In order to maintain our standards of quality, pages found to be substandard by the community through the voting system (e.g. the Rating Box) are removed by Staff. There are exceptions for submissions that are found to be in violation of site policy. No matter the reason for deletion, staff-handled deletions are always recorded in the Announcements forum in the most recent Deletions thread, with reasons clearly given.
Grace Period
Pages are typically afforded a grace period of 24 hours after the posting of a deletion vote, during which time they are not eligible for removal from the site, regardless of rating. If a page is one hour or one year old, it doesn't matter. Everything gets a 24-hour period.
Standard Process
If a page’s rating falls to -10 or lower, that page becomes eligible for deletion. A member of Senior Staff (Operational Staff or higher) will make a post in its discussion thread, titled Staff Post, suggesting deletion. This post will have a timer on it, noting how long the deletion vote has been in place. When a page reaches three Staff votes for deletion and the deletion timer has passed 24 hours, it is removed from the site. If a page's rating falls to -20 the timer is suspended and it becomes eligible for immediate deletion provided it has three Staff votes for deletion.
If a page’s rating rises above -10, all Staff votes for deletion prior to this are voided. Should it fall again, voting for deletion must begin anew.
If an author requests a stay of deletion to make edits or rewrite a page, these may be granted. Consideration of these requests is on a case-by-case basis, as oftentimes, the best thing is to start again from a clean slate. Supplementary pages will be automatically deleted when their parent page is. Authors may repost supplements as standalone works to be judged separately as they see fit.
Reasons for Summary Deletion
There are instances when Staff will waive the standard deletions process and delete the article (with one other staff member needed as a witness). These situations are:
- Articles with malicious intent such as, but not limited to: links to viruses, sexually explicit material, spam, advertising, trolling, and illegal content.
- Pages that are clearly unfinished. (e.g. articles with blank sections or [insert text here] notes)
- Attempts to "game" site procedure, such as re-posting a non-rewritten article in an attempt to get around downvotes.
- Blatantly plagiarized1 material.
- An article posted outside of the current range2. Authors may repost their articles within the acceptable range as they see fit.
Self-Deletion
If an author should request their material be removed, and be able to prove authorship beyond a reasonable doubt, these requests are granted.
Authors have the ability to delete their own work at any time. This is accomplished by:
- Clicking “Options” at the bottom of the page,
- Clicking “Delete”,
- Selecting checkbox for, “Delete Completely.”
Be sure to select “Delete Completely,” as a failure to do this does not remove the page, it simply renames it. After doing so, *announce your choice to delete in the most recent Deletions thread.
If an author attempts to self-delete their work and fails to do so properly, either by blanking the page or renaming it, it will be deleted fully by Staff.
More Information
Staff have a more detailed and thorough version of the deletions guide which specifies exactly how these processes take place and the policies they follow. If you're interested, take a look at the [*Staff Deletions Guide] on the administrative site.