User:Iridescent/deletion

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Contents 1 Why did you delete my article? 2 Why are you picking on me? 3 What does that box at the top of my article mean? 3.1 Proposed deletion 3.2 Speedy deletion 3.3 Articles for deletion 4 My page has vanished! 5 How can I stop my articles being deleted?

[edit] Why did you delete my article?

If you want to complain about your article having been deleted, I am the person you need to be writing to. The only people on Wikipedia who have the power to delete pages are the Admins, and I am not an admin. Anybody, including me and you, can suggest deleting pages, but only an admin can decide to delete them.

[edit] Why are you picking on me?

I do a lot of work for WikiProject Stub Sorting. Short and shortish articles that survive or slip past the New Pages Patrol but don't already have a specific Stub type in the article will be tagged {{stub}} by Wikipedia bots, and be listed on the unsorted stub list.

Once an article's on this list, me — and around 400 other people — will go through the list and read each article. If we feel the article's worth keeping, we'll tag it with the appropriate stub tag, but if we have any concerns about it we'll put it through the appropriate deletion procedure (see below) to allow either an admin or other users to decide whether it's worth keeping. Because most articles failing the primary criteria for being kept tend to come to the stub list, we end up proposing for deletion more than the average Wikipedia editor. It's not that we're particularly sadistic, that we have it in for your article, or that we just like deleting things — it's just that because we see so many short articles, we tend to get a good feel for what will or won't pass the Wikipedia admins.

I'd strongly advise putting the appropriate tag from the stub tag list on your article. Not only does it save us work, but it means we're a lot less likely to see your article and possibly think it warrants deletion. Just select the appropriate tag from the list and copy it to the very bottom of your article.

[edit] What does that box at the top of my article mean?

[edit] Proposed deletion

If you see a blue box with the message It is proposed that this article be deleted, because of the following concern... at the top of your article, this means someone has proposed it for deletion ("prodded it"); the reason will be given in the blue box. If nobody challenges the proposal for five days, an admin will look at the article and decide whether to delete it. If you don't agree that it should be deleted, just edit the page and remove the {{dated prod}} line from the top of the article. Give the reason you think the article should be kept in the "edit summary" box.

[edit] Speedy deletion

If you see a pink box with the message This page may meet Wikipedia’s criteria for speedy deletion at the top of your article, this means someone feels it meets one of the criteria for speedy deletion ("speedied it"). An admin will look at the article at any time and decide whether to delete it. If you don't agree that it should be deleted, put {{hangon}} at the very top of the article without deleting the line starting {{db}}, and put the reason you think the article should be kept on the article's talk page.

[edit] Articles for deletion

If you see a gray box with the message This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy at the top of your article, this means someone has nominated the page for a deletion discussion ("AfD'd it"). This does not mean the page will be deleted — it doesn't even necessarily mean the nominator thinks it should be deleted. The page will be listed at Deletion Discussions for five days, and people will discuss (not vote) whether it ought to be kept; after five days, an admin will read the discussion and decide whether it ought to be kept. Anyone, including the author of the article, can contribute to the discussion — click the link in the box at the top of the article.

[edit] My page has vanished!

This means that someone (not me — let me reiterate, I do not have the power to delete articles) has deleted the article. If you have a good reason why you think the decision to delete it was wrong, go to Deletion Review and follow the instructions there. It would be a very good idea to read the Wikipedia inclusion criteria, and if the article is about a person to read WP:BIO. If you think someone's picking on you, as a last resort you can post a complaint at WP:AN/I, but make sure you have a good reason.

If you really feel a particular user's behaviour is consistently unacceptable — eg, they keep posting abuse to your talk page when you try to discuss things with them, or they repeatedly propose pages for deletion that obviously don't deserve it, post the issue at the Administrator's Incident Noticeboard. If enough other people agree with you, offending users can be warned or blocked from Wikipedia.

[edit] How can I stop my articles being deleted?

Pages that don't meet Wikipedia guidelines can be nominated for deletion by any editor. The obvious way to make sure your article gets kept is to make sure your article meets those guidelines; most importantly, the article has to prove that the subject of the article has been the subject of "multiple independent non-trivial sources", such as links to two newspapers or major websites discussing the subject. To do this correctly, visit WP:CITE and follow the instructions there. Don't worry too much about getting the formatting perfect; as long as the sources are there, the article will be cleaned up by other editors rather than deleted.

Unsorted stub articles and uncategorised articles are much more likely to come to notice than any other kind. If your article's relatively short, go to the list of stub tags and add the appropriate tag to the bottom of your article (eg, for an article about a Canadian cricketer, add {{Canada-cricket-bio-stub}}). Likewise, add appropriate categories to the bottom of your article; for example, the Canadian cricketer would have Category:Canadian cricketers at the bottom of the article. There is a full list of categories at Special:Categories but it isn't very useful because it's so long; the easiest way to find the appropriate categories is to look at the bottom of another article on a similar subject.

Inappropriate stub tags and categories will just be deleted (and annoy a bunch of people), but even very short articles have a much better chance of surviving as long as they're appropriately tagged and categorised.

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