Purge the Portals!

[CrowsNest]

By a large majority, at Village Pump - Proposals, the Wikipediots are after deleting/depreciating the Portals. Excuses given are that they don't see the point of them, they aren't maintained, and they don't see the point of them.

This is a good sign Wikipedia is failing. Because it is inconceivable that a Wikipedian cannot see the value of pages like this to their project......

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Jane_Austen

They are a perfect mix of rich content and information about how it is built and maintained by the Wikipedians. If you were looking for something which both engages readers and draws them into editing, it is this.

What is likely motivating most supporters of this ridiculously self-defeating idea, is their general sense of panic as they face reality. Interest in Wikipedia is down across the board, except from vandals, spammers and activists. Thus, they want every last experienced editor manning the barricades protecting the articles, not wasting their time on stupid crap like Portals.

Sweet!

HTD.

[sashi]

This caught my attention in that Village Pump discussion :

List of Portals which were created by myself or very much improved by myself:

Christianity
Latter Day Saints
Book of Mormon
LDS Church
Community of Christ
Geert Wilders
Right-wing populism
Republican Party
Donald Trump

source

H/T OID.

[Kumioko]

To be honest, I agree that most if not all of the portals should be deleted. They are nothing more than a timesink and were never used in a useful manner. No reader is ever going to go to one unless by accident, so deleting them makes way for time to be better used on other things. BTW, I personally think that is also true of 96% of the WikiProjects. At this point they are nothing but a waste of time.

[CrowsNest]

Everything on Wikipedia is a waste of time, they are massively understaffed across the board. It's laughable to think that if the Portals disappeared tomorrow, one of their huge maintenance backlogs or one of their crappy areas of coverage is going to magically be fixed. This argument doesn't even make sense - if they're not being paid attention to, then they are not distracting anyone's attention. Duh......

As for readers not being able to find them, whose fault is that? Did you ever see a Wikipediot have the bright idea of actually advertising these things as the ideal entry point? The perfect place to give readers good content and make them aware of who built it and how they can get involved? And did the WMF ever even use them in their promotional activities?

This whole lack of appreciation of what they already have, sums up the rank stupidity of the Wikipediots. They're simply too dumb to be left in charge of it. Never in a million years would you see a professional outfit just decide one day to dump something like this, as if it was nothing.

It's ironic that they used to say Outlines were a waste of time and were redundant to Portals/Projects. As far as I know, they still are, and are still just the little understood pet projects of a couple of obsessives. Is there any evidence readers find Outlines useful, or find them at all? But now, here we are, and the dumb fuckers are now arguing Outlines/Projects are the reason Portals aren't needed. Even though they are completely different things (as their proponents said the first time around when people compared them to Portals).

[The End]

It will not be easy. We'll have to enter each portal, fight past Dremora guards, and steal the Sigil Stones.

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Oblivion_Gates

Then, Jimbo Wales emerges from a Great Gate and it all gets messy from there.

[Kumioko]

Oh yes there will be much dramaz!

[CrowsNest]

I'm also reminded of the recent fuss involving Beeblebrox and airline destination lists. If the purpose of this debate is to essentially delete all Portals, should they not have all been tagged with a notice to this discussion? That way any readers who are actually making use of them, might be afforded the chance to have their say.

Drama potential is indeed probably quite high here, there is definitely the right amount of stupidity, arrogance, vested interest, informed opposition and general confusion, to virtually guarantee it.

This will certainly be my favourite debate for the week. Some of these people, if not the vast majority, quite clearly do not even know what a Portal is. Tip: not an Outline. Not even close. You might as well be comparing a dog to a cat, and even then you'd be more accurate, given they are both quadrupeds. The sheer illogic of the arguments, it makes you wonder how these people even manage to balance with just their two legged frames.

It's already getting nasty. Check out this prick.....

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... (proposals)&diff=prev&oldid=835622555

Voted an admin by a landslide in 2015. Result!

[CrowsNest]

And if you don't take my word for it, these are the words of Wikipedia's Mr Outline himself, Transhumanist.....

Note that portals themselves are not similar to outlines, they are modeled after the Main page.

He should probably be quite worried, since as soon as the Portals are purged, the next thing that will look to these people as if it is a useless pile of unmaintained junk that readers don't find and editors don't need, is of course, Outlines! Then even Categories maybe.

[ericbarbour]

I will give you that SOME of those portals have legitimate uses. But most tend to be fanboy jack-off sessions that never end--they are just forgotten.

Wikiprojects are even WORSE. Bet you didn't know there's a "Council", that appears to do nothing but be a bureaucratic shitfest. They have semi-coherent blathering "ROOLZ" and all kinds of pointless overhead. They THINK there are 833 "active" projects. Unfortunately if the shits bothered to look at any of them, they would discover than 90% or more are basically dead and drifting hulks.....

Their talkpage is a catch-all squabble, just like most other "offishul" noticeboards. They claim at the top there are 2,600 Wikiprojects, but admit they don't know how many are active or who is participating--or even which is the most popular (it's still Military History if you go by noticeboard traffic).

And there you are, clear proof that Wikipedia generates useless bureaucracy. And refuses to deal with it openly.

(What is this shit?? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... s_in_media)

[sashi]

A couple of Broter's quote-portals (1, 2)

and his barnstar-winning outline of Joseph Smith (a 2016 Transhumanist Award).

What is this shit??? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... s_in_media

aw... WikiProject Bambi

a marketing index (?)