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: No consensus to delete. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:00, 8 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Acipenseriformes[edit]

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

(Time stamp for bot to properly relist.) — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 16:06, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If neither the portal creator nor anyone else can be bothered to do even the most basic cleanup on a portal like this, then why has it been created or should it be kept? Not only has it an issue common in many of these mindless portal creations, i.e. the "selected image" not being "selected" at all but simply the same as the one in the main article, but the "introduction" is extremely funny (if you don't take into consideration that the intention is to help readers and provide something interesting and useful). Ending a text with "Notable characteristics of Acipenseriformes include: " because, well, we always take the first two paragraphs, and there was a line break after that ":"... just shows how much the portal creator(s) care about this. If they don't care, why should we? Just get rid off this. Fram (talk) 12:56, 18 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - Both the issues you have brought up have since been fixed. Gazamp (talk) 18:57, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete too narrow a scope, too clumsy an execution. The bird family portals are a similar problem. What the heck is the value of a FIXED page that only says "Acipenseriformes /æsɪˈpɛnsərɪˈfɔːrmiːz/ is an order of basal ray-finned fishes that includes the sturgeons and paddlefishes, as well as some extinct families". Our readers expect and deserve more! Legacypac (talk) 22:06, 19 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete (with fish sauce) - The fact that two issues have been fixed doesn't address the main issue that the portal has no purpose. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:38, 20 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Entire orders of life forms are sufficiently broad enough for portals. In an case where there are too few individual families, genera, and species within one, consider upmerging and redirecting to the next-highest taxon.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:29, 23 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is nothing to "merge" in any of these portals, which as someone who has followed this discussion from the start you should surely know by now... Fram (talk) 05:37, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep – Both of the issues brought up in the nomination have been fixed. The portal draws from a sufficient number of articles, and can be expanded with some articles available at the topic's category. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 11:07, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yeah, these issues are fixed now that someone actually looked at that portal, showing how ridiculous it is to have one in the first place. And we now have images with captions like "juvenile", which make sense at an article level but not at a portal level. We also have "selected articles" which are way, way too broad for this portal, like Chordate or (I kid you not) animals. Fram (talk) 11:18, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment Both of those problems have now also been fixed. If you can find any more, please ping me so I can try and fix them. Gazamp (talk) 19:16, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Abandoned is a really good delete reason - and if there are major issues that show the creator likely did not even look at the page after starting it, fixes after an MFD nomination are not convincing. Legacypac (talk) 17:13, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Legacypac: I don't think this portal is worth deleting, as it was to begin with. It's now comprehensive and all of the current errors have been fixed. If I were to be its maintainer, would that help? I am not the creator and do not claim to be an expert in the field but I can ensure that it is linked to all the relevant articles and expand it as best I can. Gazamp (talk) 18:06, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

No, like the families of birds portals this is too narrow a scope. Improve the articles where someone is going to read and appreciate your work, not these useless excerpts of articles plus automated mistakes that need to be managed. Legacypac (talk) 19:04, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Legacypac: I disagree that this is too fine a scope; unlike many of the bird portals, Acipenseriformes is an order, not a family. The Actinopterygii portal is too broad I think, as it contains diverse orders which boil down to completely different species, such as anglerfish and eels. Also, I think that the range of pictures and such on this portal would not fit well into the Acipenseriformes page. Although the portal was worthy of deletion to start with, I don't think that deleting it is the best course to take now that many of the technical bugs, for which it was nominated for in the first place, have been fixed. Gazamp (talk) 21:03, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. Now that Gazamp has fixed the errors mentioned, revamped it as a semi-automated portal with adequate content, and offered to maintain it, the delete arguments appear to boil down to 'I don't like it'. ETA There seem to be at least four DYKs that could be added from Wikipedia:WikiProject Fishes, enough to make one non-rotating set or a randomised single DYK. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:56, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Good content for Portal:Fish. This automated junk produces things like 3/6 DYKs at Portal:Beer that have nothing to do with beer. Hand curated content is superior - or at least humans who create these portals need to look at them regularly to check for errors their coding drags in. Legacypac (talk) 09:49, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know that they are easy to fix once one has spotted them? :) Espresso Addict (talk) 09:57, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

They are not easy to fix unless you can code the templates correctly, which the people who built the templates can't even get right. Then the templates introduce new errors when a new DYK is introduced and scraped by the code. Automated silliness. Legacypac (talk) 12:03, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"Fixing" an issue means preventing similar things from happening again. Your "fix" only applies to the few examples visible then, but isn't a real fix at all (not for that portal, never mind a general fix for this "no maintenance needed!" portals). Fram (talk) 12:41, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if it hadn't been reverted (which tbh I think is borderline disruptive; I think ArbCom with their cumulative hundred or so years of editing might have learned about static links by now) I might have put a bit more thought into future-proofing it. (One could try 'beer ' 'beer,' & 'beer?', for example.) I've had a good hit rate with the DYK finder for one of my own portals, though I don't choose to use the results directly. Espresso Addict (talk) 13:50, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

PS For anyone who might be interested in this, a general fix appears to have been attained using the code |not=%abeer |not2=beer%a. The Lua code is documented at [1]. To be honest I don't know whether it will include 'beers', which I added to the inclusion criteria, but it should definitely exclude embarrassing entries in future. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:39, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep because the reasons given for deletion have all been addressed and no longer apply. When a Wikipedia page has problems which can easily be fixed, standard practice is to edit them or ask an expert to do so, rather than using them as an excuse to nominate the entire page for deletion per WP:IDLI. Certes (talk) 12:20, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • These portals are promoted as needing minimal human intervention, only a few people can maintain thousands of such portals, and so on. Still, in reality they need a lot of intervention to get the basics to work, and it is obvious that a few people are completely unable to maintain these portals, as we have after a month of these discussions still the most stupid errors in many of them, including e.g. completely duplicate portals, portals with big errors, and so on. Some of the more major older portals have been ruined by the actions of these editors (e.g. one portal with about 80 pageviews a day, which is huge in portalworld, shows 17(!) error messages since TTH started meddling with it in August (or since he made a change to one of the templates populating it, I don't know).
  • Basically, these portals are a travesty, where no one cares about maintaining until they are under threat of deletion, and even then only the most minimal efforts are made. E.g. here, you fixed a few errors I noted at first, but couldn't be bothered to really check the contents until I pointed out even more obvious problems. After this MfD, the portal will again be seen and quickly left by two or three people a day, and slowly decay and atrophy. This is not a case of "i don't like it", it's a case of "it's fundamentally broken". Fram (talk) 12:40, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I don't think these arguments are against this specific portal, more against automated portal script as a whole. This is understandable but is not the subject of this page. Surely Portal:Acipenseriformes cannot be deleted, now the issues causing the nomination have been cleared up? Gazamp (talk) 19:03, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why not? It's only a matter of time before the automated, unsupervised thing goes wrong again (there have been many examples where the addition of a category completely changed the appearance of the portal and introduced errors, these things aren't stable), and no one is interested in it anyway (the errors at all these portals stayed uncorrected and unreported until the MfDs and CSD discussion started, even though they were obvious with even a cursory glance; duplicate portals remained undetected (we had until very recently a portal:guitar and a portal:guitars, to give just one example). While some very visible issues have been solved, the main problem, that we have a portal without the necessary support for it and interest in it, remains. Fram (talk) 07:10, 29 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A duplicate portal on this type of fish would be a valid rationale for deleting this portal. A duplicate portal on guitars is not. The argument that "all portals must go, therefore this portal must go" was tested and rejected last summer. Certes (talk) 09:44, 29 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

My argument is not for "all portals", my argument is for all automaticaly created and "maintained" (hah) portals, which weren't around at the time of the previous discussion, and certainly those of very limited interest like this one, with a few pageviews per day at most. The "duplicate portal on guitars" is an indication of the care taken in creating and maintaining these portals, i.e. next to zero. Fram (talk) 09:56, 29 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe that the point that it's only a matter of time before the automated, unsupervised thing goes wrong again is reason to delete it. I repeat the fact that I will maintain the portal - the arguments are now that the system of portals is flawed; that may be so, but this is not the forum to discuss that. V/r Gazamp (talk) 18:24, 29 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Question - How many taxonomic orders are there, across all phyla, either across all taxonomic kingdoms or Animalia? Hundreds? Thousands? Will they all be maintained? Oh yes, portals no longer need maintenance. There are little gnomebots that run around inside Wikipedia and fix them, and they are wiser than we are. Oh, no. Wait a minute. There really was a bot that did some bot-like maintenance on portals, and it has been retired from service. Oh well. Some editors think that we need thousands of portals. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:32, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  How many parallel portal deletion discussions are there, across all fora, either in MfD, AN, VP or the WikiProject? Hundreds? Thousands? will they all be constructive? Oh yes, portal editors no longer need respect. There are sarcastic deletionists who run around inside Wikipedia and attack them, and they are wiser than we are. Oh, no. Wait a minute. There really were people improving portals, and they have been retired from service by ritual humiliation. Oh well. Some editors think that we need this drama. Certes (talk) 11:05, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - I have already !voted and will not double-!vote, which would be improper. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:32, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Still not a particularly good portal, very short introduction (could be that the main article's intro isn't suitable as a topic introduction for the portal in this case? I keep wondering what those extinct families are, but the portal doesn't help me with that) that does not tell us very much about what these fish are. So delete, main article isn't of sufficient quality to support a portal at the moment. —Kusma (t·c) 10:01, 30 March 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.