Star Wars Fanon:Mass deletion FAQ

The Star Wars Fanon Mass Deletion FAQ is a guide to what the minds behind the ongoing mass article deletion feel are likely to be frequently asked questions. This guide will attempt to answer those questions as simply as possible and with as much detail as possible in order to help you clean up your articles to the standards we are requiring, lest they be deleted.

What’s the point of this deletion?
There are serious issues on this wiki in regards to the quality of articles and the encyclopedic nature of articles. Ignoring storyline content, as this is not taking that into account, the idea is to make a bold and large step towards making this a more credible wiki with significant improvements and quality content that the community can proudly showcase amongst the best of Wikia wikis.

How will this happen?
Until May 28, 2009, any user who is interested will use the Special:Random feature (also shown as the “Random page” button) to look for articles that fail the Manual of Style and encyclopedic standards. So how do we determine if an article gets deleted? Basically, it needs to fail a significant amount of MOS standards. If an article just has a few spelling errors here and there, then it would not be deleted. The idea is to delete articles with multiple instances of POV errors, grammar errors, spelling errors and every error you can possibly think of. It comes down to spelling, grammar, POV, structure, formatting, etc. Basically, take storyline out of the mix, and what you have left is whether or not something fits encyclopedic standards and the standards of the Manual of Style and other relevant policies.

Depending on what the issue(s) is/are, the users will tag the article with the MassDelete template. HOWEVER, other tags would need to be added as well. Tags would be things such as:


 * CleanUp
 * Fanonify
 * NPOV
 * Intro
 * Onlyinfobox
 * Tense

Once MassDelete and one or more of those tags is put onto an article (this is to tell the author what is wrong with it), the article subject to deletion. If someone objects to the tagging of the article, they can contact the person who tagged it and they can work it out together. They can call in a neutral administrator to help them decide whether it remains tagged or if it becomes untagged.

If you come across an article that clearly seems to have had a lot of effort put into it but still has issues with spelling, grammar and the like, we strongly suggest that you help to clean some of that up. Please use common sense and proper discretion - this mass deletion is for serious issues, not things that have a few issues here and there. After this one month process is over, we would put out a general wiki-wide announcement saying that authors of all tagged articles have TWO MONTHS to correct the issues in their articles.

Once they correct the issues (assuming they do), they need to present their corrections to the person who tagged their article. If that person and AT LEAST TWO OTHER USERS are satisfied with the corrections, the article will be untagged and will NOT be deleted. However, if the satisfactory corrections are not made at the end of those two months, the article will be deleted (articles that would be deleted are articles in categories such as Articles to be cleaned up, Articles to be fanonified, etc). Reviewing articles will not take place until this two month correction period, so tags may NOT be removed before then.

There will not be a restoration page like there was in the purge of uncategorized articles in the summer of 2007 - restoring articles that failed standards would only lead to them still being on the wiki without corrections, as users would likely not make the corrections.

What articles should I tag?
Ideally, a tagged article should have multiple errors to justify its deletion. If there are only a few spelling errors or one or two instances of point of view, the author should correct it themselves. Issues to look for are spelling, grammar, formatting, encyclopedic conventions, point of view and tense. Not all articles will fail all of these standards, but an article should fail more than one if it is to be tagged for deletion.

Should stubs be deleted in this process?
The fact that an article is a stub should not be held against it. Even has stub articles. The only reason a stub article should be tagged with MassDelete and potentially deleted is if it fails the standards just like any other article. Articles tagged simply for being stubs should be considered void from the process, and no weight should be given to the tagging.

Should I tag an article that I find stupid?
Absolutely not. The quality of the storyline is subjective. The only objective way of carrying out this process is to have all issues based in policy. This means that there is an excess of mistakes involving spelling, grammar, formatting, encyclopedic conventions, point of view and tense. Not all articles will fail all of these standards, but an article should fail more than one if it is to be tagged for deletion.

Should year articles be tagged for deletion if they have nothing in them?
No, they should not. Even if the year articles do not have any content, they are still likely being linked to from another article, hence the creation of the year article. If you are concerned about year articles without any content, it is suggested that you add content to it or just leave it alone.

What about articles that aren’t finished?
Absolutely not. There is nothing requiring an article to have a completed storyline, although articles should not have headers with no content beneath them. If empty headers are the only issue an article, please remove the headers.

Why is MY article being deleted and his/hers isn’t?
You may be thinking that we are singling you out by tagging some of your articles. Some of you may have numerous tagged articles, whereas some of you may have one or even none. We want to stress very clearly that we are not targeting anyone. This is not targeted towards a group of people, nor is it targeted at specific individuals. We are tagging articles with the MassDelete template by utilizing the Special:Random function, which takes us to a random page. Again, this is random. We are not going after anyone in particular. There is just as much of a chance as your article coming up through this function than there is anyone else’s.

I’m SUPER busy. How do you expect me to do this?
That is a fair question, and one that we considered when we were putting together the mass deletion. Because this is a fairly extensive process, we decided to dedicate three months to it. From April 28 to May 28, 2009, those who are assisting with the deletion will be taking part in a tagging process. During this month-long period, we will be tagging articles that we feel fail standards with the MassDelete template. From May 28 to July 28, 2009, users will have time to correct any issues with their articles. At the end of that period, articles will either be spared or deleted depending on whether or not a group of multiple users (which can be anyone involved in carrying out the mass deletion) believe that the corrections have been made.

My story is AWESOME. Why are you deleting it?
Oh, you have it all wrong. We are not judging story content here. This is not a featured article or a featured work process, so you in no way, shape or form have to meet any so-called “standards” for storytelling. Whether or not a story is good is subjective and it would be unfair to all users to delete articles based on what a few people think about a story. We are only deleting articles that fail encyclopedic standards. This means that there is an excess of mistakes involving spelling, grammar, formatting, encyclopedic conventions, point of view and tense. Not all articles will fail all of these standards, but an article should fail more than one if it is to be tagged for deletion.

We believe that you should be able to write what you want because you want to regardless of what anyone else says, but that only applies to the story. If you expect to have your articles remain on this wiki now and in the future, they will need to conform to our policies and encyclopedic standards. This is not our way of making things hard for you, but rather our way of making this wiki a more professional place that is encyclopedic in nature. Think of another added benefit: even if your story is not that great in someone’s opinion, at least they have no reason to call you a bad writer like they might now.

I fixed the problems. Can I PLEASE remove the template now?
Per the consensus reached in the original proposal for this deletion, there will be a one month tagging period. The two months after this will serve as the corrections period. We will only look over your corrections during this period, not before. You may not remove the template before then, as you may only remove it once the group of random participants has given you their blessing.

There’s probably going to be THOUSANDS of tagged articles. How can I find mine?
If you are asking yourself this question now, your best bet is to add all of your articles to your watchlist. Anytime you log on, you will be able to see the watchlist and see which articles have been edited by others. You can also set an option in your preferences that will send an email to you every time someone edits your articles. This will only apply during the tagging period.

I HATE YOU ALL!!! I’m going to let everyone know how unjust this is!!!
We highly suggest that you take a step back and seriously consider what it is you are going to say should you wish to express your displeasure with this process. It is understandable that you may not like it, but please consider that this was a community consensus of very diverse members with very different writing abilities. Twenty-nine (29) votes were cast in the proposal, and twenty-eight (28) of them were in support of it. This is not the administrators or “elitist” members out to get you. This is a community effort that all of our active members and some only semi-active members are involved with.

If you wish to discuss the pros and cons of this process, you may do so here at your convenience. We will not, however, tolerate any sort of disruption. We will not hesitate to invoke the disruption policy if necessary, nor will we hesitate to invoke the three revert rule if you decide to remove the templates without authorization. We do not want it to come down to this, but it will if necessary.