Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes

There have been many AfD debates over the years. This page summarizes how various types of articles have often been dealt with on AfD.

For an archive of this page, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Precedents/Archive.

This page is not policy. This page is for quick, easy-to-follow tips. Detailed rules, guidelines, and suggestions should go on the various notability policy pages instead.

Cities and shops

See Wikipedia:Places of local interest for a guideline and related template, {{local}}

• Attractions and landmarks are potentially notable; however, touristic information should be listed on WikiTravel
• Bars, pubs, cafes and hotels should be listed on WikiTravel, unless multiple sources have written about them in detail
• Cities and villages are notable, regardless of size
• Larger neighborhoods are notable, but its name must have verifiable widespread usage
• Smaller suburbs should generally be listed under the primary city article, except when they consist of legally separate municipalities or communes (e.g. having their own Mayor)
• While the notability of large malls is in dispute, strip malls and individual shops are not generally notable

Companies

• Blatant advertising pages are subject to deletion; however please consider whether the descriptions of products are just advertising or pertinent to explaining the function of the organization. Please consider whether the article includes past & present products, as the inclusion of both might indicate a legitimate purpose.
• Products that have been planned but not created yet, are not generally notable. However, exceptions include "future-tech" items, e.g., fusion reactors, and prominent products in development such as the next Microsoft operating system.
• Companies reported as significant subjects of news coverage are usually sufficiently notable.
• Local retailers and service merchants (franchises or individually owned) are frequently not notable, with exceptions.

Note: There are some informative concerns expressed at the Discussion Page which may help you in evaluating the notability of Companies.

Education

• Schools are frequently nominated for deletion, but consensus is frequently not reached. Most of the approximately 270 school articles nominated for deletion in the eight months January to August 2005, resulted in no consensus, with fewer than 15% actually deleted.
• School teachers, clubs, classrooms or lessons are not notable.
• Classes are not notable (but they are usually about a notable subject, e.g., psychology).
• Professors (in the American sense of the word) are not notable unless they have made significant contributions to their field of interest (see WP:PROF).
• Students are generally not notable (see WP:BIO).

Entertainment

• Celebrities are notable
• See Wikipedia:Notability (people).
• Family members of celebrities should generally be merged with the articles about celebrities themselves, unless:
  • The family member meets notability requirements themselves, eg. Ashlee Simpson and Jessica Simpson; not Britney Spears' Mom
  • Such a subsection in the main article becomes large and unwieldy, then a separate article may be called for
• Licensed radio and TV stations are notable if they broadcast over the air and originate at least a portion of their programming schedule in their own studios. Lower power radio stations limited to a small neighborhood, such as Part 15 operations in the United States or stations with a VF# callsign in Canada, are not inherently notable, although they may be kept if some real notability can be demonstrated. Stations that only rebroadcast the signal of another station should be redirected to their programming source (e.g. CICO-TV is a redirect to TVOntario.)
• Internet radio stations are notable if they can demonstrate a clear and verifiable cultural notability or influence. CBC Radio Three and WOXY, for instance, are clearly notable, but your own personal Peercast stream with three listeners is not.
• Satellite radio channels on XM, Sirius or WorldSpace are notable, but if they merely relay an existing conventional broadcast service such as Fox News or Deutsche Welle, then the satellite service should be written as part the existing service's article rather than as a separate article.

Internet

• Communities, message boards and blogs are generally not notable
• Flash animations are generally not notable, unless they are extremely well-known
• Programming languages are notable if somewhat widely used; Google is a reasonable test
• Webcomics are not to be judged purely on the length that they have run. See WP:WEB for other suggested notability criteria.
• Notability of internet phenomena is widely disputed.

Literature

• Published authors are notable if they have received multiple independent reviews of or awards for their work, or if their work is likely to be very widely read.
• Books are notable if well-known, and should be listed under the author if not
• Characters from books should be compiled to lists per book, unless a large amount of information is written on a character. See WP:FICT.
• Locations in books follow the same guidelines as characters, see above
• Fanfic is not generally notable
• Literary texts themselves belong in WikiSource if copying them there does not violate copyright
• Poems belong to WikiSource if copying them there does not violate copyright

Music

• See also: WP:MUSIC
• Bands and musicians are notable if they have have been written about non-trivially by multiple sources
• Albums can be notable in and of themselves, but please provide the name of the band, and more info than a mere tracklist; alternatively, list them on the band article
• Band members should generally be listed under the band, rather than in a separate article
• Lyrics belong in WikiSource, but tend to be copyright violations
• Songs are not generally notable, and should be listed under album or artist as appropriate. Songs which have been chart hits do, however, tend to survive AFD, although not without dissent.
• Shows and tours of bands should be listed in the band article, not in a separate article

People

See Wikipedia:Notability (people) for the full notability guidelines for people.

• Athletes: Wrestlers in tiny wrestling leagues are not notable.
• Spelling bee winners: Winners of well known national spelling bees (like Scripps or CanSpell) are notable. The typical winner of a local spelling bee is not.
• Municipal politicians: Mayors of towns and cities have generally survived AFD, although the article should say more than just "Jane Doe is the mayor of Cityville." City councillors are not automatically notable, although precedent has favoured keeping councillors of major, internationally famous metropolitan cities such as Toronto, Chicago, San Francisco or London, as well as councillors who (a) represent a historic first, such as the first woman, first person of colour or first LGBT person elected to a council, or (b) have received national or international press coverage, such as by acting as a spokesperson for a political issue or by breaking the law; having been covered only in local media does not generally satisfy the "significant press coverage" criterion for notability. Candidates for municipal election are not notable; these should only have articles if they already meet other criteria for inclusion.
• Candidates for a national legislature are not viewed as having inherent notability. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Antonia Bance (second nomination). However, such candidates are permitted inclusion in a merged list of candidate biographies, such as New Democratic Party candidates, 2004 Canadian federal election.
• Business persons: Presidents, Chief Executive Officers, and Chairmen of the Board of companies listed in the Fortune 500 (US) or the FTSE 100 Index (UK) have been found to be sufficiently notable.

Transportation and geography

• Major geographical features such as lakes, rivers, mountains, etc., are notable
• In the US, state and interstate highways (aka: freeways, turnpikes, expressways and motorways) are notable
• Highway exits should be listed in an article on a highway, not as a separate article
• City streets are contested, but minor streets are not generally notable
• Subway and railway stations are allowed, but notability is currently under discussion.
• Bus stops are not notable

Tips on dealing with other material

• A copyright violation, or copyvio, should be blanked and tagged with {{copyvio}}, and the instructions on it followed.
• Dictionary articles
  • If the article can be refactored into a viable encyclopedia article, do so and add a {{stub}} tag.
  • If not, it belongs in Wiktionary; add a {{copy to wiktionary}} tag.
• Foreign language texts need translation; add a {{notenglish}} tag.
  • However, try a foreign Google search, or a Babel Fish translation, to see if the article is meritable; if not, mark it for deletion.
• Guidebooks and how-to texts belong in Wikibooks; add a {{copy to wikibooks}} tag.
• Recipes belong in Wikibooks; add a {{copy to wikibooks}} tag.
• Neologisms are notable if they have been documented as neologisms in depth.
• Quotes belong in wikiquote
• Lists of words (e.g. Latin words in the English language) belong in wiktionary
• Gibberish - tag with {{nonsense}}.
• Test pages (e.g. "Hello, does this edit thingy work?") should be deleted, add a {{db-test}} tag.
• Inherently POV articles (e.g. "Best songs ever") should be deleted.
  • Sometimes, a variant page with an objective criterion (e.g. "Songs that have been #1 hits") can be created.
• Attack pages (e.g. "John Doe is a moron!")
  • Often these were good articles that were vandalized; check the 'history' tab
  • If not, they can be speedily deleted; add a {{db-attack}} tag.

See also

• Alternative outlets to recreate deleted articles
• Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions
• Deletion debates
• Deletion guidelines for administrators
• Deletion policy
• Deletion process
• Deletion review
• Deletion review guide
• Guide to deletion
• Introduction to deletion process
• Undeletion policy