Memory Gamma:Policies and Guidelines/Deletions

Deletions

OFFICIAL POLICY

This page is considered an official policy on Memory Gamma. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that everyone should follow. Except for minor edits, please make use of the discussion page to propose changes to this policy.

The Memory Gamma Deletion Policy is simple: articles and images that do not fit into this wiki will be put up for a vote to be deleted. Deleted pages can be restored by an administrator, if and only if support is expressed during a restoration discussion. If your article was deleted without you asking, you may have broken one of the editing policy rules.

Author's request

Articles can be deleted at the request of the person who created the article or the uploader of an image. Simply add {{delete|<author request>}} to the top of the article. No discussion required.

Junk articles

"Junk articles" refers to articles containing nothing but nonsense, spam, or inappropriate material/language. These are to be marked with the {{delete}} tag. Vandalism will be removed immediately.

Shopping lists

"Shopping lists" refers to articles that are just a list of names, objects or topics with no real attempt at fleshing out. Exceptions could be an article about standard away team materials, but an article like that should at least have a paragraph explaining what the following list is about. Otherwise these are to be marked with the {{delete}} tag.

Other wikis/websites and redlinking

Links

When linking to other articles, those on Memory Gamma should receive preference ("internal links"). "Redlinking" allows contributors to know what articles we need. "External links" are permitted for exceptional cases; articles beyond our scope: canon characters without a verifiable fan basis, actors or Trek production staff not found on this database. It is preferred that you link to the most relevant external sources of information, such as Wikipedia, Memory Alpha, or Memory Beta.

Memory Alpha

Memory Alpha articles should NOT be reproduced here. MA content is protected under a Creative Commons license, allowing no altered derivatives or "rewrites" which violate the terms of MA's CCL. Thus, Memory Alpha copies are subject to deletion.

Memory Beta

Memory Beta handles licensed publications. We have no need of direct copies of Memory Beta articles. Certain sections of such articles (also freely available under Wikia GNU) may be reproduced here for convenience, to further illustrate the significance of special coverage; however, complete copies are candidates for deletion.

Wikipedia

Copies of Wikipedia articles are discouraged. Wikipedia takes a "real world" approach, while Memory Gamma's is an "in-world" approach.

Other websites

Material copied from websites which are not "open source" is subject to immediate deletion, without notice. If contributed by the creator(s) of said website(s), a note should be placed to that effect. However, we encourage writing of original material. Note that copyright law governs creative expression of ideas, not ideas or information. It is perfectly legal to read an encyclopedia article or other work, reformulate it in your own words and submit it.

Deletion Process

Marking an article for deletion does not mean that it will automatically be deleted. This will be determined by consensus of available, registered community members.

If you feel that an article deserves deletion, please follow this process:

1. Place the delete template ( {{delete|<reason for deletion>}} ) at the top of the page, in the edit field, and click Publish.
2. Once published, click "Communications" next to the Edit button.
3. On the next page, click "Add Topic".
4. Create a header as "Marked for Deletion" and explain your reason below the heading.
5. Once a deletion has been proposed, community members have a predetermined length of time to discuss the proposition.

• In cases of standard deletion, discussion will take place over a period of seven (7) days. At the end of that time, an administrator will determine whether the article will be kept or deleted, based on discussion.
• If there is no clear decision at the expiration of the discussion period, the period may be extended, or the deletion tag may be removed from the article and replaced with a {{copyedit}} tag. This will be determined by administrators.
• In all cases, if a majority decides to keep an article nominated for deletion, and the article requires copyediting, the {{delete}} tag will be removed and substituted with {{copyedit}}.

Other criteria for deletion

• Broken redirects
• Unused redirects
• No meaningful content or history, such as:
  • "junk articles" (as described above)
  • pages or categories (other than user pages) for personal use ("Articles I have created", "A list of my favorite (fill in the blank)", etc.)
  • stories with a summary with no chapters/episodes and has not been worked on for at least 6 months
    • unfinished chapters/episodes that have not been worked on in at least 6 months
• Pages marked for fixing ({{fix}}) that do not get fixed within 7 days of being marked.
• Pages marked "under construction" ({{construction}}) that have not been worked on in at least 6 months, containing no real content (e.g. one sentence, sidebar template, etc).
• Test pages (e.g. "Can I really create a page here?")
• Pure vandalism
• Orphaned articles that are not linked from or transcluded into other "main space" pages in Memory Gamma.
• Very short pages with little or no definition or context. (Not necessarily the same as stubs.) This includes redundant category pages; e.g. "Category:Users who..." (and there is clearly only one user), or categories which clutter the category tree if a better category branch is available.
• Reposted content that was deleted according to this deletion policy. This does not apply to undeleted content that was undeleted.
• Pages created and edited solely by a banned user, after they were banned.
• New user home pages accidentally created in the main article space. In such cases, move content to their user home page first, and consider waiting a day or two before deleting the resulting redirect.
• User pages/user talk pages of anonymous (IP) users (e.g. User:127.0.0.1), if the content consists of only a welcome message and was edited more than seven (7) days ago.
• Any material (image, audio file, video, et al.) uploaded and stored not directly related to an article or the project. This includes personal items for user pages and unused images.
• Stories created by unregistered/IP users that have not been adopted or claimed by a registered user within 7 days of creation.

Administrators may also delete pages for the following technical purposes:

• Deleting a redirect which has no useful history, to make way for a non-controversial page move.
• Temporarily deleting a page in order to merge page histories after a cut and paste move.
• Deleting a page/image not adhering to the naming conventions after copying/moving the page/image to another title.

If simple vandalism or spam (which is also considered vandalism), there is no need to vote; the offensive content can be immediately deleted. (If you are unsure what constitutes "offensive" content, consult an administrator.)

Restoration

Deleted pages can be restored. If a user feels that a page was unnecessarily deleted, they may ask any administrator politely to have the page restored, along with some reasoning. If users demand to have a page restored, the request will be denied immediately.