Wiki How:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Heavy metal

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. — JJMC89 (T·C) 03:45, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Portal:Heavy metal (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Abandoned portal. Redundant with Portal:Music and Portal:Rock music. Strong bias of only one band. Guilherme Burn (talk) 16:05, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Has had time to mature, which hasn't happened. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 17:24, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - I took a course in Advanced Inorganic Chemistry in my senior year of college, and it was mostly about heavy metals. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:41, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - About ten years ago I tested a computer system that kept track of hazards including safety hazards and industrial hazards affecting the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces. Some of those hazards involved heavy metals. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:50, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Yet another abandoned mini-portal. WP:POG requires that portals should be about "broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers". But in practice, this portal has not attracted maintainers, so it fails the test. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:45, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep The topic is broad enough. --Cambalachero (talk) 20:18, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Reply A theoretical argument could be made that this sub-genre of rock music is a broad topic. I disagree with that theoretical argument, but we don't need to rely on theory because we have empirical evidence that in practice, this portal does not pass that test: it has not attracted maintainers, and it has not attracted readers. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:30, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• That's not a valid argument. See Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions#Nobody's working on it (or impatience with improvement). I also noted that the cited line is required by WP:POG, but when I check the link I find that "This page's designation as a policy or guideline is disputed or under discussion". Cambalachero (talk) 00:05, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• That quote is from WP:ATA, which is an essay. It is not policy or a guideline. And the essay is all about articles. This is not an article; it is a portal, which is a device to assist navigation and/or to showcase articles. Like other non-content pagetypes such as categories and templates, the deletion criteria for articles don't apply here.

And the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Portal/Guidelines#Pageviews shows overwhelming support for keeping this part of the guideline. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:50, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

But User:BrownHairedGirl, that essay is such a useful device for waving one's hands with in portal deletion discussions .... Robert McClenon (talk) 19:53, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - If the topic is broad enough, how come no one is working on it? Philosophers make a distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge, between knowledge that is available in advance and knowledge that must be based on observation. The advocates of portals frequently say that a particular topic is a broad subject area, and so the subject should have a portal. It is possible to decide a priori that particular types of subject areas, such as countries, or big cities, are broad subject areas. However, that is an incomplete quotation of the portal guidelines, and, because of its incompleteness, is misleading. The portal guidelines say that "portals should be about broad subject areas, which are likely to attract large numbers of interested readers and portal maintainers." It is not possible to decide a priori that a subject area will attract readers and portal maintainers. That must be observed, and assessed a posteriori. We have seen a posteriori that there is no portal maintainer.

The page has 19 daily pageviews, as opposed to 2472 daily pageviews for the article Heavy metal music.

The guideline in question has been in effect since 2005, and has recently been tagged as "disputed or under discussion" by portal advocates because they don't like having it used against their portals, which they call weaponization of the guideline. That is, they want to move the goal net. They liked the abstract concept of a "broad subject area" until the idea of assessing breadth a posteriori was proposed. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:35, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Are you seriously asking then to enforce a guideline that you know is under dispute? Cambalachero (talk) 12:19, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Portal/Guidelines#Pageviews shows overwhelming support for keeping this part of the guideline. Are you seriously objecting to upholding a part of guideline which has overwhelming support? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:52, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support from less than 10 people is not "overwhelming", specially when we consider that the supporters of the wording were pinged but those who opposed it were not. Cambalachero (talk) 16:17, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I pinged those who had participated in recent deletion discussions, regardless of their views.

The principle of that portals need to attract decent pageviews has been part of the guidelines for many years, and it has been upheld at hundreds of recent MFDs. The fact that one editor chose to challenge the guideline and got only a small minority of support for that view does not invalidate the guideline. If and when there is an RFC consensus to overturn the guideline in whole or in part, then we can think again ... but until then, it stands.

Anyway, enough of the wikilawyering. Back to substance.

@Cambalachero, how on earth do you think that it helps our readers to lure them to a portal which was abandoned a decade ago as a draft? All it has is a tiny set of massively-outdated content forks, and that's a waste of readers's time. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:51, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Either the guideline is still in effect although it is disputed, or it is suspended due to the dispute, or it has some intermediate status. If it is still in effect until the dispute is resolved, then breadth of subject area should be tested by whether it is attracting readers and portal maintainers. If the guideline is suspended due to the dispute, then the statement that the area is broad enough is also irrelevant. If it has some intermediate status, then we should clarify what that status is rather than using that as a handwave to dispose of this MFD.

Portal advocates were fine with the concept of “broad subject area” as a handwave, until portal critics began using the techniques of computer scientists and analytic philosophers with regard to the guideline. Then the portal advocates slapped the “disputed” tag on the guideline to use that instead as their handwave. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:56, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete. Per nom. Largely abandoned and out-of-date cut-and-paste of the Heavy Metal main article+navboxes. The main article is in good shape and its navboxes are comprehensive in helping to navigate the topic. Can't see any additional benefit the Portal brings, and by the lack of engagement since the Portal's creation, other users feel the same way. Britishfinance (talk) 19:28, 26 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - In October, 2007 it has been identified as one of the best portals on Wikipedia. Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Heavy metalGuilherme Burn (talk) 12:23, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Questions - How many portals did we have in October 2007? How many of them have lasted until now? We know that the numbers are non-trivial. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:38, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - You are the nominator for deletion, so that does not appear to be being offered as an argument to Keep. (I agree. That was twelve years ago.) Robert McClenon (talk) 20:38, 27 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Just like Portal:Country music, the topic is broad and should be maintained. While it seems that articles on heavy metal artists are across the board better-maintained than country music articles (I still feel like I'm the only one who gives enough of a damn about country music to fill in as many article gaps as possible), it's clear that no interested parties exist for this portal. It's not being maintained, so just nuke it. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 03:02, 28 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.