 | This is an essay on Wikipedia:Deletion process. 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: If an article is a mess and you suspect it to be non-notable, send it to AfD or other similar deletion procedure. Merely the fact that an article could possibly be deleted is enough for some editors to expand it. Prods can always be withdrawn; AfDs can be withdrawn if no other editors have voted "delete". |
In my experience, the threat of deletion often results in some amount of cleanup being done to the article. For example, my AfD nomination for List of works about Julian Assange resulted in this being done to the article. Thus, even if it gets kept, if the creator is still active it sends them an instruction. The threat of deletion of Going Left Right (see this) resulted in me expanding it to DYK level, for example, and the threat of deletion of piri meant I expanded it by 190%.
In other words, while the proper purpose of the Articles for Deletion process is to list articles that shouldn't be on the site, it does work as an effective method of cleaning up messes. For example, if the author is unresponsive, is inactive or otherwise handicapped in improving the article (such as due to poor command of English), the article should be sent to AfD. The same applies for articles that have had lots of {{ambox}}es, such as {{refimprove}}, on them for ages. (If it gets removed without being addressed then it should be sent immediately.)
In some cases someone can just point out the fact that there is no reason for the article to be deleted and the nomination can be withdrawn, but simply knowing that an article is being considered for deletion is enough to spur some editors on to expand the article. For example, within an hour of me prodding Mark Brydon, the article was vastly improved with six references.
Remember with some messes, it is better that the article be blown up and started over because red links encourage article creation. If you think that if someone else could do a better job at writing an article than the editor who wrote the current article, have it deleted - but do ensure that the editor is given the opportunity to make improvements.
The Heymann Standard is the standard some editors use to gauge if the improvements done are of the standard necessary to change their votes from delete to keep.