Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Language

Portal:Language

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

(Time stamp for bot to properly relist.) ToThAc (talk) 17:23, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Neglected portal. Five selected topics from September 2013: three C class and two B class. Quality aside, topics are not well chosen as they are specific to just one or just a few languages (e.g. split infinitive, Museum of the Portuguese Language, Click consonant). Seven selected languages from September / November 2013: one FA, two B class, two B or C, one C, and one Start class . In June 2015 an editor replaced a C-class article with a start-class article. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 22:42, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

• Keep Same reason as at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:English language (3rd nomination), obviously broad topic and the page renders fine. Wug·a·po·des​ 23:14, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

@Wug·WP:POG states that portals should have a minimum of 20 articles, while this one is eight short. It also says portals should be associated with a wikiproject, but none are even mentioned on this portal, as is standard. That the portal looks fine to you and you subjectively believe it's about a broad topic mean nothing under WP:POG. It completely fails these provisions of POG and more as described below. Newshunter12 (talk) 08:33, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

@Newshunter12: The guideline literally says "Good number means about 20 articles, though this figure may vary from case to case and is intended as a rough guide rather than a hard principle." This is very different from a required minimum of 20 which you seem to incorrectly believe. If you think that the topic of "language" which covers at least 6000 different topics (there are over 8000 ISO prefixes for individual languages) that is patently absurd. Wikipedia has over 700 articles just on languages proper, let alone the 16000 articles in Category:WikiProject Languages articles. That "language" is a broad topic is far from a subjective evaluation and just because no one has bothered to fork more pages doesn't suddenly make it not a broad topic. Besides, this portal was nominated on subjective grounds; the nomination literally begins with "neglected portal" and proceeds to say "quality aside" before listing surmountable problems that don't affect the reader experience. If the portal was broken or displaying things it should not be, then I'd agree that this is a derelict portal, but no one has raised any problems with this portal beyond not liking the way it is currently laid out which is not a reason to delete. You also seem to misunderstand what "should" means. Your opinion that it must be associated with a wikiproject or advertise them is demonstrably false. There's a literal section of the POG you linked titled "required" which lists required elements of a portal, all of which this portal has. Not listed there, and not even listed in the "recommended" section is "WikiProjects" which is listed under "optional". No one has raised any actual problems, just moaned that the portal doesn't comply with their arbitrary standards for page views or layout when it's completely within the guidelines. I recommend you go read the portal guideline because it does not say what you seem to think it says. Wug·a·po·des​ 23:57, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

WP:POG has very specific broadness guidelines about having large numbers of readers and maintainers, which this portal doesn't have, so your giant text wall means nothing here. It fails WP:POG and should be deleted. Newshunter12 (talk) 01:13, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

WP:POG has very specific broadness guidelines if they're so specific why have you not only been unable to quote them but misrepresented the POG in two separate MfDs? Wug·a·po·des​ 01:46, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

I have not misrepresented POG anywhere. Here is what WP:POG says portals must be about: "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers." No guesswork is needed. For nearly six years, this portal has had no steady maintainers and very low page views. Newshunter12 (talk) 01:51, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Below you say WP:POG requires a minimum of 20 the guideline says about 20 articles, though this figure may vary from case to case and is intended as a rough guide rather than a hard principle which is very obviously not a minimum let alone a required minimum. Above you say [POG] also says portals should be associated with a wikiproject, but none are even mentioned on this portal, as is standard. when the portal guideline doesn't even list WikiProject advertisements in the "required" or "recommended" sections but under "optional" features which is definitely not defining a "standard" nor a recommendation with the force of "should". All of this was said in my "wall of text" above which you ignored.

Second, what you quoted is not "very specific broadness guidelines" as you claimed. Firstly, that paragraph has a disputed tag at the end (in fact, the whole guideline is disputed) and if you read further down it says "The portal subject area should have enough interest and articles to sustain a portal". It has attracted enough attention to sustain itself as shown by the obvious fact (which I pointed out in my original comment) that the portal is not broken and seems to be functioning as intended. You may not like the way it was intended to function, but that is not a reason to delete it. And neither is hyperbole about what the POG says. Wug·a·po·des​ 02:54, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

WP:POG says two paragraphs in: The portal should be associated with a WikiProject (or have editors with sufficient interest) to help ensure a supply of new material for the portal and maintain the portal. That portal fans have been kicking and screaming that POG needs to go because it has actual quality standards means nothing here. POG is the law of the land here and now, and what might happen to it down the road means nothing. If you want this portal kept, I recommend you start an RFC called WP:KEEPJUNKPORTALS. Newshunter12 (talk) 03:09, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

You realize I helped draft the ongoing discussion about whether the portal guideline still has consensus right? Wug·a·po·des​ 23:03, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

• Delete per the nom. This mini-portal has been abandoned for nearly six years, save for some one off updates by passing editors. There are only 12 articles total, when WP:POG requires a minimum of 20, and I agree that these topics do not appear to be thoughtfully chosen. It clearly fails WP:POG's requirement that portals should be about subjects broad enough to attract large numbers of readers and maintainers. This decrepit portal has had nearly six years of no steady maintainers and it had a low 62 views per day from January 1 to June 30 2019 (while the head article Language had 3,169 views per day in the same period. Portals stand or fall on their merits in the now, not what could someday hypothetically happen with them, and this one falls flat. I oppose re-creation, as nearly six years of hard evidence shows Language is not a broad enough topic to attract readers and maintainers. Newshunter12 (talk) 08:33, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
• Weak Delete as per User:Mark Schierbecker without prejudice to a new design of portal not using forked subpages. I disagree with User:Newshunter12 that 62 daily pageviews is low. This is a well-viewed, poorly maintained portal. We should encourage the development of an improved portal that will take advantage of the breadth of the subject area. With hundreds of articles on languages and aspects of languages and a complex category tree for language categories, is there some way that language categories could be used to select articles, rather than either manually forking the subpages or simply transcluding pages from a list (meganavbox-style)? I am prepared to change this !vote to a Weak Keep if a design concept and a maintenance plan are proposed for this portal.

This table summarizes this portal and Portal:English language:

Title	Portal Page Views	Article Page Views	Ratio	Percent	Comments	Articles	Notes	Baseline	Deleted	Type
English language	8	9408	1176.00	0.09%	Originator inactive since 2007. Portal:English was folded into this portal. Only ever 2 articles.	2		Apr19-Jun19	FALSE	Language
Language	62	3169	51.11	1.96%	Originator inactive since 2007. Articles selected in 2013, only occasional tweaks through 2017 and 2019.	12		Apr19-Jun19	FALSE	Language

Robert McClenon (talk) 22:56, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

• Keep - Too broad of a topic for portal deletion. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:46, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

@Knowledgekid87 Your vote is pure WP:ILIKEIT, not based in any policy or guideline. Subjective broadness means nothing, as has been proven at many hundreds of portal MfD's in the past six months where the decision was delete. The facts are this portal is eight articles short of POG's minimum of 20, has been abandoned for about six years so has no maintainers, and has a mere 1.96% of the daily page views of the head article. It crashes and burns when trying to meet the bar WP:POG has set. Newshunter12 (talk) 17:26, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

• Keep and merge Portal:English language into this one. bd2412 T 04:05, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

@bd2412 How does merging a portal that has been abandoned for six years with a portal that has been abandoned for over a decade suddenly make either portal comply with WP:POG? It's time to just delete this junk six years of hard evidence shows readers and maintainers don't want. Newshunter12 (talk) 17:26, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Whatever articles are under Portal:English language would then be under Portal:Language. I tend to agree with Wugapodes that this is too basic of a topic not to have coverage in this space. Gaining activity might just be a matter of generating some publicity for it. bd2412 T 22:31, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks to Mark Schierbecker for pointing out the existence of Portal:Linguistics. !Vote changed to Merge and redirect Portal:Language and Portal:English language into/under Portal:Linguistics. bd2412 T 18:09, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

• Delete per nominator and per NH12. Despite, the WP:ILIKEIT !votes above, the fact remains that this portal clearly fails POG's requirement for maiantainers, and while its 62 pageviews per day is above the abysmal average for portals, it's a tiny fraction of the views of the head article. A navigational and showcasing hub needs to do much better than that.

The fact that after 14 years, this portal still has only 12 selected sub-topics is clear evidence of long-term failure. Forget the risible wikilawyering arguments that 20 isn't a hard minimum: if a portal on such an allegedly-important topic was being maintained with the slightest care for its readers, it would have many many times that minimum.

I have some sympathy with those assert that this is a fundamental topic, and that if we have portals, then language should be one of them. However, by the same token, readers should not be lured to a portal on a fundamental topic when the portal is such a shoddy, abandoned relic. That wastes the reader's time, and degrades Wikipedia's hard-won reputation. Readers would be much better served by being directed to the GA-class head article Language, which performs the key portal functions of navigation and showcasing much better than this abandoned page; and editors would use their time much more productively by bringing that Vital-Article-Level-1 article up to FA standard. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:04, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

• Comment - Re: Language is a broad topic. Portal:Linguistics exists. It is in poor shape, but I would argue it is arguably a better container for the language topic. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 04:02, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ToThAc (talk) 17:23, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

• Delete, do not redirect or merge, but I do not oppose recreation (as long as it's recreated appropriately, in line with then-current POG and other PAGs, etc.). I think the 8 main page portals are "broad enough", and when I look at a list like Art, History, Science, Mathematics, of course I think of "English" aka Language aka Linguistics... I'm not sure what you call it, but I could envision a portal being broad enough and I could see it being called Portal:Language. But this portal isn't it. Per nom and other delete voters, it doesn't have enough articles and other content, isn't maintained, isn't of interest to readers in its current form. (No comment on Portal:Linguistics.) There is nothing to merge, and little will be gained with a redirect (nobody is typing in "Portal:Language" in the search bar, and AFAIK there are no linkrot issues thanks to what I believe is an army of bots under the command of BHG). So delete this portal, but if in the future editors want to have a go at recreating it, I wouldn't oppose. – Levivich 03:48, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
• What to do with backlinks? This portal has incoming links from 772 articles. I don't want to prejudge the outcome, but if the portal is deleted, the question arises of what to do with those links. I see three otions:

1. Redirect to Portal:Linguistics.
2. Redirect to the article Language.
3. Remove the backlinks
4. Keep the backlinks

My thoughts on those options:

1. I mildly oppose redirection to Portal:Linguistics, because that's a significantly narrower topic.
2. I'd be OKish with a redirect to the article Language. I don't like cross-namespace redirects, but this may be the least-worst option if editors are open to this portal being re-created under some conditions, because a re-crated portal could use those links. (Note: I redirected Portal:Education to the article Education on these grounds). OTOH, only 722 links is pathetically small for such a broad topic, so this tally is only a tiny fraction of the number of links which the portal really needs. So T think that link removal is no big deal
3. As above, removing the backlinks would mildly increase the work needed in creating a new portal, but only mildly. I'd be OK with this, and my WP:AWB setups can do the removals easily.
4. I very strongly oppose leaving the backlinks as redlinks. Those backlinks are tracked in Category:Portal templates with redlinked portals and several subcats thereof. I try to keep those cleanup categories clean, to allow prompt detection and fixing of broken portal links, and that work would be impossible if those tracking categories were flooded with hundreds of pages which couldn't be cleared.

Pinging all particIpants in this discussion: @BD2412, Knowledgekid87, Levivich, Mark Schierbecker, Newshunter12, Robert McClenon, ToThAc, and Wugapodes. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:28, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

I'd say remove all backlinks, as that would be the most straightforward option, and also doesn't have a special preference over any specific case. ToThAc (talk) 23:31, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree with TTA, remove all backlinks. Perhaps there is some place to save the AWB list to make it easier in the future to link to a new portal, if one is created? – Levivich 00:37, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

User:BrownHairedGirl - It occurs to me that perhaps you are trying to do more for the portalistas than they deserve or appreciate. They were complaining in deletion discussions that the real reasons for low pageview rates were inadequate backlinks. Maybe the advocates of portals should be asked what to do with the backlinks, at least to see whether they really have any intention of re-creating any portals. But I don't see any real desire or plan on their part to create new portals, certainly not using any sort of modern design.

I am puzzled when you say that you don't like cross-address-space links. A link to Language is not a cross-address-space link, because the backlinks are from articles. So if you don't want to remove the backlinks, make them to the article. Just my opinion. Or ask the portalistas. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:40, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

@Robert, my objection is not to cross-address-space links. It's to cross-namespace redirects, which to my mind breach the principle of not surprising readers. See WP:XNR.

I agree that the portal enthusiasts show no interest in this. As you have rightly noted many times, most of them show little or no interest in doing anything at all to make portalspace viable, i.e. to ensure that it well-maintained, adding value for readers, and attracting lots of readers. They much prefer to moan angrily about the deletion of abandoned junk portals and to wikilawyer spurious reasons to keep the unread junk, or to try to remove or dilute the minimal quality requirements in POG. (One of the starkest examples is that NA1K reverted Legacypac's unilateral change of the 20-article minimum from an aspiration to a hard minimum. They actually, seriously, genuinely seem believe that portal which hasn't even been built to the pathetic level of 20 sub-topics is something other than a failure which wastes readers' time).

If the portals fans were remotely serious about making portals viable, then for the last six months they'd have been falling over each other in the rush to ensure that Portal:Languages had 72,000 incoming links rather than 720.

But that's them, and I hold myself to higher standards. So I try to my best to clean up after deletions, and to do so with the minimum of destruction. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:14, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Remove all backlinks if the portal is deleted, these backlinks are not needed. Newshunter12 (talk) 04:51, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Why would I want to continue to participate in a discussion where anyone with a different opinion is insulted by spurious, mealy-mouthed accusations of wikilawyering? Sections of the portal guideline are obviously disputed, and acting like they have sufficient consensus to be treated as uncontestable minimums is disingenuous at best. Why would anyone want to devote their time or effort to improving portals when the requirements are a moving target? Portal:Art is linked from the main page and doesn't even have 1000 mainspace links, but this one is supposed to have some absurdly higher number of links to justify itself. For all the talk of serving the reader, no one has raised any actual problems with the portal except that it doesn't meet some arbitrary and disputed minimum number of subpages. I'm sure that if it actually did have 20 articles as subpages we'd be clamoring to delete it because it has subpages instead of being structured some other way (see e.g., Robert's !vote above). I can neither assume good faith nor assume the assumption of good faith, and at that point it's best to just not participate. Thanks for the ping, but everyone will be happier if I spend my limited time doing work elsewhere on the encyclopedia. Wug·a·po·des​ 23:52, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

@Wugapodes, you get accused of wikilawyering because you are wikilawyering, and doing it badly. You know perfectly well that POG requires a portal to have maintainers, but you persist as if that requirement wasn't there. Yes, a handful of editors do object to POG including any quality thresholds in POG, but after 6 months they have yet to open a WP:KEEPJUNKPORTALS RFC to test whether there is some sort of community consensus that 6 months of deleting over 4000 junk portals has been a bad idea.

That's like claiming that a landslide election victory is "contested" because a handful of dissenters are on a street corner somewhere, even though they repeatedly refuse to make a formal complaint to the electoral commission of the international observers.

Similarly you quote the section of POG as reinstated by NA1K " "Good number means about 20 articles, though this figure may vary from case to case and is intended as a rough guide rather than a hard principle.". It had been "bare minimum of 20" for about 6 months, but was reverted By NA1K to the older, looser wording.

Are you seriously suggesting that the topic of language is some sort of special case which cannot reasonably be expected to meet a minimum of 20 articles in its display? Really?

After 6 years, this abandoned portal showcases only a pathetic 7 out of what you say is 700 articles just on languages proper, and only one of them is FA or GA-class. Yet you go on to complain that no one has raised any actual problems, which is blatantly untrue, because that low number was raised in the nomination.

If you make such bizarrely foolish assertions, then it's little wonder that you feel insulted by the inevitable responses. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

• Delete. This is the type of topic that ought to be broad enough to create and maintain an adequate portal, but that is not what we have in the portal that exists today. --RL0919 (talk) 13:16, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
• Keep. Useful to WikiProject Languages and for navigation. Does not fail all guidelines listed in WP:POG. Sagotreespirit (talk) 16:40, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

@Sagotreespirit Your vote does not reflect reality and should be ignored by the closer. Despite being notified in August, no one from Wikipedia:WikiProject Languages has cared to participate in this MfD and the only conversations to take place on their talk page about "Portal:Language" were all in 2006, as seen in this archive. The GA-Class head article Language has multiple rich and versatile navboxes, and far more views. Nothing about this portal is needed or meets WP:POG; its only use is to please the whims of those that like the idea of portals. Newshunter12 (talk) 17:29, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

• Keep the portal is about a very broad topic and does get some page views. Yes, it doesn't get as many views as the main article, but that doesn't mean anything except that portals in general aren't a great idea, and generally getting rid of portals has been rejected by the community. There is no requirement in WP:POG that portals must be regularly maintained, it says that attracting maintainers is the rationale for requiring that portals should be about broad topics. This portal is about a very broad topic. Sure, the portal has deficiencies and could be improved, but that isn't a reason to delete it and that rationale would be laughed at in article space. Hut 8.5 18:23, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
  • I agree, but portals aren't articles, so I don't see why we should treat them as such. That the portal doesn't have maintainers is evidence (if not proof) that the topic isn't broad enough to attract maintainers (especially after how many years?), and being "broad enough" is a requirement of POG. – Levivich 21:29, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
  • (ec) @Hut 8.5: that's a very creative take on WP:POG. What's the point of maintainers other than to do maintenance?

And the comparison with articles are misplaced. This is not an article, it's a navigational tool, and it's in too poor shape to do that job. Deleting a poor article removes encyclopedic content, but deleting the portal just removes a broken signpost.

WP:ENDPORTALS was a decision not to delete all portals. It was not a decision to keep broken portals. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:43, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

• WP:ATD says "If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page". This is a universal principle, it doesn't just apply to articles, and the policy doesn't in any way restrict it to articles. There are people above arguing for deletion based on fixable concerns, such as the portal not having enough selected articles. These arguments aren't valid reasons for deleting a page as they contradict policy.

WP:POG says "portals should be about broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers". I read that as saying that portals have to be about broad topics, and the rest of it as giving the rationale why we ask that portals be about broad topics. In practice the portal namespace has been very neglected and few portals are actively maintained, even those which are about broad subject areas, but that's a problem with portals in general rather than this particular portal. Trying to get portals like this deleted one by one using this mechanism seems to be a creative way to get round WP:ENDPORTALS, by getting rid of portals one by one at MfD instead of holding another RfC (which would probably fail). Personally I'd be happy to get rid of most of the portals we have, but I don't think the basis for doing so exists. Hut 8.5 21:54, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm kind of doubting that anybody had portals in mind when ATD was written. But I'm more concerned by the trend to !vote in particular MfDs based on feelings about portals (or process) in general. Let's leave those discussions for other pages. Do you think this portal serves our readers? Do you think this portal is going to get improved by anyone anytime soon? If this portal doesn't have value to readers and isn't going to have value to readers anytime soon, let's delete it, and free up resources for other things. – Levivich 21:58, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

@Hut 8.5: I am getting rather sick of the ABF sniping that the deletion of abandoned portals are some sort of defiance of ENDPORTALS. In the last 6 months, about 850 portals have been deleted, with lack of maintenance a significant or dominant factor in most of the MFDs. So it is very clear that there is a broad community consensus that portal are not articles, and so may be deleted if they are junk and there isn't a credible rescue plan. If you dissent from that broad consensus, please feel free to open an RFC at WP:KEEPJUNKPORTALS ... but unless and until that RFC gains community support, the established community consensus is that failing portals may be deleted.

I agree with @Levivich. What on earth is the point of luring readers to a portals which adds no value, and has no identifiable prospect of improvement? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:38, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

• Keep Easily meets the breadth-of-subject-matter requirement of the WP:POG guideline. The 20 article number in the WP:POG guideline refers to the portal's potential size, not the size while the portal is is in the process of being built out. Any maintenance issues (and the ones here are very minor) can easily be fixed by, um, maintenance. UnitedStatesian (talk) 05:45, 19 September 2019 (UTC)