Wikipedia:Deletion policy

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.

Shortcuts WP:DP WP:DEL WP:DELETE

This page in a nutshell: Administrators have the ability to delete and undelete articles and other Wikipedia pages. These powers are exercised in accordance with established policies and guidelines, and community consensus. There are often alternatives to deletion.

The deletion policy describes how articles, media, and other pages that do not meet the relevant criteria for content of the encyclopedia are identified and removed from Wikipedia. On Wikipedia, many pages are deleted each day through the processes outlined below.

Deletion of a Wikipedia article removes the current version and all previous versions from public view. Page blanking can be performed (or reverted) by any user, but only administrators can perform deletion,^[1] view deleted pages, and reverse ("undelete") any deletion. All such actions (other than viewing) are recorded in the deletion log, and deletion statistics are recorded at Wikipedia:Deletion statistics. If in doubt as to whether there is consensus to delete a page, administrators will not normally delete it.