Articles for deletion (AfD) is where Wikipedians discuss whether an article or disambiguation page should be deleted or merged. Articles listed are normally discussed for at least seven days, after which a decision may be reached based on community consensus; if consensus is clear prior to the seven day threshold, an AfD may be closed early. Common outcomes are that the article is kept, deleted, merged, redirected, incubated, moved to another title, or userfied to a user subpage.
If you want to nominate an article for deletion or merging, first review the deletion policy or the common reasons to merge articles. If an article meets these criteria, follow the instructions below. The discussion could result in an outcome other than the one you nominate it for (e.g., a merge nomination can result in redirection). For pages that are not articles, list them at other appropriate discussion venues. If you are unsure whether a page should be nominated at AfD or need more help, ask on this talk page or Wikipedia's help desk.
Current and past AfD discussions
Current discussions
Articles nominated at AfD are sorted by the day they were listed. To nominate an article for deletion or merging, follow the instructions at §Process.
Read the article's talk page for previous nominations and, if proposing deletion rather than merging, make sure enough time has passed since the previous AfD.
Review the article's history to check for potential recent vandalism or poor editing.
In the Tools sidebar, check "What links here" to see how the page is used and referenced within Wikipedia, and any interlanguage links which may lead to more developed and better-sourced articles.
If proposing deletion, consider whether the article could be improved instead:
If the article can be fixed through normal editing or your main reason for deletion is one of the arguments to avoid in deletion discussions (e.g., "it's not important"), then it should only be proposed for merging or redirecting as it is not a candidate for deletion.
If the article was recently created, consider allowing the contributors more time to develop the article.
If an article has issues, try first raising your concerns on the article's talk page, with the main contributors, or an associated WikiProject, or adding a cleanup tag, such as {{Notability}}, {{Hoax}}, {{Original research}}, or {{Promotional}}.
If the topic is not important enough to merit an article on its own, consider proposing it for merging or redirecting rather than deletion. If a bold blank and redirect is controversial, AfD is an appropriate venue for discussing it in addition to the article's talk.
If proposing deletion and the main concern is notability, search for additional sources:
If proposing deletion rather than merging, the minimum search expected is a normal Google search, a Google Books search, and a Google News search; Google Scholar is suggested for academic subjects. Also search for native-language sources if the subject has a name in a non–Latin alphabet.
If possible, also make use of The Wikipedia Library, which offers free access to various subscription databases of additional resources. Not every resource will always be relevant, so it is not necessary to check it extensively, but it may be useful for specialized or older topics that might not Google well.
If you find a lack of sources outside the article, you have completed basic due diligence for deletion nominations. Even if a quick search does find sources, but you determine that they are insufficient (e.g., because they only contain passing mention of the topic), then a deletion nomination may still be appropriate. In your nomination statement, mention whether you have already attempted to locate additional reliable sources and describe how you searched and what you found.
Follow the instructions in this section to nominate an article for deletion or for merging into another article. If you wish to nominate two or more related articles at once, nominate the first article using one of the methods below, preferably the §Twinkle method, and then bundle the additional articles into the existing nomination.
You will need to write a short nomination statement, explaining why you think the article should be deleted or merged. The statement is usually less than 150 words long, though there is no required minimum or maximum.If a nomination does not recommend any course of action, such as merge or redirect, it is implied that the nominator recommends deletion. For desired outcomes other than deletion, the statement typically starts with I propose '''merging/redirecting/draftifying''' because .... If proposing a merge, make your statement specific and clear about which parts of the article should be merged; if relying on one of the reasons to merge, be specific as to how it applies.
While the fastest way to nominate an article for deletion or merging is using the Twinkle tool, some users prefer to not install the gadget, or to complete the process entirely on their own. In addition, unregistered users do not have the technical ability to create the discussion page, although they may place the AfD notice on the article.
Therefore, if you do not wish to complete the nomination yourself or you are not registered, you should instead request that someone create the nomination on your behalf. Replace ARTICLE NAME and ANOTHER ARTICLE with the title of the pages and press the button, where you will be asked to explain why you think the article should be deleted or merged.
If you want the article to be deleted:
If you want the article to be merged into a different article:
Nominate the article yourself using the "Twinkle" tool
How to nominate an article at AfD
After enabling Twinkle, navigate to the article you want to nominate
Simply fill out the form and click "Submit"!
The fastest way to directly nominate articles for deletion or merging is using the Twinkle tool. To install and use it, follow these steps:
Go back to the article you want to nominate. A button called "TW ∨" has appeared in the top right of the page! Click that new button and then click the third option, called "XFD" (see picture).
An ugly popup with many fields will appear. The options you do not understand are useless, ignore them.
Next to "Desired outcome", select what you want to propose, such as Delete or Merge into a different article (see picture). If you pick the latter, you can specify into which article you want to merge it using the "Target article" field.
In "Choose what category this nomination belongs in", you can pick an option from the list or just leave the default.
Under "Reason:", write a short nomination statement, explaining why you think the article should be deleted or merged.
Click Submit: many green lines will appear in rapid succession, letting you know that the nomination worked. If you want to see the discussion you just created, wait ten seconds without reloading or closing the tab.
If you want to nominate more than one article (for example to merge two articles into a third article), follow these additional steps.
Manual method
If you are autoconfirmed, the Twinkle method above is the quickest and easiest path for making nominations at AfD. Alternatively, if you do not want to install the tool or you don't want to use it for some other reason, you should request that someone else nominate the article for you. Following the manual method below is complicated and it is not recommended for inexperienced users. All the time-consuming steps below can be performed in just a few seconds by using Twinkle instead.
You must sign in to nominate articles for deletion. If you do not sign in or edit anonymously, you will get stuck part way through the nomination procedure.
Based on how many times the article has been nominated at AfD, add the relevant templates at the top of the article:
If this is the first nomination, insert {{subst:afd1}} .
Instead, if the article has been nominated before, insert {{subst:afdx|2nd}}, {{subst:afdx|3rd}}, etc.
If you are nominating for merging, add the |outcome=merging and |target=First article you nominated parameters, e.g. {{subst:afd1|outcome=merging|target=foo}} or {{subst:afdx|2nd|outcome=merging|target=bar}}
Publish your changes, using an edit summary such as Nominated article at AfD; see [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/NominationName]]. Do not mark the edit as minor.
The NominationName is normally the article name (PageName), but if it has been nominated before, use "PageName (2nd nomination)", "PageName (3rd nomination)", etc.
If you are nominating for merging, also tag the target article by inserting the following at the top of the article or target sections: {{Merge from|Name of the article|afd=NominationName|date=October 2026}}
II – Create the article's AfD discussion page.
The resulting AfD banner at the top of the article should contain a bolded link to a "Preloaded debate": click it and follow the instructions that will appear above the text editor.
Alternatively, you can also do it manually:
The resulting AfD banner will contain a bolded link that says "... discussion page": click it to open the AfD discussion.
Insert this text: {{subst:afd2 | pg=PageName | cat=Category | text=Why you are nominating the article}} ~~~~
Replace PageName with the name of the page, Category with a letter from the list M, O, B, S, W, G, T, F, and P to categorize the debate, and Why you are nominating the article with the reasons the article should be deleted or merged.
At the top of the list on the log page (there's a comment indicating the spot), insert: {{subst:afd3 | pg=NominationName}} Replace NominationName appropriately (use "PageName", "PageName (2nd nomination)", etc.)
If nominating similar articles for deletion or merging, it is best to make this a group nomination so that they can be considered collectively. This avoids excessive repetition which would otherwise tend to overload involved editors. However, if you're nominating the articles for deletion and an article in the group has a significantly better chance of standing on its own merits, it should not be bundled—nominate it separately.
Examples of articles which may be bundled into a single nomination for deletion or merging:
A group of articles with identical content but with slightly different titles.
A series of similar articles or lists that can be merged into their main page.
A series of articles on nearly identical manufactured products.
To nominate the additional articles, you first need to tag all the additional articles.To do this, open the first article you nominated and click "Edit source". At the top of the editing window, you will see a message similar to this one:
<!-- Please do not remove or change this AfD message until the discussion has been closed. -->{{Article for deletion/dated|page=Blah blah blah
<!-- Once discussion is closed, blah blah blah<!-- End of AfD message, feel free to edit beyond this point -->
Copy the entire 4-line message to your clipboard, including the part that says ... beyond this point -->.
Then, open the additional articles you want to nominate, click "Edit source", and paste the message at the very top of the page. In your edit summaries, include the phrase "AfD: Nominated for deletion/merging". Repeat this for all articles you want to nominate.
V.
Add the additional articles to the nomination
Once you have tagged all the articles, go back to the AfD discussion page and add a comment under your original nomination listing all the articles you tagged using the {{La}} template. For example:
I am also nominating the following related articles:
:{{La|Second nominated article}}:{{La|Third nominated article}}:{{La|...
For the sake of clarity, nominations should only be bundled near the start of the process, ideally before any substantive discussion, but may be acceptable following a couple other editors' comments. If you want to retroactively bundle multiple single nominations into one, follow these steps:
Open all other AfD discussion pages and redirect all of them to the first one (example)
Perform stepV. in the instructions above (example) and leave a comment explaining what you've done, preferably with a link to [[WP:FIXBUNDLE]]
If the other discussions received any substantial comments and they were not also posted on the first nomination, you can move them and place the {{Moved from}} template to let other editors know (example)
Note that you don't need to update the tags on the articles, as they will automatically redirect to the bundled discussion.
While listing an article at AfD is sufficient, nominators and others sometimes want to attract more attention from and participation by informed editors. All such efforts must comply with Wikipedia's guideline against biased canvassing.
To encourage participation by less experienced editors, please avoid Wikipedia-specific abbreviations in the messages you leave about the discussion, link to any relevant policies or guidelines, such as notability, verifiability, or a specific section of Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, e.g., Wikipedia is not a directory, and please provide a link to the AfD discussion page itself.
AfD sorting lists
After nominating an article, you can optionally inform members of the most relevant WikiProjects through one or more "AfD sorting lists", such as the ones for actors, music, academics, or specific countries. Since many people watch these sorting pages for subject areas that particularly interest them, adding your recent AfD nomination to one of these pages helps attract people familiar with a particular topic area. If you do it, insert {{subst:delsort|topic|~~~~}} as a new comment at the bottom of the AfD discussion, to let others know.
Notify related WikiProjects
WikiProjects are groups of editors that are interested in a particular subject or type of editing. If the article is within the scope of one or more WikiProjects, they may welcome a brief, neutral note on their project's talk page(s) about the AfD.
While not required, it is generally considered courteous to notify the good-faith creator and any main contributors of the articles that you are nominating. To find the main contributors, look in the page history or talk page of the article, use the Page History tool, or use Wikipedia Page History Statistics. Respect neutrality when making invitations to participate in the discussion; selectively notifying editors is not allowed. To notify them, you can ping them in a comment on the AfD discussion, such as {{ping|User1|User2|User3|...}} Notifying contributors to the articles. ~~~~. Alternatively, you can send them a talk page message using {{subst:Afd notice|Name of the article}} (if you nominated it for deletion) or {{subst:Merge notice|Name of the article}} (if you nominated it for merging).
At this point, you've done all you need to do as nominator!
AfD discussion occurs on a dedicated discussion page, a subpage of this page named after the article. Unlike speedy deletion, AfD usually involves multiple editors to reduce the possibility of an erroneous conclusion being reached by placing "multiple layers of swiss cheese" in the process. While AfD may look like a voting process, it does not operate like one. Justification and evidence for a response carries far more weight than the response itself. When editors recommend a course of action, they usually do so in bold text; a number of tools which parse AfDs will only recognize bolded words: But the closer is most likely to read your actual comment and assess it against policy then rely on the word you have bolded as consensus is not a vote.
The most common !votes during AfD discussions are the following:
Delete is a recommendation to delete the article and its history.
Speedy delete is a recommendation to delete the article immediately as it meets one of the narrowly-defined speedy deletion criteria. If there are no objections and the articles qualifies for a criterion, the AfD discussion may be closed early. Editors should always state which specific criterion they think applies.
Keep is a recommendation to keep the page as a standalone article without merging or redirecting it elsewhere.
Speedy keep is a recommendation to keep the article and close the discussion early as it meets one of the speedy keep criteria, such as because the nomination was AI-generated or was created by a banned user. Editors !voting in favour of an early closure should always state which specific criterion they think applies in each case.
Merge is a recommendation to keep most of the article's content but merge it into a more appropriate article, and turn the nominated article into a redirect.
Merge selectively or selective merge is a similar recommendation to only merge a relatively small portion of the article's content and to discard the rest, usually because it is unsourced and low-quality or because it would otherwise cause undue weight concerns on the destination article.
Reverse merge is a recommendation to merge the articles, but in the opposite direction as the one proposed by the nominator. In practice, this means that the nominated article should be kept, and a different article (usually the target article proposed originally) should be merged into it.
Redirect is a recommendation to keep the article's history but to blank the content and replace it with a redirect
Delete and redirect is an explicit recommendation to hide the article's page history from public view but immediately re-create the page as a redirect to a different article. This is usually done because the title is a useful redirect, but the page's content cannot reasonably be improved upon in good faith and would be harmful to leave in history, such as copyright violations or entirely disruptive articles.
Disambiguate or dabify is a recommendation to turn the page located at that title into disambiguation page after moving, merging, redirecting, or deleting the article or its content.
Transwiki is a recommendation to move the article to a sister project aimed at a more specific audience, such as Wikivoyage for travel guides, Wikisource for textual sources, or Wikibooks for digital textbooks. The page located at that title on Wikipedia can be deleted or redirected to a different article.
Snowball is a recommendation to close the discussion early per the snowball clause in favour of any of the outcomes above, in cases where the decision is blatantly obvious and unanimous but the discussion cannot be speedily closed.
Contributing
Have a look at the article before making a recommendation. The best way to help AfD to continue to work is always to check things out for yourself before presenting a rationale. Do not base your recommendation solely on the information supplied by the nominator or other editors. For example, if the assertion is that the subject is unverifiable, have a look yourself to see whether you can find sources that other editors may have missed.
Anyone acting in good faith can contribute to the discussion, including the main authors of the article. Closers will discount any obviously bad faith contributions to the discussion when closing the discussion; on the other hand, a user who makes a well-argued, fact-based case based upon Wikipedia policy and does so in a civil manner may well sway the discussion despite being anonymous. When making your case or responding to others, explain how the article meets/violates policy rather than merely stating that it meets or violates the policy.
Try to always explain your reasoning. This allows others to challenge or support facts, suggest compromises or identify alternative courses of action that might not yet have been considered. It also allows closers to determine at the end of the discussion, whether your concerns have been addressed and whether your comments still apply if the article was significantly rewritten during the discussion period. "Votes" without rationales may be discounted at the discretion of the closer.
Write in your own words. Editors should not use generative AI tools to write comments. Comments, nominations, and opening statements that are obviously generated by a large language model or similar AI technology can be struck or collapsed with {{Collapse AI top}}. In formal discussions, this sometimes results in the early closure of irrelevant or disruptive discussions; at XfD venues, such discussions can be closed early if they satisfy the first speedy keep criterion. If a worthwhile conversation has already started, it may be left open. The proposer of a closed discussion may be politely invited to start a new discussion using their own thoughts and words.
You should consider alternatives to deletion or merging. For example, if you think the article should be a disambiguation page or a redirect to another article, specifically recommend disambiguate or redirect. Do not recommend deletion in such cases. Arguments commonly used to recommend deletion are: "unverifiable" (violates both WP:V and WP:NEXIST, i.e., not just currently uncited), "original research", and "non-notable" in cases where the subject does not meet their respective notability criteria.
Familiarise yourself with the policy of civility and the guidelines Wikietiquette and "do not bite the newbies". AfDs are public, and are sometimes quoted in the popular press. Keep to public-facing levels of civility, just as you should for any edit you make to Wikipedia, and avoid personal attacks and the use of sarcastic language.
Experienced AfD participants re-visit discussions that they have already participated in. They are looking for new facts, evidence or changes to the article which might change their initial conclusion. In this situation, strike through your previous comment using <s>...</s> (if you are changing your mind) or to explicitly comment "no change" to confirm that you have considered the new evidence but remain unconvinced.
Please remember that AfD is a busy and repetitive place. The people who volunteer to work the AfD process may seem terse, gruff and abrupt. They are not (usually) being intentionally rude. We value civility and always try to assume good faith. However, often over a hundred articles are nominated at AfD each day. Experienced Wikipedians have been through thousands of AfD discussions and have read and thought through many of the same arguments many times before. For speed, some employ shorthands rather than typing out the same reasoning and arguments again and again. They are trying to be efficient, not rude.
For consistency, the form for the discussion is a bulleted list below the nomination text. You may indent the discussion by using multiple bullets. Mixing of bullets and other forms of indentation is discouraged because it makes the discussion much harder for subsequent readers to follow. Start comments or recommendations on a new bulleted line. If you are responding to another editor, put your comment directly below theirs, making sure it is indented accordingly.
Please do not refactor the discussion into lists or tables of recommendations, however much you may think that this helps the process. Both the context and the order of the comments are essential to understanding the intents of contributors, both at the discussion closure and during the discussion. Refactoring actually makes the job of determining consensus at the time of closure much harder, not easier.
You should not attempt to structure or refactor an AfD discussion by adding tally boxes or reordering or grouping comments by their !votes. Do not message editors about AfD nominations because they support your view on the topic; this can be seen as votestacking. However, if you are nominating an article for deletion or merging, you can send a friendly notice to those who contributed significantly to it and therefore might disagree with you.
Editors are welcome to continue editing the article during the discussion period, for example to address the points raised during the discussion. If your edits are significant, you can add a note in the discussion. If the reasons given in the discussion are later addressed by editing, the nomination may be eligible for a "speedy keep" closure as withdrawn by nominator.
There are, however, a few restrictions upon how you may edit an article. You must not blank the article (unless it is a copyright infringement), turn the article into a redirect, or remove the AfD banner (which will be added back automatically regardless). AfD participants should not circumvent consensus by merging or copying material to another page unilaterally before the discussion has been closed. Such action may cause contention, extra process steps, and additional administrative work if undoing any copying is necessary. If you wish to merge or copy material, offer a specific proposal in the AfD discussion, negotiate with the other participants, and wait for the discussion to be closed. Even if the article is ultimately deleted, you can ask the closer for a copy of the deleted content, and the administrator can also advise you on any further steps that you may need to perform in order to reuse the content.
While there is no prohibition against renaming (moving) an article while an AfD or deletion review discussion is in progress, editors considering doing so should realize that it can confuse the discussion greatly, preempt a closing decision, make the discussion difficult to track, and lead to inconsistencies when using semi-automated closing scripts such as XFDcloser. If you move the article, note it in a new comment on the AfD discussion.
While good-faith editing of an article is permitted, editors seeking to keep an article should note that adding poorly sourced content or poor sources can backfire and make it appear to discussion participants that good sources cannot be found for the subject. Conversely, editors seeking to delete an article should not remove large amounts of sourced content from the article merely to make the article look less worthy of being kept. Using cleanup tags to indicate where content is unsourced, needs better sources, or fails verification is appropriate.
Use of multiple accounts to reinforce your opinions is forbidden. Multiple recommendations by users shown to be using "sock puppets" (multiple accounts belonging to the same person) will be discounted and the user manipulating consensus with multiple accounts will likely be blocked indefinitely.
A sockpuppet is an account created by a vandal or bad-faith contributor in an attempt to bias the AfD process. A close variation is the "meatpuppet", people recruited from outside Wikipedia to try to alter the result of a discussion (for example, if your article about a web forum is up for deletion and you post a call for other forum members to "help keep our website in Wikipedia"). Because these tactics are common, comments by new users in deletion discussions may sometimes be viewed with suspicion. These users are difficult to distinguish from legitimate new users who are interested in improving the project. If someone notes that you are a new user, please take it in the spirit it was intended—a fact to be weighed by the closer, not an attack on the person.
Experienced Wikipedians use specialized jargon in an effort to communicate efficiently. Often, if a Wikipedian uses capitalized letter abbreviations, you can find what they are talking about by affixing WP: in front of their capitalized abbreviation and searching for an article of that name. For example, if someone says "NPOV", you can find out what it means by searching for WP:NPOV. Other commonly used shorthands include:
A policy-level norm that low-profile individuals covered only in the context of a single event, when their role was not substantial, do not need standalone articles about them
Copyright violation or copyvio
The article is a copyright violation, so the removal of the copyrighted content deletion process takes precedence over the AfD process
-cruft (for example, "fancruft", "gamecruft" or "forumcruft")
The article is trivia of interest only to hardcore fans of a specific film, television series, book, game, celebrity, or forum
Standard under which a topic that has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list
On Wikipedia, essays are informal pages written by editors that provide optional advice or opinions about the encyclopedia and, unlike guidelines, have no official status or community authority
Sets of best practices that are supported by consensus; editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply
The article is about a word or phrase that is not well-established, such as a neologism (a recent word) or a protologism (a brand-new word coined and used only in a small community)
The subject fails to meet Wikipedia's inclusion guidelines because it is an obscure topic that is not documented by multiple independent and reliable sources
Total nonsense or content that, while apparently intended to mean something, is so confusing that no reasonable person can be expected to make any sense of it
Pages that have wide acceptance among editors and describe standards that all users should normally follow
POV and POV fork
The article is inherently biased and violates the neutral point of view policy or is about the same topic as an existing article and was created (forked) in an attempt to evade the spirit of that policy
Prodded or deprodded
The article was previously proposed for deletion, a half-way process between speedy deletion and Articles for deletion used for uncontroversial proposals; since it was contested, the article was brought to AfD for a full discussion
An essay-based opinion that the article should be deleted even if the topic is notable because the content is not repairable and it's better to start from scratch
When used in Wikipedia AfD debates, it suggests that the result of this particular debate does not preclude a particular option (for example, without prejudice of re-creation) and should NOT be used as an example in other and future AfD debates due to its unique situation or issues.
The XFDcloser tool is useful for automating the closure process.
AfD discussions are normally allowed to run for seven full days (168 hours), but may be closed sooner if any of certain special conditions applies. Depending on the backlog, a discussion may remain open for several more days, during which it is still acceptable to add comments to the discussion. A volunteer (the "closer") will review the article, carefully read the discussion, weigh all the facts, evidence and arguments presented and determine if consensus was reached on the fate of the article.
An admin who is uninvolved and has not participated in the AfD discussion will assess the discussion for consensus. An uninvolved editor in good standing who is not an administrator may close AfDs in certain circumstances. In accordance to the deletion process, non-admin closers should indicate their non-admin status with {{Non-admin closure (deletion)}} in the comment for the closure. Closers are expected to exercise their judgment in order to make sure that the decision reached by the community complies with the spirit of all Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Especially in controversial cases, the closer will transparently explain how they determined consensus.
The desired standard is rough consensus, not unanimity. Discussions which fail to reach rough consensus, so that the community could not decide either for or against a particular action, are closed as "no consensus"; this means that no particular action is taken, defaulting to the article being kept. Alternatively, the discussion may be relisted for further discussion. These recommendations represent the community consensus and also should not be overturned lightly. The discussion is preserved for future reference in accordance with the deletion process, both for consultation as non-binding precedent and for determining when a previously deleted article has been re-created.
Closing
You can view the day page containing debates old enough to be closed. If it may take significant time to assess the debate or perform the closing edits, consider letting others know that you are assessing the discussion by adding {{Closing}} to the very top of the page.
← Add this template in a new line at the bottom of the page
If additional explanation is needed as to why you have closed the discussion as a certain result, add additional comments immediately after '''Result''' on the first line
Publish your changes with an edit summary such as "Closing AfD, result was ..."
After closing the AfD, the discussion page should look like this:
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was result. Any additional comments. Example(talk) 07:44, 21 October 2026 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
Relisting
If insufficient discussion took place to determine a consensus or lack thereof, the AfD can be relisted by doing the following:
At the very bottom of the AfD discussion page, add {{subst:relist}} To add an additional comment upon relisting, add {{subst:relist|Comments about the relist}} instead.
Go to the day the AfD was listed; this can be found by clicking What links here on the AfD page and then clicking the AfD log page (e.g. [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/DATE]]). On that AfD log page, comment out (using <!-- ... -->) the transclusion of the relisted AfD. It should look like this:
<!-- {{Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Article}} -->
Save that AfD log page with an edit summary such as "Relisting [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Article]]".
Edit today's AfD log page to add the AfD you want to relist at the top of the list, appending <!--Relisted--> at the end of the line. It should look like this:
{{Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Article}}<!--Relisted-->
Publish your changes with an edit summary such as "Relisting [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Article]]".
If you change your mind about the nomination, you can withdraw it. Withdrawing a nomination can save other editors' time by cutting short the discussion. This might be because the discussion has produced new information about the topic, or because you realise the nomination was a mistake. To withdraw a nomination, add a note saying "Withdrawn by nominator" immediately below your nomination statement at the top of the discussion, give a brief explanation, and sign it.
The nominator can withdraw the nomination and close a discussion as speedy keep reason #1, if all other viewpoints expressed were for keep and doing so does not short-circuit an ongoing discussion. To implement the decision yourself, follow the instructions for non-delete closures.
Contesting the closure
Questions or concerns about a closure should first be asked on the talk page of the editor who closed the discussion. If that does not resolve the concerns, the closure can be appealed at Wikipedia:Deletion review. The consensus of the community about an article's disposition is generally respected, and should not be overturned or disregarded lightly. If you disagree with the consensus, it is a good idea to first try to understand why the community made its decision. You may find that its reasoning was sensible. However, if you remain unsatisfied with the community's decision, there are a few options open to you.
If you think that an article was wrongly kept after the AfD, you could wait to see if the article is improved to overcome your objections; if it isn't, you can nominate it again. If you do renominate, be careful to say why you think the reasons proffered for keeping the article are poor, and why you think the article must be deleted.
If you think that an article was wrongly deleted, you can recreate the article. If you do decide to recreate it, pay careful attention to the reasons that were proffered for its deletion. Overcome the objections, and show that your new, improved work meets Wikipedia article policies. It can help to write down the reasons you think the article belongs on Wikipedia on the article's discussion page. If you manage to improve on the earlier version of the article and overcome its (perceived) shortcomings, the new article cannot be speedily deleted, and any attempt to remove it again must be settled before the community, on AfD.
Finally, if you believe a procedural issue interfered with the AfD or with the implementation of its outcome, you can challenge the closure at Wikipedia:Deletion review, where AfD discussions are reviewed by the community over a period of seven days. The consensus reached at this forum has the authority to overturn AfD closures. Note, however, that by long tradition and consensus, deletion review only addresses procedural problems that may have hampered an AfD discussion. For example, if the participants of an AfD arrived at one decision but the closer wrongly executed another, a consensus at deletion review can overturn the closer's action. It must be emphasized that the review exists does not exist to override community consensus; if the outcome of the AfD was arrived at fairly and applied adequately, it is unlikely that the closure will be overturned after a review.
The XFDcloser tool is useful for automating these processes. Depending on the consensus, proceed as follows:
Delete
For delete closures, you should only follow the steps in this section.
Check the article's talk page for any notice that this page's contents had been copied to another page (e.g. {{copied}} or {{merged-to}}). The page history may need to be retained for proper attribution of the copied text to satisfy Wikipedia's licensing.
Delete the article, adding a link to the AfD discussion [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Article]] to the "Other/additional reason:" box. For most administrators, the box will automatically contain that.
Delete the article's talk page per speedy deletion criterion G8, placing the following in the "Other/additional reason:" box: [[WP:CSD#G8|G8]]: Page dependent on a deleted or nonexistent page For most administrators, this can be selected in the drop-down box under "Reason:".
Go to Special:WhatLinksHere on the deleted article and delete any redirects that point to the deleted article, using speedy deletion criterion G8. Also, if the AfD has shown no current scope to have an article on the subject, edit articles to remove redlinks to the deleted page; use your discretion over whether to delete the text altogether, e.g. from lists. Likewise, remove links found on category and portal pages; links on user and talk pages can be ignored, as can some WikiProject pages.
If the article was initially proposed for merging, open all articles that were considered as possible sources or destinations during the discussion and remove any {{Merge from}} notices from them; this removes them from the list of articles proposed for merging.
Non-delete closures
For all other closures, you should follow the steps below and those in the respective subsection.
Edit the nominated page and copy the {{Old AfD multi}} template that is commented out right below the AfD notice, then paste that entire template onto the article's talk page (normally above the WikiProject tags, if present). If the {{Old AfD multi}} is not present below the notice, then the AfD is likely a repeat nomination, and it will need to be manually added to the current {{Old AfD multi}} tag on the article's talk page. For instructions on how to format it, see the template's documentation.
Remove the AfD notice from the article itself; that is, everything between (and including) <!-- Please do not remove ... to <!-- End of AfD message, feel free to edit beyond this point -->. Save using an edit summary such as "Removing AfD notice, result was ...".
Tag the articles. If the article was initially proposed for merging, open all articles that were considered as possible sources or destinations during the discussion and remove any {{Merge from}} notices from them; this removes them from the list of articles nominated for merging. If there was consensus to clean up the article, place the {{Cleanup AfD}} or {{Cleanup merge}} tags at the top.
If the discussion was neither closed as "keep" nor as "no consensus", you need to perform a few additional actions: §Merge, §Redirect, §Draftify or userify.
Make sure you specify in your closure where the article(s) should be merged into; merge closures without a specific destination are not permitted. To avoid needlessly increasing the merge backlog, consider carrying out the merge yourself, especially if the merge is simple. Otherwise, follow these steps to add the articles to the merge backlog:
On the nominated article(s), replace the AfD tag with the following:
{{Being merged to| 1 = Destination article
| discussion = Debate name (2nd nomination)
| date ={{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}}{{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}}}
On the destination article, add the following tag at the top, but below any hatnotes:
{{Being merged from| 1 = Nominated article
| discussion = Debate name (2nd nomination)
| date ={{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}}{{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}}}
Finally, on the destination article's talk page, add the following at the very top of the page:
{{Afd-merge from| 1 = Nominated article
| discussion = Debate name (2nd nomination)
| date ={{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}}{{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}}}
After the nominated article is redirected to the target article, the AnomieBOT bot will automatically replace {{Afd-merge from}} on the talk page with {{Afd-merged-from}}. If the nominated article article is instead redirected to some other page, is deleted, or is otherwise removed from the merge backlog, the relevant information will be listed at Merge report for human attention.
Redirect
Normally, WikiProject tags are removed, but they can be modified to redirect-class instead of removed
Make sure you specify in your closure where the article should be redirected to
↑Seth Finkelstein,"I'm on Wikipedia, get me out of here", The Guardian, September 28, 2006. "At Wikipedia, contentious decisions are made by a process of elaborate discussion culminating in administrative fiat. Deletions go through a comment period. The process is not a vote, but the result forms a recommendation to the administrators."
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