The Wikipedia Article Police

I was born in Centertown, Kentucky. It's a small town (about 400 people, which is the same as the population in 1946 when I was born there). The town was incorporated in 1890 and the Centertown Baptist Church was established in 1907. I attended the 100th anniversery ceremony at the Church two weeks ago. It was a moving experience.

One of the things that made it a moving experience is that I got to see so many people I've known all my life and hadn't seen in many years. It also brought back many great memories. My earliest recollection of the Church was nicely captured in the picture below of myself and my cousin Marilyn Morton at about the age of seven (1953) taken in the Centertown Church at my Aunt Junita Ross' wedding to Reed Renier.

Afterward the Centertown celebration, I checked Wikipedia to see if anybody had posted an article about what I considered to be this significant historical event. Besides being 100 years old, the Centertown Baptist Church structure is also architecturally quite interesting. Since no one had posted anything on Wikipedia, I decided to post some of the highlights of the Church's history from the 100th Anniversery program brochure that the Church distributed.

To my surprise, within twenty-four hours my post had been deleted from Wikipedia because someone or some (probably automated) thing deemed the subject to be unworthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. In trying to understand this decision I discovered how complex Wikipedia actually is and it made me wonder just what the process is and who these editors actually might be? It is mind-bogglingly complex. Just as an example, here is the official explaination on the Wikipedia site for how to understand / contest this "deletion" decision (which of course, I don't have time to navigate):

Find out what happened

First, check the deletion log
The deletion log shows the administrator who deleted the page.
When a page is deleted, this is recorded in the deletion log along with a deletion summary supplied by the deleting administrator. To find this information, either:
Type the exact name of the page into the search box and click "Go", then click the bold red link "create this page". The deletion log will appear beneath the box that says "Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name." or

Follow a red link to the page, if you can find one.
The deletion log will show the date, the administrator's name and the deletion summary. If the page has been deleted more than once, the log will have several entries; the most recent one is the one you want.
There are three different processes that result in pages being deleted. The deletion summary tells you which:
Very brief summaries such as "A7" or "CSD A7", as well as things like "spam" and {{db-bio}}, usually refer to speedy deletion.
A summary including "prod" usually refers to proposed deletion.
A summary including "AfD", "Articles for deletion", or a similar acronym usually means the deletion is the outcome of a deletion debate.
See the appropriate section below for more information. If you're still confused after checking the deletion log, politely ask the administrator responsible for an explanation by leaving a message on their Talk page:
Click the "Talk" link next to their name in the deletion log
Click the "+" button next to the "edit this page" link
Type a subject line and your message, sign it by typing ~~~~ and click "Save".

[edit] Speedy deletions
Pages and media that satisfy certain criteria are speedy deletion candidates, which means that they can be deleted immediately and without discussion. The criteria include pages that contain nonsense, copyright violations and articles that do not satisfy notability guidelines. When deleting these, administrators often leave short codes in the deletion summary instead of typing out a full reason, such as "A7" for articles that do not satisfy notability, or "G1" for patent nonsense. These codes are explained at criteria for speedy deletion.

[edit] Proposed deletions
Articles (but not other pages or media) may be proposed for deletion by any editor. If nobody objects to this within five days, the article is deleted. If any objections are raised, the article is not deleted, but anyone may still make the matter the subject of an Articles for deletion discussion (see the next section). Proposed deletions will often be labeled as "prod" in the deletion summary.

[edit] Deletion debates
A page or media file may also be nominated for consideration in a deletion debate, so that editors can discuss whether it should be deleted. Articles are discussed at Articles for deletion; other pages elsewhere (see Deletion debates for links). Such discussions normally last five days, after which time an administrator will delete the page if there is a consensus to do so. Anyone may participate in such a debate, however these discussions are not "votes". The weight of an argument is more important than the number of people making the argument, so encouraging mass participation in such debates to avoid the deletion of a particular article will not work.

[edit] Protected titles
If a particular page has been recreated and deleted multiple times, administrators may decide to protect it so that it stays deleted. If you try to edit a protected title, a message box will inform you about it.

[edit] What you can do about it
If a page or file that you created has been deleted, please don't take offense. See our content policies and the guide to creating your first article to get an idea of what you should be aiming for. Alternatively, remember we already have 1,955,860 articles – find a subject that interests you and work on improving our existing content.
Depending on the reason why the page was deleted, there are also several ways you can try to have it undeleted by administrators. In every case, you should first make sure that the page is appropriate for inclusion in Wikipedia and, if it is an article, that its content is based on reliable sources. If it is not, your request will likely be unsuccessful.
If you feel a page has been deleted in error, or if you think you have good reasons for wanting to edit a protected title, first contact the administrator responsible via the method explained above. If you are still not satisfied after discussing it with the deleting admin, consider starting a deletion review.
If an article was deleted as a result of a proposed deletion ("prod"), any administrator should normally restore it on your request. In such cases, you can leave a message on this noticeboard.
If the page was deleted for any other reason, and you would like to be able to access the text (for example, to resubmit it in a form that meets our content policies), there are some administrators who may provide you with the content of the deleted page on your request.
If anything about this whole process remains unclear, ask for help on the Help desk.
A substantial number of new articles by new users end up getting deleted. If you are one of those new users, you may feel confused right now, and need to ask for help on the Help desk.
If it looks like your page is definitely about to be deleted, copy-and-paste the source code to a text file, for example by using a text editor (which preserves your wikitext markup), or a word processor. However, after your page is deleted from Wikipedia, do not immediately put the page back up! Otherwise, it will probably just be deleted again, and the page name may even be protected against re-creation. Either find more evidence to prove the notability of your article, or wait for more evidence to be published elsewhere in reliable sources. If you intend to put your article back up straight away, make sure to post some questions on the Help Desk to ask how you can improve the article the next time around (though, it did get deleted, and that probably means that there is not much that can be improved, or some serious research will be necessary to find those all-important reliable sources your article needs.) You can also discuss how to develop your article properly on the drawing board. If your page gets deleted before you can copy its source code, however, you're out of luck. You'll have to try and request undeletion, and this isn't likely to be successful.

[edit] If all else fails, try another wiki
As a result of Wikipedia's rapid growth, by 2007 it had become one of the world's largest and most-visited wikis. Wikipedia articles tend to rank high in the search results for many popular search engines. Prior to Wikipedia, wiki technology was not very well-known; as a result, Wikipedia may be the first wiki many people see, and the first wiki they attempt to edit on. Some people may be under the mistaken impression that Wikipedia is the only wiki, or is synonymous with "wiki". In many cases, this is unfortunate, because Wikipedia is actually a very specialized kind of wiki (an encyclopedia), and newcomers may need some time to understand what constitutes encyclopedic writing. There is much content that Wikipedia does not want, but is nonetheless useful to someone.
There are many other wikis, many with content policies very different from Wikipedia's, catering to a wide range of interests. Some of these wikis were founded by groups of former and/or continuing Wikipedia editors, who had more to say about their topic of interest than belongs in an encyclopedia. Examples include Wookiepedia (for Star Wars enthusiasts); and StrategyWiki (for video-game walkthroughs).
For almost every sort of article that would be interesting to someone, there is probably a wiki somewhere that would welcome it.
To find a happy home for your deleted article, check the List of wikis, Wikipedia:Alternative outlets, and search WikiIndex. If you cannot find a suitable wiki on your own, ask for some "wiki outplacement" assistance on the Help desk. If your deleted article is in a subject area overseen by a WikiProject, members of that WikiProject may know of alternative wikis to publish subject area content not meeting Wikipedia's requirements. Once you find a home, you can immediately place your article there if you copied and saved the source code (though it may need modifications to fit into the new website.) If you did not obtain such a copy, you will have to ask the deletor to move the source code for you.

[edit] What not to do about it
As mentioned above, please don't take offense. It's common to feel hurt or angry after seeing hours of your work deleted, but please try to work with the complex processes Wikipedians have developed to manage the world's largest collaborative editing project.
Please do not post questions about your deleted article on this page's talk page. Instead, if you have questions, post them on the Help desk.
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_was_my_page_deleted%3F"