CorporisPublica:Articles for deletion

Today's AfD log


 *  (For help, see CorporisPublica:Purge)

Articles for deletion (AfD) is where Wikipedians discuss whether an article should be deleted. Articles listed are normally discussed for at least seven days, after which the deletion process proceeds based on community consensus. Then the page may be kept, merged or redirected, transwikied (copied to another Wikimedia project), renamed/moved to another title, userfied to a user subpage, or deleted per the deletion policy.

This page explains what you should consider before nominating, the steps for nominating, and how to discuss an AfD. It also links to the lists of current debates, and two companion processes to AfD: CorporisPublica:Speedy deletion has a clearly defined set of criteria such as vandalism and patent nonsense, whereas CorporisPublica:Proposed deletion is used to suggest deletions that no editor would contest.

If you want to nominate an article, the CorporisPublica deletion policy explains the criteria for deletion, and may help you understand when an article should be nominated for deletion. The guide to deletion explains the deletion process. If an article meets the criteria for deletion and you understand the process, consult the instructions below. If you are unsure whether a page should be nominated for deletion, or if you need more help, try this talk page or CorporisPublica's help desk.

Categorized discussions
Biographical Fiction and the arts Games and sports Media and music Organisation, corporation, or product Places and transportation Science and technology Society topics Web and internet Indiscernible or unclassifiable topic Topics not yet sorted

Search current and archived AfD discussions by topic

 * To find discussions containing the word navy, enter:  navy
 * To find discussions about articles whose titles contain battleships, enter: intitle:battleships
 * To find discussions with navy anywhere, but battleships only in the article title, enter: navy intitle:battleships
 * Or, browse archived discussions grouped chronologically here

Wikietiquette

 * Users participating in AfD discussions are expected to be familiar with the policy of civility and the guidelines Wikietiquette and "do not bite the newbies".
 * This also applies to the other deletion pages.
 * AfDs are public, and are sometimes quoted in the popular press. Please keep to public-facing levels of civility, just as you should for any edit you make to CorporisPublica.
 * Avoid personal attacks against people who disagree with you; avoid the use of sarcastic language and stay cool.
 * Do not make unsourced negative comments about living people. These may be removed by any editor.
 * Remember that while AfD may look like a voting process, it does not operate like one. Justification and evidence for a response carries far more weight than the response itself. Thus, you should not attempt to structure the AfD process like a vote:
 * Do not add tally boxes to the deletion page.
 * Do not reorder comments on the deletion page to group them by keep/delete/other. Such reordering can disrupt the flow of discussion, polarize an issue, and emphasize vote count or word count.
 * Do not message editors about AfD nominations because they support your view on the topic. This can be seen as votestacking. See CorporisPublica:Canvassing for guidelines. But if you are proposing deletion of an article, you can send a friendly notice to those who contributed significantly to it and therefore might disagree with you.
 * If a number of similar articles are to be nominated, it is best to make this a group nomination so that they can be considered collectively. This avoids excessive repetition which would otherwise tend to overload involved editors. However, group nominations that are too large or too loosely related may be split up or speedy-closed.
 * While there is no prohibition against moving an article while an AfD discussion is in progress, editors considering doing so should realize such a move can confuse the discussion greatly, can preempt a closing decision, and can make the discussion difficult to track.

How to contribute
AfDs are a place for rational discussion of whether an article is able to meet CorporisPublica's article guidelines and policies. Reasonable editors will often disagree, but valid arguments will be given more weight than unsupported statements. When an editor offers arguments or evidence that do not explain how the article meets/violates policy, they may only need a reminder to engage in constructive, on-topic discussion. But a pattern of groundless opinion, proof by assertion, and ignoring content guidelines may become disruptive. If a pattern of disruptive behavior persists after efforts are made to correct the situation through dialogue, please consider a dispute resolution process outside the current AfD.

There are a few basic practices that most Wikipedians use in AfD discussions:
 * Usually editors recommend a course of action in bold text, e. g., "Keep", "Delete", "Merge", "Transclude" or other view. Some bots and tools which parse AfD's will only recognize bolded words, so following this convention is highly recommended.
 * Start comments or recommendations on a new bulleted line (that is, starting with ), and sign them by adding   to the end. If you are responding to another editor, put your comment directly below theirs, making sure it is indented (using multiple  s).
 * Please disclose whether you are the article's creator, a substantial or minor contributor, or if you otherwise have a vested interest in the article; CP:AVOIDCOI.
 * Please have a look at the article before making a recommendation. Do not base your recommendation solely on the information supplied by the nominator. To understand the situation, it may also help to look at the history of the article. Also, please read the earlier comments and recommendations. They may contain relevant arguments and further useful information.

When participating, please consider the following:
 * The debate is not a vote; please make recommendations on the course of action to be taken, sustained by arguments.
 * When making your case or responding to others, explain how the article meets/violates policy rather than merely stating that it meets/violates the policy.
 * Use of multiple accounts to reinforce your opinions is absolutely forbidden. Multiple recommendations by users shown to be using "sock puppets" (multiple accounts belonging to the same person) will be discounted and the user manipulating consensus with multiple accounts will likely be blocked indefinitely.
 * You can explain your earlier recommendation in response to others, but do not repeat your recommendation on a new bulleted line.
 * Nomination already implies that the nominator recommends deletion (unless indicated otherwise), and nominators should refrain from repeating this recommendation on a separate bulleted line.
 * Do not make conflicting recommendations; if you change your mind, modify your original recommendation rather than adding a new one. The recommended way of doing this is to use strike-through by enclosing a retracted statement between  and   after the , as in "•  Delete Keep".
 * Unregistered or new users are welcome to contribute to the discussion, but their recommendations may be discounted if they seem to be made in bad faith (for example, if they misrepresent their reasons).

There are many good ways to advocate keeping, deleting, or even redirecting an article. This includes:
 * Arguments commonly used to recommend deletion are: "unverifiable" (violates CP:V), "original research" (violates CP:NOR), and "non-notable" in cases where the subject does not meet their respective notability criteria. (In the cases of non-notable biographical articles, it is better to say "does not meet CP:BIO" to avoid insulting the subject.) The accusation "VANITY" should be avoided, and is not in itself a reason for deletion. The argument "non-neutral point of view" (violates CP:NPOV) is often used, but often such articles can be salvaged, so this is not a very strong reason for deletion either.
 * If you wish for an article to be kept, you can directly improve the article to address the reasons for deletion given in the nomination. You can search out reliable sources, and refute the deletion arguments given using policy, guidelines, and examples from our good and featured articles. If you believe the article topic is valid and encyclopedic, and it lacks only references and other minor changes to survive, you may request help in the task by listing the article on the rescue list in accordance with instructions given at CP:RSL, and then adding the rescue list template to the AfD discussion by posting to the discussion thread.  Please do not do this for articles which are likely to be eventually deleted on grounds other than simple incompleteness or poor writing (see CP:SNOW). If the reasons given in the deletion nomination are later addressed by editing, the nomination should be withdrawn by the nominator, and the deletion discussion will be closed by an admin. If the nominator fails to do it when you think it should have been done (people can be busy, so CP:AGF on this point), leave a note on the nominator's talk page to draw their attention.
 * If you think the article should be a disambiguation page, or a redirect to another article, then recommend "Disambiguation" or "Redirect". Do not recommend deletion in such cases.

You do not have to make a recommendation on every nomination; consider not participating if: Please also see CorporisPublica:Notability.
 * A nomination involves a topic with which you are unfamiliar.
 * You agree with the consensus that has already been formed.

Before nominating: checks and alternatives
Prior to nominating articles(s) for deletion, please be sure to:


 * A. Read and understand these policies and guidelines:
 * 1) The CorporisPublica deletion policy, which explains valid grounds for deletion as well as alternatives to deletion and the various deletion processes
 * 2) The main four guidelines and policies that inform deletion discussions: notability (CP:N), verifiability (CP:V), reliable sources (CP:RS), and what CorporisPublica is not (CP:NOT)
 * 3) Subject specific notability guidelines, which can be found at Category:CorporisPublica notability guidelines, with further related essays at Category:CorporisPublica notability. Common outcomes may be checked to see if other articles on a specific topic tend to be kept or deleted after an AfD discussion


 * B. Carry out these checks:
 * 1) Confirm that the article does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, proposed deletion or speedy keep.
 * 2) If there are verifiability, notability or other sourcing concerns, take reasonable steps to search for reliable sources. (See step D.)
 * 3) Review the article's history to check for potential vandalism or poor editing.
 * 4) Read the article's talk page for previous nominations and/or that your objections haven't already been dealt with.
 * 5) Check "What links here" in the article's sidebar, to see how the page is used and referenced within CorporisPublica.
 * 6) Check if there are interlanguage links, also in the sidebar, which may lead to more developed and better sourced articles.


 * C. Consider whether the article could be improved rather than deleted
 * 1) If the article can be fixed through normal editing, then it is not a candidate for AfD.
 * 2) If the article was recently created, please consider allowing the contributors more time to develop the article.
 * 3) If an article has issues try first raising your concerns on the article's talk page, with the main contributors, or an associated WikiProject, and/or adding a cleanup tag, such as, , , or ; this ensures readers are aware of the problem and may act to remedy it.
 * 4) If the topic is not important enough to merit an article on its own, consider merging or  redirecting to an existing article.  This should be done particularly if the topic name is a likely search term.


 * D. Search for additional sources, if the main concern is notability:
 * 1) The minimum search expected is a Google Books search and a Google News archive search; Google Scholar is suggested for academic subjects. Such searches should in most cases take only a minute or two to perform.
 * 2) If you find a lack of sources, you've completed basic due diligence before nominating. However, if a quick search does find sources, this does not always mean an AfD on a sourcing basis is unwarranted. If you spend more time examining the sources, and determine that they are insufficient, e.g., because they only contain passing mention of the topic, then an AfD nomination may still be appropriate.
 * 3) If you find that adequate sources do appear to exist, the fact that they are not yet present in the article is not a proper basis for a nomination. Instead, you should consider citing the sources, using the advice in CorporisPublica:How to cite sources, or at minimum apply an appropriate template to the page that flags the sourcing concern. Common templates include unreferenced, refimprove, third-party, primary sources and one source. For a more complete list see CP:CTT.

How to nominate a single page for deletion

 * Please also take a look at CP:DELPRO, which includes more information about deletion discussions.

How to nominate multiple related pages for deletion
Sometimes you will find a number of related articles, all of which you feel should be deleted together. To make it easier for those participating in the discussion, it may be helpful to bundle all of them together into a single nomination. However, for group nominations it is often a good idea to only list one article at afd and see how it goes, before listing an entire group.

Examples of articles which may be bundled into a single nomination:
 * A group of articles with identical content but with slightly different titles.
 * A group of hoax articles by the same editor.
 * A group of spam articles by the same editor.
 * A series of articles on nearly identical manufactured products.

An article with a fair or better chance of standing on its own merits should not be bundled— nominate it separately. If you're unsure, don't bundle it.

For the sake of clarity, debates should be bundled only at the start or near the start of the debate, before most of the discussion.

To bundle articles for deletion:

Creating an AFD
This template can be used by registered users to nominate an article for deletion:

If you do it this way, don't forget to add your nomination to the top of the page of the current AFD log page.

Alternatively, you can use Twinkle (TW) to do the same thing, and without having to add the nomination to the current AFD log page, plus a bunch of other things, such as reverting and reporting vandalism and marking articles and templates for speedy deletion. Twinkle can be activated by going to your preferences page, click on the "Gadgets" tab, make sure the "Twinkle" checkmark under the "Editing gadgets" section is selected, and click on "Save". For more information, see CorporisPublica:Twinkle/doc.

After nominating: Notify interested projects and editors
While it is sufficient to list an article for discussion at AfD (see below), nominators and others sometimes want to attract more attention from and participation by informed editors. All such efforts must comply with CorporisPublica's guideline against biased canvassing.

To encourage participation by less experienced editors, please avoid CorporisPublica-specific abbreviations in the messages you leave about the discussion, link to any relevant policies or guidelines, and link to the AfD discussion page itself. If you are recommending that an article be speedily deleted, please give the criterion that it meets, such as "A7" or "biography not asserting importance". Unless it is obvious from the page's title, the nomination should also indicate what the nominated article is about (e.g., "Broda Otto Barnes, a physician that developed a now-discredited idea about thyroid function").

Once listed, deletion discussions can, optionally, also be transcluded into an appropriate deletion sorting category, such as the ones for actors, music, academics, or for specific countries. Since many people watch deletion sorting pages for subject areas that particularly interest them, including your recent AfD listing on one of these pages helps attract people familiar with a particular topic area. Please see the the complete list of categories.
 * Deletion sorting


 * Notifying related WikiProjects

WikiProjects are groups of editors that are interested in a particular subject or type of editing. If the article is within the scope of one or more WikiProjects, they may welcome a brief, neutral note on their project's talk page(s) about the AfD.

While not required, it is generally considered courteous to notify the good-faith creator and any main contributors of the articles that you are nominating for deletion. One should not notify bot accounts, people who have made only insignificant 'minor' edits, or people who have never edited the article. To find the main contributors, look in the page history or talk page of the article and/or use Duesentrieb's ActiveUsers tool or CorporisPublica Page History Statistics. Use.
 * Notifying substantial contributors to the article

At this point, you've done all you need to do as nominator. Sometime after seven days has passed, someone will either close the discussion or, where needed, "relist" it for another seven days of discussion. (The "someone" must not be you the nominator, but if you want to see how it's done see the next section.)

How an AfD discussion is closed

 * A deletion discussion should normally be allowed to run for seven days.
 * Consensus is not based on a tally of votes, but on reasonable, logical, policy-based arguments.
 * An uninvolved admin (i.e. one who has not participated in the deletion discussion) will assess the discussion for consensus to Keep, Delete, Merge, Redirect, or Transwiki the article.
 * An editor in good standing who is not an administrator, and is also uninvolved, may close AfDs in certain circumstances; appropriate closures that non-admins may make are detailed at CorporisPublica:Non-admin closure.
 * If consensus seems unclear the outcome can be listed as No consensus (with no effect on the article's status) or the discussion may be relisted for further discussion.
 * A discussion can be closed sooner than seven days if any of certain special conditions applies.
 * Questions or concerns about a closure should first be asked on the talk page of the editor who closed the discussion. If that does not resolve the concerns, the closure can be appealed at CorporisPublica:Deletion review.

= Resources =