 | This is an essay on Wikipedia:Deletion process. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
Deletion is not cleanup. If a NPOV problem in an article could be solved with simply more editing, then that's not a reason for deletion.
However, in some marginally notable articles, the problem may never be resolved, as demonstrated by examples below.
Example one
editA marginally notable YouTuber LoudPoliticalPundit123 has gotten themselves into a huge controversy. Swarms of IP editors rush in to cover the controversy. Some marginally reliable sources jump on the hype train and uncritically repeat what randoms in social media are saying. The biography now has a controversy section double the length of everything else in the article, cited to nothing but questionable sources. While the controversy is undoubtedly a major event in the YouTuber's career, there is no way to cover it without running into neutrality and WP:BLP problems.
Example two
editOnce reputable journal Advances in Example Crafting now dabbles in predatory publishing, being willing to publish anything for a set fee. Its notability is once again marginal, having been cited in newspapers and studies, but there being no real coverage of the journal itself. One notable fact to confirm this is that its listing in SCOPUS, a reputable repository of academic journals, was dropped. However, for an average layperson it may not be obvious that this is a serious red flag to the journal's reputability. It would be original research to extrapolate that the formerly reputable journal has turned to disrepute, and thus the article would have no choice but to mislead non-experts.
Conclusion
editAs it can be seen in the examples, some subject matter's nature bars them from having a policy-compliant article, a major one being NPOV. In such cases, deletion would unfortunately be the best option.