Wikipedia:The Heymann Standard

This is an essay on the deletion policy. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article or a Wikipedia policy, as it has not been reviewed by the community.

Shortcuts WP:HEYWP:HEY WP:HEYMANNWP:HEYMANN WP:KERRRZAPPPWP:KERRRZAPPP

This page in a nutshell: Articles may be improved during a deletion discussion, which may make them more likely to be kept.

The Heymann Standard has two meanings:

• It is invoked during deletion discussions to point out that an article has been significantly improved since it was nominated for deletion, as the original David Heymann article was; in such cases an editor might say "Keep per WP:HEY", or
• It can be used to describe the amount of work that an editor feels a page needs to change their !vote (not-vote) from "delete" or "neutral" to "keep" in an Articles for deletion debate. For example: If a !voting editor deems a nominated subject to be non-notable, or believes it could be notable but does not see sufficient evidence in the article "as is", the !voting editor could comment that "This page would need a Heymann Standard (or WP:HEY for short) improvement to get my !vote."

Origin

The Heymann Standard is a standard that originated from the early years of Wikipedia. It is named after the David Heymann article (as of June 2026^[update] at David Heymann (architect)), which was first proposed for deletion, then taken to AfD very shortly after it was created. The author and others did a great deal of work on the article while the debate was taking place and the article was both vastly improved and overwhelmingly kept. When first nominated, the page was an unsourced, two-sentence stub that looked like this. Three days later, it had fourteen independent sources and had become this. A short time later it was listed as a Good article. Following a Good article reassessment three years later, the article was delisted to C-class but this does not affect the principles discussed here.

Why invoke

Debates involving possibly non-notable subjects or articles lacking verification sometimes see a number of "keep", "weak keep" or "keep and expand" type !votes, but little willingness to actually improve the article or demonstrate its notability. Invoking the "Heymann Standard" is an expression of:

1. Desire to see quality content on Wikipedia
2. Belief in a reasonable standard of notability
3. Demand for compliance with WP:Verifiability, an official policy
4. Respect for contributors willing to improve articles of questioned notability

See also

• WP:Deletion to Quality Award
• The 2012 edit summary that is the origin of the Wikipedia shortcut WP:KERRRZAPPP leading here.

References