Jump to content

Wikipedia:Deletion policy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Daniel Quinlan (talk | contribs) at 04:10, 11 November 2003 (disagree, troll articles should not be published for 5 days, but I will propose this compromise). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.


In the normal day to day operations of Wikipedia, pages are deleted. While it is possible for any user to blank a page, the original content will still be available in the page history for others to view and put back if they wish.

Only administrators have the ability to delete and undelete pages within the system. With our current deletion system (cf meta:deletion management redesign), administrators necessarily must use their best judgment in making this decision. In general, an administrator or sysop will follow a process of listing a page for deletion on the votes for deletion page. In a few specific circumstances, pages may be deleted from Wikipedia outright, removing not only the current version but also all previous versions.

Deleted pages can be restored, by administrators, if and only if there is support. If deletions are made too casually, it is easy to lose track. Hence, the decision to permanently delete an article is not taken lightly, and the deletion process is followed.

If a page has useful content but too little even to be a stub, this content can often be moved to another page, and the page changed into a redirect. Even without useful content the page can often be usefully changed into a redirect. These are called edits of pages, not page deletions. Do not list a page for which this applies on WP:VFD.

Procedure for deletion

Requesting deletion

To request that a page or image be deleted, place it on the appropriate list:

Some of these pages have slightly different procedures - if so, these will be detailed on the page itself.

Give the reason why you think it should be deleted. It will remain there for a time, giving other users the chance to comment on whether they think deletion is in fact appropriate. After an appropriate lag time, an administrator will delete the page if a rough consensus is reached - see Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators#rough_consensus.

Voting format

When expressing an opinion, please include your opinion, your reasoning, and sign with ~~~~. Here are some suggested wordings:

  • delete
  • keep
  • redirect to [[article]]
  • merge into [[article]] and delete
  • merge into [[article]] and redirect
  • other (some other action)
  • comment (not a vote).

Lag times

These different pages have different "lag times" - how long a page should normally be listed before it can be deleted (an article can be removed at any time. This gives other users the chance to comment on whether they think deletion is in fact appropriate. The lag times are discussed at Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion/lag time and are currently set at:

The remainder of this section (up to the "Candidates for speedy deletion" heading) is a proposed change to the policy; please discuss at Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_policy:

To request that a page (or image) be permanently deleted,

  • A user's votes will be considered valid if that user:
  • has been in existence at least one week before the listing, and
  • has at least 25 non-minor article edits logged
Regardless of the above requirements, the page's initial author may vote (once).
  • At the end of five days, if 2/3 majority vote to delete, the page will be removed. Otherwise the page remains. The page will also remain if it has been improved enough since the initial listing that the reason for listing no longer applies anymore. This requires that a reason be given initially.

Candidates for speedy deletion

There are a few, limited, exceptions to the five day rule:

  1. No meaningful content or history (eg "sdhgdf"). See patent nonsense.
  2. Test pages (eg "Can I really create a page here?").
  3. Pure vandalism (see dealing with vandalism).
  4. Very short pages with little or no definition or context (eg "He is a funny man that has created Factory and the Hacienda. And, by the way, his wife is great.").
  5. Reposting previously deleted content, where the page was not listed on votes for undeletion.
  6. Pages created and edited solely by a banned user, after they were banned (see bans and blocks). This is slightly controversial!
  7. Pages created for the sole purpose of trolling that border on outright vandalism. Articles that may have any redeeming value should either be (1) posted on VfD or (2) moved outside of the article namespace (deleting the redirect in the article namespace so trolling is not published), and added to VfD so others may evaluate.

Sysops may also delete pages for the following technical purposes:

  1. Personal subpages that have been listed on Personal subpages to be deleted.
  2. Deleting a redirect that has no useful history, to make way for a non-controversial page move.
  3. Temporarily deleting a page in order to merge page histories after a cut and paste move.

In these cases, sysops may choose to delete the page without it being listed on VfD, or after it has only been listed on VfD for a day or two.

Opinions differ as to the correct approach to pages with only external links. Copyright infringement is not an exception to the five day rule: see below.

Ideally, when a sysop deletes a test page or other page with no useful content, it is a good idea to put a note on the author's talk page explaining things, and preserving the deleted content, pointing them to the sandbox in cases of tests. Be friendly! Most everyone was new once.

"Listed for deletion" notice

When you list a page on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion that you think will be listed for the entire 5 days (i.e., a page that won't be deleted immediately) it is courteous to let people know it might be deleted. The suggested way is to place the following or similar notice above the page's content:

''This page has been listed as [[Wikipedia:Votes for deletion|a potential candidate for deletion]]. In the normal day to day operations of Wikipedia, some pages are deleted. Please see that page for justifications and discussion. If you have questions about why this page was listed, you can also ask ~~~.''

Hopefully, this notice will prevent readers and new users from becoming confused as to why a page was removed. Please note: possible copyright violations have a different suggested notice. Please use the "Copyright infringement notice" text from Wikipedia:Boilerplate text instead.

The notice is not needed for pages which a) have no content (such as redirects), and b) also have no significant history. (E.g. a redirect whose entire history is that it used to redirect from "Foo" to "Foobar", and has been changed to redirect to "FooBar", because the target page was moved, does not have any significant history.) A history which shows any content being added or removed is significant history.

Copyvios should be listed on wikipedia:Possible copyright infringements, or you may choose to inform Wikipedia's designated agent if you are the copyright owner or their representative.

Articles written in a language other than English

To keep Votes for Deletion down to a reasonable size, articles that are proposed for deletion because they are written in a foreign language should be listed at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/foreign language. If you can speak (and translate!) another language please feel free to watch that page... if a page comes up in your language.. maybe you can do the translation and save useful content from deletion.

Unlisting a page from VfD

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. After the original poster has seen the explanation, or in any case after about a day, the page can be delisted from VfD.

In these cases, the VfD discussion may be useful to the further development of the article in question, or to prevent repeating the debate in the future. Therefore, consider moving VfD debate to the article's talk page (or a subpage like talk:NAME/deletion). You may also wish to list it on wikipedia:Archived deletion debates.

Always give a good edit summary when editing the VfD page, especially when unlisting a page, so that the page history of the VfD page can be used as backup archive for discussions that have not been regularly archived.

What to list on VfD

If a page does not fall into one of the nine categories listed at the top of this page, then you can not delete it without it first spending five days on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion first. However, there are some pages that should not be listed on VfD at all, and should be kept. This section is about whether something should be listed on VfD, or just kept. Consider the following recommendations:

  • Don't list stubs for articles that have potential, but list stubs that are nonsensical. Also, redirect or list stubs that likely will never become more than a simple definition. See fix a stub.
  • Don't list articles that just need heavy editing; instead, list them on Pages needing attention, perhaps adding a warning notice such as a NPOV dispute notice to clarify the type of attention needed. However, consider listing articles that are just patent nonsense.
  • List pages that you believe will simply will never become encyclopedia articles. For example, articles that represent completely idiosyncratic non-topics, articles that could never be more than dictionary definitions, etc.
  • Don't list source texts, but replace them with an external link and a stub. Alternatively, add an external link to a related article and redirect the pages for source texts there.
  • Don't list biased articles, even heavily biased artices, but add a NPOV dispute header/disclaimer. However, list articles if rewriting the facts in an NPOV way and removing unattributed opinions would leave no useful information.
  • List orphan images where you can't think of an article they might be useful in.

Undeletion

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.

To request that a page (or image) be restored,

  • Place the page title on Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion, with the reason why you think it should be deleted
  • It will remain there for a period of ten days, giving other users the chance to agree with the undeletion nomination or to object.
A user's opinion will be counted if that user:
  • has been in existence at least one week before the listing, and
  • has at least 25 non-minor article edits logged
Regardless of the above requirements, the page's initial author may vote (once).
  • If at any time prior to ten days elapsing, at least 3 people (including the person who proposed it) currently want to undelete and a majority are currently in favor of undeletion, the page may be undeleted by a sysop. If ten days elapse and the proposed undeletion lacks 3 supporters and a majority, then the page remains deleted (to avoid rapid redeletion since deletion requires a 2/3 majority). When a sysop undeletes an article, they should list the article on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion. Further discussion can take place on the votes for deletion page, and after about a week the undeleted page will either be deleted again, or left undeleted. (But see the talk page for discussion on whether this will happen for all users).

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.

This user should be banned.

Take it to vandalism in progress (for pure vandalism) or problem users (for annoyances). Stay cool.
The votes for deletion page gets very busy. Please join the Wikipedia:Cleaning department to help in maintaining it on a regular basis!

See also

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Deletion_policy&oldid=1710580"