Wikipedia deletion review explained

What is Wikipedia deletion review?

Deletion review, usually shortened to DRV, is the place where editors examine whether a deletion decision was made properly. Its own page describes it as being for reviewing speedy deletions and the outcomes of deletion discussions, and that includes appeals to delete pages that a discussion kept. A close of "redirect" or "merge" at Articles for Deletion is an outcome of a deletion discussion too, so it can be reviewed in the same way.

The forum looks at the decision, not the subject. Its instructions tell participants that a review is an opportunity to correct errors in process, and that each opinion should reflect the editor's view of the correct interpretation of the debate. Someone who opens a review to say the subject deserves an article, without showing an error or new evidence, has misunderstood what the forum is for.

The page also describes itself, in its closing guidance, as effectively the final appeal. That status explains two of its habits. Closes are ideally made by administrators so that the result is applied consistently, and repeat requests without new arguments are closed quickly. Once a discussion and a review of it have both gone against you, there is no higher deletion forum to take the same question to.

If you are still working out how your page was removed, the explanation of why Wikipedia pages get deleted is the place to begin. The deletion log entry decides whether deletion review is even the right venue.

What grounds does deletion review accept?

Six, and a request should name the one it relies on. The purpose section of Wikipedia:Deletion review lists them as follows:

Two of these carry a precondition that people often miss. New information is not a ground on its own: the administrator must have been asked first. And a create-protected title goes to the protecting administrator, or to the requests for reduction in protection at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection, before it comes anywhere near a review.

What will deletion review refuse to hear?

Quite a lot, and the list is written into the page. Deletion review should not be used for any of these:

• A deletion that can be reversed on request, such as a proposed deletion. Those go to Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion, and a review becomes possible only if that request is declined.
• Asking permission to write a new version of a deleted page, unless a creation restriction is in place and its removal has been refused.
• A disagreement with the outcome that does not involve the closer's judgment.
• Repeating arguments already made in the deletion discussion.
• Technicalities, with a discussion closed ten minutes early given as the example.
• Pointing to other articles that were or were not deleted, because each page stands on its own merits.
• Restoring the history of a deleted page behind a new version, or reusing deleted content elsewhere. Both are requests for undeletion matters.
• Attacking other editors, casting aspersions or alleging bias. Such requests may be closed early.
• Restoring copyright violations, libellous material or other prohibited content.

The deletion policy adds a practical point. If a page was deleted for lacking content or for having inappropriate content, which covers most speedy deletions, a better article can simply be written without any review. The policy calls it especially wasteful to bring an unsourced stub to deletion review when a sourced article could be created instead.

Two instructions deal with machine-written text. A review request that looks machine-generated will normally be denied without discussion, and the page asks people to write in their own words. Nominations or comments produced that way can be removed or collapsed by an uninvolved administrator.

How is deletion review different from re-arguing an AfD?

An Articles for Deletion discussion asks whether the subject should have an article. Deletion review asks whether the person who closed that discussion read it correctly. The second question is much narrower, and a request that answers the first one gives reviewers nothing they can act on.

Take a hypothetical. A discussion about a software company runs for seven days. Five editors argue for deletion, saying the coverage is press releases and funding announcements. Three argue to keep, saying the company is well known in its sector. The closer deletes. A review that says "the company is well known, and three people wanted to keep it" is very likely to be endorsed, because the closer was entitled to give little weight to assertions without sources.

Change one fact. Suppose two of the keep comments had linked to long, independent profiles in national newspapers, nobody had answered them, and the closer's statement only counted the comments. Now there is an arguable misreading of consensus, and the request can point to the specific comments the closer did not weigh.

New evidence is handled differently again. The instructions say that new information about the content should be presented with a recommendation to relist, so that it can be assessed properly at the original deletion forum, or to allow recreation. It is not a reason to declare the original close wrong, because the closer could not have weighed sources that nobody put in front of them.

An essay, Wikipedia:Renominating for deletion, puts it bluntly: deletion review considers cases where the closer erred in evaluating the arguments, not cases where the close was reasonable however much you disagree. It adds that "no consensus" closes are rarely overturned there, and that waiting and starting a new discussion is usually the better course in that situation. That is advice rather than policy, and it is worth reading as such.

Should you use deletion review or Requests for undeletion?

It depends on how the page was removed, and the two venues are designed to be used in sequence rather than as alternatives. The undeletion request page itself tells anyone who wants to dispute the outcome of a deletion discussion to open a deletion review instead.

The undeletion page leaves one door ajar. Pages not on its eligible list can still be requested there, and while such requests are usually declined, the deletion review page says it is worth trying when substantial new sources have appeared since the deletion. If the request fails, that refusal is what opens the new-information ground at review. The guide to getting a deleted page back sets this alongside the other ways back, including a rebuilt draft.

How do you file a deletion review?

Talk to the closer first, then list the request on the day's log page and notify the people affected. The instructions run in this order.

1. Discuss it with the closer. The page suggests this because a mistake, miscommunication or misunderstanding can be put right without a full review, and the closer gets the chance to explain their reasoning. The deletion policy gives the same advice for deletions generally. The closer's name is in the discussion's closing statement or the deletion log.
2. Check the perennial requests list. Wikipedia:Deletion review/Perennial requests records subjects that come back repeatedly. It warns that reviving one of these without an exhaustive and compelling case, or substantial new evidence, may be seen as tendentious.
3. Add the request to the current day's log. Each day has its own log page, and a pre-filled template asks for the page name, the deletion discussion (left blank for a speedy deletion) and the reason the result should change.
4. Notify the closer with the standard deletion review notice on their user talk page.
5. Mark the original discussion. A notice goes above the old deletion discussion so that anyone reading it can find the review. Where the review seeks to delete a page that was kept, a notice also goes on the page itself.

Keep the reason short. The instructions say reviews work best with succinct discussion of policies and guidelines, and that long or repeated arguments are not generally helpful. A good request names the ground, links the specific comments or log entry that show the error, and lists any new sources with a sentence on why each is independent and in depth.

One timing rule is easy to break. The deletion policy says a page under deletion review should not be taken to a deletion discussion until the review closes, and a page in a deletion discussion should not be listed at review until that discussion has closed.

What happens during a deletion review?

Any editor may comment, and each comment starts with one recommendation in bold. The page sets out five:

Participants usually need to see what was deleted. An administrator taking part will often be asked to bring the page back for the duration of the review, replacing the visible text with a notice and leaving the history open for everyone to read. Copyright violations stay deleted even then, and so does anything that would breach the rules on writing about living people.

The deletion policy states that a review is not decided solely by head count but by consensus. A dozen brief "overturn" comments from new accounts can count for less than two experienced editors explaining why the close was within the closer's discretion.

How long does deletion review take and what are the outcomes?

Seven days is the minimum for any review the community has to decide, and the deletion policy notes that an unclear one can run past that. After that, an administrator assesses whether there is consensus and closes it with one of these results:

• Undelete or overturn. The page is restored, or the original close is replaced with the one the review agreed.
• Relist. The page goes back to the appropriate deletion forum for a new discussion, which runs on its own timetable.
• Endorse. The original decision stands and the consensus is recorded in the close.
• No consensus. Generally treated the same as endorse. There are two exceptions. Where the appeal concerned a speedy deletion, the page goes back up: a split community is itself evidence that the deletion was not the uncontroversial kind speedy deletion is meant for, and anyone may then nominate it for a full discussion. If it was a discussion close, the reviewing administrator may choose to relist it.

Some reviews end early. The page allows this when the closer of the original discussion accepts the close was wrong and nobody has endorsed it, when the nominator withdraws and nobody has argued for anything but endorse, when the original close has been reopened, and when the request is disruptive, for example a sockpuppet nomination, a repeated nomination of the same page or one built with a large language model. Those last ones are usually marked as procedural closes.

A restored page is not safe from further scrutiny. The deletion policy warns that pages restored to the article space may immediately face a deletion discussion, so the work of improving the article should be ready before the review closes, not started after it.

Is a deletion review something to file on your own?

A clear-cut speedy deletion error is often fine to raise yourself. If a page was deleted under A7 although its opening paragraph cited a national award covered by independent press, a polite note to the deleting administrator quoting that paragraph usually settles it, and a short review is the next step if it does not.

A review of a discussion close is harder. The audience is largely regular reviewers who have read many such requests, and the request is judged on whether it identifies an error they can verify. The record also lasts. Each review sits on a dated log page, a notice linking to it is placed above the original deletion discussion, and the perennial requests list exists to flag subjects that keep coming back. A subject's second request on the same evidence tends to be closed quickly and makes the third harder to take seriously.

Our page repair work begins by reading the deletion log, the closing statement and the discussion to decide whether any of the six grounds is genuinely available. Often the honest advice is a different route: an undeletion request, a conversation with the administrator, or a new draft built on coverage the original discussion never saw. Where a review is justified, we prepare the case and the source assessment it needs. Nobody can promise the result. If you want a view on which of these routes is realistic for your page, start with a free page health check.