Too much bureaucratic analysis and rule-making that I don't view as entirely necessary. WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY comes immediately into mind, as does WP:CREEP. Seems like too much, too fast; a fast surge to delete all new portal creations right away. As a content creator who has contributed in the past to several portals, I disagree with this approach and stance. No offense, but WP:IDONTLIKEIT also comes to mind, as in "the scope of the subject is too narrow in my view, so no portal is allowed". North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 06:36, 27 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • Sigh. Not, as you claim the scope of the subject is too narrow in my view, so no portal is allowed ... what I actually propose is that there be a threshold. That's not WP:IDONTLIKEIT; it's "apply some criteria other than one editor decides WP:ILIKEIT". Y'know, form a WP:CONSENSUS on it. Maybe develop a guieline like WP:OCAT or WP:NENAN.

And as to your howls of "bureaucratic analysis and rule-making", the point I was making is that before creating any page an editor should make an assessment of the topic's suitability. That is a basic responsibility of an editor, and I am astonished to see an admin opposing it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:51, 27 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Again, no offense, there's no "howling" here (whatever that means) and please don't take my opinions regarding these deletion nominations personally. Furthermore, my !vote is stated as a general editor, not in an administrative capacity. At any rate, you essentially want to prohibit portal creation until rules are made first, and you want many new portals quickly deleted until rules and guidelines are enacted. I disagree with this approach regarding these new portals because several of these portals are expandable, I disagree with your stance that Wikipedia content about the subject is only "better served by a head article and a navbox", and I disagree with your notion of the portal existing as an unnecessary "fancy navbox". Portals provide a readable overview about topics, whereas navboxes basically just provide links to articles; not the same at all. Also, you assume that no assessment regarding "suitability" was made by the portal's creator, but how do you know? Your assumption regarding the creator's judgment has also been extended to me, ("I am astonished to see an admin opposing it"), but how could I oppose your stance that depth of coverage wasn't considered when it hasn't been proven to be true? Conversely, I also understand your notions about having standards in place regarding portal creation. Lastly, regarding "what I actually propose is that there be a threshold" stated above, proposals to change/add to portal guidelines, such as article minimums, should be proposed at Wikipedia talk:Portal guidelines, rather than in individual MfD nominations. Peace, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 20:43, 27 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Hold until we have consensus on the guidelines currently being discussed. Certes (talk) 00:44, 28 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – the guideline currently in place sets a low end threshold of articles needed of "about 20 articles". See Wikipedia:Portal guidelines#Article selection.    — The Transhumanist   19:48, 5 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep – complements the root article by providing the rest of the subject on a single page via a convenient interface (slideshows).    — The Transhumanist   04:21, 28 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere. You are invited to participate in the ongoing discussion at: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals § Time for some portal creation criteria?. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 16:48, 26 September 2018 (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.