User talk:BrownHairedGirl/Draft RFC on Portal criteria

This page is for discussion by invitation of the User:BrownHairedGirl/Draft RFC on Portal criteria.
If other editors wish to express views on the draft, please comment at User talk:BrownHairedGirl.
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Can we draft a joint proposal

I have labelled this draft as a proposal by me (BHG) ... but an RFC works best if it is drafted by several editors with different perspectives.

So I invite the following editors to work with me to see if this rough first draft could be reworked (or maybe completely rewritten) into something which we could jointly support as a framework which allows fair discussion of all options which seem likely to carry non-trivial support.

Editors who I think broadly support a cull of many portals

• Future Perfect at Sunrise
• Legacypac

Editors broadly supporting retaining lots of portals

• Certes
• Bermicourt

I hope that the labelling above doesn't misrepresent anyone. My aim is simply to choose a few editors who are currently seized of the matter, and who represent a broad spectrum of opinion.

I have tried not to select "cronies". I have had little interaction with @Future Perfect at Sunrise, but I note their involvement with this issue, and their role in designing the very prominent Macedonia Naming RFC. @Legacypac and I have had major disagreements on nearly everything for the last few months, until we found ourselves agreeing on some issues wrt portals.

I know that I could have invited many more editors who are experienced and involved, but a small group seems to me to be more likely to reach decisions effectively and promptly.

My thinking is that if we can each consensus between us on the design of an RFC, then we could either

• Launch the RFC as what we have designed, or
• Take it to broader design discussion, as was done at WT:Naming_conventions_(Macedonia)#Draft_RFC (permalink) in preparation for Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(Macedonia)/2019_RFC

I currently have have no preference on which of those paths to follow.

So .. please Legacypac, Future Perfect at Sunrise, Certes and Bermicourt ... can we collaborate on this? -BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:00, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Maybe a good idea. I'm participating to see where this goes. I've been anticipating a simplier RFC that says "Portals have to meet X criteria" Support or Oppose. The Macadonia RFC does not inspire confidence that a draft by committee of the whole RFC is the way to go. Legacypac (talk) 07:25, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, @Legacypac. We'll see where this goes.

I considered a simpler RFC, but it seems to me that nearly all the possible criteria I have seen discussed have supporters of difft thresholds. E.g there are some supporters of using VA level 4 as the criterion, but I would support level 2; some support for 20 non-stub articles as the threshold, but I would want to see a minimum of at least 100, preferably 500. And so on.

So I think that any attempt to propose a single package of criteria will inevitably turn into a debate about a broader set of options. It will be much easier to evaluate consensus if the RFC is structured from the outset to allow separate discussion on those various elements.

I am surprised by your comment about the Macedonia RFC. It seems to me to be going rater well: most sections are simple !votes on the options, and only the Nationality of people section has significant discussion below the line. That was inevitable in that case, but its notable that the discussions seem overwhelmingly civil. Given the underlying tensions, I count it as a great success that most section are straightforward and thae whole thing is low-drama. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:10, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm happy to help. Having created a number of portals, I'm in favour of them as you'd expect, but I've always felt there should be limits. The galvanisation of the Portal Project has had benefits in cleaning up and making it easier to maintain them, but the recent explosion in the number of portals is IMHO unacceptable. Bermicourt (talk) 09:18, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Many thanks, Bermicourt.

Let's see what Certes and Future Perfect at Sunrise say before we get to work. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:57, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm certainly happy to join in but the RfC as drafted looks good and almost ready to go. If this is to happen, it needs to happen very quickly. CSD X3 may close on 2 April, and there is a risk of this RfC becoming moot 24 hours later, most of the portals it evaluates having been auto-deleted. Danny's RfC, effectively a re-run of last year's debate on removing the namespace, is also relevant: no one can logically support both. Unfortunately, we do not have time to wait for that RfC to close. Certes (talk) 15:03, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Many thanks, @Certes. I look fwd to working with you, and I am glad to hear that my first draft isn't too bad.

I agree that we need to get things moving quickly. I haven't heard back yet from @Future Perfect at Sunrise, who has made only one edit today. Looking at FP's contribs list, I now see that they are making only a few edits per day, so I wonder whether they will be able to do the burst of quick-response work we need to get this rolling before it is overtaken by events. (However, I do think that regardless of whether there are any mass deletions, a consensus on guidance like this is needed for the future, so a belated RFC would still be needed, albeit less critical).

So I propose that we give FP 24 hours from the time of my invite (0600 UTC this morning), and if they haven't confirmed by then that they on board, we proceed with just the 4 of us. @Certes, @Legacypac, @Bermicourt, is that OK with you all? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:58, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

That sounds fine to me. We can always invite others to join later. I'll see if I can put together some relevant statistics on existing portals. Certes (talk) 21:23, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

• I think Future's proposal at WP Portals was the most sensible among the batch. Not perfect but headed in the right direction. Legacypac (talk) 21:21, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

• If the User:SMcCandlish is going to be part of this working group I'm out of here. I have no interest in arging with their inability to be factual or analytical. Their comments should be removed so we can have a focused discussion. Legacypac (talk) 00:59, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
  • @Legacypac, I agree entirely.

I had already told User:SMcCandlish that this discussion is by inivite only, and had explicitly banned him from my talk.

Instead he is edit-warring to reinsert comments here. Next time he does that, it's an ANI matter.

Please, @Certes, @Legacypac, @Bermicourt, just remove from this page any comments by anyone who we have not agreed to include in this group. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:09, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Modus operandi

I suggest that we go about this as follows:

1 — Is BHG's draft a suitable starting-point? Or should we rip it up and start again?

if it is ok as a start, then one step at a time:

2 — Should any of the broad, numbered headings be removed?

3 — Should we add more of those headings?

4 – Do we need to add some sort of meta question(s), some sort of options for a suggested philosophical "purpose-of-portals" type of overriding principle?

5 – Fine-tune the options under each numbered heading

6 — Agree an intro

7 — Decide whether we want to launch this as an RFC, or put the draft out for wider discussion.

@Future Perfect at Sunrise, @Legacypac, @Certes, @Bermicourt: any thoughts on that as a way for us to proceed? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:54, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

How many portals?

• How many good old fashioned portals are there now? My guess is a few dozen. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:19, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

There were somewhere between 1500 and 1700 (I've seen different numbers, the higher number may include redirects) at the time of the ENDPORTALS RfC. TTH just spammed out a newsletter [1] that says:

Previous issue:

Single-page portals: 4,704

Total portals: 5,705

This issue:

Single-page portals: 4,562

Total portals: 5,578

TTH created about 3500 single page plus others created some. I thought based on other data about 1000 other single page ones were created by other users but if the numbers in the newsletter are correct, the 1000 to 1200 includes conversions. Somewhere between 200-700 old style portals have been converted. Many old style portals are unmaintained junk of course. Legacypac (talk) 06:42, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

And IMHO that mass creation is ridiculous and not needed. I've just looked at the portals created this month and my gut feeling, in the absence of criteria, would be to reject all of them e.g.

• Portal:University of Missouri - topic not wide enough
• Portal:History of Poland - should be covered by history section of Portal:Poland
• Portal:BT Group - topic not wide enough. Suggest no portals on commercial companies.
• Portal:The Prisoner - topic not wide enough - I've never even heard of this one and I am British! Suggest no portals on individual TV series
• Portal:Pristina - marginal. It is a large city, but not sure there is enough (other than links to sights etc within the article) to justify this
• Portal:WWE - topic not wide enough. Another company. Should be covered by Portal:Wrestling, doesn't need its own portal
• Portal:Chrisye - are you serious?! An obscure Indonesian singer. Personally I'd be against portals on individuals - too narrow a topic.
• Portal:Skunks - too narrow again.

-- Bermicourt (talk) 14:09, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks , @Bermicourt. Very interesting.

I think that your very interesting translation of the German criteria merits a separate discussion section, so I have split your post to create that new section. Hope that's OK. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:16, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

German model

My sense is that portals should be created for generic or wide-ranging topics, especially where they pull together a wide range of disparate articles that might not otherwise be grouped together. German Wiki uses these criteria which I've broadly translated here:

"Portals should only be created for broader topics where incorporating all relevant links into a main article would be impractical. The broader the topic of a portal, the more potential editors there are to maintain it. Suitable topics for a portal include:

• Continents and countries
• Federal states, counties or cantons within Germany/Austria/Switzerland [Comment: i.e. in their case German-speaking countries, clearly they want to limit this]
• Capital cities of any country
• Cities with at least 200,000 inhabitants within Germany/Austria/Switzerland [Comment: again they are limiting this to their language area of interest]
• Established branches of science (i.e. those offered at many universities as a separate subject)
• Major periods of history (prehistory, early history, antiquity, medieval history, etc.)
• Empires in history (British Empire, Holy Roman Empire)
• International organizations (e.g. EU, UN, NATO)
• Larger art styles or music styles (e.g. Metal: yes, Death Metal: no)
• Recognised sports (e.g. Olympic disciplines or similar. Track athletic - yes; dwarf throwing or tractor pulling -no)
• Large or well-known geographical or cultural regions of a country if a well maintained portal of the country already exists (e.g. Tuscany, if Portal:Italy exists; Normandy, if Portal:France exists, Black Forest and Lüneburg Heath if Portal:Germany exists)"

I'd see those as a good 'starter for ten' and expand cautiously from there. It would be interesting to run @BrownHairedGirl:'s draft criteria past that list to see where they would fall i.e. test it against a real set of data. I also think it's important that portals are manually monitored. IMHO every portal should have a project that agrees to support it. Hope that's helpful. Bermicourt (talk) 14:09, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Many thanks for that translation, @Bermicourt. It seems to me that whatever the shape of the RFC (or even whether it happens), that translation should be available somewhere on a public page ... and that if the RFC goes ahead, it should be one of the pages linked to in a sort of "background reading" section at the top of the RFC. How does that sound? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:35, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea. It gives editors something more tangible to grapple with. Bermicourt (talk) 09:12, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Adapted German Model Introduction

After the WP:ENDPORTALS RFC there was a strong feeling among even portal supporters that comprehensive guidelines should be drafted and approved by the community. Some loose guidelines were created but not followed within WikiProject Portals. Many community members agreed that the number of unmaintained, morbid Portals should be trimmed and a focus put on quality. Beginning August 2018 WikiProject Portals expanded the number of portals from around 1500 to around 5700 (check numbers) using new automated tools. This lead to a community-enacted moratorium on the mass creation of Portals and a three month topic ban on Portal creation for User:The Transhumanist. Several hundred Portals were nominated at WP:MFD with nearly all deleted. A special WP:X3 deletion criteria for portals remains under discussion.

After evaluating the discussions and considering the results of the MfDs, this RFC proposes to bring some stability and predictability to Portal space. It fairly closely follows guidelines developed through consensus on the German Wikipedia, but offers a more liberal scope for portals in several areas than does the German Wikipedia, to reflect the more global scope of English Wikipedia.

Proposed Portal Guidelines

Portals are a supplement to Wikipedia's core offering of articles, not a substitute for them. Like categories and lists, good Portals should help readers navigate related content. Portals should also enhance Wikipedia's coverage of a topic by providing features beyond those available in the associated article or articles.

Portals should only be created for topics that have both sufficient available quality material to warrant featuring, and a scope sufficiently broad and deep that an article cannot do a better job of covering the topic.

Quality and quantity of content

• Incorporating all relevant links into a main article would be impractical; and
• properly labeled, quality, relevant images are available; and
• at least 20 (too low?) articles of at least mid-level quality and mid-level importance are available within the topic to serve as featured content.

Appropriate scope

The broader and deeper the topic of a portal, the greater the number of interested editors available to maintain it, and the more utility it will have for readers. Acceptable scope portals are:

• Continents and modern countries.
• States and provinces in federations which have a significant history and distinctiveness apart from the country as a whole. (German states – yes; Indonesian provinces – no) or large or well-known geographical or cultural regions of a country if a well-maintained portal for the country already exists.
• Capital cities of any country where the country's population exceeds 1 million. Note: Smaller country capitals are best presented in the context of the country. Smaller cities are best covered within the state or province.
• Cities or metropolitan regions with at least 1 million residents.
• Established branches of academic study (i.e. those offered at many universities as a separate department).
• Major periods of history (prehistory, early history, antiquity, medieval history, etc.).
• Empires in history (British Empire, Holy Roman Empire).
• Significant international organizations (e.g. EU, UN, NATO)
• Reasonably broad styles, genres, and movements in art, music, and so on (e.g. Metal – yes, Death Metal – no)
• Recognized sports (e.g. Olympic disciplines or similar; Track and field and ice hockey – yes, 100 meter dash or minor hockey – no)
• Portals should not have substantial overlap, for example both City of Foo and Foo Metro area, not both a state and its culture.
• Individual bands, authors, companies, types of animals/plants/foods/etc. and similar topics are almost always best presented in a single article or a small cluster of articles and are not appropriate portal topics.

Maintenance

• Portals attract far fewer maintainers than articles. Therefore portals should be managed by a related active subject matter Wikiproject that has agreed the Portal is a good idea. This is to avoid creating unmaintained portals – it cannot be assumed that any one editor will maintain a portal indefinitely.
• Portals may use automated features to simplify construction and maintenance, but must be hand curated and monitored for errors.

Curation

Portals can not be drafted outside userspace so reasonable time is allowed to build a portal, but abandoned efforts may be considered for deletion. Portals that do not substantially comply with the scope or quality requirements of this guideline are subject to deletion at MfD or (speedy deletion P1 or P2 for the most obvious cases).

Discussion

I've finished drafting this, subject to comments. I propose a group of editors present this as an RFC. Voting options would be Support, Oppose as too restrictive, Oppose as too permissive. Comments welcome. Ping User:EEng with a request for a solid copy edit and comments. Legacypac (talk) 07:39, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Section 6 Preapproval

The idea of preapproval may have wide acceptance but the suggested location may be too obscure and low traffic. I can't figure out exactly what happens there. I can't think of a better location. Wikiproject Portals has proven incapable of applying any breaks. Legacypac (talk) 07:02, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

@Legacypac Oops! I meant to cite the stub process as example of a pre-approval process, not the actual location. Now fixed.[2]

Please remember that what we are trying to do here is to identify proposals worth presenting to the community, not to reach conclusions on whether any of us supports the proposal.

So do you think that this idea is worth including as an option? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:13, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

I don't know if it is worth including yet. I'd like to see what others think. It may have merit but likely requires a new process which is hard to explain. Normally putting the process within a Wikiproject (think AfC) makes sense but not in this case. Legacypac (talk) 07:22, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

@Legacypac The difficulties of finding a suitable location, and the low traffic at the stub pre-approval page are good counter-arguments to that proposal. I gave up on stub pre-approval years ago, because the process had ground to a halt, and I suspect that it may be effectively obsolete.

However, my inclination is to throw it out there, even if we drafters all reckon it's a bad idea and will vote oppose. It's an idea which is bound to arise at some point, and it seems to me to be better to have it scrutinised than to have recur at a later date. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:04, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

I can see the logic to giving the option even if we think it will be rejected. However approval by a subject specific wikiproject seems more supportable. Absent a better method of approval option, does that not cover it? Legacypac (talk) 01:07, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

We should try to give options that are not designed to fail, but have enough meat on them they will attract support regardless of how we feel about them. Since we don't have a whole notability scheme for portals, some way to ensure more than one person thinks the portal is worth having would be a good thing. Legacypac (talk) 04:40, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Another draft, by DannyS712

@DannyS712 kindly posted on my talk to tell me about User:DannyS712/rfc4, which also covered portals. My discussion with Danny is at User_talk:BrownHairedGirl#Portals_RfC (permalink).

Danny proposes a very different approach to what I suggest. His draft is directed at proposing a particular outcome, which to me seems contrary to the neutral-question principle set out at WP:RFCST and WP:RFCBRIEF.

Also, I think it is best to start by setting the criteria for what portals should exist ... then when and if there is a consensus around those, consider the next step of how to cleanup or remove those portals which don't meet the criteria. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:07, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Wikiproject Portals has failed to establish a criteria. This exchange at AN is enlightening:

The Portals Wikiproject members can't even come up with a proper new guideline for what topics get a portal even when faced with a village pump imposed moratorium. The discussion is all over the place with no focus. Heck they did not even follow their old guideline about picking subjects broud enough to gain reader and editor interest. The only thing they appear to agree on is MORE MORE MORE and using WP:VITAL as a to do list. Their newsletter said they are pushing to 10,000 portals (off a base of 1500 old line portals). Now the number of portals will shrink until and unless they get new guidelines passed by an RFC. Legacypac (talk) 09:57, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

That old guideline wasn't generally followed, ever. That's because portals (except those on the main page) get about 1 to 3 percent of the amount of traffic that their corresponding root articles get. In other words, "not a lot". That's because almost all their traffic comes via WP internal links. Almost nobody googles "Portal". So, for the vast majority of topics, large numbers of readers and editors will never be forthcoming, and never were. Out of the 1500 portals, about 100 had maintainers (maintained by around 60 editors), and maybe 20% of them regularly edited the portals they maintained. The WikiProject, and the community, need feedback in the form of hard numbers, in order to get a sense of what will even get used. How hard would it be to make a chart listing all the portals in one column, and their page views for the past month in the second column, and then sort the chart by the second column? That might provide some insight. — The Transhumanist 11:05, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Emphasis mine. Legacypac (talk) 07:12, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Also the draft RfC brainstorming at Danny's userspace never got very far as other approaches were used instead. Legacypac (talk) 07:16, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for that background, @Legacypac

But we may be getting ahead of ourselves. Please could you reply in the top section of this page whether you think it's a good idea for 5 of us to work together on drafting an RFC along the lines I suggested? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:18, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

1. Delete all Portals

We need to specifically exclude from deletion Portal:Current Events (move to Wikipedia space) and Wikipedia:Community Portal (already in Wikipedia space). These were the most valued last round. We should term it "depreciate the portal namespace". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Legacypac (talk • contribs) 00:20, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Suggest new 2. Unlink Portals

Insert a new point 2 roughly like: "Portals are supposed to be a gateway to articles while articles are not designed to be a gateway to portals. Remove all links leading from article space to portal space." Support Oppose

Seperation might be a lot more palatable compromise between "delete all" and "built 10,000 portals". If somewhat separated like Wikitravel or Wikibooks most Wikipedia editors will no longer worry about the Portal space and the people who are true believers in the utility of portals can build an empire of them undisturbed. Legacypac (talk) 01:13, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

@Legacypac, that's an interesting point ... but I think that the question of what pages should link to portals is a separate one to the focus I had intended for this RFC, which is "What criteria should apply to whether a portal should exist for a given topic?"?

I think that if we try to make this RFC address every issue wrt portals, it would become huge and unwieldy.

So please can we leave this aside for another time and place? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:24, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

It is a brainstorm idea that takes a middle road between delete and expand. Legacypac (talk) 23:05, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Portal deletion during RfC

How does this RfC interact with the ongoing process of portal deletion? It seems likely that many of the pages that the RfC will be discussing will be deleted mid-debate, especially if the CSD X3 proposal passes. This may make points made and opinions expressed at the start of the discussion inappropriate at its end. Whilst it is normal for a few pages to come and go during any discussion, we could potentially lose 2⁄3 of the content we are evaluating. How should the RfC handle this development? Certes (talk) 11:49, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Messy. Culling the mindless mass creations is needed. Then we need some criteria to judge the remaining portals against as well as any new ones. I suspect the vast majority of the new creations woukd fail any criteria the community agreed to. Compare the MFDs to date against the German critieria for example - the deleted pages pretty much would not be allowed in German. Legacypac (talk) 15:49, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes, messy. I am wondering whether the new portals are really causing so much immediate damage to Wikipedia that they must be deleted whilst the community is in the process of deciding which of them were worth keeping. Certes (talk) 16:12, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

That ship has already sailed. I felt GoldenRing's extending of debate was foolhardy as it just drug out and amplified the hostility of the debate with near zero chance of a different outcome. There are three issues: Quality, Scope and behavior. Even of TTH managed to create a portal which has an appropriate Scope, the Quality of his mass produced fully automated pages is very low. Since they contain no original content and can be recreated or restored in seconds there is nothing to WP:PRESERVE Legacypac (talk) 16:24, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

This may be a good reason to hold off launching an RFC until X3 passes. Legacypac (talk) 16:43, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

@Legacypac: Thank you for the frank response.

@BrownHairedGirl: Thank you for inviting me. I appreciate your efforts to help the community here, and I hope that we can work well together in the future. However, I regret that I have nothing further to contribute to this particular exercise. I'm not walking out in protest, nor refusing to interact with any particular editor. I simply feel that working out which portals to delete should happen before deleting those portals, rather than after. You already have a good RfC here and don't need my help. I genuinely wish you all the best with it, and I'm optimistic that it can reach a broad consensus. Certes (talk) 17:12, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

@Certes: I'm sorry to hear that. I was looking fwd to working with you.

Thanks for your kind words about my first draft, but I am sure that it has room for improvement. More head are better than one, and all that, and you do have a lot of experience in this area.

I respect that you hold a v difft view to @Legacypac about deleting the recent mass-creations, and I'm not trying to dissuade you of that view. You have both clearly made up your minds, and both have well-reasoned grounds.

However, it seems that me that whatever happens with the mass creations, and whatever anyone thinks of what should happen, there will still be an ongoing need for a broad community consensus on what sort of portals should exist. That will be needed regardless of whether one group of editors feel that too many portals with potential have been removed in a mass cull, or whether another group feels that leaving the community to scrutinise of a huge set of rapid creations will be too much of burden.

So I had very much hoped that we could all agree to differ on that, and collaborate on helping the community build that future framework. So, please may I ask you to reconsider? I don't want to pester you, so I will ask only once here (and leave a pointer on your talk). But whatever you decide, your input will remain welcome here so long as this little process continues.

Either way, thanks again. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:59, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

My comments in this section are a lot less what I think should happen but rather my honest read on the community process right now. I hope that is the way they came across. Legacypac (talk) 23:04, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Comments on Draft RFC

Hi, I'm not sure if this is helpful, but here are my initial thoughts on the draft RFC by BrownHairedGirl (talk · contribs):

• Extreme Options. I'd be strongly against either. I think portals have a worthwhile function to perform where they fulfil certain criteria e.g. where there are broad topic areas. But I think allowing the unrestrained creation of portals, especially on narrow topics, doesn't add value but does create an additional overhead.

• Vital Article criterion. I think this should be a factor as long as it's not a go/no go decider, especially as the current list seems skewed towards certain categories.

• Minimum article criterion. I think this should definitely be a factor. I'd like to test the different levels to see roughly where that would leave us against e.g. against the Adapted German Model above.

• Pageview criterion. My concern with this one is that the overall level of views is low for portals, so I don't know how relevant it is as a comparator. However, I also think there are several reasons for the low number of views that may be fixable. For example, portals don't appear when searching. If there's no tech fix for that, it could be resolved by creating a redirect thus: Geography Portal or History (portal).

• WikiProject criterion. I think this is a must; otherwise the portal is effectively an orphan. If someone's maintaining it they should be part of a project anyway.

• Pre-Approval criterion. Again, a must if we are to keep control of portals, satisfy those who are portal sceptics, and have a degree of consistency. Otherwise anyone can create a portal for their pet hobby/idol/pop star as we have seen. The process doesn't need to be onerous and will be helped if there are other clear creation criteria.

Hope that helps. Bermicourt (talk) 19:13, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Many thanks for that analysis, Bermicourt.

However, I am not clear whether your comments describe

1. the stance which you would take on those ideas at a full, or
2. your view on whether they are suitable for inclusion in the RFC

Sorry if I have missed something obvious, but please can you clarify? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:11, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not very familiar with Wiki process. I thought we were going to reach a compromise and put forward a recommended way ahead. So they are my views on how we might manage, approve and limit portals in future. But if I understand you, what you're actually wanting to do is pose a series of questions to the whole community about how we should do this. In which case my main points are:

• The first question needs a further option something like: "1c Keep portals but control number and quality Portals are retained, subject to meeting certain criteria such as those which follow."
• If editors vote for 1c, then they should go on to say which criteria should apply and to what extent. That's sort of what I did briefly above.
• If editors vote for 1a or 1b, the remaining criteria are irrelevant.
• Remove "only" from the criteria. As I found above, I like several of them and wouldn't want to have to choose one over the others. Other editors may feel the same. Using the second one as an example it could read something like this:

"2. Allow portals on topics selected as Vital Articles

Use WP:Vital articles assessments as a basis for the suitability of a portal.

Options

1. Use Vital Articles as sole criterion for portals (in which case Level 4 is invalid as there are only around 900 vital articles)
2. Use Vital Articles as a factor influencing the decision on whether to approve a portal
3. Do not use Vital Articles as a Portal criterion

If you agree with 1 or 2 above, what limit would you want to set on the number of portals:

1. Level 1 only (10 topics)
2. Up to Level 2 (100 topics)
3. Up to Level 3 (~1,000 topics)
4. Up to Level 4 (~10,000 topics)
5. I would prefer the limit to be set by other criteria and not a specific number."

Hope that helps. Bermicourt (talk) 09:09, 19 March 2019 (UTC)