Wikipedia:DEMAND
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This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it. |
The closing administrator isn't an edit-on-demand service.
There are times when an XfD discussion veers away from the nomination recommendation to delete, but not directly toward keep. Such discussions make recommendations like remove references to blank, add critical commentary, merge appropriate content with an appropriate target, stubbify, et cetera. This is a natural and acceptable thing. However, when many editors start to form a consensus that the article should have certain edits done to it, but do not actually endeavor to make those edits themselves, it sets up the expectation that the closing administrator should acknowledge this consensus and get to work editing.
The problem with this is that ideally, the closing administrator is a person who has very little direct knowledge of the subject of the page in question. Administrators with a high-level of subject familiarity should normally participate in the debate, as opposed to closing it.
Editors are expected to be bold. Bold editors edit. The best way to participate in such a discussion is to make the recommended edits and state in the discussion that you have done so. Then request the closing administrator to simply delete, keep, or redirect the page. If page histories need to be merged to provide continuity of the GFDL contribution history, so state. But do not direct the closing administrator to do anything other than simple complete merges of a whole page as a section on another page.
