Meta:Deletion policy

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Deletion policy

Meta-Wiki's deletion policy codifies instances where administrators may delete pages. Although any user can blank a page, the page remains accessible and older revisions may be accessed through the edit history. When a page is deleted, the previous edit history cannot be viewed by non-administrators. Only administrators have the ability to delete and undelete pages.

There are two processes for deletion, which are deletion by community consensus and speedy deletion.

Deletion by community consensus

Any user can propose a page to be deleted at Meta:Requests for deletion for any stated reason.

Procedure

To nominate a page for deletion please follow the following instructions:

• Please place {{RFD}} at the top of the page. If it is a template, please consider wrapping the RFD template in <noinclude></noinclude> tags.
• Create a new subsection at Meta:Requests for deletion under the appropriate header.
• You must notify the creator of the page of the deletion request. Please consider notifying to the principal contributors to the page as well with {{subst:RfD notice}}.

Once a page or a list of pages have been nominated for deletion, users may discuss the request, with the request open for a minimum of one week. At the conclusion of the discussion, an administrator will determine the consensus and thus will delete or keep the page. In any case, the request will be archived. If the page is kept, the closing administrator will note on the talk page of the page proposed for deletion the result of the discussion with {{deletion requests}}. Administrators deleting material under this clause should use a permanent link to the discussion for future reference.

Criteria for speedy deletion

Meta-Wiki's deletion policy allows administrators to summarily delete pages that meet one or more of the following criteria. To propose a page for speedy deletion please add to the top of the page {{delete|Reasons to delete the page}}. This will add the page to the speedy deletion category.

General

1. No meaningful content or history: This includes test edits (e.g., "asdf" or "Can I really create a page here?"), obvious nonsense, corrupt images, legitimately blanked pages or vandalism.
2. Reposted content: previously deleted according to this deletion policy, unless it was significantly rewritten in a manner that calls into question the prior deletion reason.
3. Banned contributor: content created and edited solely by an indefinitely blocked or a globally banned user after they were banned or blocked. The terms of use allows to "refuse, disable, or restrict access to the contribution of any user who violates" those terms. Please note that deletions performed under this clause can be controversial and thus may be contested.
4. Redundant content: identical to another, with no significant differences between them.
5. Copyright infringement: content which is a clear and proven copyright violation, or content previously deleted as a copyright violation.
6. Author's request: deletion per request of the author, if the author is the only significant contributor, the request is not in bad faith, and the content is not to the benefit of the Meta-Wiki. This category includes requests by a user to have pages deleted in their own user space, with the same limitations applying.
7. Content which is clearly out of scope, such as encyclopedic articles, dictionary definitions, and any other material that is best suited on any other Wikimedia project.
8. Advertising or other inappropriate promotion, including spam.
9. Attack pages: content created solely to attack, threaten or denigrate any user, person or organization. See the Resolution on biographies of living people and our Terms of Use § 4.
10. Possible copyright infringement: where no evidence of freeness or permission could be obtained, or the copyright status was not cleared after 7 days it was tagged with {{possible copyright violation}}.

Articles

1. Articles transwikied to, or already present on, another project, if a soft redirect is inappropriate.

Media files

1. Unfree files: files that are obviously copyright infringements, or that are licensed under any non-free license including any form of fair use, or that don't allow commercial use or modification.
2. Files that are unsourced and/or unlicensed, as long as at least one week has passed since the uploader was notified.
3. File is available on Wikimedia Commons, or was transferred from Meta-Wiki to Wikimedia Commons after it was determined that the image satisfies the inclusion criteria of Commons.
4. Corrupt, missing or empty files. Files that are corrupt, missing, empty, or contain superfluous and blatant non-metadata information.

Translations

1. Not a translation, pages that are obviously untranslated or non-sense.
2. Low quality/machine translation, pages that are machine-generated translations and/or full of errors.
3. Not translation documentation

Miscellaneous

1. Routine housekeeping that is highly unlikely to be controversial (such as in preparation for a page move or history merge).
2. Unneeded or broken redirects that do not have a serious edit history.
3. Unneeded talk: a discussion page for deleted or non-existent content.
4. Empty categories: Categories empty for at least a week, excluding those stating that they should be retained even when empty.
5. Aged "looks useless" pages: (see below).

Special procedure for certain materials

Any page tagged with {{looks useless|reasons here}} can be deleted after 60 days. Any user can remove the tag provided that they leave an explanation of why they think the content is not useless on the article's talk page. The user that placed the "looks useless" template must be notified. If the explanation is not satisfactory to them, this user should not place the template again, but can open a request for deletion as mentioned above. The deleting administrator may at their discretion convert the request into a deletion discussion or decline it altogether.

Revision deletion

Revision deletion is a core MediaWiki function that allows administrators and users with the appropriate rights to hide individual revisions from non-administrator users. Wikimedia projects are based on transparency, but sometimes individual revisions will be hidden because their content is abusive or infringes on policies. Revision deletion allows for log redaction as well, however this feature is intended solely for grossly improper content, and is not permitted for ordinary matters. Applying revision deletion to log entries should only be used for grossly inappropriate content, as actions recorded in logs (e.g blocks) are meant to be easily reviewable by anyone.

Undeletion

Any user that disagrees with a deletion can propose at requests for undeletion that a page or revision be restored. The procedure is similar to the community deletion process. When proposing a page for undeletion, please notify the deleting administrator. After at least one week after the posting of the request, an uninvolved administrator will process the request. Pages may be undeleted if they meet the inclusion policy or the deletion did not conform to this deletion policy; a mere lack of comments on the undeletion request is generally not sufficient.

See also

• Administrators' reading list