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Overview
When an administrator deletes an article, its content can no longer be examined by non-administrators. Since these users must also have the opportunity to review the deletion process and object if they feel the deletion was unwarranted. For this reason, administrators must preserve the talk page, where the discussion leading up to the page's deletion has taken place. These pages are called 'deletion discussion pages'. This policy formalizes the procedures for preserving and tagging these talk pages, and for objecting against deletions that have already happened.
Procedures
Deleting an article
Before deleting an article, first ensure the deletion has been discussed and voted upon. After deleting the article itself, do not delete the talk page, but tag it with the deleted discussion template, like this:
{{deletion discussion}}
When tagging a talk page whose parent article lived outside of the main namespace, please provide the parent's full name as a parameter. For example, when tagging Category talk:RDM, use:
{{deletion discussion|Category:RDM}}
Note that the talk page should not be locked, as all users must be able to object to the deletion.
Temporary undeletion
A user who wishes to review a deleted article in order to gain better understanding of its deletion discussion or to make the current discussion easier can request temporary undeletion by recreating the page and tagging it with the {{undelete}} template. The article in question must be undeleted by the administrator in question as soon as possible, tagged with the {{tempundelete}} template, locked from editing, and be kept around for seven days. If a vote is started before the end of the seven-day period, the article must be kept until the voting is over. After that, one of the following things can happen:
- The user who requests undeletion doesn't pursue the issue, and the article is re-deleted silently.
- A majority of the voters wants the article to be deleted, and the article is re-deleted.
- A majority of the voters wants to keep the article. The article is unlocked and stripped of its {{tempundelete}} tag.
- A user (or users) thinks they can improve (or 'reboot') the article to meet Battlestar Wiki's quality standards. See the section below for the exact procedure.
Improving a deleted article
A user who thinks they can improve (or 'reboot') a deleted article to meet Battlestar Wiki's quality standards can do so by copyediting the articles content to a subpage (usually PAGENAME/Improvement), tagging it with the {{improvedundelete}} template and work on their improvement there. The article itself must not be touched, as it reflects the article's state upon deletion. (Note that these improvements do not extend the aforementioned seven-day period, as the improvement changes can easily be viewed in the page history.) When the improver thinks their improvement is ready for inclusion in the main namespace, they can call a vote. If the majority of the voters accepts the improvement, it will be moved back to its proper location and stripped of its {{improvedundelete}} tag. Otherwise, the subpage will be deleted.
Relevant templates and categories
- Template:Deletion discussion for tagging a deletion discussion page.
- Template:Undelete for requesting undeletion
- Template:Tempundelete for tagging temporarily undeleted pages.
- Template:Improvedundelete for tagging improvements in progress or under voting.
- Category:Deletion discussions contains all deletion discussion pages.
- Category:Requests for undeletion contains all pages pending temporary undeletion.
- Category:Temporarily undeleted pages contains all pages that have been undeleted temporarily.
- Category:Improvements to temporarily undeleted pages contains all improvements that are currently in progress or under voting.