Pages and media are often deleted by Wikipedia administrators in accordance with our deletion policy. This page explains how to find out why a particular page or file was removed, and what you can do about a deletion you disagree with. Do not despair: none of the information on a "deleted" page has actually been lost[1]. Continue reading for details.
The deletion log will show the date, the administrator's name and the deletion summary[2]. If the page has been deleted more than once, the log will have several entries; the most recent one is the one you want.
Proposed deletions
Articles (but not other pages or media) may be proposed for deletion by any editor. If nobody objects to this within five days, the article is deleted. If any objections are raised, the article is not deleted, but anyone may still make the matter the subject of an Articles for deletion discussion (see the next section). Proposed deletions will often be labeled as "prod" in the deletion summary.
What you can do about it
If a page or file that you created has been deleted, please don't take offense. See our content policies and the guide to creating your first article to get an idea of what you should be aiming for. Alternatively, remember we already have 2,107,427 articles – find a subject that interests you and work on improving our existing content.
Depending on the reason why the page was deleted, there are also several ways you can try to have it undeleted by administrators. In every case, you should first make sure that the page is appropriate for inclusion in Wikipedia and, if it is an article, that its content is based on reliable sources. If it is not, your request will likely be unsuccessful.
1. If you feel a page has been deleted in error, or if you think you have good reasons for wanting to edit a protected title, first contact the administrator responsible via the method explained above. If you are still not satisfied after discussing it with the deleting admin, consider starting a deletion review.
2. If an article was deleted as a result of a proposed deletion ("prod"), any administrator should normally restore it on your request. In such cases, you can leave a message on this noticeboard.
3. If the page was deleted for any other reason, and you would like to be able to access the text (for example, to resubmit it in a form that meets our content policies), there are some administrators who may provide you with the content of the deleted page on your request[3].
4. If anything about this whole process remains unclear, ask for help on the Help desk.
* A substantial number of new articles by new users end up getting deleted. If you are one of those new users, you may feel confused right now, and need to ask for help on the Help desk.
5. If it looks like your page is definitely about to be deleted, copy-and-paste the source code to a text file, for example by using a text editor (which preserves your wikitext markup), or a word processor. However, after your page is deleted from Wikipedia, do not immediately put the page back up! Otherwise, it will probably just be deleted again, and the page name may even be protected against re-creation. Either find more evidence to prove the notability of your article, or wait for more evidence to be published elsewhere in reliable sources. If you intend to put your article back up straight away, make sure to post some questions on the Help Desk to ask how you can improve the article the next time around (though, it did get deleted, and that probably means that there is not much that can be improved, or some serious research will be necessary to find those all-important reliable sources your article needs.) You can also discuss how to develop your article properly on the drawing board. If your page gets deleted before you can copy its source code, however, you're out of luck[4]. You'll have to try and request undeletion, and this isn't likely to be successful.
Wikipedia:Why was my page deleted? - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Now you try rationalise [1] and [2] with [3] and [4] ???
It should say:
"make backups of everything you like to read on wikipedia, everything you are looking at could be gone in 5 days" Do-not add links to wiki pages with content contributions you don't want to disappear.
People might find it and hit the button.