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. While the mid-stream bundling of these two MFDs made it infinitely more difficult to gauge overall consensus, there is still a reasonably clear consensus that these two portals cover a relatively narrow topic, and had been practically abandoned prior to the MFD, serving incorrect information to readers for years. ‑Scottywong| [prattle] || 17:28, 5 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Basketball[edit]

Portal:Basketball (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Portal:National Basketball Association (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Basketball nomination[edit]

Neglected portal. Shameless copy-paste of Portal:NBA. Six never-updated selected articles created in December 2013. Six never-updated selected bios. Three created in December 2013. Three created in March/May 2014.

Errors

• Toronto Raptors list minutiae about the team's history, but nothing about winning five division titles and a championship over six years.
• Duke–Michigan men's basketball rivalry article is ostensibly GA class, but fails to explain that the rivalry has been dead for six years. So does the entry.
• Juwan Howard left the Miami Heat in 2013 to coach that same team. He then left the Heat this year to coach the Michigan Wolverines.
• Yao Ming retired from professional basketball in 2011 but his already out-of-date entry was apparently carelessly copy-pasted from Portal:NBA in 2014
• Michael Jordan has owned an NBA team since 2010
• Tim Duncan retired from basketball in 2016 and now coaches the San Antonio Spurs

Mark Schierbecker (talk) 23:06, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Bundling note This discussion began on 15 Oct, but Portal:National Basketball Association was not bundled here until 17 October,[1] from the since-deleted Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:National Basketball Association (2nd nomination)—Bagumba (talk) 00:25, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

And apparently now restored again.—Bagumba (talk) 17:10, 4 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Note to closing admin. I don't want in any way to prejudge the outcome ... but if you close this discussion as delete, please can you not remove the backlinks? I have an AWB setup which allows me to easily replace them with links to the next most specific portal(s) (in this case Portal:Sports), without creating duplicate entries. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:27, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Basketball is a topic which is broad enough to sustain a portal, and the problems can be easily remedied. SportingFlyer T·C 04:46, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete: the portal was never completed, it's easier to start from scratch. For the little I know about basketball, with three items at Portal:Basketball/Selected picture the portal already manages to give a biased view of the topic. Actively harmful. Nemo 07:44, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Conditional keep, basketball is a great topic for a portal, focused enough but with a wide selection of articles. The problems with Selected articles about BLPs need to be fixed, but that can be easily done by automated transclusion, and if someone fixes them, this keep becomes unconditional. (BLPs and other articles that easily go out of date need to use automation or require a lot of attention otherwise). —Kusma (t·c) 09:23, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep basketball is a big enough subject to have a portal.Catfurball (talk) 19:27, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nominator, per the delete votes above, and per the fact that there is no good reason to keep such a portal as this. Low page views (26 per day in the last 3 months, compared to 4,483 for Basketball) [2] and the condition it is in mean zero value is added by such a portal. There is no policy or guideline which suggests this portal should exist. Portals are not content, like an article is, since they are for navigation instead. It is therefore improper to use rationales meant for keeping articles to argue that this failed navigation device should be kept. There is no reason to think that hoped-for improvements and long-term maintenance will ever materialize anyway, even if promised or done at the last minute just to stave off deletion. Simple assertions that the topic is broad enough are entirely subjective; rather, that it is not broad enough is demonstrated by the lack of pageviews and maintenance. The community's consensus not to delete all portals is not a consensus to keep all portals. Content forks are worthless, since they go out of date, preserve old and inferior versions of article content, add pointlessly to the maintenance burden, and are vandalism magnets; therefore they should not be saved. I support replacement of links rather than redirection, to avoid surprising our readers. -Crossroads- (talk) 01:36, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Per nom and my expanded reasons in the bundled nomination below. Britishfinance (talk) 13:08, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

National Basketball Association nomination[edit]

Neglected portal. Page was kept at MfD in 2011 where one very myopic editor claimed "maintenance is never required, but optional like articles." Eleven selected articles:

• Four never-updated entries created in November/December 2008
• Seven entries created in September 2011. Four never updated. One minor edit in January 2013, one in February 2014, one in March 2016.

Errors

• Steve Nash retired in 2015
• Dirk Nowitzki retired in 2019
• Rose Garden was renamed "Moda Center" in 2013
• The Portland Trail Blazers have won six division titles, not four

Mark Schierbecker (talk) 22:15, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Note to closing admin. I don't want in any way to prejudge the outcome ... but if you close this discussion as delete, please can you not remove the backlinks? I have an AWB setup which allows me to easily replace them with links to the next most specific portal(s) (in this case Portal:Basketball), without creating duplicate entries. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:26, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete and merge to Portal:Basketball (though the merge may be only technical.) SportingFlyer T·C 04:47, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  @SportingFlyer: The basketball portal is also being nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Basketball. Please also reassess based on the latest copyedits here at NBA. Regards.—Bagumba (talk) 10:50, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Fair enough, there's plenty of content here, valid sub-portal from Basketball, willing to change to Keep. SportingFlyer T·C 12:55, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment I've copyedited to address the errors mentioned in the nomination.—Bagumba (talk) 05:54, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Errors have been addressed. "Four never-updated entries" is a red herring, unless there is something out-of-date. This portal is on my watchlist, and I've removed vandalism in the past,[3] unlike other truly neglected portals that get deleted. This portal gets it's share of traffic, which is on par with Portal:Association football, more than Portal:Cricket, and twice as much as the generic Portal:Basketball. —Bagumba (talk) 06:01, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep popular enough subject for a portal.Catfurball (talk) 19:30, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nominator and per the fact that there is no good reason to keep such a portal as this. Relatively low page views (56 per day in the last 3 months, compared with 4,043 for National Basketball Association) [4] and the link-preview and navbox features of that article mean zero value is added by this portal. The fact it had many errors when not being scrutinized at MfD, errors pointed out by the nominator, suggest that more such errors will crop up down the road. There is no policy or guideline which suggests this portal should exist. Portals are not content, like an article is, since they are for navigation instead. It is therefore improper to use rationales meant for keeping articles to argue that this failed navigation device should be kept. Simple assertions that the topic is broad enough are entirely subjective; rather, that it is not broad enough is demonstrated by the lack of pageviews and maintenance. The community's consensus not to delete all portals is not a consensus to keep all portals. Content forks are worthless, since they go out of date, preserve old and inferior versions of article content, add pointlessly to the maintenance burden, and are vandalism magnets; therefore they should not be saved. I suggest replacement of links to Portal:Sports (not Portal:Basketball, given its MfD) rather than redirection, to avoid surprising our readers. -Crossroads- (talk) 01:20, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  Portal:Opera, a featured portal, averages 33 views/day,[5], while Opera averages 1,252 views.[6] I don't get the claims about Portal:National Basketball Association.—Bagumba (talk) 04:01, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Bagumba, that's not a very helpful comparator. The WP:Featured portals process was discontinued in March 2017, a year after its last review, so all we have now is former featured portals. WP:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Opera was ten years ago, in 2009, so it's misleading to cite that as current. The review itself is worth examining; like all FP reviews, it's devoid of any structured assessment against a checklist of criteria, and it's mostly about formatting. Every GA review I have been through has been massively more thorough that that supposed "Featured" status review. So I wouldn't have given much weight to that FP review even when it happened ten years ago. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:11, 18 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Per nom and my expanded reasons in the bundled nomination below. Britishfinance (talk) 13:07, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Bundling Statement[edit]

I am boldly bundling these nominations into one nomination, since they are being discussed at the same time. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:28, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Basketball Portals[edit]

• Comment - The above are some measurements and notes on these two basketball portals. Since they were nominated at the same time and there is cross-discussion, I have bundled them. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:37, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - By the way, the percent figure, which is misplaced but is not very important, is the ratio of portal page views to article page views. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:41, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete may be a broad topic, but it's clear that no one wants to maintain a portal on it. It's clear that the tide has turned against the necessity for portals in Wikipedia unless someone is willing to keep them active and functional, and there is no evidence that this is being done. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 02:54, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Subpage activity No material updates since 2011; some edits through 2017, and a few cosmetic edits Sep 2019. This statement on the NBA portal (perhaps on the Basketball one too) is inaccurate. The portal is composed of multiple subpages. Portal:National Basketball Association/Did you know has had activity (by me) since 2012.[7]—Bagumba (talk) 03:37, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - Updates to DYKs are not material updates. DYKs are not a material feature of portals, just a device for providing general trivia. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:55, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Question - Is someone willing to maintain Portal:Basketball if Portal:National Basketball Association is merged into it? Otherwise both portals should be deleted. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:55, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete both per lack of maintenance and low page views. No point in keeping portals in which neither readers nor editors are interested in. SD0001 (talk) 17:06, 18 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete both, in the absence of a portal maintaine, without prejudice to a new Portal:Basketball that has a maintainer and a maintenance plan and does not use content-forked subpages (which rot). Neither has a large number of articles. Neither is being maintained or is about to be maintained. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:28, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete both, per nominator and per Crossroads. Nobody wats to maintain ether portals, and see no sign of interest from the respective WikiProjects. -BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:45, 22 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @BrownHairedGirl: Nobody wats to maintain ether portals I fixed the errors indentified in the NBA portal nomination. I am willing to help enhance things, but I do not see clear guidelines on what remains deficient. While the input from all has been sincere, honestly, the discussion has had the feel of a kangaroo court. Regards.—Bagumba (talk) 23:58, 22 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Bagumba: the narrow scope (a single sport in one country) can't be fixed by editing. Nor can the near-total lack of interest from the WikiProject National Basketball Association: searched its talk archives both for "Portal:Basketball Association" and for "Portal:NBA, and the only post-2010 hits are notices of deletion discussions. Portals need multiple maintainers to avoid key man syndrome, and WikiProject support is the best way of achieving that, but it's not available here. So I see no basis for sustaining the portal.

As to what material changes would help, I could give you my own personal views on that, but they would only be my personal view. There are no consensus guidelines on what portals should contain, and instead of making proposals for RFC now what portals should contain, the portal enthusiasts have spent most of this year devoting their energies to opposing the deletion first of TTH's tsunami of portalspam, and then of almost-unviewed, abandoned junk portals. So there are no consensus-based guidelines for portals in general and the apathy at the WikiProject means that there is no reason toe expect a consensus to be developed there.

I'm sorry that you describe this MFD as a kangaroo court. The principle that portals need an active team of maintainers and ongoing WikiProject support is well-established, in many hundreds of MFDs. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:58, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry that you describe this MFD as a kangaroo court. I'm used to policies and guidelines, as well as WP:NOTCOMPULSORY as far as requiring users to sign up. Shrug.—Bagumba (talk) 02:51, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I dunno what prompted that mention of WP:NOTCOMPULSORY. I see no suggestion in this discussion of any compulsion.

As to policies and guidelines, that's what I am used to as well. But sadly the broad consensus-building processes required to create them have never been a forte of WP:WPPORT. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:02, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Re: NOTCOMPULSORY, you and others have stated the need for maintainers, which seemed (to me) like sign ups were needed here now to avoid deletion. I'm not a portal deletion discussion regular, so perhaps that's par for the course. —Bagumba (talk) 03:48, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Bagumba: I am just interested in whether there is a group of people who have volunteered to do the work on an ongoing basis. They may indicate that by a making a commitment somewhere, or just by doing the work on a sustained basis … but either way there is no compulsion. We just need some sound reason to believe that the portal will be maintained on an ongoing basis, and that it won't be dependent on one individual.

It have seen this sort of response a few times before, and I am always surprised by it. I don't see how some editors translate "there needs to be regular maintainers" into "you must do the work". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:50, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The issue with that argument is it's self-executing. If a portal had active maintainers, the portal either wouldn't be nominated for deletion or would be kept at MfD. The nature of "maintenance" has changed considerably from when portals were introduced, when it was foreseen portals would have content that actively changed in the style of a magazine - the evidence being some portals were set up with content under headings like "October 2007." I'd argue the current function of portals has changed: portals now highlight good and featured content in a particular topic area, along with providing an alternative way of navigating the content within that topic area. I was disappointed when a particular portal was deleted several months ago because it was very well done and highlighted all of the work that had been put in to a relatively narrow section of the encyclopaedia. It hadn't been maintained in years, but it hadn't broken, and nothing really needed to be maintained. I also sympathise with the "kangaroo court" argument - since we aren't arguing within any guidelines here, there's no "statutes" we can fall back on, so instead of simplifying the argument (I think all we really need to be discussing is: does the topic have enough good/featured content (featured GA/FAs, associated WikiProject(s)), and, perhaps, will someone update the content when a new good/featured article is added?) we get drawn into long tangents based on personal interpretations of which nonexistent rules apply. SportingFlyer T·C 07:37, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@SportingFlyer writes If a portal had active maintainers, the portal either wouldn't be nominated for deletion or would be kept at MfD. That's a really weird argument. It's basically "if there's no problem, the page won't be deleted". That applies to any XFD discussion, and it's a description of a system working well.

I am glad that SF agrees that a portal needs an associated WikiProject, because many of the portals coming to MFD have no WikiProject which takes any interest in them.

But to the rest of SF's post, it seems to be advocating the view that a selection of articles made a decade ago is fine. It's actually very rare for an topic areas's coverage no to have changed substantially over a decade, and I don't see the point of a selection made before all that development. It's like saying that museum or art gallery can set up its displays the day it opens its door and keep the same displays for ever.

As to providing an alternative way of navigating the content within that topic area, very few portals even try to do that. They are overwhelmingly just showcases. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:18, 23 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That applies to any XFD discussion: That's not correct. Article maintainers are generally not expected in AfDs. Per WP:BEFORE: If the article can be fixed through normal editing, then it is not a candidate for AfD. WP:NOEFFORT suggests for AfDs, An article should be assessed based on whether it has a realistic potential for expansion, not how frequently it has been edited to date. Remember that there is no deadline. As I stated earlier, I'm not a portal deletion discussion regular. Right or wrong, however, this is not operating like AfDs.—Bagumba (talk) 04:22, 24 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Bagumba: you have taken my words out of context. Pages don't usually get nominated for deletion unless there is a perceived problem, and they don't get deleted unless there is consensus to deleted. That is true of all XFDs.

You then tried to apply general comment about the operation of XFDs to the applicability of one particular deletion rationale. That's a different issues, and a misapplication of my words.

Your comparison with AFD is misplaced, because articles are content, but this is not an article. It is a portal, which is a type of navigational devoice. No content will be lost if this portal is deleted. That's why this discussion doesn't operate like AFD, just like CFD and TFD and RFD don't operate like AFD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:00, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@BrownHairedGirl: you have taken my words out of context. My intent (as a portal novice) was to put the various perspectives into proper context, not to manipulate. Your latest comments regarding content and navigation were helpful. Alas, SportingFlyer seemed to sum up the general portal situation best: we get drawn into long tangents based on personal interpretations of which nonexistent rules apply Regards.—Bagumba (talk) 00:31, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Portal:Basketball also (I already !voted keep on Portal:NBA before that mid-process bundling) No policy- or guideline-based arguments to delete. It also doesn't seem common sense/IAR to delete to this non-portal regular. An essay which organizes the deletion thoughts would perhaps be a helpful reference to outsiders.—Bagumba (talk) 09:31, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete both. Their complete abandonment, for years now, provide good case studies of why WP Portals are technologically redundant to other superior WP options/tools.

a. For content, both Main Articles give a far better, larger/comprehensive (both Main Articles are extensive), structured read (with mouseovers), that are actively monitored and heavily edited (the NBA Main Article has had to be protected, but vandals completely ignore the NBA Portal).

b. For navigation, the detailed Navboxes on the two Main Articles are also far better, and by being transcluded to many articles, are also kept more up to date.

c. Finally, for a directory of topic FA/GA articles, the WikiProject Basketball and WikiProject National Basketball Association have a full non-POV’ed directories.

These Portals are therefore “rationally abandoned” by editors, WProject editors, and readers (and even vandals), in favour of superior WP alternatives. Because of this, these Portals are unlikely to recover from that situation, and “band-aid” solutions based on nostalgia for what this redundant technology was once meant to be, will be wasted effort as these Portals will need to be deleted one way or another to avoid obvious longer-term content forking issues. Britishfinance (talk) 13:04, 25 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User:Britishfinance: The lack of attention to the portal by the minions of Genseric can be explained for several reasons. First, portals contain no gold or silver. Second, the images are partially clothed, neither properly nude nor fully dressed, and clothed (including partially clothed) statues cannot be disfigured in the usual manners (for male and female statues). Besides, third, the images are two-dimensional, and his minions are not iconoclasts. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:03, 29 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

User:Robert McClenon: Last sentence is sublime, however, probably not appropriate to have such wit (regardless of its skill level) here? Thanks. Britishfinance (talk) 15:42, 29 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per the nom, Crossroads and @BrownHairedGirl. These long abandoned portals are both complete crud and the abysmal state for many years is hard evidence that neither topic is broad enough to attract readers or maintainers. These failed navigation devices are just a distraction from focusing on content (which exists only in articles). Newshunter12 (talk) 07:43, 1 November 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.