Wikipedia:Deletion policy

Wikipedia administrators have the ability to permanently delete pages within the system. Administrators necessarily must use their best judgment in making this decision.

Admin deletion removes not just the present content of a page (which is something that anyone can do--but also something that anyone can restore) but also the page's history. Deleted pages can be restored by administrators, but if deletions are made too casually, it is easy to lose track. Hence, the decision to permanently delete an article is not to be taken lightly.

Procedure for deletion

Pages (and images) to be deleted should be listed on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion for a week before deletion takes place. That way, other Wikipedians can have a chance to argue for and against the removal of the page. There are a few, limited, exceptions to this rule:

1. No meaningful content or history (eg "sdhgdf").
2. Test pages (eg "Can I really create a page here?").
3. Pure vandalism (see dealing with vandalism).
4. Pages created and edited solely by a banned user, after they were banned. (see bans and blocks).
5. resposting previously deleted content, where the page was not listed on wikipedia:votes for undeletion.

Copyright infringement is not an exception to the seven day rule: see below.

"Listed for deletion" notice

When you list a page on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion that you think will be listed for the entire 7 days -- i.e., a page that won't be deleted immediately -- please place the following notice above the page's content:

''This page has been listed on [[Wikipedia:Votes for deletion]]. Please see that page for justifications and discussion.''

Hopefully, this notice will prevent new users from becoming confused as to why their page was removed. Please note that this text should not be used in the case of a possible copyright violation. In that case, please use the "Copyright infringement notice" text from Wikipedia:Boilerplate text.

Don't list on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion

• page titles of stubs that at least have a decent definition and might in the future become articles. There's no reason to delete those -- see Wikipedia:Find or fix a stub
• pages that need editing -- see Wikipedia:Pages needing attention
• pages that can easily and sensibly be redirected to another page. E.g., a page called presidant (a misspelling) can be redirected to president; etc. Even misspellings can be caught by search engines and provide Wikipedia perfectly relevant traffic!
• pages in the wrong namespace (for example, user pages in the main namespace), can be redirected and should not be deleted if there are still old links to them.
• subpages in your own user space, use Wikipedia:Personal subpages to be deleted

Guidelines

Here are some guidelines that those tasked with permanently deleting pages can generally be expected to follow in making the decision to delete or not:

1. As a general rule, don't delete pages you nominate for deletion. Let someone else do it.
2. Simply deleting a page does not automatically delete its talk page or any subpages. Please delete these pages first, and then the main page. Also, if you delete a page, remove it from this list as well.
3. If another solution has been found for some of these pages than deletion, leave them listed on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion for a short while, so the original poster can see why it wasn't deleted, and what did happen to it. This will prevent reposting of the same item.
4. Use common sense and respect the judgment and feelings of Wikipedia participants.
5. When in doubt, don't delete.
6. Do not delete pages that contain original source texts (such as a public domain short story or a play). Simply remove the text and provide a stub for it and an external link to the text. In many cases an external link in a related article will do and all primary text pages can simply be redirected there.
7. Do not delete anything that might be a common misspelling of a title. Redirect those pages to the correct spelling. (This can actually result in higher traffic to the website. E.g., if philisophy is created, we might as well just redirect it to philosophy, since "philisophy" is one of the common misspellings of "philosophy.")
8. Do not delete a page containing a personal essay or other content from the main article namespace without first posting a copy elsewhere (e.g., in a different namespace or on the meta), unless the content is simply vandalism. We reject the notion that Wikipedia must become a repository for all manner of nonsense that happens to be posted. To be clear, however, a good faith attempt to write an encyclopedia article, no matter how poorly worded, biased, or otherwise flawed, will not be considered vandalism.
9. Generally speaking, delete pages that simply will never become encyclopedia articles, e.g., with titles that are not misspellings, that represent completely idiosyncratic non-topics, etc. But bear in mind the "do not" rules when doing this.
10. Do not delete a page which could logically be made into a REDIRECT to an article. This is especially true for older subpages and article names that are renamed -- search engines and visitors will probably have linked to that page at that url. If the page is deleted, potential new visitors from search engines will be greeted with an edit window. The same is true for anyone who previously bookmarked that page. When adding new REDIRECT pages, try to keep the number of redirects to any one article to a reasonable number, those needed to cover common searches, meet user expectations, and particularly common misspellings (not every possible misspelling or permutation of a name, that's why there is a search engine).
11. However, a REDIRECT should be deleted when one or more of the following conditions is met:
    • the number of REDIRECT pages for an article is unreasonably high making it difficult for users to locate similarly named articles
    • the REDIRECT has been added by a self-interested party for the apparent purpose of advertising, self-aggrandizement, or fanaticism
    • the REDIRECT is offensive and not useful (such as "Joe Bloggs is a Loser" to "Joe Bloggs")
12. Copyright: See Wikipedia:Copyrights for deletion policy on copyright infringement (and m:Wikipedia and copyright issues and m:Avoid Copyright Paranoia for perspective).

FAQ

X redirects to Y, which obscures the existence of A, B, and C - it should be deleted.

It should be turned into a disambiguation page. You don't need the VfD page for that -- do it yourself.

Article X is totally biased!

Take it to pages needing attention or NPOV dispute. You don't need the VfD page for that.

This user should be banned.

Take it to vandalism in progress (for pure vandalism) or annoying users (for annoyances).

See the Wikipedia:Deletion log for pages that have been recently deleted. See Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion if you are concerned that a page may have been wrongly deleted.