 | This is an essay on Wikipedia:Deletion policy. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell:
|
The following are a list of arguments that can commonly be seen in deletion discussions for templates, images, categories, stub types, redirects and especially articles which should generally be avoided, or at least, supplemented with some more arguments. The reason they should be avoided is because they are not based upon the issues listed at Wikipedia:Deletion policy, but are rather arguments based from side issues that are not relevant to the issue of whether or not a page on Wikipedia should be deleted. When taking part in deletion discussions, then, it is best to base arguments on the policies of neutral point of view, no original research, verifiability, biographies of living people and what Wikipedia is not, or on Wikipedia guidelines.
Remember that a reason which arguably could be classified as an "argument to avoid", can still have some valid points in it. For example, if a person argues for why an article is WP:INTERESTING, and the arguments for "interesting" are also reasonable arguments for "encyclopedic", it is wrong to summarily dismiss that argument just because WP:INTERESTING is a section in this essay.
As this essay tries to stimulate people to use sound arguments in deletion discussions, it is important to realize that countering the keep or delete arguments of other people by simply referring them to this essay is not encouraged (see also the section Just a policy or guideline below).
|