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Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Geometry

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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: delete. ♠PMC(talk) 22:07, 9 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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

Abandoned mini-portal on the rich topic of geometry. Redundant to the head article geometry and its sidebar Template:General geometry, and to the many other navboxes in Category:Geometry navigational boxes.

Created[1] in November 2006‎ by Flarn2006 (talk · contribs). The lead of WP:POG has said since late 2006 "Do not create a portal if you do not intend to assist in its regular maintenance", but that has not happened here. Flarn2006's last edit to any part of this portal was in November 2006.[2], and most of the sub-pages of this portal were created by Tompw (talk · contribs) in 2008.[3]

The list of sub-pages at Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Geometry shows 7 Selected articles, one selected biography and two selected pictures. All are basically unchanged since 2008, which probbaly doesn't raise any out-of-date issues (the basics of geometry don't change much), but it leave a small set of topics.

As is often the case with portals, Portal:Geometry/Did you know shows the same topics as in 2008[4] and appears unconnected to WP:DYK. Per WP:DYK, "The DYK section showcases new or expanded articles that are selected through an informal review process. It is not a general trivia section" ... but even if it was originally DYK-derved, this 11-year-old list loses the newness, so its only effect is as a trivia section, contrary to WP:TRIVIA.

Per WP:PORTAL, "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects". But this is massively less useful in every respect than the head article geometry and its sidebar Template:General geometry, and to the many other navboxes in Category:Geometry navigational boxes.

Two newish features of the Wikimedia software means that the article and navboxes offers all the functionality which portals like this set out to offer. Both features are available only to ordinary readers who are not logged in, but you can test them without logging out by right-clicking on a link, and the select "open in private window" (in Firefox) or "open in incognito window" (Chrome).

  1. mouseover: on any link, mouseover shows you the picture and the start of the lead. So the preview-selected page-function of portals is redundant: something almost as good is available automatically on any navbox or other set of links. Try it by right-clicking on this link to Template:General geometry, open in a private/incognito tab, and mouseover any link.
  2. automatic imagery galleries: clicking on an image brings up an image gallery of all the images on that page. It's full-screen, so it's actually much better than a click-for-next image gallery on a portal. Try it by right-clicking on this link to the article Geometry, open in a private/incognito tab, and click on any image to start the slideshow

Similar features have been available since 2015 to users of Wikipedia's Android app.

The result is that this portal is redundant. It displays previews of only two at a time of only 8 articles, whereas the built-in features show previews of a much wider range of articles. WP:POG guides that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers". But this one has not been maintained, and it has not attracted readers. in Jan–Feb 2019 it got only 21 pageviews per day, whichis a little above the abysmal median for all portals of only 14 pageviews, but is trivial when compared with the 1,391 views/day for the head article geometry.

Maybe someday someone will build and maintain a portal which actually adds value for readers. But if so, they will do better to start afresh, with a new model which avoids redundancy.

So I propose that this portal and its sub-pages be deleted per WP:TNT, without prejudice to recreating a curated portal in accordance with whatever criteria the community may have agreed at that time. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:54, 2 June 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.