Wikipedia

Wikipedia:Deletion review

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Camembert (talk | contribs) at 23:55, 1 June 2003. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Stuff is deleted by administrators.


Generally these decisions are correct, in accordance with policy, and undisputed. Rarely, they are more controversial. The forthcoming meta:deletion management redesign may address many of these issues, but that is some way off.

This page exists for people to challenge deletions that they feel were incorrect, or did not go through the proper process, or where the authors were not kept informed. It is hoped that this page will be generally unused, as the vast majority of deletions do not need to be challenged.

Having this page does allow sysops to be a little more bold in deleting articles, but it should be noted that the undeletion process remains painful, so care should be taken.

The process is: if you wish to undelete an article, list it here. A sysop will then undelete the article, and list the article on wikipedia:votes for deletion. Further discussion can take place on the votes for deletion page, and after a week the undeleted page will either be deleted again, or left undeleted.

Hint for sysops: You may want to add http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Undelete&target=%s to your bookmarks as a Mozilla custom keyword. This allows you to bypass the currently impractical undeletion interface. If you don't use Mozilla, you could still hack a bookmarklet, or just copy and paste the URL with the "%s" replaced by the page title. Remember to use the title in its database representation, e.g. "Main Page" becomes "Main_Page".

History only undeletions can always be performed without needing to list the articles on the votes for deletion page. For example, suppose someone writes a biased article on Fred Flintstone, it is deleted, and subsequently someone else writes a decent article on Fred Flintsone. The original, biased article can be undeleted, in which case it will merely sit in the page history of the Fred Flintstone article, causing no harm.

Votes for undeletion

  • (diff) (hist) . . Wikipedia:Deletion log; 01:08 . . Zoe (Talk) (deleted "Conflict (band)": I hate to do this to you, Quercus, but this has to be deleted)
    • What on earth? This was a good article on an important punk band, who are topical because they have just played some rare (and by all acounts excellent) gigs. Zoe's bureaucratic obsession with deleting everything Michael ever went near, regardless of its intrinsic value, is bizarre and tiresome. GrahamN 23:48 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)
    • I've undeleted it. Only the discography was Michael's work, Quercus wrote the rest of it (and he probably checked the discog). Delete Michael's stuff, by all means, but (to employ a cliche) lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater. --Camembert 23:55 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)
  • 06:20 1 Jun 2003 Eloquence deleted "User talk:Administration" (banned for good)
  • 06:20 1 Jun 2003 Eloquence deleted "User:Administration" (banned for good)
    • I object. These pages are by an annoying vandal who has created dozens of nicks, they are useless and confusing because they will show up in a user search for "administration". --Eloquence 23:31 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)
      • This is an argument. Where are the references of the discussions which lead to the first ban ? On these pages, or elsewhere ? If this person comes back under another nick and is said to be "administration", would these pages then be undeleted ? Or would the person be banned without further discussion, or were the reasons for the ban saved somewhere else ?
  • 17:42 31 May 2003 Kils deleted "User:Viking" (project of my children - deleted after threats)
  • 17:41 31 May 2003 Kils deleted "User talk:Viking/ban" (project of my children - deleted after threats)
  • 21:17 May 1, 2003 JohnOwens deleted "War of the Pacific" (banned user trying to sneak back in) full text: "The War of the Pacific was fought between Chile, Bolivia, and Peru. Chile gained substantial land, with rich nitrate fields from both of the other two countries."
    • This is a one-two sentence stub that I think could probably be restored. Martin 19:18 May 15, 2003 (UTC)
    • Agreed, I just re-created it by making it as a new page rather than an undeletion, just so we don't have "its" name attached to it. Just feels cleaner that way. If you really want the old history, I think it can still be undeleted and the histories will be merged, if I understand correctly? -- John Owens 09:03 26 May 2003 (UTC)
listed on VfD Anthere


  • 10:00 Apr 27, 2003 Maveric149 deleted "Open Campaign" (Article by banned user 142.177 (content and links to disinfopedia prove this)
    • Open Campaign, however, talks about a Greenpeace definition, and fails the google test, so I think it can stay deleted. Martin 16:56 24 May 2003 (UTC)
    • I listed it on VfD Martin 18:02 26 May 2003 (UTC)

Images deleted

  • 20:32 May 1, 2003 Infrogmation deleted "Image:Baboon.jpe" (Banned user)
  • 03:15 Apr 30, 2003 Zoe deleted "Image:Babboon.jpg" (deleting banned user's contribution)
    • Deleted images can't be undeleted or viewed by sysops, and I can't recall the nature of this image. You'll have to ask Zoe or infrogmation for their reasons. Martin 19:18 May 15, 2003 (UTC)
    • I'm almost certain that these were pictures of a monkey in a dress that Zog was adding to pages on civil rights activists. Deletion seems more than reasonable if so. --Camembert 19:39 May 15, 2003 (UTC)
      • Those were some of the pictures of monkeys/apes that Zog uploaded and was putting on the Martin Luther King and/or Rosa Parks page(s) as their picture. Admittedly, there's nothing wrong with the picture itself, but since it wasn't even being used on the actual baboon article (if there is one, dunno yet), just for the vandalism, I figured removing it would be slightly more effective than editing the article where he would just revert it almost as quickly as I could. -- John Owens 19:43 May 15, 2003 (UTC)
        • there is no picture in the baboon article. It would have been worth keeping it. Anthere
    • The photo was uploaded by a user I percieved as a vandalizing troll up to deliberate mischief, who was inserting the photo in artiles on prominent African Americans with captions like "Young Rosa Parks". I deleted the photo as part of an attempt to minimize the damage the vandal was doing. The vandal didn't state where the image was from; I doubt making sure it had no copyright problems was among the vandal's conserns. I don't see any good reason to undelete the photo; if we need a photo of a baboon, we should find a public ___domain one or one we can otherwise use without fear of later finding out it is copyrighted. -- Infrogmation 01:50 29 May 2003 (UTC)

Recently undeleted

  • 19:01 Apr 29, 2003 Maveric149 deleted "Remorse" (article by banned user 142.177)
  • 04:15 Apr 29, 2003 Maveric149 deleted "Remorse" (content by banned user 142.177 (no other edits made by other users)
  • 04:14 Apr 29, 2003 Maveric149 deleted "Transformative justice" (content by banned user 142.177 (no other edits made by other users)
  • 04:12 Apr 29, 2003 Maveric149 deleted "Psychiatric imprisonment" (content by banned user 142.177 (no other user has edited this page)
  • 04:08 Apr 29, 2003 Maveric149 deleted "Carceral state" (page created by banned user 142.177)
    • I'll need to check through these before responding - be back in a bit. Martin 19:18 May 15, 2003 (UTC)
    • They all look reasonable to me. Looks valid content, concepts I'm familiar with. 24 apparently had a history of being biased, though. I'm not entirely sure what to do here - my instinct says to restore, but I don't want to cause a fuss... Martin 13:35 24 May 2003 (UTC)
    • 142.177 had already reposted this content, and it has been subsequently reworked by others. I therefore restored them all as history.Martin 13:35 24 May 2003 (UTC)


  • 05:48 May 14, 2003 User:Kingturtle deleted Canada-US politics compared (anthere)
  • 07:15 May 11, 2003 Zoe deleted "User talk:Zxcvb" (banned user) (Martin undeleted, because the reasons for a ban should be kept)
  • 07:15 May 11, 2003 Zoe deleted "User:Zxcvb" (banned user) (Martin undeleted)
  • 19:28 May 2, 2003 Zoe deleted "User talk:Zog/ban" (banned user) (Martin undeleted for acountability)
  • 21:17 May 1, 2003 JohnOwens deleted "Aymara" (banned user trying to sneak back in) (Martin restored it as history only. full text: "A common language amongst highland Bolivians and Peruvians. Considered an official language by both nations.")
  • 22:42 May 13, 2003 172 deleted "Thats how a nigger goes" (a racist copyright violation by banned user Zog, much of whose work has already been deleted, added to the votes for deletion) (I undeleted this - it was a valid redirect)

Deletions recently upheld

Some articles are listed here, and after discussion and review, a consensus is reached to keep the articles deleted:

  • 19:29 May 2, 2003 Zoe deleted "User talk:Anti-Zog" (banned user)
  • 19:29 May 2, 2003 Zoe deleted "User:Anti-Zog" (banned user)
  • 19:29 May 2, 2003 Zoe deleted "User:Zog" (banned user)
  • 19:28 May 2, 2003 Zoe deleted "User talk:Zog" (banned user)
  • 19:28 May 2, 2003 Zoe deleted "User:JamesERay" (banned)
  • 19:28 May 2, 2003 Zoe deleted "User talk:JamesERay" (banned user)
  • 19:27 May 2, 2003 Zoe deleted "User:JamesERay" (banned user)
  • 19:26 May 2, 2003 Zoe deleted "User talk:BaboonMouth" (banned user)
  • 19:25 May 2, 2003 Zoe deleted "User:BaboonMouth" (banned user)


  • 21:17 May 1, 2003 JohnOwens deleted "Santa Cruz, Bolivia" (banned user trying to sneak back in)
    • This was a zero content stub: text ~ "city in Bolivia", and deletion probably justified on those grounds alone. Martin 19:18 May 15, 2003 (UTC)
  • 03:22 May 12, 2003 Zoe deleted "Iron Maiden (album)" (deleting article created by banned user Michael)
  • 03:22 May 12, 2003 Zoe deleted "The Soundhouse Tapes" (deleting article created by banned user Michael)
  • 03:17 May 12, 2003 Zoe deleted "Bruce Dickinson" (deleting article created by banned user Michael)
  • 06:49 May 11, 2003 Zoe deleted "Pretty Girls Make Graves" (Deleting Michaelism)
  • 06:48 May 11, 2003 Zoe deleted "Self-titled" (deleting Michaelism)
  • 22:09 Apr 30, 2003 JohnOwens deleted "Deftones (album)" ("contribution" from banned ex-user)
  • 03:15 Apr 30, 2003 Zoe deleted "Mousetrap Records" (deleting banned user's contribution)
  • 02:50 Apr 23, 2003 TUF-KAT deleted "Local H." (nothing to revert michael from)
  • 02:17 Apr 20, 2003 TUF-KAT deleted "Tommy Stewart" (mchls, rien to revert to)
  • 02:16 Apr 20, 2003 TUF-KAT deleted "Robbie Merrill" (mchlse nothing to revert to)
  • 02:16 Apr 20, 2003 TUF-KAT deleted "Tony Rambola" (Michaelse with nothing to revert to)
  • 18:00 Apr 16, 2003 TUF-KAT deleted "The Æffect" (distinctively Michael, from 205.188.209.45, not a 64... address)
  • 02:43 Apr 13, 2003 TUF-KAT deleted "Daron Malakian" (nothing non-Michael to revert to)
  • 02:40 Apr 13, 2003 TUF-KAT deleted "Epic Records" (partially untrue, badly written Michaelese)
  • 02:39 Apr 2, 2003 TUF-KAT deleted "Livin Like Hustlers" (no pre-Michael state to revert to, inaccurate and POV)
    • I'm sympathetic to deletion here because Michael's articles are typically mostly inaccurate, and it takes a good deal of time to go through and correct such errors. I'd be willing to undelete them only if I knew that someone was going to spend the necesary time checking them and fixing those errors. Otherwise they're probably less valuable than a red link. Martin 19:18 May 15, 2003 (UTC)
      • I agree with Martin's assesment. -- Infrogmation 01:50 29 May 2003 (UTC)
  • 00:38 Apr 2, 2003 TUF-KAT deleted "St. Anger" (nothing to roll back User:Weezer's non-contribution to)
    • Since someone has recreated this article by reposting the content, I undeleted it, so it's in the history. At the time of deletion it had zero content - "non-contribution" is accurate. Martin 19:18 May 15, 2003 (UTC)
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