This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
This page in a nutshell: The spirit of Wikipedia:BEFORE can and should be applied to speedy deletion as well. |
The articles for deletion process contains a special section entitled "Before nominating an article for deletion" and the deletion policy lists "Alternatives to deletion" that should be preferred to deletion whenever feasible. Unfortunately, when it comes to speedy deletion, many users ignore such advice. This essay seeks to list simple things to do that can and should be tried before tagging for speedy deletion.
The reason for Wikipedia's existence is to build and maintain an encyclopedia that strives to contain the sum of human knowledge. To achieve this, Wikipedia is dependent on volunteer editors from all over the world. But often experienced editors forget, that no one is born a Wikipedia editor but that everyone needs to learn how they are expected to contribute. As such, it is vitally important that removing articles created by newly attracted editors without discussion remains the last step to deal with those articles and that any other viable way of dealing with such content is preferable to speedy deletion. For this very reason the editing policy contains the vital advice: Preserve information: fix problems if you can, flag them if you can't. (WP:PRESERVE, emphasis added)
((Copyvio-revdel))
once you are done so the revisions containing the violations can be deleted.((notability))
, ((hoax))
, ((original research))
, ((unencyclopedic))
or ((advert))
; this ensures readers are aware of the problem and may act to remedy it.