Wikipedia talk:Deletion process

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[edit] VfD process when article is kept

On my talk page, JamesMLane asked "In Wikipedia:Deletion process, you wrote: "If the decision is to keep, put a link to the discussion sub-page on the article's talk page." Is there a reason to prefer this procedure to that of just copying the deletion debate onto the article's talk page? The latter seems simpler."

Here were my thoughts when I drafted the process. You'll note that many of these are back-up techniques. A wiki is a powerful tool but much of our archiving process depends on manual work. I think some redundancy is worth the effort on a deletion vote. If there's a better way, though, I'm all for making it simpler. Rossami 14:56, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

  1. For long discussions (and there are many of those), it keeps the discussion from overburdening the article's talk page. This is most relevant on a controversial topic where the discussion page may already be very large.
  2. It adds a sense of emotional distance to the discussion. If I care passionately about an article and return to it often, it can be grating to keep reading the delete votes even when the final consensus was to keep.
  3. The discussion closes after 5 days. Once the discussion is closed, no one is supposed to be interjecting with their own opinions, edits and rebuttals any longer. By keeping the discussion on a separate page, you can more easily look at the page history to see if someone is adding comments in an attempt to rewrite the decision. If the situation gets bad enough, the discussion page can be protected - something that you can't do if the discussion is embedded in the Talk page. I believe this is a low risk but I'm told it's happened on very emotional debates.
  4. A separate page using a well-known pattern (Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/PageName) makes it easier to find the old discussion if/when the Talk page gets archived.
  5. If a page is renominated for deletion (accidentally or intentionally) and we are still using the same naming conventions, there is a good chance that the old discussion will automatically reappear. This hopefully will mean that we can re-vote with full knowledge of the prior decision.
  6. If anyone created a link to the discussion, the link will not get broken like it does with a cut-and-paste.
  7. Finally, it's a judgement call about which is really easier. When I timed myself, it took almost exactly the same amount of time either way.
  8. Don't forget that keeping the original VfD article preserves the edit history, which is a nice bonus. +sj+
I personally find moving the VfD discussions to the talk namespace considerably faster than the above method. This also makes access to the information faster as it is only one click away from the article. Moreover the talk that ensues on a page after it is kept is often a direct continuation of the delete debate and having it all on one page is helpful.
One thing I do believe is that if a talk page already exists for a given article the discussion should be linked to rather than copied and pasted. It is essential to preserve the history of the vote. This process also automatically creates a redirect so that any incoming links are preserved. This policy also largely counters the problem of very long VfD discussions. The passionate and lengthy discussions seem to always also generate debate on the article's talk page, preventing moving the vote there. As to point #2 I personally do not believe we should deliberately make information less accessible because some people may find it "grating." - SimonP 06:40, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Factoring in /Old

Stormie & Jerzy(t) were each surprised to realize that current use of Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Old was incompatible with Wikipedia:Deletion process, which failed to even mention its existence. They agreed thatStormie would do an edit (timestamped 03:43, 2004 Aug 6) and Jerzy(t) would review it.

  • I've started out by recoding the respective sample results for the two subst-calls, namely from Template:Vfd top and Template:Vfd bottom; as far as i can see, we profit from not only having links to the templates, but also getting those samples as transclusion calls: changes to the templates will be automatically reflected on this talk page's WP (project) page.
  • As to less technical matters:
    • IMO edit conflicts on VfD are virtually no problem for two reasons: edit conflicts are now automatically avoided unless the edited areas come too close to overlapping, and the overwhelming majority of VfD sections get only a single edit in their time on the page: the section still gets created as a VfD edit, but the many entries belonging to the section have now become edits on sub-pages. I will suggest other arguments when i next edit this talk page.
    • IMO, Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators#Rough consensus, Wikipedia:Deletion process#Votes for Deletion page, and Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Decision Policy reflect two approaches, not fully reconciled:
      1. lack of consensus to keep or delete requires continuation of discussion;
      2. lack of consensus to delete constitutes, after 5 days, a decision to keep.
I don't insist that there can be no benign ambiguity between these, but IMO there is an immediate need to at least acknowledge explicitly both approaches wherever one approach is stated.

--Jerzy(t) 07:24, 2004 Aug 11 (UTC)

[edit] Close vs. Extend

  • In practice, i think those who undertake this work are admins, if only because no one else can do the deletions that are most of the work. IMO it is also implicit in any workable policy that no one should do it because of their interest in the article in question. But rather than say "admins", i'll assume this is done by editors with at least a steady history of post-5-days maintainence of VfD entries, whom i'll call "VfD closers".
  • Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Decision Policy says clearly that lack of consensus for deletion after 5 days means keeping.
  • The unqualified discussion at Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators#Rough consensus at least suggests strongly that it can be good to continue discussion when no consensus for either keeping or deleting has been reached.
  • While WP seems to comfortably tolerate substantial policy ambiguity, having these two statements acknowledge each other seems likely to be a widely shared minimum goal.
  • At least at present, the following approach seems consistent with policy (when practiced by VfD closers):
    • The first VfD closer to handle an individual entry after the five days may exercise some discretion between moving the past discussion to the article's talk page and referring further discussion there (which may undercut continuity of discussion), or explicitly noting the value of extending the opportunity to discuss on VfD.
    • As a practical matter, VfD closers who extend discussion may want to indicate a date at which closing or further extension, and probably should anticipate eventual intervention by other VfD closers if they do not.
    • Discussions that grow to great length impose a substantial burden of loading time on those not involved, if the discussions remain on VfD with a transclusion (double-("curly"-)braces) link to the discussion subpage. Especially where
      • polarization is high, or
      • non-deletion seems inevitable, or
      • the discussion does a lot of wandering off-topic,
conversion of the link to a normal HTML (double-("square"-)brackets)link should be considered at the time of each extension, if not done earlier in the extension period (or even during the initial 5 days).

--Jerzy(t) 21:28, 2004 Aug 11 (UTC)

A couple of thoughts in response:

  • I am not an admin so I can't delete but I try to pull my weight by doing those maintenance tasks that involve moving comments and documentation of the keepers. If I'm doing it, I suspect others are as well. So, thank you for creating the term "closers".
  • I always understood the policy to be an unambiguous "failure to reach consensus defaults to keep".
  • While the closer can and should exercise discretion for exceptional circumstances, the only useful extensions in my experience have been times where a participant explicitly asked for additional time to find new data or do outside research. Extending the debate for other reasons just keeps people inflamed.
  • If someone still feels strongly that the article must be deleted, they are always free to renominate it (hopefully after some suitable waiting period during which tempers can cool). At the point of nomination, either the nominator or one of us will link in the prior discussion - by transclusion if it was short, by regular link if long.

I guess my point is that I'm not sure what change you are trying to propose. Rossami 21:47, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This is something I wondered about too. As a new admin, so far I've taken the pragmatic approach of only closing entries where the opinion is unanimous or virtually-unanimous agreement. :-)
I think the "lack of consensus = keep" seems fair enough, though. Although I'm a huge fan of the consensus building approach (and have defended it against people who say it is "undemocratic"), I think it's a lot harder to build consensus on a binary question like "keep or delete" than it is on an open-ended one like "how should this article be phrased?" I think that, like on WP:RFA, changing the status quo requires consensus, and that things should be left as they are if there is disagreement.
..and as Rossami said, articles can always be re-listed, especially if there were a lot of "keep and list on cleanup" type votes, and a month later the article is still languishing in exactly the same crappy state. —Stormie 05:19, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)

The question you-all have put me is fully justified. (The only good reason i've let this slide is bcz i saw so little sign that advocates of extending VFD found our discussion urgent. But i don't think it should be neglected indefinitely.)

My understanding of your positions is that each of you thinks either or both of the following:
1. The "5 days" 'graph shows that the "rough consensus" 'graph is an allusion to the general valuing of consensus, not an indication that policy contemplates ever delaying the closing of VfD discussion for lack of consensus.
2. Extending beyond five days is so seldom a good idea that it is best to do it, if at all, only by closing discussion, and then seeking consensus to reopen it.

The reason you don't know what i want done may be my not taking a position on either 1 or 2. I want those favoring either 1 or 2 to argue for changing the "rough consensus" 'graph, and those who reject both 1 and 2 to argue for changing the "5-day" 'graph. I am opposed to the status quo of having a policy that explicitly talks out of both sides of its mouth.

My view rests on my beliefs that there are no WP lawyers to consult, and that callers doing policy research face a dilemma: They must choose between

  • making a disproportionate effort, and
  • stopping when they have only moderate confidence of having read all the relevant passages.

For the moment i'll call the result "policy agnosia", meaning that in practice it is often unreasonable to be anything but agnostics about what policies exist.

I think the evidence leans toward 1 being current policy, for those who find both the "5 days" 'graph and the "rough consensus" one. (I'm agnostic abt those who find all the evidence, bcz i'm not confident that any one person has found all the evidence!) However, we have failed to harmonize the written policy, leaving room for legitimate doubt. In fact, neither of those 'graphs acknowledges the other's relevance. This creates a specific opportunity for agnosia, because in practice two responsible callers, working independently, can infer different written policies.

I think that 2 is a reasonable position. But the position that extension is sometimes preferable is another, and for the same reasons i've already argued, our written policy is inadequate in practice to rule that out.

Different interpretations are not just the result of misreading, but can arise from happening to start in different policy documents, and then stopping, at a reasonable point and after finding an apparently definitie answer.

I am seeking precision about all of this especially because i don't think this agnosia is merely theoretical. There is reason to believe that we have been permitting two distinct de facto policies to flourish. If so, harmonizing the written policy is not just an editorial task, but calls for broad input on what has been acted on in the past.

I am not offering evidence of a second de facto policy bcz i think it is important to do so in the context of agreement that our effort to allieviate the existing policy agnosia acknowledges the legitimacy of a second de facto policy. Without that context, discussing who extends discussions beyond 5 days has too much tendency to be the first stage of a witch hunt.

An alternative to further discussion is to boldly change the 'graph about consensus to mention that that general approach to consensus, cited in one doc, is not directly applicable. Call that a "clarifying change" in policy (if you're convinced extension has no place in policy), but treat it as a change, not the equivalent of a grammar correction.

In fact (even if that may be the only practical course), doing it at this moment is not a codification of the status quo: it is an attempt to change the status quo by disowning one policy that has been used in good faith, and has a reasonable basis in our policy statements.

--Jerzy(t) 23:54, 2004 Aug 20 (UTC)

[edit] Policy on Re-listing?

I've taken the liberty of moving your question into a similar discussion already occurring at Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion#Time Limit Policy on relisted VfD's ? Rossami 22:30, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion re deleted pages

(William M. Connolley 13:23, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)) Not sure if this has been debated before... apologies if so. Ditto if this is the wrong place for this suggestion. I'm coming here from Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Reciprocal System of Theory if you want context.

When a page is deleted, its google rank and fact-index etc etc clones survive. I'm guessing that when the page is just deleted, wiki clones just leave the last page they copied up. And if you follow the google link, you'll presumably get the this-page-does-not-exist-would-you-like-to-create-it message. All this seems undesirable (some of what happens above is guesswork, but seems likely).

So I'm suggesting that a deleted page should be replaced by a boilerplate "This page was deleted from wikipedia; here is a link to the VFD to explain why".

[edit] Question about procedure for closing discussions

The (impressively easy-to-understand) instructions for closing discussions state that closers should:

3. close the discussion by editing the top and bottom of the VfD discussion sub-page; at the top with PAGE NAME .....

I'm wondering why there's a need to re-type the article's name when it's already on the sub-page in big bold letters. This seems a trivial gripe, but the large (and growing) number of articles listed on VFD (57 listings on December 28, for example) means that even a few extra seconds per discussion begins to add up. Joyous 00:06, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)

Good catch. The instructions for closing discussions were written before the latest version of instructions for creating the VfD subpages. They may need updating. I'll take a stab at it later this week (unless someone beats me to it). Rossami (talk)
Thanks! In that case, I'm going to begin boldly skipping that step. Joyous 23:26, Jan 4, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Attempt at tweaking step 6

This is how that final step reads now:

  1. a. Put a link to the day page on Wikipedia:Archived delete debates.
    b. Remove the link to the day page from Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Old.
    c. Edit the list of days on the main VfD page.

This is my suggestion:

  1. a. Edit the Old page by cutting the link for the day, which looks something like {{Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Log/Year Month Day}}.
    b. Go to the Archived delete debates page and paste the link at the bottom. Remember to switch the brackets from {{ }} to [[ ]].
    c. Edit the list of days on the main VfD page by removing the link to the date that you just archived.

Suggestions? Joyous 01:56, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

The original instructions are about half as long, and you end up with the exact same thing. You could just flip the old a and b and let people x&p or rewrite the link, whatever they choose. I don't think it matters too much, there aren't many people working on VfD. I can't stand to do more than a few per day. Patrolling Speedy and VfU is much less tiresome. —Ben Brockert (42) 02:54, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)
My attempts to tweak the instructions (obviously) aren't an attempt at brevity; rather, they're an attempt to clarify the instructions. I was reluctant to complete the final deletion process because I wasn't...quite...sure that I was doing it right. I asked for help, and got some wonderful clear instructions from Rossami, which I've incorporated here. The hope is that others will be more inclined to take part in cleaning out the VFD Old page if the instructions are spelled out a bit more clearly. Joyous 06:20, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, the deletion process does not actually follow step 6 at all. According to step 6b (6a originally), Wikipedia:Archived delete debates should have links of the form
[[Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Log/Year Month Day]]
But it in fact contains links to many individual vote pages, under day headers. So should the process be updated to reflect what is actually done? Or should there be a campaign to get people to follow the process as written? dbenbenn | talk 04:33, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Furthermore, the bit about "If that was the last entry on that day's page of deletion discussions" has issues, because, according to the process, entries are never removed from the day pages. I think it would be helpful if they were, but there's nothing in the process indicating that. dbenbenn | talk 05:17, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Right now, Archived delete debates has both - a link to the individual vote page (filed by date deleted) and a link to the log page (at the bottom). We're still doing both because SimonP, who closes many (maybe, most) of the discussions thinks that the new process takes him longer. We're still trying to figure out what he does differently than I do because the new process is definitely faster for me. To be frank, I don't think he follows this process at all. Once we sort it out, we'll have to update the instructions. In the meantime, the most important thing is that the individual vote pages are retained somewhere.
You're comment about "the last entry on the page" is a good one. Even if we all followed the process exactly, the wording is a bit ambiguous. It should probably read "the last unclosed discussion on the page" or some such wording.
Done. dbenbenn | talk 04:29, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
My preference, rather than deleting the discussions from the day page, is to find some way of using the div command to suppress the transclusion of the discussions on the /Old page. I haven't been able to make the code work though. Any thoughts? Rossami (talk) 05:08, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Yes, that would be nice. Right now, it's moderately difficult to tell whether a day has any open votes left. But I don't see how to jigger <div> tags to interfere with transclusion.
So the intention of the new process is that the "Votes for deletion/Log/<date>" page not be modified after it is removed from VfD (so it retains all its votes, including the ones that resulted in KEEP)? That certainly sounds faster than manually removing them and copying to /Archived delete debates. Also less error-prone. dbenbenn | talk 04:29, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I edited one line of the policy page [1], in the "Votes for Deletion page" section. There isn't a rule about discussing all changes to official policy pages beforehand, is there? My apologies if so. dbenbenn | talk 05:54, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Transwiki?

Under the "Voted for Deletion page" section, between points 5 and 6, I need an entry that starts "If the decision is TRANSWIKI ..." What does one do in this case? dbenbenn | talk 23:07, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The best (and only) instructions I know about are at m:Transwiki. I don't believe they've been updated in a while, though. Rossami (talk) 04:29, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Suppressing closed discussions

Korath just showed me how to suppress the display of discussions which have already been closed (that is, those which have the blue box behind them). See Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion/Old#Suppressing closed discussions for now. Rossami (talk) 18:17, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Links to a deleted page: when to remove

"If a given title should never have an article" is a bit vague IMO. Suppose someone writes an article Dick Prickeyschnorttle with the notability claim "is going to run for presidency" and includes its link into 1996#Births. We will duly delete it. But what to do with 1996? Obviously we cannot argue that he will never become president.

Please suggest a better phrasing, kind of "should never have an article at the moment of creation" or something. Otherwise we will be flooded with the links to wannabe celebrities &c., &c., in an expectation that sometime (antonym to "never") we shall be going to have an article about them. mikka (t) 16:51, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

How about just "If a given title shouldn't have an article"? --W(t) 17:14, 2005 Jun 11 (UTC)
Well, the person who used the word "never" could have had their reasons. I'd like to see them presented here (thus the talk). mikka (t) 17:20, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
If an article was deleted with the reasoning that the subject shouldn't have its own article, period, I remove it. For things that may eventually merit an article, there's no point in encouraging its recreation by having a redlink for the period of time in which any article with that title is going to be deleted. So Dick doesn't get listed in 1996 births until he announces his bid for the presidency, or at least until he gets elected to the state senate. Once he becomes worthy of inclusion, hopefully someone will restore the redlink. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 17:56, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I am speaking about the wording of the policy, not about what we normally do. What is your suggestion? mikka (t) 07:00, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Simplification

I support reinstating Snowspinner's recent simplification, and for that matter anything else that will make closing VfDs easier. I used to pitch in once in a while, but I stopped because the archiving process was getting too complicated.

On an unrelated note, are people now routinely deleting the talk pages of deleted articles? I'm not sure that's a good idea. Sometimes if an article is recreated it's very useful to see what was being discussed on the talk page of the old article. Isomorphic 05:18, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've always deleted the talk pages when I delete an article. I'm not sure that it's a good idea to have talk pages floating around, unattached to an article. Joyous 22:39, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
Could you maybe move the talk page to a talk-sub-page of the VFD itself (eg talk:Bogus page moves to talk:VFD/Bogus page/OldTalk or some such)? Of course this then raises the question of what to do with any archived discussion... --Phil | Talk 09:11, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
  • On simplifying the VFD's
    • I would prefer posting only one boilerplate template than two when closing the discussion sub-pages. The text of {{vf}} should be merged into {{vt}}.
    • I don't agree with the idea to "Remove the link to the VfD page from the day's page of deletion discussions so other admins don't waste time also closing it." I think the time it takes to do this is longer than the time it takes to save {{vt}} and {{vf}} in the same edit-- especially when the database servers act up again.
    • I do agree that the daily log pages are no longer needed after all of the discussions for that day have been processed.
Zzyzx11 (Talk) 05:57, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I think one simple counter-argument exists to all of this - the changes were put in over time and without discussion, but instead through m:Instruction creep. They have dramatically reduced the number of admins who will do deletion. This is a problem. Snowspinner 06:41, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

I support the changes too. Simpler is always better. — Dan | Talk 12:06, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

I encourage those who support the changes to reinstate them on the page. Snowspinner 17:17, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

I do agree that the changes over time have contributed to instruction creep. But if we are going to use Snowspinner's process, the only thing I would do differently is to use one single simple boilerplate template when closing each VFD discussion subpage. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 18:33, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Can you make a mockup of the template in your userspace so I can see what you'd have it look like? Snowspinner 02:47, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)
I made a couple quick ones. User:SimonP/temp is what I would like to see at the top of the deletion debate for each vote that ends in deletion. User:SimonP/temp2 is what I would like to see on the talk page of each article that is kept (for an example see it in use at Talk:Tad Horino) - SimonP 03:52, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)
Disclaimer: I am probably the primary architect of the current process and, for the most part, it was designed, not evolved. Having admitted my bias, I oppose the proposed changes. Several people have said that the process is longer and more complicated than it used to be. I disagree. It's more structured but it takes me less time than the old process. Worse, the old process was so poorly followed that we effectively did not have a process. Discussions were lost. Renominations were common. Arguments constantly broke out over the decisions and we could never prove anything because we couldn't find the discussion.
Several have argued that the process has reduced the number of people closing VfD discussions. The facts do not support that conclusion. Are some people turned off by the process? Yes. Have the people closing VfD discussions changed? Yes. But have the number of closers changed? No. The problem is that the number have also not increased. Yet everything else about Wikipedia has increased. We are falling behind. But I don't think the archiving process is to blame. The archiving steps take up only a trivial amount of time. The real time is reading all the facts, interpreting the comments and making a careful decision - and then defending yourself on that decision from all the partisans who disagree with it. I believe it's the hostility of the discussion that drives people away from closing discussions. Changing the archival process won't fix that.
Still, it is a daunting process for someone new to it. Perhaps there are ways to simplify it while still meeting the needs that caused the process to evolve in the first place. Let me see if I can organize some of the specific proposals so we can discuss them individually. Rossami (talk) 04:26, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
My main bias is that I was the main person closing VfD debates before the new system was introduced, and I am still far more comfortable with the older one and have long wanted some elements of it restored. My problem is not that the process discourages people from closing debates, I don't think it does. As mentioned a year ago closing mainly a one person activity. Last fall there would be long periods where I would be the only one to close a debate, before me Francs2000 did almost everything, and before him Johnleemk. In this era there were some 30 nomination per day. Today this has more than tripled to more than 100 nominations on many days. But at the same time the number of people working in this area has also ballooned. There are at least a dozen people who regularly close debates. We actually have more workers per vote, but we also have an ever growing backlog. I blame to process, both because it takes a lot of time, and also because it is finicky and unpleasant minimizing the number of hours closers dedicate to the process. - SimonP 15:22, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)
  1. Eliminate the "this discussion is closed" header and footer and replace it with a simple "the decision was ..." at the top.
    • When we used to do this, people continued to add their comments to the list for months after. The new votes came without an understanding of the context or history of the discussion. They made it very hard to understand the nature of the debate at the time the discussion was closed. Instead of arguing to eliminate the warnings, several people have recently argued that we need to make the warnings even bigger and more obvious. Eliminating the warning runs counter to our experience. Rossami (talk)
      • Before we had these templates it wasn't that people failed to understand the debate was over, it was that we had no policy against tacking on votes to closed debates. Originally polls were far less regulated, and one important element was that they never ended. People's opinions continued to be added for years, and some of these (e.g. Talk:Georgia) continue today. The same applied to VfD. Back in the day I would routinely add my opinions to old VfD debates that I found archived or on talk pages, as would others. This was a common way of expressing disagreement with a closed vote, rather than the modern practice of simply relisting a page on VfD or adding it to VfU. I do see the advantages of a clear end point, but I don't think it is the end of the world if people keep voting and I certainly don't think the problem deserves the effort we put into preventing it. - SimonP 15:22, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)
  2. Consolidate the {{subst:vt}} with {{subst:vb}}. Use a single template instead (presumably at the top).
    • The template at top and bottom serves two purposes. 1) We continue to find that people need multiple reminders that the discussion is closed. The template at top and bottom increases the likelihood that they'll actually read and obey the instruction. 2) The top template opens a div command which is closed by the bottom template. Taken together, they box the discussion, add a blue background and put it into the class "vfd". This is very useful for those who want to quickly find the remaining unclosed discussions. Everyone can see the blue background and can quickly scroll to the next white text to find a discussion that needs closing. Further, some of us use Korath's stylebook tip to suppress the closed discussions. That is very handy. When I open a VfD page, the only discussions I see are the ones that are still open. I waste no time scrolling but can spend all my time analysing the discussion. The stylebook tip is dependent on the "class=vfd". Rossami (talk)
      • What we need to consider is how most people find these votes. I feel that almost all of them do so via the day logs. These logs are listed on the main VfD page for a considerable period alongside ones with open votes. On the log pages themselves closed votes are hard to distinguish between open ones, especially for people not aware of the subtle signal of the different shade of blue. The vfd top template is above the title, and thus looks to be attached to the debate above it. Nor is it particularly clear which debate the vfd bottom template is meant to be attached to. If you open the subpage to edit it the top template does not even appear in the edit window and the bottom one is such a mess of formatting that it is all but illegible in edit mode. I do not find it surprising at all that people continue to vote despite the vast amount of effort we put to into adding these templates. I feel killing the log pages will do far more to solve the late vote problem than any combination of templates ever could. - SimonP 15:22, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)
  3. Remove the instruction to "Check 'what links here' for any redirects" and fix or delete them.
    • Redirects to dead pages not only serve no purpose, they create confusion for our readers. The link shows blue. It should never take me to a non-page. You could argue that this should be common sense. It wasn't. Without this instruction, closers overlooked the step or thought that they had to open a second VfD discussion just to delete the redirect. A redirect is not obviously an "associated sub-page". This particular instruction has been around for a long time - long before the process instructions were consolidated onto this page. (If I remember right, it used to be buried in Deletion policy.) Rossami (talk)
      • I agree this should stay in, though there has been a recent debate on this issue at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion. - SimonP 15:22, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)
        • I believe the redirects should be removed or fixed; that's simply part of keeping things tidy. Joyous 22:51, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
  4. Remove the instruction "If a given title should never have an article, then remove all links to it making it an orphan."
    • This is a critical step toward making sure that the article is not immediately re-created. Too many times, we've had people come to VfD discussions feeling very hurt that their new article was nominated for deletion. They are rightly confused - they were only following an already-existing redlink and following the instructions on the screen. Some articles are deleted but a quality article by the same name would be accepted. Many deleted articles should stay deleted. Rossami (talk)
      • I also agree this should stay in. Removing self-promition and advertising from other pages is an important part of getting a page deleted. - SimonP 15:22, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)
  5. Remove the link to the discussion from the VfD page.
    • If you're using the stylebook tip, it's unnecessary. If you're not using the stylebook tip, it's still an extra edit that adds little value but does increase the probability of edit conflict with other VfD closers who happen to be working at the same time. Rossami (talk)
      • I would remove this; I don't think the value is worth the time. Joyous 22:51, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
  6. Discussions should be copied to the article's Talk page, not merely linked on it.
    • I disagree with this recommendation very strongly. I've explained my reasons at length above. SimonP has expressed his reasons for disagreeing - also above. I stand by my original reasoning. Rossami (talk)
      • You are correct that this has already been discussed in detail and there is little more to add. My feeling on the matter is that there is no reason not to allow closers to use the system they are most comfortable with. There is not a huge difference between a talk page listing verses a talk page link and allowing admins to work in the manner they prefer will encourage others to participate. - SimonP 15:22, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)
        • Whether a closer links or copies to the talk page, the discussion is easily available. Perhaps this could be a "this way OR that way" instruction, and not something to get too hung up about. I like to link, because I think copying the discussion makes the talk page look messy, but I can also see benefit to having the discussion already there without having to click through to it. Joyous 22:51, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
  7. Delete the archive page when everything's been processed.
    • Deleting takes two steps. Cutting the link from the VfD/Old page and pasting it to the archive page takes two steps. I don't see the savings. On the other hand, we did recently have a page that had to be added back. Someone had purged May 24 off the list but not all discussions were closed. Because we still had the page, it was very easy to add it back to the list and get those discussions cleaned up. Rossami (talk)
      • As mentioned above I think killing the log pages would be a good idea. Deleting them, however is probably not a good idea as preserving the history is important. Perhaps they should be redirected or their content replaced by a template? - SimonP 15:22, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)
  8. Consolidate the wording of the process from numbered bullets and sub-bullets to more paragraph form.
    • This is a style question, not a process question. Personally, I found the sub-bullets easier to read and follow. Rossami (talk)

I fail to see why people voting on a closed VfD is such a bad thing. It's trivially easy to compare the votes to the stated time of closing if someone tries to take them as evidence that the VfD was conducted improperly, and otherwise it just means that someone wastes a little time. Not the end of the world. The only reason I have the removal from the page is that someone pointed out that an easy way of telling if a vote was closed or not was nice. As for the archive, having useless archives is bad, because once we have one useless archive, history has shown that we acquire more and more useless archives. As for things like going and orphaning the article - sure. They're nice. Consciencious and exceptional VfD closers will do them. But they are not a necessary part of the deletion process.

The problem with the current process is that it requires two templates, several pages and page loads, and checking of an eight step process with numerous substeps. Perhaps it always turns out the perfect deletion closing, but it's still one of the worst examples of m:Instruction creep that we have. Quite honestly, I think we were better off when there was no process at all. Snowspinner 14:33, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)

The two competing versions appear to be Snowspinner's, from 01:36, 18 Jun 2005, and the 16:01, 14 Jun 2005 version. I admit I haven't closed any VfDs lately (I've been doing WP:IFD instead). But my opinion is that Snowspinner's version takes longer, is no simpler, and is less informative. The differences between the two versions:
  1. Snowspinner's step 2, add '''RESULT''' ~~~~ to the top of the discussion page, versus the old step 3, add {{subst:vt}} RESULT ~~~~ to the top, hold "Page Down" for two seconds, add {{subst:vb}} to the bottom. For me, these two steps take basically the same amount of time. (I used to use Ctrl-V to paste in {{subst:v to save time.)
  2. Snowspinner's step 3, deleting the article, is shorter but less consciencious. I say, let the instructions say everything that ought to be done; admins can choose how much of it to follow.
  3. Snowspinner's step 5, remove the link to the discussion page from the day log page. This step takes me a long time.
In short, Snowspinner's process takes longer. I support the current version.
I'm also strongly opposed to deleting the log pages. "Having useless archives is bad": who says the archives are useless? How about talk page archives, or even article revision histories? It's a good thing to be able to figure out what the hell was done last month or a year ago, and I see no good reason to delete old log pages. dbenbenn | talk 21:40, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I think you're missing the real advantage of not using the templates, which is this - if you put someone in front of VfD with no instructions and said to close off the debates, they would naturally do it much like I propose. That is to say, given a set of VfD day pages, my method stands as the more intuitive. Also, notably, mine takes one edit to the page - after substituting vt one must add in a result, or begin using templates with arguments, which are neat, but complicated. Snowspinner 23:39, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
Both methods take only 1 edit to the VfD discussion page. One writes {{subst:vt}} RESULT. ~~~~ in only one edit. dbenbenn | talk 14:13, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Look, I was thinking of an easy solution to all this, and I proposed it to Rossami that one might be able to write a form based robot-assistant that would go and close the debates, as well as mark the result, with your signature and its signature saying that it was closed by the bot on your behalf. Either that someone can write an editor that would ease the task. I wrote a basic editor that did these tasks for me, but it's completely out of date. -- AllyUnion (talk) 22:18, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The text of both messages should surely be simplified. The eight-step process should be cut down. I don't have time to suggest specifics right now, but I feel generally in agreement with some of Simon's comments above. I edited the boilerplate on the two templates for simplicity... +sj + 19:33, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] subst:at

What "at" is supposed to mean? "Article top"? It doesn't make sense at all. vt for "Voting top" at least makes some sense. I think someone went too far in removing all mentions of "votes" in Wikipedia.  Grue  19:28, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

"vt" never meant just "voting top". The original template was {{vfd top}} which was short for "vfd closure - top". {{vt}} was created as a shortcut back when the backlog at VfD/Old was rather large. Those few extra keystrokes don't seem like much but they do add up. The current master template is now {{afd top}}. By the same logic, the accompanying shortcut was created at {{at}}.
All the old names redirect to "afd top" so you can still use "vt" or "vfd top" Since they are substituted in, there is no connection back to the shortcut you used.
By the way, the same pattern holds for {{afd bottom}}. Rossami (talk) 21:41, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
Are the templates Template:t and Template:b used? If not they would make the best redirects.  Grue  12:20, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
Well, Template:b seems to be open but Template:t already exists. It doesn't look like it's in use anymore, though. If you can trace down whether Template:t can be pre-empted here, I guess we could add them as additional options. Rossami (talk)

[edit] subst:

I was bold and changed:

{{oldafdfull|date=date of nomination|result=result|votepage=article name}} to {{subst:oldafdfull|date=date of nomination|result=result|votepage=article name}}

since substitution is recommended when using templates to make page loads faster and use up less of a load. Jtkiefer T | @ | C ----- 20:07, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy keeps

Could we have some guidelines on "speedy keeps", i.e. nominations that were clearly either mistakes or made in bad faith? I just closed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jascha Heifetz as a speedy keep, as it was clear there was no possible justification to delete the article. It seems a bit ugly to have the {{oldafdfull}} tag on the talk page of an article that was never seriously being considered for deletion, but I put it on Talk:Jascha Heifetz anyway, because that's the procedure in the case of keeps. Could we please either:

  1. make an exception for speedy keeps, that they don't have to have the {{oldafdfull}} tag, or
  2. modify the text of this page to say explicitly "4. If the decision is KEEP (including any variant such as SPEEDY KEEP, REDIRECT, or MERGE)" so there's no ambiguity about it?

Thanks! --Angr/tɔk tə mi 21:50, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

There is already a guideline at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Maintenance#Abusive, invalid or other nominations which are not in good faith. Several people have proposed updating it but no one yet has proposed a specific change on it's Talk page. Would you like to make a suggestion there? Rossami (talk) 01:31, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing that out to me. That's not the procedure I followed, obviously, but somehow I doubt that my closing the discussion early will prolong the controversy in this case. We'll see. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 06:43, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Redundant?

This page seems redundant with WP:DP and/or WP:GAFD. Radiant_>|< 14:33, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

I would disagree. This page talks in very specific detail about the mechanics of closing a deletion discussion. Neither the Deletion policy nor the Guide deal with this topic in more than very general terms. Instead:
  • The Deletion policy page sets the standards which are implemented on this page but it also covers a lot more ground about deletion generally. This page was originally written as a drill-down page - an implementation of one specific component of the policy.
  • The Guide, on the other hand, was written for an entirely different audience. This page is written for an experienced user who is willing to volunteer to be part of our janitorial team and close deletion discussions. The Guide is written for a novice - someone new to the deletion process. While we mention in the Guide that there is a process for formally closing discussions, we deliberately avoid a detailed discussion of the mechanics.
I suppose you could merge this page somewhere but it seems like it would be a lot of work. If you decide it's worth your time to try a draft, I strongly recommend that you not merge it with the Guide. Rossami (talk) 21:11, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Non admins and no consensus

This is a pretty strong statement: Non-administrators may only close decisions which are unambiguous "keep" decisions. They should be near unanimous before a non-administrator should close the discussion. Added 13 June 2005 by Rossami, for whom I have tremendous respect. We've got lots and lots of people who are good on the ground who aren't admins, and enough eyes on AfD that any funny business would be quickly reversed, not even to get started on DRV's ability to take up any slack. What's the general feeling on this? - brenneman(t)(c) 13:46, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Good question there, Aaron. I have one of my own; the "decision close by admin only" policy verbiage refers to article deletes, but does it or does it not also apply to category deletes? Would be good to see this clarified. — JonRoma 09:35, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

It would be good to have a better definition of "unambiguous 'keep.'" For example, we could consider a nomination an unambiguous keep if it has received 5-10 keep votes within a 24 hour period from first being nominated. This would prevent inclusionists with an agenda from closing debates citing WP:IAR and WP:SNOW before a nomination has had a chance to garner any kind of attention, let alone true consensus. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 20:07, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

"Unambiguous keep" does not mean "speedy-keep". No non-admin should attempt to close a discussion prior to the full run of the AFD period. And no non-admin should ever close a debate citing either WP:IAR or WP:SNOW. Anyone seeing such an out-of-process closure should immediately revert it and reopen the discussion. "Unambiguous keep" means that at the end of 5 days, there is an overwhelming majority and an overwhelming weight of arguments. Unanimity or near-unanimity is required. Rossami (talk) 21:37, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I endorse that fully. I'm thinking that it should be point 4. Comments? Also, although I think the user got it right, you probably won't like this, then. 60.226.224.25 00:15, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. That debate is now reopened. Rossami (talk) 01:26, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More about non-admins

I see it (and do it) quite a bit in practice but it doesn't officially seem to be listed here. If a page is speedy deleted during its AFD run, I think that should also be a reason for non-admins to close discussions. Seems like close to 5-10% of each day's AFD'd pages are speedied (most of those under A7) so I feel like we're knocking out the work of at least 1-2 admins there... (ESkog)(Talk) 17:30, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I often close these, but always place a reminder on the deleting admin's talk. If they are going to speedy delete, they should do the legwork. (Unless they are unaware, per above.) Since there is no "afdold" template to place on a talk page, nor any need to edit the page to remove the "subst:afd", it takes all of thirty second to put {{subst:at}} '''speedy delete''' - ~~~~ {{subst:ab}} in. - brenneman(t)(c) 00:40, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Redirect" option

Your opinion please in Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy#"Redirect" option. Mukadderat 23:49, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal from WT:AFD

On Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion#Blanking old AfDs, someone raised the concern that some of our old AFD discussions are showing up in Google - and that in some cases they definitely shouldn't be. A recommendation was made to change the way we close discussions in order to "hide" the discussions a bit better. I propose to change step 2 of the closing procedures to:

2. Edit the AFD discussion sub-page by selecting all text except the header line. Replace the discussion with

{{subst:aa}} RESULT. ~~~~

and to change the template to use a new template which reads:

This is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article above. This debate has been closed. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). The contents of the debate can be reviewed by opening the History page and clicking one version back.
The result of the debate was

It does move both the header and the result outside the box. Does that create any problems?

Note: We might also be able to amend the instructions for second nominations since we could now allow the renomination on this page as long as we clearly insisted on a link being provided to the old version in history. It might simplify a number of steps in addition to helping solve the Google problem.

Thoughts or changes? Rossami (talk) 04:25, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

If this overwrites the current template, it'll create lots of problems on the old log pages wherever someone just transcluded it or one of its redirects instead of just substing it. There are a fair number of these, and they're hard to find with whatlinkshere since 1) {{afd top}} used to have a backlink, and 2) whatlinkshere recently broke for pre-existing template links. Should be done with a different template instead. —Cryptic (talk) 15:43, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I object to this idea in princple. Makign it harder to find old debates via our internal search function is IMO a bad idea. modiging the robots.txt 9which google at elast does honor) so that these pages are not archived, even when active, seesm to me a much better idea. DES (talk) 17:15, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
    When you search for an old discussion, what keywords do you search for? The title? Because that would still be visible. Maybe we could modify this idea in a way that would support the internal searches better? (I agree, by the way, that modifying robots.txt is also necessary. I'm just not sure that it's sufficient.) Rossami (talk) 19:18, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removing SUBST instruction for result templates

I'm being bold in the same spirit as Jtkiefer above and removing the instruction to use subst: when placing the result template on the talk page of the affected article. As per recent discussion at WT:AUM the use of a template does not impose a huge amount of extra strain on the server, and I believe that the extra obfuscated wikicode at the top of the talk page is sufficiently awful to outweigh the benefits. Templates were created to enable frequently-used code to be encapsulated to make wikicode simpler and easier to edit, and I believe that this is suitable justification. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 15:28, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Not to mention all the old substed {{oldafdfull}}'s and the like that have that god-awful "The CSS for this template should be changed. See [[Wikipedia:Template Standardisation]]." spam stuck to them (as in this and previous revisions) that are now impossible to clean up. I had no idea this page said to subst them. —Cryptic (talk) 18:26, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
It's an old debate, but I agree with the general thrust of the argument. In many cases the guidance to subst: just defeats the purpose of templates. We're trying to overcome capacity problems but the result is we defeat the purpose of templates and set ourselves up for problems down the road (more so in some other cases than in this particular one I have to admit). --kingboyk 14:19, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Drive-by deletions

One concern I would like to express is what I call "drive-bys," being those persons who propose or vote on an AfD without actually looking at the involved page or doing any sort of checking on the topic at hand. I have seen a few of these and it is often a Herculean effort to get someone to set aside the ego blow and undo the vote they cast. Often, I write to a person and let them know how something was missed in the process and ask them to review their vote. Many times, the person hasn't even bothered to look at the item. And then I hear nothing. Yet I find the same people then voting to delete on other items. I know many are voting on AfDs to try to get their names out there, but this has the effect of leaving some discussions with a "delete per nom" and little else.

May I propose a rule that a person's ability to vote or propose an AfD be capped at, for example, 40 per day. In this way, the focus would be on the quality of the proposed deletion rather on the quantity of votes secured. Of couse, the person can add to an on-going discussion within the same topic, but once you picked your 40, that's it. Jtmichcock 20:50, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with this general idea, and think that the larger problem stems from editors presuming bad faith, which many seem to be doing. Many people seem to have an itchy trigger finger and are using AfD as a first resort, whenever there is any ambiguity as to an article's encyclopaedic value. It would benefit the AfD process and Wikipedia generally if everyone were encouraged to discuss issues before nominating them for deletion. I think something like this might help to accomplish that. --Cheapestcostavoider 05:00, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Relisting

The article was vague about the relisting process. I've had a look at what other admins do, and it seems that the protocol is not only to relist on the current day's AFD page but also to remove it from it's original day. I'll edit these guidelines, but if I'm wrong please revert and let me know. --kingboyk 00:51, 7 March 2006 (UTC) (new admin just finding his feet)

No, it definitely is the case that they should be delisted, otherwise remain as "live" at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old which makes extra work for people closing debates and AFD days using that tool. --kingboyk 05:37, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I restored Splash's addition to the Special Situations, as it helps all kinds of deletion, although AfD has special instructions. Perhaps the Template:Relist (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) template could be more generic, so that it could be used on all debates?
--William Allen Simpson 00:22, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] transclusion

The CfD and TfD pages were gradually diverging from this page. I changed those sections to transclude the process, now used in both places. Hopefully, everybody will find this helpful for the future.

I'd have done the same for the others, but I'm not as familiar with them.

--William Allen Simpson 19:43, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

And I swear that I had nothing to do with the massive crunching that Splash just did to the page. I prefer detailed and documented processes.

--William Allen Simpson 14:43, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Refactoring

Blurgh. The new version is horribly unreadable and more difficult to use compared to the old. Anyone mind if I change it back? Thoughts? Proto||type 10:57, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Please change it back! It's missing all the instructions previously discussed here, and makes it difficult (nay impossible) to compare (and remember) the practices in different areas of work. I've always tried to be careful about stomping on others' prior work, but apparently not everybody is so inclined.
--William Allen Simpson 17:11, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I think he's thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Important instructions seem to be missing. I prefer it the old way too and will revert. --kingboyk 05:11, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I too prefer it the old way. --Siva1979Talk to me 16:44, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Renaming

I've been trying to copyedit and slim down a few of the deletion-related pages, including WP:AFD and the Guide to deletion. There are a dizzying array of these pages. I think this page is misnamed - it's really about the deletion procedure, not the deletion process. The process is how we decide about deleting an article. The procedure, for administrators, is (1) close discussion (2) click "delete," etc. I actually found myself here after thinking Wikipedia:Deletion process would explain the difference between AfD and Speedy, etc. So am I nuts or could we consider renaming? Kaisershatner 17:33, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category renaming through cut & paste moves

In case the category has a large introductory text that could be copyrightable, the history of the text has to be preserved for GFDL requirements. In these cases the history can be pasted into the talk page as is done for Transwiki.

Can this be added to Wikipedia:Deletion process#Categories for Deletion page? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Paddu (talk • contribs) .

Of course. I've just added it (you could have added it yourself). -- Rick Block (talk) 16:48, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for adding it. I wasn't sure whether I should wait for some consensus. (And thanks for signing my gazillionth unsigned comment (but the first that I didn't notice) :-P .) -- Paddu 20:27, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deleting Disambiguation pages

How do I nominate a disambiguation page for deletion? Foxjwill 18:16, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Good question. Depending the the amount of content it contains, a disambiguation page could qualify either under "Articles for deletion", "Redirects for deletion" or "Miscellany for deletion". Without knowing what page you have in mind, I'd probably go for "Miscellany" myself. But if there's a better forum, someone will recommend moving the nomination. You can find the instructions for nomination here.
Bear in mind that you will have to have a strong case for deletion. Most disambiguation pages are kept on the "redirects are cheap" argument. They have to be actively damaging to the encyclopedia before we generally get rid of them. Rossami (talk) 04:09, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Substituting templates on this page

Rossami seems to think that templates such as {{afd top}} and {{afd bottom}} shouldn't be substituted on this page. I disagree. The instructions very clearly state that the templates should always be substituted upon use, and it's not unlikely that someone is going to check on this page's source to see how the examples are done. But lo and behold, the examples are done without substitution! The instructions and the examples are saying two different things, and that's just bad. The only reason Rossami has for keeping them un-substituted is that this way the examples displayed on this page will update as the templates themselves change - but let's be realistic, these templates don't change very much over time at all. It's more important to show a proper example than worry about possibly having to come through and update the template a year down the line. --Cyde↔Weys 14:47, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

  • I firmly disagree. The reason for subst on the *fd pages is so that they don't change there as the templates and processes evolve. But they should reflect recent practice here. And it's really a hideous waste of resources running bots to bang away at old pages anyway, as there will never be a payback in future load savings! Stop doing that! --William Allen Simpson 04:26, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
    • You haven't responded to my main concern, that using them in this matter runs directly contradictory to how the page says they should be used. --Cyde↔Weys 21:34, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
      • The page says they should be used through substitution when closing a discussion. I don't see the potential confusion. By the way, I must challenge your assertion that these templates don't change. They may not change daily but the history shows enough versions to be worth keeping them up-to-date. Rossami (talk) 22:44, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Keep CfD and TfD sections clean

I still see closing editors placing {{tfd top}} before section headers. This is not the right way to go. If you edit a section by clicking the section [edit] link then you will naturally open all the section content in your edit window. If someone has closed a nomination by tagging a section before the section header then the next time someone edits the previous section the tag will appear at the bottom of the edit window -- often without so much as a double line break between one thing and the next. Note that the last text in the previous section is almost always a user's sig; this is often markup-heavy -- just like the substituted tag text!

This is exactly where we want to insert new text when we comment on a pending nomination: at the bottom. It's annoying and difficult to sort through the jumble of markup at the bottom of the edit window, looking for the exact place to insert our comments.

Some other XfD processes do not have this problem; each nomination has its own page. TfD nominations are grouped into pages by date; several nominations appear separated only by section headers.

It's been argued that the advantage of tagging closed nominations before the section header is that it encloses the section header itself in a colored box and discourages editing of the section. This may look better but it works less well.

I've revised the template in question, extending a tab up over the section edit link. Please be careful to put this in its natural place, within the section to which it refers. John Reid 03:34, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

The change you made makes sense for those deletion processes where the discussions are all held on one page. It makes less sense for AFD where every discussion has a separate subpage. In fact, it can make closing those discussions significantly more difficult because it is harder to find the discussions which remain open. The old process worked better in two situations. For those of us who use the monobook to suppress the already-closed discussions, it is a simple matter to find unclosed discussions as long as the entire contents are within the discussion. For those who scan for unclosed discussions without such an aid, you can at least scan more quickly since you're simply looking for any white space on the page. With this change, you will have to scan the page more slowly to make sure that you haven't overlooked a short discussion.
I don't mind forking the process for TfD and others where the discussions are held on a single page. I think it should be changed back for AFDs. Rossami (talk) 22:03, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry; I didn't think I'd affected anything except TfD. Was I wrong? John Reid 09:18, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

My apologies. I mis-read the edit comparison and confused myself over line numbers. I should have checked more carefully before commenting. Rossami (talk) 13:33, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
It's not just TfD, because CfD uses a similar daily system. Both should have the top template after the section header, as documented by John Reid.
--William Allen Simpson 02:08, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy deletion process

I've seen a few new pages get a speedy delete, leaving behind a talk page or images that were uploaded only for use on that page. It then becomes necessary to nominated the talk page and any images for deletion separately. It seems like admins should check the talk page and any images to see whether they should be deleted along with the main article. Should the outline for the speedy deletion process mention something like this? Philbert2.71828 22:03, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

An orphaned talk page is already eligible for speedy-deletion. Admins are supposed to check the Talk page but some will inevitably slip through the cracks. If someone overlooks it, simply tag the talk page with {{db|case G8}} and another admin will get around to it fairly soon.
The policy for images is less clear. I know that orphaned images were considered as a speedy-deletion candidate but I don't think that standard was ever adopted. I think you have to go through the Wikipedia:Images for deletion process for those. Rossami (talk) 04:51, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy Deletion of "Edward Capehart O'Kelley" page

I want the person responsible for VERY quickly deleting my page on Edward Capehart O'Kelley repremanded or banned from authority to do such work. I was given a "warning" seconds after my first save, and then the chance to explain my reasons why it should not be deleted (I was still working on it) My information was deleted, even after I explained why it should not be, and there was no debate or explaination. Just some power hungry ass that would not reveal himself. I am pissed and really starting to hate Wikipedia.Soapy 00:23, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Edward Capehart O'Kelley (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) was deleted by Kungfuadam (talk • contribs • blocks • protects • deletions • moves).
  1. You are correct that it shouldn't have been speedy deleted, as it had the {{hangon}} template, and has 2 existing article references.
  2. The Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion explicitly states: "Before nominating an article for speedy deletion, please consider whether an article could be improved or reduced to a stub. Also, please note that some Wikipedians create articles in multiple saves, so try to avoid deleting a page too soon after its initial creation."
  3. You are incorrect as to the place to complain. That should have been Wikipedia:Deletion review.
  4. Unfortunately these days, just re-posting the same article again is sometimes considered a form of vandalism, so complain first, and during the review the old article will be undeleted so everybody can see it.
--William Allen Simpson 03:06, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] non-admins and nom-withdrawns

If a nominator withdraws the nomination for any reason, especially for say improper process, do you feel this rule for non-admins closing discussions is hard and fast:

  • Non-administrators should not close discussions in which they have been involved.

If the nom is withdrawn its a non-judgement on the part of the non-admin right? Personally I feel that makes sense. With no judgement call necessary to me it shouldn't matter who slaps the two templates around it. I ask because I closed my first today, Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2006_July_1 and I just felt the need to be WP:BOLD and it was quite obvious is was going to be a keep or speedy keep, which was acknowledged by the nominator and then he withdrew it. I just wanted to make sure I didn't step on any toes with that. --Crossmr 22:31, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Just for clarity, this had to do with the template forming part of WP:CITE and WP:RULES as well. Netscott 22:51, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
For withdrawals, the nominator can close, so presumably anybody else can close upon seeing the nominator's explicit withdrawal. No need to waste other folk's time, just because the nominator isn't familiar with the processes.
OTOH, even administrators shouldn't close discussions in which they have been involved. If somebody is involved, then not counting their own vote seems to be the usual rule.
And I do get annoyed with certain persons that are both involved, and close the discussion early, or after losing delete it anyway. There's just no way to stop them, nor any reprimand afterward.
--William Allen Simpson 23:57, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Right, I understand the need for admins or non-admins not to get involved in closing debates that are controversial or anything other than a very obvious keep that they've expressed an opinion in. Doing so would obviously lead to a headache or two, plus taint the process. I just wasn't sure though how that position applied when something became ridiculously obvious like this. I'll mark that in my notebook and keep it in mind for next time. If something similar happens, I'll perhaps observe for a bit so that it leaves me available to close if it snowballs. --Crossmr 01:20, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
No problem, it was an almost unanimous case. Probably the admins were as stunned as everybody else by this TFD, and you were the first to see that this withdrawn TFD won't fly. -- Omniplex 13:45, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article deleted but AfD still open

When an administrator deletes an article that is currently undergoing an AfD, but doesn't close the discussion (perhaps they felt it was appropriate to delete it on sight, and didn't notice the AfD), and the consensus of the debate so far seems to be more or less "delete", doesn't it make sense for a non-admin to formally close the debate? I've seen this happen more than once, but it doesn't seem to be listed on Wikipedia:Deletion process#Non-Administrators closing discussions. Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 14:51, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] recording consensus re undeletion when deleting articles

I would like to propose that when closing deletion discussions with consensus to delete, a distinction should be made between the following sub-cases:

  1. Consensus that another page may be recreated with the same title, provided that the content is substantially different from the deleted page.
  2. Consensus that no other page should be recreated with the same title, even if the content is substantially different, except via undeletion process.

The closing admin should state which of these apply, as part of the admin's task of judging the consensus of the delete debate. If there are later attempts to recreate the page, their validity should be judged accordingly.

Arbitrary username 21:40, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

What evidence do you have that the current process is not working? Your explicit addition sounds like an example of instruction creep. Why wouldn't we simply expect future users to read the discussion themselves? Rossami (talk) 14:16, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anon ip can close AFD

I don't see why this should not be possible. Anyone closing needs to provide a clear, logical and rational reason for why they closed that way and why they think their reason for closing is valid. If this reasoning is present, the close will be valid. Kim Bruning 12:27, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Disagree, and I will partially revert your change made without prior consensus.
--William Allen Simpson 22:06, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
It's a foundation issue. I've just argued elsewhere that foundation issues are not entirely set in stone, but they are still very hard to argue against, as they are a consensus that has been agreed on by *all* wikimedia projects, and they form our basic mandate.
Your best bet would probably be to show where two different foundation issues somehow contradict each other, whereby somehow, using solid logic, it turns out that the best solution is to restrict editing by anons.
Alternately or in addition, you could take the argument to meta to show the fatal flaw in the foundation issues that you are disagreeing with. Then come back when you've convinced everyone to change the foundation issues.
Finally, if all else fails, you always have a right to fork and a right to leave, of course :-) See the foundation issues page.
-- Kim Bruning 22:59, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Since Kim's edit didn't encourage IP users to close deletion debates, but only removed the explicit prohibition, I don't think the reactionary stance was quite necessary. I would change 'People' to 'Users', however... -- nae'blis (talk) 04:28, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
I think you are confusing which of us is the reactionary here. ;-) And yes I would very much like to continue to encourage anonymous users to close deletion debates, and in fact edit any page - provided they do so properly. Kim Bruning 14:45, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
  • laugh* I'm just considering this a short term reaction cycle, that's all. ;) -- nae'blis (talk) 16:46, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Non admins closing discussions

It strikes me that the collection of edits here to this section were highly editorial and turned a long-standing part of the page eseentially (and rather clumsily) on its head without any kind of discussion. It's clumsiness is amplified by all the flurble about advertising for RfA. There was also much rabbitting about admins and "people" in a section designed specifically to guide non-admins in how/what to do (which I at least found useful at the time I wasn't an admin). So I got rid of it in preference for the much older, perfectly functional, text that's been around for ages. -Splash - tk 12:00, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Tyrenius 20:41, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Some of that stuff, like not closing decisions you've taken part in, applies to all closers however. I retrimmed some of the language, without the advertising and doublespeak (I hope). -- nae'blis 22:20, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Hmm, I'd also messed with the page a bit earlier. Note that there's a perfectly good template available by way of CSD with which non-admins can actually close descisions to delete even. :-) No reason to limit closing to admins at all (or even make much of a distinction anymore), though a closer does need to know what they're doing, of course. Kim Bruning 23:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, there is, in the case of decisions to delete in particular. I replied further down the page. -Splash - tk 23:33, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad it's been reverted, the change caused more problems than it solved. It's also pointless for non-admins to close delete debates, speedy template or no speedy template. It doesn't speed the process up any - the admin that comes across it still has to check that there was actually an AfD that resulted in delete, so very little effort is saved. It's also going to be confusing when CSD develops a backlog.

I removed this paragraph:

Non-administrators can assist in non-controversial "delete" decisions by using the "what links here" feature and unlinking or redirecting the inbound links of an article that is clearly going to be deleted.

because it's dangerous to assume that a discussion will end in 'delete'. If a discussion turns out to result in a keep when you thought it was delete, going back and relinking everything could be complicated - you could find that period in your contributions history and revert, I suppose, unless of course any of the articles you delinked have been edited since. Again, could conceivably create a lot of problems for an utterly trivial amount of time saved that just isn't worth it. Dewikilinking deleted articles is tedious but doesn't usually take that long. --Sam Blanning(talk) 23:45, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree, but on the other hand I wish more admins would either a) post a note for people to delink the new redlink, or b) do it themselves. Seems like I see a lot of orphaned links out there, and I don't know if it's workload or an oversight or what... -- nae'blis 18:02, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


Why has it suddenly become bad for anons and non-admins to help with deletion (as has been the case since wikipedia was founded). Why this drastic change in policy? It makes it rather hard to see how potential admins are doing at deletion, for one. Kim Bruning 15:10, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Sociologically, deciding on debates by anons is poor; we can't get hold of them usually to have a word about why they closed it the way they did, for example. There is minimal accountability without a username and stable location of a talk page. Non-admins are lousy at deletion: they can't do it! But having them tag debates as speedies is not good for two main reasons i)that the deleting admin remains responsible in the community's eyes for what they do with their delete button. I can't very well say "but 123.456.7.8 said it was a delete and I didn't bother to check"! Given that, they're wasting their time since the deleting admin needs to do the work anyway, and in doing so remains free to reach an entirely alternative conclusion (thus the bit about them being reviewed by admins). ii)Some admins won't bother to check what they're deleting, particularly those with un-burned fingers and we'll wind up with sloppy behaviour which results in bruised feelings when the sloppy admins gets told about it. That these classes of editor can 'help' with 'deletion' is true: it's just really very little help when they do. Closing keeptions is a different matter as the text says. Drastic? It's been like that for ages. No consensus closes are different; if a non-admin isn't challenged over it, then fine, but the wide feeling (which I'm sure you'll tell me is wrong) is that part of the reason for sending people through RfA (which you'll tell me is broken) is to test their judgement on matters such as this. Non-admins haven't had that evaluation and proceed at their peril. As do admins, of course, who are far from infallible. -Splash - tk 23:33, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I'd prefer to promote someone who has done some of these closes. I don't mind that it's a little more work now, it means people get non-destructive practice at closing deletion debates, and that makes for better admins later. Kim Bruning 15:37, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Non-admins can still close keeps, redirects, merges and transwikis. I think there's still plenty of opportunity for a non-admin to show that he can do closes without trying to close ambiguous discussions or those that he doesn't have the tools to properly finish. As for judging how they'd close discussions in RfA, I don't see what's wrong with looking at their arguments in the AfD itself. If they're grounded in policy, they'll probably be a good closer - if they tend towards the "keep, I've heard of it" variety, probably not. --Sam Blanning(talk) 09:18, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

That would depend strongly on which policies you would be advocating :-) Kim Bruning 05:33, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Subst'ing the oldafdfull template

I changed the template to include substitution. The template works both ways, and I thought it would be better to have it subst'd. If anyone dissagrees revert my edit, and we can talk. One reason for the change is that subst reduces server load and ensures no problems with back compatability with changes to the template parameters. —— Eagle (ask me for help) 16:35, 10 August 2006 (UTC) Upon reading furthur up... I decieded to undo myself. —— Eagle (ask me for help) 16:47, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Project

Due to a number of AfD's that have been closed as keep or speedy keep by non admins, a WikiProject has been created in an effort to help reduce the number of resubmissions by placing the oldafd tag on article talk pages. For more information, please see Wikipedia:WikiProject AfD closing. SynergeticMaggot 16:54, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AfD closings and new category template

I have been working with the new category template in the AfDs. The "REMOVE THIS TEMPLATE WHEN CLOSING THIS AfD" template needs to be removed, but the instructions here do not explicitly include this action. As I have never closed an AfD, I do not feel comfortable about adding this new instruction into the directions. I have advised a couple of closers about it, but perhaps the instructions for this new feature also need to be added. Thanks. --Gay Cdn (talk) (email) (Contr.) 12:41, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

It's actually really pretty annoying because it adds yet another thing to do when closing an AfD; already a multi-stage process of box-ticking. And I don't know how to change my javascript to automate it. Until someone writes me that Javascript, in closings I do (few these days), I plan to usually leave the template and whoever put it there can take the responsibility for cleaning up after it. It's not really fair to add additional work onto every closing admin. -Splash - tk 13:22, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
The problem with the above is that "whoever put it there" is not a person, it is a new part of the AfD nomination process and it automatically appears in the discussion. Someone would have to come along after you close the Afd and remove it themselves (something I have been doing myself).--Gay Cdn (talk) (email) (Contr.) 13:42, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Someone added it to the AfD process, then, and I can't find any warning of that here. (Apparently it was endorsed by Jimbo, but he doesn't have to close AfDs terribly often.) -Splash - tk 13:51, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
My point, anyway, is that it's a time sink for whichever user is expected to clean it up. It's thus not a great solution to a hard to pin down problem. Presumably, there is someone somewhere with the time to sink into doing the pointless work it entails, so we can leave it to them. Of course, if someone can write a line to javascript that chops the first line off the edit box (Which I guess can't be hard with a search for \r\n or \r or \n whichever) then it becomes zero-effort. -Splash - tk 13:58, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Splash. The categorization process was installed as a test. Many people argued that it was unnecessary and just created extra work in an already-complex process. Those who advocated strongly for categorization won the right to implement their test but now they have to take responsibility for working through all it's bugs. If they can't come up with an efficient way to handle the problem, then we may have to carefully evaluate the results of the test and decide if this was a workable solution in the first place. Rossami (talk) 18:03, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Throwing my two cents in (I've left a similar message at WT:AFDC), as it stands now, this template has the "feature" that if one clicks the edit button off of the main AfD page (say Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2006 September 4) the tag doesn't show up at all, since it is above the link to the article and is thus in "Section 0". In short, unless the closing admin does a little extra work, he'll never even see the tag. --- Deville (Talk) 17:09, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Transwiki section changed

All the "Move to Wikibooks" type templates have been changed to Copy to Wikibooks, Copy to Wikisource, etc. See the talk pages for these templates for the reason for this. To summarize, "Copy to x" is more accurate than "Move to x", since the transwiki process only actually involves copying, the original is not necessarily deleted and frequently is not deleted. (although in the case of administrators transwikiing after an AfD debate, the original would be deleted). --Xyzzyplugh 13:48, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Informing the creators is being ignored

Unfortunately, as thousands of articles, categories, photos, lists etc are being deleted or renamed, it is becoming increasingly rare to find editors (who make the nominations to delete or rename) follow the normal courtesy of contacting the original creators of articles and categories, and often articles and categories are deleted or renamed without the input of their creators or from those editors who know more about the subject and contents of the articles and categories. I speak from experience because these acts breed uncalled for enmity between otherwise well-meaning editors. Somehow, a way has to be found to stress and publicize the Wikipedia guidelines which is clearly stated below in a few places:

  1. Wikipedia:Proposed deletion#Nominating a proposed deletion point number 3: Consider adding the article to your watchlist and letting the article's creator know that you have tagged it. You can use {{subst:PRODWarning|Article title}}
  2. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion#How to list pages for deletion: It is generally considered civil to notify the good-faith creator and any main contributors of the article that you are nominating the article. To find the main contributors, look in the page history or talk page of the article and/or use TDS' Article Contribution Counter. For your convenience, you may use {{subst:AFDWarningNew|Article title}} (for creators who are totally new users), {{subst:AFDWarning|Article title}} (for creators), or {{subst:Adw|Article title}} (for contributors or established users).
  3. Wikipedia:Categories for discussion#Special notes: When nominating a category, it's helpful to add a notice on the talk page of the most-closely related article. Doing so would not only extend an additional courtesy, but possibly also bring in editors who know more about the subject at hand. You can use {{cfd-article}} for this.

All suggestions as to how to improve the present situation should be welcomed and popularized. Thank you for your attention to this matter. IZAK 16:05, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

While interesting, this comment has nothing to do with the topic of this page. This page discusses the mechanics of closing deletion discussions. It has nothing to do with the nomination process. Please stop spamming your complaint all over Wikipedia. Rossami (talk) 18:50, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] re procedure change for closing out a date of AfD's

In the AfD section, point 6.3 on closing out a completed date ("Edit the Old discussions section of the main AFD page by deleting the link for the day, which looks something like Day of week, Day Month.") appears to have been obsoleted by using code for the same effect. I'm not sure of what's going on there, so I'm not changing the text here, but if someone knows better, the text should be changed (or, I guess, just deleted) to reflect this shiny to bit of code.Herostratus 21:14, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed change to Deletion Process (from WP:VPP)

From The Policy Section of the Village Pump

I would like to see WP:DELPRO changed slightly, particularly the Non-admins closing AfD's section. I would like to see non-admins permitted to speedy close deletion debates, particularly, but not limited to AfD's. Some non-admins have already done this once or twice ([1]). Clearly, in that example, there was a community consensus, and if it wasn't for this tiny little clause in this policy, I would have done it myself. Thanks!

This preceding statement in a nutshell:
I want the following to be ammended 
Non-administrators may not "speedy-close" deletion discussions. They must either express their view that
the debate should be "speedy-closed" in the normal procedure, or wait until the discussion has run the
full AfD period to close it as a "keep" if there is a concensus to do so.

to

Non-administrators may "speedy-close" deletion discussions. In the event of a speedy keep, the non-admin
should close the discussion just as an admin would. For speedy delete, the non-admin should place {{db}}
on the top of the article, citing the page of the AfD.

Thanks! — Deon555talkdesk 08:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

It would really be better to discuss this on WP:DELPRO and simply inform others of the debate here. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 09:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Also, that block of text was originally added by an anon on October 6 undiscussed, and contrary to guidelines WP:SNOW and Wikipedia:Speedy keep. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 09:30, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
(after ec) Now normally it wouldn't be correct to just revert this out of the policy, but I draw your attention to this edit: [2] where that paticular clause was made by an anon. Should I just remove it? — Deon555talkdesk 09:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
edit: great minds... — Deon555talkdesk 09:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
It seems the other editors liked his contribution, since they rewrote it almost completely. Through introduction it gained consensus. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 09:37, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Moved to WT:DELPRO by — Deon555talkdesk
Can we hold a straw poll here? Support to allow non-admins to close AfD's. Oppose to keep it as it is. Will run for seven days (no speedy closes ;)) — Deon555talkdesk 09:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Nope. Amendments to policy are not enacted through voting on them. We discuss the pros and cons. In general, admins are supposed to have extra buttons but not an extra "say" in things, so based on that there is no problem in principle with non-admins closing xFDs. (Radiant) 11:45, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I (as a non-admin) have speedy-kept withdrawn nominations before (when there were no delete !votes), speedy-closed nominations where the page was speedied without closing the XfD, and speedy-closed nominations in the wrong deletion forum, so I'd support this. Non-adminship should be no big deal; if a non-admin has the technical capability to do something, why not let them do it? However, I don't agree with a straw poll without more discussion first. --ais523 09:51, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Some other points: non-admin closes as 'delete' are pointless, because an admin has to check the XfD to see if it was closed properly; and {{db-xfd}} would work better than {{db}} (being more specific) in most cases. --ais523 09:52, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
It still bothers me that it says non-admins should never speedy keep. There are plenty of circumstances where it is acceptable (points at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bill Gates), and I even speedy kept a page just a few hours ago. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 09:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I didn't even know that template existed :) Awesome stuff. — Deon555talkdesk 10:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Non-admins should not be able to speedy keep, IMO. Such closes are frequently more controversial than they look - nominator withdrawal is not necessarily a reason to close (I've closed discussions as 'delete' where the original nominator changed his mind on flimsy grounds), nor is everyone disagreeing with the nominator, nor are several moves for "Speedy keep", as some editors - particularly inexperienced non-admins - misinterpret "speedy keep" to mean "strong keep", and use it whenever they think they have a knock-out argument. The sky will not fall if the discussion remains open until an admin finds it, and minimising non-admin error means less confusion and rancour. --Sam Blanning(talk) 12:03, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

In some of the cases Ais mentioned, e.g. nominations in the wrong forum, I would not object to their doing so - but I would still support the current wording of this policy, and let WP:IAR take care of obviously legitimate closes by non-admins. --Sam Blanning(talk) 12:05, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
(edit conflict) My most recent speedy-keep is here; the nominator nominated a template, I !voted 'keep' with an explanation, we discussed the matter, and the nominator changed their mind and withdrew, at which point I closed it. It wouldn't have been the end of the world had the debate remained open for a while; but in a situation where no-one wants the page deleted, why keep the XfD running? (The relevant page can always be renominated if someone else wants it deleted; there isn't a need for a DRv in this case.) No, nominator withdrawal by itself isn't enough of a reason to close, but it is if no-one else has !voted 'delete' (see Wikipedia:Speedy keep, which also discourages non-admin closes at the moment). Your argument, that admins are more likely to speedy-keep correctly than non-admins, fails when applied to something else (after all, admins are more likely to correctly create articles than non-admins, given that the majority of new articles are created by new users), so I don't think it's enough by itself. --ais523 12:11, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with Sam. While there are a few cases where it is appropriate, we've had far more problems where it was in appropriate and created real problems for the process. As Sam said, those decisions are often more controversial than they appear. Worse, we had real problems with users deeply involved in the discussion deciding that they could close a discussion as a way to preempt an on-going debate. Some of those out-of-process closures have been quite difficult to detect. The truth is that if you go back just a bit further in the process's history, non-admins were not allowed to close deletion discussions under any circumstances. The standards were loosened at a time when we had a very bad backlog on the closure of AFD (then VfD) discussions. There's no harm in allowing a discussion to continue for a few days more. Rossami (talk) 14:40, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Re: Non-admins closing non-controversial deletes - I don't see the problem with that. We already have a template for it. If, I, a non-admin closes a delete and slaps a {{db-afd}} on it... it only takes one click for the admin to verify that the results were legit. Closing an AFD takes 2-3 times the time. (10 seconds vs 60 seconds?) It seems like it would save the few admins we have running though AFD some effort and might speed up the prossess. *shrug* ---J.S (T/C) 17:36, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Sam on this one. Just look at Parsssseltongue (talk • contribs) and the shit he created by bending the rules - I spent the best part of a week on DRV listing all his bad closes. Nope, I reckon the DELPRO is fine as it is, sorry. And if we were going to implement non-admins closing delete discussions, it wouldn't be "speedy closes", but rather "unanimous five-day-old AfD's" (note unanimous, because if it isn't, the "keep" viewpoint has to given weighting by an Admin). I'd support that, but I don't support the current proposal. Daniel.Bryant [ T · C ] 22:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Non-admin's can already close unanimous 5 day old debates — Deon555talkdesk 22:58, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Only unanimous 5 day old keep debates; by my suggestion, this could become unanimous 5 day old debates of all types. Daniel.Bryant [ T · C ] 23:50, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Today is the first day I have actually read all of this page. I never bothered reading past the end of the section on how to close AfDs. Having found it, I'm going to ignore the m:instruction creep and stick with being bold. I'll close AfDs when I'm pretty sure what the consensus was. I'll leave the difficult closes for people with more experience, not because they're admins, but because they have more experience. The mop and bucket does not come with magic clue dust. As for PT, I don't think his unfortunate closes should be taken as typical of anything. The world won't end if XfDs are closed wrongly. That's what we have rouge admins and deletion review for. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:47, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I've closed nomination withdrawn AfD's and probably a couple CfD's (and one MfD, but that was a misplaced duplicate listing) early before, but I explicitly noted in the comment that I was not an admin, anyone could overturn if they disagreed, etc. While I believe non-admin speedy closes are permissible under WP:IAR in certain situations, I don't believe they should be officially sanctioned because of the problems they can cause. If you believe your judgment is good enough, why not run for adminship? Success rate is pretty good this week, I hear. --tjstrf talk 06:29, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

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