Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 10:06, 14 June 2005

These sections describe the preferred process for the recording of the community's decisions to delete or keep an article.

Speedy deletion

1. Delete the page with a good comment in the reason for deletion field. (This will be automatically recorded in the Deletion log.)
   • Citing the specific criteria for speedy deletion in the comment is strongly recommended.
2. If the page was listed on Misplaced Pages:Speedy deletions, remove the entry from there.

Votes for Deletion page

Each day, all entries more than five days old will be moved to Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion/Old. The decision to keep or delete a page is to be implemented only after the move has been performed.

To process a page on Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion/Old,

1. Determine (using the guidelines) whether the consensus was to keep or delete the article;
2. Determine if the associated talk or sub-pages should also be deleted;
3. Close the discussion by editing the top and bottom of the VfD discussion sub-page. (Together, these two edits will create a shaded box around the discussion thread confirming that it has been closed. See the example below.)
   1. at the top with {{subst:vt}} RESULT. ~~~~
   2. at the bottom with {{subst:vb}}.
4. If the decision is DELETE,
   1. Check "what links here" for any redirects. Redirects should also be deleted or redirected elsewhere.
   2. If a given title should never have an article, then remove all links to it making it an orphan.
   3. If appropriate, delete the article's talk page or any associated sub-pages first. Simply deleting a page does not automatically delete its talk page or any subpages.
   4. Delete the article. (This will be automatically recorded in the Deletion log.) Remember to paste a link to the discussion in the "Reason for deletion" box.
5. If the decision is KEEP (including any variant such as REDIRECT or MERGE),
   1. remove the VfD Header from the article (be sure the VfD Category is also removed),
   2. put a link to the discussion sub-page on the article's talk page.
   3. if the page becomes a redirect, remember to fix double-redirects.
6. If that was the last open entry on that day's page of deletion discussions,
   1. Edit the Old page by cutting the link for the day, which looks something like ].
   2. Edit the Old votes section of the main VfD page by cutting the link for the day, which looks something like '']''.
   3. Go to the Archived delete debates page and paste the link at the bottom.

Header and footer text

After closing the discussion, the page will look like this:

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was ‎ RESULT. my name date

PageName

DISCUSSION THREAD

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

Special Situations

Some deletion discussions require a few extra steps to close completely.

Transwiki

If the decision is TRANSWIKI but you do not want to complete the transwiki process immediately,

1. add a new entry to Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion/Old/Transwiki.
2. add the appropriate tag to the article
   • {{Move to Wiktionary}}
   • {{Move to Wikisource}}
   • {{Move to Wikiquote}}
   • {{Move to Wikibooks}}
   • {{Recipe moving}}
   • {{Transwiki}}

Untranscluded discussions

Sometimes, VfD discussions become excessively long and are temporarily untranscluded from the day's VfD page. This is most often done through the creation of a /temp page for the VfD discussion. If you close one of these very large discussions:

1. Delete the /temp page.
2. Edit the VfD day page to re-transclude the long discussion.

All others (redirects, copyrights, etc.)

• If a separate discussion page was created, follow the VfD procedures above.
• If no separate discussion page was created, please consider creating one. If you choose not to, at least copy the discussion onto the article's Talk page.

Non-Administrators closing discussions

In general, administrators are responsible for closing discussions about deletions. In practice, the various deletion discussions tend to be badly backlogged. Editors in good-standing who have not yet been made administrators may close deletion discussions under the following conditions:

1. Non-administrators may only close decisions which are unambiguous "keep" decisions. They should be near unanimous before a non-administrator should close the discussion. Close calls and controversial or ambiguous decisions should be left to an administrator.
   • This includes unambiguous "merge and redirect", "transwiki" and the other variations of "keep".
2. Non-administrators may not close "delete" decisions even if they are unanimous. Only administrators have the ability to actually delete the target article. By closing the discussion without deleting the article, you will be effectively hiding it from the administrators who will never realize that the final step of deletion must be carried out.
3. Non-administrators should not close discussions in which they have been involved.
4. Only signed-in editors may close the discussion. This is not an activity which is appropriate for an anonymous IP user to carry out.
5. Closing decisions by non-administrators are subject to review and, if necessary, may be reopened by any administrator. If this happens, take it only as a sign that the decision was not as unambiguous as you thought.

Non-administrators can assist in non-controversial "delete" decisions by using the "what links here" feature and unlinking or redirecting the inbound links of an article that is clearly going to be deleted.

See also

• Template:vfd top
• Template:vfd bottom
• Deletion policy
• Deletion guidelines for administrators

• Misplaced Pages guidelines
• Misplaced Pages deletion