SCP Foundation

The archived tag is notable to me for having a significantly high number of articles which lack any substantial reason for remaining on the site in their current form. The stated purpose of the tag is so that tales and articles which reference certain pages can still exist with context, but a large number of pages with the tag do not meet this definition.

The primary reason for this is that -ARC was applied to some pages purely based upon admin fiat — an important staff member said "I like this page" and got it -ARC, rather than being deleted. Some of these pages are now very poorly rated, and continuing to keep them on the wiki says that the arbitrary (and often unexplained) opinion of three staff members from many years ago is more important than both current wiki policy and user consensus.

There is also a secondary issue of -ARC pages being referenced in a single, now-deleted work, and thus having their original reason for being put into -ARC made irrelevant. This is a much smaller category of pages.

Therefore, I propose the following:

1. Pages tagged with -ARC are to be updated with a current and full list of pages that reference them. (Certain -ARCs, like SCP-503-ARC, have been referenced in new tales, like The High Court With The Magic Army.)
2. -ARC pages which are below -10 and not referenced elsewhere on the site will go through the standard deletion process.
3. -ARC pages that fall below -10 in the future without being referenced elsewhere on the site are, likewise, to be deleted.

I would be able to go through the 'archived' tag and create a tentative list of pages that would qualify for deletion under my proposal, if necessary. (Note: I am currently doing this. I plan to have a sorted list ready soon.)

You're junior staff, right? Please message me- I and some others are very interested in making this happen.

Aren't there a few ARCs based on cultural significance?

Last I recall, SCP-257-ARC was one of the articles that introduced the phrase "Does the Black Moon howl?" That is what I got from its discussion page, which also has discussion on the phrase's history.

I have completed sorting a list of pages in the archived tag. Notably, there are only five pages that meet the standards I put forward in my initial post, with another six having the potential for deletion in the future.

There is one page that would meet the standards I set forward if not in rewrite, which normally allows for stays of deletion. There are four pages for which special cases existed behind their archival, which I outlined on the page. Finally, there is a single page which was archived because it was referenced elsewhere, but this is no longer the case.

I also prepared a new list of references for some of the SCPs, which have been backlinked to elsewhere.