 | This is anessay on thedeletion policy. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article or aWikipedia policy, as it has not beenreviewed by the community. |
 | This page in a nutshell: For pages that are beyond fixing, it may be better to start from scratch. Starting from scratch doesn't necessarily require getting the old versions deleted first. |
A page can be so hopelessly irreparable that the only solution is toblow it up and start over, i.e., create itde novo.
Copyright violations, extensive cases ofadvocacy,undisclosed paid sock farms,extensive improper use of large language models,excessive use of buzzwords,being written like anindiscriminate collection of informationet cetera are frequently blown up.
Anyone can start over on any page, immediately, without first waiting to get the bad version deleted, as long as their version isn't itself a copyright orWP:PAID violation, or a total copy of the deleted content. Just click the [Edit] button, blank the bad contents, and start over now. This logic may also be applied to sections or parts of an article.
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 withperennial 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.
With articles, this is theTNT tipping point argument: if the article's content is useless (including all the versions inhistory), but the title might be useful,and nobody wants to write a new version at the moment, then delete the content to help encourage a new article. If you keep the article, then you're keeping something of no value until someone replaces it with something of value, when people tend to be more inclined to fillred links. When you see this as an argument to delete, don't give up. If you can repair the article in a timely manner, then you've neatly refuted that the article is irreparable. If you can't repair it in a timely manner, then this is the simplest argument to refute atWP:DRV; after all, they claimed it couldn't be fixed, but you fixed it.
Deleting severely deficient articles through theWP:AFD process is grounded in established policy. According toWP:DEL-REASON, "Reasons for deletion include [...] 14. Any other contentnot suitable for an encyclopedia." Similarly,WP:ATD states: "If an article on anotable topic severely fails theverifiability orneutral point of view policies, it may be reduced to astub, or completely deleted by consensus atWikipedia:Articles for Deletion." Thus TNT might be invoked during AfD with caution: deleting articles for the purpose of cleanup can be contentious. The purpose of TNT is cleanup (to "start over"). Other relevant essays on this topic areWP:NOTCLEANUP andWP:Deletion is not cleanup vs.WP:Using deletion as cleanup (opposing views).