Help:Why was my page deleted?

First, do not take offense if a page you submitted was deleted. Most publishers (and Wikipedia is a publisher) maintain the right to reject articles that for some reason do not fit their purposes. Keep in mind, Simple English is a separate and unique Wikipedia project with its own guidelines and policies. While in some ways it is similar to the larger English Wikipedia, it is not the same. Many editors here have had articles deleted before and most see it as a learning experience. C. S. Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia (and over 30 other books) had his work rejected over 800 times before he published a single piece of writing! The important thing is if you feel an article you submitted has merit, find out why it was deleted, correct the problem(s) and resubmit the article. You may want to ask another editor for help. While Simplewiki is a small community and most editors are kept very busy with work of their own, most will take the time to help new editors who have questions or would like to know how to do something. Remember, this is about the article, not the editor.

Quick deletions

Pages and media in all namespaces that satisfy certain criteria are Quick Delete (QD) candidates. This means that administrators can delete them immediately and without discussion. The criteria include, among others, attack pages, test pages, vandalism and hoaxes, nonsense, copyright violations, or are obvious advertising (of any kind). Additional criteria includes articles that are deemed too short or which have little meaning, articles that have no content and those which are not written in English. Articles in certain areas that do not claim notability of the subject may be Quick deleted. Articles that have been copied and pasted from another Wikipedia without simplifying complex text may be Quick deleted (see Wikipedia:How to copy from another Wikipedia). For more information see Wikipedia:Deletion policy.

Find out why

Administrators often leave short codes in the deletion summary instead of typing out a full reason. Examples are "A3" (Vandalism), "A12" (copyright violation) or "A1" (is very short and provides little or no meaning). You may also ask an administrator why a page was deleted. Another place to look is Special:Log/delete. If you know the date it was deleted you can scroll down the list to find out who deleted it and why. You can also search the log if you do not know the date.

Redirecting

In addition to deleting, certain subjects may be redirected to an existing article based on community consensus. An example is music albums which do not claim notability. If the artist's page exist, an album article may be redirected to that page. Any redirected page may later be expanded into an article, providing it meets the applicable guidelines.

Discussed deletions

Under Wikipedia's deletion policy, certain pages do not qualify for QD (Quick Deletion) and must go though the Requests for Deletion (RfD) process. This allows seven days for discussion. Each participating editor gives an opinion whether to delete, keep, or make other suggestions, and a give a short reason. This should not be considered a vote. Also be aware that sock puppetry (creating another account to appear to be a different user) for the purposes of adding comments in favor of one action or another is not allowed. An administrator closes the discussion after seven days. The editors' comments are then taken into consideration when the decision is made. If there are no comments in seven days an administrator may close the discussion and delete the page.

• Editors are encouraged not to QD or Rfd a page if they can fix it (see WP:BOLD).
• If there is any uncertainty whether to QD or RfD a page, it should go to RfD for discussion.

All my work is lost

Actually, no it isn't. None of the information on a "deleted" page has actually been lost. You can request a Wikipedia:Deletion review. The request should include a good reason. A redirected page (see Help:Redirect) has a history which contains the original article. This allows a user to copy the original page to their sandbox and improve it.

Please do not resubmit the same page with the same problems. Not only will it be deleted again, but repeatedly submitting the same page is usually seen as a form of vandalism and a user could be blocked. Likewise engaging another editor in an edit war over deleting a page is not allowed. As with all disagreements between editors, discussing it on the talk page is the preferred action.

Let George do it

An idiom meaning let somebody else do it: it doesn't matter who!

Is it unfair for an editor to simply submit something knowing it does not meet WP guidelines and expect other editors to fix or improve it. Very few editors have the time (or interest) in just improving pages. Editors here are volunteers and work in their own areas of interest. Many stubs have been submitted since this project started and many of these remain stubs years after their submission. If the submitting editor does not do what he or she sees needs doing, it may not get done. In short, there is no George.