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. ‑Scottywong | [verbalize] || 03:47, 28 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Royal Air Force[edit]

Stillborn portal. Eight selected articles created in 2008/09. Never updated. Out of eight bios, only seven and eight were created in 2016 - the rest were from 2008/09 and never updated. The 14 selected aircraft were created in 2008 and last updated in 2009. ~~Most~~ Some of these aircraft are used by multiple air forces around the world, so it really doesn't make sense for them to be here. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 04:10, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per the nom. This portal has been abandoned for a decade (save for some limited updates in 2016) and was never completed, which is why its sub-pages are littered with around 140 red links to never added materials. It clearly fails WP:POG's requirement that portals should be about subjects broad enough to attract large numbers of maintainers and readers. This portal has had a decade of no steady maintainers and it had a very low 13 views per day from January 1 to June 30 2019 (while the head article Royal Air Force had 2444 views per day in the same period). The C-Class head article has a very useful and versatile set of navboxes, making this portal a failed solution in search of a problem.

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 a decade of hard evidence shows the Royal Air Force is not a broad enough topic to attract readers or maintainers. Newshunter12 (talk) 17:05, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I disagree with the last sentence of the nom ("Most of these aircraft are used by multiple air forces around the world, so it really doesn't make sense for them to be here."). Surely, if the portal creator/maintainer(s) decide that, for example, the A400M is important enough to the RAF to be shown on the portal then that other air forces also use that type is irrelevant. DexDor^(talk) 20:14, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I misspoke and also forgot to elaborate. I meant to say that some of the entries showcased in the portal (e.g. Boeing C-17 Globemaster III, Panavia Tornado, Lockheed C-130 Hercules) have historical contexts in other countries. Accordingly, their entries have been modified to focus on their service in the RAF. See this entry about the C-17 and compare it to the C-17 article. The lifeboat of the aging portal system advocated by some portal preservationists is to replace the manual copy/subpage system with transclusions, which require less maintenance. This will not work for these entries. I also think it may be disappointing to some readers that the source article deals less closely with the RAF than one might expect after reading the RAF-centric blurb. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 04:31, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. The portal is currently showing me a page saying "The Royal Air Force aircraft are in service with 22, 202, 203(R) and formerly with 78 Squadron." whereas the article says the RAF retired them in 2015. DexDor^(talk) 06:17, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Three Military Portals[edit]

The following table shows statistics for three recently nominated military portals.

Title	Portal Page Views	Article Page Views	Ratio	Percent	Comments	Articles	Notes	Baseline
Royal Air Force	13	2444	188.00	0.53%	Originator inactive since 2018. Little maintenance since 2008. Last tweaks in 2018.	30		Jan19-Jun19
Canadian Armed Forces	17	887	52.18	1.92%	Very little maintenance since 2011, even less since 2013.	22		Jan19-Jun19
British Army	18	2073	115.17	0.87%	Originator inactive since 2018. Very little maintenance since 2008.	40	Biography 10 has error.	Jan19-Jun19

Continued Discussion of Royal Air Force[edit]

Delete – A combination of low readership and of far too little maintenance over a period of years. There is no short-term reason to expect that a re-creation of this portal will address the problems. Any proposed re-creation of this portal using a more modern design, and taking into account the failures of many portals, can go to Deletion Review.

Robert McClenon (talk) 23:37, 24 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nominator. We could have an an interesting theoretical debate on whether one branch of one country's armed forces is a "broad topic" as required by WP:POG. I am inclined to say no, but in practice the question is moot. Regardless of whether the topic is seen as broad enough, the problem remains that portals need maintainers ... and for a decade, this portal has not been maintained. Unless there is a team of maintainers committed to keeping this portal in good shape for the long-term, it will simply rot again, and continue to lure readers away from a fine head article to a rotted portal.

It is depressing to see that in this discussion, like so many previous discussions, some contributors evade the simple and obvious primary question: how does being lured to abandoned junk help the reader? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:20, 26 August 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:United Kingdom and Portal:Aviation), without creating duplicate entries. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:25, 26 August 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.