Dungeons and Dragons Wiki:Deletion Policy

Deletion Policy
Deletion is the removal of a page from the wiki, either entirely or simply by being moved elsewhere without leaving a redirect. If a user navigates to a page that has been deleted via a direct link, they will be greeted with an empty page and the offer to create it themselves.

All deletions are reversible, however, and may be restored by any administrator upon request. Such a restoration is subject to the availability and discretion of the administrator who was contacted to perform the restoration.

An article generally becomes a candidate for deletion with the application of the delete template, though some exceptions exist for homebrew work. A reason is generally included in the template specifying why the article was put up for deletion.

Content in Violation of Licensing or Terms of Use
Content that has been added to the wiki in violation of our Licensing or Terms of Use will be deleted without warning, notice, or exception. This deletion will occur regardless of namespace.

Canon Articles
Articles in the canon namespace may be proposed for deletion for any reason, but the case must be made on the talk page that the article is unnecessary or harmful in some way. The article will remain for a minimum of 2 weeks for discussion about the merits of deletion or retention of the article. After a consensus has been reached, the article or the delete template will be removed.

Homebrew Articles
In order to keep our homebrew section usable and free of incomplete cruft, we have a fairly strict deletion policy for this namespace. Many pages are subject to procedural deletion or removal, even without being specifically proposed.

Deletion Reasons
The following are common reasons for deletion.

Author Request
If the primary author of a homebrew article requests that it be removed, we will remove it. Such an article must have the delete template applied, with "Author request" listed as the reason. There is no delay for removal of these articles, and it will be attended to as soon as an administrator notices.

"Bad" Articles
An article that is of extremely poor writing quality can be proposed for deletion, if it is unlikely to be improved. Note that it is generally preferable to first leave a note on the talk page discussing the concerns and give the author a chance to respond before applying the template. Note also that articles which are written well, but considered to be poorly balanced, are better addressed by rating them "Opposed" (0/4) so that they can be dealt with according to our Community Opposed procedures.

Homebrew Deletion Procedure
Content forthcoming...

Other Homebrew Removal Conditions
The following are conditions that would cause an article to be removed without the delete template being applied. They are included here for ease of reference.

Community Opposed Articles
An article that gains sufficient "dislike" ratings is an article that we do not want in the main navigation for a user to find. Such articles are subject to automatic removal, and do not need to have the delete template added to them. Rather than being deleted, however, the article will instead be moved to a subpage of the primary author's user page or 'sandboxed'. The page will also have it's categories commented out to prevent it from appearing in the navigation pages.

An article that has been sandboxed in this way may be moved back into the main navigation by the author if it gains sufficient "like" ratings to no longer qualify as a community opposed article. It may also be moved back if changes are made to address the rating concerns, at which time the author should request of the raters that they re-examine the work. If the rating does not increase as a result of this re-examination, the article will be sandboxed again.

Incomplete Articles
A homebrew article must be complete to remain on the wiki. Homebrew that is not mechanically complete when the page is created has the incomplete template applied to it shortly after the page is created. Once this template has been applied, the author must continue to improve it or risk the deletion of the page. If no constructive edits are made for 3 days, the page may be deleted immediately. This process is largely automated, being performed by a bot. This bot will leave notification messages on the page of the primary author, if it can determine which user that is.

If the bot is unable to deal with the page on its own, an administrator will handle it instead and is not required to leave notification messages for any user. An administrator may, at their discretion, move the page to a subpage of the author's user page instead. The bot is not written to perform moves of this sort, so please contact an administrator or ask in our chat if you need assistance moving an incomplete article into a user sandbox.

Additional details on the incomplete policy can be found at Homebrew Content Requirements.

Winter Cleaning
Additional details on the winter cleaning policy can be found at Winter Cleaning.

Publication Articles
Articles in the publication namespace may be proposed for deletion for any reason, but the case must be made on the talk page that the article is unnecessary or harmful in some way. The article will remain for a minimum of 2 weeks for discussion about the merits of deletion or retention of the article. After a consensus has been reached, the article or the delete template will be removed.

User Personal Articles
Articles added as subpages of a user page are considered part of the user page. These pages may contain sandboxes, incomplete write-ups, problematic work, or simply very disliked work. They are generally not deleted except upon the request of the user.

Speedy Deletion
We do not use the Speedydelete template on this wiki. Pages with this template applied are treated as if they had the delete template applied instead.