Wikipedia deletions: Why articles vanish and who decides
When an article disappears from Wikipedia, it’s not because someone clicked delete—it’s because a Wikipedia deletion, the formal process of removing content based on community consensus and policy violations. Also known as article removal, it’s one of the most watched, argued-over, and misunderstood parts of how Wikipedia works. Thousands of pages are nominated for deletion every year. Most are kept. Some are merged. A few get erased completely. And behind every deletion is a story—about bias, credibility, power, or just plain confusion over what belongs on the site.
Deletions don’t happen in a vacuum. They’re tied directly to notability guidelines, the rules that decide whether a person, event, or topic is significant enough to warrant its own Wikipedia page. A local business? Usually not notable unless it’s won awards, made headlines, or changed its industry. A small-town mayor? Only if they did something extraordinary—or got caught doing something terrible. These rules aren’t written by bosses. They’re shaped by volunteers who spend hours debating whether a topic meets the bar. And those debates often spill into Wikipedia moderation, the system of policies, tools, and volunteer roles that enforce content standards across the platform. Moderators, administrators, and even bots help flag low-quality pages, but the final call? That’s up to the community.
Some deletions are clean and quick. Others turn into months-long fights. You’ll find editors defending articles about obscure musicians, forgotten activists, or niche hobbies. You’ll also see pages removed for being promotional, poorly sourced, or full of original research. And then there are the cases that make headlines—like when a politician’s page gets deleted after a scandal, or when a university tries to push a glowing bio into the encyclopedia and gets shut down hard. These aren’t just about rules. They’re about who gets to be remembered in public knowledge.
What you’ll find in this collection are real stories behind those deletions. How editors fight to save pages. How policies shift after high-profile removals. How new tools help spot low-quality content before it even gets flagged. And how the people who run Wikipedia are trying to make the system fairer—not just for English speakers, but for everyone.
Proposed Mergers vs Deletions on Wikipedia: How to Decide
Learn how Wikipedia decides whether to merge or delete articles - based on notability, sources, and policy, not opinion. Understand the real process behind content cleanup on the world's largest encyclopedia.
