Commons:Criteria for speedy deletion

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This page is considered an official policy on Wikimedia Commons.

It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that everyone must follow. Except for minor edits (such as fixing typos, or bringing information up to date), please make use of the discussion page to propose changes to this policy.

Commons deletion (policy)
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This page sets out the speedy deletion policy of Wikimedia Commons, explaining how to request or deal with speedy deletion. This page does not explain copyright or licensing issues; for such information, please see Commons:Licensing.

The criteria for speedy deletion specify the only cases in which administrators have broad consensus support to, at their discretion, bypass deletion discussions and immediately delete files or pages, which does not mean that administrators are compelled to delete them if there are circumstances that provide for a simple better solution. They cover only the cases specified in the rules below.

Administrators should take care not to speedy delete pages or media except in the most obvious cases. If a page has survived a prior deletion discussion, it should not be speedy deleted except for newly discovered copyright violations. Contributors sometimes create pages over several edits, so administrators should avoid deleting a page that appears incomplete too soon after its creation. There is strong consensus that the creators and major contributors of pages and files should be warned of a speedy deletion nomination; if you tag any content for speedy deletion, be sure to notify its creator.

To tag a page for speedy deletion, you may use {{speedydelete|<reason in prose>}} or the shortcut {{SD|<criterion code such as G7 for "author/uploader request", see list>}}.

General reasons

Shortcut
G1. Test page, accidental creation, or page containing nonsense or no valid content
Page contains redundant content that was previously used for testing, was accidentally created, or contains content that is gibberish or of nothing meaningful. This may also include text placed in talk pages (which has no further history) that doesn't help or refer to the related page.
G2. Unused and implausible, or broken redirect
Page is an unused and implausible redirect, or a redirect that is dependent on deleted or non-existent content. Unused talk page redirects created as a result of a page move and cross-namespace redirects may also be deleted under this criterion.
G3. Content intended as vandalism, threat, or attack
Content that is posted with the intention of vandalizing, or with the intention of threatening, harassing, or attacking another person or user. Users that commit such acts are subjected to their accounts being temporarily or permanently blocked, depending on the severity of the content. Content posted with the intention of creating/spreading hoaxes may also be deleted under this criterion.
G4. Recreation of content previously deleted per community consensus
Page or file matches content that was previously deleted per community consensus. Repeated recreation of such content may lead to the user's account being blocked. The author or uploader may ask the deleting administrator to restore the file, or file an Undeletion Request.
G5. Temporary deletion for history cleaning or revision suppression
Content temporarily deleted to remove specific revisions containing vandalism, threats/attacks, or personal information. Content may also be temporarily deleted to perform a history merge or split.
G6. Uncontroversial maintenance
Content temporarily deleted to make way for a page move, or other uncontroversial maintenance tasks that require temporary or permanent deletion.
G7. Author or uploader request deletion
Original author or uploader requests deletion of recently created (<7 days) unused content. For author/uploader requests for deletion of content that is older[1] a deletion request should be filed instead.
G8. Page dependent on deleted or non-existent content
The page or file depends on content that was deleted or no longer existing, such as orphaned talk pages without useful content, subpages without parent page, and so on. The criterion only applies to content within Wikimedia, and does not apply to external content (i.e., deleted source).
G9. Office action
Criterion reserved for office actions. The Wikimedia Foundation office reserves the right to speedily delete content temporarily or permanently in cases of exceptional circumstances. No administrator may delete content citing this criterion, unless they are officially part of the Wikimedia staff. Deletions of this type should not be reversed without permission from the Foundation.
G10. Files and pages created as advertisements
This includes only content uploaded to promote goods and services, outside our project scope. Files that illustrate contemporary or historical advertisements do not fall under this criterion.
G11. Blatant text copyright violation
Page contains copyrighted text from webpages or documents without permission.

Namespace-specific

(Gallery)

GA1. Gallery without images or other media files
Mainspace pages (galleries) that are empty or contain no useful content, such as pages that contain text but no images or other media.
GA2. User intended to create encyclopedic content
Page intended to be an encyclopedic article. Articles and biographies belong to the Wikipedia projects, and are out of Commons's project scope.

Category

C1. Improperly named category
Categories with incorrect names may be speedily deleted after their contents have been moved to a properly named category. If the old category name is also correct, a redirect should be left in place.
See Commons:Rename a category: Should the old category be deleted?
C2. Unuseful empty category
If a category is empty and is obviously unusable, unlikely to be ever meaningfully used, it may be speedily deleted. Don't apply if the page is marked with an explanation of why it should be kept or if the deletion can be controversial, the category was recently unconsensually emptied, etc. Consider redirecting or renaming the category rather than deleting it.

Commons

COM1. Improperly filled or routinely emptied deletion request or log
This includes Deletion Requests (DRs) that are corrupted or incorrect and cannot be fixed, or redundant DRs for pages that are eligible for speedy deletion; this requires either formally closing the DR in order to both close the DR and have the bot remove it from the log, or deleting the DR page and removing the daily log entry. Deletion logs are also routinely emptied as discussions are closed, when empty they may be deleted immediately. Note that this does not apply to DR archives, which are separate from the working logs.

File

F1. Clear copyright violation
Content is a clear copyright violation, with evidence that no Commons-compatible licensing has been issued by the copyright holder. This does not apply whenever there is a reasonable possibility of discovering that the work is public domain through further research or a plausible argument that it is below the threshold of originality. Repeated uploading of non-free material may lead to the uploading user's account being temporarily or permanently blocked.
F2. Fair use content
Fair use content. Such content is not allowed on Wikimedia Commons and is subjected to speedy deletion.
F3. Derivative work of non-free content
Derivative works based on non-free content (such as screenshots of non-free content). This does not apply to photographs taken in a public place, though the photograph itself remains subject to the other speedy criteria if its authorship is in question. Given the complexity of copyright rules like freedom of panorama and de minimis, it is best for such issues to be resolved in a formal deletion request.
F4. Failed license review
License review concluded that the recently uploaded content is based on a non-free license, disallowing commercial use and/or derivative works. Files tagged by VRT Reviewers as having insufficient permission, or files tagged with OTRS pending for over 30 days, may also be speedily deleted under this criterion.
F5. Missing essential information
The file is missing essential information, such as a license, permission, or source. Such content may be given a grace period of seven days (since tagging) before being deleted.
F6. License laundering
Content uploaded via license laundering techniques is a copyright violation. Users uploading in such techniques may be subjected to their account being temporarily or permanently blocked.
F7. File is empty, corrupt, or in a disallowed format
Empty file pages are subject to speedy deletion, unless they are being used as redirects. The same is true for files that are corrupt or invalid when viewed in full resolution, or are in a disallowed format.
F8. Exact or scaled-down duplicate
The file is an exact or scaled-down duplicate of an older existing file. The generally accepted rule is to delete the newer duplicate, but that may not always be the case, such as when comparing between a user uploaded file, and a bot uploaded file. For very large files, however, it may be acceptable to have a scaled-down duplicate for accessibility reasons.
F9. Embedded data
The file contains additional embedded data in the form of a password protected archive.
F10. Personal photos by non-contributors
This includes low-to-medium quality selfies and other personal images of or by users who have no constructive global contributions.

Template

T1. Duplicate template
A recently created template that duplicates an existing older template.
T2. Unused template
Unused templates (except maintenance/project templates that are substituted), are subjected to speedy deletion.

User

U1. User requested deletion in own user space
User requested deletion of their own user page or user-subpage. User pages that are blanked by the user may also be deleted under this criterion.
U2. User page of a non-existent user
User space of non-existent user. Redirects may be created (and protected) for those user names of which the account was renamed.
U3. Inappropriate use of user pages
Inappropriate use of user pages. These include user pages that contain purely advertising or promotional material, or those that are created with the intention of harassment or attack. Those that contain gibberish or unrecognisable content may also be deleted under this criterion.

Notes

  1. ↑ Older content (>7 days) may be used by external websites and would thus not show up in Special:GlobalUsage.

See also

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