User:SoWhy/Before tagging for speedy deletion

This is an essay. 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.

Shortcuts WP:BSD WP:SDBEFORE

This page in a nutshell: The spirit of speedy deletion as well.

The

Premise

The reason for Wikipedia's existence is to build and maintain an encyclopedia that strives to contain the sum of human knowledge. To achieve this, Wikipedia is dependent on volunteer editors from all over the world. But often experienced editors

Common tags

• G11

  - Unambiguous advertising

  If an article comes across as advertising for a certain product or company, it's not automatically a reason to tag it for G11. Instead, one should attempt to cut away the "spammy" parts. Even if that leaves you with only a stub, it's still better than deletion since it preserves the information about the subject that was contained within the advertising text (see also

  WP:PRESERVE

  )

  G12

  - Unambiguous copyright violation

  Try to remove the copyrighted text instead. If the whole article consists of such text, try to rewrite the information. Even a two-sentence stub on a subject is usually better for the project than removing the subject completely (especially if a short Google News, Google Books or Google Scholar search reveals that the subject is likely to be inclusion-worthy). Don't forget to tag the article with {{

  deleted

  .

  A1

  - No context

  Try to figure out the context yourself and rewrite the text to a valid entry if possible. For example, you can search the article's title at Google News, Google Books and Google Scholar. If the article contains terms used in other articles, try making a connection (for example, if the whole content is "XXX by YYY" and YYY is a notable musician, you can easily rewrite it to "XXX is a musical record by rock musician YYY", tag it as stub and add some categories - and maybe even add sources using aforementioned search engines).

  A3

  - No content

  If the article's title suggests that the creator wanted to write an article about a specific subject, Google News, Books and Scholar can be used to try and determine whether a subject by that name exists. If so, try to fill in the content by writing a short 1-2 sentence stub using the information found. The article's creator might come back later and expand it or, even if they don't, they might appreciate that Wikipedia now has an article about the subject.

  A7

  - No indication of importance or significance

  A7 is probably the most misapplied criterion of all, mostly because the article's tagged as such do not fit the criterion's wording.^[1] But even in those cases where the article fits the criterion, it does not have to be deleted. A7 tagging is where the aforementioned Google News, Books and Scholar search engines are of the most value. If the article does not indicate the importance or significance of a subject, search for it on those search engines. In 20-30% of all cases, there will be multiple unique hits of reliable sources covering the subject, which you can add to the article and with which you can indicate the importance or significance of the subject. Sometimes such claims are not easy to spot or not clear to every reader.^[1] In those cases, try to make it clearer by adding relevant wikilinks or rewriting the text.