Wikipedia

Wikipedia:Removal of Wikipedia articles on notable topics

Removal of Wikipedia articles on notable topics is an occurrence in which Wikipedia reviewers judge a topic to be WP:Notable and then find consensus to remove the Wikipedia article covering that topic.

"Notability" is a concept in Wikipedia which describes whether a topic merits a Wikipedia article. All topics which are "notable" merit Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia reviewers may delete any topic which is "not notable" by evaluating it in a WP:deletion process.

The removal of Wikipedia articles covering notable topics can seem surprising.

Requirements of a Wikipedia article

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Wikipedia articles must have the following elements:

  1. The topic of the article must meet WP:Notability criteria
  2. The Wikipedia article must contain at least enough content to meet the criteria of being a WP:STUB
  3. The Wikipedia article must cite sources for whatever information it presents

Typically the Wikipedia community only evaluates whether an article meets notability criteria. Almost always, an article which passes notability review also has enough content to be a stub, and almost always cites some sources.

Reasons for removing notable topics

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Lack of content

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If an editor establishes that a topic is notable but fails to submit enough content to Wikipedia to present the topic as a WP:STUB, or short article, then the Wikipedia review process might delete it.

Lack of sources

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If an editor establishes that a topic is notable, and makes claims in the article, but cites no sources whatsoever, then the article might be deleted. Alternatively, it might not be! Although as time passes the overall quality of Wikipedia and its standards are rising, there is no hard line here.

Merging into a more general article

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Sometimes Wiki community reviews make a subjective judgement that a Wikipedia article covers a topic which is too specific. "Overly specific" is not an established rationale for deletion or removal. Other assessments, like backing up to challenge notability or making a claim of lack of content, might be applicable arguments.

Notable article, AFD, Merge, UNDUE, recreate

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"Notable article, AFD, Merge, UNDUE, recreate" is a recurring cycle of errors in the Wikipedia community review process which results in the loss of good content which Wikipedia should keep. It happens in this way:

  1. There is a notable Wikipedia article covering a topic which meets Wikipedia's WP:Notability criteria. By definition, a topic which meets notability criteria merits an article.
  2. Someone nominates that article in the WP:Articles for Deletion (AFD) process for some reason other than notability. An error is here - if a topic is notable then it should have its own article.
  3. Wikipedia reviewers understand that deleting the article would be a mistake, but feel that a compromise would be to WP:Merge the content of the first article into the article for a general topic. The merge itself might not be a problem if the content stays intact.
  4. Often the addition of content from the first more specific article gives WP:UNDUE weight to that topic in the context of the general article's broad discussion of the topic. Editors respond by deleting good content to balance the weight of the article.
  5. When a section of an article is overly detailed and covers a notable topic, then the correct response is to WP:SPLIT that section into its own article. In this cycle, the split would be a WP:Recreation of the original article which was just merged.

The challenge of observing this cycle of content removal is that it often happens over a period of months or years. Various editors execute parts of the process, typically with no one person seeing all of this.

Cases

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In the following case, an article meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline but then failed to pass the Articles for Deletion process.

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