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Um, obviously this is very early days right now, but the plan is to ask regular AFD closers and relisters to sign up to this and publicise this at CENT/AN/DRV/ARS/VPP to increase awareness of good practise in AFD discussions. Ideally, this will enable us to maintain a credible deletion process even though participation is decreasing. Spartaz Humbug! 10:57, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
Could you provide links to several AfD debates that you see as especially problematic, as well as several that you think went well? That might start some useful conversation. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 18:38, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
Having participated in and closed a few AfDs over the years, I believe that fixing the nomination requirements is the first step in resolving the issues this essay addresses. If the nomination doesn't present (w/supporting facts) a valid policy/guideline basis for deletion, then all the participants in the discussion are free to make comments that are all over the place. In turn, these types of discussions are very difficult to assess objectively. Simply stated the process ought to be:
-- Mike Cline ( talk) 20:22, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
The circumstances under which non-admins can close an AfD are listed at Wikipedia:Non-admin_closure and WP:NAC. Even though there are only a limited number of situations where non-admins can close (e.g. Unanimous or near-unanimous support to keep/redirect/merge based on consensus, speedy keep closes, it seems just as important for non-admins to also explain their reasons behind their closes as it is for admins. What I am concerned about is non-admin interpretation of what comments counted or not, and non-admin assessment of why an AfD should be relisted. Personally, I have only sometimes listed an detailed explanation when closing an AfD, mostly because of this latter concern that I didn't want to impose my own specific interpretation over the discussion beyond just "the consensus was to keep." In any case, I'm wondering if (or if not) there should be a statement in this that non-admins should be held to the same accountability to provide a rationale for their closure. I, Jethrobot drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 21:08, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
It's quite appropriate for sysops to give little nudges, in debate. "I think the question we should be considering is this." "I think we need to pay more attention to that." But the correct way to phrase that is as a comment, or as a vote. I really don't think it's appropriate for a sysop to be giving directions to the debate. That's not the sysop role. When using the tools they're supposed to be janitors, not managers. When not using the tools they're equals. Yes, by all means encourage sysops to patrol debates due for closure and improve them by commenting and !voting instead of closing. But it's not right to encourage sysops to close or relist in such a way as to give directions to other users. Basically, Spartaz, if you come across a defective debate, you ought to be !voting or commenting in it and leaving the close to the next sysop (who will find the close easier because of your participation).— S Marshall T/ C 12:47, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
In general, I'm sympathetic to the idea that we need to increase participation at AfD, but I don't think lack of participation is as a result of problematic closing of AfDs! Indeed, making it more complicated to close AfDs by requiring more detailed closing rationales seems intuitively unrelated to whether or not editors participate at AfD.
I think part of the problem stems from the fact that as a result of concern about the inclusionist/deletionist debates of yesteryear, there's a general attitude that deletion is something we ought to try and brush under the carpet. It can be something that a few dedicated admins and a small gang of deletion-oriented editors handle, but not something that editors outside the 'deletion regulars' take an active role in. Like death, we don't really want to think or talk about deletion.
Part of the reason why I do deletion sorting is to try and make it possible for people to get involved in deletion debates. We should be trying to get people who are interested in particular topics to watchlist the relevant deletion sorting pages and encouraging people with familiarity with the relevant resources on that topic to participate.
Perhaps another method would be to have some kind of RfC bot but for AfD. Given that there are about 70-100 pages nominated for deletion every day, if we could get 1,000 people to sign up to get an AfD notification on their talk page, they could be given a nomination to look at once a week.
Reducing the amount of deletion discussions means that the admins and !voters can have more time to look at each discussion. There are a few things we can do here too. One thing we see at AfD quite frequently is articles which are clear WP:NOT violations. They just slip past the CSD hoax criteria, then someone PRODs them, they sit there for six days and then the article creator contests. Then they go to AfD, everyone !votes delete on the basis of it being a clear WP:NOT violation, and it sits there for another seven days, and then it gets deleted. In the past, I've seen admins IAR delete those. Clear and unambiguous WP:NOT violations should be CSDed. There can be no intelligent discussion of sourcing or notability for these kinds of articles. See the discussion at WT:CSD back in July for more details. — Tom Morris ( talk) 14:47, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
Fascinating, thanks Snottywong. Spartaz Humbug! 21:11, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
Essays Low‑impact | ||||||||||
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Um, obviously this is very early days right now, but the plan is to ask regular AFD closers and relisters to sign up to this and publicise this at CENT/AN/DRV/ARS/VPP to increase awareness of good practise in AFD discussions. Ideally, this will enable us to maintain a credible deletion process even though participation is decreasing. Spartaz Humbug! 10:57, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
Could you provide links to several AfD debates that you see as especially problematic, as well as several that you think went well? That might start some useful conversation. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 18:38, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
Having participated in and closed a few AfDs over the years, I believe that fixing the nomination requirements is the first step in resolving the issues this essay addresses. If the nomination doesn't present (w/supporting facts) a valid policy/guideline basis for deletion, then all the participants in the discussion are free to make comments that are all over the place. In turn, these types of discussions are very difficult to assess objectively. Simply stated the process ought to be:
-- Mike Cline ( talk) 20:22, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
The circumstances under which non-admins can close an AfD are listed at Wikipedia:Non-admin_closure and WP:NAC. Even though there are only a limited number of situations where non-admins can close (e.g. Unanimous or near-unanimous support to keep/redirect/merge based on consensus, speedy keep closes, it seems just as important for non-admins to also explain their reasons behind their closes as it is for admins. What I am concerned about is non-admin interpretation of what comments counted or not, and non-admin assessment of why an AfD should be relisted. Personally, I have only sometimes listed an detailed explanation when closing an AfD, mostly because of this latter concern that I didn't want to impose my own specific interpretation over the discussion beyond just "the consensus was to keep." In any case, I'm wondering if (or if not) there should be a statement in this that non-admins should be held to the same accountability to provide a rationale for their closure. I, Jethrobot drop me a line (note: not a bot!) 21:08, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
It's quite appropriate for sysops to give little nudges, in debate. "I think the question we should be considering is this." "I think we need to pay more attention to that." But the correct way to phrase that is as a comment, or as a vote. I really don't think it's appropriate for a sysop to be giving directions to the debate. That's not the sysop role. When using the tools they're supposed to be janitors, not managers. When not using the tools they're equals. Yes, by all means encourage sysops to patrol debates due for closure and improve them by commenting and !voting instead of closing. But it's not right to encourage sysops to close or relist in such a way as to give directions to other users. Basically, Spartaz, if you come across a defective debate, you ought to be !voting or commenting in it and leaving the close to the next sysop (who will find the close easier because of your participation).— S Marshall T/ C 12:47, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
In general, I'm sympathetic to the idea that we need to increase participation at AfD, but I don't think lack of participation is as a result of problematic closing of AfDs! Indeed, making it more complicated to close AfDs by requiring more detailed closing rationales seems intuitively unrelated to whether or not editors participate at AfD.
I think part of the problem stems from the fact that as a result of concern about the inclusionist/deletionist debates of yesteryear, there's a general attitude that deletion is something we ought to try and brush under the carpet. It can be something that a few dedicated admins and a small gang of deletion-oriented editors handle, but not something that editors outside the 'deletion regulars' take an active role in. Like death, we don't really want to think or talk about deletion.
Part of the reason why I do deletion sorting is to try and make it possible for people to get involved in deletion debates. We should be trying to get people who are interested in particular topics to watchlist the relevant deletion sorting pages and encouraging people with familiarity with the relevant resources on that topic to participate.
Perhaps another method would be to have some kind of RfC bot but for AfD. Given that there are about 70-100 pages nominated for deletion every day, if we could get 1,000 people to sign up to get an AfD notification on their talk page, they could be given a nomination to look at once a week.
Reducing the amount of deletion discussions means that the admins and !voters can have more time to look at each discussion. There are a few things we can do here too. One thing we see at AfD quite frequently is articles which are clear WP:NOT violations. They just slip past the CSD hoax criteria, then someone PRODs them, they sit there for six days and then the article creator contests. Then they go to AfD, everyone !votes delete on the basis of it being a clear WP:NOT violation, and it sits there for another seven days, and then it gets deleted. In the past, I've seen admins IAR delete those. Clear and unambiguous WP:NOT violations should be CSDed. There can be no intelligent discussion of sourcing or notability for these kinds of articles. See the discussion at WT:CSD back in July for more details. — Tom Morris ( talk) 14:47, 8 December 2011 (UTC)
Fascinating, thanks Snottywong. Spartaz Humbug! 21:11, 8 December 2011 (UTC)