User:Wheelchair Epidemic/ADS

Notice: The Article Deletion Squad is always in need of additional help; All are welcome to try their hand at Voting at Articles for deletion

Shortcuts

Please join us! All too often, an article about a perfectly trivial topic lies wounded, badly written, unsourced – but should its life be taken at Articles for Deletion? Yes! Put it out of its misery, for $DEITY's sake!

An article should not be deleted just because it is ill-formed. Oh no. Some writer worked hard on that article. But on the other hand, it's hardly our fault if it's unencyclopedic, fancrufty bollocks that stands as much chance of being a serious article as Boris Johnson is of being a credible politician.

Why is it important to read Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion?

Every time an article is deleted, the contributions that were made to it are lost. Wikipedia administrators can access the information in deleted articles, but they are not necessarily experts on the article's topic. Once an article is deleted, its content, value and appropriateness can no longer be evaluated by the general public. So if it hasn't got any content, value or appropriateness, it's better off gone, isn't it? Stands to reason.

In addition, the contributor who writes a poor article on a notable topic is likely to be inexperienced. If their first efforts are deleted, they may be discouraged and refrain from creating further articles, or even editing. Mind you, that might be a bonus, given some of the crap that we have to wade through at WP:CSD, WP:PROD and WP:AFD. My cat could write better articles than some of this lot. And she can spell.

This makes Articles for Deletion a very important place, one that deserves everyone's attention.

A common axiom is that "AFD is not cleanup". Wrong. It is. Think of it like the machines that suck the blockages out of sewerage systems. Dirty job, but someone's got to do it.

The question on whether a poor but improvable article ought to be deleted is a major point of contention, and has given rise to a large amount of waste of everyone's time, which could be better spent actually writing articles that would give the casual reader the idea that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, as opposed to some spotty 13 year old's personal webpage.

What can one person do?

In general, the Article Deletion Squadron is not about writing on talk pages as much as voting at AfD. You hear the cry "AfD is not a vote" a lot, but let's face it, it is, isn't it? Make your voice heard! If everyone who cares about preserving important topics votes "Delete" at one deletion discussion per day (or even one per week) the impact will benefit all our readers. Reading through the article slated for deletion and rewriting it will help other editors realise how utterly pointless the article was in the first place.

So ADELS wants to delete everything?

No. The Article Deletion Squadron (ADELS) is not about casting delete votes or making policy simply to ensure that nothing is kept. No, actually we lied about that. It is. Still, at least we don't hide the point.

Instructions

What the CrapArticle template is for

Articles on notable subjects going through AfD that:

Need references
Lack information readily available
Need cleaning up
Are utterly shit

What the CrapArticle template is not for

Stuff that might actually be notable. Some of the stuff at AfD is. Not much, but some.

Flag an article for Deletion

If an article has been tagged for deletion (Afd), and you feel it meets the above guidelines, then you can flag an article for obliteration by:

clicking edit and
adding the following line of text at the top of the page as shown in the example below:

If you are the main editor of the article tagged for deletion, then I'm not entirely sure why you're reading this. You need some other group of people that'll descend on AfD and vote Keep en masse. I'm not sure where you'd find them.

Example

You can flag an article for crapness by editing it to add the bolded text under the AfD tag, but within the two sets of  tags, as in the below example using a Random Anime episode that went straight to DVD in 1987 AfD:

{{AfDM|page=Random Anime episode that went straight to DVD in 1987 |date=2009 May 11|substed=yes}}

{{CrapArticle}}

Removing a deletion tag

It is unhelpful, and possibly disruptive, to remove the deletion tag before the AfD is completed. The AfD process usually takes a week and the tag is in place for less than that. Let the AfD closer remove it when the AfD tag is removed or the article (hopefully) is deleted. In all cases remain civil and assume good faith that other editors are working to improve articles. Even when they're not. No, really.

Tips to help delete articles

Browse Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion periodically and consider tagging articles that you feel are really, really, bad.
Don't vote more than once on AfDs. That'd be really bad.

How to become a member of Article Deletion Squadron

To join simply add your name to our membership list; feel free to add your ideas to the project discussion page as well.

Then place this tag {{User Article Deletion Squadron}} on your user page:

This user votes Delete regularly for the Article Deletion Squadron.

Related projects