Delete pages

Editors can delete wiki pages. Deleted pages are no longer available in search results. Administrators can restore deleted pages.

Delete a page

To delete a page:

1. Open a page.
2. Open More page actions and select Delete.
3. In the deletion dialog, review the available options and select or clear them as needed.
4. Confirm deletion.
   

The following options are available in the deletion log. All of them are optional:

• Reason: Enter a reason for deleting a page.
• Other/additional areason: Provide additional information about the deletion.
• Watch this page: Selected by default. Keeps the page on your watchlist.
• Delete subpages: Selected by default. Deletes the page's subpages along with the page.

Deletion dialog with options for deleting a page

Deletion dialog

Identify pages for deletion

Before deleting a page, check whether deletion is the appropriate action. The following Special:SpecialPages can help identify pages that may need to be reviewed:

• Special:ShortPages: Lists short pages that may contain little relevant content or content that may be better integrated into another page.
• Special:LonelyPages (Orphaned pages): Lists pages that have no links to them from other pages.
• Special:NewPages: Lists recently created pages and can help identify unwanted or spam content.
  

Before deletion, also review the page version history and check which pages link to the page.

Find and restore deleted pages

To delete the page, click Actions > Delete in the page tools.

Deleting a page

Before deleting the page, you can:

• Check the version history.
• Check which pages link to this page
• Indicate the reason for the deletion: Since deleting a page can raise questions from other users, it makes sense to leave a short explanation here. This text is shown accordingly in the deletion log.
• Watch the page: If the page is restored by another user, you can receive a notification.

Mass-deleting pages

Admin users can mass-delete recently added pages from the special page Special:Nuke.

Which pages should be deleted?

You can use some pages under Special:SpecialPages to find candidates for deletion:

• Special:ShortPages: With short pages it can be expected that the content of the article is not relevant enough or is better dealt with as a paragraph in another article.
• Special:LonelyPages: Orphaned pages are characterized by a lack of transclusions or links to the page.
• Special:NewPages: Reviewing recently added pages is useful, for example, to detect spam in public wikis.

Where do I find information about deleted pages?

• Special:Log/delete: Search for and restore deleted pages.
• Special:DeletedContributions: Search for deleted posts of a specific user (or an IP address).

Recover deleted pages

Deleted pages can be restored using the Delete log which can be accessed from the page Special:SpecialPages. If the deleted page was linked to other wiki pages, the page can be restored directly via the redlink on that page.

Which pages shouldn't be deleted?

There are often more sensible alternatives for deleting:

• Move: If a page has an incorrect or incorrect title, the page can be moved.
• Copy: If the content does not match the page title, the content can be copied to another page
• Redirect: If the page content already exists on another page, the duplicate content can be deleted and a redirect can be created.
• Obsolete: The content is no longer current. You can mark the page as out of date and other wiki users can update the page later.

Related info

• Nuke: Extension for mass-deleting pages (for administators)
• Redirects
• Deleting user accounts

Delete article rewrite (2)