Wikipedia:Deletion policy
This page is a policy on the Simple English Wikipedia. Many people agree with it. They see it as a standard idea that all users should normally follow. When changing this page (except for minor errors like typos), please check that other people agree with your changes. Use the talk page when you are not sure or when you want to suggest 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 at Requests for deletion.
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 be created in its place, administrators should remove internal links and delete redirects to the pages they have deleted.
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 quickly without needing to be discussed. These include articles that do not 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 |
Quick deletion
Before deleting a page that 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.
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.
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 that 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. This 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 article was only quickly deleted with no request for deletion.
- Created by a blocked or banned user, who is evading their block or ban when the page was created. The main contributor of that page is the blocked/banned user, and no other user has made significant good-faith edits to the page. This does not mean that an administrator must delete every article created by a blocked or banned user who is evading their block. Any other user can ask for the page to be restored at Wikipedia:Deletion review if they want to improve it.
- Housekeeping. Pages that do not need discussion to be deleted, for example, if the page needs to be deleted to merge histories.
- 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 they want it deleted.
- Pages dependent on deleted or non-existent pages 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.
- (Removed. This is a placeholder.)
- 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 only insult and have no sources, and where there is no NPOV version in the edit history to revert to.
- Obvious advertising: Pages that were created only to say good things about a person, company, item, group or service and which would need to be written again so that they can be encyclopedic. However, simply having a person, 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 that 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.
- Added by someone who doesn't tell whether they got permission to do so or not, or if their claim has a large chance of not being true. This includes copying from other Wikipedias without proper attribution.
- When tagging a page for deletion using this rule, a user should tell the page's creator first. If the Administrator who deleted the page is told that they may have made a mistake, they should add the content back; if a confirmation e-mail has not been received from the original author of the information, the Administrator should blank the article and add the {{copyvio}} template.
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 provides 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 (i.e.: is a {{stub}}) 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. Before using this option, check to see if a vandal has deleted good content from the article. If that is the case, consider reverting the vandal's changes instead of requesting deletion.
- Has been copied and pasted from another Wikipedia without simplifying complex text. If an article is being simplified, the {{simplifying}} template can be added to it. That does not allow the article to remain complex forever, but it gives editors some time to simplify it.
- Is about people, groups, companies, products, services or websites that do not claim to be notable. This includes any article about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, product, service or web content that does not say why the subject is important. If the article says why the subject is important, the article is not eligible for A4 deletion. If not everyone agrees that the subject is not notable or there has been a previous RfD with a result to keep, the article may not be quickly deleted, and should be discussed at RfD instead.
- You can use {{notable}} tag for such articles.
- Is not written in English. An article that is written in any other languages but English.
- Is an obvious hoax. An article that is surely fake or impossible.