Wikipedia:Field guide to proper speedy deletion

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.

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Speedy deletion is one of the more useful, necessary, and controversial policies available on Wikipedia. While our article creation rate is in the thousands daily, many articles, uploaded images, and other forms of content are simply not appropriate enough to stick around for a typical hearing. These articles fall under our speedy deletion criteria, which were reached by various levels of consensus, and are intended to be followed rather rigidly. Improper tagging of an article as a speedy candidate leaves more work for users patrolling the speedy deletion category, and improper deletion by administrators causes poor relations with other users and often prolongs the situation by forcing a deletion review.

This page is intended to be a quick guide to understanding the speedy deletion criteria, and how to apply it properly, with some examples of dos and don'ts.

General basics about speedy deletion

The policy is quite clear in usage – it is meant to be used in "limited circumstances," and is not the only option when approached. If the guitarist for a somewhat-well-known band is tagged for speedy deletion, consider merging the information to the band's article. If an article reads like an advertisement for a major company, consider cutting the article down to a stub-sized article instead of allowing a redlink to be created. Having second thoughts as you see an article? You can always bump it to a different criterion – Articles for deletion if you feel it might be able to use more discussion, or proposed deletion if you don't think anyone will miss the content.

If you still feel that speedy deletion is right for you, here's a quick explanation of how the policy is structured:

The criteria for speedy deletion are divided into sections. First and foremost, the general criteria, which apply across all namespaces, and then one set of specific criteria for each namespace; Articles, images, etc.
- Within each section are numbered criteria. As time progresses, some numbers are blended and merged, but not replaced in order to keep the references consistent.

That's it! Thus, it allows for easy abbreviation when referring to them with experienced editors off-hand: "A7" refers to Articles – section 7. "G11" refers to General 11. Some editors are bothered by the use of abbreviations like that, so consider not using them, or, in a best-case scenario, using both the abbreviation and the specific rationalization so that everyone understands what criteria you're using.

A number of templates have also been created for some of the more typical occurrences. For instance, {{db-spam}} is typically used for spam articles. A full listing can be found at Category:Speedy deletion templates.

It is also strongly recommended that you leave a message with the article creator when nominating an article for speedy deletion. While the author is not to remove the tag, they may be able to solve the problem or explain why the deletion would be improper by explaining on the talk page. Please be courteous – speedy deletion can be a tough process for some to swallow.

Perhaps the most important thing to note about speedy deletion is that there is no catch-all; if a page doesn't fit any of the strict criteria, you must use another deletion process, no matter how inappropriate you think the page is.

General criteria

1. Patent nonsense

The first general criterion seems simple on its face, but has historically been more confusing than it seems. The criterion states Patent nonsense and gibberish, an unsalvageably incoherent page with no meaningful content. This does not include: poor writing, partisan screeds, obscene remarks, vandalism, fictional material, material not in English, badly translated material, implausible theories, or hoaxes. Unfortunately, many users ignore the part beyond "no meaningful content."

Thus, an example of "patent nonsense" would include:

A page with a bunch of the following: "[[Media:Example.oggItalic text ==funny yeah!"'$^#%DG$']" (I've actually seen similar things to this)
A page that actually looks good, but then starts going into an incomprehensible drivel: "Following the second World War, Xenu hot dog mcgilicuddy." (I haven't seen this, but I wish I had).
A page consisting of "word salad", or meaningful words that are arranged in a seemingly random manner conveying no actual meaning: "Moosh drives like a horn because his tie is not more than a crablike queefish."

The second part of this is where many users get confused. Often, new users will have poorly-formatted sections added to the end of an otherwise legitimate article, or may use much more flowerly and unnecessary language to get the point being made across. This is not patent nonsense. It may be inappropriate, it may be deleted anyway, but it doesn't fit this criterion, and calling a user's contributions "patent nonsense" when it clearly isn't is not a good way to forge a working relationship.

So, in short, a good rule of thumb is this: If you can't figure the text out because it's not in any language or is completely incomprehensible for reasons not involving education or knowledge ability, it is patent nonsense. If you have to think, even for a second, about whether it's patent nonsense, it probably isn't. Common examples of text that does not fall under the definition of patent nonsense includes the following:

Raw machine-translated text that is incoherent, but still somewhat meaningful.
Poorly-written content, often by new users or those with limited English proficiency, that still manages to convey meaning, e.g. "Wikipedia i think is a really cool place bcoz any1 can edit it its supposed to be the biggest encycopleedia ever! :D"
Joke pages, or pages about topics that are seemingly nonsensical, but where the writing is not itself incomprehensible, e.g. "John Doe goes riding on his pink elephant every day to North Korea to procure chairlift parts for the King and Queen of Candy-Town!" (This would be eligible for speedy deletion under A11 instead).

Another frequent mistake is to use G1 as a carte blanche. G1 is not a replacement to delete material that falls under What Wikipedia is not or is otherwise unsuitable for inclusion but which is not covered by another criterion. It does not cover dictionary entries, made-up things or anything else listed as non-criteria.

As stated, this criterion is not intended for hoaxes or other vandalism; it means nonsense as in gibberish/unintelligible. Nonsense as in absurd falls under G3, assuming the content was created in bad faith.

2. Test pages

Often, some articles that aren't patent nonsense are test pages. Often, many of the people who create these pages then ask for the deletion themselves. Sometimes they even do it in the text of the article ("I didn't mean to do this, please delete it"). A test page will actively look like a test – it won't have any content that is actually an article, and will likely even give some indications that it was a test.

G2 is sometimes considered something of a good-faith counterpart to G3. However, this does not mean it is a catch-all for stuff that isn't speediable under other criteria.

3. Pure vandalism or blatant hoaxes

This is usually clear cut. Articles that simply have a photo of a penis transcluded on it, a page consisting entirely of "I LIKE POTATOES", and the like – that's "pure vandalism." What many people make the mistake of is not checking the page history to see if there is a non-vandalized version available. Complex vandalism often takes place on low-profile articles, so assuming that an article you may not have heard of is simply created due to vandalism may be improper. For an example, see this page change on Jeremy Barnes. This page was seen as vandalism and speedy deleted as such, although a proper version existed in the history. If you're doing vandalism patrols, keep up the good work, but be careful of coherent content in the page histories.

The criterion also applies from redirects created during a cleanup of page-move vandalism.

Obvious hoaxes also go under this criterion, as deception becomes clear so that it constitutes vandalism.

4. Recreation of XfD-deleted material

The only way that the recreated deleted material can be deleted again through G4 is if the page was deleted under a consensus reached in one of the six deletion discussion venues. The recreated page may only contain some slight changes from the deleted page, which must clearly fail to address the reasons for which the page was deleted. If the difference is not slight, G4 doesn't apply. If someone writes an article that states: "John Doe is a chef from Kansas City, Kansas," sees it get deleted by AfD consensus for non-notability, and then an article on the same topic is created stating: "John Doe is a world-famous chef from Kansas City who won the Congressional Medal for Barbecue," this page cannot be deleted under G4. Furthermore, if an article is brought to Articles for deletion and deleted due to lack of sources indicating notability, the article does not fall under G4 if a new article featuring sources that possibly attempt to demonstrate notability is created – it instead has to go through the AfD process again.

G4 being a general criterion means that it is relevant in all namespaces but does not mean that it generalizes content in a namespace-insensitive way. Deletion reasons are not the same across namespaces, and consensuses across different deletion discussion venues corresponding to different namespaces are only partially interchangeable. In practical terms, G4 mainly operates within the same namespace as that of the page for which a consensus to delete was reached (using a process that corresponds to that namespace; note that redirects have RfD as a dedicated venue and redirects are not a namespace, but the same logic applies). More precisely, G4 does not apply when the material is recreated in a namespace in which the reason to delete identified by the consensus-based process is not also a reason to delete under the policy for that namespace. For example, if an article was deleted due to notability not being met, recreating identical material in draftspace would not mean that G4 applies, because that particular deletion rationale does not play a serious role in deciding whether to delete or keep a draft. The consensus was to delete an article, not a draft, for reasons that the article was not suitable as an article, which does not mean that the draft is not suitable as a draft. To G4-delete a draft, the page it copies also needs to have been a draft, deleted through a Miscellany for deletion discussion. Still, some reasons to delete extend across namespaces, so if an article was deleted as a page that existed primarily to disparage its subject (but was maybe not quite a G10 case) and a substantially identical copy is created in draftspace, that draft would be subjectable to G4, because unlike notability which is article-specific, the latter type of lack of appropriateness is not (it is not just that the article was not suitable as an article, it is that the mainspace page was not suitable as a page). However, if an administrator considers the recreation to have been simply to circumvent the consensus to delete, which is not a general assumption but is a judgement call made on a case by case basis (because it means not assuming good faith), deleting is appropriate, and G4 does, in fact, become namespace-insensitive.

If you do encounter people recreating content deleted through one of our processes, consider bringing it to deletion review, or suggesting to the user recreating the content to do so. It is highly probable that new users, especially, are unaware that we have a process for restoration of material inappropriate for inclusion at Wikipedia.

5. Content from blocked or banned users

The idea behind banning a user is that none of their contributions are welcome at Wikipedia, regardless of the quality. There is nothing stopping a user in good standing from reinstating good edits and articles to stand behind them, but banned users are not allowed to contribute to the project.

It is important to note that this only applies to creations after their ban. If a user has 10,000 edits and then gets banned, the first 10,000 edits that user makes do not fall under this criterion, but anything done by ban avoidance beyond that are. If a blocked user created George Washington before their ban, we wouldn't delete that article.

6. Housekeeping

Regular users can't move pages over other pages with page histories. This simply allows administrators to do so. Most users never encounter situations like this. Likewise, this criterion is also used for temporary deletions by administrators to sort out confused page histories. This criterion also allows pages to be deleted if they were unambiguously created in error; the common ground between deletions under this criterion is that they're all noncontroversial maintenance tasks that don't actually remove information.

Note: This is not a catch-all for stuff that doesn't fit any other criterion; it is only for pages that need to be deleted for technical reasons.

7. Author requests

So you're creating an article, and then you figure out that another page exists with similar, better content (though a redirect should often be used in this case, not deletion). Or you're making a page on an obscure historical figure, and decide that there's not enough material to create an article with. As long as no one else has made any substantial changes to your text, you can request a deletion through this criterion. Or you just screwed up and created a page with a title like User:User:Example.

Users making a request for a page to be deleted do not have to do so by posting a speedy deletion tag themselves: affirming the desire to have the page deleted, or blanking the page can be considered an implicit request. Checking the page history is essential for this criterion (so you can be sure the right person made the request).

8. Dependent on a non-existent page

There are several such examples - Talk pages of deleted pages, file descriptions with no file and categories that were populated by a deleted template are some examples. This should never apply to a page that is useful to the project, such as any kind of deletion discussion.

As long as the article's talk page doesn't predate Articles for deletion (when deletion discussions took place on article talk pages as opposed to a centralized location), talk pages of deleted articles generally get deleted. This only generally concerns article space and Wikipedia:-space pages, and not user pages, nor talk archives. If there's discussion about how to recreate an article properly on the page, consider suggesting to the users on that page to head to deletion review, where such discussions are generally expected.

A redirect to a page that doesn't exist can be speedy deleted. First, check that it hasn't been vandalised or accidentally broken.

Sometimes a category is populated by placing templates on pages. If this template gets deleted, the category can then be speedy deleted.

9. Office actions

Wikipedia:Office actions. The Wikimedia Foundation office can delete articles for reasons not immediately explained to the rest of the project. The actions are clearly marked and irreversible without input from the Office itself. This does not concern most editors.

10. Attack pages

Attack pages are pages which serve only to disparage a person or other entity, being composed solely of insults or pure slander (e.g. "John Doe is a bloody idiot who deserves to burn in hell"), or consisting of prose that, whilst written in an encyclopedic tone, portrays a living person in an entirely negative light and contains no sources to back up the negative claims (e.g. "John Doe is a disgraced former actor, who worked for ACME Studios until his dismissal in 1998 for the theft of equipment. He later committed a mass-murder at their Hollywood studios in retaliation, and is currently on death row after being convicted.") Before tagging a page with this criterion, be sure to check, as with G3, that there are no neutral versions in the history to revert to, i.e. that a vandal has not hijacked a legitimate article and turned it into an attack page. Pages eligible for speedy deletion under G10 must also have their content blanked whilst awaiting deletion. This is for legal reasons, because the Foundation would prefer to not get sued.

If the article has potentially salvageable text but needs more sourcing or a different balance, consider stubbing the article instead. Jimbo has done this a few times. [1][2] If an article history is deleted, the WP:FDL (Wikipedia's license) doesn't allow us to use the old text again as the basis for an improved, sourced article, unless all previous contributors are credited, usually through the edit summary.

11. Blatant promotion

Following a call to action by then-Foundation lawyer User:BradPatrick, this was formed to provide the ability to remove articles that were nothing but spam. This is one of the most misunderstood speedy deletion criteria we have, so it's important to know how to use it properly.

Blatant spam is unquestionable, unsalvageable marketing or promotion. It may only use marketing or self-promotional language, it may use the first person a lot, it may provide phone numbers or names of salespeople, it may even have requests that no one else edit the page without the consent of the firm behind it. Everyone agrees that these are articles that do not belong here.
Blatant spam is not articles with a questionable tone ("Computer Solutions, Inc is a leader in providing technology solutions to consumers in the United States. Formed in 1994, it is a Forbes top pick..."), or articles about companies that are not promotional in nature (such as brands of cookies).

Essentially, if you believe the article is salvageable, it is not blatant spam. Period. If it's been through a consensus process already, it's been vetted and is not blatant spam. Please be careful using this criterion.

Note that if an article looks the type of text you would expect to find in a "about us" section on a company webpage, then chances are that it is just that. Run a Google check on part of the text, and that will usually reveal if it is a plain copy. Typically, companies don't release their content under a workable license, so submissions like this are considered copyright violations and are usually deletable under the next criterion in addition to this one.

For promotional user pages created by an account with a promotional username, they qualify under this criteria with the use of {{Db-spamuser}} and immediately report the username to Usernames for administrator attention.

This criterion also covers promotion of opinions.

Note: This criterion is about the page's content, not its creator. A page should not be tagged for G11 speedy deletion simply because it is an autobiography or the author otherwise has a conflict of interest. Although it is true that autobios and articles created by COI editors are often also blatant advertising, often does not mean always. If the page is written in a reasonably neutral point of view (it needn't be absolutely perfect), it's not a G11, regardless of who created it.

12. Copyright infringement

For clear copyright infringement – watermarked photos, cut-and-paste copies of websites that do not use a proper license, pages from a book. This, again, is to protect against lawsuits – copyright litigation can be very pricey. If there's a question as to whether it's infringing (it looks like a copyright violation, but you can't prove it), bring the issue to Wikipedia:Copyright problems (or Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images), which is better equipped to handle the issue. Always try to verify that you are not looking at a Wikipedia mirror or page that is copying Wikipedia such as Answers.com. Since articles on Wikipedia are published under the GFDL, other sites can copy Wikipedia word by word so long as they acknowledge the Wikipedia editors who worked on the article as the source.

13. Abandoned Drafts or Articles for creation submissions

Any Drafts or Articles for creation submissions that have not been edited for more than six consecutive months (excluding most bot edits) qualify for deletion under this criteria. If anyone requires these pages again after being deleted, they can do so at Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion.

14. Unnecessary disambiguation pages

This applies to any disambiguation page linking to only one Wikipedia page and whose title ends with a "(disambiguation)" identifier, or any disambiguation page that does not link to any Wikipedia page regardless of title. For the former case, ensure that the target page is not itself a disambiguation page before tagging.

Articles

Articles are, by far, the most likely to fall under a speedy deletion criterion. Many of these are very controversial, new criteria are rarely approved, and it is expected that these are followed as closely as possible. Because of the wider use, there's also wider misuse, and it's important to know when a criterion actually applies, or it will only cause problems.

1. Context

The text of the criterion is "Very short articles providing little or no context." Context is not the same as content.

Examples lacking enough context: "He likes to play rugby." "Fourth track from the album." "Complete badass from Washington high."
Examples of short articles with context: "Joe, Montana is a small town located in rural Montana." "1984 is a book by George Orwell."

Note the difference – the first examples offer nothing (or too little) for anyone to build off of, it lacks any context to expand upon, while the latter examples, short as they are, clearly and specifically identify their topic, although the articles are hardly filled with information. If you can read the article and understand what it's about, it does not fit this criterion. If you can figure out where to go to get more information, there is context, and this criterion does not apply.

A user should wait 10 minutes after page creation before applying this criterion to the page.

This criterion is only for cases where no reasonable editor can tell what the article is, or is supposed to be, about. If you know what the subject is, but think it needs additional context for those unfamiliar with it, use {{Context}} instead.

2. Foreign language articles

A2 applies to foreign-language articles that have been copy-pasted directly from another Wikipedia project in that language. It does not apply to any non-English article that is not an exact duplicate of a foreign Wikipedia page; such articles should be checked using a machine translation tool to evaluate their suitability, and if the translated content would meet any of the other speedy deletion criteria (such as if the text is promotional in nature, or we already have an English article about the same topic), the page may be tagged for deletion under said criterion. Otherwise, if the article has salvageable content worth translating, tag it with the template {{notenglish}} to send it to Wikipedia:Pages needing translation.

3. No content whatsoever

"No content" means "No content." It doesn't mean "some content." It doesn't mean "it's a short article with nothing I consider of worth." It doesn't mean "poor quality stub." It means "no content." Thus, an article with just an external link or a link to another article lacks actual content. An article that says "Pikachu is a Pokemon" is not no content. This is simple, but often misused. Be sure to check the page history: a blank or empty article may have previous versions that aren't empty. If the article is empty because it was blanked by the creator and sole editor, it may be more appropriate to delete the page under G7 (author request), as this better captures the reasoning.

A user should wait 10 minutes after page creation before applying this criterion to the page.

7 & 9. No credible indication that the subject may be suitable for inclusion

A7 is considered by some to be the most misused criterion; although it is often misused as such, it doesn't simply mean "non-notable." Controversial in implementation, proponents believe that it is essential to the working of the project, opponents point to the misuse and question the actual consensus for the criterion. Regardless, it exists, and is very specific:

This applies to any article about a real person, individual animal, commercial or non-commercial organization, web content, or organized event that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant, with the exception of educational institutions. This is distinct from verifiability and reliability of sources, and is a lower standard than notability. This criterion applies only to articles about the listed subjects; in particular, it does not apply to articles about products, books, films, TV programmes, albums (these may be covered by CSD A9), software, or other creative works, nor to entire species of animals. The criterion does apply if the claim of significance or importance given is not credible, and any article with a blatantly false claim may be submitted for speedy deletion as a hoax instead. If the claim's credibility is unclear, you can improve the article yourself, propose deletion, or list the article at Articles for deletion.

The only articles that qualify under this criterion are (real) people, groups, organizations (except educational institutions), animals, organized events, and web content.
Articles about these subjects, for example, do not qualify for A7 :

Schools
Books
Movies
Software or video games
Instructions on how to do or make something
Services or manufactured products or goods

Though they may be speedily deletable under other criteria.

Furthermore, an assertion of importance or significance can often be derived, but is not explicitly tied to, the various guidelines for notability concerning people, musicians, groups, and web content. For instance, the music criterion notes that a band who has toured nationally is considered notable, so if an article states that "The Stuffed Bunnies are an electroclash band that toured the United States," it doesn't qualify as an A7. Furthermore, assertions that a person is widely noted, that a company is the largest provider of something, or a website was featured on television are all valid assertions and do not qualify as A7.

It is very important to note the following:

"significant" and "important" do not mean "notable."
"credible" does not mean "verifiable" or "sourced."; credibility is a lower standard than verifiability in a similar vein to how significance a lower standard than notability. The standard is meant to exclude claims that no reasonable person would ever believe, not claims that are perfectly believable but merely unsourced.
"may be" does not necessarily mean "is"; it is not uncommon for articles to survive A7 and still be deleted as non-notable via proposed deletion or Articles for deletion.
"inclusion" does not necessarily mean having a standalone article; despite being frequently ignored, the alternatives to deletion apply just as much to speedy deletion as they do to the other deletion processes. For example, if you run into an article about a member of a notable group, such as a company or band, but you believe that the subject is not individually notable, consider merging or redirecting the biography into the group's article. If a user has created an article on themself (e.g. user "Ricky Woo" creates an article titled "Ricky Woo"), the person might have been trying to create a userpage, and you could consider moving it to userspace.

A good rule of thumb: if there is content in an article subject that qualifies for A7 that looks like it may have importance, don't tag it for deletion. Truly unimportant subjects will be deleted through a more valid and consensus-driven process. Always keep in mind how controversial this is – if it's misused too much, people may get fed up and pressure will develop for the criterion to disappear.

Note: The lack of sources alone is not a reason for lack of notability. Check for sources before you tag.

A9 is simple: If there is an article for a musical recording (meaning an album, single, DVD, etc.) and the artist's article is non-existent (whether it was never there or deleted) and the article does not credibly indicate why its subject is important or significant then the musical recording can be deleted via A9.

10. Recently created article that duplicates an existing topic

This criterion only applies if all of the following is true: the article appears to be a duplicate of an article already on the English Wikipedia, it does not expand upon, improve upon, or add details to the existing article, and most importantly, the article's title is not a plausible redirect to the existing article. These aspects of this criterion make it rarely used: most duplicates of articles that already exist are under very similar titles that the duplicate's title can serve as a redirect to the existing article, and many others are actually better than their existing articles, in which case it may be better to redirect or merge the existing article into the recently created one. If that can't happen, see if it's a plausible redirect, and if so, redirect the duplicate to the original, and if not, only then apply this criterion.

This criterion can also be applied to foreign-language articles about topics which are already covered in the English Wikipedia, if the title of the page would not meet the guidelines for foreign language redirects if it were redirected. For example, if a user were to create a Dutch-language article Koninklijke Luchtmacht, about the Royal Netherlands Air Force, the page should be redirected to the existing English article because the topic is related to the Netherlands. On the other hand, if a Dutch-language page about the Masked Laughingthrush were created, under the title Brillijstergaai, it would be eligible for deletion under A10 as the bird has no connection to any Dutch-speaking country.

Entire copy-pastes of articles created under different titles (with no additional substantial content added) may need to be handled differently: though they may not necessarily meet this criterion, unless adequate attribution is provided in the article content or edit summary, criterion G12 (copyright infringement) will apply, as Wikipedia content is licensed under the CC-BY-SA license, which requires attribution, and not supplying such attribution is a violation of our policies about reusing Wikipedia content and thus a copyright violation. If appropriate attribution is specified, and the article title is a plausible redirect to the target, redirect it. If these two cases don't apply, then you may apply this criterion.

11. Obviously invented/coined/discovered by the article creator or someone they know personally, and no credible claim of significance

The former part of this criterion is usually easy to understand once you read the context. "Obviously invented" means exactly what it sounds, as it could refer to anything that sounds like it came out of some random person's head (like, for example, a double-decker couch). The real challenge, however, comes from the significance claim. Just because an article's topic is "unusual" doesn't mean it can't have a credible claim of significance, as some "made up" subjects do in fact become notable over time.

Redirects

Redirects are often deleted for any number of reasons. There is a process, redirects for deletion, but some often come up in speedy discussions anyway.

2. Redirects to the Talk:, User: or User talk: namespace from the article space

We don't use article space to redirect to talk pages or userpage content. It's more to make sure that readers know the difference between encyclopedia content and meta content. The one major exception is MOS-style redirects. These are commonly used as a shortcut to various Wikipedia-space articles (i.e. MOS:IMAGES redirects to Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Images), and we allow those for ease of navigation.

3. Redirects of unlikely typos

Keep in mind – if a redirect exists that seems implausible, maybe it's not as implausible as you thought. Although, redirecting Vo Vaughn to Mo Vaughn is probably not a good idea, and doesn't benefit anything, so we tend to speedy delete those.

Files

Files are also possibilities for speedy deletion. Copyright, especially, on images is a big deal, and Wikipedia is stricter than most in terms of fair use, so many of the image criteria reflect this.

1. Redundant

If we have two of the same image, why not get rid of one? No actual content is lost, so there's no need to discuss it in this case. Make sure that the item you want to keep has all the proper licensing information and that you delete the duplicate and not the original unless it was reuploaded because of a typo.

2. Corrupt or empty image

Some uploads don't work. If they don't, we get rid of them, although there are ways to test it within the framework of what Wikipedia is run off of.

3. Improper license

In order for an image to be used on Wikipedia, it must have the proper licence. There are a lot of complex licenses, so you may need to check to see if the license is truly improper before speedy deleting the article. If you're questioning it, err on the side of caution and nominate it for deletion.

4. Lack of licensing information

Similar to above – if it doesn't have licensing information, it should be removed for the protection of the project. If you know the license, you can add it, but never assume. Keep in mind, the "speedy" portion of this only kicks in after the image has been tagged with a deletion notice for 7 days, to allow for investigation.

5. Unused unfree copyrighted images

Wikipedia does allow fair use under some circumstances. One of them is that the image must actually be used in an article. If a fair use image isn't being used, it can be deleted. If you can find a use for the image, then feel free to do so. As in criterion 4, the image must be tagged with a notice for 7 days.

6. Missing fair-use rationale

Along the same lines as #5, if you do use a fair use image, make sure you explain where it's from and why you're using it. Also, if you encounter one without a rationale, you can add one as opposed to deleting the image if you feel the image adds something to the article...

7. Invalid fair-use claim

...but don't use an improper fair use claim, or it'll still get deleted. You can always fix this, too. As before, 7 days tagging please. The exception to this is if the image has a fair use tag that's completely off base (like an image of a CD cover tagged as a software screenshot); these can go immediately.

8. Images available as bit-for-bit identical copies on the Wikimedia Commons

This gets complicated because of licensing issues, but the quick answer is that if an image is a duplicate at Wikimedia Commons, we'd prefer to keep the image at Commons so any Wikimedia project can use it. Feel free to tag these if you know that the image is a duplicate, but be careful when deleting them to make sure that all the licensing issues are met.

9. Unambiguous copyright violations

Similar to criterion G12, this criterion is for images and other media from a source or creator that has not released them under a license compatible with Wikipedia's own, and where no claim of fair use has been made. When tagging images with this criterion, you can provide either a source URL or a written rationale - this latter option can be used in cases where a source website cannot be found, but the image itself indicates that it has an incompatible license, e.g. there is a watermark saying "John Doe Photography, All Rights Reserved". When checking for copyright violations, try to find the original source of the file, as contributors to external websites often misrepresent the copyright status of a file, e.g. by illegally using a non-free image and claiming it under a CC license, or by placing a public-domain file on a page that claims to reserve all rights.

In addition, because Wikipedia's fair use policies strive to protect the revenue earnings of content creators, images that are sold as commercial products, including most watermarked photos from stock photography websites, can in many cases be speedily deleted under F9 even if a claim of fair use is given - commercial images can only be used on Wikipedia if they themselves are the subject of sourced commentary in an article.

Userpages

Some user pages qualify for speedy deletion. It is recommended that if you're requesting a deletion of a userpage that isn't yours, miscellany for deletion may be a better choice, but some user pages have speedy criteria as well.

1. User request

Wikipedians are given great leeway in how to use userspace. Thus, you have the authority to delete most of what's in your userspace upon request. However, talk pages with discussion pertinent to the running of the project or other subpages with similar information cannot be speedy deleted.

2. Userpages of non-existent users

User:/ is not a real user, and the "/" character cannot be used in usernames due to technical restrictions. If someone set up a userpage for /, it can be speedily deleted. The way to tell whether a user exists or not is to go to the user's page, and see if there's a "User contributions" link in the toolbox. If there isn't, the user doesn't exist, so any content on the userpage can probably be speedy deleted. However, redirects to an existing userpage do not generally fall under this criterion.

5. Blatant misuse of Wikipedia as a Web host

This criterion applies to pages in userspace consisting of writings, information, discussions, or activities not closely related to Wikipedia's goals, where the owner has made few or no edits outside of their own userspace. In other words, userpages which were most likely created to serve as personal websites or blogs for people with little or no interest in contributing to the encyclopedia, rather than to further the goals of the project. Examples of acceptable userspace pages not eligible for U5 deletion include (but are not limited to) brief profiles of people in their Wikipedia editing role (which usually talk more about their edits to Wikipedia than their real-life background or careers), information pages such as policy essays and profiles of long-term vandals, discussion spaces, lists of articles, galleries of contributed photographs, drafts of future pages and sandboxes for test edits. On the other hand, the following types of userspace page are considered unacceptable, and may be eligible for deletion under U5 if the user has made few or no edits outside of userspace:

Lengthy profiles of people written in the tone of a personal website or résumé, usually with a full description of the person's background and/or lists of awards and accolades received and positions held, with no mention given to the user's relationship with Wikipedia.
Company profiles not written in an encyclopedic tone appropriate for an article draft, especially by users who seem to represent or be associated with the company in question based on their usernames - such pages can also be deleted under G11 if they read like advertisements.
Unencyclopedic pages about non-notable topics which would never be accepted as articles due to tone and notability, such as a detailed description of an online Roblox server that encourages new players to join, or a profile of a constructed language or fictional country.
Pages seemingly created to serve an online community other than Wikipedia, such as climate tables for fictitious cities written about elsewhere on the Internet, or a page intended to function as a discussion board for members of a Minecraft server.

Templates

There used to be T1, T2, and T3 criteria for "divisive" templates, templates misrepresenting policy, and duplicates or hardcoded instances of other templates respectively. T1 was removed in February 2009. See Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2009 February 3 and pages linked there. T2 was removed in July 2020 following Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 78#RfC: Removing T2. T3 was removed in December 2020 following Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 79#RFC: should WP:T3 be deprecated?.

Related pages

Wikipedia:New pages patrol/30-day list - problems associated with NPP, and development.