Archived E2 FAQ: Marked for Destruction

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This document is not current, and is kept only for archival purposes. Please refer to Everything2 Help for all up-do-date help documents.

{marked for destruction}

From time to time, you'll come across a writeup, maybe even one of your own, that displays the text "marked for destruction" in its title bar. This means it's being sent to the mill that grinds up old nodes and recycles them into fresh, fragrant nodegel. In plain English, it was deleted. Voting, if you have the capability, will be disabled for such a writeup.

There are a number of different reasons why a writeup would be marked for destruction. What they all have in common though is that they were marked by a Content Editor or E2 god. There is, as of this writing, no mechanism for users to delete their own writeups.

Why was it marked for destruction?

If the writeup was yours you should have received a message from Klaproth telling you that he ate it and, hopefully, why. When the reason isn't clear or if the writeup isn't yours you may want to check the editor logs for mention of its removal. If your writeup has been marked for destruction and you got no message about it from Klaproth, enable receiving his messages in your Preferences. More about Klaproth and how to avoid his attention is in the FAQ. Here's why a writeup might be marked for deletion:

• Editorial deletion
  • The writeup's content was superseded by a newer one written by someone else.
  • An Editor judged it to be bad enough to warrant its removal from the database. Terrible (or lack of) formatting and links fall under this category, regardless of content.
  • It's simply not (or no longer) useful or relevant.
  • It's redundant and rehashes or duplicates an existing writeup. This writeup may be in another node so take care to check for alternative spellings before noding something if there are any.
  • Sometimes you may see a writeup marked for destruction before it leaves the "new writeups" nodelet. This happens when an alert Editor catches it soon after it was noded and decides to dispose of it immediately for one of the above reasons. Often these will be by new users who haven't read The Perfect Node.

• Voluntary deletion
  • Its author submitted a deletion request which was subsequently processed by an Editor. Once it's been processed the corresponding request writeup will also be "marked for deletion" by the Editor.
  • Its author bypassed the deletion request and asked an Editor to do so. Asking for deletions in the catbox is discouraged by the way... if you really need the immediate attention of an Editor, ask for one to message you or pick one from the Other Users nodelet.
  • Another case in which it may not have left the "new writeups" nodelet yet occurs when its author sees what s/he wrote "in print" and regrets it badly enough to want it removed, post haste, using one of the above means. This, incidentally, is a good argument for using the scratch pad to preview your work.

How do I find out who has marked something for destruction?

Klaproth's message may be signed by an Editor but the space for the message is small and often not sufficient for an Editor to supply both a detailed reason and sign it. If an Editor has placed it on record in the editor log it's public information. If not, there is no way for a non-Editor to see who deleted it. If you have issues with a deletion and can find no record of it, you can ask an Editor to contact the person who deleted it. As a rule it's not really important who deleted it since most Editors apply the same criteria in evaluating potential candidates for removal.

I'd like to know what's been marked for destruction

All writeups that are marked for deletion are sent to Node Row. If you have time on your hands (which you obviously do since you're here) check it out for examples of writeups that no longer make the cut.

What happens after a writeup is marked for destruction?

Each day, around 07:00 server time, Node Row is cleaned out and all writeups in it are sent to Node Heaven. Under normal database conditions it'll take an hour or two for all the pending writeups to be removed. Once a writeup has been processed, the outside world will never see it again. Only its owner and the Editors may visit the dear departed in Node Heaven. Deleted writeups are queued and moved to Node Heaven every two days so it may take as long as 48 hours for a deleted writeup to appear there.

Can something be unmarked?

Yes. And no. Technically it's possible to do almost anything since E2 is a database. Content Editors cannot, under any circumstances, unmark a writeup once it's been sent towards its doom. Admins/gods have the technical capacity but it's rare that an editorial error will both be noticed in time and be considered grave enough to reverse the editorial decision--besides, undeletion may or may not succeed, depending on the whims of the database. If the writeup is someone else's and you want to preserve its contents, do it now. If it's yours and you have an improved version, re-node it after the old one has been purged during the daily clean-up.

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