Article Rescue Squadron Newsletter
Volume I, Issue III
February 2012
Feature: ARS Guide to saving articles
- See also: ARS Tips to help rescue articles.
As the name implies, the Article Rescue Squadron primarily deals with rescuing articles in Wikipedia's namespace but the same principles apply to all content. If it meets Wikipedia's policies and is useful to our readers it is more likely to be saved in some form; if not, it is more likely to be removed.
Experienced Wikipedians are familiar with the various discussions for deletion processes whereby content— articles, templates, images, audio, and video files, categories, user categories, redirects, categories and templates used for organizing stubs and other items— is examined and re-examined to see if it merits inclusion on Wikipedia. The Wikipedia policy alternatives to deletion includes many policy-based options to deletion.
Editors, particularly new editors, often ask the Article Rescue Squadron for help saving an article. This guide is in part intended to instruct editors how to save articles and other content on their own. Since editors who ask for help may know more about the content up for deletion than others, and may be more interested in the subject, it makes sense to inform people how to rescue. These same skills of assessment, sourcing and integration can be applied to almost any area of Wikipedia.