Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion

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This page documents an official English Wikipedia policy, a widely accepted standard that should normally be followed by all editors. Any edit to this page should reflect consensus. If in doubt, consider discussing changes on the talk page.

Shortcuts: WP:CSD WP:SPEEDY

The list of current candidates for speedy deletion is at Category:Candidates for speedy deletion.

The creator of a page may not remove a Speedy Delete tag from it. Only an editor who is not the creator of a page may do so. A creator who disagrees with the speedy deletion should instead add {{hangon}} to the page, and explain the rationale on the page's discussion page.

WP:SD redirects here. You may be looking for Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion

Criteria for speedy deletion specify the limited cases where administrators may delete Wikipedia pages or media without discussion. Non-administrators can request speedy deletion by adding an appropriate template (see below). In this context, "speedy" refers to the simple decision-making process, not the length of time since the article was created.

This page contains the criteria for speedy deletion and a list of templates that can be used to tag a candidate for speedy deletion. These criteria are worded narrowly, so that in most cases reasonable editors will agree what does and does not meet a given criterion. Where reasonable doubt exists, discussion using another method under the deletion policy should occur instead. If a page has survived a prior deletion discussion, it may not be speedily deleted, except in the case of newly discovered copyright infringements.

Deletion is not required if a page meets these criteria. Before nominating an article for speedy deletion, consider whether it could be improved, reduced to a stub, merged or redirected elsewhere or be handled with some other action short of deletion. If this is possible, speedy deletion is probably inappropriate. Contributors sometimes create articles over several edits, so try to avoid deleting a page too soon after its creation if it appears incomplete. Users nominating a page for speedy deletion should specify which criteria the page meets. While not required, except for copyright concerns, it is generally considered courteous to notify the good-faith creator and any main contributors of the articles that you are nominating for deletion.

Criteria

Abbreviations are sometimes used to refer to these criteria. For example, "G12" refers to criterion 12 under general (copyright infringement) and "U1" refers to criterion 1 under user (user request). These abbreviations can be confusing to new editors (who are most likely to have created articles that can be speedily deleted) and should be avoided.

A table listing the template(s) for each of these criteria is provided below.

General

These criteria apply to all namespaces, and are in addition to namespace-specific criteria in following sections.

1. Patent nonsense and gibberish, an unsalvageably incoherent page with no meaningful content. This does not include: poor writing, partisan screeds, obscene remarks, vandalism, fictional material, material not in English, poorly translated material, implausible theories, or hoaxes; some of these, however, may be deleted as vandalism in blatant cases.
2. Test pages. Testing is permitted in the sandbox and in users' own user space.
3. Pure vandalism. This includes blatant and obvious misinformation, and redirects created by cleanup from page-move vandalism.
4. Recreation of deleted material. A copy, by any title, of a page deleted via a deletion discussion, provided the copy is substantially identical to the deleted version and that any changes in the recreated page do not address the reasons for which the material was deleted. This does not apply to content that has been undeleted via deletion review, deleted via proposed deletion, or to speedy deletions (although in that case, the previous speedy criterion, or other speedy criteria, may apply). Also, content moved to user space for explicit improvement is excluded, although material moved or copied to circumvent Wikipedia's deletion policy is not.
5. Banned user. Pages created by banned users in violation of their ban, with no substantial edits by others.
6. Technical deletions. Non-controversial maintenance, such as temporarily deleting a page to merge page histories, deleting dated maintenance categories, or performing uncontroversial page moves.
7. Author requests deletion, if requested in good faith, and provided the page's only substantial content was added by its author. (For redirects created as a result of a pagemove, the mover must also have been the only substantive contributor to the page prior to the move.) If the author blanks the page (outside user space), this can be taken as a deletion request.
8. Pages dependent on a non-existent or deleted page, such as talk pages with no corresponding subject page, subpages with no parent page, image pages without a corresponding image, or redirects to nonexistent targets. Also categories populated by deleted or retargeted templates. This excludes any page which is useful to the project, and in particular: deletion discussions that are not logged elsewhere, user and user talk pages, talk page archives, plausible redirects that can be changed to valid targets, and image pages or talk pages for images that exist on Wikimedia Commons.
9. Office actions. The Wikimedia Foundation office reserves the right to speedily delete a page temporarily in cases of exceptional circumstances. Deletions of this type should not be reversed without permission from the Foundation. Note that there is no longer a template for this criterion.
10. Pages that serve no purpose but to disparage or threaten their subject or some other entity (e.g., "John Q. Doe is an imbecile"). These are sometimes called "attack pages". This includes legal threats, and may also include a biography of a living person that is entirely negative in tone and unsourced, where there is no neutral version in the page history to revert to. Administrators deleting such pages should not quote the content of the page in the deletion summary, and if the page is an article about a living person it should not be restored or recreated by any editor until it meets biographical article standards.
11. Blatant advertising. Pages which exclusively promote some entity and which would need to be fundamentally rewritten to become encyclopedic. Note that simply having a company or product as its subject does not qualify an article for this criterion.
12. Blatant copyright infringement. Text pages that contain copyrighted material with no credible assertion of public domain, fair use, or a free license, where there is no non-infringing content on the page worth saving. Only if the history is unsalvageably corrupted should it be deleted in its entirety; earlier versions without infringement should be retained. For equivocal cases (such as where there is a dubious assertion of permission, or where free-content edits overlie the infringement), please consult Wikipedia:Copyright violations.

    Remember to check that the suspected source of the copyright violation is not itself a Wikipedia mirror, and to notify the page's creator when tagging a page for deletion under this criterion; the template {{nothanks-sd}} is available for this. For images and media, see I9

Articles

For any articles that are not speedy deletion candidates, use Wikipedia:Articles for deletion or Wikipedia:Proposed deletion. Note that all these criteria apply to Portals as well.

1. No context. Very short articles lacking sufficient context to identify the subject of the article. Example: "He is a funny man with a red car. He makes people laugh." Context is different from content, treated in A3, below.
2. Foreign language articles that exist on another Wikimedia project. If the article does not exist on another project, use the template {{notenglish}} instead, and list the page at Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English for review and possible translation.
3. No content. Any article (other than disambiguation pages, redirects, or soft redirects) consisting only of external links, category tags and "see also" sections, a rephrasing of the title, attempts to correspond with the person or group named by its title, chat-like comments, template tags and/or images. However, a very short article may be a valid stub if it has context, in which case it is not eligible for deletion under this criterion. Similarly, this criterion doesn't cover a page with an infobox with non-trivial information.
4. (Deprecated – placeholder to preserve numbering; merged with A3.)
5. Transwikied articles. Any article that consists only of a dictionary definition that has already been transwikied (e.g., to Wiktionary), a primary source that that has already been transwikied (e.g., to Wikisource), or an article on any subject that has been discussed at articles for deletion with an outcome to move it to another wiki, after it has been properly moved and the author information recorded.
6. (Deprecated – placeholder to preserve numbering; superseded by G10.)
7. An article about a real person, organization (band, club, company, etc.), or web content that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. This is distinct from questions of verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability; to avoid speedy deletion an article does not have to prove that its subject is notable, just give a reasonable indication of why it might be notable. A7 applies only to articles about web content or articles on people and organizations themselves, not articles on their books, albums, software and so on. Other article types, including school articles, are not eligible for deletion by this criterion. If controversial, as with schools, list the article at articles for deletion instead.
8. (Deprecated – placeholder to preserve numbering; superseded by G12.)
9. An article about a musical recording which does not indicate why its subject is important or significant and where the artist's article has never existed or has been deleted. This is distinct from questions of verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability; to avoid speedy deletion an article does not have to prove that its subject is important/significant, just give a reasonable indication of why it might be important/significant. A9 does not apply to other forms of creative media, products, or any other types of articles.

Redirects

For any redirects, including soft redirects, that are not speedy deletion candidates, use Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion. Redirect pages that have useful page history should never be speedy deleted. In some cases it may be possible to make a useful redirect by changing the target instead of deleting it. Redirects which do not work due to software limitations, such as redirects to special pages or to pages on other wikis, may be converted to soft redirects if they have a non-trivial history or other valid uses.

1. (Deprecated – placeholder to preserve numbering; merged with G8.)
2. Redirects to the Talk:, Image:, Image talk:,MediaWiki:, MediaWiki talk:, Help talk:, Category talk:, Template talk:, Portal talk:, User:, or User talk: namespaces from the article space. If this was the result of a page move, consider waiting a day or two before deleting the redirect.
3. Recently created redirects from implausible typos or misnomers. However, redirects from common misspellings or misnomers are generally useful, as are redirects in other languages.

• For reversal of redirects, use {{db-move}}, a special case of {{db-g6}}

Images and media

For any images and other media that are not speedy deletion candidates, use Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion.

1. Redundant. Any unused image or other media file that is a redundant copy, in the same file format and same or lower quality/resolution, of something else on Wikipedia should be tagged {{isd|Full name of image excluding the "Image:" prefix}}. This does not apply to images duplicated on Wikimedia Commons, because of license issues; instead see criterion #I8 below.
2. Corrupt or empty image. Before deleting this type of image, verify that the MediaWiki engine cannot read it by previewing a resized thumbnail of it. Even if it renders, if it contains superfluous information that cannot be accounted for as metadata directly relating to the image data, it may be deleted. It is always possible for the uploader to correct the problem by uploading an image that contains only a good image plus acceptable metadata.
3. Improper license. Images licensed as "for non-commercial use only", "non-derivative use" or "used with permission" that were uploaded on or after May 19, 2005, except those images which comply with the limited standards for the use of non-free content. [1] Without limiting this, images licensed under a "Non-commercial Creative Commons License" are liable to be deleted under this criterion.[2] Non-commercial licensed images uploaded before May 19, 2005 may also be speedily deleted if they are not used in any articles.
4. Lack of licensing information. Images in category "Images with unknown source", "Images with unknown copyright status", or "Images with no copyright tag" that have been in the category for more than seven days, and which still lack the necessary information, regardless of when uploaded. Note, editors sometimes specify their source in the upload summary, so be sure to check the circumstances of the image.
5. Unused unfree images. Images and other media that are not under a free license or in the public domain, that are not used in any article, and that have been tagged with a template that places them in a dated subcategory of Category:Orphaned fairuse images for more than seven days. Reasonable exceptions may be made for images uploaded for an upcoming article. Use {{subst:orfud}} to tag images for forthcoming deletion.
6. Missing non-free use rationale. Non-free images or media claiming fair use but without a use rationale may be deleted seven days after they are tagged. The boilerplate copyright tags setting out fair use criteria do not constitute a use rationale. Offending images can be tagged with {{subst:nrd}}, and the uploader notified with {{subst:missing rationale|Image:image name}}. Such images can be found in the dated subcategories of Category:Images with no fair use rationale. If a use rationale is provided but disputed, this criterion does not apply.
7. Invalid fair-use claim.
   • Non-free images or media with a clearly invalid fair-use tag (such as a {{Non-free logo}} tag on a photograph of a mascot) may be deleted at any time.
   • Non-free images or media that are replaceable by a free image and tagged with {{subst:rfu}} may be deleted two days after they are tagged, if no explanation as to how the images are not replaceable is added.
   • Invalid fair-use claims tagged with {{subst:dfu}} may be deleted seven days after they are tagged, if a full and valid non-free use rationale is not added.
8. Images available as identical copies on the Wikimedia Commons, provided the following conditions are met:
   • The Commons version is in the same file format and is of the same or higher quality/resolution.
   • The image's license and source status is beyond reasonable doubt, and the license is undoubtedly accepted at Commons.
     • All image revisions that meet the first condition have been transferred to Commons as revisions of the Commons copy and properly marked as such.
     • Do not delete any images marked as {{do not move to Commons}}.
   • All information on the image description page is present on the Commons image description page, including the complete upload history with links to the uploader's local user pages.
     • If there is any information not relevant to any other project on the image description page (like {{FeaturedPicture}}), the image description page must be undeleted after the file deletion.
   • If the image is available on Commons under a different name than locally, all local references to the image must be updated to point to the title used at Commons.
   • The image is not protected.
   • {{c-uploaded}} images may be speedily deleted as soon as they are off the Main Page.
9. Blatant copyright infringement. Images that are claimed by the uploader to be images with free licenses when this is obviously not the case. A URL or other indication of where the image originated should be mentioned. This does not include images used under a claim of fair use, nor does it include images with a credible claim that the owner has released them under a Wikipedia-compatible free license. This includes images from stock photo libraries such as Getty Images or Corbis. Blatant infringements should be tagged with the {{db-imgcopyvio}} template. Non-blatant copyright infringements should be discussed at Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images.
10. Useless media files. Files uploaded that are neither image, sound, nor video files (e.g. .doc, .pdf, or .xls files) which are not used in any article and have no foreseeable encyclopedic use.
11. No evidence of permission: If an uploader has specified a license and has named a third party as the source/copyright holder without providing evidence that this third party has in fact agreed, the item may be deleted seven days after notification of the uploader. Acceptable evidence of licensing normally consists of either a link to the source website where the license is stated, or a statement by the copyright holder e-mailed or forwarded to permissions-en@wikimedia.org. Such a confirmation is also required if the source is an organisation which the uploader claims to represent, or a web publication which the uploader claims to be their own. Instances of obvious copyright violations where the uploader would have no reasonable expectation of obtaining permission (e.g. major studio movie posters, TV screenshots) should be speedily deleted per Criteria I9.

Categories

Also listed at Wikipedia:Category deletion policy#Speedy delete policy. For any categories that are not speedy deletion candidates, use Wikipedia:Categories for discussion or Wikipedia:User categories for discussion. Due to technical restrictions, renaming or merging a category effectively deletes the original category.

1. Unpopulated categories that have been unpopulated for at least four days. This does not apply to disambiguation categories, category redirects, categories under discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for Discussion (or other such discussions), or project categories that by their nature may become empty on occasion (e.g. Category:Wikipedians looking for help).
2. Speedy renaming.
   1. Typographic fixes (e.g., Brdiges → Bridges), but not changes between British and American spelling.
   2. Capitalization fixes (e.g., Heads Of State → Heads of state).
   3. Conversions from singular to plural, or back (e.g., Steamship → Steamships).
   4. Non-conformance with "x by y", "x of y", or "x in y" categorization conventions specified at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (categories).
   5. Expanding abbreviated country names (e.g., U.S. → United States).
   6. Disambiguation fixes from an unqualified name (e.g., Category:Georgia → Category:Georgia (country) or Category:Georgia (U.S. state)).
3. (Deprecated – placeholder to preserve numbering; merged with G8.)

User pages

For any user pages that are not speedy deletion candidates, use Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion.

1. User request. Personal user pages and subpages, upon request by their user. In some rare cases there may be administrative need to retain the page.
2. Nonexistent user. User pages of users that do not exist (check Special:Listusers).
3. Non-free galleries. Galleries in the userspace which consist mostly or entirely of "fair use" or non-free images. Wikipedia's non-free content policy prohibits the use of non-free content in userspace, even content which the user has uploaded; use of content in the public domain or under a free license is acceptable.

Templates

For any templates that are not speedy deletion candidates, use Wikipedia:Templates for deletion. When nominating a template for speedy deletion, surround the speedy deletion tag with <noinclude></noinclude>, so that pages that use the nominated template do not themselves get listed as candidates for speedy deletion.

1. Templates in "Template:" namespace that are divisive and inflammatory. General criterion 10 may also apply.
2. Templates that are blatant misrepresentations of established policy. This includes "speedy deletion" templates for issues that are not speedy deletion criteria and disclaimer templates intended to be used in articles.
3. Templates that are not employed in any useful fashion, and are either: substantial duplications of another template, or hardcoded instances of another template where the same functionality could be provided by that other template, may be deleted after being tagged for seven days.

Portals

For any portals that are not speedy deletion candidates, use Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion.

1. Any topic that would be subject to speedy deletion as an article.
2. Underpopulated portal. Any portal based on a topic for which there is only a stub header article or fewer than three non-stub articles detailing subject matter that would be appropriate to present under the title of that portal.

Non-criteria

The following are not sufficient, by themselves, to justify speedy deletion.

• Reasons derived from Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. Wikipedia is not: "a dictionary", "an indiscriminate collection of information", "a crystal ball", etc.
• Hoaxes. If even remotely plausible, a suspected hoax article should be subjected to further scrutiny in a wider forum. Note that "blatant and obvious hoaxes and misinformation" are subject to speedy deletion as vandalism.
• Original research. It is not always easy to tell whether an article consists of material that violates the policy against novel theories or interpretations or is simply uncited.
• Neologisms. If not obviously ridiculous, new specialized terms should have a wider hearing.
• Notability. Articles that seem to have obviously non-notable subjects are only eligible for speedy deletion if the article does not assert the importance or significance of its subject.
• Failure to assert importance but not an A7 or A9 category. There is no consensus to speedily delete articles of types not specifically listed in A7 or A9 under that criterion.
• Author deletion requests made in bad faith. Author deletion requests made in bad faith, out of frustration, or in an attempt to revoke their GFDL contributions are not granted. However, anyone may request deletion of pages in their userspace.
• Author deletion requests after others have contributed substantially. If other editors have substantially edited an article (i.e. more than just minor corrections or maintenance tagging), the original author may not request deletion under G7 because the work of others is involved.
• Very short articles. Short articles with sufficient content and context to qualify as stubs may not be speedily deleted under criteria A1 and A3; other criteria may still apply.
• Copies that are not copyright violations. If content appears both here and somewhere else (possibly in modified form), consider the possibility that Wikipedia's is the original version and the other site copied from us. Alternately, the same author may have written both versions, or the original may be free content.
• PNGs/GIFs replaced by JPEGs. JPEG encoding discards information that may be important later. Do not delete the original PNG/GIF files.
• Questionable material that is not vandalism. Earnest efforts are never vandalism, so to assume good faith, do not delete as vandalism unless reasonably certain.
• Reasons derived from essays, such as Wikipedia:Deny recognition, Wikipedia:Listcruft, or the like.

Deletion templates

In order to alert administrators that a page meets one of the criteria for speedy deletion, place one of the following relevant templates at the top of the page. Please be sure to supply an edit summary that mentions that the article is being nominated for speedy deletion. All the following templates are named "db-X" with "db" standing for "delete because".

Procedure for administrators

See also: Wikipedia:Deletion process

Make sure to specify the deletion reason in the deletion summary. Also, in some cases the article's creator should be notified.

Before deleting a page, check the page history to assess whether it would instead be possible to revert and salvage a previous version. Also:

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

See also

• Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Explanations
• Category:CSD warning templates
• Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace (Grid of warning messages)
• Wikipedia:No blank pages
• Wikipedia:Proposed deletion
• Category:Speedy deletion