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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: keep. There is a clear consensus that this portal should be kept at this time. bd2412 T 04:59, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Canada[edit]

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

Portal created in 2005, average age of its edits is 2010. Basically abandoned since. 2124 edits by 202 users, but already in 2012 it was noted that "looks like a mess" and it has not since improved.

Extensive content, which however has decayed beyond possible repair. Selected biographies were content-forked in 2007 and abandoned since: Leslie Nielsen has died in 2010 but the corresponding entry was not updated.

This seems a good case for WP:TNT: it's easier to recreate it in the future with some single-page or semi-automated method fetching from the extensive selection of Category:FA-Class Canada-related articles etc., rather than to attempt fixing hundreds of subpages. Alternatively, interested editors could do it now and the subpages could be transformed in redirects to their parent page. Nemo 20:24, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Great portal with some minor errors...would be an easy fix for anyone with a keyboard ( Nielsen entry fixed). '-Moxy 🍁 21:21, 4 October 2019 (UTC) ....ALL FIXED see section below.--Moxy 🍁 17:50, 6 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as per the points below, relative to the failed WP:POG non-guideline page:
  • The page receives adequate views, with a Daily average of 124 page views in the last 30 days.
  • The overal topic of Canada is clearly a broad subject area
  • Contrary to the nomination, the page has not been "basically abandoned since". For example, a new Selected cuisine section was added on 9 June 2019 (diff).
  • Rather than deleting in entirety, it is better and congruent with WP:ATD, part of the Wikipedia Deletion policy page, to update the portal using transclusions of article titles from the subpages to present up-to-date information, directly on the portal's main page.
  • Tagging the portal with the {{Update}} template and providing the reasons in the nomination for how the portal can be improved on the portal's talk page is superior to a TNT deletion, which equates to throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
  • I disagree with the notion that the portal "looks like a mess", and no qualification at all was provided in the 2012 comment that stated this. North America1000 02:13, 5 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. as per comments above by @Northamerica1000:. Sm8900 (talk) 14:39, 8 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - The advocates of portals have repeatedly argued for tagging of portals in need of repairs, in spite of repeated evidence that tagging of portals has no effect and does not work.
  • The following table shows the pageview counts for Jun19-Jul19 and article counts for Portal:Canada and all Canadian provincial portals, showing that nearly all of the provincial portals have already been deleted. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:09, 5 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Canadian Portals[edit]
Title Portal Page Views Article Page Views Comments Baseline Percent Articles Notes Parent Portal Type Deleted
Canada 64 18958 Jun19-Jul19 0.34% 69 95 DYK items. North America Country FALSE
Ontario 19 3569 Originated 2005. Originator inactive since 2013. Four articles and three biographies, no updates since 2014. Jun19-Jul19 0.53% 7 Canada State FALSE
Alberta 17 2344 Originator edits sporadically. Jun19-Jul19 0.73% Canada State TRUE
Quebec 17 3561 Originator inactive since 2016. Jun19-Jul19 0.48% 11 Canada State TRUE
British Columbia 15 3222 Originator inactive since 2009. Little maintenance since 2007. No maintenance since 2017. Jun19-Jul19 0.47% 7 Canada State TRUE
Nova Scotia 14 2630 Originator inactive since 2009. Last maintenance 2012. Jun19-Jul19 0.53% 13 Canada State TRUE
Manitoba 11 1792 Originator inactive since 2007. No maintenance since 2010. Jun19-Jul19 0.61% 11 Canada State TRUE
Newfoundland and Labrador 11 1893 Jun19-Jul19 0.58% 11 Canada State TRUE
Nunavut 11 1952 No maintenance since 2010. Jun19-Jul19 0.56% 6 Canada State TRUE
Saskatchewan 11 1946 Originator edits sporadically. Jun19-Jul19 0.57% 29 Has multi-level sub-portal structure that has not been fully assessed. Canada State TRUE
New Brunswick 10 1704 Only seven articles. Last maintenance was 2018. Jun19-Jul19 0.59% 7 Canada State TRUE
Yukon 10 1467 Only 6 articles, some tweaked since 2010, some not tweaked. Jun19-Jul19 0.68% 6 Canada State TRUE
Northwest Territory 9 1157 Originator inactive since 2011. Very little maintenance since 2010. Jun19-Jul19 0.78% 10 Canada State TRUE
Prince Edward Island 9 1768 Last maintenance 2010. 3 articles, 3 biographies. Jun19-Jul19 0.51% 6 Canada State TRUE
Canada[edit]
  • Weak Keep unless I see a good case for deletion. I am probably one of the more outspoken critics of portals, but I haven't seen the case against this portal, except that its design relies on content-forked subpages, which is an unsound design. However, the case for deletion should be made by the nominator, or at least by another proponent of the deletion, and it hasn't been made. I see that in 2012 an editor said that the portal looks like a mess, and was reasonably told to explain what they meant, and the subject was dropped. I last looked at this portal in August when the case was being made for deletion of provincial portals, most of which have been deleted. I saw that this portal has 64 daily pageviews, which is better than most portals, as opposed to 18598 for the head article, but the head article is about a great country. The portal has 69 article subpages (or did when I looked). I haven't done an analysis of how often they are updated. I assume that they are not updated, because portal subpages seldom are, but that is a case that should be made by the nominator. I see a mention that the average age of the edits is 2010. (I assume that means 2010 CE and not 2010 days ago, but that would be 2013 CE, which is similar.) If that is computed using a tool, I would appreciate a link to the tool, either here or on my user talk page. I see that one subpage has content rot. I had considered a Keep until I saw that. I don't see a "great portal". I think that the argument for tagging the portal is nonsense, because experience has shown that the tagging of portals renders them nearly invisible due to a Someone Else's Problem field. But the nominator hasn't made a case. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:17, 5 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per North America's findings. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 23:57, 5 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per WP:TNT. Theoretically this is a broad, topic, but in practice nobody as been bothered to maintain the forest of abandoned subpages. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:09, 6 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
 Fixed....much harder to start from scratch in a situation like this.--Moxy 🍁 18:40, 6 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Moxy: I specifically said nobody as been bothered to maintain it. I was not referring to one-off fixes to issues identified by an MFD nominator. Maintenance is an ongoing, pro-active process; what Moxy has done is to make an emergency repair, which is a whole different ballgame to maintenance, and which does nothing to solve the long-term problem. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:58, 7 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
You have no clue what my or anyones intent is and it causes great distress too many editors that this is your approach. Pls give ANY suggestion on what more needs to be done. What we are looking for is any positive contribution you think can be done over chastising editors in their attempts at resolving problems.--Moxy 🍁 01:47, 7 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Moxy: it's entirely true that I have no clue what [your] or anyone's intent is. That's the core of the problem: the portal has rotted for years, and even now that it is at MFD, nobody has committed to its ongoing maintenance.
If any editors want to start spelling out what sort of ongoing commitment they are willing to make, then we can assess that commitment, and see whether it's plausible and sufficient.
But if some editors choose to experience great distress that others point out the complete lack of even a hint of a maintenance plan, that's their own choice. They can either produce a maintenance plan, or leave the community to decide whether the portal is viable without one. If that chice causes them great distress, then they should examine their WP:OWNership issues.
As you know, Moxy, you created several dozen portals which were unmaintained, and just rotted for years. As a result, most of them were deleted, some of them after you were wise enough to nominate your own creations at MFD, which was a helpful and constructive thing to do. Now you want to keep this one, but so far you haven't given anyone any reason to believe that it won't just continue to rot like all the others. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:23, 7 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Pls apply common sense.....I did not nominate this portal for deletion like the others....instead I and another took on the job of updating the format and have clearly shown interest in it. I nor anyone else have any obligation to give you any assurance on what we plan to do in the future as we have no clue what our circumstances will be tomorrow or next year. If you see a problem with it down the line nominated for deletion or better yet make a correction yourself or bring it to someone's attention who knows what to do. This philosophy you have of blocking progress because of unknown future neglect and your approach of deletion over fixing is very problematic to the many editors here as its the opposite of WP:HANDLE. Try to be productive in your discussions ( suggestions on improvements)....don't block progress for what you think might happen in the future. We don't have or need Wiki-police.--Moxy 🍁 18:41, 7 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Moxy, I have been pleading with portal fans for months to apply some common sense, but with little success.
This portal has been severely neglected for years. Common sense is that unless something changes radically, it will remain severely neglected in the future.
Sure, neither you anyone else have any obligation to give any assurances on what you plan to do in the future; see WP:NOTCOMPULSORY. But unless some editors give some such credible assurances or can point to a pattern of active maintenance, then the only reasonable assumption is that this portal will continue to rot.
Portals are nor articles, and they are not content. If a portal is deleted, precisely zero content is lost. Portals are a navigational tool plus showcase, and an abandoned portal doesn't fill those functions; on the contrary, as we have seen here, it actively misleads.
I entirely agree that we don't have or need Wiki-police. What we do have is community discussions to make decisions, and right here the community id discussing whether this portal is likely to be maintained to a level where it adds value for readers.
Your response that I should look for errors and fix them myself or bring them to someone's attention completely misses the point. I have no intention whatsoever of turning myself into a single-handed monitor of portal errors; it's far too much work for one person to do. Portals are viable only if maintained by multiple editors who pro-actively look check for problems. That takes a lot of work, and if the work isn't being done, then the portal isn't viable. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:14, 7 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:North America), without creating duplicate entries. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:11, 6 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Even a lot of the editors wanting to mass delete portals don't support getting rid of high-level ones, namely those for countries. No opinion on the different states of Canada, but such a big country should have its own portal - very useful for navigation if nothing else. And as it's geographic, it doesn't need to be super maintained/kept current to function, either. Kingsif (talk) 16:36, 6 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Portal redone[edit]
Keep - As per above the portal has been redone to basically one page tracluding pages of FA and GA articles from Portal:Canada/Indices in selected bios and selected articles. Portal:Canada/Did You Know is the only needed sub page now for content. (sub page cleanup now in progress slowly waiting on deletors)...just need to change {{portal}} to {{Portal-inline}} all over for mobile viewers to increase views. --Moxy 🍁 17:50, 6 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral - The portal advocates are starting very slowly to make the deletion case that the nominator hasn't made. User:Knowledgekid87 said to Keep based on the findings of User:Northamerica1000. I don't see anything said by NA1k that I could consider to be a "finding". It was the lack of findings that made me originally say Weak Keep. Metrics, counts, and observations are findings; I see no observations by NA1k, only statements. Now I see User:Moxy saying "Fixed" and "Portal Redone", but also saying "sub page cleanup now in progress slowly". The portal isn't fixed until the subpages are cleaned up. The one subpage that was reported to have a rot error may have been fixed, but the way that the portal advocates and would-be maintainers are scurrying around talking big while admitting that the job isn't finished gives me no confidence that they will ever finish the job. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:20, 6 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
What's the fastest way to delete subpage? PS all we care about is the end users result...un-used pages can be cleanup at any rate and definitely not a reason to deleted but to help out just a bit. This name calling is getting old and leads to zero credibility on the part of the authors. What more do you want from the volunteers here ???.... good faith edits being dismissed again.... simply deplorable. Looks lIke sub page cleanup well on its way... thank you to the volunteers with deletion powers!--Moxy 🍁 22:55, 6 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Same with Portal:Canada/Selected symbol and it's subpages. Anyother concerns.... should we transclude FA images?--Moxy 🍁 00:21, 7 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – More FA-class articles that were not present on the (now deleted) portal's Selected biography subpage have since been added to the portal's Selected biography section (diff). North America1000 00:25, 7 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you @Northamerica1000: great to see some help.--Moxy 🍁 02:11, 7 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I see that the usual crew of fire-hose carriers are engaging in their customary flurry of WP:ARS-style activity to try to stave off deletion until another day. This is all completely unpersuasive; there is zero reason to believe that this is start of any long-term commitment to maintenance. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:02, 7 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
And your pov on others and there intent is relevant to whom. Just more aspirations flying around that we have asked you many times to stop.-Moxy 🍁 01:32, 7 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
No aspersions, Moxy, just recurrent real problems which are very relevant to others deciding whether to keep the portal. I have asked you and others many times to distinguish between a driveby lick of paint and long-term maintenance, and your reply confirms that my concerns are well-founded. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:23, 7 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Comment again does not help in anyway.....what do you want from us editors? Want me to tell you I will look at the page every Wednesday and email you an update? Most of us work and will do what we can when we can.--Moxy 🍁 03:58, 7 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Moxy, you clearly still don't understand my point, so let me try to spell it out in more detail.
Any portal needs to be maintained on a continual basis. This one has not been maintained on a continual basis, and I see no reason to believe that in future it will be maintained on a continual basis.
WP:NOTCOMPULSORY, so nobody is obliged to do anything to the portal, or to any other page.
However, the community does need to assess whether the maintenance effort is enough to sustain the portal. And in this case, the evidence of the last decade is that it is nowhere near enough.
The problem is that you and NA1K choose to hear a different question. When I ask "is this portal being well-maintained", you hear "Am I doing all I can?" ... which isn't the issue.
You may be doing superhuman work, and making huge sacrifices to achieve it ... but that's not what the community needs to assess. It needs to assess results, not inputs.
The fact is that en.wp portals are constructed in a very complex may which resembles a Rube Goldberg machine. That means that
  1. a lot of work is needed to maintain them
  2. few editors understand the structures well enough to maintain them
  3. few editors are sufficiently interested in portals to want to put the time into a) learning their structure, and b) using that skill to maintain them
The result is that v few editors maintain portals. So most of them rot, as this one has. That's why TTH began his automation spree: he could see that manually-maintained portals usually don't work, because there are not enough manual-maintainers. However, his automation method produced portals which added no value, so the community rejected it, and we are back to the high-maintenance manual portals.
If we had say a dozen enthusiastic editors working collaboratively on the portal, then obviously it would be maintained, and it wouldn't rot. But we don't have that.
It's not Moxy's fault or NA1K's fault that this portal lacks that dozen maintainers. But it is their fault that instead of accepting the consequences of that reality, they yet again ask the community to keep a portal which lacks the human resources to sustain it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:07, 7 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It's clear to anyone here that there is people that care about it....thus way it was revamped. Best move on do something productive.--Moxy 🍁 14:16, 7 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It's clear to anyone here that the editors who claim to care about the portal haven't cared enough to stop it rotting for years, or to do any significant work until it was finally brought to MFD. It is also clear to anyone here that those same editors are giving nobody any reason to believe that the rot win't resume as soon as the MFD closes.
Best for those editors to stop defending a portal which nobody wants to maintain, and to move onto something productive rather than parading their WP:OWNership issues. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:18, 7 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Again and again and again and again.....just pointless unhelpful crap talk.--Moxy 🍁 15:16, 8 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Moxy: that comment contains absolutely nothing other than a personal attack. Please strike it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:02, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – The portal has been further expanded with the addition of more FA-class articles (diff) and more GA-class articles (diff, diff, diff, diff). North America1000 04:59, 8 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per BrownHairedGirl. The page views are 64 per day, which is not particularly high, and are a mere 0.34% that of the article Canada, which serves our readers much better. It has been shown repeatedly that last-minute improvements to stave off deletion usually don't turn into long-term interest in maintenance. Other nation portals have been deleted, so that in itself does not mean the topic is "broad" in the sense that it is a viable portal. If deleted, subpages should not be saved; and I support replacement of links rather than redirection, as proposed by BrownHairedGirl, to avoid surprising our readers. -Crossroads- (talk) 20:37, 8 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
There is zero data that newly revamp portals are not being maintained (bad faith guess work at its worst).--Moxy 🍁 21:57, 8 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
There is zero data that newly vamped portals are being maintained. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:34, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
100 and 10% right.....no data either way as the retooling has just started when the community runaround started months ago.--Moxy 🍁 03:12, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
This is more of the next-time-we'll-do-it-right argument, but it has no basis in fact.
Portals have been around for over 14 years. For the last ten years of that, most of them rotted, often abysmally. The "Featured portals" was essentially a fake, because its reviews consisted almost entirely of cheering; no checklist was applied, and no assessment was made of the choice of topics.
When the community decided not to delete all portals en masse, the portals project responded by unleashing a tsunami of portalspam. When the community called a halt to that, the portals project howled in rage at the deletion of the spam.
When editors who weren't part of the portals project began analysing and MFDing the older portals, the portals project howled in rage again, furious that junk they hadn't even assessed was being removed.
Now it's six months since the spam was deleted. In that time, the portals project hasn't even a drafted proposal for what direction portals should take. But we're asked to believe here that some "retooling" is in the pipeline. Retooling with what goals? Where has this been discussed? Where is the RFC on the direction being taken by these proposed new tools?
This is all just deflection from the fact of neglect. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:18, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Its very clear to all why portal guidelines have not moved forward....walls of text like above that help in no way with the topic at hand .--Moxy 🍁 11:43, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Moxy:, my 210 words above is not in any sense a "wall of text"
In any case, here we have Moxy complaining about lack of progress on portal guidelines, in a discussion where Moxy is passionately opposed to deleting opposed POrtal:Canada.
Yet only two weeks ago, we had Moxy insisting that "Pls note I am for deletion of all portals.
Moxy's contributions to this MFD might have some trace of value if Moxy could make up their mind what on earth they actually want. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:37, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yup walls of text that do zero to help. Should have quoted what I said in the RFC namespace decrepitation deprecation for the 3rd time in 3 years (move content portals to main namespace) Do not support deletion at the deletion board by a few editor's (have been vocal about this fact but to no avail). Also would be best if the portal project - if any left after this talk - is not dominated by those in favor of deletion as this has proven detrimental to any moment forward on anything related to portal improvements, guideline improvements. etc..--Moxy 🍁 16:01, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, Moxy. Just wow.
Moxy's idea of "how to help" consists of a) pure personal abuse, calling reasoned response crap talk, b) denouncing as wall of text anything which doesn't conform to Moxy's discursive habit of hostile one-lines, and now c) demanding that those who disagree with Moxy and his dwindling set of portal fans should get lost so that discussions can continue to be dominated by Moxy and the same crew of portal fans whose chronic mismanagement of portalspace for a decade has led it to the mess which the community has spent 8 months cleaning up.
WP:CONSENSUS is a core policy of Wikipedia. Consensus is not achieved by Moxy's desire to throw personal insults at, and demand the silencing of, editors who disagree with your dogged determination to learn nothing from the last decade of failure when portals were managed your way.
The creation of a vast walled garden of Rube Goldberg machine failed portals happened only because most editors who saw the folly just walked away rather stay to argue with the fan club, just as the same portal fans' cheering of TTH's spamfest drove out those who saw the folly of the spam. That isn't going to happen again; the never-mind-the-quality-feel-the-width crew of portal need to drop their decade-old groupthink about portals and learn critical thinking. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:11, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the example......very productive.--Moxy 🍁 02:26, 11 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Moxy: Here are three portals that were kept at MfD in the past partially on the grounds that maintenance had suddenly appeared, and it was claimed it would continue, and yet they were neglected again and found themselves nominated a second time: [1][2][3] -Crossroads- (talk) 03:44, 9 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Extremely weak delete: Pageviews are well above average, but are still low in comparison to the parent article, among other problems already pointed out by the "delete" !voters. ToThAc (talk) 13:37, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Week keep: I'm not sure if portals in general are that great an idea in practice. Anyway, on this portal: Not sure how much editing activity is onecessary to satisfy nay-sayers. If anyone wants to pass on or point me to a list of tasks or regular upkeep schedule, I'd be willing to contribute. I work on a fair number of Canada-based articles. Alaney2k (talk) 15:38, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, personally not a fan of Portals in general, however Canada does at least seem like an appropriate topic for a Portal. There are a good amount of Featured or Good articles (albeit added after this MfD) to keep the Portal populated with decent content. BLAIXX 01:41, 11 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Blaixx: a decent quantity of available high-quality is content is a necessary condition for the existence of a portal. But it is not a sufficient condition, and this portal fails one of the other necessary conditions: active maintenance. It has had from the usual WP:ARS-style flurry of activity to to try prevent deletion, but there is no maintenance plan, and no set of editors committed to maintaining it. If the MFD is closed as "keep", the portal will simply revert to the process of decay which led to this MFD happening in the first place. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:01, 11 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per BHG, with thanks that she's gone out of her way to clear out unmaintained stuff. —Joeyconnick (talk) 05:49, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as per revamp by multiple editors.--2605:8D80:561:E5CD:A052:E8AD:7455:A659 (talk) 14:26, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, clearly a suitable topic, no longer abandoned. BHG's objections about "decay" and "maintenance plans" above are irrelevant: we do not have maintenance plans for BLPs either, we simply allow them to become out of date (it happens constantly) and hope somebody comes and fixes them (which always happens eventually). The idea of asking for designated maintainers is antithetical to the wiki principle, where when you notice something needs updating, you go and update it, or at least ask someone else to update it. —Kusma (t·c) 21:07, 12 October 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.


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