Project:Deletion policy

The deletion policy describes how pages that do not meet the criteria for content are identified and removed from para.wiki.

Deletion of articles removes all versions from public view. Page blanking can be performed (or reverted) by any user, but only administrators can perform deletion, view deleted pages, and reverse ("undelete") any deletion. All such actions are recorded in the deletion log. If in doubt as to whether there is consensus to delete a page, moderators normally will not delete it.

Reasons for deletion

Reasons for deletion include, but are not limited to, the following (subject to the condition that improvement or deletion of an offending section, if practical, is preferable to deletion of an entire page):

1. Copyright violations and other material violating para.wiki's non-free content criteria
2. Vandalism, including inflammatory redirects, pages that exist only to disparage their subject, patent nonsense, or gibberish
3. Advertising or other spam without relevant content (but not an article about an advertising-related subject)
4. Content forks (unless a merger or redirect is appropriate)
5. Articles existing solely to misinform readers or start hoaxes
6. Articles for which thorough attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed
7. Articles whose subjects fail to meet the relevant notability guideline
8. Redundant or otherwise useless templates
9. Categories representing over-categorization
10. Files that are unused, obsolete, or violate the Non-free policy
11. Any other use of the article, template, project, or user namespace that is contrary to the established separate policy for that namespace
12. Any other content not suitable for para.wiki

Alternatives to deletion

Editing and discussion

If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page. Vandalism to a page's content can be reverted by any user.

Disputes over page content are usually not dealt with by deleting the page, except in severe cases. The content issues should be discussed at the relevant talk page. Disagreement over a policy or guideline is not dealt with by deleting it. Similarly, issues with an inappropriate user page can often be resolved through discussion with the user.

Tagging

A variety of tags can be added to articles to note the problem. Tags however are not intended as permanent solution; they are intended to warn the readers and to allow interested editors to easily locate and fix the problems. Some of the more common tags are:

• {{cleanup}} for poor writing.
• {{expert-subject}} for articles in need of expert attention.
• {{pov}} for bias.
• {{stub}} for short articles.
• {{merge}} for a small article that could be merged into a larger one.

Pages with incorrect names can be renamed by moderators; this has yet to be proceduralized, though it's easy to contact a moderator.

Redirect

Sometimes an unsuitable article may have a title that would make a useful redirect. In these cases, deletion is not required; any user can boldly blank the page and redirect it to another article. If the change is disputed, an attempt should be made on the talk page to reach a consensus before restoring the redirect.

Procedure

If you believe an article has need for deletion, simply add it to the articles for deletion category. Do note that it is not a given that articles added to this category will be deleted, and unduly adding articles to this category may result in a temporary ban.

Deletion review

If you believe a page was wrongly deleted, or should have been deleted but wasn't, or a deletion discussion was improperly closed, you should contact a moderator via the deleted page's talk page and Category:Pages in need of moderator attention.

If a page was obviously deleted "out of process" (per this policy), then an administrator may choose to undelete it immediately. In such a case, the administrator who deleted the page should be informed. However, such undeletions without gaining consensus may be viewed as disruptive, so they should be undertaken with care.

If an article was deleted for lacking content or for having inappropriate content (this applies to most speedy deletions) and you wish to create a better article about the same subject, you can simply go ahead and do so, with no need for review.