Wikipedia:Don't delete the main page
| This project page may meet Wikipedia's criteria for speedy deletion . This includes blatant and obvious misinformation, and redirects created during cleanup of page move vandalism. See CSD G3.
If this project page does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, or you intend to fix it, please remove this notice, but do not remove this notice from pages that you have created yourself. If you created this page and you disagree with the given reason for deletion, you can click the button below and leave a message explaining why you believe it should not be deleted. You can also visit the talk page to check if you have received a response to your message. Note that this project page may be deleted at any time if it unquestionably meets the speedy deletion criteria, or if an explanation posted to the talk page is found to be insufficient.
Note to administrators: this page has content on its talk page which should be checked before deletion. Administrators: check links, talk, history (last), and logs before deletion. Consider checking Google.This page was last edited by 85.101.214.172 (contribs | logs) at 10:43, 13 August 2023 (UTC) (16 months ago) |
 | This is a humorous essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors and is made to be humorous. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. This essay isn't meant to be taken seriously. |
 | This page in a nutshell: There are jokes, and then there are "oh, hell no" situations. |
One admin was discussing the deletion of the main page in IRC and asked if the technical ability to delete pages with over 5,000 revisions, like the main page, had ever been re-enabled. Another admin (jokingly) commented that he had tested it and found that the main page still couldn't be deleted. The first admin thought he would test it for himself. The main page got deleted.[1][a]
You might think you are having a laugh, but sometimes, the joke is missed. If you find yourself having to say "jokes do not come across well here", you are best off having avoided the joke in the first place.
In other words, do not even joke about causing disruption – someone may miss that it was meant in humor or sarcasm and act on it.
Historical context
As honored in the village stocks, this succeeds the admin who locked the servers for half an hour by deleting the Sandbox, necessitating the restriction of deletions for pages with over 5,000 edits. It is followed by the editor who used a bot to add 1,200 useless edits to the Main Page, hoping to bring it up to the 5000-edit level where it would not be deletable. Fortunately, the English Wikipedia Main Page now enjoys a sui generis immunity to deletion in the software.[2][3]
See also
- Main Page log
- Wikipedia:Silly things/Template:Uw-delmain1
- Wikipedia:Don't stuff beans up your nose
- Wikipedia:Bad Idea Machine
- Wikipedia:Village stocks – other very bad ideas that have been tried
- Wikipedia:April fools/April Fools' Day 2004/Delete the main page
Notes
- ^ This was not, by a long stretch, the first time the Main Page was deleted. See its deletion log entry. Some resulted from the involved administrators' accounts being compromised. For example, the deletion as of 05:08, December 8, 2007 – which resulted in a desysopping – was apparently the account being used by a relative after the admin failed to log off, and the incident as of May 7, 2007 was the result of a password hack. In total, the Main Page has been deleted 16 times. (Yikes!)
References
- ^ "I deleted the Main Page". Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive363. Retrieved 21 February 2010.
- ^ Fwd: Re: Deletion of large pages Tim Starling, WikiEN-l Mailing List, February 4, 2008.
- ^ The code that implements the protection