User:SoWhy/Before tagging for speedy deletion

The articles for deletion process contains a special section entitled "Before nominating an article for deletion" and the deletion policy lists "Alternatives to deletion" that should be preferred to deletion whenever feasible. Unfortunately, when it comes to speedy deletion, many users ignore such advice. This essay seeks to list simple things to do that can and should be tried before tagging for speedy deletion.

Premise

The reason for Wikipedia's existence is to build and maintain an encyclopedia that strives to contain the sum of human knowledge. To achieve this, Wikipedia is dependent on volunteer editors from all over the world. But often experienced editors forget, that no one is born a Wikipedia editor but that everyone needs to learn how they are expected to contribute. As such, it is vitally important that removing articles created by newly attracted editors without discussion remains the last step to deal with those articles and that any other viable way of dealing with such content is preferable to speedy deletion. For this very reason the editing policy contains the vital advice: Preserve information: fix problems if you can, flag them if you can't. (WP:PRESERVE, emphasis added)

Common tags

• G11 - Unambiguous advertising

  If an article comes across as advertising for a certain product or company, it's not automatically a reason to tag it for G11. Instead, one should attempt to cut away the "spammy" parts. Even if that leaves you with only a stub, it's still better than deletion since it preserves the information about the subject that was contained within the advertising text (see also WP:PRESERVE)

  G12 - Unambiguous copyright violation

  Try to remove the copyrighted text instead. If the whole article consists of such text, try to rewrite the information. Even a two-sentence stub on a subject is usually better for the project than removing the subject completely (especially if a short Google News, Google Books or Google Scholar search reveals that the subject is likely to be inclusion-worthy). Don't forget to tag the article with {{Copyvio-revdel}} once you are done so the revisions containing the violations can be deleted.

  A1 - No context

  Try to figure out the context yourself and rewrite the text to a valid entry if possible. For example, you can search the article's title at Google News, Google Books and Google Scholar. If the article contains terms used in other articles, try making a connection (for example, if the whole content is "XXX by YYY" and YYY is a notable musician, you can easily rewrite it to "XXX is a musical record by rock musician YYY", tag it as stub and add some categories - and maybe even add sources using aforementioned search engines).

  A3 - No content

  If the article's title suggests that the creator wanted to write an article about a specific subject, Google News, Books and Scholar can be used to try and determine whether a subject by that name exists. If so, try to fill in the content by writing a short 1-2 sentence stub using the information found. The article's creator might come back later and expand it or, even if they don't, they might appreciate that Wikipedia now has an article about the subject.

  A7 - No indication of importance or significance

  A7 is probably the most misapplied criterion of all, mostly because the article's tagged as such do not fit the criterion's wording. But even in those cases where the article fits the criterion, it does not have to be deleted. A7 tagging is where the aforementioned Google News, Books and Scholar search engines are of the most value. If the article does not indicate the importance or significance of a subject, search for it on those search engines. In 20-30% of all cases, there will be multiple unique hits of reliable sources covering the subject, which you can add to the article and with which you can indicate the importance or significance of the subject. Sometimes such claims are not easy to spot or not clear to every reader. In those cases, try to make it clearer by adding relevant wikilinks or rewriting the text.

To consider before tagging for speedy deletion

• Review the page's history as it may have been harmed by vandalism or poor editing. If it's a stub and imperfect article, try to expand it using the methods described above.
• Try to Google the subject limiting the search to other Wikipedia using "site:wikipedia.org". If it exists somewhere else, it might be better to tag the article using one of the templates at Category:Expand by language Wikipedia templates.
• Try to discuss the page with its creator and find out whether they can help to address the problems with it.
• If the article is not already tagged to note a problem, apply a tag, such as {{notability}}, {{hoax}}, {{original research}}, {{unencyclopedic}} or {{advert}}; this ensures readers are aware of the problem and may act to remedy it.
• Merge the content to an existing article.
• Turn the page into a redirect to an existing page if it might be a likely search term (if someone wrote a new page about the same topic, they might have done so because they expected to find the topic under this name)
• Check any interlanguage links, also in the sidebar, which may provide additional material for translation.

See also

• Ten Commandments of Speedy deletion
• Common A7 mistakes
• Why I hate speedy deleters
• Field guide to speedy deletion