Sam Korn wrote:

I think portals should be the "public face" of WikiProjects. A portal should only exist if there is a formal set of users dedicated to keeping it maintained. If this is not happening, it should be archived or deleted (preferably archived). Pages like [[Portal:Cricket]], while potentially just fan pages, actually provide an excellent method of navigating appropriate content. If they are kept up, they do no harm. If they are not kept up, they look messy and a messy portal seems worse than an incomplete article.

It depends. In a contentious area, they can be a way of subtly or unsubtly pushing a POV, much like bad article series boxes. An example is [[Template:Scientology]] - the current version is for talk pages and marks the article as part of WikiProject Scientology, but if you're an admin then look at the deleted versions - they're article series boxes that push a critical POV. You could set up a portal for each POV, but that's just article forks pushed to a higher level.

When writing up [[WP:SCN]], I strongly suggested we not vary Wikipedia styles and policies at all where at all possible - a project should IMO be invisible except by its fruits. Similarly, I do think the only "portal" it needs is [[Category:Scientology]] - which means building a category tree that presents all relevant viewpoints suitably and accessibly. The Wikipedia content on the subject should be just as good for and accessible to the interested Scientologist (CoS or non-CoS) and the pissed-off critic.

BTW, I see nothing wrong with people going to VFD/AFD and voting "keep" on their topic area. You know, they might KNOW THE AREA or something better than nonspecialist VFD regulars. What a thought, eh?

- d.