This page outlines administrator instructions for articles for deletion (AfD) discussions, which are used to determine whether or not an article should be deleted. For more information, please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. The XFDcloser script is useful for automating the below process.

Closing the AfD

To process an AFD debate listed on a day page containing debates old enough to be closed:

• If it may take significant time to assess the debate and/or perform the closing edits, consider letting others know that you are in assessing the discussion by adding ((Closing)) to the very top of the page.
• Determine, using the guidelines set forth at Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators, if there is a consensus to delete the article, and if the associated talk or sub-pages should also be deleted.
• Close the deletion discussion by doing the following:
  • Remove the ((Closing)) tag from the page, if it was placed beforehand.
  • Do the following:

• If additional explanation is needed as to why you have closed a deletion discussion as a certain result, add additional comments immediately after '''Result'''. on the first line.
• If the AfD has been relisted before, remove each appearance of <noinclude>[[Category:Relisted AfD debates|((SUBPAGENAME))]]</noinclude> in the discussion.
• Save the page with an edit summary such as "Closing AfD, result was ..."

After closing, the page should look like this:

The page may still contain Category:Relisted AfD debates and possibly Category:AfD debates relisted 3 or more times which can be removed (via HotCat).

Carrying out the AfD close

Depending on the decision, proceed as follows:

Delete:

• Check the article's talk page for any notice that this page's contents had been copied to another page (e.g. ((copied))). The page history may need to be retained for proper attribution of the copied text to satisfy Wikipedia's licensing.
• Delete the article, adding a link to the deletion discussion [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Article]] to the "Other/additional reason:" box.
  For most administrators using the current deletion interface, the box will automatically contain that.
• Delete the article's talk page per speedy deletion criterion G8, placing the following in the "Other/additional reason:" box:
  [[WP:CSD#G8|G8]]: Page dependent on a deleted or nonexistent page
  For most administrators using the current deletion interface, this can be selected in the drop-down box under "Reason:".
• Go to Special:WhatLinksHere on the deleted article and delete any redirects that point to the deleted article, using speedy deletion criterion G8. Also, if the AfD has shown no current scope to have an article on the subject, edit articles to remove redlinks to the deleted page; use your discretion over whether to delete the text altogether, e.g. from lists. Likewise, remove links found on category and portal pages; links on user and talk pages can be ignored, as can some WikiProject pages.

Keep:

• Click "edit" on the article page and copy the entire ((Old AfD multi)) template that is inside the AfD tag, then paste that entire template onto the article's talk page (normally above the WikiProject tags, if applicable), and then save using an edit summary such as "Adding ((Old AfD multi))".
  • If the ((Old AfD multi)) is not present in the tag, then the AfD is likely a repeat nomination, and it will need to be manually added to the current ((Old AfD multi)) tag on the article's talk page. Please see Template:Old AfD multi/doc for instructions on how to format it. After adding the current AfD results to the template, save using an edit summary such as "Appending to ((Old AfD multi))".
• Remove the AfD tag from the article itself; that is, everything between (and including) <!-- Please do not remove ... to <!-- End of AfD message, feel free to edit beyond this point -->. Save using an edit summary such as "Removing AfD tag. Consensus was "keep"."
• If the consensus was to keep and clean up, consider adding the ((Cleanup AfD)) tag on top of the article.

No consensus:

• Follow the exact same procedures in keep above, but replace keep with no consensus.

Nomination withdrawn:

• Follow the exact same procedures in keep above, but replace keep with nomination withdrawn.

Redirect:

• Make sure you specify on the AfD page where the article should be redirected to.
• Follow the same procedures as in keep for adding the ((Old AfD multi)) tag to the article's talk page. Normally, WikiProject tags are also removed, unless they support a Redirect-Class, in which case those tags can be modified instead of removed.
• Redirect the article to the target as consensus prescribes.

Merge:

• Follow the same procedures as in keep for adding the ((Old AfD multi)) tag to the article's talk page. Normally, WikiProject tags are also removed, but can be modified to Redirect-class instead of removed.
• Make sure you specify on the AfD page where the article should be merged to.
• On the AfD'd article's page, replace the AfD tag (by removing everything as prescribed in keep above) with the following:

  ((Afd-merge to|destination article|debate name|debate closure date))

• On the destination article's talk page, add the following (normally above the WikiProject tags):

  ((Afd-merge from|nominated article|debate name|debate closure date))

Relisting AfDs

If insufficient discussion took place to determine a consensus or lack thereof, the AfD can be relisted by doing the following:

• At the very bottom of the deletion discussion, add ((subst:relist))
  If additional comments need to be made upon relisting, add ((subst:relist|Comments about the relist)) instead.
• Go to the day the AfD was listed; this can be found by clicking What links here on the AfD page and then clicking the AfD log page (e.g. [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/<date>]]). On that AfD log page, comment out (using <!-- ... -->) the transclusion of the relisted deletion discussion. It should look like this:

  <!-- ((Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Article)) -->

Save that AfD log page with an edit summary such as "[[WP:RELIST|Relisting]] [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Article]]".

• Go to WP:AFD/T and click on the link, Today, which leads to today's AfD log page (e.g. [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/<today's date>]]) Add to the top of the list of AfDs the relisted AfD, adding <!--Relisted--> at the end. It should look like this:

  ((Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Article))<!--Relisted-->

Save the today's log page with an edit summary such as "[[WP:RELIST|Relisting]] [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Article]]".

Closing out an AfD log page

Every day, the AfD log page (e.g. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2024 March 7) that is more than seven days old should be moved to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old (currently, this is automatically done by User:Mathbot). With few exceptions (e.g., an AFD-nominated article that qualifies for Wikipedia:Speedy keep or deletion under WP:CSD), the decision to keep or delete a page is to be implemented only after this move has been performed.

If all deletion discussions on an AfD log page have been closed, then please go to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old and remove that AfD log page (which Mathbot can do automatically by clicking here). Then, go to Wikipedia:Archived deletion discussions and paste that AfD log page at the top in the appropriate month (currently, this is also automatically done by Mathbot).

• Wikipedia:Deletion process#Non-administrators closing discussions
• XFDcloser – A commonly used tool to help quickly and conveniently close deletion discussions.