Wikipedia:Page blanking
 | This page documents an English Wikipedia editing guideline. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page. |
 | This page in a nutshell: If you want a page to be deleted, don't blank the page, instead request deletion. |
Page blanking means editing a page and removing its content to leave it completely blank, or without any substantial content.
Under normal circumstances, Wikipedia articles should not be blanked. If you think an article has no useful content, then either fix it, or else leave it in its present state and propose it for deletion. However, it is acceptable to blank an article for libel or privacy reasons as an emergency measure, as described in the policy on biographies of living persons. It is also sometimes necessary to blank an article which is a copyright violation in its entirety – for instructions, see Copyright problems.
If the sole author blanks an article, this can be taken as a deletion request. It can also be tagged with {{Db-blanked}}. Newcomers often mistake blanking for deletion. If someone wants their new article deleted, they should simply add {{db-g7}} or {{delete}} to it and an administrator will delete the page.
Page blanking is acceptable in one's own userspace. However, some currently active administrative notices may not be blanked (See WP:BLANKING). For blanking of inappropriate content in other editors' userspace, see the section on fixing other users' pages in the userpage guideline.
Occasionally, completed deletion discussions (or other discussions) may be blanked for reasons of privacy or courtesy to individuals. For policy on this, see the section on courtesy blanking in Wikipedia's deletion policy.
If the substantial content of a page has been incorporated into that of another, then the first page can be blanked and replaced with a redirect to the second page. For a description of this process, see Merging.
Repeated, unnecessary page blanking may get a user blocked indefinitely.
To warn users about inappropriate blanking, use {{subst:uw-blank1}}.