Wikipedia:Attack page
 | This page documents an English Wikipedia policy, a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow. Changes made to it should reflect consensus. |
| Deletion policies |
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An attack page is a page, in any namespace, that exists primarily to disparage or threaten its subject. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, these pages are subject to speedy deletion. Upon finding such a page, identify it for speedy deletion by prepending the {{db-attack}} template, and warn the user who created it using the {{Attack}} user warning template. Attack pages may also be blanked as courtesy.
Once a page is tagged with the {{db-attack}} template, it will be added to Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as attack pages.
If the subject of the article is notable, but the existing page consists primarily of attacks against the subject of the article, and there's no good revision to revert to, then the attack page should be deleted and an appropriate stub article should be written in its place. This is especially important if the page contains biographical material about a living person.
Attack pages eligible for speedy deletion may be inside or outside the main namespace. However, this policy is not usually meant to apply to requests for comment, requests for mediation and similar processes (although these processes have their own guidelines for deletion of requests that are invalid or in bad faith). On the other hand, keeping a 'list of enemies' or 'list of everything bad user:XXX did' on your user space is neither constructive nor appropriate. Bear in mind that the key to resolving a dispute is not to find and list all the dirt you can find on somebody.
Negative spinout articles
[edit]When material is spunout of a biography of a public figure by consensus because that section of the article has a length that is out of proportion to the rest of the article, it is not necessarily an attack page, even if the content in question reflects negatively upon its subject. Such an article is still required to comply with WP:BLP.
Note to administrators
[edit]When deleting attack pages, it is important that you don't quote any of the content in your deletion summary. In some cases, MediaWiki will offer a prefilled deletion summary that includes some of the content being deleted; make sure you replace the summary with something more appropriate (such as "[[WP:CSD#G10]] - Attack page") before clicking the delete button.