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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
Improving a deleted article
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.