Wikipedia:Repeated draftification

This is an essay on the deletion policy. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article or a Wikipedia policy, as it has not been reviewed by the community.

Shortcut WP:DBLDRAFTWP:DBLDRAFT

This page in a nutshell: Draftifying a page more than once is move-warring, and should not be done.

It is sometimes necessary to move a page from article space to draft space, known as draftifying it, typically if there is a possibility that the topic is notable but the article is undersourced and needs to be improved on in draft space. Moving a page from article space to draft space is an alternative to deletion, and may be a way of avoiding a deletion discussion. However, draftifying can be contentious. Sometimes an editor does not agree that the page that they have written is not ready for article space, and may move the page back into article space.

There are several classes of editors who may have originally written the page and may disagree as to whether it belongs in article space. They include:

• new editors, who may be enthusiastic, and sometimes require patience as well as encouragement
• foreign editors, who may be more familiar with the acceptance standards of the Wikipedia in their first language, which may be less demanding than the English Wikipedia; combative editors
• single purpose accounts who may be undisclosed paid editors trying to use Wikipedia for promotion

A question is what to do if the author of an article moves it back into article space after it has been draftified once. Some reviewers and administrators will move it back into draft space a second time. However, moving it back a second time is move-warring, which is a form of edit-warring, and is at least as disruptive than regular edit-warring.

There is no ideal response when a page is moved back into article space, because the move back into article space itself was undesirable. However, the least disruptive response in this situation may be to nominate the article for deletion. Whether a subject is notable, and whether an article is ready for article space, cannot be decided by move-warring; but they can be decided by a deletion discussion. A deletion discussion can decide that an article should be draftified rather than either kept in article space or deleted. Move-warring does not make any community decisions.

If an article has already been moved into draft space once, and is moved back into article space without the appropriate improvements, resist the temptation to move it back into draft space a second time. Articles for Deletion is a community process that can and should resolve disputes about whether articles should be kept, incubated, or deleted.

• Wikipedia:Drafts#Objections