Don't delete the main page

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File:Bomba atomica.gif

Just the fact that you can push the button doesn't mean you should.

One admin was discussing the deletion of the main page in IRC and asked if the technical ability to delete pages with over 5,000 revisions, like the main page, had ever been re-enabled. Another admin (jokingly) commented that he had tested it and found that the main page still couldn't be deleted. The first admin thought he would test it for himself. The main page got deleted.<ref>"I deleted the Main Page". Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive363. Retrieved 21 February 2010.</ref>Template:Efn

You might think you are having a laugh, but sometimes, the joke is missed. If you find yourself having to say "jokes do not come across well here", you are best off having avoided the joke in the first place.

In other words, do not even joke about causing disruption – someone may miss that it was meant in humor or sarcasm and act on it.

Historical context

As honored in the village stocks, this succeeds the admin who locked the servers for half an hour by deleting the Sandbox, necessitating the restriction of deletions for pages with over 5,000 edits. It is followed by the editor who used a bot to add 1,200 useless edits to the Main Page, hoping to bring it up to the 5000-edit level where it would not be deletable. Fortunately, the English Wikipedia Main Page now enjoys a sui generis immunity to deletion in the software.<ref>Fwd: Re: Deletion of large pages Tim Starling, WikiEN-l Mailing List, February 4, 2008.</ref><ref>The code that implements the protection</ref>

See also

File:Try to delete the main page.png

Following this incident, the vulnerability was addressed. If a person tries now, they should receive the message shown above: "you can't delete or move the main page." This is not an excuse to try to delete the Main Page. It might work! (We mean the deletion might workTemplate:Mdashbnot the excuse.)

• Main Page log
• Wikipedia:Silly things/Template:Uw-delmain1
• Wikipedia:Don't stuff beans up your nose
• Wikipedia:Bad Idea Machine
• Wikipedia:Village stocks – other very bad ideas that have been tried
• Wikipedia:April fools/April Fools' Day 2004/Delete the main page