Wikipedia:Articles for deletion

Nomination of ARTICLE NAME for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article ARTICLE NAME is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/ARTICLE NAME until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.

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Articles for deletion (AfD) is where Wikipedians discuss whether an article should be deleted. Articles listed here are debated for up to five days, after which the deletion process proceeds based on Wikipedia community consensus. The page is then either kept, merged and/or redirected, transwikied (copied to another Wikimedia project, such as Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikiquote, Wiktionary, or another language's Wikipedia, and then redirected or deleted — please note that it cannot be transwikied to Wikitravel or Wikinews), renamed/moved to another title, userfied to the creator's user page or user subpage, or deleted per the deletion policy.

This article explains what you should consider before nominating, the steps for nominating single or multiple pages, and how to discuss an AfD. It also links to the list of articles currently under consideration, and to two faster alternatives to AfD: the simpler companion processes, Wikipedia:Speedy deletions and Wikipedia:Proposed deletion, exist for the deletion of articles that are generally uncontroversial deletion candidates, such as vandalism, patent nonsense, and erroneously-created User pages.

If you want to nominate an article, the Wikipedia 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 the article in question meets the criteria for deletion and you understand the deletion process, consult the instructions on how to list pages for deletion.

Current discussions

Articles being considered for possible deletion are indexed by the day on which they were first listed.

Read how to – Add a new entry

Alternatively, if you believe that deletion of an article would be uncontroversial, you may place the code {{subst:prod|insert reason for deletion}} on the article instead. See also Wikipedia:Proposed deletion for more information, and Category:Proposed deletions, for other currently pending nominations for deletion.

• 25 April (Thursday)
• 24 April (Wednesday)
• 23 April (Tuesday)
• 22 April (Monday)
• 21 April (Sunday)
• 20 April (Saturday)
• 19 April (Friday)
• 18 April (Thursday)

Old discussions (open)

• April 17 (Wednesday) (15 open / 45 closed / 60 total discussions; open: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15)
• April 16 (Tuesday) (0 open / 46 closed / 46 total discussions)

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 | Nominator unsure | Topic not yet sorted

Before nominating an AfD

• Read and understand the Wikipedia deletion policy, which explains valid grounds for deletion.
• Consider adding a tag such as {{cleanup}}, {{disputed}} or {{expert-subject}} instead; this may be preferable if the article has some useful content.
• Consider making the page a useful redirect or proposing it be merged rather than deleted. Neither of these actions requires an AfD.
• Click "what links here" in the article's sidebar, to see how the page is used and referenced within Wikipedia.
• Check interwiki links to pages "in other languages" which may provide additional material for translation.
• Read the article's talk page, which may provide reasons why the article should or should not be deleted.
• Familiarize yourself with the frequently cited guidelines WP:BIO, WP:COI, WP:CORP, WP:MUSIC, WP:FICT, WP:RS, WP:WEB, WP:N, and WP:NOT.
• Before nominating a recently created article, please consider that many good articles started their Wikilife in pretty bad shape. Unless it is obviously a hopeless case, consider sharing your reservations with the article creator, mentioning your concerns on the article's discussion page, and/or adding a "cleanup" template, instead of bringing the article to AfD. If you can fix the article through normal editing, then it is not a good candidate for AfD.
• Confirm that the article does not meet the criteria for Wikipedia:speedy deletions or Wikipedia:Proposed deletion.
• If you expect that the AfD page will be edited by newcomers to Wikipedia (possibly because the article itself is linked from some visible place outside Wikipedia), or if you notice this happening after the AfD page is created, you might want to insert the {{Afdanons}} template into it.
• Note that if you are editing under an IP address because you have not yet created a user account, you will not be able to complete the AfD process, as anonymous contributors are currently unable to create new pages (as required by step 2 of "How to list pages for deletion," below). If this is the case, consider creating or requesting a user account before listing an article on AfD.

How to list pages for deletion

This section describes how to list articles and their associated talk pages for deletion. For pages that are not articles, list them at other appropriate deletion venues or use copyright violation where applicable. As well, note that deletion may not be needed for problems such as pages written in foreign languages, duplicate pages, and other cases. Use Wikipedia:Proposed mergers for discussion of mergers.

Only a registered, logged-in user can complete steps II and III. (Autoconfirmed registered users can also use the Twinkle tool to make nominations.) If you are unregistered, you should complete step I, note the justification for deletion on the article's talk page, then post a message at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion requesting that someone else complete the process.

You must sign in to nominate pages for deletion. If you do not sign-in, or you edit anonymously, you will get stuck part way through the nomination procedure.

• To nominate multiple related pages for deletion, follow the multi-page deletion nomination procedure.
• To nominate a single page for deletion, you can use Twinkle, or follow these three steps:

I – Put the deletion tag on the article. Insert {{subst:afd1}} at the top of the article. Do not mark the edit as minor. If this article has been nominated before, use {{subst:afdx|2nd}} or {{subst:afdx|3rd}} etc. Include in the edit summary AfD: Nominated for deletion; see [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/NominationName]]. replacing NominationName with the name of the page being nominated. Publish the page. The NominationName is normally the article name (PageName), but if it has been nominated before, use "PageName (2nd nomination)" or "PageName (3rd nomination)" etc.)

II – Create the article's deletion discussion page. The resulting AfD box at the top of the article should contain a link to "Preloaded debate" in the AfD page. Click that link to open the article's deletion discussion page for editing. Some text and instructions will appear. You can do it manually as well: Click the link saying "deletion discussion page" to open the deletion-debate page. Insert this text: {{subst:afd2 | pg=PageName | cat=Category | text=Why the page should be deleted}} ~~~~ Replace PageName with the name of the page, Category with a letter from the list M, O, B, S, W, G, T, F, and P to categorize the debate, and Why the page should be deleted with the reasons the page should be deleted. If appropriate, inform members of the most relevant WikiProjects through one or more "deletion sorting lists". Then add a {{subst:delsort|<topic>|<signature>}} template to the nomination, to insert a note that this has been done. Use an edit summary such as Creating deletion discussion for [[PageName]]. Publish the page.

III – Notify users who monitor AfD discussions. Open the articles for deletion log page for editing. At the top of the list on the log page (there's a comment indicating the spot), insert:{{subst:afd3 | pg=NominationName}} Replace NominationName appropriately (use "PageName", "PageName (2nd nomination)", etc.) Link to the discussion page in your edit summary: Adding [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/NominationName]]. Publish the page. Consider letting the authors know on their talk page by adding: {{subst:Afd notice|Page name}} ~~~~ If this is not the first nomination, add a second parameter with the NominationName (use "PageName (2nd nomination)" etc.): {{subst:Afd notice|PageName|NominationName}} ~~~~

• 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. Do not notify bot accounts or people who have made only insignificant 'minor' edits. To find the main contributors, look in the page history or talk page of the article and/or use TDS' Article Contribution Counter. For your convenience, you may use {{subst:AFDWarningNew|Article title}} ~~~~ (for creators who are totally new users), {{subst:AFDWarning|Article title}} ~~~~ (for creators), or {{subst:Adw|Article title}} ~~~~ (for contributors or established users). You can determine the main contributors of the articles by entering the page name at Wikipedia Page History Statistics.
• To avoid confusing newcomers, the reasons given for deletion should avoid Wikipedia-specific acronyms.
• Place a notification on significant pages that link to your nomination, to enable those with related knowledge to participate in the debate.
• If recommending that an article be speedily deleted, please give the criterion or criteria that it meets, such as "A7" or "biography not asserting importance".

How to list 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 when articles may be bundled into a single nomination:

• An article about a band and three articles about its members, none of whom has done anything else notable outside of the band.
• An article about a company/organization and a second article about its founder, who has done nothing else of note.
• An article about a video game/book and related articles for characters within it.
• An article about an album and related articles for its songs.
• An article about any topic and other articles with the same content but with different titles.

If any of the articles you are considering for bundling could stand on its own merits, then it should be nominated separately. Or to put it more succinctly, if you are unsure of whether to bundle an article or not, do not.

To bundle articles for deletion, follow these steps:

I.	Nominate the first article for deletion.   Follow the steps as outlined above.
II.	Nominate the remaining articles.   On each of the remaining articles, at the top insert the following: {{subst:afd1|PageName}} Replace PageName with the name of the first page to be deleted, not the current page name. In other words, if Some article was the first article you nominated, replace PageName with Some article. As before, please include the phrase "AfD: Nominated for deletion; see [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/PageName]]" in the edit summary (again replacing PageName with the first page to be deleted), and do not mark the edit as minor. Save the page. Repeat for all articles to be bundled. (If the article has been nominated before, use {{subst:afdx}} instead of {{subst:afd1}}, and replace "PageName" with the name of the page plus a note like "(second nomination)" for a second nomination, etc. See Template talk:Afdx for details.)
III.	Add the remaining articles to the nomination.   Go the first article's deletion discussion page,   Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/PageName, and add a note   under your original nomination listing all related pages, for example: I am also nominating the following related pages because [insert reason here]: :{{la|related article 1}} :{{la|related article 2}} In the edit summary, note that you are bundling related articles for deletion.

AfD Wikietiquette

• Users participating in AfD discussions are expected to be familiar with the policies of Civility and Wikietiquette and the guideline 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 Wikipedia.
• 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 Wikipedia:Canvassing for guidelines.

How to discuss an AfD

The debate is not a vote; please make recommendations on the course of action to be taken, sustained by arguments. 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. Start your 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 an article's primary author or if you otherwise have a vested interest in the article. Unregistered or new users are welcome to contribute to the discussion, but their recommendations may be discounted, especially if they seem to be made in bad faith (for example, if they misrepresent their reasons). Conversely, the opinions of logged in users whose accounts predate the article's AfD nomination are given more weight. Multiple recommendations by users shown to be using "sock puppets" (multiple accounts belonging to the same person) will be discounted. Usually editors recommend a course of action in bold text, e.g., "Keep" or "Delete". Please make only one recommendation; 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 <s> and </s>, as in "Delete Speedy keep". Arguments commonly used to recommend deletion are: "unverifiable" (violates WP:V), "original research" (violates WP: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 WP:BIO" to avoid insulting the subject.) The accusation "VANITY" should be avoided [1], and is not in itself a reason for deletion. The argument "non-neutral point of view" (violates WP: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 references, and defuse the deletion arguments given using policy, guidelines, and examples from our good and featured articles. In certain cases, 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 adding a bolded {{RESCUE}} tag below the Afd template, in accordance with info given at WP:RESCUE. Please do not do this for unencyclopedic articles of no redeeming value, which are likely to be eventually deleted anyway, on grounds other than simple incompleteness or poor writing (see WP: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 WP:AGF on this point), be WP:BOLD and remove the AfD tag yourself, but always have the courtesy to let the nominator know you have acted in this way, by leaving a note on the nominator's TALK page. Try to avoid contradictory or confusing recommendations, such as delete and merge. You do not have to make a recommendation on every nomination; consider not participating if: A nomination involves a topic with which you are unfamiliar. You agree with the consensus that has already been formed. Please see Wikipedia:Notability. Also, Wikipedia:Non-notability and this discussion on the talk page of Wikipedia:Deletion Policy regarding notability may be useful.

What to do after an AfD discussion has passed with a confirmation?

Nothing. If the discussion has been listed according to the rules above, at the end of the discussion period (about five days), it should be closed within a few more days at most. Asking for someone to close the discussion is unnecessary.

Related pages

Please DO NOT try to update these pages or start a new day yourself. (Note: These pages are not the deletion log pages referred to in step III of the instructions, above).

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/Today
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/Yesterday
• See the proposed deletion current nominations - (Note that this is under the separate Wikipedia process Wikipedia:Proposed deletion rather than Articles for Deletion .)

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