Wikipedia:Deletion policy
From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change
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This page is an official policy on the Simple English Wikipedia. Many people agree with it. They see it as a standard way that all users should follow. When changing the page, please check that the other people agree with your changes. Use the talk page when you are not sure or when you want to propose a change. |
Only administrators can delete pages, categories, and images. Sometimes, pages may be deleted quickly. At other times, the deletion should be talked about with other editors.
Remember that changing an article to a redirect is better than deleting it, if the article's title is helpful for finding information.
Unless a good article could possibly be created, administrators should remove internal links and delete redirects to the pages they have deleted.
Contents |
[change] Overview
There are two main ways that pages can be deleted:
| Type of deletion | How to use | How to do it |
|---|---|---|
| Quick deletion (QD) | Pages that should be deleted very fast without needing to be discussed. These include articles that don't make sense (in other words nonsense), vandalism, and others listed under the quick deletion criteria below. | Add {{QD|reason}} to the article you think should be deleted. |
| Requests for deletion (RfD) | A seven-day discussion where all users can talk about the best way to handle an article. This can be used when deletion is unsure or may need discussion. | Add {{RfD|reason}} to the page you think should be deleted. Then, list the page on Request for deletion, using the instructions on that page |
[change] Quick deletion
Before deleting a page which meets one of the quick deletion criteria, Administrators must always check the page's edit history to see if the page can be reverted to an earlier version.
[change] Quick deletion criteria
Abbreviations are sometimes used when talking about these rules. For example, when someone says "A4", they are referring to rule 4 under the Articles section. You can also use the abbreviation inside your deletion request; for example, if you think an article meets the 3rd criteria under General rules section, you may add {{QD|G3}} to the top of the article.
[change] General rules - All pages
A page can be quickly deleted in the following situations:
- All of the text is nonsense. Nonsense includes content that does not make sense or is not meaningful. However, this does not include bad writing, bad words, vandalism, things that are fake or impossible, or parts which are not in English.
- You can use {{non}} tag for such articles.
- It is a test page, such as "Can I really create a page here?".
- The content is completely vandalism. It includes redirects that were made when cleaning up "page move vandalism".
- Creation of content that is already deleted. It includes an identical or similar copy, with any title, of a page that was deleted, after being discussed in Requests for deletion, unless it was undeleted due to another discussion or was recreated in the user space. Before deleting again, the Administrator should be sure that the content is similar and not just a new article on the same subject. This rule cannot be used if the content had already been quickly deleted before.
- Banned user. Pages created by users who are banned from editing in Wikipedia may be quickly deleted, if they are created within the time the user was banned.
- Housekeeping. Pages deleted that don't need to be discussed because the Administrator deleting the page was trying to fix an accidental mistake or trying to clean up something.
- Author wants deletion. Any page whose original author wants deletion, can be quickly deleted, but only if most of the page was written by that author and was created as a mistake. If the author blanks the page, this can mean that he or she wants it deleted.
- Talk pages of pages that do not exist can be deleted, unless they contain discussion on deletion that can't be found anywhere else. Subpages of a talk page can only be deleted under this rule if their top-level page does not exist. However, this cannot be used on user talk pages or talk pages of images on Commons.
- Office Actions. The Wikimedia Foundation office can delete any page fast if there is any controversy over it.
- Attack pages: Pages that were only created to insult a person or thing (such as "John Q. Doe is dumb"). This includes articles on a living person that is insult and without sources, where there is no NPOV version in the edit history to revert to.
- Obvious advertising: Pages which were created only to say good things about a company, item, group or service and which would need to be written again so that they can sound like an encyclopedia. However, simply having a company, item, group or service as its subject does not mean that an article can be deleted because of this rule: an article that is obvious advertising should have content that shouldn't be in an encyclopedia. If a page has already gone through RfD or QD and was not deleted, it should not be quickly deleted using this rule.
- Obviously breaking copyright law like a page which is:
- Copied from another website which does not have a license that can be used with Wikipedia;
- Containing no content in the page history that is worth being saved.
- Made by one person instead of being created on wiki and then copied by another website such as one of the many Wikipedia mirror websites.
- Added by someone who doesn't tell if he got permission to do so or not, or if his claim has a large chance of not being true;
[change] Articles
For deleting any articles that should not be deleted quickly, use Wikipedia:Requests for deletion. Any article can be quickly deleted if it:
- Is very short and providing little or no meaning (e.g., "He is a funny man that has created Factory and the Hacienda. And, by the way, his wife is great."). Having a small amount of content is not a reason to delete if it has useful information.
- Has no content. This includes any article consisting only of links (including hyperlinks, category tags and "see also" sections), a rephrasing of the title, and/or attempts to correspond with the person or group named by its title. This does not include disambiguation pages.
- Is Transwikied: Any article that has been discussed at Requests for Deletion, where most of the users wanted to transwiki, and where the transwikification has already been done.
- Is about people, groups, companies or websites that are not notable. An article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web content that does not say why it is important. If not everyone agrees that the subject is not notable or there has been a previous RfD, the article may not be quickly deleted, and should be discussed at RfD instead.
- You can use {{notable}} tag for such articles.
- Note: Avoid the use of the word "vanity" as some people think it is an insult.
- is not written in English. An article that is written in any other languages but English.
[change] Redirects
For any articles that should not be deleted quickly, use Wikipedia:Requests for deletion. Sometimes it is possible to make them useful redirects to other pages. All redirects can be quickly deleted if they are:
- Redirects to pages that do not exist
- Redirects to the User: or User_talk: space from the main article space. If this was because of a page move, please wait a day or two before deleting the redirect.
- Redirects with an uncommon typo, or a word that is spelled wrong, that was recently created. However, redirects from common accidental spellings are usually useful; redirects in other languages are not deletable using this rule.
[change] Images/Media
- Most media uploads are not allowed on Simple English Wikipedia. They should be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons instead. There are a few exceptions to this rule. Firstly, all spoken articles should be uploaded here, as they are for local use. Secondly, there are some logos that Commons does not accept, but are needed here.
[change] Categories
For any categories that should not be deleted quickly, use Wikipedia:Requests for deletion. All categories can be quickly deleted if they meet one of the following conditions:
- Empty categories (with no articles or subcategories for at least four days) whose only content includes links to parent categories. However, this can not be used on categories still being discussed on WP:RfD, or disambiguation categories. If the category wasn't newly made, it is possible that it used to have articles, and more inspection is needed.
- Speedy renaming: Empty categories that have already been renamed. These include:
- Spelling fixes (such as Brdiges -> Bridges), but not changes between British and American spelling.
- Capitalization fixes (such as characters In harry Potter -> Characters in Harry Potter)
- Changing singular words to plural ones, or plural words to singular ones (such as Steamship -> Steamships)
- Renaming of a title so that it has the "by country" standard
- Renaming of a title so it has no abbreviations
- Template categories. If a category contains articles from only one template (such as Category:Cleanup needed from {{cleanup}}) and the template is deleted after being discussed, the category can also be deleted without being discussed.
[change] User pages
For any user pages that should not be deleted quickly, use Wikipedia:Requests for deletion. All user pages can be quickly deleted in following situations:
- User request. User pages can be deleted if its user wants to, but there are some exceptions.
- You can use {{UserQD}} tag for such things.
- Non-existent user. User pages of users that do not exist. Administrators should check Special:Contributions and Special:DeletedContributions.
[change] Templates
For any template that should not be deleted quickly, use Wikipedia:Requests for deletion. When nominating a template for quick deletion, add <noinclude> before the deletion template, and </noinclude> after it so pages that use the template do not get listed for quick deletion as well. Templates can be quickly deleted when:
- They are insulting or hateful.
[change] Not quick deletion criteria
Pages cannot be quick deleted for the reasons below:
- Reasons on Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not: "Wikipedia is not a dictionary", "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" and "Wikipedia is not a crystal ball" are not part of the speedy deletion criteria. However, these reasons can be given at RfD nominations.
- Hoaxes or articles that are false: Articles that do not have sources and are probably not true. Sometimes these can also be quickly deleted as vandalism if the article is obvious nonsense, but articles that might be true should be inspected and discussed more.
- Original research: It's not always easy to tell whether an article is original research or not, so they should not be quickly deleted.
- Neologisms or newly created names: Unless the article obviously does not make sense, more discussion may be needed to find out if a term is newly created or not.
- Subjects that are obviously unimportant, but claim to be important: Articles that are about obviously unimportant subjects are still not allowed for quick deletion unless the article does not say why the subject is important. If the article gives a claim that might not be true, it should be discussed more. However, articles with only content such as "This guy was like so very important!" can be deleted per QD A1 because it gives no useful information about the subject.
- Author asks for deletion, but in bad faith: Sometimes an author will ask to have content removed because they are angry at Wikipedia. However, they let their work to be used in this way under license and cannot legally ask for its removal. Also, the article must be "accidentally created", such as if the author did not want to create it or misspelled a name. However, anyone can ask for deletion of pages in their user space.
- Very short articles: Some very short articles can be quickly deleted, but if they have content that is useful, they cannot.
- "Copyright violations" whose sources copied Wikipedia: Many times a lot of other sites use our content. When using G12, you must be sure that the content belongs to the source first.
- Finally, good faith edits are never vandalism. If you cannot be completely sure that an article was written in bad faith, G3 cannot be used.
[change] Discussed deletion
Some pages should be discussed for seven days before deletion. List these on Wikipedia:Requests for deletion:
- Pages that fall under Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not
- Pages directly copied from other Wikipedias
[change] Pages that should not be deleted
- Those that appear on any internally agreed article lists (Wikipedia:List of articles all languages should have) or word lists (Basic English). Pages listed should be fixed, not deleted.
- Redirects that represent common word misspellings.
[change] Logging
- All deleted pages are listed in the deletion log.
[change] Undeletion
If you believe something was deleted unnecessarily, you can list it for undeletion, or contact an administrator for assistance.
