SmashWiki:Deletion policy

This page documents an official SmashWiki policy, a widely accepted standard that all users should follow. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. If in doubt, consider discussing changes on the talk page.

As a wiki, SmashWiki will contain some pages that should not belong. Pages that are inappropriate for this wiki may be nominated for deletion. All users are invited to participate in the discussions as to whether these articles should be deleted or not. The pages listed will be voted on to reach a consensus. Once a consensus has been reached or a length of time has passed, an administrator will review the discussion and decide what action should be taken.

The deletion policy dictates what should and shouldn't be deleted from this wiki.

Rules

Before tagging an article, is there anything that can be done to fix the article? If it can be cleaned up ( {{cleanup}} ), merged ( {{merge}} ), redirected ( #REDIRECT ), or lengthened ( {{stub}} ) to reach quality standards, please do that instead. Deletion should be a last resort if an article cannot be improved.

Some reasons why pages should be tagged for deletion are if the page is:

1. Trivial and does not contribute much to the Smash Bros. community
2. A joke article, spam, or an advertisement
3. Not related to the Smash Bros. universe (even if it's from a game/series that's related)
4. A page that has already been voted on, deleted, and has been recreated without a good reason.

How to list an article

Add {{delete|"reason for deletion"}} at the top of the page to be deleted. Remember to include the reason for deletion.

If you are nominating an article for deletion and your primary reason is a lack of notability, use {{notable|"additional reason"}} instead; this will utilize a specialized variant of the template.

If you are nominating a template for deletion, be sure to surround the delete template in <noinclude> tags to avoid showing the deletion notice everywhere the template is used. Depending on the template, it may be advisable to add an unobtrusive notice to the template itself, so long as it does not interfere with the functionality of the template.

Candidates for deletion

After you add the {{delete}} template, the page will appear in Category:Candidates for deletion. A discussion will be held on the corresponding talk page, where consensus will likely result in the article being kept, deleted, or merged. If, however, the page in question is an article about a glitch or something else that requires proof of its existence or noteworthiness, and no proof is provided within a specified length of time, the page may be deleted without discussion. Similarly, if a reasonable amount of time has elapsed since the addition of a delete template and no one has contested the deletion, the page in question may be deleted by an administrator without discussion, though the administrator should first bump the topic on its talk page and in the discord server before deleting it. If a smasher, tournament, or team article is tagged for notability, an administrator should research the subject before deleting if insufficient discussion on it occurred, or if an admin is not well-versed in the competitive side of Smash and there is no other competitively-minded administrator around to handle reviewing it instead, the administrator should consult with users that are competitively knowledgeable in the relevant game(s) before making a decision on deleting or keeping the article.

If a user wishes to preserve an article being deleted, they may request to have the page moved into their user space, provided the page isn't vandalism/spam nor is a redundant page. This should generally only be done with pages that are being deleted for notability-based reasons, as the article subject may become notable enough for an article in the future and thus it can be useful for users to be able to update the page over time until it's approved for an article, but given SmashWiki's lenient restrictions on user space content, administrators will usually approve any such request that is within reason.

Speedy deletion

Found a blank page? A duplicate? A misspelling? A page filled with nonsense? Try instead using a speedy deletion. Simply type {{Speedy Delete|reason for speedy deletion}} or {{d|reason for speedy deletion}} on the page and the page will appear in Category:Candidates for speedy deletion. An administrator will check the page and make a decision without the formal discussion process. However, remember to assume good faith before adding a speedy-delete template.

If you are tagging an image for speedy deletion because it's been replaced, type {{replaced|replacement image}} on the replaced image, where "replacement image" is the filename of the replacement image, which will be used to link admins to the replacement as evidence and to decide on its acceptability.

IMPORTANT: When speedily deleting a redirect, the redirect should be broken by placing the tag in front of the redirect as follows:

{{d|Placed in front of redirect}}
#REDIRECT [[Page]]

Failure to do this will result in a responding administrator being redirected to the page that's supposed to be kept, and potentially deleting that one by mistake.

Examples

Good deletion candidates

• A page which contains information that would not make for a valid article. For example, a page that consists only of something like "wow i love samus so much don't you? lol" will not stay on the site.
• Advertising, spam, and random nonsense or gibberish.
• Copyright violations - i.e. taking images/pages from a website that is not freely licensed and without proper attribution.
• Useless or incorrect redirects, categories, or templates.
• Redundant pages; if the page's concept already exists on another page, then there's obviously no need for another copy of the article. Depending on the title, it may be appropriate to turn the redundant page into a redirect instead, as well as merge any unique information it has into the original article.
• Low effort pages; SmashWiki doesn't expect new articles to be created in a fully complete state right from the getgo, but SmashWiki does not want editors to whip up pages they clearly spent no more than a couple minutes on just to get rid of a red link or to claim the "honor" of having created a page. What is "low effort" may not be hard quantifiable, but generally any article that has no more than a couple sentences and lacks the basic necessities for an article will be deemed low effort. This is especially enforced with smasher pages, which will be swiftly deleted if they don't have the essentials outlined in the guideline upon or shortly after creation.
• An article's subject lacking sufficient notability to merit its own article on SmashWiki, or is otherwise outside the scope of SmashWiki.
• Pages that are entirely written in another language, since this wiki is written in English.
• User pages if the user in question requests it, the page was created by a vandal, or the user page as a whole violates SmashWiki's policies. An account itself cannot be deleted.
• Drafts that have no purpose. This can be from the draft being leftover from the article being mainspaced, another user creating an equally or more comprehensive article of the draft's subject, the draft being for an invalid article subject, or any other reason that would render the draft pointless.
• User pages of non-registered accounts.
• User pages of IP addresses.

Bad deletion candidates

• Stubs. Stubs could one day become a full and useful article, and indeed many of SmashWiki's most fleshed out articles started out in a modest state. As noted above, this does not apply to low effort articles, a proper stub will at least have the basic necessities for an article and provide some value to the reader even if minor.
• Incomplete pages. An article that is missing crucial sections should be a target for completion. For example, if an article only covers Melee and none of the other Smash games, the page should be updated with the relevant information instead of being deleted altogether.
• Articles that are out of date. An outdated article should be kept on the wiki in its current state, because new information can always be added.
• Articles whose topic is no longer relevant. SmashWiki uses a "once notable, always notable" policy when assessing content, and articles on old content can serve as an important archive for historical purposes. For example, while the competitive Brawl scene has virtually died out outside of a very niche scene, articles on its history and players will continue to be preserved.
• Articles which are the only existing pages in a larger series. For example, if a five-part tournament series called "SmashTournament" has only one existing article, "SmashTournament 1", you should assume that no one else has put in the effort yet to create the remaining articles. The other four articles should be created, rather than "SmashTournament 1" being deleted.
• Articles whose topics you hold strong opinions against. If you want a competitive article to be deleted, consider whether your own feelings on competitive Smash may be affecting your judgment. A candidate for deletion should require more reasoning than "I don't like the topic."
• Short pages that have no possibility of expansion. A page that covers its point in only a few sentences should not be deleted, as it precisely covers its point.
• Articles with offensive yet valid information. SmashWiki is not censored, and articles on potentially offensive content will remain on the site if they are relevant and noteworthy to Smash Bros.
• A page that requires a cleanup. These pages are just in need of attention, they do not need to be deleted.
• User pages of registered users, regardless of their contributions.