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 or a Wikipedia policy, as it has not been reviewed by the community.

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This page in a nutshell: If an article is a mess and you suspect it to be non-notable, send it to AfD or other similar deletion procedure. Merely the fact that an article could possibly be deleted is enough for some editors to expand it. PRODs can always be withdrawn; AfDs can be withdrawn if no other editors have voted "delete".

In my experience, the threat of deletion often results in some amount of cleanup being done to the article. For example, my AfD nomination for List of works about Julian Assange resulted in this being done to the article. Thus, even if it gets kept, if the creator is still active it sends them an instruction. The threat of deletion of Going Left Right (see this) resulted in me expanding it to DYK level, for example, and the threat of deletion of piri meant I expanded it by 190%.

In other words, while the proper purpose of the Articles for Deletion process is to list articles that shouldn't be on the site, it does work as an effective method of cleaning up messes. For example, if the author is unresponsive, is inactive or otherwise handicapped in improving the article (such as due to poor command of English), the article should be sent to AfD. The same applies for articles that have had lots of {{ambox}}es, such as {{refimprove}}, on them for ages. (If it gets removed without being addressed then it should be sent immediately.)

In some cases someone can just point out the fact that there is no reason for the article to be deleted and the nomination can be withdrawn, but simply knowing that an article is being considered for deletion is enough to spur some editors on to expand the article. For example, within an hour of me prodding Mark Brydon, the article was vastly improved with six references.

Remember with some messes, it is better that the article be blown up and started over because red links encourage article creation. If you think that if someone else could do a better job at writing an article than the editor who wrote the current article, have it deleted - but do ensure that the editor is given the opportunity to make improvements.

The Heymann Standard is the standard some editors use to gauge if the improvements done are of the standard necessary to change their votes from delete to keep.

Go through the page history and check its "discussion history"; has it been prodded, was it AfDd and if so what was the consensus. This is a fantastic example of where an editor failed to perform such checks and managed to send an article to AfD barely a week after the previous one was closed as keep. In the case of WP:TNTable articles, check to see if there is a version of the article that can be restored to - this nomination is a good example of where an editor failed to do so.

In addition, it is considered good practice to notify the article creator about the discussion as Twinkle has a habit of only notifying the first contributor - even if that contributor only laid down a redirect (though if the editor is interested they will probably find their own way there!), which means you may have to send out a notification manually, like in this case.

The general notability guideline states that a subject is notable if it has been discussed in multiple, independent, reliable sources. Unreferenced articles have no evidence that they pass the criteria. The same applies for unreliably referenced articles or unreferenced BLPs, for which there is {{blpprod}}. This may sound daft, but if you are willing to place references on to an AfD page, please be willing to add them to the article because otherwise they are, as it was once put, links on some random talk page, and can lead to merry-go-rounds.

If the article is CSD/AfD borderline, CSD it. If nothing else, it causes the editor to add references and expand.

• WP:TNT (for truly horrible articles)
• WP:DINC, which disagrees with this essay
• Wikipedia:NPOV deletion, situations where an article may not be able to follow WP:OR or WP:V and WP:NPOV simultaneously
• Wikipedia:Deletion to Quality Award
• Wikipedia:Does deletion help?