Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Biochemistry (2nd nomination)

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. Portals are in interesting corner of Wikipedia, especially as it relates to our deletion processes, because there are literally no policies or guidelines (or even essays) that tell us how to determine which portals should be kept and which should be deleted. The job of the closing admin in a deletion discussion is to assess the policy-based rationale of each voter, but what can we do if there are no relevant policies?

Several keep voters linked to WP:NOBODYREADSIT as an argument against deletion, but this is not a valid argument because that page lists arguments to avoid in deletion discussions for articles, not portals. Portals aren't bound by things like notability and reliable sources. Many keep voters say that "XYZ isn't a valid reason to delete portals." In the absence of any relevant portal deletion policies, what are the "valid" reasons to delete portals?

In the absence of a clear policy on the inclusion criteria of individual portals, or an RfC with a consensus on how to approach portals, the only thing we can use to judge consensus in portal deletion discussions is the overall sense within the community for whether or not the portal is generally useful for readers. Basically, is WP (and its readers) better off having this portal, or would WP actually be improved if the portal didn't exist? This is obviously a very subjective thing to assess (but again, without relevant policies, all we have left are subjective measures).

In this discussion, there are nearly twice as many editors in favor of getting rid of the portal (either through deletion or redirection) than there are in favor of keeping it around. The overarching sentiment among the majority of voters is that the portal is generally not useful, it gets relatively little attention from readers, and (most importantly) the primary article on Biochemistry serves as a better "portal" into the topic than this portal does.

Therefore, in the interest of improving Wikipedia, the consensus is to delete this portal and its subpages. No prejudice against re-creating this page as a redirect, if that is deemed necessary (although there wasn't strong consensus for that action in this discussion). —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 22:46, 8 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Biochemistry[edit]

Basically I don't see the point of having this portal. It receives 50x less views than the primary article (biochemistry) a day and contains minimal other content. When I view it contains: one paragraph about a "selected article", some uncited DYK content, and many many wikilinks.

I can see that a XfD was placed in mid 2019. Basically I think:

This page is still not helpful to readers, and it would actually be better if they just saw the main Biochemistry article
This page is not helpful to readers
This page is not actively maintained
There is absolutely no reason why what looks like around 200 articles need to link to this skimpy portal from mainspace
This situation hasn't changed since either the portal or renovated in 2019

Last MfD was dominated by two passionate editors who I think drowned out the voices of the community to a degree. So I would like to resubmit this portal for deletion. Tom (LT) (talk) 20:21, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to Biochemistry. Portals are moribund. What merit they have should be woven into a refresh of WikiProjects. No good reason to delete. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:58, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

“Redirect to biochemistry”, as a general solution to all moribund portals, is the most obviously reader-focused easy solution. Anyone looking for an introduction to Biochemistry is VERY WELL served by the mainspace article.

As for all the subpages (if any), archive, move them to the WikiProject and archive them there. (If anyone cares, portal space orphan pages do no harm)

These are obvious policy compliant WP:ATD solutions, and the failure to address them means that this deletion discussion should be speedy closed. There is no reason the history should be unavailable to non-admins. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:12, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy close with what action? Replace by redirect (effectively, deletion)? I don't think the portal meets any CSD, and this is the correct forum for a contested deletion. Certes (talk) 08:53, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy close with no action. Refer to nominator to the Portal talk page, or to Wikipedia talk:Portal/Guidelines, or to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals where you and I have recently had discussion. I have proposed drastic restructure there. I don’t seem to be persuading people, but the solution to lack of progress in discussion is NOT to praise the discussion as a 7 day deletion discussion. There is no WP:Deletion policy reason for deletion here, and every problem has a WP:ATD solution. SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:32, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Portals lack developed policy. Ok? MfD is not for policy development. SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:33, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@SmokeyJoe: I agree that portals would benefit from better guidelines and MfD is not the place to develop them, but I'm concerned by the "ATD solution". Do you intend to replace the portal with a redirect, even if this discussion closes as "no action"? If so, would that be because you feel this portal is exceptionally bad, or because you feel that most or all portals should be quietly overwritten by redirects? If I've misunderstood, please enlighten and forgive me. Certes (talk) 09:57, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The existence of an ATD solution means that XfD is improper without explicitly addressing the ATD solution.

Coming to XfD might feel like a good idea to make things happen, because XfDs come with a 7 day time limit, but that is not a proper use of XfD.

I have given a !vote to "redirect", because I think it is a better idea than deleting. I happen o think it is generally a good idea to do that to every portal, after moving good portals to WikiProjects where they can serve editors.

If consensus here is to redirect, then it will be redirected. If this discussion does not reach consensus to redirect, I will not be unilaterally boldly redirecting myself, no.

If someone does unilaterally redirect, then I would expect you to revert the redirect, and then if someone doesn't like the revert, they should make their case at Portal talk:Biochemistry. Escalation routes are WP:3O, WP:RFC, or a Village Pump, but not MfD. SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:59, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. WP:NOBODYREADSIT is not a good reason for deletion, especially as the portal receives more visits per incoming wikilink than the article. The portal had a major overhaul in 2019 and minor maintenance since. Changes in showcased articles are reflected automatically, and nothing displayed seems obviously outdated. The format and general quality are similar to other portals which have been kept. Redirects from Portal: to mainspace are rare, and often for technical reasons such as Portal: No Escape. Replacement by a redirect would essentially be deletion, and would leave orphan subpages. "Portals are moribund" is a credible argument, but previous discussion found strong consensus against deleting or even deprecating portals en masse. Consensus can change but, as we have since deleted the worst portals (and many others) and improved the survivors, there seems to be little support for deleting this portal simply because it is a portal. Certes (talk) 14:40, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, concurring with the nominating arguments of User:Tom (LT):
- - As the nominator states, there was an MFD in July 2019, in the middle of the deletion of hundreds of portals, many of which were created in 2018 by the portal platoon, and many of which had simply been languishing for years or even a decade. This portal had been named Portal:Metabolism, but had no real content until, during the MFD, it was renamed Portal:Biochemistry and restarted by User:Northamerica1000.
  - The nominator states that the debate was dominated by two passionate editors. Since there were multiple contributors, three of whom were the most active, I will take the nominator's comment as a compliment to mean that my involvement reflected reason more than passion. The other two were User:BrownHairedGirl and User:Northamerica1000.
  - In the previous MFD, User:UnitedStatesian recommended that, after the redesign (or design) of the portal, we wait for twelve months and then see whether the portal had been useful. I disagreed, favoring deletion, but that was a reasonable compromise proposal. The result of the MFD was No Consensus, and another look at the portal after two years is in order.
  - While WP:NOBODYREADSIT is not a reason to delete articles, which summarize what secondary reliable sources have written about, it should be and is a reason to delete portals, which are a clumsy way of navigating encyclopedic coverage of a topic that is better navigated by means of links from main articles and categories. Nobody reads it. The portal had an average of 24 daily pageviews in calendar year 2020, while the head article had an average of 1096 daily pageviews. A reader who wants to learn about biochemistry can better follow the links or peruse the categories.
  - On the one hand, portals are moribund. On the other hand, User:Certes is correct that the last time the community was asked about ending portals in 2018, the community declined to take that action. (This then was seen by the portal platoon as a basis to create thousands of dumb portals by script.) The community also has been unable to approve a portal guideline, even after being advised by the ArbCom to hold a community discussion on portals. What had been thought to be a portal guideline for twelve years had never been ratified, and then the community declined to adopt what had been labeled as a guideline. See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_153#RFC:_Formalize_Standing_of_Portal_Guidelines_as_a_Guideline_(18_July_2019)]]. So there is either a complete lack of community guidance, or inconsistent guidance, or a rough consensus that there is no consensus.
  - User:Certes says that redirecting the portal would be a de facto deletion, and I agree, and I agree that redirecting a portal to article space is weird. However, Certes says that redirecting the portal would orphan the subpages. Maybe Certes hasn't examined the portal. The portal doesn't have physical subpages. The portal has an embedded list, which is an architecture that is an improvement over the disastrous architecture of truncated content fork subpages. Is Certes using a standard argument without analyzing the actual portal?
  - Since there are no notability guidelines for portals, the governing guideline is Use Common Sense, and that is that this portal is not a useful way to see what the encyclopedia says about biochemistry.

Robert McClenon (talk) 03:52, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

By "subpages", I mean titles such as Portal:Biochemistry/box-header and Portal:Biochemistry/Did you know which are transcluded by the main portal. Certes (talk) 11:31, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete It's clear from the 2019 portal MfDs that, contrary to the sole argument for keeping, being abandoned and being barely read are valid reasons to delete a portal. Oppose redirecting as I don't see the point of a redirect. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 02:36, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Points for a redirect include:
- For readers who expect there to be a Portal:Biochemistry, to send them to the best place;
- For residual incoming links (there are currently many)
- For incoming links from the many downstream copies of Wikipedia (external incoming links that will persist);
On the question of where to redirect, you may think Portal space to mainspace is weird? I would oppose a redirect to Portal:Science as Portal:Science does not mention biochemistry. SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:24, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Deletion would be less harmful than redirecting. If we must be perverse enough to go out of our way to deny our readers this useful material, we shouldn't be promising them a portal whilst linking them to an article. All but 12 articles which link to the portal also link to Biochemistry anyway.
The important question which still goes unanswered is: should the portal be deleted
because it falls below the general standard of portals (in what ways), or

because it is a typical portal and portals should be deleted on principle (which needs an RfC, not a MfD)
It seems irrational and unfair to delete (or ATD) without revealing which of those arguments is being applied. Certes (talk) 10:02, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
My argument for radical restructure, deprecating portals, is that they serve no positive net service. For readers, they are inferior to the parent article. For editors, and prospective editors, they are inferior to WikiProjects. This is true for all but the mainpage-linked Portals. SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:23, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I interpret that as option 2. This MfD is clearly not the best forum to seek consensus for such a radical restructure. The only valid reason for deleting any page at XfD is that it falls below our standard for that type of page. Deleting an entire namespace requires an RfC, as happened recently with Book:. Chipping portals away one by one just for daring to be a typical portal was tried in 2019, and ended up at ArbCom. Certes (talk) 11:44, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
MfD is a terrible forum for a radical restructure, I agree. It is not what MfD is for.

Deletion is best reserved for things that should never have been created. Portal:Biochemistry does not fit that definition. SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:20, 27 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
User:Certes - I will try to answer your question. You ask is it option 1 or option 2. The answer is option 1. It falls below the general standard of portals. It has only 24 pageviews per day, and is not maintained. Portals that had fewer than 50 daily pageviews were often deleted in 2019, and those with fewer than 25 daily pageviews were almost always deleted. ArbCom didn't say to stop deleting cruddy portals. ArbCom said to hold a community discussion on portals, which fizzled out, and sanctioned an editor, not for opposing portals, but for personal attacks. The community did decide that there is no guideline for portals, so that means that we should use common sense, at least if anyone will tell us what the purpose of portals is. It still appears, as it did in 2019, that the advocates of portals have some mystical attachment to them that they cannot explain, and that therefore the advocates of portals see every portal as good. Some of us think that religion, rather than Wikipedia, is the route to mysticism. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:27, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that whether typical portals should be deleted is a question for an RFC. This is a substandard portal. There are still many substandard portals. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:27, 1 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete (second choice redirect). As others have noted, not being used and not being maintained are in fact valid reasons for deletion; a portal is not an encyclopedic topic itself, but rather a guide for readers, and an unused guide is worthless. Far better to spend that time on something like Outline of biochemistry instead, an actual article. Note that in the event redirection is chosen, there should be a high standard for restoring the Portal in the future - not just a one-time "here's an update." SnowFire (talk) 17:59, 28 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep page view counts are not considered to be a valid reason for deleting anything on Wikipedia, and they shouldn't be. We are here to build an encyclopedia, if something is a valid part of that encyclopedia then it's still a valid part of that encyclopedia even if nobody reads it. Same goes for number of recent edits. Unlike some portals which have been created this is a high profile, broad topic. Consensus is against deprecating portals in general, so suggestions that we should do so are going against consensus. Hut 8.5 21:43, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep – The portal provides a functional, concise overview of the topic of biochemistry, serving as an informative page that is also useful for navigation. With the advent of the newer portal transclusion templates, portals do not require constant maintenance and updating. Content in articles is displayed verbatim on the portal; so the content does not become outdated. Numbers of page views is not a valid rationale for deletion at this time. If it were, then thousands of stub articles would qualify for deletion for having low page views, such as the Krzywda, Zwoleń County article, which has received a daily average of zero page views in the last 90 days (link). Should this geographical article then also be deleted, since it receives low page views, or only the portal, because it's a portal? Some opining for deletion have stated that the portal is not being maintained, but have provided no opinion regarding what sorts of maintenance would be in order to correct the open-ended statement. Should a new article be added every day? Every week? Bimonthly? Which should it be? What other work could be performed on the portal to improve it, rather than basing deletion upon arbitrary notions of it being "unmaintained"? Also, if a portal is not edited regularly, it does not automatically mean that it has been "abandoned", and again, verbatim content is presented via the transclusion templates .Another issue regarding page views is that very few articles in main namespace link to it (presently only 27 articles). So, if readers do not have access to links to view the portal in the first place, then the portal will naturally be viewed less. The solution here is for more links to the portal to be added to main namespace articles. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 08:01, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The portal page includes This page has been maintained by WikiProject Molecular Biology. However, there is zero overlap between editors of the portal page and members of the WikiProject. Can you explain? SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:20, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure why I should have to "explain" the work of others, but User:Zephyris created the initial portal in 2007 (perm link) and is a member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Molecular Biology/Molecular and Cell Biology. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Biochemistry page redirects to Wikipedia:WikiProject Molecular Biology/Molecular and Cell Biology. User:Zephyris joined the WikiProject in 2005 (diff). So there's your overlap. Sorry, but your statement above that there is "zero overlap" is incorrect. Are you trying to find something wrong? North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:32, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I thought you could explain because you did most of the recent edits to the portal. Presumably, that would mean that you interact with the WikiProject members.

I am seeking to understand the connection, if any, between the Portal and the WikiProject. You’ve pointed out a connection dating back in 2007, but I seem to learn that there is no such WikiProject Biochemistry, and never was. So the line is a small error? SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:08, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per SnowFire. "Not edited" and "not read" (along with "bad quality") are valid reasons to delete pages that are meant primarily for readers, while encouraging them to become editors of Wikipedia by providing links to project space. (from WP:PORTAL). Portals do not have encyclopedic content of their own, no information would be lost. No such user (talk) 13:49, 8 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per BHG's original concerns in the prior MFD. This is a moribund portal.--WaltCip-(talk) 14:28, 12 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to Outline of Biochemistry. I do not agree with deletion, because it receives a significant number of pageviews, so it should be redirected. However, for whatever reason, it isn't viewed that much– the outline is viewed 3 times as often on average per day. While the number of views in of itself isn't a reason for deletion, when the question is indexes like this, the question should be considered. A significant point is a guide to articles, so there should be a good reason to convince why contributor time should be split on two instead of one project+maintenance. I do not believe that Outline of Biochemistry differs much to the portal, and combining the two editor efforts, I think, will lead to better results. Dege31 (talk) 00:15, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
~~However, if the portal was brought up to a better standard; having a larger variety of things like some of the portals that used to be "Featured portals", I'd err on the side of caution and say keep.~~ Dege31 (talk) 00:49, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have been thinking about this, I'm changing my vote to Keep. Honestly speaking, there is an active contributor on the portal, which means that it's being maintained and improved, and 20 or so people viewing it a day is still 20 people- why should we care that it's "relatively" not a lot? Is it actually harming anything that it exists? Yeah, it takes some time to maintain it, but it's voluntary anyway, so if at least someone wants to upkeep this, why not? I personally think that a lot of these portals probably would end up better as integrated in outlines(+ regular indexes) somehow, since they look better, yet aren't more than that; the main attraction is really the visual looks plus the selected pictures+articles and DYKs. But again, it's really not a net negative that it exists. So keep it as long as it has contributors. Dege31 (talk) 17:00, 16 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Dege31: Thanks for looking into the portal. I have indeed expanded it more, and more could be done, which I would be willing to do if it is retained. I hesitate to perform lots more work on it to only potentially see it deleted afterward, for obvious reasons. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 12:55, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Seems we go through this every time a portal is nominated. Portals are clearly not a desired way to navigate Wikipedia. As they are not articles, arguing that WP:NOBODYREADSIT is not valid. Robert McClenon gave a pretty solid detail as to why this deletion nomination is valid and should lead to the portal being deleted -- there is no desire to maintain the content, even after it was given a chance at a refresh and ample time to grow from that but did not. I also oppose a redirect, as so few people seem to know about the portal namespace to begin with -- which itself is evident in the mass number of portal deletions over the years. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 23:16, 22 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever one thinks of portals, chipping them off one by one through some logic of "are clearly not a desired way to navigate Wikipedia" is not very desired either. So one should judge case by case. Regardless, it is very subjective. Maybe to you 20 readers a day is not desired, but anyone can merely state the opposite. So where's the logic?

There is a desire to maintain the content, there is an active editor of the portal. Why is this not enough? Much content is maintained by one or so active editor, that's inevitable on a huge project like Wikipedia that doesn't have an exponentially increasing userbase. So I am not very convinced at all that there is "no desire to maintain the content". Dege31 (talk) 09:11, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify "Maybe to you 20 readers a day is not desired, but anyone can merely state the opposite. So where's the logic?"– according to what is that a small number? How do the nominators claiming that this means it's undesirable, oppose the claim that "well, everyone who is interested is visiting, so it's actually very desired"? Both seem equally valid, without any contrary evidence, like polling readers etc. And surely, a mere opinion on this is not very objective evidence. Dege31 (talk) 09:24, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thresholds are subjective, but that isn't necessarily a problem. See the Sorites paradox. A portal which updates every month and has 100+ viewers is useful. A portal that was left in a half-created state by a drive-by editor, never updated since, not asked for by members of the relevant Wikiproject, and has 0 non-bot viewers is not useful and should be deleted. At some point in-between, a portal will be on the borderline of deletable. Just because where that border is will vary a bit from editor to editor doesn't mean that border doesn't exist. (And in my opinion, the Biochemistry portal is not particularly close to that border, and thus easily deletable.) SnowFire (talk) 16:11, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Per the nom and @Robert McClenon. Just an abandoned portal with very low page views in comparison to the actual article, as noted above. Portals do not have their own content, so nothing is lost if this moribund navigational tool is deleted. On the other hand, readers of the 200 articles linking to this derelict navigational tool are far better served not being misdirected away from those well-linked articles and the exhaustively informative templates (ex. Template:Branches of biology; Template:Branches of chemistry) they come equipped with. Portals such as this only serve as a distraction and hinderance for readers, and a useless time suck for editors if it were actually maintained, which it isn't. Newshunter12 (talk) 17:21, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Page history shows clearly that the portal is not abandoned. It also updates automatically in several ways described above. Several million pages attract fewer views than a widely linked vital article such as Biochemistry, but fortunately that is not a reason to delete them all. Certes (talk) 17:35, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's true page views don't matter for articles, but this portal is a failed navigational tool without any of its own content. Page history shows since the portal was created in 2007, nearly all of the meaningful edits have come as a frantic response by one editor to the two MfD's. Newshunter12 (talk) 18:39, 27 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So what if it had been a response? The editor isn't allowed to do that? I thought we are supposed to improve content when issues are raised. Dege31 (talk) 10:15, 30 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose deletion. Neutral between keep and redirect per the respective arguments for such actions presented by those above. — Godsy^(TALK_CONT) 08:17, 1 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I am wondering if there is a way to make this a section of both Portal:Chemistry and Portal:Biology without specifically maintaining it as a separate portal. BD2412 T 01:50, 5 November 2021 (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.