STOWiki:Policy/Speedy deletion


 * This is part of the overall Deletion policy, but has its own article since the process is quite different.


 * When flagging an article for speedy deletion, do not remove any text. Simply add the tag to the top of the page. Further, be sure you check to determine if there are any links to the page at hand. If there are, make a note of that immediately below the tag.

Why "Speedy deletion"?
There are many essentially blank articles here at STOWiki, many of which will likely never have any content, or articles which were created by mistake and the author deletes the contents, but forgets to ask for the article to be deleted. This policy is originated in the necessity to be able to skirt long-winded votes for deletion for even essentially blank articles which have never had any content.

The idea of this is to let admins know what articles could probably be deleted without collateral damage.

Process
First, a user will place a Expalanation or reason tag at the top of an article and will thus place it in Category:Articles for speedy deletion. Next when an admin comes along, he may either delete the article or decide that the article is too important for a speedy delete. Other users, if they believe that a given article is too important to warrant a speedy delete, can of course also remove the speedydelete tag and replace it according to the deletion policy currently in effect.

There should be no removal of text in the process of tagging an article for speedy deletion, no matter what the quality of the text is. If there is a note to be made, it should be made immediately below the tag, and should include whether or not there are any links to the article.

The administrator must judge whether or not the article was flagged only to take a shot at another user. If this happens, the one who flagged the article should be considered a vandal.


 * Hint: You should use reason > to add your reason and optionally, your signature. Not having a reason weakens the case for using speedydelete, so please put one in. See speedydelete for further documentation.


 * If you add an explanation/reason that is not relevant or doesn't serve as a meaningful explanation, it will be considered the same as having not added an explanation/reason.

Qualifications
Some qualifications follow here:
 * 1) The page was edited by only one significant contributor (such as – but not exclusively – a user page) and:
 * 2) * the author requests deletion or the author deletes all contents of the article later
 * 3) * another user decides according to other qualifications
 * 4) The page has never had any content, especially if it appears that it will never have any content
 * 5) The page violates a policy where the consequence is speedy deletion

If a page is incorrectly flagged
If you see a page that has the speedydelete tag and feel that this page should not be speedy-deleted:


 * 1) Replace the speedydelete tag with the Delete tag.
 * 2) Create a talk page for this article if one does not exist.
 * 3) Pull in Delete/Talk on the talk page.
 * 4) Vote to keep the page and comment on why (or vote to delete the page and explain why it should not be a speedy delete).


 * This is a readers' digest version of the Deletion policy. You may want to read it in its entirety.