Hi, I am pretty new to all the procedural rules so hopefully this will make sense. In general, I am talking about a possible problem with fair notice to impacted editors when an AFD results in a MERGE decision.

THE PERCEIVED PROBLEM

• Scenario A -- Suppose you watch One great page, and I propose to merge into it rom a really crappy page. Due to the Merge from/to tags in the merge process everyone interested in both pages has fair notice about the proposal. So far so good.

• Scenario B -- Suppose you watch One great page, and I propose to DELETE a really crappy page at AFD. Someone else suggests the alternative of merging to the page you care about, One great page, only you do not know about that proposed alternative or the AFD discussion until it is all over.

• My view.... Scenario B is sloppy procedure for a consensus based collaborative process.

• Here is my description of a [ closed-out real world example

THE PROPOSED SOLUTION If an AFD is ready for closing with a MERGE alternative, I suggest that the admin first determine the PROVISIONAL RESULT. A provisional result can become a FINAL result only after an AFD or merge to/from tag has been on all the impacted articles for 7 days. If needed, the proposing editor should be required to place any missing tags after which the 7 day minimum comment period clock should be reset to zero.

Note that it is not enough to bury a tickle on a talk page, because some people only watch the ARTICLE space. There are excellent merge to/from tags for the article space, so I am specifically proposing that the already-established process be followed, and that AFD discussions not be treated as an exception as they presently are.

REASON That process will build a bridge between the AFD and MERGE processes and ensure that all impacted editors get fair warning. NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 13:04, 16 December 2011 (UTC) reply

The sentence in this article, "If additional explanation is needed as to why you have closed a deletion discussion as a certain result, add additional comments immediately after RESULT.", would make sense only if *some* explanation had already been given and a place giving that explanation is provided. But none is; Admin instructions apparently don't require any explanation (or even encourage any explanation). The sample shown reflects same. Conclusion: the word "additional" s/b removed from the sentence; it implies something might exist which can't exist given the current instructions. (If I've missed something please inform.) Ihardlythinkso ( talk) 06:55, 18 February 2012 (UTC) reply

The bold revision to these instructions by MuZemike in 2011 followed a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive226#Well overdue AfD.

IMHO we should reinstate the instructions to remove backlinks after deletion. There are similar instructions to do this in the cases of WP:PROD and WP:CfD (see links at Wikipedia:Proposed_deletion#Deletion and Wikipedia:Deletion process#Step-by-step instructions).

The instructions should allow discretion to leave some redlinks, but as a general rule they should be removed if the AfD has shown no current scope to have an article on the subject. – Fayenatic L ondon 16:12, 21 December 2012 (UTC) reply

Given the lack of opposition, I am reinstating this. – Fayenatic L ondon 19:54, 17 March 2014 (UTC) reply

I'm trying to relist Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Kayli_Barker, and ran into a bit of process I couldn't figure out. The instructions say: Go to WP:AFD/T, and add to the top of the list of AfDs the relisted AfD, but when I went there, I didn't see any list to add this entry to. Unclear what to do next. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:34, 1 February 2014 (UTC) reply

The instructions currently draw a distinction on whether to place an OldAFD template on the talk page of redirected pages according to whether the talk page exists or not. It is also instructed to (normally) remove Wikiproject templates. Frequently, the only things on the page are Wikiproject templates so the page ends up with the OldAFD template and nothing else. Presumably, the purpose of the distinction was to avoid this very situation. I don't really see why we want to do this and propose that the instructions are simplified to always post the template if the page is not deleted. Spinning Spark 14:59, 2 April 2014 (UTC) reply

There seems to be disagreement between this guidelien and WP:Talk page layout. I have started a thread at Wikipedia talk:Talk page layout#AFD history to try to resolve this. Spinning Spark 12:47, 10 July 2014 (UTC) reply

@ Gparyani: I agree that your wording is more appropriate than the more general wording of the criterion at WP:CSD (which I think is what user:Beeblebrox was referring to) since the pages in question are explicitly talk pages in this case. It should be allowed to stand. However, I am extremely concerned by the reasoning you give in the edit summary and your reversion of Beeblebrox. It is completely unacceptable to change policy and guideline pages in order to match a template. The guidelines represent the views of the community on how things should be done. Templates, as a general principle, do not have that status. If anything, changes should be the other way round, change the template to match the guideline. I would also caution you against edit warring on such pages, not such a good idea, especially a page aimed at administrators. Spinning Spark 07:45, 2 June 2015 (UTC) reply

Without having seen Spinningspark's message here, but having seen the changes to the instruction page, I changed the wording to agree with the wording used in the drop-down box in the deletion dialogue. That seems to me to be the most appropriate wording to give, since that is the wording which administrators will usually actually use. Since Spinningspark says that the change "should be allowed to stand", there is clearly no suggestion that the wording in the policy is sacrosanct, and has to be adhered to in all circumstances, and the issue is just whether changing the instructions in order to fit the template is acceptable. For a couple of reasons, I think that Spinningspark is mistaken.

1. Some criteria in the policy Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion link to templates with wording which differs from that used in the policy, to give editors a choice of what wording is appropriate in a particular case. For example, the criterion G8 gives editors the option of using, instead of the generic Template:Db-g8 (" a dependent page of a page which does not exist, has been deleted, or is itself currently tagged for speedy deletion"), any one of Template:Db-imagepage ("a file description page with no corresponding file") Template:Db-redirnone ("a redirect to itself, or to a page which does not exist, has been deleted, or is itself currently tagged for speedy deletion") Template:Db-subpage ("a subpage of a page which does not exist, has been deleted, or is itself currently tagged for speedy deletion") Template:Db-templatecat (" a category populated by a template which does not exist, has been deleted, or is itself currently tagged for speedy deletion") and, most interestingly, Template:Db-talk ("a talk page of a page which does not exist, has been deleted, or is itself currently tagged for speedy deletion"). The fact that these different templates are listed in the policy page is, I am 100% sure, because there is consensus that editors should be free to use wording which is appropriate to the particular case, and should not be restrained to use precisely the wording of the criterion itself. In this particular case, therefore, use of the wording in the template in question is explicitly sanctioned by the policy, so that changing the wording to agree with the template is in line with policy, and is not, as Spinningspark seems to think, a matter of going against a policy to come into line with a template. (Spinningspark said "It is completely unacceptable to change policy and guideline pages in order to match a template", but in fact the page changed is not a policy or guideline: it is just a page of "instructions" on how to implement decisions relating to a policy. Perhaps "advice" would be a better word than "instructions", as I really don't think that an administrator who used wording different from that suggested in the page would be guilty of anything. However, it seems to me that the spirit of what Spinningspark refers to includes "changing wording of a page to make it agree with a template while making it inconsistent with a policy or guideline", and I have tried to show that in fact it is not making the page inconsistent with the policy: it is completely in line with the policy.
2. Even if this particular policy did not explicitly sanction the wording of the various templates, it is, in my opinion, a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of a Wikipedia policy to think that it is "completely unacceptable to change policy and guideline pages in order to match a template". Editors are free to boldly propose changes to policies and guidelines, and if an editor sees an inconsistency between pages, he or she is perfectly free to put forward the idea of changing a guideline or policy to agree with another page. The argument that this is unacceptable because "guidelines represent the views of the community" is totally spurious, as it is by bold changes in conjunction with discussion that such consensus is established. It seems to me perfectly reasonable to make a change to any page (policy or whatever) bring documentation in line with what in fact is common practice: if consensus then turns out to be that the documentation gives a better version that common practice, then the template can be changed.

Also, I think the reference to edit warring is mistaken: Beeblebrox and Gparyani have each made just one revert, which is scarcely edit warring. The editor who uses the pseudonym " JamesBWatson" ( talk) 11:36, 2 June 2015 (UTC) reply

You seem to have somewhat misunderstood me. I began by saying that I thought Gparyani's edit was a good edit. I also have no problem with templates having a wording that does not exactly agree with a policy page. There can be many good reasons for this. Where I took issue with Gparyani was the use of the argument for making the change. My reasoning is not "spurious" at all. It is just ridiculous to maintain that a template can take precedence over a policy page. The latter are usually discussed ad nauseum over the years whereas templates mostly are not and in any case do not represent policy - except maybe tangentially. They have a diffferent purpose, to help mechanise a task rather than prescribe policy.

I have no problem with Gparyani's bold edit. If no one had challenged it that would have been the end of the matter. But if one's bold edit is reverted on a policy page the sensible thing to do is take the issue to the talk page. Gparyani did not do that, and instead reverted back. That is the beginning of an edit war.

Anyway, a big discussion over an edit we both agree with. Spinning Spark 12:53, 2 June 2015 (UTC) reply

You say that I seem to have somewhat misunderstood you. I admit that an earlier draft of my comment was based on a misunderstanding, but I don't think I misunderstood you when I posted the comment which appears above. I did see that you said that Gparyani's edit was a good edit, but I still think bringing the documentation of accepted practice (which is what Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Administrator instructions is, and not a policy) in line with accepted templates was a reasonable reason for making a change. I also agree that policies and guidelines are usually discussed more than templates, and can therefore be regarded as better reflections of consensus, but I still think that "completely unacceptable" is, on a scale of 0 to 10, about 8 points stronger wording than I think is justifiable. The editor who uses the pseudonym " JamesBWatson" ( talk) 19:37, 2 June 2015 (UTC) reply

There is a move discussion in progress on Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — RMCD bot 22:15, 25 August 2016 (UTC) reply

I'm a newbie admin entering this area for the first time. This instruction page does not discuss handling a "Move to Draftspace/Userspace" result, it needs to be added. What I want to know is, am I required to also perform the move when I close an AFD with a userify/draftify result? Roger (Dodger67) ( talk) 19:43, 7 March 2017 (UTC) reply

(also posted at WP:AFD talk)

One thing that I've seen many times is a AFD where the result was sky-is-blue "no consensuses" where the admin closer closes it based on their own evaluation of the article with respect to guidelines, and pretty clearly says that that was their rationale for the close, including no reference to it being the outcome of the discussion. This is contrary to both the AFD page and normal practice. Perhaps addition of an extra sentence to that section to reinforce it would be good idea. Like "so, the close should be based only on the community discussion and not on the closer's personal assessment of the article with respect to guidelines." North8000 ( talk) 03:16, 20 April 2021 (UTC) reply

To make this more concrete, could you link to an example of a close that bothers you? I'm active at DRV, and if I had a preference, it would be that closers were more willing to apply their understanding of policy to winnow out problematic !votes, and I can only see this instruction as increasing reluctance to interpret among closers. There are definitely bad closes, but that's why we have DRV. — Charles Stewart (talk) 06:08, 29 April 2021 (UTC) reply

Why is Disambiguate not in the list of closing options even though it is listed at " WP:AFDFORMAT"? Venkat TL ( talk) 06:56, 29 September 2021 (UTC) reply