What a failed Wikipedia attempt leaves behind

Why does Wikipedia keep a record of failed attempts?

Wikipedia is written by volunteers who mostly do not know one another, so it relies on transparency instead of trust. Every edit is saved as a separate revision with the account or IP address that made it, the time, and an edit summary. Every administrative action, such as deleting a page, protecting it or blocking an account, is written to a public log with the administrator's name and stated reason. Discussions about whether a page should exist are held on public pages and archived when they close.

That record exists so that editors can check one another's work. Its side effect is that a clumsy or non-compliant attempt to create or change a page is documented in detail, and the documentation is exactly what a reviewer reads first when the subject comes back.

Ordinary mistakes stay visible. Administrators can hide individual revisions only for narrow reasons listed in the revision deletion policy, such as copyright violations, grossly offensive material or someone's private information. A promotional draft, a weak argument in a deletion debate or an undisclosed conflict of interest does not qualify.

What does a deleted page leave behind?

Deleting a page removes its text from public view, but not the fact that it existed. Anyone who visits the title sees a notice that the page was deleted, with the date, the administrator and the reason, taken from the deletion log. The reason is usually a short code that points to the rule applied.

Administrators can still read the deleted text, and they often do when someone asks for the page to be restored or recreated. A page deleted as promotional colours how the next draft is read. A page deleted as a copyright violation raises the question of whether the new one is original.

What happens to a deletion discussion after it closes?

Articles for Deletion, usually shortened to AfD, is the main forum for deciding whether a subject should have an article. A discussion normally runs for at least seven days. It lives at a fixed address, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Page title, and when it closes the closing administrator adds a summary of the outcome and the reasoning. The page is then archived and stays available indefinitely.

If the subject is nominated again later, the new discussion is created as the "2nd nomination" and the previous debate is linked at the top. Editors taking part in the second debate read the first. If the first ended in deletion because independent coverage was thin, the second will turn on whether that has changed.

The way a discussion was conducted is also recorded. New accounts that appear only to argue for keeping a page, comments that ignore policy, and messages asking friends or colleagues to join in are all common in failed attempts. Wikipedia's guideline on canvassing treats recruiting participants in that way as disruptive, and closing administrators are told to give little or no weight to contributions that do not engage with policy. Those comments stay in the archive.

What is create protection, and why does it matter?

When a page is deleted and then recreated again and again, administrators can protect the title against creation. This is known on Wikipedia as salting. Depending on the level chosen, only experienced accounts, or only administrators, can then create a page at that title. Repeatedly recreated titles are usually given the highest level. The protection is visible in the protection log and on the title itself.

Undoing it normally means persuading an administrator. The usual routes are to ask the administrator who protected the title, or to take the case to Deletion Review with evidence that the situation has changed. In practice the strongest case is a well-sourced draft written through Articles for Creation, which shows reviewers the finished article before anyone is asked to lift the protection.

Create protection is the clearest example of a failed attempt making the next one harder. Without it, a good new draft can be published through the ordinary process. With it, the same draft usually has to win an administrator's agreement first.

Can a page simply be recreated after deletion?

Not if it is substantially the same as the version deleted after a discussion. Speedy deletion criterion G4 allows any administrator to delete a sufficiently identical copy of a page that was deleted through a deletion discussion, without starting a new debate. It does not apply to pages removed by proposed deletion or by most speedy deletion criteria, and it does not apply to a version that addresses the reasons the original was deleted.

The test is whether the reasons for deletion have been dealt with. A new version that adds substantial independent coverage published since the discussion is a different page in the sense that matters. A version that reorders the same material, or adds press releases and interviews, is not.

Repeated recreation is also the usual path to create protection, described above, and it draws attention to the accounts doing it.

What happens to accounts used in a failed attempt?

The Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use require anyone paid to edit to disclose their employer, client, intended beneficiary and affiliation. Wikipedia's conflict of interest guideline adds that people with a close connection to a subject should not edit its article directly, but should suggest changes on the talk page. An account that edits a page for its subject without disclosure is likely to be noticed, because the pattern of edits gives it away.

The consequences are recorded:

• A block, with its reason, appears in the block log and on the account.
• Where one person is thought to be using several accounts, a sockpuppet investigation is opened. Its page is public, is named after the main account, and is linked from the accounts it concerns.
• The article's talk page may be given a notice listing the accounts connected to the subject.
• The article itself may be tagged as possibly written by an undisclosed paid editor.
• If links to the subject's own website were added repeatedly to promote it, the site can be added to the spam blacklist, which stops anyone linking to it.

These measures are not hypothetical. In 2013, after an investigation that began the year before, Wikipedia banned more than 250 accounts linked to one paid editing firm, and in 2015 an investigation known as Orangemoody blocked 381 accounts and led to the deletion of more than 200 articles created through them. Subjects of those articles found their pages gone and their names in the discussions about them.

What does a declined draft leave behind?

Articles for Creation, or AfC, is the review queue for new drafts. When a reviewer declines a draft, a notice is left on it giving the reason, such as insufficient evidence of notability, an advertising tone or inadequate sourcing. Each later submission and decline is added to the stack, so a reviewer can see at a glance how many times a draft has been submitted and why it was turned down.

If a draft is resubmitted repeatedly with little change, a reviewer can reject it rather than decline it. Rejection means the draft should not be resubmitted at all. Drafts that are not edited for six months can also be deleted under speedy deletion criterion G13, although these can normally be restored on request.

A long stack of declines tells the next reviewer that the author has not been able, or willing, to fix the underlying problem. That is a hard first impression to overcome, even with a much better draft.

Does a failed attempt mean a page can never exist?

No. Wikipedia judges subjects, not their history, and its notability guideline is clear that notability depends on the existence of suitable sources, not on the state of a previous article. Subjects that were deleted when coverage was thin often qualify later, once independent and reliable sources have written about them in depth.

What the record changes is the route and the standard of proof. A second attempt should normally:

1. Start with an honest reading of why the first one failed, from the deletion discussion, decline notices and talk page.
2. Rest on independent coverage that did not exist, or was not used, the first time.
3. Go through Articles for Creation or a request to the protecting administrator, rather than straight into the article space.
4. Be written by an editor who has disclosed any paid relationship from the outset.
5. Acknowledge the earlier history where it is relevant, rather than appear to hope nobody notices.

Reviewers respond well to a case that shows it understands why the first attempt failed. They respond badly to one that repeats it.

Should you try it yourself first?

For a simple factual correction backed by a good source, often yes: post an edit request on the article's talk page, disclose your connection, and let an uninvolved editor make the change. Wikipedia is set up to handle that well.

For creating a page, defending one in a deletion discussion, or resolving tags and disputes, the case for experience is stronger, because the first attempt is the one that sets the record. The parts that most often go wrong are judging whether the sources are sufficient, writing in the neutral register Wikipedia expects, choosing the right process, and arguing within policy when a page is challenged. Each of those mistakes is recorded, and each makes the next attempt harder.

If an attempt has already been made, the first step is the same either way: read the record. Our free page health check does exactly that and tells you what it shows.