Articles for Deletion

Articles for Deletion or AfD (formerly known as VfD or Votes for Deletion) is a process to determine whether or not an article should be deleted from Wikipedia. The concept is mimicked in many Wikipedia-like products.

The process

A person finds an article which, in their opinion, is not worthy of existence. Whilst there is no hard and fast rule for what articles are worthy of existence, there are a variety of guidelines for why an article should or should not exist. These guidelines often change, and, in the process of an AFD, they can be ignored, or some can be given more emphasis than others.

The nomination

Some typical suggestions for why an article might be nominated for deletion include:

• The article is not about a notable enough topic on Wikipedia (for example, the Google test shows that it is not well known enough).
• The article is horribly biased or represents one particular bias about a topic, which goes against NPOV.
• The article is about a conspiracy theory or something that makes certain people on Wikipedia look bad.
• The article is about a non-serious topic, for example Spongebob Squarepants, and about a microcosm of it.
• The person who wrote it had not previously contributed to Wikipedia, or else not very often.

An article can, however, be nominated for any reason at all. Wikipedia also has a PROD system whereby an article with a single author can be prodded to make the article worthy of inclusion, and if they fail to do so after 7 days then it is deleted. An article can also be speedy deleted if it is deemed to be obvious enough to not be worthy.

The debate

After nomination, the article's existence is debated in a special section of Wikipedia called Articles for Deletion. The people who visit this section are typically the same group all of the time, with a few additional people every so often. It thus becomes a community; hence the decision as to what articles are kept or deleted is decided by that community - not by Wikipedia as a whole.

In some cases, however, that community that usually decides on whether an article is kept or not is added to by a group of people, to either keep or to delete an article. People might be asked to do so on an external web site, especially if that web site is the topic of the article. In these cases, the people may be described as sock puppets or meat puppets, even if they were genuine editors with a long history of quality contributions. Debates in many cases can be nothing more than character assassination about various people who are involved. Article for Deletion debates can therefore be some of the nastiest aspects of Wikipedia, even worse in some cases than the arbitrations.

The debates refer to various policies, as decided by previous debates and the results of them. They try to establish a consistency, although invariably this isn't what happens.

The conclusion

The conclusion is that a Wikipedia administrator "closes" the debate. This can happen early if it is obvious that the article should be deleted (or, less often, that it should be kept), or it can happen early if the person who was the only person writing the article agrees to delete the article. Whilst earlier in Wikipedia's history, blanking your own article was considered to be deletion, today it is considered to be agreement that the article should be deleted (it previously was grounds for banishment if you dared to blank your own article).

Ultimately, in order for the article to be deleted, there is meant to be a "consensus", which, in Wikipedia terms, is said to be at least 70% of people want the article to be deleted. If there is less than 70%, then the article is kept by default.

However, these arguments can be ignored if the administrator decides that there is a good reason for this.

Criticism of the process

The process has been criticized because of its inherent hostility, the fact that it ultimately represents just a small microcosm of Wikipedia, and that it is based on popularity amongst that group rather than on fact.

For example, some of the best written and most useful articles on Wikipedia are about various entertainment elements, for example their articles about South Park, analyzing its philosophical implications, and also about The Simpsons and other similar shows. At various times, however, some people on Wikipedia decide that such articles are "cruft" (fan articles) and therefore that they deserve to be removed.

Similarly, some people on Wikipedia refuse to allow any theories on Wikipedia, and determine to get rid of even the most well known conspiracy theories, point blank. Not only do they insist on refusing to give the theories any credibility, but demand getting rid of the articles themselves.

Ultimately, whether an article is deleted or not, it still exists on the database. Administrators can still see its contents, and can undelete it at any time. Because of this, deletion is virtually pointless, in terms of saving space.

It has often been argued that the only reason that an article should be deleted is for legal reasons, yet, ironically, this reason is very rarely used on Wikipedia because of their rule on No legal threats.