Participation in Wikipedia's article deletion processes

We present results on a study of two levels of Wikipedia's article deletion process: speedy deletions (or CSDs) and articles for deletions (or AfDs). Our findings indicate that the deletion process is heavily frequented by a relatively small number of longstanding users. In analyzing the rationales given for such deletions, it is apparent that the vast majority of such deleted articles are not spam, vandalism, or 'patent nonsense,' but rather articles which could be considered encyclopedic, but do not fit the project's standards.