Wikipedia:Does deletion help
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This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it. |
On Wikipedia deletion is used to remove articles which do not fit within our remit. There are a number of types of articles which can be deleted on sight, ranging from attack pages to nonsense. See WP:CSD for more. For articles which don't meet those criteria, articles are deleted through editorial consensus after listing at WP:AFD. The question to be debated is whether or not the article improves Wikipedia. So the argument is whether or not articles add to a readers knowledge without misleading or biasing them in any way.
Where an article actually does add to a readers knowledge without misleading or biasing them in any way, it should, in keeping with the editing policy, be kept. Where it is misleading or biased, it should be removed.
However, a large number of policies and guidance sometimes conflict with this approach. For example, guidance on notability states that we need a large number of secondary sources to summarise. This can at times conflict with our purpose, which is to inform. The usual safety valve in this instance is WP:IAR: namely, that we should aim to improve the encyclopedia in whatever we do.
