The result of the discussion was: delete. — JJMC89 (T·C) 03:42, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
Portal maintainer User:Ndunruh asked me to take over this portal in 2011. I updated the news section monthly, but it was clear then that portals were not going to be attracting readers or maintainers. Accordingly this portal has otherwise not been updated much since it was created in 2009. Mark Schierbecker (talk) 04:08, 25 June 2019 (UTC)
One common method for the design of portals, in use at least since 2005, has involved sometimes large numbers of subpages of the portal, one for each selected article and picture, and sometimes for news items and Do You Know (DYK) items. Often the subpages for selected articles consist of a copy of the original article, or a copy of the first part of the original article. The subpages for In The News (ITN) and DYK items may also be copies of the lead paragraph or a portion of the article page. This approach to design of portals is sufficiently commonly used that it can be considered standard. However, it is an honorable experiment that has failed, and should be abandoned. In numerous cases, it has been found that portals have displayed outdated and incorrect information to the reader. These discrepancies have been especially common with, but not limited to, political leadership. These discrepancies are a serious problem because they cannot be readily corrected. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, meaning that any reasonably computer-literate person can edit an article; but editing the displayed information in a portal requires specialized technical knowledge of how portals are implemented, which is presumably why errors persist, sometimes for years. An editor who has Twinkle installed can tag articles in need of editing if they do not have the time or knowledge to fix them; but tagging via Twinkle is not available for portals. Experience has shown that the use of portal subpages that copy portions of articles results in outdated information being displayed, sometimes for years, because it is difficult to correct. This design technique, partial article copies, has been an honorable experiment over the course of more than a decade, but the experiment should be assessed to have been a failure. It has also been noted that copying portions of articles to portal subpages without attribution is a violation of the CC-BY-SA copyleft and is not permitted. Some other design approach for portals should be used in the future. Robert McClenon (talk) 08:26, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Title | Portal Page Views | Article Page Views | Ratio | Percent | Comments | Articles | Notes | Type |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
United States Army | 50 | 4430 | 88.60 | 1.13% | Portal appears to have been last maintained in 2016. Originator last edited in 2014. | 13 | Military | |
Military of the United States | 46 | 3246 | 70.57 | 1.42% | Originator last edited in 2014. Appears to have been last maintained in 2010. Many articles, and calendar of dates, but not currently maintained. | 82 | Military | |
United States Coast Guard | 18 | 2642 | 146.78 | 0.68% | Originator edits sporadically. Five biographies and one article. No articles added since 2011. | 6 | Military | |
United States Navy | 43 | 4234 | 98.47 | 1.02% | Originator inactive since 2014. No maintenance to equipment and biographies since 2010. | 26 | Military | |
United States Merchant Marine | 7 | 832 | 118.86 | 0.84% | Originator sporadic from 2012 to 2018, now inactive. No maintenance since 2008. | 30 | Military | |
United States Air Force | 60 | 3909 | 65.15 | 1.53% | Originator inactive since 2011. This portal has many subpages, but they do not appear to have been maintained since 2010. | 100 | Military | |
United States Marine Corps | 39 | 4573 | 117.26 | 0.85% | Many subarticles. Sporadic maintenance through June 2019. | 100 | Military |