Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Software

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. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:33, 24 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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

Abandoned portal, redundant with Portal:Computer science. Displays outdated information. Guilherme Burn (talk) 18:24, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per the nom. This portal has been abandoned for eight years, except for some one-off updates in 2014. It clearly fails WP:POG's requirement that portals should be about subjects broad enough to attract large numbers of maintainers. This portal has had eight years of no steady maintainers and while it had 86 views per day in June and July 2019 (compared to the head article Software having 2794 views per day in the same period), I'm not sure that's a good thing.

This portal is abandoned junk and has been luring readers to outdated or inaccurate information for eight years unabated, and giving them the impression that Wikipedia is a poor quality encyclopedia best not bothered with. Portals stand or fall on their merits in the now, not what could someday hypothetically happen with them, and this one falls flat on the requirement to have a large number of maintainers. I am strongly against allowing recreation, as eight years of hard evidence shows Software is not a broad enough topic to attract maintainers. Newshunter12 (talk) 21:30, 16 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment – This is a poorly maintained but well-viewed (more than 50 daily pageviews) portal. Any proposal to delete this portal should focus on whether it is doing any actual harm, such as presenting incorrect information to the reader. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:57, 19 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Robert McClenon:Incorrect not, but outdated, in the news section and in Portal:Software/Selected article/12 for example.Guilherme Burn (talk) 19:57, 20 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment – Software is not the same as Computer science. Computer science is an academic discipline that should underpin the development of software. Software projects have failed both because the developers knew too little of computer science, and because the developers knew nothing but academic computer science. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:16, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per nominator and per @Newshunter12, but without prejudice to re-creation by a team of editors actively involved in WikiProject Software.

WP:POG requires that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers". The topic is clearly broad enough to provide enough articles for a portal, and has attracted an encouraging numbers of readers ... but no maintainers.

A portal which is unmaintained does a severe disservice to readers. We should not lure readers away from well-maintained articles to outdated, abandoned portals.

WP:POG guides that "the portal should be associated with a WikiProject (or have editors with sufficient interest) to help ensure a supply of new material for the portal and maintain the portal." So if and when there is a group of editors at WikiProject Software who are committed to maintaining the portal, then it should be re-created. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:45, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Neither of these portals has been adequately maintained.

• Comment – Waiting for discussion of the reason to delete a high-viewing low-maintenance portal.

Robert McClenon (talk) 01:16, 21 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Robert McClenon:You could include Portal:Computer programming in your analysis. I believe there is a redundancy between process and product here. The fact is that other editors don't seem to care about a {{mfd}} in a portal of your project.Guilherme Burn (talk) 00:19, 22 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete, concurring with the analysis by User:BrownHairedGirl, without prejudice to re-creation of a redesigned portal not relying on subpages. Portals should be about broad subject areas that will attract readers and portal maintainers. This is not implemented as a broad subject area, due to too few articles, but could be a broad subject area if the coverage included that of Portal:Computer programming. It does not currently have a maintainer, and it has attracted readers. Maybe software developers can design a better portal architecture that won't have the deficiencies of subpages. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:38, 23 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.