Wikipedia:Category deletion policy

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This page is an official policy on the English Wikipedia. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Shortcut: WP:CDP

Wikipedia policy

Deletion policy Proposed deletion Criteria for speedy deletion Undeletion policy

These are the current official policies for WP:CFD.

Contents 1 Speedy delete policy 2 Childless categories 3 Template/Category overlap 4 Normal closure 5 Controversial decisions 6 Speedy renaming procedure 6.1 Adding criteria 6.2 Speedy criteria

[edit] Speedy delete policy

• See WP:CSD. Categories that are patently nonsensical, vandalistic, test pages, substantially identical recreations of earlier deleted content, or requested for deletion by their creator and sole contributor can be deleted immediately.
• Additionally, certain classes of categories may be speedily renamed, see below. If a category already exists by the suggested new name, the category by the old name may be speedily deleted, or replaced by a {{categoryredirect}} if appropriate.
• It has been suggested that a two-day waiting period is observed for anything that falls under the speedy-renaming criteria. This is presently under discussion at WP:CFD.
• Presumably these discussions are not interesting, and so do not need to be saved on /resolved.
• Sometimes notices about proper usage (e.g. Afghan vs. Afghani) need to be posted on the appropriate Category or Category_talk pages for the benefit of the community.
• Empty categories (no articles or subcategories for at least 72 hours) whose only content has consisted of links to parent categories.

• This does NOT apply to categories listed on WP:CFD, as the discussion may merit renaming or prompt population.
• Caution: Be sure to check the history of the category. If it has a non-trivial history or isn't relatively new, it is likely that the category once did contain articles, and deeper investigation is needed before deleting the category to make sure that it wasn't emptied just to bypass WP:CFD.

[edit] Childless categories

If a category that has no children is nominated on WP:CFD, and the discussion gets no consensus to delete, then it may not be deleted just for being empty until at least 30 days after nomination.

Categories that should exist but it is clear are missing articles or subcategories should be added to Category:Underpopulated categories.

[edit] Template/Category overlap

If a category is only used as generated by a template (e.g. Category:Foo Stubs to correspond with Template:Foo Stub), and that template is deleted by regular WP:TFD process, then the category can be deleted as well as long as it was nominated along with the template, or mentioned early in the discussion.

[edit] Normal closure

How to declare a "delete" decision:

• Wait at least 7 days after nomination.
• Make sure there is a clear consensus to delete.
• Save interesting conversations in /resolved; discard uninteresting conversations.
• De-populate the category or move it to "Empty me".
• List the category to "Delete me" (unless it is a "red link", in which case, it is already deleted)
• An administrator will delete it.

How to declare a "keep" decision:

• Wait at least 7 days after nomination.
• Make sure there is a clear consensus to keep.
• Add a link to the discussion on category's talk page using {{cfdend}}.
• Link to precedent-setting conversations from /resolved.
• Remove the {{cfd}} tag from the category page.

For guidelines and procedures for closing discussions see:

• Deletion process
• Guidelines for administrators

[edit] Controversial decisions

If no clear consensus to delete is reached after 7 days:

• Move the discussion to Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/unresolved.
• Post a note or template on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion inviting further comment.
• Unresolved discussions that are part of a larger theme (e.g. the categorization of people, non-Wikipedia classification schemes) should be grouped together and spawn a Category:Wikipedia policy thinktank page if appropriate.
• If there is no consensus to delete one week after posting on CfD, the decision shall be keep.

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[edit] Speedy renaming procedure

Certain minor renaming issues for categories do not require voting, but can be done simply by being bold. These issues allowing speedy renaming are strictly limited to the criteria listed below. Anything else is not a speedy rename, and should be listed in the main section on Wikipedia:Categories for discussion.

Users who are not administrators cannot rename categories by themselves, so they should list them on Wikipedia:Categories for discussion#Speedy renaming.

These nominations can be processed after two days, and removed once the process is complete.

If a category qualifies for speedy-renaming and a category already exists for the destined name, then the contents of the former should be moved to the latter. Since category redirects do not work well, the former category should be deleted.

[edit] Adding criteria

Suggestions for new criteria should be advertised on such places as the village pump, current surveys, categories for deletion and centralized discussion. If the discussion gets lengthy, it might be good to create a page for it rather than hold it on a talk page. If a strong consensus is reached on a naming convention, it should be added to the speedy renaming criteria below.

If you feel that an established and consensual naming convention would be appropriate here, please list it on Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion. If there are no objections after a week, it can be added to the list of criteria here. If there are objections, a consensus should be formed.

See also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories) and Wikipedia:Categorization.

[edit] Speedy criteria

Criteria for speedy renaming or speedy merging are strictly limited to:

1. Typographical errors (such as, Brdiges → Bridges).
   • Note that differences between British and American spelling (for example, Harbours → Harbors) are not considered errors.
2. Capitalization fixes (such as, characters In harry Potter → Characters in Harry Potter)
3. Conversions from singular to plural, or back (such as, Steamship → Steamships)
4. Non-conformance with "x by y", "x of y", or "x in y" categorization conventions specified at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories).
   • This should only be used where there is no room for any doubt whatsoever that the category in question is being used for the standard purpose instead of being a potential subcategory. It should not be assumed that an incorrectly formatted "radio stations" category was intended to be a "radio" category, or that an incorrectly formatted "archaeological sites" category was intended to be an "archaeology" category.
5. Expanding abbreviations for country names: The name of the country should appear as it does in the name of the article about that country (for example, US or U.S. in reference to the United States should be renamed to United States, but this criterion specifically does not apply to renames between the terms "American" and "United States").

When proposing that the category name should be reformatted in addition to one of the speedy criteria, or two or more criteria apply, make a regular nomination rather than a speedy nomination.

Note: If the nominator decides to change a nomination based on comments, simply delete the old nomination and create a new one as long as it still meets the speedy criteria.