Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Explanations

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This page explains in more detail Wikipedia's speedy deletion criteria.

Contents

[edit] General

1. Patent nonsense: (Explained on main page. Add further explanation here if necessary.)
See also:
2. Test pages: (Explained on main page. Add further explanation here if necessary.)
3. Pure vandalism:
  • Generally applies to obvious hoaxes, but if there's any doubt, AfD is more appropriate.
Problems:
  • If a good redirect is moved multiple times by a vandal before any attempt is made to fix it, the original redirect may end up being deleted as a result.
4. Re-creation of deleted material
  • For pages deleted in line with the deletion policy on deletion discussions (i.e. WP:AFD, WP:CFD, WP:TFD, WP:RFD, and WP:MFD), there has already been a decision that the topic of an article or a version of an article does not belong in Wikipedia so there is no need to re-run the process.
  • Does not apply to substantially revised articles or articles deleted under a separate speedy deletion criteria.
Problems:
  • Substantially improved articles on the same topic may be erroneously deleted despite being revised to satisfy concerns at AfD.
  • Topics that have become notable or verifiable since the original deletion decision may be deleted.
See also:
5. Banned user
  • Banned users are prohibited from editing Wikipedia.
  • Gets rid of junk contributions that otherwise might not strictly fit into the other criteria.
  • No need to check through for neutrality, hoaxes, sources, etc. for contributions by a user who has been disruptive or untrustworthy.
Problems: Quality contributions could be deleted.
See also: Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive1#banned users
6. Housekeeping
  • Done anyway as part of numerous other processes; this codifies common practice.
  • Not controversial.
  • Little or no content is deleted. In cases of a sequence of deletions and undeletions for fixing page moves, any content which is deleted is later undeleted.
7. Author requests deletion
  • Created by mistake or when the author realizes it does not belong on Wikipedia.
  • No substantial contributions from other users who may want them kept.
  • Applies even if author's request wasn't done by placing a db tag - such as placing a request on any talk page, or placing a different deletion tag on the page.
  • Does not apply to long-standing articles or quality articles not created by mistake. Such articles were duly submitted and released by the author and have become part of the encyclopedia, obviating others who otherwise would have written an article on the subject.
  • See also: Wikipedia:Proposal to expand WP:CSD/Proposal VI (Requested deletion)
8. Talk page of a nonexistent page
  • Talk pages are for discussing the associated page; if deleted there is nothing to discuss there.
  • Part of deleting articles.
  • Does not apply to talk pages that contain discussion useful for creating a legitimate article at that page or otherwise important for the encyclopedia.
9. Office actions
  • For use by the owners of the servers; ordinary admins do not use this criterion and are not permitted to interfere with these actions.
  • Examples: preventing potential legal problems, removing libellous statements, verifiability issues, other formal complaints.
10. Attack pages
  • Attack pages and images also frequently fall under vandalism, or are sometimes created as a personal attack on another contributor.
See also: Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal/13
11. Blatant advertising
  • To prevent the use of the highly popular and visible Wikipedia as a free promotion tool.
  • Cannot be salvaged into a proper encyclopedia article on a notable topic.
Problems: Issues with how to recognize whether a page is spam or not.
See also: The message by Wikimedia Foundation General Counsel Brad Patrick that led to this criterion being implemented: [1].
12. Blatant copyright infringements
  • No evidence of permission from the copyright owner.
  • No redeemable revisions in the page history, with a checked page history and not a long-standing or heavily edited article.
  • Little-edited pages only, to minimize false positives from websites or mirrors that actually copied the text from Wikipedia.
  • Gets rid of spam.
Problems:
  • Some copyvios can be rewritten into decent articles.
  • Articles that are from public domain or copyleft sources, or copied from Wikipedia, may be erroneously deleted.
See also: Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal/Blatant copyvio material, revision by Jimbo Wales.

[edit] Articles

1. Short articles with little or no context
  • Not enough information about what the article is about for someone to expand it or learn about the subject. Does a reader need to reach for the Abridged Guide to British Peerage or for the Great Big Tome of Famous Brazilian Automotive Engineers?
Problems: May be used to delete reasonable substubs that are sufficient for someone to expand on. Limited content is not the problem, as long as the article has some context.
See also: Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive2#Case 4
2. Foreign language articles that exist on another Wikimedia project
See also:
3. No content whatsoever
  • Previously were separate criteria: "Articles with no content whatsoever" and "Articles which are an attempt to contact someone named in the title".
See also:
4. (This criterion was merged into A3.)
5. Transwikied articles
See also:
6. (This criterion was superseded by G10.)
7. Unremarkable people, groups (vanity pages), companies and websites
  • No reason to think that the subject is remarkable and no claim that it is notable, to minimize the possibility of deleting articles on encyclopedic subjects.
Problems
  • Legitimate articles may be deleted.
See also: Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal/1
8. (This criterion was superseded by G12.)

[edit] Redirects

1. Redirects to nonexistent pages
Problems: There may be a more appropriate article to retarget to.
2. Redirects to user space
  • Usually the result of someone redirecting their name to their user page or a vanity article being moved to their user space.
  • Distinguishes encyclopedic content from users.
See also: Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive1#home pages accidentally created in main article space
3. Implausible typo.
  • Useless, mistakenly created typos.
  • Not for common misspellings, etc. that would help readers find the right article.

[edit] Images

1. Redundant copies of an already existing image
Redundant images take up space
Problems: This does not apply to copies that are in different image file formats because even if an image is a photograph or other continuous-tone image, a GIF or PNG file that is converted to JPEG loses a variety of information that could be important for further editing.
See also: Wikipedia:Preparing images for upload for more information on using the different file formats.
2. Corrupt or empty images
There is no reason to keep around such images that users cannot see
Problems: Sometimes applied to images that are technically okay in some sense (like JPEGs with CMYK colourspace, which open up in many graphics applications but not MediaWiki or web browsers). Sometimes it is better if these images are just converted to a different format that MediaWiki and browsers can handle.
3. Images used with permission, or under a noncommercial or non-derivative license
These images are incompatible with the GNU Free Documentation License, which all Wikipedia content is released under.
See also: The message by Jimbo Wales that led to this criterion being implemented: [2]
4. Images without source and/or license information (after 7 days)
As per Wikipedia's image use policy, all uploaded images must fully describe their source and copyright details on their description pages.
Problems:
  • Admins must be carefully to not blindly delete these images because users may subsequently add valid source and/or license information but forget to remove the unknown source/license tags.
  • Admins can first double check the image's source to see if it does have the licensing information on there.
See also:
5. Orphaned fair use images (after 2 days)
As per Wikipedia:Fair use#Policy item #7
Problems:
  • Admins must be carefully to not blindly delete these image because they may be put back into articles without the orphan tags removed.
  • Images can be orphaned as the result of vandalism or edit wars. In many cases, it is difficult to exactly find out what articles these image were previously on.
  • One can orphan a fair use image to bypass an Images for Deletion discussion.
6. Images with a generic fair use tag and no rationale (after 7 days)
As per Wikipedia:Fair use#Policy item #10
Problems:
  • Admins must be carefully to not blindly delete these images because users may subsequently add a valid fair use rationale.
  • Admins can first double check the source information just in case the uploader added the wrong license tag by mistake.
See also:
7. Images with an obviously invalid fair use tag
As per Wikipedia:Fair use#Policy item #10
Problems:
  • Admins must be carefully to not blindly delete these images because users may subsequently add a valid image tag.
  • Admins can first double check the source information just in case the uploader added the wrong license tag by mistake.
See also: Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive10#New image deletion criteria
8. (This criterion has been superseded by G10 and is kept for historical reasons.)
9. Images available as bit-for-bit identical copies on the Commons
There is no point in having an identical copy here locally on Wikipedia because images on commons are referred to as if they existed here on Wikipedia, e.g. [[Image:TitianStJohn.jpg]].
Problems: Admins must make sure the images fulfill all of the requirements to qualify.
See also

[edit] Categories

1. Empty categories
Problems: The category may have been recently emptied by vandalism, tendentious editing, etc. or someone trying to circumvent Wikipedia:Categories for discussion.
See also: Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive1#Categories
2. Speedy renaming: (Explained on main page. Add further explanation here if necessary.)
See also: Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Restructuring
3. Template categories: (Explained on main page. Add further explanation here if necessary.)

[edit] Templates

1. Divisive and inflammatory templates
  • Damaging to the community and the neutrality of the encyclopedia.
See also:

[edit] User pages

1. User request
  • To facilitate the user's management of the space he uses to contribute to the encyclopedia.
  • Not for cases where there is an administrative need to keep the page.
  • Does not include userboxes userfied per Wikipedia:Userbox migration
See also:
2. Nonexistent user: (Explained on main page. Add further explanation here if necessary.)
3. Fair use galleries in the user space
As per Wikipedia:Fair use#Policy item #9

[edit] Portals

1. Portals on a topic that would be subject to speedy deletion as an article: (Explained on main page. Add further explanation here if necessary.)
See also: Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive9#Proposed CSD criteria for Portals
2. Underpopulated portal: (Explained on main page. Add further explanation here if necessary.)
  • There must be a minimum set of articles for which the the portal is an organized entrance.
Problems: Portal stubs could be expanded.
See also: Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive9#Proposed CSD criteria for Portals