Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy

Move protection for articles at AfD

Not sure whether this should be here or VPP, but I thought I'd start here. Is there any reason against or technical impediment to automagically extended confirmed move protecting articles at AfD? I didn't see a prior discussion. This morning's Emma Ruttkamp-Bloem spurred the post, but I've seen a few recently. ECP so that if folks agree an early draftification is fine, it can be closed early that way. But there's otherwise no reason to move an article at AfD and since it's most often in good faith, the protection will stop them from doing what they shouldn't. Will also leave a note at WT:AFC since many of these are recent moves from draft space. Star Mississippi 14:19, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

For my part, I support EC'ing AfD move protections. Happy to hear clash, no matter where this is eventually discussed. BusterD (talk) 14:37, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Support protecting, should save a fair bit of totally unnecessary hassle, and prevent occasional system gaming. (If there is a technical reason not to protect, I'll be curious to hear what it is.) --DoubleGrazing (talk) 14:47, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

I think the only technical reason is that there is that protections need to be applied by a user, they cannot be automatically applied (with the exception I suppose of cascade protection). I'm not sure folks would like adding cascade protection to the AFD hardware so that it tricks the system into thinking the page being nominated for deletion falls under that schema. Primefac (talk) 14:49, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Oh okay, thanks; wasn't aware of that. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 14:53, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks! I wonder if the move protection could be a Twinkle setting since a number of nominators use that to make nominations. If the nominator isn't an admin, the tick box (if applicable) could notify RPP. I'll leave a note at Twinkle Talk. Star Mississippi 19:15, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

I mean, Twinkle already has the option for admins to protect a page, but again a non-admin who is nominating a page for deletion cannot move-protect a page anyway. Primefac (talk) 16:21, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

I think there are too many AfD nominations done by non-admins that it could significantly increase traffic at RfPP. It would be simpler to have an adminbot to do protections automatically. In that case, no change to Twinkle is needed. The edit filter route suggested by zzuuzz sounds even simpler. – SD0001 (talk) 17:40, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

ECP move protection for articles during the course of an AfD nomination sounds entirely appropriate. No one NOT EC'ed needs to be doing such a move. Jclemens (talk) 17:44, 15 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm sure an edit filter could easily accomplish this. 'action == move & article contains "{{Article for deletion/", etc'... -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 16:30, 16 February 2025 (UTC)

Is this a common enough problem to justify doing thousands of protections a year? Would it be easier to just revert bad moves on a case by case basis (i.e. the status quo)? –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:32, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

The last RfC on this subject failed, and that was just a proposal to change the instructions. My views have evolved a bit since then as I've noticed more problematic moves, but the community may not feel the same way. I do think an edit filter would be the only viable way of doing this. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 04:49, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

Not sure how I didn't find that - thanks for flagging @Extraordinary Writ. @Novem Linguae it seems to be getting worse, but could also be perception since I had wandered away from AfD. While AfC is (and should be) optional, it seems to go a lot like this. "I know my subject better than you do, so I'll move it despite the decline. Oh, now I understand what you were saying, and my article could disappear entirely, let me go back to draft". @Zzuuzz an edit filter makes total sense as people would understand why the move isn't ideal. And an EC editor or whomever could them properly close it as draftify and then move it. Star Mississippi 13:33, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

That previous RfC looks pretty convincing. I'll note however that a good proportion of oppose votes explicitly did not object to preventing (ordinary) moves from mainspace to the Draft: namespace. Again that specific action would be trivial to implement with a filter, but it would obviously require another RfC. Maybe a warning instead of disallow? I'm not really for or against (OK, maybe a little against), just mainly offering some technical options. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 16:04, 17 February 2025 (UTC)

My opinion is in the minority, but I agree with the intent of this proposal and disagree with how it is proposed to be done. I think that move-protecting the articles is work, and should only be done if a simpler measure is insufficient. The simpler measure, in my opinion, will be adding an instruction to the AFD template saying not to move the article. In my opinion, any renaming of the article is not so urgent that it needs to be done while the AFD is still open, but can be done when the AFD is closed. I am aware that other editors think that sometimes the moving/renaming of the article must be done urgently while the AFD is still in progress. I will again say that my reason for thinking that articles should not be moved while the AFD is in progress is that moving an article to draft space (or user space) after it is nominated for deletion is done to game the system. I think that the template on the article should be expanded, and that should be enough (because an editor who ignores the instruction not to move the article can be sanctioned for disruption). I know that I am in the minority. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:54, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

Potentially dumb question: Are Draft articles noindexed? What about userspace? If so those are effectively "hidden" from "the public at large", and abandoned drafts get deleted automatically (and abandoned user ones can be too). Is there really a problem here, then? Moving to draftspace isn't some big "gotcha on a technicality" kind of thing: "Oh ho ho, now this can't be deleted at AfD, and if I then move it back in a month you have to start AfD all over again! Gotcha!" Since we can always just... not, and "re-open" the AfD discussion or whatever. Wikipedia's not a game of Nomic.

Speaking of: if they aren't noindexed, then we could just make that policy, that if a mainspace article gets draftified it's automaticallty noindexed.

I'm recalling something I've read from user interaction research about how people perceive technical restrictions—something being just disallowed by software—as less personally hostile than, positive action taken by other people—such as, someone going and blocking them. The former people perceive as "impersonal" and not specifically "about them" ("the computer" just saying, "can't do that sorry") while the latter people often perceive as a personal slight or attack by the person on the other end ("Why are you targeting me? I'm not a bad guy! I bet it's because you're just a huge jerk and personally hate me for no reason/are a corrupt nationalist shill for Country X out to censor everything about Country Y/etc"). --Slowking Man (talk) 03:52, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

• Support instructions on AFD header not to move. But preemptive or automatic protection is not really required, as it is not happening frequently. We can just revert the move, and warn or block the mover. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:45, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm just concerned that this could flood AfD with a lot of arbitrary proposals following a move discussion that another user strongly disapproves of (possibly WP:OWN), leading to significant delays, backlogs, and a lot of manual work to speedily keep them. Squawk7700 (talk) 15:46, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose. WP:MOVP lists a small number of specific reasons to set move protection, and a vague "It's annoying when people move pages at AfD" isn't one of them. RoySmith (talk) 16:01, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• I don't think we need this. Just have the policy say that moving is not permitted until the AFD concludes. Then block anyone who moves such a page prematurely. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:16, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

I motion with protecting this article due to this being involved in a major scandal/controversy. Theflashofbedford (talk) 21:26, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Is transwiki still active?

Out of curiosity, I checked the relevant help pages, and they seem to all suggest that the procedure as a whole is deprecated. If so, should the entire section be removed? Sesquilinear (talk) 16:48, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

I have restored some game fandom related pages for transwiki in the recent times. Transwiki still occurs, but the speedy delete criterion was eliminated. (A5. Transwikied articles) So now I just would use G6 instead. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:54, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Deletion affect statistics?

If a page is deleted, are its respective statistics removed from links like this? FastF20 (talk) 14:42, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

dates from deleted June_2025_Iranian_strikes_on_Israel

After shocking deleting of article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_2025_Iranian_strikes_on_Israel I cannot find dates from infobox & table about places of strikes in Israel, informations about killed & injured person for the separate days. Please, rebuilt it urgent. KKE 94.172.21.243 (talk) 08:16, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

It was not deleted, it was merged. You can see an earlier version here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=June_2025_Iranian_strikes_on_Israel&oldid=1296004180 Click on history to see other past versions. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:50, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

How to nominate a file?

If File:GCoT Masterplan v.1 2014 by Marcus Daniel Busby.jpg were an article, I could nominate it per WP:NOTNOTABLE, WP:NOR and WP:COI, probably using speedy deletion, tbh. (For background, see Talk:15-minute city#Early Prototypes and Related Models, where the uploader has been advised why it cannot be used on Wikipedia.)

The file was previously on, and on 1 August was deleted from, Commons.

I know I should WP:AGF, but does look rather like an attempt to achieve some sort of credibility "because it has a Wikipedia page"

I can see how to nominate an article for deletion, but not a file? Where do I put {{Proposed deletion}}? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 22:13, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

@JMF It appears to me that evidence of permission is required, and I have nominated it thus. 🇵🇸‍🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦‍🇵🇸 22:47, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

In addition, the image has the same issue as it had on Commons: down the RHS is the clear statement Copyright © Marcus Busby, 2014. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 22:55, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

Village pump discussion on AI generated deletion proposals

Please come participate at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#The problem of AI generated deletion nominations.4meter4 (talk) 13:43, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

"adminstratively" closed AfD of speedied page

@Jclemens: made a change as follows: "If a page on a deletion debate is speedied, the debate is administratively closed." (emphasis mine) This is unclear, and I think the intent as expressed in the edit summary needs to be discussed in any case. Is there a particular deletion which prompted this? Mangoe (talk) 11:29, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

Not Jclemens, but his edit summary was spot-on. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Trippy Ja Productions, for example, isn't a consensus-based deletion discussion that sets any kind of precedent; Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Trippy Ja Productions (2nd nomination) is, and Coolabahapple's comment there is illustrative. I don't think I like the specific word "administratively" here, though, because "administrator" is already heavily used throughout this page in its normal wikipedia sense and so gives the wrong impression; maybe "clerical" or "pro-forma"? —Cryptic 12:20, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

(The word I was flailing around for was "procedurally". —Cryptic 00:08, 8 September 2025 (UTC))

Well, yeah, "admin-" anything here is a bad word choice, particularly as non-admin speedy closures are perfectly reasonable when someone discovers that the page was speedied. But I think we need to agree on and then spell out what this non-consensus means. I think what we want to say is that a new article with the same name is fair game, even if it's on what appears to be the same subject, as long as it meets the general requirements for any article. I would prefer to not be so verbose, but I think that's the intent? Mangoe (talk) 14:57, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

Another option is to spell it out more explicitly over at WP:Speedy deletion#G4 instead of here. I don't think there are other contexts where it makes a difference. —Cryptic 01:01, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

How else would you suggest we signify that early AfD closure in case of a speedy deletion does not--nor can it be expected to--reflect a consensus, as it has been trumped by the CSD? "closed" is clearly ambiguous. Jclemens (talk) 23:57, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

I think Cryptic has the right idea...maybe just tack on "(including deletion discussions closed as 'speedy delete')" at the end of WP:G4's first paragraph. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 00:01, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Incubation and the draftify-related standardized language

The following is about Template:Db-draft-deleted, Template:Db-csd-deleted-custom, FireflyBot's "concerns" and the "automated message that was generated by the draftifying script" (hope that identifies it, because I don't know its specific location). I'm guessing there are other related messages.

The language used in the draft-related templates are a complete sham. They paint a picture of being helpful and doing the editor a favor. They gaslight the editor into thinking it's his or her draft, when Wikipedia elsewhere is very strict on non-ownership of articles. It is not your draft, when someone else turned an article you submitted into a draft. That's A draft. Not YOUR draft. It wasn't your article even though you submitted it, and it being turned into a draft doesn't push it into your lap.

Then the messages "thank" the editor for their submission, when in reality the actual taken is the opposite: rejecting their submission. They even have the gall to wish the editor "happy editing" even when that editing is being thrown in "article jail".

In reality, of course, it's all about being able to eventually delete the article, but without having to bother with due process, such as a deletion review. Also, the language utterly ignores the alternative, where the article is allowed to stay, where it remains visible, retaining the hope other editors will help bring it up to whatever minimal standards weren't met.

Frankly speaking, the language is obnoxious. It's sickly sweet. It rings false. All of which is to say, it is insulting.

I would much rather we ditched the gaslighting and false friendship phrases, and said something truthful: maybe (not) "your submission sucks and you've been put in draft jail where you (and you alone) are responsible for bringing your efforts up to snuff. If you can't or won't we'll throw your efforts away in six months." WP:NOTBACKDOOR my ass.

Note the complete absence of what in context comes across as, frankly, sociopathic: you don't thank a person you're punishing, and you do not wish them happy editing.

Also, as a minor addition, despite me being an established user, I'm still getting hit with templates and standardized language. Language, I might add, where the editor that issues them disavowes any responsibility for their phrasing. Which isn't surprising, when the language constructed around the user-facing draftify-related messages is so detached from reality.

PS. This isn't about messages on my talk specifically, but since it's fairly easy to find out the genesis of this here post of mine, I'm courtesy pinging editors involved in posting those messages, even though I acknowledge they are likely not involved in their phrasing: Liz, CycloneYoris.

Exasperatedly yours, CapnZapp (talk) 09:59, 7 September 2025 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to deleting Thank you for your submission to Wikipedia, and happy editing. from {{Db-draft-deleted}}. That's someone's good-faith attempt to not WP:BITE after what could be read as a WP:WIKILAWYERED core message. I don't have any suggestions for improving this. Just about anything we write will not be read well by someone who has just seen their hard work disappear.

Due to nested templates, I'm not able to see the message generated by {{Db-csd-deleted-custom}}. Can someone paste it here for review? ~Kvng (talk) 14:17, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

It appears Db-csd-deleted-custom is chiefly for speedy deletion notifications. Not sure why it appears in draftify-related contexts. Twinkle interactions are well outside my expertise. Anyway, you could try substing it into your sandbox, Kvng. Try adding {{subst:db-csd-deleted-custom|1=Imaginary animal|2=A7.5}} for some non-notable animal page. CapnZapp (talk) 17:18, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

This one is a bit smarmy for sure.

Hello, Kvng, and welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Unfortunately, one or more of the pages you created, such as Imaginary animal, may not conform to some of Wikipedia's content policies and may not be retained. In short...

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you have any questions, ask me on my talk page. You can also type {{help me}} on this page, followed by your question, and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!

It would not be difficult to tone this down if others see a problem here too. ~Kvng (talk) 01:42, 11 September 2025 (UTC) ~Kvng (talk) 01:51, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

I think these are actually better than average in terms of smarminess. (The ones that really get my goat are these ones: "Welcome to Wikipedia! I edit here too, under the username Example, and I thank you for your contributions.") At any rate, the notifications are downstream of the community's complicated relationship with draftification: we rely very heavily on backdoor deletion but adamantly (and sincerely!) insist that that's not what we're doing. As long as we maintain the legal fiction that draftspace is for the incubation of articles with potential, I think the notifications are going to reflect that. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 15:17, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

Draftspace IS for the incubation of articles with potential. The existence of draftspace is great. Even the shunting of poorly received submissions to it is great - it is, after all, better than the outright deletion of the material the (often new though not in my case) editor have painstakingly cobbled together. Furthermore, friendly greetings aren't normally wrong.

What I don't buy is the inevitability of treating this as the best thing that has happened to the editor since sliced bread. As far as I can see, Wikipedia never abandons neutrality to this extent. There is no reason for this doublespeak. It rings false. It is, frankly, outright obnoxious, and we could and should do much better.

Specifically, we should a) not template the regulars. We should also b) not use a template ending with "happy editing" (or similar) when what we have just done is smacked the editor on the fingers. We should not c) claim ownership of drafts - especially on behalf of others (unless of course in user space; talking draft space here). And above all, we should d) not pretend we're doing editors a service when we're soft-deleting their additions. It would be so easy to frame this instead as "instead of deleting the content you added, I have moved it into draft space" if we insist on treating this as a good thing. It would also be EASY to avoid outright falsehoods like "your draft" or "draft page you started" or messages implying you're responsible for developing the draft: "you plan on working on it further", "you wish to retrieve it", and "you can continue to work on it" (messages written, I'm sure, in good faith for the default case only, before drafts were expanded to become this garbage can it is today - these messages are perfectly fine when you indeed started the draft yourself, but not now when someone else threw your content in the draft bin).

This is not a call for changed procedures. No editor needs to change how they deal with the constant influx of content and how they draftify it. Instead, I believe minor tweaking of (template) messages makes this issue go away painlessly. It's probably just a matter of changing a few words in each instance, though how many templates and other messages are involved I do not know. CapnZapp (talk) 17:01, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

template the regulars I actually prefer being templated where appropriate. Less guessing. Paradoctor (talk) 19:09, 13 September 2025 (UTC)

The bot isn't going to pay attention to user status, so DTTR doesn't apply, nor does the standard message left by Twinkle when using it to G13 a page. One shouldn't have to look up a user and see their edit count before pressing the delete button. Primefac (talk) 18:13, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

Just as a comment, user:Paradoctor and User:Primefac - you both chose to focus only on a minor detail and skip the main issue. I didn't start this discussion because I wanted to change the way you can conveniently delete crap and spam; helping contributors that keep Wikipedia clean is a worthy endeavor! What are your thoughts on changing the various messages, specifically when they claim some draft is YOURS, when that might very well not be the case - when an article is draftified, should that mean the newly created draft is owned by the creator of the rejected article? And should we congratulate an editor when we remove their content from mainspace? CapnZapp (talk) 16:11, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

I said exactly what I wanted to say. If that doesn't satisfy you, I'm afraid that's yours to deal with. Paradoctor (talk) 17:08, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. I will also note that it was one of two main points you brought up after specifically. Mostly just watching the discussion about the actual wording in order to implement something if there's consensus. Primefac (talk) 23:02, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Rfc: Proposing a way to discuss undeleting pages

I am proposing that we add a new thing Wikipedia:Pages being discussed for undeletion. This will be the place to discuss undeleting pages, though it shouldn't be used for stuff such as drafts deleted per G13 or other stuff. Not the same as deletion review either. - BᴏᴅʜıHᴀᴙᴩ (talk, contributions) 01:07, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

How will this be different from WP:DRV or WP:UND? What types of pages would be considered for undeletion at this page if it were created? As it stands, your RfC lacks detail. – PharyngealImplosive7 (talk) 01:12, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

To discuss stuff such as pages deleted at WP:TfD or WP:AfD. - BᴏᴅʜıHᴀᴙᴩ (talk, contributions) 01:29, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Ask for userification/draftification. If unreasonably refused, go to WP:DRV. SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:51, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

How do you draftify a category? In all seriousness, there's possibly room for this as REFUND sends people to DRV pretty regularly who don't really need to be there. But really, if it's not salted (RFPP), just make a new article after getting the old text emailed to you. Jclemens (talk) 01:56, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Categories aren’t content. Categories are only used by Wikipedians who like categories. A lot of good maintenance stuff comes from categorisation, but no reader uses categories. Category disputes are best discussed at WT:CfD.

REFUND works great (easy, quick) for straightforward requests. DRV works great (well watched, takes it slow) for where there’s a problem. SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:10, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

no reader uses categories. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 04:05, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

I was all over CfD for a few years. Early questions of interest included “is CfD broken”, and “why do CfD regulars detest user categories”. Then the more general question, “what is the purpose of categories”. Someone else ventured that readers don’t use the category system.

Later, I did my own analyses based on pageview data, closely analogous to what some of us did for the Portal system. Pageview analysis reveals that every link in a page attracts a baseline of about 0.1% of the views of the parent page. I interpret the 0.1% as a due to random user clicks, and about 10 per day due to Wikipedia bots (the enforced downward directionality of categories is useful to bots). If the link is uninteresting to readers, it would get no more than 0.1%.

Due to Main Page Portals having extraordinary prominence, the analysis was pretty convincing. Nearly no one clicks on portal links, and having gone to that portal, nearly no one clicks on a next portal link there.

Categories were less clear, due to there being no really strong categories at the top, but the model fit well. Readers might stray into a category, but there was no evidence in category pageview data of pageviews following themes in category trees.

Further evidence was that in none of the thousands of CfD discussions I got into, were there newbie editors. The whole system is driven by editors who seem to like maintenance for its own sake, others who use the category system as a tool for article maintenance (categories are a good maintenance-supporting resource), and some particularly enthusiastic category editors who are now blocked or banned.

And further again, my own efforts to use categories to search or browse topics. For this, they are hopeless. https://petscan.wmflabs.org/ is good, but browsing categories manually is not.

DRV attracts a good number of complaints involving category deletion. DRV sometimes overturns or relists a CfD close. But DRV never engages on the question of whether a deleted category should be now allowed. And even if it did, there is no undeletion tool that reveals what the membership of the old category. To find that information, you need to follow the edit history of the bot that removes categories following a category deletion. If the decategorisation was done manually, the information is lost. And funnily, to some, a deleted category functions equally well to a non-deleted category.

There is nothing to be learned from categories that usefully informs good practice at DRV or REFUND. SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:21, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

BodhiHarp, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but writing policy is hard. Perhaps you should get more experience first with the systems we already have set up. —Cryptic 02:08, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

If you want to challenge a category deletion, then first read the discussion to see if there is a reason the category should not exist. If it was a speedy delete due to empty category, then start putting pages back in to that category, request at WP:REFUND or recreate it. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:50, 2 November 2025 (UTC)