Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron

To see the articles listed for rescue click here. To add an article to the list, see the instructions.

Ready and waiting. Add the {{Rescue}} template to any article.

Please join us! All too often, an article about a perfectly notable topic lies wounded, badly written, unsourced — but should its life be taken at Articles for Deletion? No! Only articles about non-encyclopedic topics should be deleted, not articles that need improvement. Improvement is the opposite of deletion.

An article should not be deleted just because it's ill-formed. Some writer worked hard on that article. Some reader can use that article. Those writers and readers, if reached out to, can help us preserve this worthwhile content.

Why Article Rescue Squadron exists

Why is it important to help save articles on Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion?

Because of entropy: it is easier to delete an article than to create one. Every time an article is deleted, the contributions that were made to it are lost. Wikipedia administrators can access the information in deleted articles, and so can other other wikipedians on request, but they are not necessarily experts on the article's topic. Once an article is deleted, its appropriateness can no longer be evaluated by the general public.

A contributor who writes a poor article on a notable topic is likely to be inexperienced. If their first efforts are deleted, they may be discouraged and refrain from creating further articles, or even editing. Everyone starts somewhere.

This makes Articles for Deletion a very important place, one that deserves everyone's attention.

But what can one person do?

One person can't easily sway a dozen. But the Rescue Squadron isn't about writing on talk pages. It's about editing article pages.

If everybody who cares about preserving important topics glances at one deletion discussion per day (or even one per week), reads through the imperiled article, and rewrites it if it's deserving, people will start to think about the differences between unencyclopedic writing and unencyclopedic topics -- and maybe they'll start contemplating improvement before they contemplate deletion.

So the ARS are wild-eyed inclusionists?

No. The Article Rescue Squadron (ARS) is not about casting keep votes or making policy simply to ensure that nothing is deleted. The ARS ensure that articles about notable topics do not get deleted when they can be rescued through normal editing which per WP:AFD means that it was not a good candidate for AfD. The So fix it and so look it up templates are sometimes all that's required for a rescue.

How to save an article from deletion

What the Rescue template is for

• Articles going through AfD or are being attacked by deletionist that:

• Need references
• Are written poorly
• Lack information readily available
• Need cleaning up

Flag an article for Rescue

If an article has been tagged for deletion (the Afd tag) and you feel it meets the above guidelines then you can flag an article for Rescue by:

1. clicking edit and
2. adding the following line of text at the top of the page as shown in the example below:

{{Rescue}}

If you are the primary editor of an article tagged for deletion (the Afd tag) or are otherwise unsure if an article is a good candidate for the Article Rescue Squadron then please post a message including the article's title on the Article Rescue Squadron talk page.

Example

You can flag an article for Rescue by editing it to add the bolded text under the AfD tag, but within the two sets of <!-- --> tags, as in the below example using a Robin Sage AfD:

<!-- Please do not remove or change this AfD message until the issue is settled -->

{{AfDM|page=Robin Sage|date=2007 September 11|substed=yes}}

{{Rescue}}

<!-- End of AfD message, feel free to edit beyond this point -->

The article will then appear in this category along with all the others flagged for rescue. Adding it within the two sets of <!-- --> tags will also allow the closing admin to automatically remove the tag when they close the AfD.

Tips on how to rescue an article

• Browse Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion periodically, and help fix any articles flagged for rescue.
• In general, discuss issues concerning an individual article on that article's talk page, not on this project's talk page.
• Check Wikipedia:Guide to deletion for tips.

Source searches

• Google News
• Google Book Search
• Google Scholar
• NewsLibrary.com
• FindArticles.com
• World Cat

How to become a member of Article Rescue Squadron

To join simply add your name to our membership list; feel free to add your ideas to the project discussion page as well.

Then place this tag {{User Article Rescue Squadron}} on your user page:

This user rescues articles for the Article Rescue Squadron.

Selected previous rescues

Click here to see examples of the Article Rescue Squadron's work.

See also

Related projects

• m:Association of Inclusionist Wikipedians
• Wikipedia:Intensive Care Unit
• WikiProject Deletion
• WikiProject Popular Culture

Tools

• List of recent deletions and restorations
• Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions
• Don't overuse shortcuts to policy and guidelines to win your argument
• What Isn't Grounds for Article Deletion

Essays, etc.

• Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia
• User:Fresheneesz: Don't Destroy
• Don't be an ostrich
• Give an article a chance
• The Heymann Standard
• Article rescue contest

External links

• Andrew Lih: Unwanted: New articles in Wikipedia
• Unwiki: See recently deleted articles and text in real time