Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion

This page documents an English Wikipedia policy.

It describes a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow. Changes made to it should reflect consensus.

Shortcut

[[:|WP:CSD or WP:SPEEDY]]

"WP:SPEEDY" redirects to this article. If you are looking for the "Speedy keep" guidelines, see Wikipedia:Speedy keep.

The "Speedy deletion" policy governs limited cases where Wikipedia administrators may delete Wikipedia pages or media "on sight" without further debate, as in the cases of patent nonsense or pure vandalism. Non-admins can request deletion of such a page, either by listing it on speedy deletions, or by adding a {{deletebecause|Reason}} template. The word "speedy" in this context refers to the rapid decision-making process, not the length of time since the article was created.

Before nominating an article for speedy deletion, please consider whether an article could be improved or reduced to a stub. Also, please note that some Wikipedians create articles in multiple saves, so try to avoid deleting a page too soon after its initial creation. Users nominating a page for speedy deletion should specify which criteria the page meets; it would also be considerate to notify the original author — remember, everyone was new once. Note that global sandboxes are exempt from deletion.

These criteria are worded narrowly, and generally so phrased that, in most cases, reasonable editors will agree what does or does not fall under a given criterion. When there is reasonable doubt whether a page does, discussion is recommended, using one of the other methods under deletion policy.

This page contains the criteria for speedy deletion and a list of helpful templates that can be used to tag a candidate for speedy deletion. Articles that do not meet the speedy criteria may be nominated for the alternative deletion processes Wikipedia:Proposed deletion and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion.

The list of current candidates for speedy deletion is at Category:Candidates for speedy deletion.

Note that administrators should always verify the legitimacy of a speedy deletion candidate before taking action. It is the administrator's responsibility to make sure that speedy deletion tags are accurate; to do this the administrator must examine the history of every page before deleting it.

Criteria

People sometimes use abbreviations to refer to these criteria (e.g. "A3" meaning articles, criterion 3), but for the sake of clarity this is not recommended.

General criteria

Patent nonsense and gibberish, an unsalvageably incoherent page with no meaningful content. This does not include: poor writing, partisan screeds, obscene remarks, vandalism, fictional material, material not in English, badly translated material, implausible theories, or hoaxes.
Test pages (e.g., "Can I really create a page here?").
Pure vandalism, including redirects created during cleanup of page move vandalism.
Recreation of deleted material. A substantially identical copy, by any title, of a page that was deleted as a result of a discussion in Articles for deletion or another XfD process, unless it was undeleted per the undeletion policy or was recreated in the user space. Before deleting again, the admin should ensure that the material is substantially identical and not merely a new article on the same subject. This clause does not apply if the only prior deletions were speedy or proposed deletions, although in this case, the previous speedy criterion, or other speedy deletion criteria, may apply; when no criterion applies, the recreated page may not be speedied, but may be submitted to Articles for deletion or the appropriate XfD process.
Banned user. Pages created by banned users while they were banned.
Housekeeping. Non-controversial maintenance tasks such as temporarily deleting a page in order to merge page histories, performing a non-controversial page move like reversing a redirect, or removing a disambiguation page that only points to a single article.
Author requests deletion. Any page for which deletion is requested by the original author, provided the page's only substantial content was added by its author and was mistakenly created. If the author blanks the page, this can be taken as a deletion request. Note: Please check the page history to make sure there is only a single author.
Talk pages of pages that do not exist, unless they contain deletion discussion that isn't logged elsewhere or notes that would help in creating an article. User_talk pages are exempt from this. Subpages (including archive pages) are only deletable under this rule if the corresponding top-level page does not exist.
Office Actions. The Wikimedia Foundation office reserves the right to speedily delete a page temporarily in cases of exceptional controversy.

Articles

For any articles that are not speedy deletion candidates, use Wikipedia:Articles for deletion or Wikipedia:Proposed deletion.

Very short articles providing little or no context (e.g., "He is a funny man that has created Factory and the Hacienda. And, by the way, his wife is great."). Limited content is not in itself a reason to delete if there is enough context to allow expansion.
Foreign language articles that exist on another Wikimedia project. If the article in question does not exist on another project, the template {{notenglish}} should be used instead.
No content whatsoever. Any article consisting only of links elsewhere (including hyperlinks, category tags and "see also" sections), a rephrasing of the title, and/or attempts to correspond with the person or group named by its title. This does not include disambiguation pages.
(Removed. This criterion has been merged into A3 and is kept for historical reasons.)
Transwikied articles. Any article that has been discussed at Articles for Deletion (et al), where the outcome was to transwiki, and where the transwikification has been properly performed and the author information recorded.
Attack pages. Articles that serve no purpose but to disparage their subject or some other entity (e.g., "John Citizen is a moron"). This includes a biography of a living person that is negative in tone and unsourced, where there is no NPOV version in the history to revert to.
Unremarkable people or groups/vanity pages. An article about a real person, group of people, band, or club that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject. If the assertion is disputed or controversial, it should be taken to AfD instead. (See Wikipedia:Deletion of vanity articles for further guidance on this criterion).
An article that is a blatant copyright infringement and meets these parameters:
- Material is unquestionably copied from the website of a commercial content provider (e.g. encyclopedia, news service) and;
- The article and its entire history contains only copyright violation material, excluding tags, templates, and minor edits and;
- Uploader makes no assertion of permission or fair use, and none seems likely and;
- The material is identified within 48 hours of upload and is almost or totally un-wikified (to diminish mirror problem).
When tagging a page for deletion under this criterion, a user should notify the page's creator using wording similar to {{Nothanks-sd}} or an equivalent message. Before deleting any page under this criterion, an admin should verify that the page creator has been notified — if not, the admin should do so. If the deleting administrator is notified of an error, and finds the claim of error plausible, he should restore the content immediately and, if a confirmation email has not been received, follow the Wikipedia:Copyright problems procedure, blanking the article with the {{copyvio}} template in the process.

Redirects

For any redirects that are not speedy deletion candidates, use Wikipedia:Redirects for deletion.

Redirects to non-existent pages (although it may be possible to make it a useful redirect to some other target)
Redirects to the User: or User_talk: space from the main article space. If this was the result of a page move, consider waiting a day or two before deleting the redirect.
Redirects as a result of an implausible typo that were recently created. However, redirects from common misspellings or misnomers are generally useful.

Images/Media

For any images and other media that are not speedy deletion candidates, use Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion.

Please remove images and media from any pages they are used in before marking them for speedy deletion. With respect to fair use disputes, if a fair use rationale is provided, use WP:IFD instead.

Redundant. Any image that is a redundant copy, in the same image file format and same or lower resolution, of something else on Wikipedia. Likewise, other media that is a redundant copy, in the same format and of the same or lower quality. This does not apply to images duplicated on Wikimedia Commons, because of licence issues; these should be tagged with {{NowCommons|Image:newname.ext}} or {{NowCommonsThis}} instead.
Corrupt or empty image. Before deleting this type of image, verify that the MediaWiki engine cannot read it either by previewing a resized thumbnail of it.
Improper license. Images licensed as "for non-commercial use only", "non-derivative use" or "used with permission" that were uploaded on or after May 19, 2005, and for which no assertion of fair use is provided. [1] This includes images licensed under a "Non-commercial Creative Commons License". Such images uploaded before May 19, 2005 may also be speedily deleted if they are not used in any articles.
Lack of licensing information. Images in category "Images with unknown source", "Images with unknown copyright status", or "Images with no copyright tag" that have been tagged with a template that places them in the category for more than seven days, regardless of when uploaded. Note, users sometimes specify their source in the upload summary, so be sure to check the circumstances of the image.
Unused unfree copyrighted images. Images and other media that are not under a free license or in the public domain that are not used in any article and that have been tagged with a template that places them in a dated subcategory of Category:Orphaned fairuse images for more than seven days. Reasonable exceptions may be made for images uploaded for an upcoming article. Use {{subst:orfud}} to tag images for forthcoming deletion.
Missing fair-use rationale. Any image or media tagged only with {{fairuse}} or {{fairusein}}, with no fair use rationale, may be deleted seven days after it was uploaded. Images and other media uploaded before May 4, 2006 should not be deleted immediately; instead, the uploader should be notified that a fair-use rationale is needed. Images or other media uploaded after May 4, 2006 can be tagged with {{subst:nrd}}, and the uploader notified with {{subst:missing rationale|Image:image name}}. Such images can be found in the dated subcategories of Category:Images with no fair use rationale.
Invalid fair-use claim. Any image or media with a clearly invalid fair-use tag (such as a {{logo}} tag on a photograph of a mascot) may be deleted at any time.
Attack Images. Images (or other media) that serve no purpose but to disparage their subject or some other entity. (This is analogous to CSD A6.)
Images available as bit-for-bit identical copies on the Wikimedia Commons, provided the following conditions are met:
- The image's license and source status is beyond reasonable doubt, and the license is undoubtedly accepted at Commons.
  - All image revisions that meet the first condition have been transferred to Commons as revisions of the Commons copy and properly marked as such.
- All information on the image description page is present on the Commons image description page. That includes the complete upload history with links to the uploader's local user pages.
  - If there is any information not relevant to any other project on the image description page (like {{FeaturedPicture}}), the image description page must be undeleted after the file deletion.
- The image is not protected, and the image description page does not contain a request not to move it to Commons.
- The image has been marked with Template:NowCommons or Template:NowCommonsThis for at least one week.
- If the image is available on Commons under a different name than locally, it must not be used on any local page whatsoever.
- For {{c-uploaded}} images: They may be speedily deleted as soon as they are off the Main Page.

User pages

For any user pages that are not speedy deletion candidates, use Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion.

User request. Personal subpages, upon request by their user. In some rare cases there may be administrative need to retain the page. Also, sometimes, main user pages may be deleted as well. See Wikipedia:User page for full instructions and guidelines.
Nonexistent user. User pages of users who do not exist. Check both Special:Listusers and Special:Contributions to verify. However, some user pages may be exempt, e.g., if the community reaches a consensus to keep the user page for some reason, or if the page is continuously vandalized and needs {{deletedpage}}.

Templates

For any templates that are not speedy deletion candidates, use Wikipedia:Templates for deletion. When nominating a template for speedy deletion, surround the speedy deletion tag with <noinclude></noinclude>, so that pages that use the nominated template do not themselves get listed as candidates for speedy deletion.

Templates that are divisive and inflammatory.

Portals

For any Portals that are not speedy deletion candidates, use Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion.

Any topic that would be subject to speedy deletion as an Article.
Underpopulated Portal. Any Portal based on a topic for which there is not a non-stub header article, and at least three non-stub articles detailing subject matter that would be appropriate to discuss under the title of that Portal.

Non-criteria

Sometimes speedy deletion criteria are applied to articles that they do not and were not intended to apply to; also, rules that are not speedy deletion rules are often mistakenly used to justify speedy deletion. This section aims to clarify some of the frequently used "non-criteria" that are commonly cited but are not sufficient, by themselves, to justify speedy deletion. These are not rules and intended only to be commonly-understood interpretations of the criteria above.

Reasons derived from Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not: "Wikipedia is not a dictionary", "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" and "Wikipedia is not a crystal ball" are not part of the speedy deletion criteria. However, these reasons can be given at AfD nominations.
Hoaxes: Articles that present unverifiable and probably false ideas, theories, or subjects. Occasionally these can be deleted as vandalism if the article is obviously ridiculous, but remotely plausible articles should be subjected to further scrutiny in a wider forum.
Original research: Although we have a policy against material that offers novel theories or interpretations on Wikipedia, this is not a basis for speedy deletion.
Neologisms: As with hoaxes, unless the article is obviously ridiculous, a wider forum is necessary to evaluate the currency of specialized terminology.
Non-notable subjects with their importance asserted: Articles that have obviously non-notable subjects are still not eligible for speedy deletion unless the article "does not assert the importance or significance of its subject". If the article gives a claim that might be construed by anyone as making the subject notable, even if this claim seems ridiculous, it should be taken to a wider forum. However, articles with only a statement like "This guy was like so friggin' notable!" can be deleted per CSD A1 because it gives no context about the subject.
Author deletion requests made in bad faith: Sometimes an author will ask to have content removed because they feel frustrated with the project and resent it profitting from their work. However, they licensed their work to be used in this way and they have no legal basis for asking for its removal. The article must be clearly "mistakenly created", for example if the author created it unwittingly by misspelling a name.
Very short articles: As explained above, some very short articles can be speedy deleted, but if it has content and offers sufficient context, it cannot be.
"Copyright violations" whose sources copied Wikipedia: Our content is extensively used without credit, sometimes with modifications. To invoke A8, you must be reasonably sure that the content belonged to the source site first.
Advertisements or spam: These may be subject to deletion, but not speedy deletion. There is often a chance to replace them with an NPOV version instead.
PNGs/GIFs replaced by JPEGs: Even if an image is a photograph or other continuous-tone image, JPEG encoding discards a variety of information that could be important for further editing. Do not delete the original PNG/GIF files.
Finally, good faith edits are never vandalism. If you cannot be reasonably sure an article was written in bad faith, G3 does not apply.

Deletion templates

What to type	Criteria	Used for
The following templates add articles to Category:Candidates for speedy deletion but do not appear in the category themselves:
{{db\|reason}} {{db-reason\|reason}} {{Deletebecause\|reason}} {{Delbecause\|reason}} {{d\|reason}} {{delete\|reason}}		Replace reason with a specific reason for speedy deletion. Please try to write out a reason that will be comprehensible to non-Wikipedians.
Specific reason templates are:
{{db-nonsense}}	CSD G1	patent nonsense. You can put {{subst:testarticle-n\|page name}} --~~~~ on the user's talk page.
{{db-test}}	CSD G2	test page. You can put {{subst:testarticle-n\|page name}} --~~~~ on the user's talk page.
{{db-vand}}	CSD G3	vandalism. You can put {{subst:test2article-n\|page name}} --~~~~ on the user's talk page.
{{db-repost}}	CSD G4	copies of previously deleted material
{{db-banned\|Name of the banned user}}	CSD G5	contributions made by a banned user
{{db-histmerge\|Page to merge history from}}	CSD G6	history merge
{{db-move\|Page to be moved}}	CSD G6	making way for a noncontroversial move. Please add the name of the page that is to be moved
{{db-afd}}	CSD G6	an admin has closed an Articles for deletion debate as a "delete" but not deleted the article.
{{db-g6}}	CSD G6	other non-controversial "housekeeping" tasks, such as reversing a redirect or deleting a disambiguation page that only points to a single article
{{db-author}}	CSD G7	speedy request by only editor
{{db-blanked}}	CSD G7	page blanked by only editor
{{db-talk}}	CSD G8	talk page of a deleted or nonexistent page
{{db-empty}} {{db-nocontext}}	CSD A1	very short articles without context
{{db-foreign}}	CSD A2	foreign language article duplicated on other Wikimedia project
{{db-nocontent}} {{db-contact}}	CSD A3	no content other than external links of whatever kind, or an attempt to contact subject of article
{{db-transwiki}}	CSD A5	transwikification completed
{{db-attack}}	CSD A6	attack page intended to disparage its subject
{{db-bio}} {{db-band}} {{db-club}} {{db-group}}	CSD A7	non-notable biography / vanity about a person or persons that does not assert the notability of the subject. You can put {{subst:nn-warn\|page name}} -- ~~~~ on the user's talk page, or, if it seems that someone has created a user page in the encyclopedia section instead of their user page, you can use put {{subst:Userfy warning\|page name}} --~~~~ on their talk page.
{{db-copyvio\|url=url of source}}	CSD A8	blatant copyright violation. Please notify uploader on their talk page with: {{subst:nothanks-sd\|pg=page name\|url=url of source}} -- ~~~~
{{db-redirnone}}	CSD R1	redirect to non-existent page
{{db-rediruser}}	CSD R2	redirect to user page
{{db-redirtypo}}	CSD R3	redirect that is a result of an implausible typo
{{Redundant image\|name of replacement image without the Image: prefix}} {{isd\|name of replacement image without the Image: prefix}}	CSD I1	same or better image exists on Wikipedia (not for now on Commons)
{{db-noimage}}	CSD I2	corrupt or empty image
{{Db-noncom}}	CSD I3	"No commercial use" or "by permission" images uploaded after target date.
{{db-unksource}}	CSD I4	lack of licensing -- Should only be used if the image has been previously tagged with {{no license}}, {{no source}}, or a similar template.
{{db-unfree}}	CSD I5	unused copyright image -- Should only be used if the image has been previously tagged with {{or-cr}}, {{or-fu}}, or a similar template.
{{db-norat}}	CSD I6	image with fair use tag but no fair use rationale - must have been tagged as such for seven days and uploaded after 2006-05-04
{{db-badfairuse}}	CSD I7	bad fair use rationale - image tagged for fair use under a rationale that is patently irrelevant to the actual image, like {{game-screenshot}} on a photo of a celebrity. Please notify uploader on their talk page using {{subst:badfairuse\|image name including prefix\|tag that was on the image}}
{{db-catempty}}	CSD C1	category that is empty for at least four days and has never contained anything other than links to parent categories
{{db-catfd}}	CSD C3	category that is used solely by a template that has been deleted
{{db-userreq}}	CSD U1	user's subpage requested to be deleted by the user with whom it is associated
{{db-nouser}}	CSD U2	userpages of users who do not exist
{{db-disparage}}	CSD T1	templates that are divisive and inflammatory
{{db-emptyportal}}	CSD P2	underpopulated portal

Procedure for administrators

Before deleting a page, an admin should check the page history to assess whether it would instead be possible to restore and salvage a previous version.

Admins should specify the deletion criteria in their edit summary and should notify the article's creator about the deletion, where applicable.