Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Newsletter/20120404/Feature

Feature: Project deletion discussions page

Submitted by MuZemike

WikiProject Video games has an in-house location for all video game deletion discussions, which is located at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Deletion. Project volunteers regularly check the centralized AfD lists for any video game-related ones, in which they get added on that page. There, project members can keep track of deletion discussions that pertain to articles that fall within the project.

Along with deletion discussions, users can track proposed deletions (see below), deletions of other pages such as categories or templates, and even other processes such as peer reviews and good article nominations at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Article alerts, which is maintained by a bot.

About the deletion process

Wikipedia is ultimately a wiki, which means that users can exercise editorial judgment and discretion with regard to what types of articles are appropriate for the encyclopedia. Just as articles can be created, they can also be deleted; while administrators are the only ones who can carry out actual deletions, it is in AfDs in that more broad discussion from community members can take place as to determine whether or not an article should be deleted.

The deletion process consists of the following four community methods to determine whether or not articles can be deleted (by order of priority):

• Speedy deletion - Any Wikipedia page (e.g. articles, user pages, etc.) may be deleted without discussion by an administrator if it meets one or more of the speedy deletion criteria listed there. The more important ones consist of attack pages (G10), pages created for the purposes of blatant disruption or vandalism (G3), or copyright violations (G12).
• Proposed deletion for biographies of living persons - In efforts to protect living persons' from false, misleading, or libellous information on Wikipedia, any article on a living person that was created after March 18, 2010, that lacks any sources can be proposed for deletion via what we call a "sticky prod" process. What happens is that any editor tags an unreferenced article about a living person for deletion by using the {{prod blp}} tag. Any such tagged article will be deleted in 10 days after its tagging unless any user is able to add sources to the article, at which point the tag may be removed.
• Proposed deletion – Proposed deletion is a lightweight deletion process for articles that do not quite meet the criteria for speedy deletion but otherwise likely does meet our standards for articles. This is also a means to lighten the load from the last step, articles for deletion, in which articles that more clearly should be deleted do not need an entire deletion discussion. Any user can propose deletion on any such articles by placing the {{prod}} tag on top of the article's page; after 7 days, the article is deleted unless someone contests the deletion by simply removing the tag.
• Articles for deletion (AfD) – Articles that do not fit under any of above the deletion processes or those that will likely need a discussion can be nominated for deletion via the AfD process. In this process, a 7-day long deletion discussion is started, in which users can support or oppose deletion of the article and explain their rationales as to why, or they could propose alternatives such as merging to other articles or redirecting.

In order to ensure that the correct articles get deleted, all users are encouraged to follow our pre-deletion steps, commonly known here as WP:BEFORE. This includes making sure the articles should be deleted for valid reasons as outlined in the deletion policy, making sure that other alternatives to deletion has been tried such as merging, tagging and letting someone else try and address the shortcomings, or addressing the reasons that may cause the article to be deleted. For instance, many articles are proposed for deletion because they do not meet our notability standards. Users could address these concerns by adding reliable sources so that the they do meet the standards, tagging in hopes that other, more knowledgeable people can attempt to find some, or attempt to merge those articles into their more notable parent articles.

If an article is deleted that may be worthy of inclusion in the near future, all is not lost. As administrators have the ability to delete articles from Wikipedia, they also have the ability to restore them. Users can do one of three things if they feel a deleted article may have a chance to be restored:

1. Ask an administrator to create a userspace draft for them, allowing that user to work on the article in their own space as a draft until the article passes for inclusion. An alternative to asking an administrator is to make a request through our lightweight requests for undeletion (REFUND) page.
2. Request that an article be sent to the article incubator, which is similar to userfication, but serves as more of a communal space for drafts of deleted articles that may be worthy of inclusion in the future.
3. If a user disagrees with an administrator's decision to delete an article, that user may wish to discuss with said administrator about it for clarification or in a possible attempt to restore the article. Failing that, the user may request a deletion review, in which the community can decide whether or not the deletion was appropriate and in process.