Wikipedia talk:Requests for undeletion

Welcome. Please note that this page is NOT for requesting undeletion of a page. It is for discussion of the Requests for Undeletion page. Please request undeletion of a page on the main UND page.

Refunding to draft space

I've had my refunds of uncontroversially deleted articles placed in draft space a couple times now. Maybe admins are trying to be helpful but this is not the stated procedure for these types of deletion. If I wanted the article in draft space or my user space, I would ask for that. If we are doing this to less experienced editors they my not be able to figure out how to get it back into mainspace so it's not a refund at all. ~Kvng (talk) 03:44, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Isn't this a good thing for less experienced editors? No comment on the procedure though, just trying to find out what is best. Jay 💬 07:52, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Are you asking whether it is a better experience for less experienced editors or are you asking whether it is better for Wikipedia or the Wikipedia community to send inexperienced editors through draft space and AfC? The answer to the former is clearly no. They've figured out how to do something in mainspace and now we're asking them to figure out a second article creation path. The answer to the latter depends on how much of a deletionist you are but I think it is hard to argue that throwing arguably unnecessary obstacles in front of inexperienced editors is best. ~Kvng (talk) 14:00, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes to both. Less experienced editors are free to edit in mainspace, however creating fresh articles and keeping them in mainspace requires a good understanding of policies and guidelines. Sending a newbie article to AfD or straight to CSD is going to be a bitter experience for the author. Jay 💬 14:17, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't fully agree but those are good points. There is a longstanding debate about whether we should be trying to try to protect inexperienced editors from themselves. I don't think we'll be able to resolve that here. ~Kvng (talk) 14:25, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

What I do is, if the requestor is new, I explain the problem that the article has (when I know for sure it is going to AfD), and make an offer to draftify. This hasn't worked always though, because another admin comes along, overrides my "offer" and directly restores the PROD/Soft deleted article to mainspace (or draftspace) without waiting for the requestor to respond. Jay 💬 14:46, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for trying. Some inexperienced editors struggle to participate in these discussions. If there is no response, the right thing to do is perform the policy-directed action which is to restore uncontroversially deleted articles to mainspace. ~Kvng (talk) 16:02, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

This keeps happening to me. I don't remember who did it last time(s) but this time it was UtherSRG. Please stop it. ~Kvng (talk) 22:23, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

@Kvng: Well, there's a question here; as it stands I could AfD that article on the spot, because it has nothing but primary sources (I'm not going to, by the way, because it's a subject I'm familiar with and I'm sure it can be expanded which is why you wanted it restoring). But the admins that deal with this stuff day in day out don't know that, and in general, if an article is in a state where it could be deleted by PROD (which this one was), they'll restore it to Draft or Userspace instead - this is SOP, so don't blame UtherSRG. Incidentally, I've restored the talk page. Black Kite (talk) 22:33, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

@Black Kite, If it goes to AfD, there's a week of discussion and more experienced editors will likely participate making us much more likely to end up with a viable article than if it is hidden off in draft space in the care of an inexperienced editor. Please, let's change the procedure or come up with an actual working argument for continuing it.

The bigger picture here is we should not be deleting articles because they have bad sourcing. WP:BEFORE is not just for AfD, prodders have the same obligation try to determine whether the subject is notable regardless of the state of the article. ~Kvng (talk) 22:44, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

@Kvng: Please trust our judgement when we draftify instead of restoring to main article space. Those of us who draftify are trying to prevent articles from going to AFD. An AFC review doesn't get an article hard deleted, but an AFD can. A hard delete is much harder to restore than a soft delete. The idea here is that while the article is in draft, it is essentially untouchable. It can be worked by the editor who requested it be restored; that editor can recruit others from the relevant WikiProjects to assist them in making the draft AFD-proof, submit it for AFC review, and in the end produce a better product than what we started with. - UtherSRG (talk) 11:07, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

I how very well AfC and AfD work so trust me when I say I know what happens when an article is moved to draft space vs. being eligible for AfD nomination. Editors other than those directly involved rarely touch them. Most of our other talented editors in the Wikipedia community to not venture into draft space to help improve these articles. Those directly involved are either reviewers who run the AfC gauntlet or inexperienced editors who have significant difficulty navigating the gauntlet and give up on the draft and, in most case, Wikipedia too. Articles in draft are deleted after 6 months of inactivity so that's not untouchable. ~Kvng (talk) 13:54, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Let me run through two scenarios:

1. Article is restored from PROD/soft to draft space. You work on it. AFC review says it's not good enough. You go to the relevant Wikiprojects and solicit help. You don't get enough assistance and, with no edits for 6 months, the draft is deleted as G13, which is always and repeatedly restorable. When someone goes to create an article with the same name as that of an existing draft, there's a note that says a draft exists, giving more visibility to the draft than nothing. Eventually you find enough help to get past the AFC goal posts and the draft becomes an article. Huzzah!
2. Article is restored from PROD/soft to main article space. You work on it some, but it goes to AFD. As it has been deleted before it is ineligible for soft deletion, and so when deleted can not easily be restored. You are now stuck with either providing the deleting admin that you have adequate new sources not considered in the AFD, or going to DRV to do the same. You have more hoops to jump through, and you surely aren't going to do this repeatedly. Womp-womp.

The AFC pathing always has the easier path to full article acceptance. I understand you don't like it. We all have to deal with things we don't like. Unless the article I'm restoring would not be immediately eligible for deletion (and that's almost always because it should not have been deleted in the first place) I will restore PROD/soft restorations to draft space 100% of the time. - UtherSRG (talk) 17:24, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

In scenario 2 you've omitted the fact that notability of the subject usually gets a thorough review at AfD. We're still pretty good about looking past the state of the article at AfD. If it gets deleted at AfD it is usually for good reason and saves the new editor time developing and AfC reviewers time reviewing an article about a hopeless subject. My sense from the G13 candidates I review is that the likelihood of a inexperienced editor completing path 1 is very low but if you have some statistics on it, I'd love to have a look.

The thing that I don't like here is that WP:REFUND is the place to go to get eligible articles undeleted but apparently we're not actually undeleting them in many cases. The description of the project says that content can be undeleted or userified but draftification is not mentioned. There is also no place in the process where the editor making the request gets to indicate what flavor of refund they're asking for. ~Kvng (talk) 20:31, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Some of our requestors do ask for the page to be draftified. There is ability to freely add text on the request, and it is sometimes used. Perhaps we need someone to look back at some refunds on prods and soft deletes to see how successful they are at surviving or returning as articles. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:18, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

The next time I come for a refund, I will add a note indicating whether or not restoring to draft space is acceptable in that case. ~Kvng (talk) 13:02, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Note that all restoration is up to our discretion. Your request can be denied or modified as we find best. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:14, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm autoconfirmed so I don't need anyone's permission to move it wherever I see fit. Why does this have to be so confrontational? ~Kvng (talk) 18:20, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm well aware of your status. Again, I'm trying to prevent articles from having to go through AFD. When a restoration goes to draft, please work it there and submit it for review. If it passes AFC review, you can be sure that it will not go to AFD and hard deleted. If it doesn't pass AFC review, it would likely be deleted at AFD if moved to article space. If moved without review, you risk it going to AFD. - UtherSRG (talk) 19:22, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

@UtherSRG but you don't seem to be aware that I'm an AfC reviewer. It is a perennial problem that drafts that are unlikely to be deleted get declined there, often repeatedly. Sending refunds through AfC is not a solution unless your goal is to make undeletion difficult. ~Kvng (talk) 13:54, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

I am aware you are a reviewer. AFD is where undeletion becomes difficult. AFC gives multiple tries to get things right. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:59, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Yes, and what did I say about AfD? We're looping now so I don't think further discussion with you will be productive. ~Kvng (talk) 14:06, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps we need a space for notable topic drafts, that are not eligible for G13. Then we know that someone has checked that the topic is notable, but that the article is of too low quality for mainspace. Already there is promising draft template, but out g13 deleters may ignore that. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:22, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Yes, there is {{Promising draft}}, Category:Promising draft articles and User:SDZeroBot/G13 soon. The larger problem is that there's not a lot of collaborative editing that happens in draft space. So you can give these more time but since you can't realistically expect improvements happen in draft space, I'm not convinced that more time helps much. ~Kvng (talk) 14:04, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Latest varient of this behavior was by DoubleGrazing who though it would be helpful to WP:BLAR after undeleting, I guess because I had mentioned WP:ATD in my request, not because they thought it was not notable. ~Kvng (talk) 20:55, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

I BLAR'ed it (well, half-arsed, sort of) because, while I think it is probably notable, there was no evidence of that. If someone wants to restore the content, they're free to do that, but I won't knowingly restore into the main space an article that is almost completely unreferenced with no proof of notability. -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 06:19, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Well that makes WP:REFUND a gauntlet similar to AfC (which receives significant criticism for it) ~Kvng (talk) 13:32, 29 July 2025 (UTC)

Possible to undelete G5 deletions?

WP:G5 allows for pages that have substantial edits by other users to remain (not deleted). Therefore Is it against the rules to undelete G5 deletions so that other editors can substantially re-edit, reconstruct a page, based on the material (sources, infoboxes etc.) that was in the G5'd page?

Xpander (talk) 11:36, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

• If it is certain that the requestor is not another sock or paid editor, and has the experience required to identify and fix the problems that may be there from the banned user's writing, then the deleted page could be restored. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:23, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

  Do you mind pointing me out to the relevant policy? (If there is one) Xpander (talk) 18:04, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

  Speedy delete is supposed to be uncontroversial, so if a good faith independent editor disagrees with the delete, it should not be speedy. (But may then require a discussion). Wikipedia:Speedy deletion says that you can remove a speedy-delete tag if you disagree. Requesting undeletion suggests that you were too late to remove the tag, and are still wanting to save the page. However a good case should still be made! And you should ask the deleting admin first, before using deletion review. Work would be required to change the page so that G5 criterion does not apply again. And then you would have to consider is it better to just create the page from scratch. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:59, 14 September 2025 (UTC)

Undeletion of recreated pages history

Hello, I usually request undeletion of the history of the pages I recreate, which is normally accepted by the good folks here. This to me sounds like a good practice (apart from cases of Copyvio, vandalism etc.).

But I haven't found any guideline or policy regarding this practice anywhere, explaining whether it's recommended etc. Apart from correct user-attribution explained at WP:HISTMERGE do we have any other policy or rationale recommending this practice? Xpander (talk) 06:55, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Hi @Xpander1 my understanding is it's still fine to request here it is just up to the refunding admin to sort out any copyright issues. The simple case is if old copy-vios have been revision-deleted those stick thought the deletion/undeletion process, so not problems. If an old version was deleted as a copy-vio and then a later version deleted in a refundable form the admin would have to just select all the revisions since the copy-vio deletion and only undelete those rather than just the default all. If an old copy-vio issue was not noticed by the refunding admin, then a new rev-del request would be needed to fix. That is how I have been approaching requests, but as a newish admin others may have other points to add. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 09:33, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks @KylieTastic (I mistakenly had put this thread on the requests page, not the talk-page here where it should be, now I have moved it here, hope it's fine). My question is largely about non-copyvio deletions. For example A7 or similar, an undeletor might argue what's the point in reviving a version that was justifiably deleted? My main goal being for past deletions to disappear from my WP:XTools page. Xpander (talk) 09:48, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

@Xpander1 i think like a number of admin actions the various polices have scope for interpretation. In the case for A7 if it is later show that the subject does have notability then the case for A7 being a reason to be deleted disappears. Then it comes down to WP:HISTMERGE where by the letter of the policy as some admin interpret it is only is some of the later content could have come from the earlier version and needs attribution. However I have seen others taking this more lenient and also merging in other older history where this does not apply. I assume in those cases they see value in the original content, and it would not be done just to tidy up someones Xtools. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 10:00, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

I see. So if the same author recreates the page, then there would be no motivation for undeleting the page? Since by definition there is no misattribution? Xpander (talk) 10:05, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes that is my understanding, however if the new version was based on the old version some admins would merge. I just ran your stats and you have 0 deleted articles. KylieTastic (talk) 10:52, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Request draftification

At Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion/header, I just now added a “Request draftification” inputbox. Does anyone know how to make it function correctly, that is, to generate an explicit request for draftification (not undeletion in mainspace)? — SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:44, 8 October 2025 (UTC)

U5 replaced by G13-like U6

Watchers of this page (particularly admins) will likely be interested in the current discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#U6: Handling of old pages. In particular, WP:U6 was envisioned as having a lightweight, no-fault restoration option similar to (or part of?) WP:Requests for undeletion/G13. —Cryptic 19:53, 30 October 2025 (UTC)