The Sims Wiki:Deletion

While the goal of The Sims Wiki is to expand its coverage of The Sims series and any notable related topics, there are instances in which a particular article may not warrant inclusion on the wiki. In these cases, the article in question may be subject to deletion. Over time, procedures have evolved on The Sims Wiki to determine whether articles are deleted, kept, or altered in some other way (for example, by merging an article into a different article instead of deleting it outright). Ultimately, the power to delete (or un-delete) an article rests with the wiki's administrators and content moderators. However, administrators and content mods will generally only delete an article if there is a consensus in favor of deleting it, or if the article is an obvious candidate for speedy deletion.

Procedures for deletion
The procedure to delete a page on The Sims Wiki depends on the reason for the page being deleted.

Procedures for speedy deletion
In most cases, pages are deleted because the fall under a defined criterion for speedy deletion. Editors who believe an article meets one or more speedy deletion criteria should tag the article with Speedydelete and state the specific criterion for speedy deletion met. Editors should consider posting a notice on the Admin's Noticeboard if the page is pure vandalism, self-promotional material, spam, attacks others, or otherwise warrants immediate removal from the wiki. In all cases, tagging the article with the Speedydelete template will place the article in the candidates for speedy deletion category.

An administrator or content moderator will evaluate a speedy deletion candidate to confirm whether the article meets one or more criteria for speedy deletion, and then either delete the article or remove the Speedydelete tag if the article does not meet any speedy deletion criteria (possibly replacing Speedydelete with a regular Delete tag instead). Administrators and content moderators are given leeway in determining whether a particular article meets speedy deletion criteria, but if there is doubt as to whether an article qualifies for speedy deletion, should err on the side of not speedily deleting an article.

Procedures for deletion
An article may not be a candidate for speedy deletion, but may still be worthy of deletion. Editors who believe an article does not belong on The Sims Wiki should tag the article with Delete and state the specific reason(s) why the article does not belong.

Unlike speedy deletion, articles under consideration for "normal" deletion are not deleted unless there is community consensus in favor of doing so. Consensus for deciding whether or not to delete an article is determined through a community discussion at Category talk:Candidates for deletion. Through discussion, the community may also decide to modify an article in some manner instead of deleting it outright. These modifications may include merging the candidate article into a different article, merging multiple articles together into a single article, moving the article to a different namespace, moving an article to a user's userspace for further refinement, or editing the article to address the reason(s) for its nomination.

Articles can also undergo the deletion process if they violate wiki policy in a manner that does not make them a candidate for speedy deletion. For instance, articles which are not notable may be discussed rather than deleted outright. Community discussion may be necessary to determine whether a particular article violates a policy or standard, and the community may at its discretion choose to (in most cases) and keep an article that violates a particular standard.

Procedures for deletion of fanon
Articles written in the fanon namespace have special procedures regarding their deletion.

Most fanon articles that undergo deletion are deleted by "author request." This occurs when the fanon author; A) places a Delete or Speedydelete template on their own fanon page; B) requests page deletion on the Administrators' Noticeboard, or; C) intentionally . In these cases, a fanon author can later request that a fanon page be un-deleted either by contacting the administrator or content moderator that deleted the page, or by posting a request on the Admins' Noticeboard.

Sometimes, fanon is deleted for reasons other than by the author's request. The Sims Wiki has basic standards for fanon quality, and fanon articles which do not meet these standards may be nominated for deletion by adding fanon-delete to the articles. Typically, a fanon author is given a period of time to edit their fanon page(s) in order to bring them in-line with the standards before deletion proceeds. Additionally, The Sims Wiki requires that all fanon authors be registered, logged-in users, and works of fanon created by unregistered or logged-out users are deleted if the article is unclaimed by a registered and logged-in user within a few days of its creation.

Procedures for deletion of non-content pages
Pages that exist outside the "content namespaces" - the main namespace, game guides namespace, or fanon namespace - follow similar procedures for deletion. Non-content pages may qualify for speedy deletion, or may be worthy of deletion but not meet any specific speedy delete criteria. Discussion about deleting non-content pages also occurs at Category talk:Candidates for deletion. Editors should note the following about nominating non-content pages for deletion:
 * Some non-content pages that seem irrelevant are kept for historical or archival reasons. In these cases, it may be beneficial for the page to be tagged with historical or archive to clarify why the page is being kept.
 * When tagging a template for deletion, the delete or speedydelete tags must be enclosed in to prevent the delete/speedydelete tag from being transcluded to any pages that use the template.
 * Some categories that appear to be empty may be kept for maintenance purposes; some categories intended to assist in maintaining The Sims Wiki may be intentionally empty most of the time. The descriptions for these categories will usually (but not always) specify whether the categories are sometimes or usually empty.