Wowpedia:Deletion policy

Template:Breadcrumb1 Template:Policytoc

This page is an official policy on Wowpedia. This policy has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow. Feel free to propose any changes to this policy, but please make sure that changes you make follow the official process and reflect consensus on the discussion page before you put them into practice. Any big changes need to be Adopted or Decreed to be enforced as policy. See Wowpedia:Policies for an overview of Wowpedia policies. See Category:Policies for a list of proposed and adopted policy articles.

Deleting a page

When a page is obvious spam, or is deprecated by a new page and has no need to be redirected, or for some other reason you think it should be removed from the wiki, then you can mark it as a candidate for deletion. Please use discretion when doing this as it is a direct violation of the spirit of a wiki if not the policy of this wiki - it destroys the atmosphere of trust and collaboration. If you still think it is best for the article to be removed, then there are several steps you must take. (See below for some exceptions).

If a page has had useful content, but it has been moved somewhere else (because of merging, fixing naming, etc) it is normally best to Template:L it!

Outside sources (including search engines) keep old links into WoWWiki - it is in our best interest to keep them working!

Steps to mark a page for deletion

If you have decided, for one reason or another, that a page needs to be deleted, there are several steps you should take.

1. Place the candidate for deletion template tag at the very top of the article - type exactly Template:Tlink as the very first line of the article.
   • This will place a large banner at the top of the page, notifying visitors that it is a candidate for deletion, and that their vote on the talk page would be appreciated.
   • This will also place the article in Category:Candidates for deletion.
2. Save the article.
3. Place the deletion candidate talk template tag at the very top of the article's talk page - type exactly {{subst:Delete/Talk}} as the very first line of the page.

   (You may also provide a reason directly: {{subst:Delete/Talk|needs to be deleted because ...}})

   • You will automatically be registered as the first vote to delete.
   • This will place a large banner at the top of the talk page, explaining to visitors how to vote.
   • This will also add the voting booth to the page, where visitors can place their actual votes.
   • Finally, this will add the talk page to Category: Votes in progress so that members wishing to participate in the democratic process can find it among the lists of votes in progress..
4. Save the talk page.
5. You are done! Tell your friends to go vote their heart on the article, and see below to know when to mark it terminate and / or remove the delete candidate listing!

What to do next

Now that the page is marked for deletion, you wait for enough members to vote before anything actually happens:

• When either side (for or against deletion) is winning by a three (3) vote margin, the vote is pending closure.

• Once a vote is pending closure, you wait five (5) days from when the last vote was cast (look at the timestamps on the votes). During this time you can change the Template:Tlink tag at the top of talk page to Template:Tlink to mark that the vote is in this period.
  • If the losing side does not reach get within 3 votes of the winning side within the 5 days, then the vote is closed.
  • If, however, the losing side gets within 3 votes, the page leaves the pending closure state until one side is winning by a 3 vote margin again. If the Template:Tlink tag is on the talk page it should be replaced with the Template:Tlink tag again.

Once a vote is closed, the action for the appropriate side is taken:

• If the Delete votes have it:
  1. Replace Template:Tlink tag in the talk page with Template:Tlink. The voting booth and associated votes are left for the admin to review.
  2. Replace Template:Tlink tag in the article page itself with Template:Tlink tag to mark the article as one that an admin needs to delete.
  • The article will be removed the next time and administrator comes on and checks Category:Terminated articles for new articles to remove.

• If the Keep votes win:
  1. Remove Template:Tlink from the article page itself.
  2. In the talk page, replace Template:Tlink with Template:Tlink.
  3. Leave the vote in for future reference.

Exceptions

There are certain cases where a page may directly be marked for termination without of going through the normal deletion steps: Template:WoWWiki:Policy/Terminating/Direct termination terms

Speedy Delete

If you still feel a page should be deleted quickly, but it does not meet the direct termination exceptions (i.e. it was create by a vandal and will likely never have content, but is more than a week old), then you can use the process of speedy deletion.

If you mark a page as Template:Tlink, an admin will look at it and either:

• Remove the page if they feel it should be removed
• If they do not feel it should be removed without a vote they will change it from a speedy delete, to the standard deletion vote in accordance with this policy.

Qualifications for speedy delete:

1. the page was edited by only one significant contributor (such as – but not exclusively – a user page) and:
   • the author requests deletion (possibly by deleting his own content without knowing about deletion tags)
   • another user decides according to other qualifications
2. the page has never had any content - especially if it appears that it will never have any content
3. violation of other Template:L where the consequence is deletion

Review the Speedy deletion policy for more information, misuse could be construed as vandalism

Any user can remove the Template:Tlink tag and replace it with a standard deletion vote in accordance with this policy if they feel the page should not be deleted without a vote.

Related links

• WoWWiki:Policy
• WoWWiki:Policy/Terminating
• WoWWiki:Policy/Speedy deletion
• Help:Terminating pages
• Help:Deleting pages
• The previous deletion policy

Categories

Template:WoWWiki:Policy/Deletion categories

Templates

• Template:Delete
• Template:Delete/Talk - Use {{subst:Delete/Talk}} instead of simple template pull.
  • Template:Delete/Vote - Do not use directly. Gets pulled in automatically by Template:Tlink.
• Template:Delete/Closing
• Template:Terminate
• Template:Willkeep
• Template:Speedydelete