Project:Deletion
 | This page documents a MediaWiki.org policy, usually crafted over time by community consensus. |
This page describes how pages are deleted on MediaWiki.org. While some cases are clear-cut, there are a lot of grey areas. When in doubt, sysops are encouraged to solicit input from the community before making a deletion decision.
How pages are deleted
Administrators
Only administrators are able to delete pages. They also have the ability to restore pages that were deleted in error. Only pages that are candidates for speedy deletion should be deleted outright. Any pages whose deletion may be contentious should be flagged with the {{delete}} template instead. Pages flagged with the {{delete}} template should only be deleted after a minimum of a week has elapsed since the template was added, or longer if there is ongoing discussion.
Before deleting a page, check its history to ensure that reverting to an earlier version is not a more appropriate action, and the 'what links here' page to fix any links that will be broken by the deletion. Also, for pages with the {{delete}} tag, make sure you check the talk page to ensure that there are no valid objections to the deletion, or ongoing discussion about it.
Other users
Other users cannot delete pages directly. To mark a page for deletion, add either {{delete|reason}} or {{speedy|reason}} to the top of the page. {{speedy}} should be used when the deletion is uncontentious (see below), and {{delete}} when you think there may be some disagreement about it. In both cases replace 'reason' with the reason you think the page should be deleted.
If you think a page has been deleted in error, please check the deletion log and contact the admin who deleted it directly. They may restore the deleted page if you can give a sufficiently persuasive argument to do so.
User pages
What to immediately delete
- You may nominate your own user page, user talk page or any sub-pages of these for speedy deletion at any time.
- User pages that contain only vandalism.
- User pages that are just advertising (grey area here - some advertising may be relevant. If in doubt use a normal {{delete}} tag)
- User pages or user talk pages for non-logged-in users (e.g. User:127.0.0.1)
- However, if the page contains comments directed at the anonymous user you should leave it for at least a few days before deleting it.
What not to delete
- Blanked pages (may have been created to stop red links in user name)
What may need deleting
No policy has yet been made about the following types of pages, and so for the moment they should not be deleted. However, there are arguments for and against the deletion of these types of pages. Please discuss these issues on the talk page.
- Brief 'here I am' pages.
- Longer biographies that make no mention of MW or involvement in wiki projects.
- Pages that just link to their equivalent user page on another WMF wiki.
- Pages that just link to their equivalent user page on another non-WMF wiki.
- Pages that appear to be dealing with an unrelated project.
- Test pages.
Other pages
What to immediately delete
- Spam, vandalism, off-topic pages. See Project:About for details. If in doubt use the {{delete}} tag instead.
- Copyright infringements.
What not to delete
- Pages about old versions/deprecated functions of MediaWiki. There are still people using older versions and this information is valuable. These pages should be marked with the {{obsolete}} or {{historical}} tag instead.
Images
- If an image appears useful to the project, but is not currently used on any page, add the following tag to the image page: {{Unused file|~~~~~}} (note 5 tildes!). This will add a dated tag to the page indicating that it is not used, and put it in Category:Unused files. For the time being these will be kept, unless a consensus is reached that they should be deleted.
- Aside from that, the above rules tend to apply.