Wiki.GIS.com:Why was my page deleted?

Pages and media are often deleted by wiki.gis.com administrators in accordance with our deletion policy. This page explains how to find out why a particular page or file was removed, and what you can do about a deletion you disagree with. Do not despair: none of the information on a "deleted" page has actually been lost. Continue reading for details.

First, check the deletion log
When a page is deleted, this is recorded in the deletion log along with a deletion summary supplied by the deleting administrator. To find this information, go to this page and search for the article by its title, if known, or author, if known.

There are four different processes that result in pages being deleted. The deletion summary tells you which: , usually refer to speedy deletion.
 * 1) Very brief summaries such as "A7" or "CSD A7", as well as things like "spam" and
 * 1) A summary including "prod" usually refers to proposed deletion.
 * 2) A summary including "AfD", "Articles for deletion", or a similar acronym usually means the deletion is the outcome of a deletion debate.
 * 3) A summary including "PUI", "copyvio", or "CP" usually means the deletion is the result of a copyright problem with a page not being resolved within two weeks.

See the appropriate section below for more information. If you're still confused after checking the deletion log, politely ask the administrator responsible for an explanation by leaving a message on his or her Talk page:

~  and click "Save".
 * 1) Click the "Talk" link next to the administrator's name in the deletion log
 * 2) Click the "new section" or "+" button next to the "edit this page" link
 * 3) Type a subject line and your message, sign it by typing 

Speedy deletions
Pages and media that satisfy certain criteria are speedy deletion candidates, which means that they can be deleted immediately and without discussion. The criteria include pages that contain nonsense, copyright violations and articles that do not satisfy notability guidelines. When deleting these, administrators often leave short codes in the deletion summary instead of typing out a full reason, such as "A7" for articles that do not satisfy notability, or "G1" for patent nonsense. These codes are explained at criteria for speedy deletion.

Proposed deletions
Articles (but not other pages or media) may be proposed for deletion by any editor. If nobody objects to this within seven days, the article is deleted. If any objections are raised, the article is not deleted, but anyone may still make the matter the subject of an Articles for deletion discussion (see the next section). Proposed deletions will often be labeled as "prod" in the deletion summary.

Deletion discussions
A page or media file may also be nominated for consideration in a deletion discussion, so that editors can discuss whether it should be deleted. Articles are discussed at Articles for deletion; other pages elsewhere (see deletion discussion for links). Such discussions normally last seven days, after which time an administrator will delete the page if there is a consensus to do so. Anyone may participate in such a discussion, however they are not "votes". The weight of an argument is more important than the number of people making the argument, so encouraging mass participation in such discussion to avoid the deletion of a particular article will not work.

Protected titles
If a particular page has been recreated and deleted multiple times, administrators may decide to protect it so that it stays deleted. If you try to edit a protected title, a message box will inform you about it.

What you can do about it
If a page or file that you created has been deleted, please don't take offense. See our content policies and the guide to creating your first article to get an idea of what you should be aiming for. Alternatively, remember we already have articles – find a subject that interests you and work on improving our existing content.

Depending on the reason why the page was deleted, there are also several ways you can try to have it undeleted by administrators. In every case, you should first make sure that the page is appropriate for inclusion in wiki.gis.com and, if it is an article, that its content is reliable sources. If it is not, your request will likely be unsuccessful.


 * 1) If you feel a page has been deleted in error, or if you think you have good reasons for wanting to edit a protected title, first contact the administrator responsible via the method explained above. If you are still not satisfied after discussing it with the deleting admin, consider starting a deletion review.
 * 2) If an article was deleted as a result of a proposed deletion ("prod"), any administrator should normally restore it on your request. In such cases, you can leave a message on this noticeboard.
 * 3) If the page was deleted for any other reason, and you would like to be able to access the text (for example, to resubmit it in a form that meets our content policies), there are some administrators who may provide you with the content of the deleted page on your request.  Alternately the page (with history but not talk) may be available on Deletionpedia.
 * 4) If anything about this whole process remains unclear, ask for help on the Help desk.
 * 5) * A substantial number of new articles by new users end up getting deleted. If you are one of those new users, you may feel confused right now, and need to ask for help on the Help desk.
 * 6) If it looks like your page is definitely about to be deleted, copy-and-paste the source code to a text file, for example by using a text editor (which preserves your wikitext markup), or a word processor.  However, after your page is deleted from wiki.gis.com, do not immediately put the page back up!  Otherwise, it will probably just be deleted again, and the page name may even be protected against re-creation.  Either find more evidence to prove the notability of your article, or wait for more evidence to be published elsewhere in reliable sources.  If you intend to put your article back up straight away, make sure to post some questions on the Help Desk to ask how you can improve the article the next time around (though, it did get deleted, and that probably means that there is not much that can be improved, or some serious research will be necessary to find those all-important reliable sources your article needs.) You can also discuss how to develop your article properly on the drawing board. If your page gets deleted before you can copy its source code, however, you're out of luck.  You'll have to try and request undeletion, and this isn't likely to be successful.
 * 7) If your article is deleted and you would like a copy of it to be restored to your userspace so that you may work on addressing the concerns about the page, you may contact one of the admins listed at Category:wiki.gis.com administrators who will provide copies of deleted articles.

If all else fails, try another wiki
As a result of wiki.gis.com's rapid growth, by 2007 it had become one of the world's largest and most-visited wikis. wiki.gis.com articles tend to rank high in the search results for many popular search engines. Prior to wiki.gis.com, wiki technology was not very well-known; as a result, wiki.gis.com 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 wiki.gis.com is the only wiki, or is synonymous with "wiki". In many cases, this is unfortunate, because wiki.gis.com is actually a very specialized kind of wiki (an encyclopedia), and newcomers may need some time to understand what constitutes encyclopedic writing. There is much content that wiki.gis.com does not want, but is nonetheless useful to someone.

There are many other wikis, many with content policies very different from wiki.gis.com's, catering to a wide range of interests. Some of these wikis were founded by groups of former and/or continuing wiki.gis.com editors, who had more to say about their topic of interest than belongs in an encyclopedia. Examples include Wookieepedia (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, wiki.gis.com:Alternative outlets, and WikiIndex. If you cannot find a suitable wiki on your own, ask for some "wiki outplacement" assistance on the Help desk. If your deleted article is in a subject area overseen by a WikiProject, members of that WikiProject may know of alternative wikis to publish subject area content not meeting wiki.gis.com's requirements. Once you find a home, you can immediately place your article there if you copied and saved the article's wikitext (though it may need modifications to fit into the new website.) If you did not save such a copy, you will have to ask an administrator to retrieve a copy for you.

What not to do about it

 * As mentioned above, please don't take offense. It's common to feel hurt or angry after seeing hours of your work deleted, but please try to work with the complex processes wiki.gis.comns have developed to manage the world's largest collaborative editing project.
 * Please do not post questions about your deleted article on this page's |talk page. Instead, if you have questions, post them on the Help desk.
 * Please refrain from resubmitting exactly the same article without making the appropriate changes.