About → Policies and guidelines → Deletion policy

	This page documents one of Memory Alpha's policies.
	It describes a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus.

All content on Memory Alpha is regulated by several policies. Failure to meet any or all criteria set forth by those policies may lead to the deletion of an article or other page. This deletion policy describes proper procedures for this.

General guidelines

What does "Deletion" mean?

From time to time, it is necessary to delete pages from Memory Alpha's database. While any user may be able to simply blank a page (i.e. delete all its current content), the original text will still be available in the page history for other users to view – and also to restore if they wish. However, when pages are deleted, all versions, past and present, are removed from the user-accessible part of the wiki.

Only administrators have the authority to delete and restore pages on Memory Alpha. Administrators are trusted to use their best judgment in determining whether a page should be deleted or not. However, administrators must also follow the procedure described below to help make such decisions.

Deleted pages can also be restored by an administrator, if and only if support is expressed during a restoration discussion. This is essentially a safeguard against permanently deleting pages.

Content policies

This section identifies some of the policies and guidelines that apply to some or all pages. Refer to these for a detailed description of what is or isn't considered permissible content on Memory Alpha. This list may be incomplete; see policies and guidelines for more.

All pages

What Memory Alpha is not

Copyrights

Patent nonsense

All articles

Resource policy

Don't include copies of primary sources

In-universe articles

Content policy

Files and file description pages

File use policy

Deletion procedure

Suggest deletion

Any archivist may submit a page for deletion. To do this, add the appropriate template (see below) to the page you are submitting for deletion, right below the article type template (if there is one). When adding the deletion template, please fill out the edit summary with "deletion suggested" or something similar to alert other editors, and do not mark it as a minor edit. Follow the link the template provides, fill out the ensuing page according to its instructions, and click "save".

Once you have submitted the page for deletion, other contributors will have a chance to discuss the suggestion and can make any appropriate changes to the page to increase its quality. After an appropriate delay (generally five to seven days), the page may be deleted by an administrator – if the page content clearly violates existing policies, or a rough consensus for deletion is reached.

Note: If you're not sure that deletion is the best approach, you can mark an article as needing attention instead. If you do this, you must clearly indicate what needs to be fixed by adding a note on the associated talk page.

Discuss suggestion

Any archivist may join the discussion of any deletion suggestion. When doing so, please include your opinion and explain your reasoning. Make sure to sign with ~~~~ (four consecutive tilde characters). The following list contains suggested wordings for common opinions:

• delete
• keep
• redirect to [[page]]
• merge into [[page]] and delete
• merge into [[page]] and redirect

You may want to place one of these wordings in front of your comment to allow other participants to easily discern your opinion, although this is not mandatory.

Note: A deletion discussion is not a voting procedure with the result being determined by simply counting votes for and against a suggestion. Instead, the final decision to keep or delete a page should always be based on existing corresponding policies or, if such don't exist, on a "consensus". A discussion as described above is a way to allow an administrator to make a correct decision.

Resolve a suggestion

• See: Memory Alpha:Deletion guidelines for administrators

A deletion suggestion can be resolved by any administrator. This should generally be done five-to-seven days after a suggestion was first made. However, this "lag time" can be shortened if a page clearly violates existing policies, if a consensus has already been found, or if the initial rationale for deletion no longer applies. It can also be extended if no consensus has been found yet.

Note: As described in the section above, the administrator resolving a suggestion should do so based on policies and the discussion consensus. The discussion should not simply be considered a majority vote. Resolving a suggestion may require ignoring comments without proper reasoning, comments suspected to be from sockpuppets, etc. As a general rule of thumb, an administrator should not delete a page they nominated for deletion if there are a number comments in favor of keeping it.

When resolving a deletion suggestion, the discussion should be archived in the relevant discussion archive (if a page is deleted), or on the page's talk page (if a page is not deleted).

Candidates for immediate or speedy deletion

There are a few, limited, exceptions to the above rules. In the following cases, pages may be deleted immediately:

• General:
  1. Pages with no meaningful content or history (e.g. "sdhgdf"; see patent nonsense).
  2. Test pages (e.g. "Can I really create a page here?").
  3. Pure vandalism.
  4. Reposted content that was deleted according to this deletion policy. This does not apply to restored content that was undeleted according to the restoration policy.
  5. Pages created in violation of an active block (i.e., by a sockpuppet of a blocked account), unless said deletion would cause Memory Alpha more harm than good (e.g., loss of valuable content).
  6. Author-requested deletion, unless said deletion would cause Memory Alpha more harm than good (e.g., loss of valuable content).
  7. Talk pages consisting entirely of content that violates MA:TALK#Purpose.
  8. Images and articles that are clearly and obviously AI-generated.
• Articles:
  1. Very short pages with little or no definition or context.
• Redirects:
  1. Offensive redirects, such as "Joe Bloggs is a Loser" to "Joe Bloggs".
  2. Nonsensical redirects, such as [[Pink elephants painting daisies]] to [[Vulcan]].
  3. Redirects that make it unreasonably difficult for users to locate similarly named articles via the search engine.
  4. Redirects likely to cause confusion.
  5. Redirects with no useful history, to make way for non-controversial page moves.
  6. Redirects from regular plurals, such as "Vulcans".
  7. Redirects from misspellings that haven't been used in any valid sources.
  8. Redirects from rank–name combination, such as "Captain Picard".
  9. Redirects not linked to by any pages on Memory Alpha.
• Files:
  1. Duplicate or near-duplicate files.
  2. Files that have been replaced (e.g. broken up collages or file format changes).
  3. Files not used on any Memory Alpha pages.
  4. Any material (image, audio file, et al.) that has been uploaded and stored on Memory Alpha that is not directly related to an article or the project. This includes items used for personal user pages (see what Memory Alpha is not).
• User (talk) pages:
  1. User talk pages of anonymous (IP) users if the content consists of only any type of welcome message and was edited more than seven days ago.

Additional notes:

1. In all of the above cases, administrators may choose to delete the page without it being listed on pages for deletion, or after it has only been listed there for a couple of days. If you see a candidate for speedy deletion, and you are not an administrator, add the template {{delete}} to the page.
2. Files without the necessary licensing template after five-to-seven days will be deleted. A current list of files without a copyright disclaimer can be found here.
3. Remember that possible copyright infringements are not candidates for immediate deletion (in most circumstances).
4. Ideally, when an administrator deletes a test page or other page with no useful content, it is helpful to put a note on the author's talk page explaining things, and preserving the deleted content, pointing them to the sandbox in cases of tests. And remember, be considerate to new members!
5. Administrators may temporarily delete a page in order to merge page histories.

Suggestion pages and templates

Overview: To delete or not to delete?

If a page does not qualify for immediate deletion and is not a possible copyright infringement, it cannot be deleted without first being listed on pages for deletion. However, it can sometimes be hard to judge whether or not to list a page for deletion. Here is a short guide providing examples of what sorts of pages should and shouldn't be listed for deletion.

• Don't list stubs with potential, but list stubs that are nonsensical. Also, redirect or list stubs that likely will never become more than a simple definition.
• Don't list articles that just need heavy editing; instead, list them on pages needing attention. However, consider listing articles that are just patent nonsense.
• Redirect pages should be listed only if the problems they cause outweigh their advantages. For more info, see our recommendations on deleting redirects.
• List articles that have no encyclopedic potential. This includes topics or content from invalid or misused resources, as well as unverifiable material.
• List unused files where you can't think of an article where they might be useful.
• If a page has some useful content but is too small to even be a stub, try moving that content to a different, larger article and change the page into a redirect. However, do list a page if turning it into a redirect would cause problems – see recommendations on deleting redirects.