Wikipedia:Blow it up and start over

This is an essay on the deletion policy. 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:TNT WP:DYNAMITE WP:BLOWITUP

This page in a nutshell: For pages that are beyond fixing, it may be better to start from scratch.

A page can be so hopelessly irreparable that the only solution is to blow it up and start over, i.e., create it de novo.

Sometimes, the damage is beyond fixing. Although you can edit any page to fix the page content, you can't edit the associations and social history of a page, even if you delete every trace of that page on the wiki. Most often, this is common with perennial policy proposals that have been the subject of so much fighting that even a brilliant, earth-shattering work of genius would face significant opposition just because it's proposal #3941. And no, your version probably isn't a brilliant, earth-shattering work of genius. Your best bet under these circumstances is to let the fight go and let the perennial warriors blow each other up (or at least wear each other out) and try again later, if at all.

Sometimes, the damage is fixable but the effort in doing so dwarfs the effort involved in merely starting over.

This logic may also be applied to sections or parts of an article.

With articles, this is the TNT tipping point argument: if the article's content is useless (including all the versions in

Deleting severely deficient articles through the

• WP:Delete the junk
• WP:Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater!
• WP:Deletion to Quality Award
• WP:TNTTNT, a counterpoint
• WP:NPOV deletion