 | This is an essay on the deletion policy. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article or a Wikipedia policy, as it has not been reviewed by the community. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Don't leave our readers in the dark by deleting articles and sourced information, or stashing it away with a merger. Remember our community goal of introducing readers to a topic. A well-sourced article provides readers with more reliable information than search engines or AI. |
Wikipedia's purpose is to educate our readers and provide them with the best sourcing possible for further research. Consider what is the best way for our readers to find information. It's probably best to confront and explain problems of a fringe or alternative theory than to leave our readers to search the web for the information. A well sourced stand alone article can quickly lead our readers to more reliable information then a search engine or AI generated content can. Wikipedia is not paper, which means we can write almost an unlimited amount on any topic.
One has to ask
editOne must ask themselves how does deletion or merging content help our readers?
Where an article actually does add to a reader's knowledge without misleading or biasing them in any way, it should, in keeping with the editing policy, be kept. Where it is misleading or biased, it should be corrected and only in the worst case scenario removed. The question to be debated is whether or not an article improves Wikipedia, and adds to a reader's knowledge of new, fringe or alternative concepts without misleading or biasing them in any way. Wikipedia, like other encyclopedias, is a tertiary source and should, at least, provide an overview of a topic with reliable sources for further research.
Merging information into an overview article may also cause problems. A few questions to ask are: will it be harder for our readers to find notable terms and information, will information on a specific concept be accessible without having to read a huge amount of unrelated text beforehand, will a merger of information lead to less information because of the summary style of an overview article, will the information on said topic in a broad-concept article lead to less updates because of our undue weight policies? For example; parents looking for information on Flintstone vitamins should not have to wade through a broad concept article about The Flintstones, where vitamins is tucked away within a section titled 'Non-media products", and where a listing of varieties and ingredients are considered overly detailed for The Flintstones overview article. This will result in readers searching the internet for more information that could have easily been provided by Wikipedia leading to a reliable medical sources.
Conflict with protocols
editA number of protocols and information pages sometimes conflict with the articles are more important than policy approach. For example, many notability guidelines suggest that multiple secondary sources are needed to summarise any topic. Another example is our recommendations of merging short articles that are unlikely to be expanded within a reasonable amount of time. These can at times conflict with Wikipedia's purpose, which is to be accessible, comprehensive and to inform. The common rebuttal to these instances is WP:Ignore all rules: namely, that we should aim to improve the encyclopedia in whatever we do, as we are here to help our readers find information and sources, not suppress them. There are a number of article types which can be deleted on sight, ranging from attack pages to nonsense (see WP:CSD for a complete list). Articles which do not meet those criteria are deleted through editorial consensus after listing at WP:AFD.
Conflicting philosophies
editFour primary schools of thought on Wikipedia represent the core ideological spectrum regarding how information is structured and maintained.
- Meta:Deletionism – the philosophy that removal of material is a productive, necessary mode of editing. Proponents argue Wikipedia should be a curated, high-quality encyclopedia, weeding out trivial, non-notable, or unsourced topics.
- Meta:Inclusionism – the philosophy that information should be liberally added and retained. Driven by the policies that "Wikipedia is not paper", "Wikipedia is a work in progress" and "Try to fix problems", inclusionists prefer expanding and fixing problematic articles over deleting them.
- Meta:Mergism – the philosophy that while information may be encyclopedic, minor topics do not warrant standalone articles and should be folded into larger, related ones.
- Meta:Separatism – the philosophy argues that there is nothing wrong with creating separate, specific pages for notable subjects instead of clumping them together. Driven by "Wikipedia's purpose" and " What is an article?", separatist assert that stand-alone articles are easier to find for our readership and will encourage content and sources growth.