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Welcome to WikiProject Deletion, a collaboration area and group of editors dedicated to improving Wikipedia in total in the area of deletion.
Statement of Purpose:
Shortcut
Scissors!
Scissors!
We are dedicated to the opposition of articles that do not belong in Wikipedia, and we are equally dedicated to not deleting the articles that do. When Wikipedia's deletion process runs smoothly, fairly, and with the policies of the Wikimedia Foundation as its only rationale, regardless of whether an editor votes keep or delete, then our job is done. We advocate the responsible use of deletion policy, not the deletion of articles.
Goals
  1. To organize and discuss rationales and criteria for deletion and inclusion.
  2. To review the outcomes of WP:AfD for inappropriate deletions to more correctly identify articles that should and should not be nominated.
  3. To spread information about the correct reasons for deleting articles and using Speedy Deletions and Proposed Deletion.
  4. To minimize the number of articles that are nominated for deletion simply because they have been improperly sourced, wikified, or written
  5. To improve the policies and guidelines related to deletion and criteria for deletion through discussion.
What this project is not
  1. A substitute for deletion review for articles that some feel are incorrectly kept.
  2. To oppose the goals of Wikipedia:Wikiproject Inclusion or Wikipedia:WikiProject Integration
  3. To promote the tongue-in-cheek attitude of m:Deletionism
  4. To increase the number of articles that are deleted if there is consensus that the topic at hand is worthy of being in Wikipedia. (For example, we should never focus on rewriting policy to single out schools, but we should review school deletions to find out if there is actual consensus that schools are notable).
Scope

By definition, the scope of the project is very literally all articles in Wikipedia with an assessment code of Start or Stub. Articles rated B or higher, or of importance beyond low, should not be addressed by this project.

Organization

We aren't concerned with governance councils, charters, or elections. There is no leader. Any Wikipedian in good standing is welcome. We have no positions. We don't have notice boards, and we don't have barnstars. (FFS, giving out barnstars for deleting articles would get us tarred and feathered.)

We DO have an IRC room at #deletion. Feel free to come in.

Policies

We only have three rules here.

  1. We are not here to organize the Crusade against Cruft. While we will usually look at neglected AfD's, WikiProject Deletionism members should consider recusing themselves from any discussion that is highly controversial.
  2. We are not here to overturn policy against consensus. While we want to examine policy, especially notability guidelines and deletion criteria, we must work within the guidelines of the community.
  3. We are not here to go after huge swaths of badly written articles. The icon of scissors is to remind us to trim carefully. Whenever possible, FIX. Whenever possible, SOURCE. Whenever possible, FIND THE NOTABILITY. Before nominating for deletion it is a good idea to check for notability and to make some attempt at finding reliable sources. If there are some, then include them and try to improve the articles. If there is truly nothing there, then and only then go ahead with the nomination for deletion.

Guidelines

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  • Guideline: Analysis using official policy, not personal distaste

The primary focus of the project in dealing with articles should be analysis. Is this article worthy of deletion? If so, which policies state this? The primary problem with XfD is too many people vote only on if they think an article is appropriate for deletion, or if an article is not worthy of deletion, based on feelings, and on the topic, rather than on policy. An excellent example of this is Cleveland Steamer (topic is completely not safe for work).

  • Guideline: Determination based on article as it could LIKELY be, not as it could POSSIBLY be

The use of WP:HEY is a good example of how an article for deletion can be turned into a valuable article, but does not itself suggest that people will work that hard to get it to a Heymann Standard. Thus, the use of WP:HEY or "the article can be improved" should only be considered when the article has a wide likely audience of potentially interested editors. Ironically, types of fancruft, which most Deletionists dislike, are very likely to be improved by fans.

  • Guideline: Discrimination based on the ideals of m:Immediatism, not so-called potential value

This is different than determination. We must analyze articles based on policy. The ones that currently fail policy have to be determined to be either likely to be improved or likely to be ignored. If they are likely to be ignored, then we discriminate articles that should be deleted from those that should not based on their current condition. An article that fails one or more policy guidelines and is not likely to be improved but is well-written and with an attempt at sourcing and NPOV should thus be improved by us. Articles that fail this last standard should be deleted with maximum prejudice.

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Increase in POV-styled articles

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Wikipedia is not a clearinghouse. Yet increasingly, we are seeing articles that are very POV in their basic orientation. From Aryan Invasion Theory (history and controversies) to 9/11 conspiracy theories , we have a number of articles that exist merely to present a certain group of POV's. This is not to say that the articles are always written in a POV fashion -- many are quite NPOV -- but that they attract writers with a particular POV.

This relates to AfD in that many of these articles started out as good articles, but as POV pushers fill them with dubious sourcing and wild allegations, they begin looking quite shaky, and might even be deleted, rather than restored. This is unacceptable. The need is to edit them properly so this does not happen.

News Articles

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Wikipedia is not a news service or news report archive. Yet more and more attention is paid to creating articles for stories which have only received news coverage, without considering the difference between news and encyclopedia content as well as the longer term historical perspective. This significantly reduces the attention given to creating and improving substantively encyclopedic content. It also undermines Wikipedia's sister project, Wikinews (which is intended to be a news service), by distracting potential user traffic and editorial oversight from that project.

Execution of Stubs

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Wikipedia is not a gallows. Some people like building stubs, then slowly expanding the article as they go along , sourcing and refining. Yet increasingly, speedy deletion is killing off stubs, in some cases in under 50 minutes from time of creation. Please let stubs exist, they are not to be deleted insanely fast after their creation.

Unverifiable topics

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Wikipedia is not a trashcan. But the backlog at cleanup continues to build, and some of these articles we have cannot be cleaned up, but aren't being deleted or stubbed.

Subject-based decisions

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Wikipedia is not a hunting preserve. But if you create (or delete) articles perceived as being anti-American, anti-Zionist, anti-feminist, anti-atheist, or anti-Christian, etc., some people will vilify you and scrutinize your edits until someone finds a flaw, your edits reverted, and eventually someone will drag you to a loaded RfC, then pull the trigger on ArbCom. The problem is not necessarily the fact that the articles are bad, but that the articles aren't cleaned up and fixed, just deleted. Deletion is not for resolving edit wars.

Civility and no personal attacks

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These are required at all times per Wikipedia's policies WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA, but to abide by them at XfD is especially required. Passions often get inflamed at these places and incivility will not help you "win" the argument. Courtesy is important at all times.

More generally - and obviously - creators of articles should almost always be informed when their articles are nominated for deletion. While on Newpage patrol and tagging articles for speedy deletion this is equally true for good-faith contributions, and a variety of templates for this to be left on user talk can be found at WP:SPEEDY. For bad-faith contributions, on the other hand - completely patent nonsense and pure vandalism - just tag and move on.

Open tasks

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Current Focus

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Articles for Review

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Updated manually: We currently are reviewing no articles at the present:

All articles for review

Articles we have probably saved from deletion

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(none)

Articles we have edited / improved to a Heymann Standard

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Neglected AfD

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Neglected AfD Listing - Complete listing

Many AfD's receive only a few votes, for whatever reasons. Some of the AfD results end up as improper deletions or improper keeps. Make an attempt to review such neglected AfD's as you have time.

2 people Participants

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Please feel free to add yourself here, and to indicate any areas of particular interest. Despite the name of the project, anyone is free to join, including Inclusionists. Balance in viewpoints can only lead to a fuller, more accurate and more objective consensus.

We have a userbox if you wish to display such:

This user is a participant in WikiProject Deletion.

-> {{User:Elaragirl/Wpdel}}


  1. Mad Man American (talk) 15:38, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  2. A.A Prinon (A.A Prinon (talk)) 6:31, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
  3. Toast Toast (talk) 17:05, 21 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Resources

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Useful Reminders

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Policies applicable to deletion

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Essays

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Criteria of Note

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  • WP 1.0 suggests article should be :
    • be neutral point-of-view,
    • be reasonably clear,
    • be organized adequately,
    • have no known factual errors,
    • list at least one appropriate reference, source, further information item, or external link. A link fulfils this obligation only if it connects to a reputable source. Government, professional or education sites are reputable for this purpose. Any external links must also still be valid (that is, still connect to the intended material).

Collaboration and review

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Deletion Analysis

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Current Status (per Dragons flight)

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Category Entries Diff Mean Std Dev Range Per Day
Articles for deletion 1030 +29 1007.1 187.5 607-1364 -3.0
Templates for deletion 91 +6 142.1 71.8 37-352 -0.8
Categories for deletion 237 +48 270.8 134.0 9-611 +0.4
Images and media for deletion 742 +3 841.5 212.5 503-1435 -0.6
Redirects for deletion 66 -5 67.4 28.2 26-231 +0.0
Miscellaneous pages for deletion 27 +4 35.6 39.1 6-406 +0.2
Possible copyright violations 432 -79 530.6 346.2 182-1324 -6.6
All articles proposed for deletion 1067 -73 872.8 191.3 523-1268 +1.4

Templates

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{{WikiProject Deletion}} should not need many template types. Specifically, do not create new stub types, and we should avoid meta-templates.

Name Code Produces
Cleanup Template {{User:Elaragirl/wpdelrev|reason}}
This article is being reviewed at WikiProject Deletion for cleanup.
Please do not prod this page or subject it to Articles for Deletion. The article appears to meet the basis requirements for an article, but we are working to improve it since it mainly has issues relating to : Insufficient Cowbell
Fix Article Template {{User:Elaragirl/wpdelfixplease|reason}}
This article has been reviewed at WikiProject Deletion and has problems.
Unless the following problems are fixed quickly, your article may be subjected to deletion: Insufficient Cowbell

Posterity

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Some ... interesting ... XfD's

Categories

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See also

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