Help:Sysop deleting and undeleting

Deleting a page is a straightforward operation for anyone with sysop permissions. Users without such permissions can still remove text from wiki pages, or propose/request that a page should be deleted. See Help:Deleting a page.

Before deleting
Sysops should also be aware of the general advice given on Help:Deleting a page. (It should be noted that, in particular, there are many situations where a deleting is too drastic. For example, a redirect is often more appropriate).

Before deleting you could perform various checks:
 * Use the  tool. This gives an indication as to how important a page is, and what subjects it relates to. Perhaps the page is still linked to prominently from many places. All incoming links will become red links if you proceed with the delete. Ideally all incoming links should be changed/removed, if there is genuinely no need for this page to exist. You could do this work prior to deleting, or ask others in community to do it.
 * Check the page ' and the associated '. Who was proposing the deletion? Does anyone disagree? Has it been properly discussed? Did people have adequate time to raise objections? Did somebody vandalise a page, which then led to a deletion proposal?

The care taken over these things might depend on how clear-cut the case for deletion is. Remember that only sysop users can undo a delete action, so to a normal user the information appears to be lost forever.

Using the {{int:delete}} option
Sysops should see a option in the drop down tab at the top of every page. Click this to delete the page. You will be asked to confirm, and to supply a reason for deletion. This is a short textual description of why the page is being deleted. This action will appear on the recent changes display, and in the deletion log (Special:Log).

Undeleting
To undelete a page you must navigate to the exact page name of the page. You can find this in the deletion log (Special:Log) if you don't remember it. You should then see a warning and summary log of the deletion, with a link at the end. This will take you to the full list of all deleted revisions, where they can be reviewed and restored as required.

Configuring deletion reasons
The list of reasons in the dropdown box are maintained at MediaWiki:Deletereason-dropdown.