Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/36 more navbox-based portals

36 more navbox-based portals[edit]

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: speedy delete all except Portal:Money. WP:G7 per request[1] of the creator, User:Gazamp. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:23, 15 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Every one of the 36 portals included in this mass nomination is based on a single navbox. That is, their list of selected articles (using {{Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow}} or {{Transclude linked excerpts as random slideshow}}) is drawn solely from a single navbox. For example, Portal:Helsinki is based solely on Template:Helsinki.

This makes each of these portals is merely a fork of the navbox, with much less utility than the navbox because:

the navbox displays a full list of the articles. The portal displays only one page at a time, out of a randomly selected subset of up to 50 articles.
the navbox should be present on every page in the set. The portal always requires navigation to a separate page.

The topic's main page works much better as a navigational hub, because it includes:

both the topic navbox and related navboxes
A full summary of the topic rather than an excerpt of the lede.

I propose deleting all these portals in one go because,

Being each built on a single navbox, they add no navigational utility, and are an inferior fork of another navigational tool
Portals are not content; they are merely a means of navigating between content. So their mass deletion removes precisely zero encyclopedic content.
The pages have no prior history. There is no non-automated version to revert to.

All these portals were created by User:Gazamp between November 2018 and February 2019. They were not part of any bot-like process and I see no reason at all to doubt that they were created in good faith. However they all use the automated portal techology, having been created with {{subst:Basic portal start page}}.

Some of these portals cover narrow topics which should never have a portal. Others cover broad topics which might be capable of supporting a thoughtfully-designed and properly-curated portal which used a selected article list extending way beyond the navbox. So, I propose that these pages be deleted without prejudice to recreating a curated portal not based on a single navbox, in accordance with whatever criteria the community may have agreed at that time. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:38, 15 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

PS Note that 7 of these 36 portals are actually broken, and produce no selected article, because the entry for the "selected articles" list source is Template:{{subst:PAGENAME}}. I am not sure how a page got to be saved like that, but there it is. These are the 7 broken portals:

This could of course be fixed, but it would still leave each of the 7 portals as no more than bloated navbox. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:05, 15 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (36 more navbox-based portals)[edit]

add your keep/delete/comment at the bottom of this section

WP:SNOW close as delete all On what possible basis is this going to have a different consensus than the previous nomination? UnitedStatesian (talk) 02:41, 15 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy close as delete all There will be no other conclusion. It matters not which acct used the template to start the page. Legacypac (talk) 03:01, 15 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all, SNOW close - I don't like to conform, but these people are right. Judging the creation and not the creator, this set seems to be identical to the other recent MfD in which there was overwhelming consensus to delete portals that are effectively content-less and do not add value to our readers, such as these navbox forks. Leviv ich 03:20, 15 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete All 36, but as follows:
- - Let the MFD run for seven days. No need to invoke snow, which is rare in April anyway.
  - Without prejudice to re-creation under any revised portal guidelines, but without prejudice to objection to re-creation.
  - As stated, I have confidence in the judgment and methodology of User:BrownHairedGirl, but we should allow a full seven days for others to review. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:37, 15 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Really Robert? [2] Legacypac (talk) 03:58, 15 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all per consensus established here that navbox based portals do not provide any additional navigational functionality beyond their main article, defeating the purpose of a portal as an additional navigational aid. Meszzy² (talk) 04:07, 15 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I agree with @Robert McClenon's request that this discussion should remain open for the full 7 days.

Here's why: With any XfD discussion, the best result is a clearcut decision one way or the other where there has been broad participation and the nomination has been well-scrutinised. Both participation and scrutiny are boosted by running for the usual 7 days.

Single-page nominations can usually be checked quite easily and quickly. But when a nomination raises complex issues (which this doesn't), or when it involves a large set of pages (as this does), it takes time for any editor to do detailed scrutiny ... so understandably, most editors just check a sample.

So in cases such as this, letting the nomination run its course significantly increases the likelihood that any errors will be found. I have confidence in my own methodology, but the community's confidence in any outcome is significantly boosted by knowing that others had time to assess it, and knowing that no corners were cut in this scrutiny phase.

It's particularly important with these automated portals, because an RFC proposal to speedy delete was closed as no consensus[3]. The community clearly supports the cleanup, but doesn't want shortcuts around due diligence. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:52, 15 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy delete all per G7 except Portal:Money - Although the focus of many of these portals is wide enough, I agree that a clean sweep is needed for the Portal making community to focus on rebuilding portals that are worthwile, properly maintained and not just automated (although the {{subst:Basic portal start page}} is very useful as a starting point). I would ask however that Portal:Money be excepted, as it was to be the next of my portals to be revamped so that it had selected articles. I spent a lot of time linking it to hundreds of pages and would like it if that work was not wasted - if it is permissible, I would revamp this portal within the next few days after which it could be re-assessed. In addition to that, several of the portals listed (such as Portal:San Marino) I would re-make more slowly and to a better standard to ensure this sort of bulk delete is not needed again. V/r Gazamp (talk) 15:24, 15 April 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.