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. — JJMC89 (T·C) 00:49, 7 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Eurovision Song Contest[edit]

Portal:Eurovision Song Contest (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

(convenience link: subject article Eurovision Song Contest)

(WP:WikiProject Eurovision courtesy talkpage notified).

Delete Wikipedia has a ton of content on the Eurovision Song Contest, but the question is, is this multi-page portal - with one-at-a-time articles and pictures, news that has not been updated in 8 months, only 5 DYK items, no link to featured content - a good way to organize that content? I think the low viewer statistics say "no", which is one reason a subject this narrow is contrary to the breadth-of-subject area requirement of the WP:POG guidelines. UnitedStatesian (talk) 22:02, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. The well-developed B-class head article Eurovision Song Contest with its navbox Template:Eurovision Song Contest is vastly better way of navigating the topic than the this mini-portal with a mere 8 selected pictures and 5 selected articles. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:05, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  @BrownHairedGirl: As has been explained to you countless times before, portals are not just navigation tools, they are showcases of related content not just links to other pages. This constantly repeated refusal to get the point is very disappointing behaviour from someone who knows better. WaggersTALK 13:42, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  @Waggers, as has been explained to you countless times before, the policy at WP:PORTAL is that "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects". This one does not enhance; it degrades.

Your constantly repeated refusal to get the point is very disappointing behaviour from someone who knows better. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:22, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A "main page" is not a navigation page. Which part of that point are you struggling to get? WaggersTALK 14:39, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Which part of the word "enhanced" would you like me to explain? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:01, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

All of it. What specifically do you expect to see on a portal that makes it an "enhanced main page", and what do you expect not to see? On its own, "enhanced main page" doesn't really mean much and you clearly have a particular interpretation of it that would be useful to know about. WaggersTALK 12:35, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - As BHG says, articles with navboxes work as well if not better to navigate than portals. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:52, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• I believe that one measures topic breadth by measuring topic breadth, not by measuring reader hits on a portal. On those grounds, the Eurovision with a history back to 1956, ~50 countries involved, and a huge set of wiki articles in Category:Eurovision Song Contest is clearly broad enough. Audience figures of 100–600 million would tend to suggest potential reader interest. The news in an annual event is likely to go in fits, so 8 months out of date is not necessarily a problem, though this year's seems to be happening in a couple of weeks, so there ought to be ongoing news at present. I don't know how out of date that makes it, but no more than a month or so? That said, the portal has only 5 articles and 8 images, so unless someone from the Wikiproject is willing to update and expand, I am leaning delete. The Wikiproject has been notified and looks active, so let's see... Espresso Addict (talk) 08:45, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - it needs updating to the new low maintenance, transclusion-based format, but needing some work is no reason for deletion. As the OP points out, there's plenty of scope here. WaggersTALK 10:36, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Waggers:, portalspace is littered with topics which potentially have enough scope, but where there is a long-term lack of editors to build on and maintain a rough start of a portal. Plenty of this junk has already been through one or MFDs in the last 13 years, and kept with claims of "could be expanded" ... but remains neglected because editors are not interested in expanding and maintaining it. It's time to stop applying this faith-based logic, because it leads to readers being lured to pages whose existence promises the WP:PORTAL principle that "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects", but which practice are just massively-degraded versions of the head article.

When a topic is as well-covered with interlinked articles, lists and navboxes as this one is, a very high bar is set for a portal which actually plans to offer an enhanced main page. If and when someone actually wants to create and maintain a portal good enough to vault that high bar, we can look at it ... but the chances of that happening are slim, and the current mini-portal will be little help in building it, so there's no need to continue luring readers to waste their time on this junk, which is really just a poor portal on the 2018 contetst. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:22, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This is exactly the issue the WikiProject have been addressing by introducing automated portals. This kind of portal doesn't need editors to build on and maintain the portal; TheTransHumanist's idea was that by using navboxes as the source of selected article sections, a portal like this wouldn't even need someone to add articles to the portal because anything added to one of the selected navboxes would automatically be included. My personal view is that a little more thought should go into it, but it doesn't need much.

You can't have it both ways. One moment you're arguing against the automated approach the project has taken under TTH's leadership which solves the maintenance issue, and the next you're moaning about "a long-term lack of editors to build on and maintain a... portal" should an automated portal go back to the old way of requiring manual maintenance as a result of your objection to automation.

"Portalspace is littered with topics which..." is a prime example of an WP:AON argument. This discussion is about one particular portal, which I am happy to step in and maintain - so there's no lack of maintainers in this case.

As regards referring to other editor's efforts as "junk", please consider being a bit more WP:CIVIL. WaggersTALK 13:32, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Waggers, I am absolutely not trying to have it both ways. I have been repeatedly noting that there have two failed models of portals: the underdeveloped/unmaintained manual model which TTH rightly identified as a problem, and the clone-another-page automated approach which he mass-implemented as a failed remedy for the first problem.

My starting point in this is not "what's the least worst of the current ways of implementing a portal on a given topic". My question is whether this portal page actually meets the WP:PORTAL principle that "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects". This clearly doesn't do that, and stand by my description of it as junk. The hard work which good faith editors have put into it has not produced a page which offers much value to readers.

WP:AON is about articles, where policy basically values any content on a notable topic as better than no content. But portals are not articles and they are not content; they are a navigational device to link and showcase existing content, on the principle that they are an enhanced version of the head article. If they don't enhance, readers shouldn't be lured into wasting time visiting them. One of the key reasons that we nearly had deletion of all portals at WP:ENDPORTALS is that so many of them are underdeveloped/unmaintained junk which don't add value. That's one of the reasons why readers don't want them. Web portals have generally plummeted since their late-1990s heyday, because of rich interlinking and powerful search, so not many readers want them ... and those who do want en.wp portals have been confronted for years with a sea of mediocrity and junk where the islands of quality are sparse and undifferentiated on the label. That why pageviews for portals are so overwhelmingly dire.

I agree that some aspects of automation have potential, esp the extraction of live excerpts of MOS:LEADs rather than the hideous content-forking of the multi-subpage model. But policy is that a portal needs to actually add value, and this page doesn't. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:16, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WP:AON is about arguments to avoid in deletion discussions. That is not limited to AfD deletion discussions, so AON is not "about articles". That much is made clear in the introduction at the top of the page.

Your argument can be summarised as this: "there are two types of portals, neither are fit for purpose, so all portals should be deleted." The "all portals should be deleted" discussion has been and gone, you should really have accepted that by now. And the premise is completely incorrect; the old format works if the portal is maintained, and the new format works with much less regular maintenance.

Wikipedia is not a battleground and it's time for this "war on portals" to stop. You don't like them, I get that; but others do, so live and let live. WaggersTALK 14:46, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

AON is very clear that it's only about articles. Other XFDs, including RFD, TFD and CFD, routinely delete pages because they don't serve their purpose. I am surprised that you seem unaware of this. If AON was applied there, those processes would grind to a halt.

Please don't put words in my mouth. It's very rude, and also very unhelpful to WP:CONSENSUS-formation. If you want to understand someone's position, ask questions instead if leaping to unfounded conclusions. I am not arguing that all portals should be deleted, as you would see if visited the MFDs where I have !voted keep, or read any of the longer discussions.

As to "war", you are the one in "battle" mode, pursuing false binaries and misrepresenting others. It's not helping your case.

I will happy to discuss your specific points and when you choose to actually engage in discussion, rather than making angry accusations. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:11, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Question Could somebody explain why "news that has not been updated for 8 months" is a problem for a portal on an annual event? WaggersTALK 13:46, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Because news on the contest happens year around; see, just as 2 examples, Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 and 2019 Eurovision Song Contest#Ticket sales controversy. If the portal is not going to pick up recent news as it happens, how is it performing as an "enhanced Main Page", as WP:P requires? Hint: it's not. UnitedStatesian (talk) 13:52, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I've updated the portal to pick related items from the Current Events portal, so the first of those is now included. The latter doesn't have a Current Events subpage (yet) so doesn't appear, but that can be fixed. WaggersTALK 15:05, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This is the pattern we have seen with so many portals over so many years. It is abandoned for ages, then when deletion is proposed, a brief flurry of activity ensues to support claims of "look, it's maintained now". Then the rescuer(s) move on to other things, and portal rots again because hardly anybody even views it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:19, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Since Waggers announced recent updates to the news section, I just went to have a look. Every refresh gives me the same two articles: Ukraine in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 and Eurovision Song Contest 2018. AS if there hadn't been a few dozen other selection events in the last few months.

This is why I repeat that the head article and its navbox are much better for navigation. They don't mislead readers into thinking that the only significant event since the 2018 contest has been the Ukrainian selection.

This I why I describe the portal as a degraded version of the head article ... and why readers don't use the portal. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:29, 30 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The news section takes the latest items that mention "Eurovision" from Portal:Current events. Refreshing it isn't going to change what's there unless somebody adds something new to Portal:Current events, and it isn't intended to change with every refresh. It will change as relevant current events are added to Wikipedia. A portal's job isn't to create content but to reflect what we already have, and it is accurately reflecting the latest items at P:CE that relate to the topic. WaggersTALK 09:13, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. Portals reflect content, but this portal is rubbish at reflecting the content we do actually have, and instead it is displaying a big box pointing to the lack of content in another portal. I know how of why the news section comes to be such junk is because most Eurovision articles are not included in P:CE ... but that doesn't alter the fact that that automated section is junk. We do have some decent coverage of at least the outcomes of the national selection processes, but this portal has been but in a way which doesn't display it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:59, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's an interesting problem which I look forward to exploring solutions for. It isn't a reason for deletion. WaggersTALK 12:33, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. According to [wmflabs], this deletion discussion is the greatest day ever of this portal: a peak at 55 views! Whaow ! This gives a great part of the 274 views scored in the LAST TWO YEARS. When using the TWO YEARS period 2017-03-30---2019-03-30, this reduces to a grand total of 147 page views, i.e. an average of 0.201 views per day (five days to score ONE view). Whaow! What a great hill to die, what a great occasion to use the expression war on portals! While saying audience figures of 100–600 million would tend to suggest potential reader interest seems rather cruel in the context. Moreover, when being one of the 274 happy few clicks in two years, one only gets a navigation tool that is largely less efficient than the main article. Pldx1 (talk) 16:24, 1 May 2019 (UTC) to be restated since ${\displaystyle 21>0.201}$ Pldx1 (talk) 09:20, 2 May 2019 (UTC) [reply]
  • Not sure if the pageview data need to be taken with a very large grain of salt, since until very recently the portal was at Portal:Eurovision, and I don't think wmflabs accounts for the portal move. UnitedStatesian (talk) 17:35, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• @UnitedStatesian is correct. Here's the pageviews for Portal:Eurovision for the calendar years 2017 and 2018: average 21 per day.

Still abysmal, as with nearly every portal, but a lot better than the figures which @Pldx1 posted. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:01, 1 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• OK. Here is the source of the mishap: [search insource]. I was saying to my-self: these are too low to be true, but I haven't searched for more details. My bad ! By the way: what so special occurred 2018-12-09 ? Pldx1 (talk) 09:20, 2 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. According to [wmflabs], the user views are as large as 26 per day (and not the abysmal result related to Eurovision_Song_Contest). It remains that saying audience figures of 100–600 million would tend to suggest potential reader interest seems rather cruel even in this context. Moreover, the resulting navigation tool is largely less efficient than the main article. Pldx1 (talk) 19:35, 3 May 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.