How to nominate a Wikipedia page for deletion

How do you nominate a Wikipedia page for deletion?

Choose the route that fits the page, then follow that route's own procedure. All three are set out in the deletion policy, and each one fails in its own way when used on the wrong kind of page.

The Articles for Deletion page puts the order of preference at the top: fix or tag problems that do not need deletion, use speedy deletion where a criterion applies, use proposed deletion where the deletion is uncontroversial, and bring the rest to discussion. A nomination sent to the wrong venue is moved to the right one, but it has already used up time and, in some cases, an option. This guide is about starting a deletion. If a page you care about has been nominated, start with how to stop a Wikipedia page being deleted.

Which route fits the page you want removed?

That depends on what is actually wrong with the page, and for most people who want a page gone the honest answer is narrower than they hope. Five situations come up again and again.

A page written to attack someone

Criterion G10 covers pages that disparage, threaten, intimidate or harass their subject and serve no other purpose. Its text includes biographical material about a living person that is entirely negative in tone and unsourced. The condition that decides most cases is in the same sentence: such pages "should be speedily deleted when there is no neutral version in the page history to revert to." If a neutral version exists, the fix is to restore it, not to delete the page. Where the problem is personal information or possible libel, the speedy deletion policy says to request oversight instead, and that team accepts requests only by email or other private means.

A duplicate of an existing article

A10 applies to a recently created article that repeats an existing one without adding anything, where the title would not work as a redirect. The criterion itself says it should be used rarely, because most duplicates sit under a plausible alternative name and should become redirects. Pages older than about three to six weeks are unlikely to count as recent. An older duplicate is a merge question, and contested merges are now nominated at Articles for Deletion too.

A page you wrote yourself and now regret

G7 lets the sole real author of a page ask for it to go: it applies where the author "added the only substantial content of the page and requested in good faith that it be deleted." Once anyone else has added substantial material, it no longer applies, and the page needs one of the other routes.

A biography of someone who is not a public figure

The biographies of living persons policy gives the subject a route of their own, covered in the section on connected people below.

A page that is accurate but unwelcome

Here there is usually no route at all. The deletion policy states: "It is also inappropriate to request deletion because of an editorial dispute." A company that dislikes a section about a lawsuit, or a person who wants an old controversy gone, has a content question. Our guide to removing negative information from Wikipedia covers what can properly be changed.

How do you tag a page for speedy deletion?

Place the template for the criterion at the top of the page, say in the edit summary that you are nominating it, and warn the creator. The templates are all named in the form Db- followed by the criterion, for example Db-attack for G10 or Db-a10 for a duplicate, and the speedy deletion policy lists them under each criterion. A page that meets two criteria can carry a single Db-multiple tag naming both.

Three details from the policy decide whether a tag holds:

• Every revision must qualify. A page is eligible for speedy deletion only if all of its history is also eligible. The policy warns taggers to check the history, because one editor can replace a reasonable article with material that makes it look deletable.
• Name the criterion that actually fits. Nominators are asked to specify which criterion the page meets, and the policy says administrators should delete only in the most obvious cases.
• Tell the creator. The policy records a strong consensus that creators and major contributors should be warned, and most templates carry a ready-made notice to paste onto their talk page.

Pages that survived a deletion discussion are largely off limits. If the most recent discussion closed as keep or no consensus, only a short list of exempt criteria, such as copyright infringement under G12, can still be used, and only where there is no controversy. Our guide to proposed and speedy deletion sets out the criteria that most often apply to pages about people and organisations.

When does proposed deletion work, and when does it not?

It works for an article nobody will defend, and the policy says it "must only be used if no opposition to the deletion is expected." You add the tag with a clear, specific reason, mention the nomination in the edit summary, and ideally leave the creator a note. The policy calls it good practice to name the subject area or the notability guideline the article falls under. An editor who agrees can second the proposal with a Prod2 tag.

The limits come from the same page:

• A page can be proposed only once. It is also ineligible if it has ever been undeleted or discussed at Articles for Deletion.
• Only articles, lists, set index and disambiguation pages, and files hosted on Wikipedia itself qualify. Redirects, drafts and user pages do not.
• Any editor, the creator included, can end it by removing the tag. Even an apparently bad-faith removal counts as an objection.
• A page deleted this way can be restored by any administrator on request, and recreating it does not fall under G4, the criterion for reposted content.

So proposed deletion is a single attempt that is easily undone. On a page someone is watching, the likely result is a removed tag and a page that can now only go to discussion. When you expect any resistance at all, a well-prepared Articles for Deletion nomination is the better first move.

What should you check before an Articles for Deletion nomination?

The first step of the Articles for Deletion process, which editors cite by the shortcut BEFORE, is a set of checks. Nominations that skip them tend to be noticed, because participants are told to look for sources themselves rather than rely on the nominator.

1. Read the rules the discussion will use. That means the deletion policy, the four policies and guidelines that inform most discussions (notability, verifiability, reliable sources and what Wikipedia is not), and any subject-specific notability guideline. A page summarising common outcomes shows how similar articles have fared.
2. Check the page's past. Confirm it does not fit speedy or proposed deletion. Read the talk page for earlier nominations and, if there was one, make sure enough time has passed. Look through the history for recent vandalism or poor editing that a revert could fix.
3. Consider improvement first. If ordinary editing could fix the article, or the main reason is on the list of arguments to avoid, such as "it's not important", the instructions say it is not a candidate for deletion. Raising concerns on the talk page or adding a cleanup tag comes first.
4. Search for sources. For a notability nomination the minimum expected is a normal Google search, a Google Books search and a Google News search, plus Google Scholar for academic subjects and a search in the subject's own script where the name is not written in the Latin alphabet.

The fourth step cuts both ways. Finding only passing mentions can still support a nomination, and the statement should say how you searched and what you found. But the instructions are explicit that if adequate sources do appear to exist, their absence from the article "is not a proper basis for a deletion nomination."

How do you file an Articles for Deletion nomination?

With the Twinkle tool if your account is autoconfirmed, or by asking for someone to file it for you. An account becomes autoconfirmed after at least 10 edits and 4 days since its first edit.

Using Twinkle

Enable Twinkle in the Gadgets section of your preferences. On the article, a TW menu appears; choose XFD, select the outcome you are proposing, pick a topic category if one fits, write the reason and submit. The instructions say Twinkle performs in a few seconds the steps that the manual method takes much longer to do by hand.

Asking for a nomination

Unregistered users cannot create the discussion page, and accounts that cannot yet use Twinkle are pointed to the same alternative: a request on Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion, with a link to the article and a detailed nomination statement, for another editor to file. The manual three-step method still exists, but the instructions describe it as complicated and not recommended for inexperienced users.

Writing the statement

The statement is usually under 150 words. A nomination that recommends no particular outcome is treated as a proposal to delete, so a nominator who wants a merge or redirect should say so in the opening words. The discussion can still end somewhere else; the instructions note that a merge nomination can result in a redirect. A useful statement names the guideline the subject fails, summarises the search, and says why the sources found do not meet the standard.

Write it yourself. Participants are told not to use generative AI tools to write comments, and an obviously machine-generated nomination is one of the grounds for closing a discussion as speedy keep.

After filing

Notifying the creator and main contributors is not required, but the instructions call it courteous. The discussion can also be added to a topic list through deletion sorting. Any notice has to be neutral, and messaging only editors who share your view is votestacking. Then the discussion runs for at least seven days. You may withdraw the nomination, but it can be closed as speedy keep on that basis only if nobody else has recommended deletion, merging or redirection. Once others have, it runs to a close.

What does a deletion nomination make public?

Nearly all of it, and most of it stays visible after the page is gone. The Articles for Deletion instructions put it in a sentence: "AfDs are public, and are sometimes quoted in the popular press."

The discussion page usually outlives the article, so the reasons the subject's coverage was judged thin, in whatever words the participants chose, stay readable long after the article itself is deleted. Courtesy blanking hides a discussion where public view could harm a person or organisation, but the deletion policy says this "only happens in rare circumstances", and even then the text remains in the page's history.

The nominator is part of the record too. Every edit, the nomination included, is attributed to an account, and the instructions acknowledge that because sockpuppets and recruited participants are common, comments by new users in deletion discussions may sometimes be viewed with suspicion. A brand-new account whose only edit is a nomination against one named person or company is read in that light.

What may a connected person do when they want a page deleted?

Use the routes the policies give, openly, and only for reasons those policies recognise. The conflict of interest guideline is direct about the starting point: the subject of an article has no right "to delete it outside the normal channels." It also says a conflict can exist when writing on behalf of a competitor or opponent of the subject, which matters to anyone thinking of nominating a rival's page.

The subject's own request

The biographies of living persons policy states: "Someone who does not wish to be the subject of a BLP may nominate the article or draft for deletion, or request that a member of the Volunteer Response Team do so for them." Unless the subject's notability under the general guideline is clear-cut rather than borderline, or they hold or once held elected or appointed office, it says editors "should seriously consider honoring such requests", and a discussion without consensus may then be closed as delete. The Volunteer Response Team is reached by email, at the address given on that policy page. Three limits apply. The rule covers people, not companies. It gives little to someone with sustained coverage or public office. And once the biography is deleted, other articles remain free to mention the person, and a redirect from their name can still be created.

What the rules expect of the nominator

• State the connection in the nomination. The Articles for Deletion instructions ask participants to disclose whether they have a vested interest in the article.
• Argue from policy and sources, not from how the page makes you feel. A nomination that is clearly an attempt to end an editing dispute through deletion is listed among the grounds for speedy keep.
• Leave the article's sourced content in place. The instructions say editors seeking deletion "should not remove large amounts of sourced content from the article merely to make the article look less worthy of being kept."
• Use one account and do not recruit support. Multiple accounts are forbidden, and people brought in from outside are treated as meatpuppets whose comments may be ignored.

Why can a failed nomination make the next one harder?

Because a kept page acquires protections it did not have before. Each comes from a specific rule:

• Proposed deletion is gone for good. Once a page has been discussed at Articles for Deletion it can never be proposed for deletion again.
• Speedy deletion mostly is too. A page kept, or closed as no consensus, should not be speedily deleted except under a few exempt criteria.
• The next nomination must wait and must say more. The deletion policy says a reasonable amount of time should pass, that renominations shortly after a debate "are generally closed quickly", and that repeated nominations in the hope of a different result can be disruptive. The instructions ask a renomination to explain why the reasons for keeping were poor.
• The first discussion is read first. A second nomination is titled as one, so participants know there is an earlier discussion and can open it before they comment.

Deletion review does not reset this. It examines whether the closer read the discussion correctly, as our guide to deletion review explains, and it is not a second hearing of the same case.

Some nominations are safe to make yourself. Tagging a page that is plainly an unsourced attack, with no neutral version in its history, is a quick, proper request. Asking for deletion of an article only you ever wrote is the same. A contested nomination is a different task. The search has to be thorough enough to survive participants who repeat it, the statement has to answer the sources a keep argument will raise, and a connected nominator's conduct will be read as closely as the argument. Our dispute support service covers deletion discussions on either side. It starts by testing whether the policies genuinely support deletion, which sometimes means advising a merge, a correction or no action. Nobody can promise how a discussion will close. A free page health check gives a plain reading of the page's history, any past nominations and which route, if any, is open.