Wikipedia:What U5 is not

“ Pages in userspace consisting of writings, information, discussions, or activities not closely related to Wikipedia's goals, where the owner has made few or no edits outside of user pages, except for plausible drafts and pages adhering to Wikipedia:User pages § What may I have in my user pages? It applies regardless of the age of the page in question. ” — Criterion for speedy deletion U5

U5 is one of the broadest criteria for speedy deletion, allowing the deletion of userspace content "not closely related to Wikipedia's goals". However, it also tends to be one the most frequently abused, and its abuse poses the risk of alienating new contributors and deleting promising content.

U5 is for material that has no real chance of serving either as encyclopedic content or a suitable introduction of an editor to the community, not a catch-all for userspace pages that one thinks should be deleted. Merely being imperfect in one of these two regards is not enough for deletion either: A page that is written as a draft, but would clearly be declined at articles for creation (AfC), is still a "plausible draft". A person's introduction of themself, which contains some violations of WP:UPNOT but mostly conforms to WP:UPYES, still falls under the allowance for UPYES-compliant content. And when a page could be read as either a self-description or a draft, it must be interpreted as whichever is more favorable to the user.

Why this is important

While U5 is one of the lower-profile deletion criteria, the impact of its abuse cannot be understated. For many users, the first thing they do when joining Wikipedia is either create a userpage to introduce themselves, or begin writing a draft. To have either deleted based on a policy that in fact prohibits such deletions is massively alienating. It is impossible to predict which new editor will someday be a great content creator, administrator, or technical expert. What we can be sure of is that deleting their userpage after five minutes because they violated a rule that doesn't exist will make them less likely to make a second edit.

Even in the case where a user would not have made any further edits, leaving their flawed-but-plausible draft intact allows for the possibility of some other editor finding it and salvaging it, avoiding duplication of effort. In short, the potential downsides of a bad U5 deletion are high.

Specific misuses

Each of the following has actually been (wrongly) deleted under U5 by an admin on at least one occasion:

• Someone introducing themself and giving a link to their social media or personal website
• Someone introducing themself and stating their occupation
• Someone introducing themself and doing literally nothing else
• Someone writing about a person who may or may not be them, in the style of a Wikipedia article, in a manner that would be declined at AfC (WP:G11 may apply if there is promotional language that cannot be easily removed)
• Someone writing a draft article on their main userpage instead of on a subpage (but see below regarding stale drafts)
• Someone writing a draft article but with a lot of formatting errors or unencyclopedic tone
• Someone writing a draft article but not in English
• Someone writing a perfectly good article, in English, but the admin just didn't look very closely
• Someone writing a brief sentence, in English or not, like "Hello" or "Wikipedia!" (and WP:G1 and WP:G2 don't apply in userspace either)
• Someone using their sandbox to test something
• Userpages by people who have made more than a few edits outside of userspace, and are thus exempt

What to do instead

Deletion is not always necessary: If there is a small amount of UPNOT-violating material on an otherwise compliant userpage, simply remove the material. If a generally neutral self-description has one or two arguably promotional words in it, remove the words. If a link is inappropriate, remove the link.

Stale userspace drafts have their own set of rules, including moving or blanking the page. If a draft is plausible but not stale, and otherwise unproblematic, the solution is to leave it be.

There is no policy against using a top-level userpage to draft, but it is broadly discouraged, and usually only happens because a user does not realize there are better places to draft. You can suggest to a user that they move their draft to draftspace or a user subpage, but it is often easier to move it yourself (replacing the userpage with a {{soft redirect}}, and taking care not to move the talkpage) and then explain to the user what you've done; a new user will usually be grateful for this assistance.

If none of the above approaches can remedy your concern, and no other CSD applies, then the solution is not U5, but rather Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion. Or if you think U5 should be broader, or that additional criteria for userspace deletion should exist, you can propose this at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion.

Alternatively, Wikipedia does allow for some out-of-process actions. If you are ignoring the rules to delete a page, cite WP:IAR in the deletion rationale. This is both compliant with policy (since IAR is a policy) and honest with people viewing the log.

See also

• Wikipedia:What G6 is not (with apologies thereto)
• Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion/Archive 53 § Propose: G14. Blatant WP:NOTWEBHOST violations by accounts with no mainspace contributions. - enactment