Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Portal:Cricket

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This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was move to Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Cricket until such time that a Portal: namespace is set up. – ABCD 16:19, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

As discussed with ABCD, the above message was added when a Portalspace looked as though it was going to be made imminently. Instead, the page stays at Portal:Cricket until Portalspace is created. See also Wikipedia:Portalspace, jguk 05:31, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Portal:Cricket

Also see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Cricket (portal), which was based on slightly different premises, but deals with the same issue.

This page represents a new idea - a portal for Readers. (We do have WikiPortals, but these are for editors and live in Wikipediaspace - this one is for readers.) A lot of hard work and consideration has gone into it. The aim is to allow readers interested in a particular subject, in this instance cricket, to easily navigate between the various pages - or at least the good, well-developed pages. This is why it has been place under the title Portal:Cricket. It makes it clear that this is a different type of page, neither Wikipediaspace (which is purely administrative) nor a normal article page.

However, some people wish to kill this idea to promote Wikipedia at birth. After the farce at the VfD page for the original Cricket (portal) page, I am therefore rationalising the discussion by opening it with a clean slate here, jguk 18:56, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

  • Keep An attempt to improve Wikipedia for readers - experiments like this should be encouraged to help Wikipedia improve, jguk 18:56, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. Still not an article. A move out of the main namespace would be acceptable, but by no means necessary. Requiring a second parallel vfd is a frankly astonishing show of bad faith, the sort we normally see from anons trying to preserve their vanity forum advertisement. —Korath (Talk) 18:59, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
    • You yourself suggesting opening a parallel VfD. I'm astonished that you now accuse me of bad faith for following your own suggestion, jguk 19:06, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, and still an invalid VFD (should have waited for someone else to nominate it or something). --SPUI (talk) 19:28, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Move to the Wikipedia namespace until there are special namespaces for portals and lists. Delete the redirect. Angela. 07:29, May 2, 2005 (UTC)
    • Does this mean you are also saying that all lists should be moved to Wikipediaspace and no reference should be made to their existence in the articlespace? jguk 08:15, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
      • I'm not saying that, but I would prefer if lists were not counted as articles. I don't see that as a reason to move the existing ones though. Angela. 08:24, May 2, 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. I think it's a great idea. And until the self-references issue is settled, moving it to the Wikipedia namespace will make it off-limits to readers, ruining the whole point of it. If there is no reason to move the existing lists, then I don't see a reason to move the existing portals. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:28, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. Once more with feeling. Am I correct in summarizing the status quo as follows?
    • The main namespace is reserved for articles, with the exception of
      • The unique Main Page;
      • Redirects, which are a technical aid and ideally invisible to readers;
      • Lists, which serve as ways of ordering either
        • Pieces of information that merit no separate articles or are factored out from articles (the appropriateness of which is disputed by some); or
        • (Possibly nonexistent) articles by other means than category and title.
      • Disambiguation pages, which are hybrids of article content and pure navigation.
      (Note that some of this contradicts Wikipedia:Namespace, but that only describes what should be the case.)
    • The Wikipedia namespace is reserved for internal Wikipedia affairs, including all editorial processes like Wikipedia:WikiProjects.
    • The intent of Wikipedia:Avoid self-references is
      • To make information as accessible to reusers as possible by not mentioning Wikipedia in a non-factual way;
      • To prevent displaying what some see as an unprofessional image by mentioning Wikipedia in a non-notable way.
  • The reason this discussion (well, not this one, but this is only the perimeter) has generated so much heat so far is because portals are triggering more than one of these concerns. If you believe the main namespace is good enough for anything useful to readers, then you'll get different results than if you believe it's for articles only, and you'll get different results still if you believe that portals resemble the Main Page, which need not be unique. Likewise, it matters to what extent and for what reason you believe self-references should be avoided, and whether a link to a WikiProject in a portal constitutes a promotion to an "internal Wikipedia affair". A separate namespace might be the best solution simply because we can write new rules for a new namespace. JRM · Talk 09:09, 2005 May 2 (UTC)
I think your summary looks good to me. I'd clarify that one of the reasons this is so contentious is the turf war pushes this portal both ways. This portal is intended not for editors but for readers—say a reader is interested in cricket, this is a way to explore different areas of cricket. I personally think it's a great idea. As a page in the article space, some argue that it should be out of the main namespace and in the Wikipedia space. Fine; {{portal}} on Cricket would be a nice way to let readers of Cricket know about the other articles. However, another group say that this violates no self-references and remove the portal tag. (Note that the basis is for this instance, as I understand it, is making accessible for reusers, not the unprofessional image). Those (like me) who think it's a good idea argue that the portal, now in Wikipedia space, is unreachable from the article space, so readers (the intended audience) have no way to get to it, rendering a good idea useless. I feel that in the two wars going on, a good page is getting pushed out from both sides. A third possibility is that a page like this is not appropriate for readers and readers should not be directed to it, which would of course resolve the problem, but I haven't seen anyone suggest this so far. The fourth possibility is the creation of the portal namespace, which would solve the problem, assuming links from the main namespace to the portal namespace are allowed. If not, there'd be little point. Also, incidentally, I am arguing from the point of the portal just featuring cricket-related articles and such; I believe links to WikiProjects would be unprofessional and inappropriate (the second reason for the "no self-reference") — Knowledge Seeker দ 09:47, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
Keep I wasn't aware that the other portals are supposed to be for editors only. What a waste - no wonder I can't find them. Oliver Chettle 12:01, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
  • New policies and new practices (such as "special-interest portals in article space for readers") should be discussed at the Village pump page, not implemented unilaterally. No vote while admins and editors who use portals resolve whether to implement a portal namespace or find another resolution to the self-reference issue. Barno 15:42, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: If I was interested in cricket, but knew little abotu it, I woudl find a page like this very useful. Perhaps it belongs as an inverse to disambiguation. --Simon Cursitor 20:44, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Move list and Delete the redirect. Megan1967 02:13, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. I think this is a great idea. RSpeer 04:49, May 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • It seems like the only real issue with putting this portal in the main namespace is that it violates "no self references". This really isn't much of a reason:
    • 1) We can trivially style the link to the WikiProject as an external-style link (as is done at Category:Cetaceans). Thus there is no problem for re-users.
    • 2) The original self-reference policy was formulated to avoid things like "Mount Everest is as high as 55 Wikipedias" in Mount Everest. It was never originally applied to things like stub notices.
    • 3) Carrying on from 2). We have thousands of references to Wikipedia in the main namespace. E.g. stubs notices etc... the reason that it is not a problem is that a re-user can easily rewrite the (relatively few) templates to suit their own needs. Often they just use a no-op.
  • Thus KEEP in the main namespace, it is a new, innovative and useful way of presenting information to readers and the problems it raises can be trivially worked around. Pcb21| Pete 13:10, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
    • Thank you, Pete. A voice of sanity. I agree totally with this summary, and vote keep. Smoddy (Rabbit and pork) 16:50, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
  • The problem with having this article in the main namespace is that it's unencyclopedic and, IMHO, has no potential to become encyclopedic. If there were a Portal: namespace, then this would be okay, but there isn't. Move to Wikipedia: namespace and delete the redirect. JYolkowski // talk 22:38, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
    • What does "encyclopedic" mean in this context? We are just trying to open new avenues to our content. The main page is similarly "unencyclopedic" but that doesn't mean its not useful. Pcb21| Pete 07:11, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Technical issues and naming arguments be damned, the *idea* is brilliant, and that is what should be voted on. I could easily forsee a portal for US History or Classical Music or Videogames... or even niche sections like Survivor or Pokemon or Zelda or Star Wars or whatnot if each could be made and upkept in an applicable and useful manner. I don't understand what all the arguing is about, but the *idea*, people, the *idea*... the idea is good. Master Thief Garrett 09:30, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Move to Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Cricket. As for it being reader-oriented and other portals being editor-oriented, I don't see how is it any different from the rest except for being in another namespace. I was the creator of the first Wikiportal at en: and I wanted to make them for both readers and editors. It was never my intention to make only editor-centred portals. And I strongly support a new namespace for portals. Ausir 12:43, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep somewhere (I don't care what the page name is). I'm very impressed. Mark1 02:43, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
Cricket Portal provides more coverage of cricket.
For other uses of the word cricket, see Cricket (disambiguation).

This would better highlight the existence of the Portal under the name of the article. Peter Ellis 00:02, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.