User:Robert McClenon/Toy portals
 | This is an essay on the deletion policy. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Well-maintained toy portals are neither good nor bad, and can be ignored. |
Several portals have been nominated for deletion that appear on review to be toy portals. If toy portals are maintained well by their originator, they do not satisfy the portal guidelines, but they do no harm, and we can Use Common Sense and leave them alone.
The portal guidelines say that portals should be about broad subject areas that will attract large numbers of viewers and portal maintainers. Of these three criteria, maintenance is the most critical. Poorly maintained portals, especially of the old architecture using forked subpages, are "considered harmful" and should be deleted, especially if they present incorrect information to the reader. Well-maintained portals in narrow subject areas or with small sets of readers are toy portals, which may be an exercise for the maintainer, and can be ignored except by their maintainer. Toy portals may not serve any public purpose. They may only serve the purpose of being fun for the maintainer and an exercise in Wikipedia skills, and doing no harm. They may do some small amount of side good. Toy portals that are used as WikiProject maintenance tools, likewise, do no harm if they work properly; although it would be better to move them to project space, they can be left in portal space as toys.
Poorly maintained portals may be neglected toys, and neglected toys should be cleaned up. Properly used toys for big boys and big girls can be left alone.