Users with edit rights can delete wiki pages. If a page is deleted, it can no longer be found using the search function. However, users with admin rights have the option to restore a deleted page.
How to delete a page?
To delete the page, click Actions > Delete in the page tools.
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- Obsolete: The content is no longer current. You can mark the page as out of date and other wiki users can update the page later.
