Wikipedia talk:Why was my page deleted?

This is not the place to ask why your page was deleted. This page is for discussion of the "Why was my page deleted?" page itself. Please go back to the "Why was my page deleted?" page to find out why your page was deleted and what you can do about it.

Draft articles

Resolved. Project-page text stable in this regard for almost 2 years since question arised and addressed.

I think it would be valuable to put something about how drafting articles first can avoid them being deleted, but I'm really not sure where to put it. I'm also not sure if that would be appropriate for this page, but it seems relevant, at least in my scatterbrain. XD Perhaps something like this:

Often, editors create a very basic frame for an unfinished article, which in the mean time is deleted for lack of content or context. This is an unfortunate mistake, but the administrator deleting the article can hardly know that it's still a work in progress when there is nothing of any value in the article. In this case, it would be a great idea to draft your article on a subpage of your main user page until it has enough content to be considered a stub.

Or something like that. XD — 06:51, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't that advice be more suitable for putting in Wikipedia:Your first article instead of this page? Putting it on both pages might also be an option. Kavadi carrier 07:41, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Hm, I hadn't thought of that...that could work. It's probably already on there, in fact. I shall definitely consider editing that in, but I'll wait until I'm a bit more awake later XD Thanks for the input! — 09:23, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that linking YFA from here might be a good idea -- thoughts? Luna Santin 23:18, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I think you should put it as a sub-page, copy it on NotePad, or put it in the sandbox. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Simulation12 (talk • contribs) 20:15, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Sarcasm can be wonderful sometimes. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:46, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Deletion without rationale being given

Resolved. Question answered

What does it mean if a page was deleted without an edit summary? --69.179.174.32 01:59, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

You mean without a reason given in the deletion log? This should not happen; you can ask the deleting admin about it. Sandstein 05:42, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Desmodromic valve

Resolved. Squabble long since dead.

I submitted a crefully and conservatively written technical description of why desmodromic valve drive is not used and is no longer the holy grail of high speed engines other than the Ducati motorcycle. A desmodromic faithful has threatened to delete that article although it is the only one that addresses the technical subject with explanations of the technique.

I would feel that Wiki is not doing what it is supposed to do if that sort of threat hangs over thoughtfully written reports.

jobstbrandt

Please follow the instructions on Wikipedia:Why was my page deleted? to find out why your page was deleted and what you can do about it. If your article was original research, then Wikipedia just isn't the place for it, sorry. Sandstein 06:19, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the Desmodromic valve article is still around. I think jobst refers to his additions to the article which got deleted. User talk:Jobstbrandt is an interesting case study in what happens when someone with significant domain knowledge comes to Wikipedia and makes some fairly large-scale additions without first learning Wikipedia's complex rules. Adding an inappropriate comment to this talk page is part of the etiology. --Teratornis 01:04, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

No adding an inappropriate comment to this talk page is an indication. How could adding an inappropriate comment to this page cause someone to not learn about wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.29.234.88 (talk) 01:49, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

You are correct, I muddied the causal relationships. I should have said "Overriding faith in one's abilities despite entering a completely unfamiliar domain as manifested by adding an inappropriate comment to this talk page is part of the etiology." However, I might raise a hair-splitting defense of my original statement by including Wikipedia's ergonomic design in "adding an inappropriate comment." By giving new users such wide latitude to do almost anything before so much as cracking a friendly manual, I think Wikipedia encourages the kind of faith-based thinking that leads so many new users to shortly thereafter ask, "Why was my page deleted?" Wikipedia's overly encouraging user interface which makes it so easy to unwittingly do inappropriate things is part of the etiology. I wouldn't place the fault entirely with the incautious user, particularly when Wikipedia itself urges newcomers both implicitly and explicitly to be bold. --Teratornis (talk) 19:08, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Protected titles

Resolved. Done.

Does this new protection method need to be mentioned here? GRBerry 05:01, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. I've added something about it. Sandstein 06:28, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion for another: So, what now? strategy

Resolved. Non-controversial edits in this regard made over a year ago.

Since Wikipedia:Why was my page deleted? is about Wikipedia policy, I thought I would propose an addition to the page here and get some feedback first. The section: Wikipedia:Why was my page deleted?#So, what now? fails to mention the possibility of publishing Wikipedia's rejects on other wikis. Thus I propose adding this subsection:

If all else fails, try another wiki

As of 2007, Wikipedia is one of the world's largest and most-visited wikis. Wikipedia articles tend to rank high in the search results for many popular search engines. Prior to Wikipedia, wiki technology was not very well-known; as a result, Wikipedia may be the first wiki many people see, and the first wiki they attempt to edit on. Some people may be under the mistaken impression that Wikipedia is the only wiki, or is synonymous with "wiki." In many cases, this is unfortunate, because Wikipedia is actually a very specialized kind of wiki (an encyclopedia), and newcomers may need some time to understand that constitutes encyclopedic writing. There is much content that Wikipedia does not want, but is nonetheless useful to someone.

There are many other wikis, many with content policies very different from Wikipedia's, catering to a wide range of interests. Some of these wikis were founded by groups of former and/or continuing Wikipedia editors, who had more to say about their topic of interest than belongs in an encyclopedia. Examples include Wookiepedia (for Star Wars enthusiasts); and StrategyWiki (for video-game walkthroughs).

For almost every sort of article that would be interesting to someone, there is probably a wiki somewhere that would welcome it.

To find a happy home for your deleted article, check the List of wikis, Wikipedia:Alternative outlets, and search WikiIndex. If you cannot find a suitable wiki on your own, ask for some "wiki outplacement" assistance on the Help desk.

Comments? --Teratornis 19:57, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I like it. --- RockMFR 06:03, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree, it's a nice addition. Nice way to convey the "Wikipedia isn't everything, and isn't trying to be" message. As with MediaWiki:Blockedtext, adding in too many great ideas ends up drowning people with too many options, but I don't know if we've reached that point, yet (more of a caution for the future, at this point). – (talk) 19:10, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

People are drowning in options whether they are aware of the options or not. People rarely make better use of their options by being less aware of them. It's worth writing down another instruction if some other person will need that instruction, and can find the written copy faster than reinventing it from scratch. Also realize that we write instructions not only to empower the do it yourselfers who constitute Wikipedia, but also to provide authoritative reference material for Help desk volunteers. People who specialize in answering questions can easily navigate far more instruction complexity on behalf of naive users than naive users might comfortably navigate by themselves. Having lots of written instructions boosts the efficiency and accuracy of people who specialize in answering other people's questions. If Wikipedia provided no way to ask other humans for help, then we might have to worry about giving people powerful tools, but help is in fact readily available on Wikipedia, and the help is better if we reduce the entire process of building Wikipedia to a sufficiently complex set of explicit procedures. As long as we organize and index our instructions for rapid lookup by users who understand the instructions, the instructions are not yet "too" complex. --Teratornis (talk) 21:04, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Instructions for checking the deletion log are wrong

Unresolved. Text needs updating to account for technical changes.

In the section in this article that's called "First, check the deletion log", it gives instructions for finding the deletion log for a page. These instructions are no longer correct because there isn't a link to the deletion log from an article creation page. I don't know where to go to suggest that the deletion log link be put back, but if it isn't coming back, someone should revise the instructions in this article. -adavidw (talk) 02:20, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Seconded. Can someone tell me why are we no longer able to see if a page has been deleted? Previously, I have avoided creating pages that have already been deleted, but now I don't know what to do. ^Talk/_{Contributions} 17:14, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Apparently you can still go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/Delete but it seems to me the old system was better. ^Talk/_{Contributions} 17:17, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, the text needs updating, then, to provide valid instructions. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:46, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

"My"

Resolved. Question answered.

Why is it called "Why was my page deleted" when it is clearly stated that no-one owns any articles? 58.168.147.119 (talk) 01:56, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm guessing it's because "why was my page deleted?" is the most common form of this enquiry, as made on the Wikipedia Help Desk. ----Seans Potato Business 10:26, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

This article contradicts WP:OWN. There is no such thing as "my page" or "your page."

Per WP:BRD, I made the change. Anyone here disputing it, please state your reason.   (talk) 14:04, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not a contradiction, it's a frequently asked question, and hence it is beneficial for the title to use the qualifier "my" as a matter of convenience. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 23:55, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

The word "my" does not necessarily imply ownership, for example: my country, my family, my employer, my neighborhood, etc. The word "my" may reflect a variety of personal associations with an entity or a concept, some of which differ from ownership in the legal sense. An owned object, if it were sentient, could even say "my owner." However, the page might summarize the relationship between an editor and his or her work on Wikipedia. --Teratornis (talk) 16:32, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Deletion log and date of creation

Resolved. Wrong venue.

I hope this this the correct place to discuss that. I would like to propose that in the deletion log, every user should be available to see when an article was created for the first time. This will help us to understand for how long the article was available. This is sometimes very useful if you are contesting a speedy deletion. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:56, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Bug reports and feature requests. --Teratornis (talk) 04:02, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Policy change

Where would I post the discussion for a policy change? 5 days is not a very long time; if the article does not qualify for speedy deletion I believe it should be longer; maybe about a month would be good. Some articles that are notable enough to have an entry might not be viewed by active editors at all within only 5 days. Something like a local band that has toured in 5 states, opened for 2 very popular bands and one Ozzfest-like concert, and recorded one album in an unknown recording studio that is sold nationally in the main music section (as opposed to the discount bin), or a very popular internet terminology (afk etc.) that isn't looked up very often because geeks already know what it means and non-geeks have never heard of it. (They still might not be viewed by active editors within a month but we have to make a cut-off somewhere, right?) I meant to post only a short synapsis of my proposal, but then I realized that if this page is the place where I am supposed to put them, the proposal might be responded to in which case I do need to include the full description.Rayvn (talk) 14:39, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Take it to the village pump or other relevant venues. See Wikipedia:How to change policy. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:46, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Page has been deleted, and please don't mark my question resolved if I have not responded to indicate that it was resolved...Rayvn (talk) 22:20, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

"Try another wiki"

Resolved. Further discussion at Wikipedia talk:Alternative outlets#Merge proposed.

I've created an essay at Wikipedia:Try another wiki that may be useful to this article. I recommend placing a link in this article to that essay because it can serve as a launching point for editors who may well have articles suited for another wiki. Also, comments and collaboration are welcome at that essay.--Paul McDonald (talk) 15:23, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Redundant with WP:ALTOUT. See Wikipedia talk:Alternative outlets#Merge proposed. Should take less than 5 minutes if anything from WP:TRYANOTHER is salvageable (which I think is the case, but I'm not going to push it). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:24, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Fluffy comments

Resolved. Just comments.

WP:WMD redirects here. Doesn't WMD stand for "Waffles of Mass Deliciousness?" V-Man - ^T/_C 01:54, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Who created the WP:WMD shortcut? That was brilliant. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 13:31, 6 November 2008 (UTC)