Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion

Candidates for speedy deletion

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

No meaningful content or history (eg "sdhgdf"). See patent nonsense.
Test pages (eg "Can I really create a page here?").
Pure vandalism (see dealing with vandalism).
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.").
Reposted content that was deleted according to this deletion policy. This does not apply to undeleted content that was undeleted according to undeletion policy.
Pages created and edited solely by a banned user, after they were banned unless the user has been unbanned. See bans and blocks. This is slightly controversial!
Redirects with no history which have been created by moving user pages out of the article space. (Sometimes new Wikipedians accidentally create user pages in the main article space. Move them into the user space using the "Move this page" tool to preserve their history, and consider waiting a day or two before deleting the resultant redirect.)
Articles which have already been moved via the transwiki system.
Deleting something that is an exact copy of something else.

Sysops may also delete pages for the following technical purposes:

Personal subpages that have been listed on Personal subpages to be deleted.
Deleting a redirect that has no useful history, to make way for a non-controversial page move.
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. If you see a candidate for speedy deletion, and you are not a sysop, add it to wikipedia:deleted test.

Opinions differ as to the correct approach to pages with only external links, and also to pages that are perceived as purely trolling.

Note that possible copyright infringements are not candidates for speedy deletion.

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.