Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron Information & Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron Links at HealthHaven.com

To see the articles listed for rescue click here. To add an article to the list, see the instructions.

Notice: The Article Rescue Squad is always in need of additional help; All are welcome to try their hand at saving articles tagged for rescue!

Shortcuts: WP:ARTICLERESCUE WP:RESCUE WP:ARS

Ready and waiting. Add the {{Rescue}} template to any article at AfD worth saving.

Please join us!. All too often, an article about a perfectly notable topic lies wounded, badly written, unsourced – but should its life be taken at Articles for Deletion? No! Only articles about non-encyclopedic topics should be deleted, not articles that need improvement. Improvement is the opposite of deletion.

An article should not be deleted just because it is ill-formed. Some writer worked hard on that article. Some reader can use that article. Those writers and readers, if reached out to, can help us preserve this worthwhile content.

1 Why is it important to read Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion?
2 What can one person do?
3 So ARS wants to keep everything?
4 Instructions
5 Tips to help rescue articles
6 Barnstars
7 How to become a member of Article Rescue Squadron
8 Articles currently tagged for rescue
9 Selected previous rescues
10 Article alerts
11 See also
12 External links

[edit] Why is it important to read Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion?

Every time an article is deleted, the contributions that were made to it are lost. Wikipedia administrators can access the information in deleted articles, but they are not necessarily experts on the article's topic. Once an article is deleted, its content, value, and appropriateness can no longer be evaluated by the general public.

In addition, the contributor who writes a poor article on a notable topic is likely to be inexperienced. If their first efforts are deleted, they may be discouraged and refrain from creating further articles, or even editing. Everyone starts somewhere, and we should encourage better writing and better articles. Good faith efforts to contribute should be met with encouragement to improve.

This makes Articles for Deletion a very important place; one that deserves everyone's attention.

A common axiom is that "AFD is not cleanup". Consider that Wikipedia is a work in progress, and articles should not be deleted as punishment because no one has felt like cleaning them up yet. Remember, Wikipedia has no deadline. If there's good, eventually sourceable, content in the article, it should be developed and improved, not deleted.

The question on whether a poor but improvable article ought to be deleted is a major point of contention, and has given rise to the wiki-philosophies immediatism and eventualism. The Article Rescue Squadron was highlighted in a July 2007 Wikipedia Signpost, and has grown exponentially with many processes to tag, track, and list tagged articles.

[edit] What can one person do?

The Article Rescue Squadron is not about arguing on talk pages but instead about editing articles. If everyone who cares about preserving important topics and removing unsuitable content reads one deletion discussion per day (or even one per week), the impact will benefit all our readers. Moreover, reading through an article nominated for deletion and adding sources and rewriting the text to remove or reword unsuitable content will help other editors decide if the article should be kept or deleted.

[edit] So ARS wants to keep everything?

No. The Article Rescue Squadron (ARS) is not about casting keep votes or making policy simply to ensure that nothing is deleted. The ARS ensures that articles about notable topics do not get deleted when they can be rescued through normal editing, which per WP:AFD means that it was not a good candidate for deletion. The {{So fix it}} and {{Solookitup}} templates are sometimes all that's required for a rescue.

[edit] Instructions

What the Rescue template is for:

Our main focus is on articles on notable subjects going through AfD that:

We also help rescue content in main namespace and other XfD processes, such as MfD and TfD.

What the Rescue template is not for:

Articles that are not in the AfD process, including articles that have been deleted, even if you have archived the content. You might post {{findsourcesnotice}} to the article's talk page as a way to suggest where editors may find sourced material for the article.
Articles that, no matter what improvements were made, would be considered inappropriate per WP:What Wikipedia is not. Use common sense, and feel free to ask what other editors think on the project talk page.
Userpages.

Usage:

If an article has been tagged for deletion (Afd), and you feel it meets the above guidelines, then you can flag an article for rescuing by:

clicking edit; and
adding the following line of text at the top of the page as shown in the example below:

If you are the main editor of the article tagged for deletion, or are unsure if an article is a good candidate for the Article Rescue Squadron, then please post a message including the article's title on the Article Rescue Squadron talk page.

As part of this tag's use, please comment at the deletion discussion on why this item should be rescued and how that could happen. Your input should constructively lead the way for other editors to understand how this item can be improved to meet Wikipedia's policies and likely benefits our readers.

You can also add the template {{subst:Afdrescue}} to the deletion discussion, to let other editors know that this item was tagged for rescue. This produces output similar to the following:

Note: This article has been nominated for rescue. YourUserName (talk) 12:51, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Example:

You can flag an article for Rescue by editing it to add the bolded text under the AfD tag, but within the two sets of  tags, as in the below example using a Robin Sage AfD:

{{Rescue}}

The article will then appear in this category, along with all the others flagged for rescue. Adding it within the two sets of  tags will also allow the closing admin to automatically remove the tag when closing the AfD.

Removing a rescue tag:

It is unhelpful, and possibly disruptive, to remove the rescue tag before the deletion discussion is complete. The XfD process usually takes a week, and the tag is in place for less than that. Let the XfD closer remove it when the XfD tag is removed or the item is deleted. In all cases remain civil, and assume good faith that other editors are working to improve Wikipedia.

[edit] Tips to help rescue articles

Browse Wikipedia:Articles for Deletion periodically, and consider tagging articles that you feel meet notability guidelines.
Help improve articles flagged for rescue, by adding sources and otherwise cleaning them up.
In general, discuss issues concerning an individual article on that article's talk page, not on this project's talk page.
Check Wikipedia:Guide to deletion for tips.

Source searches:

[edit] Barnstars

There are four snazzy Rescue Barnstars for anyone who has made significant contributions to rescuing articles; it is up to those awarding them to choose which one to use: