Type of site Archive wiki Website deletionpedia.org Registration None | Available in English Commercial Yes | |
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Launched 2008 (v1)
December 24, 2013 (v2) | ||
Deletionpedia is an online archive wiki containing articles deleted from the English Wikipedia. Its version of each article includes a header with more information about the deletion such as whether a speedy deletion occurred, where the deletion discussion about the article can be found and which editor deleted the article. The original Deletionpedia operated from February to September 2008. The site was restarted under new management in December 2013.
Contents
Description
The site is based on MediaWiki. The site functions as something of a "wikimorgue"; it automatically collects articles deleted from Wikipedia.
In addition to categories preserved from Wikipedia, Deletionpedia has its own categories for articles, based upon the deletion criteria. Pages are organized by the month in which they were deleted, by the number of editors that had worked on a page and by the length of time the article had existed on Wikipedia.
Deletionpedia states that it avoids hosting deleted pages that are copyright violations, pages with serious libel problems, pages whose full revision history is still available on Wikipedia's sister sites, and pages which set out to offend others.
Articles preserved by Deletionpedia were deleted from Wikipedia for a variety of reasons, from "being not notable" to "manipulation by political and business interests". Since the site was read-only, it sought no donations, suggesting instead that supporters donate to mySociety or to the Wikimedia Foundation.
Version 1
The original Deletionpedia collected about 63,000 articles, which were deleted from Wikipedia between February and September 2008. Nearly 2000 pages were over 1000 days old before they were deleted.
Downtime issues
A message appeared on April 5, 2008, stating:
Sorry about the recent downtime - this was due to high load on the database, so we've improved our database hosting. We're also not uploading new pages for a week or two while we make some other improvements too (although we're still keeping recently deleted pages safe). Full service will resume ASAP.
Demise
The last viewable log the site made of Wikipedia was taken on 14 June 2012 of Anime Festival Wichita.
The original content is still available to view online.
Reception
The Wall Street Journal cited it as a response to the culture clash that exists on Wikipedia between deletionists and inclusionists. The Industry Standard calls it “a [would-be] fine research project for sociology students to study what groupthink does when applied to a community-built compendium of knowledge”. Shortly thereafter, the Industry Standard again turned its attention to Deletionpedia, reporting that deletion of the article in Wikipedia about Deletionpedia was itself under discussion, suggesting that the article was not being considered for deletion based on “insignificance of the site” but rather “due to perceived criticism of Wikipedia itself”. Deletionpedia also made news at De Telegraaf, the website for the largest daily morning Dutch language newspaper, and The Inquirer, a British technology tabloid website.
The site has been more fully explored by Ars Technica in an article that not only describes aspects of the website but mentions the controversy over deleting the Wikipedia article on Deletionpedia.
Version 2
The website was reregistered by a new owner, Kasper Souren, and began operation anew in December 2013. As of May 2016, it had amassed 29,156 content pages.
Other wikis
There are similar projects for other Wikipedia languages, for example: