This version of the Deletions Guide is made to provide an exhaustive reference tool for staff with questions, concerns, and comments about the processing of articles which have reached the deletion threshold. The version which is designed for users is location on the wiki itself where this guide used to be kept.
Foreword
In order to maintain our standards of quality, pages found to be substandard are deleted. These deletions are, in the vast majority of instances, decided upon by the community through voting and carried out by the administration. There are exceptions for submissions that are found to be in violation of site policy. Below is a concise explanation of standard deletions policy, summary deletions policy, and other pertinent information. No matter the reason for deletion, deletions are always announced, with reasons clearly given.
Grace Period
Pages are afforded a grace period of 24 hours after its regular deletion confirmation has been posted, during which time they are not eligible for deletion though they can be voted on for deletion by staff. There are circumstances in which this grace period is waived (see Summary Deletion below), but generally speaking, it’s safe to assume this applies.
Standard Process
When a page’s rating falls to -10, that page becomes eligible for deletion. A member of Senior Staff will then remove all tags from the page and replace them with the deletion-range tag. They will make a post in the page's discussion thread, titled "Staff Post - Deletion Confirmation", which will carry a timer to denote its 24 hour grace period. Only members of Senior Staff are to reply to these posts, and generally will do so in one of two ways: concurring or voting against. A vote against deletion negates one vote for.
When a page reaches three Staff votes for deletion, and its deletion timer has run out, the deletion-range tag is to be replaced with the deletable tag and a Mod or Admin will carry out the actual deletion. 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. The Mod or Admin will then make a post in the current deletions thread on the announcements forum, stating the deletion has been carried out, confirming the number of votes and the page's final rating.
If a page’s rating rises above -10 during an active Deletion Confirmation or during its transitional 'deletable' phase, all votes for deletion prior to this are voided. Should it fall again, voting for deletion must begin anew, though it does not get a new grace period.
In very rare cases, an author may be granted a stay of deletion to make edits or rewrite a page. 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, such as interviews, incidents, experiment logs, fragments, and the like, will be automatically deleted when their parent page is. In the event that Staff determine that supplementary materials could stand on their own as Tales and should the author wish so, supplements may be exempted from deletion when their parent is deleted. Authors may repost supplements as standalone works to be judged separately as they see fit.
Reasons for Deletion Without Grace Period
Rewrite
In the event that an article or story has been rewritten, a page may be deleted to clear the page score and provide the rewritten article a clean slate with which to proceed. Pages will only be deleted for this reason if the rewritten article or story is complete and ready to post, and the author has gone through the appropriate channels and has been approved by a majority vote of the Rewrite Team.
Summary Deletion
When a page is summarily deleted, the normal Deletions process is ignored. Instead, a member of Senior Staff will post in the discussion thread for the page with a post titled "Staff Post - Summary Deletion" in which they will outline their reasons for initiating Summary Deletion. They will then seek at least one other Senior Staff member's agreement on their reasons for Summary Deletion. If such a witness can be found, the page may be summarily deleted. These Deletions are announced as normal, and should include the deleting party and their witness for reference. Copies may be retained for record-keeping purposes.
Reasons for Summary Deletion
Trolling
If Staff believe a page was posted with the intent of trolling, it may be summarily deleted.
Plagiarism and Intellectual Theft
If a page is believed to have copied from another work, in part or in whole, on this wiki or elsewhere, or if it conceptually borrows heavily from another work, and if the new work makes no effort to credit the original work or its creator,1 it may be summarily deleted on the basis of plagiarism or intellectual theft.
Articles Outside of Range
The SCP mainlist articles are currently restricted to numbers between 001 and 7999 (Series I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII). In the event that an article is posted outside of this range, staff may begin Summary Deletion. Authors may repost their articles within the acceptable range as they see fit.
Collaborative Posting
All posted works must be written by the user that posts the work, unless specifically noted as being a collaboration between one or more site users that are current members of the SCP-Wiki at the time of publication. Collaborative works must indicate which site users collaborated in the creation of the article in question.
- Surviving articles that are improperly attributed will be given a grace period of 48 hours from notification, where poster will be given the opportunity to provide correct attribution. After the expiration of that timer, articles that have not been corrected will be subject to summary deletion, regardless of vote count.
- Failure to abide by this policy will result in disciplinary action, according to the usual escalation procedures.
- This does not exempt articles from deletion via the standard voting process, should downvotes exceed stated thresholds.
Other reasons
Malicious content, such as links to viruses, sexually explicit material, spam, advertising, and illegal content are all grounds for summary deletion.
Pages that are physically harmful towards anyone who has any form of photosensitive epilepsy, or toward any user in general.
Pages that are clearly unfinished (e.g. articles with blank sections or [insert text here] notes) are subject to summary deletion, as only finished works should be submitted to the mainsite. Staff may vote for summary deletion at the posting of the article, but will not carry out the deletion until 30 minutes after the last published edit by the author. The deletion will not occur if there is an active page edit lock.
Failed self-deletions are also grounds for Summary Deletion (see below).
Summary deletion may also be enacted if members attempt to "game" site procedure, such as re-posting an un-rewritten article in an attempt to get around downvotes.
Other Pertinent Information
Author Request
If an author should request their material be removed, and be able to prove authorship beyond a reasonable doubt, these requests are granted with no further questions asked.
Self-Deletion
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", and selecting checkbox for, "Delete Completely". Be sure to select "Delete Completely", as a failure to do this does not remove the page, it simply moves it to the "Deleted" category. Self-deletions should be announced in the current deletions thread in the Announcements forum, just like any other deletion.
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 as a Summary Deletion. Please feel free to bring improper deletions to Staff's attention, but don't revert or edit them yourself. Authors may mark an article for self-deletion by clicking "Options" at the bottom of the page, and clicking "Delete." This will move the article to the deleted:scp-XXXX category. Once moved here, articles may no longer be edited, renamed, or have files added. Staff will then delete the article with the next round of deletions.
Votes From Deleted Accounts
All votes on a page from deleted accounts are voided; if a page is at -10 with two downvotes from deleted accounts, that page is treated as being at -8, and would not be eligible for deletion. Similarly, if a page were rated -8, with two upvotes from deleted accounts, that page would be eligible. Senior Staff able to do so can install the Real Rating Info userscript from the User Tools page. This will show the actual rating minus double votes, votes from deleted accounts and if applicable author self-upvotes. It does not filter out votes from banned users.
