Wikipedia:Proposed deletion

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This page documents an official policy on the English Wikipedia. It is a widely accepted standard that all users should follow. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Shortcut: WP:PROD

This page in a nutshell: As a shortcut around AfD for uncontroversial deletions, an article can be proposed for deletion, though once only. If no one contests the proposal within five days, the article may be deleted by an administrator.

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Proposed deletion is the way to suggest that an article is uncontroversially a deletion candidate, but that it does not meet the more stringent criteria for speedy deletion. If a ({{subst:prod}}) tag is added to an article, the article will be deleted about 5 days later if nobody objects. If any user objects — usually by removing the tag — then the article may be taken to Articles for Deletion for further discussion. User and User talk pages may also be deleted in the same way, but only if the user has no recent edits and has made few or no contributions to the encyclopedia. If the tag is removed from a User or User_talk page, the page may be taken to Miscellany for Discussion.

1 How it works
2 How to nominate
3 Contesting a proposed deletion
- 3.1 Before deletion
- 3.2 After deletion
4 Conflicts
5 Procedure for administrators
6 See also

[edit] How it works

Articles tagged with the {{prod}} template will be checked over by an administrator after five days if there have been no objections by other users. If the reason given is valid then the article will be deleted.

Articles that:

Have previously been proposed for deletion
Have previously been undeleted
Have been discussed on AfD or MfD

are not candidates for {{prod}}.

Additionally, only articles may be proposed for deletion. The only exceptions to this rule are pages in the User and User talk namespaces which may be proposed for deletion if the user has no recent edits and has made few or no contributions to the encyclopedia.

See Category:Proposed deletion for the listing of all articles currently proposed for deletion. An automated summary table can be found at WP:PRODSUM.

[edit] How to nominate

If you think that an article is an uncontroversial candidate for deletion:
1. Review the article's history to confirm that it has not been recently vandalized. If it was proposed for deletion before, nominate it for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion if you think it should be deleted.
2. Add {{subst:prod|reason}} to the top of the main article page. Tailor your reason to each individual article; generic messages are not helpful. Use an informative edit summary clearly indicating that the article has been nominated for deletion. Do not mark the edit as minor.
3. Although not required, it is considered courteous to notify the article's creator and other significant contributors that you have proposed an article for deletion. You can use {{subst:PRODWarning|Article title}} ~~~~ for this. For your convenience, this line is generated at the end of the "prod" box after you have added it to the article.
4. Consider adding the article to your watchlist.

[edit] Contesting a proposed deletion

[edit] Before deletion

If you do not agree that the article should be deleted without discussion you can do the following things:
1. Remove the {{dated prod}} tag from the article, noting this in the edit summary. Editors should explain why they disagree with the proposed deletion.
2. While you're editing the article anyway, please consider improving it, especially to address the concerns given as a reason for deletion.
3. If you feel that the article should be deleted, but not without discussion, you may nominate the article for an Articles for deletion debate.

[edit] After deletion

Make a request at deletion review. Any administrator can undelete upon a reasonable request.

[edit] Conflicts

Contested deletions: If anyone, including the article's creator, removes Template:Prod from an article for any reason, do not put it back, except if the removal was clearly not an objection to deletion (such as blanking the entire article, or removing the tag along with inserting blatant nonsense). If the edit is not obviously vandalism, do not restore tag, even if the tag was apparently removed in bad faith. If you still believe the article needs to be deleted, list it on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. Note:

If someone replaces a PROD tag with an AfD tag, this constitutes a contested deletion, and the PROD tag should not be restored.
If someone replaces a PROD tag with a speedy deletion tag (although they should simply add the speedy tag), the PROD tag may be restored, as the user obviously thinks the article should be deleted quickly without discussion.

The other deletion and related processes have priority over PROD:

An article flagged for both PROD and AfD should be dealt with in AfD, and the {{prod}} tag should be removed.
Appropriate alternatives such as Wikipedia:Copyright problems or Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion take precedence. However, when tagging a PRODded article as a speedy candidate, the PROD tag should be left in place in case the speedy deletion is rejected. (Note contrast with the above: a rejected speedy candidate is still eligible for PROD, but a rejected AfD candidate is not.)
Any deletion via this process which is taken to deletion review is implicitly a contested deletion, and the article may therefore be immediately restored by any administrator without discussion.
Any article deleted via this process and then re-created is not subject to speedy deletion under speedy criterion G4, as re-creation is a way for contesting (removing) the prod tag. If you feel the article should be re-deleted, list it on Articles for deletion.

[edit] Procedure for administrators

If you are an administrator deciding whether or not to delete a PRODed article:

Check that the tag has been in place continuously for at least 5 days and no objections have been raised on the talk page.
Check the article's deletion log to confirm that is has never previously been proposed for deletion, undeleted or been discussed on AfD. If it has been, it is not eligible to be PRODed and should be kept or sent to AfD.
If you agree that the article should be deleted, delete it giving an informative deletion reason, such as that given by the nominator, not just "expired prod". This is because once the article is deleted, the reason for the prod is no longer visible to non-admins. If you are using an automated script, check that it does not leave an inadequate message.
If you decide not to delete it, consider editing the article to deal with the concerns that were raised, or nominating the article for deletion on AfD.

Note: To ensure independent judgment, an article should not be deleted by the same person who placed the tag on it.