It's at the individual's discretion to delete a page, but deletion without reason is unacceptable.
I propose a new guideline:
Any page deletion without a reason will be auto-reverted regardless of the page's content.
In other words: Simply putting "delete" on a page is unacceptable and considered anti-social behaviour. If it needs to be deleted, give a reason.
Hard to enforce automatically. And what if the deletion is on the grounds that it's "offensive nonsense"? A legitimate complaint for some things (i.e. somebody posting Holocaust denial), but something which can be applied to any post whatsoever.
Well - not completely automatically, but I plan on autoreverting any page deleted without reason. Putting "delete - offensive nonsense" *is* a reason.
Note! When adding comments after the word "delete" the page needs to be less than fifty characters long. (This page won't delete even though it says delete over and over.)
Unacceptable
- "delete"
- "delete - all your base are belong to us"
- "delete - I hate the poster" (Dumb, inflammatory)
Acceptable
- "delete - offensive nonsense"
- "delete - spam"
This isn't a guideline for whether pages should be deleted or not - it's just a guideline for when they are.
The problem is, vandals will then give a bogus reason for their deletion. As a WikiSocialNorm, I'm all for GiveReasonForDeletion--I often revert deletions (assuming good faith) made without an explanation, unless the content is obvious rubbish, or unless it's somebody deleting their own stuff. But I wouldn't enforce it.
I don't really have a problem with them putting a bogus reason - because we can then evaluate it's "bogosity". It's the deletion with no reason that causes problems because there is nothing to evaluate.
Tags for deleting with a reason: