WP:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:UK waterways

:{{pagelinks|Portal:UK waterways}} – (View MfD)

Here is another outdated portal about a narrow subject area that receives low page views and has not been regularly maintained.

• As evidenced by the overall available content on English Wikipedia about the topic, which can be discerned at :Category:Waterways in the United Kingdom, this is not a broad subject area.
• In the first half of 2019, the portal has received a [https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&start=2019-01-01&end=2019-06-30&pages=Portal:UK_waterways daily average of 5 page views], which for portals, is an inferior amount.
• Maintenance and updating is lacking:

:* Portal:UK waterways/Selected article: 11 total articles. The most recent article addition occurred in 2009 ([https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:UK_waterways/Selected_article/11&oldid=312146599 example link])

:* Portal:UK waterways/Did you know/List: an extensive list, but the last additions occurred in 2008 ([https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:UK_waterways/Did_you_know/List&oldid=257083473 link])

:* Portal:UK waterways/Selected picture: 11 total images. The most recent additions occurred in 2009 ([https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:UK_waterways/Selected_picture/10&oldid=305338146 link], [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:UK_waterways/Selected_picture/9&oldid=300282120 link])

As such, I opine for its deletion. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 02:08, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

• Delete - The best way to provide an introduction to the topic of this portal would be to write the head article on United Kingdom waterways. The portal doesn't always have only 5 average daily pageviews. In the third quarter of 2019, it had an average of [https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&start=2019-07-01&end=2019-09-30&pages=Portal:UK_waterways| 7], because of a spike of viewing at the end of July, which is not enough better to make a difference.
• The intended Portal Guidelines were never approved by a consensus of the Wikipedia community, and we have never had real portal guidelines. We should therefore use common sense, which is discussed in Wikipedia in the essay section Use Common Sense and in the article common sense. The portal guidelines were an effort to codify common sense about portals, and we should still use common sense. It is still a matter of common sense that portals should be about broad subject areas that will attract large numbers of viewers and will attract portal maintainers. (There never was an actual guideline referring to broad subject areas, and the abstract argument that a topic is a broad subject area is both a handwave and meaningless.) Common sense imposes at least a three-part test for portals to satisfy common sense: (1) a broad subject area, demonstrated a posteriori by a breadth of selected articles (not only by an a priori claim that a topic is broad) (the number of articles in appropriate categories is an indication of potential breadth of coverage, but actual breadth of coverage should be required); (2) a large number of viewers, preferably at least 100 a day, but any portal with fewer than 25 a day can be considered to have failed; (3) portal maintenance, (a) with at least two maintainers to provide backup, with a maintenance plan indicating how the portal will be maintained (b) the absence of any errors indicating lack of maintenance (including failure to list dates of death in biographies). Some indication of how any selected articles were selected (e.g., Featured Article or Good Article status, selection by categories, etc.) is also desirable. Any portal that does not pass these common-sense tests is not useful as a navigation tool, for showcasing, or otherwise.
• I intend to review portal deletion nominations by advocates of portals in the same way as I review portal deletion nominations by critics of portals.
• As noted by the nominator, the portal has 11 articles, which were forked in 2008 and 2009. The last content maintenance was in 2013. The last maintenance was changing the case in 2018.
• Very few readers, very little maintenance. If there were maintenance, that would be a diversion from writing the article. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:41, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
• Delete. Yet another woefully-neglected portal on a narrow topic, unwanted by readers. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:46, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
• Comment I enjoy the portals. WP:ILIKEIT. Unfortunately I have watched quite a few come across as MfDs. Wm335td (talk) 21:28, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
• Delete Yet another portal with abysmally low page views, about a very narrow topic, abandoned for a decade, and has no maintainers. Newshunter12 (talk) 05:57, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
• 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 a bot (BHGbot 4) which allows me to easily replace them with links to the next most specific portal(s), without creating duplicate entries.

:In this case I think that appropriate new links would be to Portal:United Kingdom + Portal:Transport. Alternative suggestions welcome.

:I considered adding Portal:Nautical, but a/ the term is mostly applied to salt water navigation, and b/ Portal:Nautical is in truly abysmal shape and looks likely to be deleted at WP:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Nautical. But if other editors want me to add it, I will do so. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:26, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

::I have struck my mention of Portal:Nautical, because it has been deleted. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:37, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. No articles to fill it, no readers reading it, no editors maintaining it. I'd suggest backlinks going to Portal:UK is sufficient. – Levivich 20:18, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
• {{yo|Levivich}} why not P:Transport as well? I am sure you have a good reason for excluding Transport, but I don't see what it is ... so I hope you can explain. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:03, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
• {{yo|BrownHairedGirl|label=BHG}} I confess I do not have a good reason. The reason is: because I think P:Transport should be deleted. {{p}} Of course, that's no grounds to oppose updating backlinks to that portal, but at the same time, I can't honestly say I'm in favor of linking articles to P:Transport. Not until/unless that portal has sufficient content and maintainers. – Levivich 04:15, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
• {{Yo|Levivich}} I agree that P:Transport should be deleted, for similar reasons to those which you expressed at its MFD. But I also think that this is not the place for that decision, so my view is to make the links without prejudice to the outcome of that discussion. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:26, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

: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.