Lately, a lot of people have been asking me: "Yoric, you roguishly handsome, charming, clever, sexually irresistible leader of men, am I allowed to delete a page? What if it's a page I created? How exactly does the deletions process for the SCP wiki work?"
The answers to these questions are, respectively: probably not, go for it, and fairly complex, so it seems prudent of me to create this here guide page to help out any new users confused by our system. Here goes nothing.
Standards of Deletion
On the SCP wiki proper, when an article, story, log, or other page reaches -5 votes, it is brought to the attention of the Senior Staff, who can be read about in brief on the guide to newbies page. The staff will then have the option of making a post in that page's discussion thread suggesting that the page be deleted. These posts will be titled "Staff Post", "Admin Post", or some other such variant, to signify that they are not to be replied to by regular users of the wiki. While there is no official punishment for a nonstaff member attempting to reply or vote, bear in mind that your comment will be ignored at best and make staff angry at you at worst, so just don't do it.
You may wonder why we choose to place these vote threads in the discussion pages themselves rather than hosting them on the admin site where the regular users do not have the option to intrude on the discussion. There are several reasons for this, foremost among them being that by conducting the vote in the discussion thread of the page in question we can draw the attention of other staff members to that page more easily than if we held it elsewhere. Another reason is that this method allows the creator of the page to watch the progress of the vote, giving them greater incentive to address the issues causing the downvotes.
The vote will go on for as long as it takes for four members of staff to agree that the page needs to be deleted, or the page reaches a rating higher than -5. Staff members can, and occasionally do, vote against deletion, which has the effect of canceling one vote in favor. For example, if five members vote to delete a page and two vote not to, there are only three votes in favor of deletion, and the page will not be deleted.
Currently, staff have imposed a 24 hour post creation period during which pages cannot be deleted, in order to give page creators time to see and respond to criticism on their work. This means that a page will not be deleted by staff for at least 24 hours, regardless how low its rating falls. While a page which receives four deletion votes during the grace period will be deleted immediately when the period expires, most staff elect not to suggest deletion within the 24 hour period, or prefer to wait until it becomes apparent that the page has received sufficient downvotes that it cannot be recovered. Note that pages with ratings below -15 may be deleted with no grace period.
As a note: votes from accounts which have been deleted will not be factored into the rating of a article for the purposes of deletion. For example, an article which is at -4 that has two upvotes from deleted accounts would be eligible for deletion. Likewise, an article at -6 that has two downvotes from deleted accounts would not be eligible for deletion.
Let me stress at this point that having a staff vote appear on your work does not mean that your page will be deleted. We vastly prefer that authors address the reasons that other users have downvoted their work and improve their writing in order to reach a positive rating. Again, if a page makes it above -5, all votes for deletion of that page become void. If it later falls below the -5 mark, voting begins afresh, and previous votes are disregarded.
All that said, please understand that this system is utilized by site staff as a courtesy, and the voting process can and will be waived in cases of plagiarism or trolling. Such things are not tolerated on the wiki and are dealt with harshly. If four members of senior staff (including one moderator or administrator) agree that a page has been created for the sole purpose of trolling the user base or a specific user (here defined as creating a page which has the sole purpose of being inflammatory, extraneous, mocking, or highly pejorative in content), then that article may be deleted without the 24 hour grace period. Both trolling and plagiarism are bannable offenses, and staff request that any instances of such behavior be reported, with proof, to a mod or admin.
You may see the occasional staff post voting that an article be -ARC'd, or archived. -ARC pages are pages which have fallen low enough to be deleted but are considered important enough to keep, either because of their value to site history or because they are tied in to positively rated Foundation Tales. When a page is given -ARC status, it is removed from the main SCP listing as though it has been deleted, and added to the -ARC hub page.
Self Deletion
As an author, you have the ability to delete or alter your work at any time for whatever reason you like except to troll another user or group of users. To delete a page you created, simply log into wikidot and click the "+Options" link at the bottom of the page, then the delete link just below it. A check box will appear giving you the option to rename/move the page or delete it completely. Select "delete completely", then click the delete button at the bottom of the page. Once you have deleted the page, visit the SCP Forum's Announcements section and post in the appropriate thread to notify staff and fellow users that you have deleted your page.
Note: Never select rename/move. It will make staff angry at you. The rename/move option changes the page's URL, appending the word "deleted:" before the page title. This makes the page inaccessible but does not remove it from the wiki, which leads to extra work for staff members who have to hunt it down and properly remove it.
Other reasons for deletion
Wiki policy has always been that material be deleted at the request of its creator, regardless of that creator's affiliation with the wiki or status in the wiki community. Should an author feel uncomfortable deleting their own material, an author from an external source be uncomfortable with the use of their material on the wiki, or an author who is for whatever reason no longer affiliated with the SCP wiki submit proof of authorship or ownership of that material to staff and request deletion, that deletion will be carried out with no further questions asked.
So now you know. This guide is a living document, and I will edit it periodically to adjust for changes in staff deletion standards or to answer questions I feel need to be addressed.
~yoric
