Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Information technology (2nd nomination)

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. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:31, 28 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Information technology (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Big broad topic, but an abandoned static portal. There is no list of topics, and neither rotation of content nor a slideshow.

Created[1] by Ausir (talk · contribs) in February 2005‎, 6 months before the portal namespace went live.

Special:PrefixIndex/Portal:Information technology shows a small set of sub-pages:

• Portal:Information technology/Selected article. Same topic (Ethernet) since 2013[2]
• Portal:Information technology/Featured articles, last updated in 2007
• Portal:Information technology/Categories, a static list built in 2005 and occasionally updated to reflect renaming, but way out of date, and badly organised
• Portal:Information technology/Did you know, whose current version lists 5 items, all from 2005/2006. 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 this 13-year-old list loses the newness, so its only effect is as a trivia section, contrary to WP:TRIVIA.
  • Rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated, which appeared on DYK in March 2005
  • Space.com, which appeared on DYK in January 2006
  • Go.com, which appeared on DYK in January 2006
  • Apple Network Server, which appeared on DYK in December 2005
  • First Internet Backgammon Server, which appeared on DYK in November 2005

WP:POG#How_often_to_update? says that unless automated, the content selection should be updated monthly, or preferably weekly. Even on a monthly cycle, this pseudo-portal has missed over 160 updates in all.

WP:POG requires that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers". This one has got the readers: in Jan–Feb 2019 it got only 160 pageviews per day, which is only 5.2% of the 3,048 daily views of the head article Information technology. Even so, those 160 daily pageviews for the portal ranks it at number 23 of 1157 in the list of daily pageviews day for all portals.

So insofar as readers want portals (which is basically not much) there is more demand for a portal on this topic than most other topics ... but this 14-year-old abandoned portal is just a waste of readers' time.

Per WP:PORTAL, "Portals serve as enhanced 'Main Pages' for specific broad subjects". But this is doesn't even enhance the surprisingly poor head article Information technology. Anyone wanting to assist readers in this area would do best to start by improving the head article and building a decent navbox. Maybe someone will do that, and then go on to build a portal which actually adds value, but any such effort would do much better to start afresh using newer techniques, rather than building on the foundations of this relic.

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) 17:37, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note that this portal was discussed in 2008 at WP:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Information technology, where the nominator noted thatit's never updated and has no active maintainers. Repeated requests for signs of life go unanswered.

The result of that discussion was "keep" ... but 11 years later, the same problems remain. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:43, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - I was considered Weak Delete or Neutral based on the pageview metrics of 160 pageviews per day, which is very good for a portal. Then I saw the DYKs, which are like dinosaur sightings. (The technical humor is that large old computers occupying whole rooms are referred to as dinosaurs.) We can delete it, or we can perform an incantation to get Godot to come from Tashkent to maintain the portal. But a dinosaur might eat his camel. Delete. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:52, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete In principle this topic has potential as a portal but my checking shows no substantive edits since 2014 or possibly earlier. It is unmaintainable and effort would be better directed to improving the articles. Johnuniq (talk) 10:06, 22 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - Abandoned draft of a portal, 10 subpages, created 2005-02-06 10:29:39 by User:Ausir. Never went alive. Nothing to keep. Portal:Information technology. Pldx1 (talk) 13:10, 26 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.