LIMSWiki:Deletion policy

The LIMSwiki deletion policy describes how pages that do not meet the relevant criteria for content of the encyclopedia are identified and removed from LIMSwiki.

Deletion of a LIMSwiki article removes the current version and all previous versions from public view. Unlike page blanking, which can be performed (or reverted) by any user, only administrators can perform deletion. Administrators also can view deleted pages and reverse ("undelete") any deletion. All such actions are logged.

Reasons for deletion

Reasons for deletion include, but are not limited to, the following (subject to the condition that improvement or deletion of an offending section, if practical, is preferable to deletion of an entire page):

content meets at least one of the criteria for speedy deletion
copyright violations and other material violates LIMSwiki's non-free content criteria
vandalism, including inflammatory redirects, pages that exist only to disparage their subject, patent nonsense, or gibberish
advertising or other spam without relevant content (but not an article about an advertising-related subject).
content forks (unless a merger or redirect is appropriate)
articles that cannot possibly be attributed to reliable sources, including neologisms, original theories and conclusions, and articles that are themselves hoaxes
articles for which thorough attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed
redundant or otherwise useless templates
categories representing overcategorization
files that are unused, obsolete, or violate the non-free policy
any other use of the Main namespace, Template namespace, LIMSWiki namespace, or User page namespace that is contrary to the established separate policy for that namespace
any other content not suitable for an encyclopedia

Tagging

A variety of tags can be added to articles to note the problem. Tags however are not intended as permanent solution; they are intended to warn the readers and to allow interested editors to easily locate and fix the problems. Some of the more common ones include:

{{cleanup}} for poor writing
{{expert-subject}} for articles needing expert attention
{{npov}} for bias
{{stub}} for a short article
{{refimprove}} for lack of verifiability
{{merge}} for a small article that could be merged into a larger one

Pages with incorrect names can simply be renamed via page movement procedure. Naming disputes are discussed on the articles' talk pages.

Speedy deletion

The creators and major contributors of pages and media files should be warned of a speedy deletion nomination (or of the deletion if not informed prior thereto). The following list of criteria is used on LIMSwiki for considering speedy deletion. These criteria may only be used in such cases when no controversy exists; in the event of a dispute, start a new deletion discussion. However, newly discovered copyright violations should be tagged for speedy deletion in all cases:

General: Patent nonsense; Test pages; Pure vandalism and blatant hoaxes; Recreation of a page that was deleted per a deletion discussion; Creations by banned or blocked users; Technical deletions; Author requests deletion; Pages dependent on a non-existent or deleted page; Office actions; Pages that disparage, threaten, intimidate, or harass their subject or some other entity, and serve no other purpose; Unambiguous advertising or promotion; Unambiguous copyright infringement; Abandoned Articles for creation submissions
Articles: No context; No content; No indication of importance (individuals, animals, organizations, web content, events); Recently created article that duplicates an existing topic; Obviously made up
Redirects: Cross-namespace redirects; Implausible typos
Files: Redundant; Corrupt or empty image; Improper license; Lack of licensing information; Orphaned non-free use images; Missing non-free use rationale; Invalid fair-use claim; Images available as identical copies on the Wikimedia Commons; Unambiguous copyright infringement; Useless non-media files; No evidence of permission
Categories: Unpopulated categories; Renaming or merging
User pages: User request; Nonexistent user; Non-free galleries
Templates: Misrepresentation of policy; Duplication and hardcoded instances
Portals: Any portal that would be subject to speedy deletion as an article; Underpopulated portal

Parameters

{{db-speedy|rationale=The reason for deletion}}

The |rationale= parameter must be specified. Please specify in this parameter why the page needs to be deleted.

Procedure for administrators

Make sure to specify the reason for deletion in the deletion summary. Also, in general the article's creator and major contributors should have been notified.

Before deleting a page, check the page history to assess whether it would instead be possible to revert and salvage a previous version, or there was actually a cut-and-paste move involved. Also:

The initial edit summary may have information about the source of or reason for the page.
The talk page may refer to previous deletion discussions or have ongoing discussion relevant to including the page.
The page log may have information about previous deletions that could warrant SALTing the page or keeping it on good reason.
What links here may show that the page is an oft-referred part of the encyclopedia, or may show other similar pages that warrant deletion. For pages that should not be re-created, incoming links in other pages (except in discussions, archives and tracking pages) should be removed.