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The policy is that except for speedy keeps or deletes or the limited reasons for snow keeps or deletes, or withdrawals of the afd, afd run for 5 days. At the moment they are bein gfrequently closed after 4 days + a few hours. This is unfair to people who need time to see and contribute and respond. I wonder if the remedy is for premature closes to be simply reverted. A premature close is one not specifically specified as being one of the above which is closed within less than 120 hours after listing. DGG ( talk) 03:40, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

You know, there's a very good mechanism in the dated prod template which lets you know whether a prod has been around for five days (120 hours) or not. Would it be too much work to do something similar for AfD's? Jclemens ( talk) 07:29, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree, and in fact I wonder if it shouldn't be 7 days. Now I'm hardly a regular here, but I do chip in from time to time, and I've wondered about articles that are nominated on Monday - closed by Friday. I'd think we have a share of editors who don't login much during the week, but do edit on the weekends. Just a passing thought. — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/ _© 08:37, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

1. Can I get some input on why an article that was restored after a deletion review was continually redeleted? Here is the deletion log for the page. Here is the deletion discussion which resulted in a deletion review. The article was restored but then deleted and restored several times. A sister article, Names of European cities in different languages that was part of the same AfD batch has survived and thrived (as has List of cities in the Americas with alternative names). (See also related deletion log of Names of African cities in different languages.)
2. I'd like that article restored if possible and if not, I'd like to be able to create an article (with citations on my part) and know it won't be deleted again. Thanks. — AjaxSmack 00:53, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Eh, that wasn't one of my better closes, and those three AfDs should never have been bundled in the first place. I haven't followed developments since, and the original debates were three years ago. Mackensen (talk) 03:42, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that the extension of AfD discussion length is being supported in part because of a perception that fewer articles will be deleted — as in, "If only people would talk about it longer, then we wouldn't delete so many articles", which is slightly but importantly different from "If only people would talk about it longer, then we would reach the correct outcome for a higher proportion of articles."

If we decide to extend the discussion, I'd like to suggest that a couple of "inclusionists" compile the data and see whether it makes any difference at all. Specifically, the stats that we want are:

1. Are we deleting a higher proportion of articles? (Does extending the default discussion length forward the inclusionist agenda, or just slow down the inevitable?)
2. Are we reducing the load on WP:DRV? (Are we making the right decisions when we delete?)
3. What proportion of discussions get new comments on days 6 and 7? What proportion of those comments change the outcome (instead of being "Me too: 27th vote in favor of deleting this unsourceable nonsense")?

Offhand, I think that it might take about six weeks or so to get good data.

If it happens to turn out that it makes no difference (except extending the length of the list), then we could consider reverting to the shorter timeframe. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 17:42, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that a trial period is a good idea, so we can see if it leads to better outcomes, more abuse, or just drawing things out in a bureaucratic way. Randomran ( talk) 17:58, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

While I agree with the majority of your statement, I have to ask why you feel the need to include "inclusionist" multiple times. Your statement could well stand on its own as a reasonable proposal; turning it into an "us vs. them" argument *detracts* from your point. Are so-called "deletionists" incapable of gathering data and forwarding an agenda? –  74  18:06, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I suggest that group because I want them to be entirely confident that the data has not been skewed by people with the opposite agenda. It appears to me that "inclusionists" feel that the existing approach is materially flawed because it deletes "too many" articles; I don't hear complaints from other editors. Those wanting change are the ones with the biggest stake in the data. In short, because I think that the experiment will show no significant change in actual outcome, I am concerned that having a "known deletionist" editor determine this, even if it were entirely objective in practice, would be more likely to result in charges of bias. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 04:49, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Another point: Once a switch to 7-day deletions has been made, the additional workload will be absorbed by the time the statistics are completed. Thus, if there's an "experimental" switch which makes no difference at all, switching back is just more churn for no benefit--there would have to be a demonstrated decrease in efficiency for the 7-day deletion to make going back to 5-day deletion discussions a compelling change. Jclemens ( talk) 18:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

What "additional workload" is being absorbed? Ignoring an AfD for the last four out of seven days should not actually require any more work than ignoring it for the last two out of five days (which is what we seem to do now). If a longer discussion does not change outcomes, then why delay the inevitable? Why leave a "kept" article in limbo for another two days, or an inappropriate one in the encyclopedia for an extra two days? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 04:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I have no problem at all with gathering statistics, but I did want to make one point. If there is no difference, it doesn't necessarily mean there is no benefit. The 5 day complaint has come up many times before -- if going to 7 days makes more people feel enfranchised, even if they aren't using that enfranchisement, there's still a net benefit. Unfortunately, it's very hard to quantify feelings and good will. :)-- Fabrictramp | talk to me 18:41, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The key point for me is that 7 days will lead to less-frequent relisting, which means we'll have fewer articles to consider on each given day and more time to look for sources and consider replies. AfD's groaning under the weight of 100+ nominations per day with relatively few people to consider them, and it needs addressing.— S Marshall ^Talk/ _Cont 23:23, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Fabrictramp, I'm not entirely sure that making more people feel enfranchised is one of Wikipedia's goals. I think the goal is to write (and maintain) an encyclopedia, which will occasionally conflict with communal feelings, e.g., when we delete inappropriate articles over the objection of their creators. People are likely to be just as unhappy about having their favorite creations deleted on day 7 as the are when it's deleted on day 5.

S Marshall, I think that would also be an interesting measurement: Will we have fewer articles re-listed for further consideration? Or will it be just as many, since everyone pays more attention to the new listings? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 04:49, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

We don't need to trial this, IMO. My suspicion is that the throughput will remain largely unchanged. Necessarily, the volume of discussions will increase. I neither see this as a great blow for inclusion (Seriously, who is going to check in once every 6 days and not once every 4...and presumably one editor checking in shouldn't determine the consensus on an article). I just see it at a nice move toward standardization. It has the added benefit of increasing the bias toward inclusion, but I can't imagine that a slippery slope argument would work, given some of the opposition we have seen. sure, some critics of AfD will never be satisfied. But in choosing between 5 and 7 days, we are not making some earth shattering decision. Protonk ( talk) 01:06, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

To be honest I tend to equate "common sense" with "Protonk posts". What compels me to post another thought here is that the "earth shattering decisions" don't always play out well (the whole Notability (fiction) thing, the current Date linking/autoformat poll, etc.) I simply believe that there are plenty of editors out there that only edit on weekends. Am I going to do the research to prove this? NO. It's just a thought that perhaps it would get a wider range of input from folks. More drama? Maybe, depending on the individual AfD. More input - I would think so. Does it favor either the inclusionist or the delitionist? .. I don't see how. Sometimes it's the small steps that get us to our destination. Just a thought. — Ched :  Yes?   : ©  05:50, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with this assessment- this is an absolutely apolitical move we're making here. This is a simple, evolutionary change to the AFD process, to assuage well-founded concerns that a 5 day listing could be used to exclude certain members of the community from participating in a deletion discussion if appropriately timed. —/ Mendaliv/ ^2¢/ _Δ's/ 09:50, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

My 2 cents say Yes Good Idea for reasons stated (particularly perceived fairness to weekend editors). Rd232 ^talk 01:14, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Something is screwy with set up for the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brenden Foster (3rd nomination) at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2009 April 1. Could someone help? Inmysolitude ( talk) 23:51, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I risked a non-admin close on this. Since no-one's complained, I guess the problem (whatever it was) has now gone away.-- Kotniski ( talk) 19:26, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Could someone do it properly (reason:Vanity page for a corporation)? I don't have time to figure out how. Thanks. Headbomb { ^ταλκ _{κοντριβς} –  WP Physics} 02:11, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Done. You needed to follow the commented-out instructions at DriveSavers that said please replace "page=DriveSavers" with "page=DriveSavers (2nd nomination)", and then go through with the rest of the nomination. In the future, you might want to try out something like Twinkle to help speed up nominations. —/ Mendaliv/ ^2¢/ _Δ's/ 02:19, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

And just an addendum, the discussion is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/DriveSavers (2nd nomination). —/ Mendaliv/ ^2¢/ _Δ's/ 02:19, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I've been closing AFDs for about 7 months and I've taken some pride in the fact that virtually all of them "stuck". One's gone to DRV ( I took it there myself) Two have been reverted, both by non administrators, the most recent one by the nominator. Not all of my closes have strictly adhered to the advice given in WP:NAC but IMHO all of them would most likely have been closed the same way by an administrator.

Now opinions are split on whether or not non admins should be closing AFDs at all and which ones they should be closing. Those who believe that only administrators should close AFDs have some justification as I have seen some really bad NACs. Usually due to out and out "vote counting" or misapplication of WP:SNOW. Every goober close by a non admin is more ammunition to those who argue that only admins should close AFDs. However, the answer to this problem is to treat these individually and deal with the problem NACers individually. Non administrators in theory should be free to do any kind of close that doesn't require the use of administrator buttons. In practice they should avoid "no consensus" closes due to the drama they tend to generate. (though I have one "no consensus" close of an AFD that had been relisted several times and wasn't going anywhere)

One problem seems to be that some editors seem to view NACS as somehow "not real closes" which one can freely revert if one doesn't agree with. WP:DELPRO says Decisions are subject to review and may be reopened by any administrator but both of my reverted closes were by ordinary editors who simply disagreed with my decision. I think this is wrong. WP:DRV is there for a reason and that's where closes one disagrees with need to be contested. the phrase "non admin closure" in the closing statement is not an invitation to undo a close you simply don't like. -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 19:37, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I say, just keep doing it and make sure you are on solid ground. A disruptive re-opening by an interested party will probably trigger a re-closure, and anyone who does that habitually is probably begging for a block or topic ban. A pointy / soap-boxy re-opening by an administrator is probably best met by chastising them for wasting everyone's time, if it doesn't actually get to the merits of the closure. If it does get to the merits, and the admin is acting in that role without a personal stake in the article, then re-opening is probably the right thing to do. Wikidemon ( talk) 19:42, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I went back and took a closer look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chris Beatty, I don't think the nominator/reopener was trying to be disruptive. Judging by his edit summary, he incorrectly believed that non admins can only do "speedy keeps". He may even have thought that I was an "interested party" because I had previously removed two of his prods.-- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 20:12, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, when you admit that "not all my closes have strictly adhered to the advice given in WP:NAC", it's hard then to argue with an editor who simply reverts you. I think that's a reasonable application of WP:BRD. (Key point: What WP:DELPRO says is, "Decisions are subject to review and may be reopened by any administrator". It certainly does not say "Only administrators can reopen a closed discussion".)

I don't mean this as any criticism of you; I've made a non-admin closure that wasn't strictly in accordance with WP:NAC myself. If someone reverted me, I think I'd simply accept it.— S Marshall ^Talk/ _Cont 23:52, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Even if you were reverted by the article's nominator? I think that sets a bad precedent (nominate an article for deletion and revert any attempt to close it any way other then "delete", yea that's the ticket). IMHO any AFD closing action, including undoing closes, should at least be done by a neutral third party. "Interested parties" should use DRV, that's what it's there for. -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 00:51, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, Ron, I think that personally, I'd accept being reverted even by the article's nominator. I see non-admin closes as only for uncontroversial decisions, and I believe that a reversion indicates that the close is not uncontroversial. To me, that means, leave it to the admins.— S Marshall ^Talk/ _Cont 01:15, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm ambivalent on this issue. I would prefer if those few bad NACs could be reopened easily – particularly the SNOWs, which are generally refused by individual admins and at DRV if they're kind of okay – but encouraging BOLD reopenings would be far worse. Flatscan ( talk) 02:35, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

• All closes can be challenged regardless of who closed them, and such challenges need to be considered on their merits. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chris Beatty was an appropriate close as it was pointed out in the article that Chris Beatty likely met WP:NSPORT and WP:ATHLETE, and there were some acceptable sources in the article. There were questions raised about the status of WP:NSPORT, and if there were reliable sources to confirm WP:ATHLETE, but there was clear consensus that people didn't want the article deleted at this time. There was certainly no consensus to delete. Though it is appropriate to question close decisions, Raeky clearly misunderstood both how closes are done and the process of questioning AfD closes, and should have sought to discuss the matter with Ron Ritzman, and if not satisfied with the answer, raised the matter with an admin or at DRV, rather than reopen the AFD. Rjd0060 did the right thing and closed it as Ron Ritzman did, as a Keep. No worries, we are not a bureaucracy, and if people sometimes get process wrong we don't hold it against them, we simply look at the intent rather than the red tape. In the end the right result was carried out. I'll drop Raeky a note explaining the more appropriate way to challenge a close so that no drama is created in future. SilkTork * ^YES! 16:39, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I didn't see it as Unanimous or nearly unanimous keep which WP:NAC states is necessary. Sure the consensus likely was headed for Keep, but it wasn't just me who felt the article didn't meet the criteria. Likewise it still doesn't have sources saying he's actually played a regular season game for the CFL, which would be necessary for him to meet WP:ATHLETE. I also felt the closer wasn't an uninterested party, since he was the one that removed the PROD on that article, so I felt a non-admin close wasn't appropriate as well on that ground. I wasn't aware of the whole WP:DRV process or I would of taken it up that way. Also like to state the only person kind enough to inform me of this discussion was SiklTork today, would of been nice to of been informed about discussion pertaining to my actions beforehand?! —  raeky ^{( talk |  edits)} 19:18, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Just for the record, it was User:Sumoeagle179 who removed the prod from Chris Beatty, not me. However, I had removed the prod from two other articles you had prodded because I felt the notability was borderline on both and therefore a discussion was needed before deletion. (the only reason I was in that category was because I was checking on one of my prods and decided to take a look at some of the others) -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 22:54, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

My mistake, I didn't revert your close out of malicious intent, if that wasn't obvious by now. Also it would of been nice for you to notify me you was posting a topic here about my actions. ;-\ —  raeky ^{( talk |  edits)} 01:01, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I never claimed malicious intent and initially this thread wasn't about "your actions" in particular but general attitudes about NACs. If I had felt that what you did was malicious I would have posted to WP:AN or WP:AN/I. If you notice later in the thread I acknowledged that it probably was a misunderstanding when another editor suggested the re-opening might have been disruptive. However, to be honest I did feel a bit put off so maybe it was the wrong time to address this topic at all. -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 01:31, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

On February 18, 2009 Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ray Joseph Cormier was closed as "The result was keep." On February 28, 2009, the same article was nominated again for deletion. I am proposing a policy that if an article survives an AfD it cannot be renominated again for at least one year after the AfD closed.

Please join in the discussion at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#the_time_between_AfD_nominations_for_an_article. Kingturtle ( talk) 15:01, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Hello,

What's the procedure for an AfD nominator to withdraw it? Is it just a case of removing the tag and archiving the discussion? Oli Filth^{( talk| contribs)} 20:08, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, as long as no one else is calling for the article to be deleted. See #1 under Wikipedia:Speedy keep. Paul Erik ^{(talk) (contribs)} 20:15, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

One thing I've always wondered about is let's say there is an afd only 2 "per nom" "delete" !votes and the nominator withdraws. It could be argued that the rationale for their !votes just went *POOF*. Though technically "incorrect", would there be any problem with closing the nomination as "nomination withdrawn"? -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 02:51, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

A nominator could make an argument, then later come to not believe that argument and withdraw it. This does not mean that those who agreed with said argument no longer believe it. I would say in such a case that their argument did not go *POOF*, rather it simply lost one supporter. I would say a speedy keep would be incorrect unless all those in favor of delete changed their mind. Chillum 02:53, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Dude, that's a lot of WPs. I'd like to change (back) the link in WP:BEFORE to WP:N when referring to sources rather than WP:V. My basic argument is that frankly it's generally notability that people are worried about when it comes to sourcing, not reliable sources per se. I did make the change boldly and got (reasonably) reverted, so I thought I'd bring the issue here. Thanks! Hobit ( talk) 21:38, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I think it should include both. So modified--we'll see if I get reverted too. Jclemens ( talk) 22:12, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Both makes the most sense to me. Randomran ( talk) 00:11, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Having both is reasonable and sensible, I would expect anyone to at least attempt to find sources demonstrating notability before asking others to do the same. Someone another 02:39, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Obvious fix (but I didn't think of it...) Thanks Jclemens. Hobit ( talk) 02:50, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

This page is clearly (db-attack) It states slanderous remarks in regard to the General manager of this organization. please delete asap —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.134.131.89 ( talk) 00:42, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I have deleted the problematic pages from the history, which is what I think you are asking. -- Malcolmxl5 ( talk) 03:16, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

This page has just been deleted, despite there being more votes to keep than delete - and despite obvious on-going research to verify the facts. This page had been getting almost a thousand page views a day - was it too much to ask that the AFD run until AFTER the Easter break, when newspapers/magazine staff would have been back in to answer questions? I truely believe this has been closed too soon, and unfairly.-- Myosotis Scorpioides 01:06, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

AFD closes are appealed at WP:DRV. MBisanz ^talk 01:09, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I've just made this change to "current" to reflect the new 7 day cycle. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/old should also be changed but that looks a little more complex. -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 21:52, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Per this fledgling discussion, I'd like to open this suggestion up to a wider audience. The proposal is;

• Each individual editor may only comment/!vote once on any individual AfD.
• Other comments (i.e. in response to other editors) should be made on the talkpage of the relevant AfD.
• Links to such talkpage comments may be included in the editor's original comment.
• Clear examples of multiple voting may be removed to the talkpage, rather than struck.

Reasoning;

• Many contentious AfDs quickly degenerate into long arguments on the AfD page. This makes the pages difficult to read for editors, and equally difficult to analyse for closing admins.
• Contentious AfDs are a magnet for incivility and name-calling; this idea would reduce this possibility (though clearly this still might occur on the talkpage).
• When weak votes ( WP:ITSNOTABLE, WP:IDONTLIKEIT etc.) are made on many AfDs, editors queue up to criticise them. Admins are perfectly capable of giving lesser weight to such votes without multiple people pointing out their weaknesses.
• Admins will quickly get used to reading the talkpages of unclear or contentious AfDs.

Thoughts? Black Kite 10:29, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I remember an AfD where totally unexperienced ABF users were involved on both sides and removing material (in this case: large essays) to the talk page led to accusations of censorship and further escalation. The threats of violence in connection with this AfD continued by email long after the incident. Citing a clear policy like this might have helped in this case. -- Hans Adler ( talk) 10:42, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

This should certainly make Afds easier to follow, some of them must be a real headache for the closing admin to unpick. Two practical questions:

• "Links to such talkpage comments may be included in the editor's original comment" - the talkpage comments are likely to be made after the original comment - how is this going to work? A user would need to add "see talk" and a link to their original post I suppose

• Yes, I don't see a problem in editing the original comment to add a link. Black Kite 10:48, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

• If an editor, having commented, then edits the article to correct the issues that brought it to Afd they will need to post a second comment to draw attention to the fact so that !voters can reevaluate the article. Similarly !voters need to be able to change their !votes. pablo _hablo. 10:43, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

• On the first one - editors can just edit their original !vote/comment to add it (for example "Keep - passes WP:BIO due to improvements made during this AfD (diff) (diff)"). On the second one, editors can just edit their !vote as they do now (for example Delete Keep due to improvements made by editor X). Black Kite 10:48, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

No, I think this is completely wrong. "Discussion" means you discuss, listen to others, answer their concerns, modify your views in response to theirs – not just say your piece and be done. Incivility should not be tolerated of course (whatever page it appears on), and if the argument goes off topic then there should be provision for its being moved elsewhere, but if the argumentation - though long - is civil and pertinent, then it's precisely that that the closing admin should be analysing, instead of counting (!)votes. -- Kotniski ( talk) 11:14, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Would be good in an ideal world, but much more common is two editors with entrenchd view becoming madder and madder trying to convince each other and get the last word - a real flashpoint. Casliber ( talk · contribs) 11:22, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

On balance I agree with Kotniski's "discuss, listen to others, answer their concerns, modify your views in response to theirs – not just say your piece and be done" and would not limit discussion.

Casliber's"much more common is two editors with entrenchd view becoming madder and madder trying to convince each other and get the last word" is also true, but if the "gag" proposal were adopted that would happen on the Talk page instead, and editors would add links back into the AfD page - so the advantage would go to the side that made better use of {{ anchor}}. The most important factor in keeping the discussion reasonable is the chairperson skills of the presiding admin. -- Philcha ( talk) 11:48, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes... but do we have such a thing as a presiding admin? I often feel (when witnessing debates of the type Casliber describes) that we should have. Someone who can bring things back under control, for example by making a summary of the opposing positions and asking those involved to do no more than make necessary corrections to that summary. This doesn't apply only to AfD debates, of course.-- Kotniski ( talk) 11:56, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I have to pretty vigorously oppose this one. The problem isn't "responding on the AFD page", the problem is editors that don't understand the borderline between debate over a topic and haranguing each other over things that are generally pretty peripheral. They'll disrupt a talk page as quickly as a main discussion page, and this change would take the worst part of our current AFDs and cast it in stone. I just can't support removing discussion from the discussion page.— Kww( talk) 12:06, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I see no substantive reason for this. The person closing the discussion should be trusted to weigh reasons and not length nor numbers. On the other hand, I would support a guideline limiting added comments to (say) 50 or so words, which would encourage succinct comments. With such a guideline, the example of long essays would be left behind, I hope. Collect ( talk) 13:33, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

No, no, please no. If editors are getting argumentative, deal with the editor. When I comment more than once at an AfD, it's often to ask a question for clarification (and my own education), especially to learn about why an editor thinks a particular source is or isn't reliable. As a closing admin, I often put less weight on the arguments of editors who badger others, so those editors are doing themselves a disservice. But as a closing admin I also like to see a calm, reasoned give and take -- it helps me to see that all sides have been examined in forming a consensus.-- Fabrictramp | talk to me 14:16, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Alternatively

...if the above is too radical, how about making it standard procedure for any uninvolved admin to remove comments that don't substantively add to the discussion to the talkpage? This can already be done, but it rarely is. Black Kite 13:38, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

That makes more sense (and not just uninvolved admins, either), though it would have to be done with a certain amount of calculated judgement.-- Kotniski ( talk) 13:47, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

My fear when I see proposals like this is that someone will start gaming the system by removing perfectly valid comments. Then the closing admin has to regularly check the history to see if that's happened. Sure, they could do it now, but if it's a regular practice to remove comments the beanier folks get ideas.-- Fabrictramp | talk to me 14:19, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Which is why I suggested "uninvolved admin" rather than "any editor" - any admin who tries to game the system isn't going to retain their bit for long. I'd also point out that I suggested removing comments to the talkpage, not completely. Black Kite 16:10, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Recently, there have been a steady amount of Bilateral Relations AfDs. While most of these are non-contentious, there are some that are extremely contentious, and in general the discussion revolves around whether or not the actions between nations count meet the general notability requirement (ex. Does the presence of a Greek Orthodox Archbishop and community in Zimbabwe meet the notability requirements for a bilateral relations article.) It has reached the point that I believe a guideline would be useful. I propose something resembling the following:

Bilateral relations are notable between two nations if they meet two or more of the following after achieving independence:

1. They have been engaged in a war.
2. They engage in significant trade.
3. They have been/are in an alliance.
4. They share a border.
5. They are both members of the same Free Trade Association (ex. NAFTA, the EU).
6. They were members of the same colonial empire.
7. They have been engaged in a significant diplomatic conflict.
8. They have been engaged in a significant trade dispute.
9. The Head of State or Government of one nation has traveled on an official visit to the other.
   
   

Input is welcome, also if this would be better placed/made known elsewhere please do so or let me know. TonyBallioni ( talk) 20:50, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't see why 5, 6 or 9 should play any role at all. They seem completely irrelevant. On the other hand, 1 alone should be sufficient so long as the relations article isn't essentially a content fork of an article on the war. Similarly the relation between a former colony and the former coloniser should be automatically notable. -- Hans Adler ( talk) 21:34, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

I compiled this list from some common reasons I saw cited for keep and from several users "standards" (don't ask which ones, I don't remember who specifically) so as to try to come up with a proposal that would attempt to appeal to the broadest possible audience. I agree with you that war should almost always make a relationship notable, but usually if two nations are at war they have also met one of the other criteria. The reasons I included the ones you cited were:
1) Many Free Trade Zones/Deals are Bilateral in nature (such as the proposed U.S.-Colombia accord which Bush promoted.) and even in those that aren't such as NAFTA and the EU, bilateral relations in these countries often improve and become more notable because of the increase in trade.
2) Colonial ties are often strong and lead to notable bilateral relationships that develop into other significant relations (ex. Many Commonwealth Realms afford citizens of the other Realms many of the same protections and rights as citizens.)
3) It is unlikely that a Head of State will make a formal visit to a nation that they do not consider to be a notable relationship.

While each of the three you cited on their own do not establish notability do not on their own establish notability, when combined with the others on the list they may establish it. I will not arguue to vehemently to keep these included, though, as I feel that a discussion is what is most needed to move towards a policy or guideline (which is what I hope this will generate.) TonyBallioni ( talk) 23:36, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Well I'm not particularly opposed to such a new notability guideline, but it does seem a bit overkill, somehow, for a relatively small class of articles. Could we not manage with some general ruminations that a Bilateral X-Y Article needs to demonstrably add value to the existing Foreign Relations of X and Foreign Relations of Y articles? If it fails that test, it's just extra maintenance to no particular effect. "Adding value" can be judged in terms of the reader - is the issue clearer when presenting the material this way than in a subsection elsewhere? - rather than somewhat mechanistically/legalistically. Generally, this "value test" approach would also avoid reinforcing the tendency of some of these discussions to go a bit WP:SYNTHy; it's claimed the relationship X-Y is notable because facts A+B+C add up to an important relationship, which really should be avoided if there are no secondary sources substantially discussing the relationship per se. Rd232 ^talk 01:16, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

"Relatively small class of articles" – are you aware that we are talking about roughly 20,000 potential articles? This number is based on roughly 200 independent countries (102 UN member states), and it is not merely theoretical because many thoroughly non-notable articles such as Malta–Uruguay relations have already been created. -- Hans Adler ( talk) 13:29, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that there could be some sort of guideline initiated. I'd think that the simpler it was, the less fuss you'd have over getting it inserted somewhere. Something along the lines of: "Significant or notable interaction" would likely be a good starting point. — Ched :  ?  02:27, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

For whatever little this may be worth, I think that (10) a bilateral treaty or agreement would add somewhat to the notability (or retainability) of such an article. Whether it would be (in particular circumstances) more or less significant than an official visit is hard to say. —— Shakescene ( talk) 05:41, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

This discussion is probably better had at WT:N where there are more experts at guideline creation. MBisanz ^talk 02:30, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, I have posted a notice at the talk page for WP:N and the Village pump. TonyBallioni ( talk) 13:14, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

• People are falling for a common mistake again. The problem is not the notability of these relationships but the lack of detail used by the creator of these articles. Personally, I would've stopped wasting my time ages ago if 90% of what I created was deleted, but these people don't seem to have any such reservations. We should encourage the writers to expand existing articles instead of causing further fragmentation, or at least put some meat to the stuff they create. (Side note: Combining and proving point 4 and 9 might be part of a noteworthy relationship, but having those two points proven doesn't help to establish it in any way.) - Mgm| ^(talk) 08:21, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

While I agree with you that the lack of detail is a major problem, the central discussion at afD almost always revolves around notability in these cases. Establishing a guideline (not necessarily the one I suggested) to deal with bilateral relations would allow for a decision to be reached more easily in cases where the deletion is contested, rather than having a lengthy discussion on whether a relationship is covered by the general notability guideline. As for the two points you bring up, you may be right, at this moment the individual points are not as important to me as the general idea that a guideline should be drafted to simplify the process. TonyBallioni ( talk) 12:53, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think special guidelines are needed. Either these meet WP:N through stories that analysis the relationships or fall under WP:NOT#NEWS if they are simply one-time events. -- MASEM ( t) 14:20, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

• Note: A Centralized Discussion of this topic has been created at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Bilateral international relations TonyBallioni ( talk) 15:32, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Considering that AFDs now run for 7 days, I've been more careful about relists seeing that a relist now keeps a discussion open for almost half a month. Example, I use to often relist some discussions with 3 or 4 comments but now I'm going to leave them open for an admin to close "no consensus". I think that there are many discussions that we used to relist but now should be closed one way or another. Also, it might be a good idea to revisit our relists to see if the relisting generated enough new comments to close so discussions don't remain open any longer then necessary.

I seem to recall that in the original discussion to extend AFD, someone suggested the possibility of relisting some discussions at the 5 day mark. Any further thoughts on this? -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 02:51, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, WP:RELIST already discourages relisting AFDs if there are more than one or two comments besides the nominator, and already permits relisted discussions to be closed prior to the end of a full discussion period if a consensus has formed. These should be observed more often.

Relisting at the five-day mark seems a bit dysfunctional; who's to say there won't be more comments come in during the two days before the end? Stifle ( talk) 16:13, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

As for whether a relisted discussion should run another 7 full days: many of them which simply attracted no attention quickly do, because people look at them who wouldn't otherwise, in order to be helpful, & sometimes what amounts to SNOW appears at that point. But I've seen many where I would have contributed otherwise than the first 2 people after relisting, and it's been closed already. If people are just starting to pay attention, there's the same argument for 7 days to allow enough of it.

There's another reason for relisting: when a discussion becomes so contaminated by socks or abuse that beyond a certain point nobody can contribute usefully--when that happens, whether at day 1 or day 7, it's often better to relist aand start over. DGG ( talk) 17:04, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm ambivalent on your first point. To your second, that's not so much relisting as closing the old AFD as a trainwreck and opening a new one (the distinction, perhaps, being that a "traditional" relist carries forward the !votes from the first discussion period). Stifle ( talk) 08:14, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) says they are "non-article pages, in the article namespace, similar to redirect pages". So since this is "Articles for deletion" would I nominate one here, or at "Redirects for deletion"? This is not just a hypothetical question querying the wording, I do need to nominate one for deletion. Thank you. O Fenian ( talk) 19:02, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I've seen more than one disamb page go through AfD without complaints about it being the wrong venue.-- Fabrictramp | talk to me 19:41, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

AFD is more appropriate than RFD, I'd say. We don't have a DPfD because they're rare... – xeno ^talk 19:45, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I've never seen a need for a discussion over the deletion of a disambiguation page. Not that strangeness counts for much in this wild & wacky project of the definitionally insane. Could you mention the page? And yes, I'm in favor of AfD. -- Kiz o r 21:11, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

The page is Separatism in the United Kingdom. None of the links are actually to the named pages. With the exception of Irish separatism which existed already, all the other links were redirects created to allow that page to exist. O Fenian ( talk) 21:16, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Just for grins, you can see the current disamb pages at AfD at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion_sorting/Disambiguations and past ones at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Disambiguations/archive.-- Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:40, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Conversation conclusion All AFDs will now run a full 7 days. Early closures will be discouraged unless a valid reason can be given from Speedy keep or Criteria for speedy deletion Main arguments: AFDs should be extended to 7 days to gather more opinions and because some people can only access Wikipedia on weekends.

Proposal to extend the length of deletion discussions to seven days carried by strong consensus with 45 !vote supports, and 16 !vote opposes. To ensure the reasoning behind this proposal is carried out, early closures need to be discouraged. Concerns were raised during the discussion about existing early closing, especially SNOW closes. AfD guidelines should now be rewritten to incorporate the decisions in this discussion, and to direct people to allow AfD discussions to go the full seven days unless there is a reason given in either Wikipedia:Speedy keep or Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion to close early. SilkTork * YES! 00:13, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I perceive an incongruity in argument across Wikipedia as regards discussion lengths. At RfA, the opinion is that the discussion lengths should be seven days because it allows participation from all users, who may only edit at weekends/certain times of the week, and are therefore disenfranchised from discussions. For example, imagine I am unable to edit except at weekends, create an article on Sunday. On Monday, it is nominated, my talkpage receives the required notification - by Friday evening/early Saturday morning it has been deleted, with me being unable to participate in the discussion, highlight the sources, etc. My intervention might have changed the course of the discussion. Similar arguments can be used where experts in a topic area are required to perform searches that demonstrate that an article has no merit.
I don't see it as a huge administrative burden to extend this to seven days, to give all parties a fair chance to participate in a discussion about deletion. As a change, it simply implements fairness, doesn't favour any particular philosophy, and gets us closer to the elusive "correct" outcome.
As a bonus, it would also give closing admins two days off when implemented. Thoughts? Fritzpoll ( talk) 11:42, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. -- Kotniski ( talk) 11:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Ummm ... I agree - (see my post above in 4 days or 5). — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/ _© 11:51, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

No objection: changing 5 to 7 days is no instruction creep, has a good reason for it, will not make it considerably harder to delete those articles that should get deleted (and may prevent a few mistakes, although it won't make a difference in most cases of course), and will avoid some complaints of unfair deletion ("but I didn't have a chance to comment!"). Fram ( talk) 11:55, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I can see the value in it. Could increase participation, could increase debate, could reduce re-listings, sounds good. Hiding T 12:15, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I propose that if initial discussions go up to seven days, relistings go down to three days, so the total of the first listing and the relisting is ten days. That guarantees at least one weekend. Most activity occurs in the first three days anyhow. Fg2 ( talk) 12:32, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Relisting has no fixed limit, once any admin feels that there are enough good arguments and discussion to make a reasonable close after a relisting, he may do so. This can be 24 hours after the relisting, or after a second relisting, depending on the case. Fram ( talk) 12:54, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't understand relisting, as WP:AfD does not mention it. However I support the original proposal that AFD discussions should run for 7 days. -- Philcha ( talk) 12:56, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Fram on the subject of relisting, they're typically closed when somneone closes them, as opposed to having any specific time-frame. Hiding T 13:35, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd support this, so that AFDs might run two days rather than nine hours. ;) </snark> In all seriousness, early closing is a problem, but I don't think mandating a wait of seven days would help, as no one even waits five days these days. Wily D 14:02, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

(EC)Alas part of your issue is real. Might we also require that where there is an actual discussion that quick closes not be used? Collect ( talk) 14:09, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Seven days seems fine, but would it make sense that if after 5 days and there's absolutely no clear opposition (every !vote is the same result), to go ahead and close then? The addition two days helps when there is necessary discussion to be made, but when it's crystal clear which way the wind's blowing, extending it can seem wasteful. -- MASEM ( t) 14:06, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

What exactly would be wasted? Time? But noone has to discuss it. Space? But that's nothing to worry about. If it meets WP:SK or WP:CSD, it can still be closed before that period is over, but if it doesn't, current policy is that there is no harm in keeping it for 5 days. As per Fritzpoll's arguments, I would support changing it to 7 days. After all, two more days will not harm us but may allow people with limited edit times to participate. The problem with early closing is something that needs to be discussed with those admins who do that and that will not be affected by such a change; if they decide to ignore the 5 day period, they will ignore a 7 day period. But that's not a reason against a longer period. Regards So Why 14:14, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not against holding it for seven days (or longer if there is still very active discussion), but I'm also for making the system efficient and removing uncontested options after a minimum amount of time (5 days in this case) has passed helps. And I'm only talking about closures when there is absolutely no question of the consensus. Even one "keep" among several "deletes" should require going out to 7 days to resolve. -- MASEM ( t) 14:22, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

That would just muddy the waters. We already have CSD and PROD for uncontroversial deletions. Rd232 ^talk 14:42, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I can understand that. Again, I've no issue with 7 days for AFD and agree with the change. -- MASEM ( t) 17:13, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

(Reply to Masem above, "Seven days seems fine, but ...") There already is WP:SNOWBALL for those cases. -- A. di M. (formerly Army1987) —  Deeds, not  words. 19:36, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

• I think this is a fine idea, and just a simple extension without any new "bells and whistles" on it would be sufficient. Beeblebrox ( talk) 15:15, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• I agree that AfDs should be open 7 days rather than 5. This will ensure that the AFD process is a bit more fair, and we may end up with more editors registering opinions than before. Karanacs ( talk) 15:42, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• I don't have any strong personal preference one way or the other. However, I can see that a number of people feel 7 days would help, and there aren't a lot of strong reasons to limit it to 5, so put me in the "I'm fine with 7" camp.-- Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:51, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• A 7-days regular run sounds fine by me, but a closing after a recommended minimum of 5 days should still be allowed by guideline so that admins can close clear-cut AfDs (within reason) without getting slapped on the wrist for allegedly "not following procedure". – sgeureka ^{t• c} 16:10, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • But isn't the whole point of an extension to allow editors with less regular editing intervals to add their voice to the discussion? If it's just clear-cut looking because they did not have time to add their, maybe completely changing, !vote, it would not make the 7 days in any way useful. After all, all admins could just claim that they thought it clear-cut. I don't see why some admins think it's a race to close AFDs as fast as possible. So Why 19:18, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
    • If five editors have come to the conclusion after five days that an article is unimprovable nn rubbish, a sixth editor saying on the sixth day "It's WP:NOTABLE and there is no WP:DEADLINE for improvement" will hardly sway the AfD outcome to the opposite. In the offchance that it would actually happen, there is WP:DRV and Category:Wikipedia administrators who will provide copies of deleted articles. – sgeureka ^{t• c} 19:27, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
      • See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Boot house (five uncontested deletes if you count the nom). It didn't run for 5 days uncontested, but I suspect it could have if I hadn't happened along when I did (who's going to be crazy enough to research an article that five other editors already dismissed?). The point of extending the discussion length is to allow everyone to participate; including "early closes" handily defeats the intent of the extension. –  74  23:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• I'd support this as a common sense way to reduce the number of anomalies at AFD. Probably should have been done a long time ago, if people weren't overreaching with more WP:CREEPy ideas. Of course, closing earlier should remain possible if there is a lack of significant opposition. Randomran ( talk) 16:29, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support, absolutely. But no support for the early delete option being proposed; we haven't previously allowed "snowball delete" closures at AfD, and I see no reason to start now. —/ Mendaliv/ ^2¢/ _Δ's/ 16:56, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• Seven days, as a minimum, seems reasonable. htom ( talk) 17:10, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• Five days seems long enough to me:

1. An open AfD imposes a workload on those who vote in it and may want to respond to further discussion. The longer the period, the more tedious it gets.
2. The total number of open AfDs at any one time will increase by 40% under this scheme.
3. If AfDs become more time-consuming, it may increase the temptation (which already exists) for admins to close them prematurely.
4. A relisted AfD could run for 10-14 days under this plan, which seems tiresome. EdJohnston ( talk) 17:39, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

On the other hand, fewer articles would be relisted if this scheme is implemented. -- A. di M. (formerly Army1987) —  Deeds, not  words. 19:41, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

• Support, maybe something like "A typical AFD discussion should last for about seven days to allow for as many opinions as possible, they should only be closed earlier than this if the nomination is withdrawn, there is unanimous concensus to keep or merge, or the article for deletion qualifies for "speedy" deletion. If there is no clear concensus after seven days, it may be shortly relisted to gain further concensus, but if there is still no concensus, the debate will be closed with no action taken." Note that under this idea, you cannot "snowball delete", but you can relist for a short period, and the idea of "no concensus" is also mentioned. ViperSnake151 17:59, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support - I see no problem with extending regular AfD discussions to 7 days, and on the up side, I think it would be helpful for people who don't edit every day. I mostly agree with what ViperSnake151 says (above), but would modify his/her suggestion to say: "A typical AFD discussion should last for about seven days to allow for as many opinions as possible, they can be closed earlier than this if (1) the nomination is withdrawn, (2) there is unanimous concensus to keep or merge, (3) there is unanimous consent to delete with a minimum of approximately a dozen !votes, or (4) the article for deletion qualifies for "speedy" deletion". Point 3 allows for early deletion of articles that obviously have to go, but don't qualify for speedy deletion. If there was an error, we still have deletion review. —  LinguistAtLarge •  Talk  18:29, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment - I fully agree with the comments of WhatamIdoing ( talk · contribs), immediately below, and with Juliancolton ( talk · contribs)'s suggestion of implementing this only as a recommendation and not a requirement. —  LinguistAtLarge •  Talk  23:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• Conditional support I'd be willing to trade an increase in the default run for a moratorium on procedural complaints about correct-outcome early closings. "The AfD closed with the correct decision, but we really needed to wait an extra ten hours before deciding to merge and redirect this stub" is a particularly tedious violation of WP:BURO. I also think that explicitly stating that relisted AfDs have a much shorter (or indeed arbitrary) length is a good idea. So I would add:
  • AfDs are normally open for up to 7 days.
  • If comments are insufficient to make a decision after 7 days, then the AfD can be relisted until an admin believes that sufficient comments have been made to close the AfD correctly. If there is still no consensus after a total of 10 days, then the AfD will be closed as "no consensus" and the article will be kept.
  • Because Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, and because most comments are made in the first three days of an AfD discussion, AfDs can be closed early when an admin believes that waiting a full seven days is highly unlikely to change the outcome.
    • Early closings that did not delete an article that you think should be deleted may be re-opened by any person that wants to comment (exactly as if it had not been closed). If more than 10 days have past since the original filing, then a new AfD must be started instead of re-opening an old one.
    • Early closings that deleted an article that you think should have been kept may be contested at WP:DRV.
    • Early closings that disposed of an article appropriately should be appreciated as a sign of Wikipedia's efficiency.

If, on the other hand, the only practical change will be replacing complaints about AfDs being closed, with the obviously correct outcome, at 4d14h because of insufficient time for comments with complaints about AfDs being closed at 6d14h because of insufficient time for comments, then I strongly oppose extending the AfD discussions. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 18:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I see your point about early closings somtimes being justified. However your wording ("when an admin believes that waiting a full seven days is highly unlikely to change the outcome") is subjective and likely to be seen as arbitrary by aggrieved supporters of articles. I suggest 2 provisos for early closes: (a) there must have been at least 2 responses by supporters of the article (can be by same person); (b) if, after responses by supporters of the article, the admin thinks waiting a full seven days is highly unlikely to change the outcome, he /she must give at least 24 hours' notice of intention to close, but may then close the AfD is he / she thinks responses after the notification are very unliekly to change the result. -- Philcha ( talk) 19:09, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that your proposal is WP:CREEPy. As a practical matter, I would normally expect that not having heard from anyone that was involved in writing the article would be considered a factor that could reasonably be expected to be "highly likely to change the outcome". Some articles simply won't have any 'supporters', even among those that created it. Furthermore, I see absolutely no need to require 24 hours notice for "snowball keeps", which is what you would require. (Please remember that "close" is not synonymous with "delete".) Finally, I really do think that we should allow admins to use their (best) judgement. If they're too stupid to evaluate the quality of responses in an AfD discussion, then they're too stupid to be admins. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:42, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Fair point about "snowball keeps". I'm more concerned that AfD discussions seem to have a deletionist bias, contrary to WP:DELETE's statement that improvement is preferable to deletion - for example I had to fight fairly hard for one article that I subsequently improved enough to get into DYK; the actual improvements were not that difficult, the most important sources were already cited, and any of the would-be deleters could have have done what I did. -- Philcha ( talk) 22:28, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

• Support this sensible idea.— S Marshall ^Talk/ _Cont 18:48, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose This strikes me as a solution in search of a problem. The situation described by the suggestor (only being able to use WP on weekends) is likely an uncommon one to say the least. We already extend discussions if they don't have consensus after 5 days, so extending them whether we have consensus or not for two more days just seems unnecessary. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 19:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support - BUT Close an AfD as default keep after 7 days, if it has little or no response. None of this relisting nonsense. I've seen AfD's relisted 2 or 3 times - once is enough. Lugnuts ( talk) 19:09, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support if only because a significant number of articles still need offline sources--those "book" thingies--to establish notability. The people who are going to go to the library to do the necessary research in these cases are going to overlap significantly with the people who can't weigh in until the weekend, and who need the full seven days to present their evidence and make their arguments. Rklear ( talk) 19:13, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• I would support this proposal if and only if the 7-day limit is implemented as a mere recommendation rather than a requirement. Otherwise, I fully agree with Starblind ( talk · contribs). – Juliancolton |  ^Talk 19:17, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support Lengthening it is 7. I'd prefer that we make it more than a gentle suggestion because we have to correct habits over time. Lots of admins and Non-admin closers do not read this page. Protonk ( talk) 19:57, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Also, I would oppose any suggestion that this proposal change our relisting requirements. I feel that regardless of the default length of discussion, our relisting policy & practice is sane and helpful. Protonk ( talk) 19:59, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
    • One more! (I know I might be causes serial edit conflicts) With the abuse filter, we can write a filter that warns a closing user (but does no other action) if they close something way early. That will be really helpful. Protonk ( talk) 20:02, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• Seems like a good idea to me. Longer discussions could help consenus to be more clearly established. Steve Crossin ^Talk/ ₂₄ 21:55, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support with some extra ideas: relisting should be done sparingly, and only be because of recent evidence or close !votes combined with active discussion. An AfD where 1-2 people comment in a week should be closed as no consensus. The existing SNOW guidelines (at least 24 hours, 6 to 0 or better) seem adequate for early closings in my experience. Jclemens ( talk) 22:42, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Are you referring to WP:NAC? There was a mention of SNOW there that was tightened two months ago, but it wasn't clear whether the recommendations applied to admins also. Flatscan ( talk) 03:52, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
    • Yep, that's the one, I think. In light of the fact that it's changed to be more strict, I'd be perfectly happy if NACs followed that, and admin closures came close. 5 people in the first 20 minutes !voting one way does not a SNOW make. Jclemens ( talk) 14:31, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support extension to seven days. The only possible downside is that there will be 40% more AfDs in flight; the numbers opened and closed should remain the same, and time spent relisting might actually decrease. –  74  23:11, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support Unnecessary to make editors panic when they haven't been able to get on during only certain days of the week, and when they do their page has already gone. Wikiphile1603 ( talk) 01:36, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
• Weak support An AFD should still be allowed to be closed "normally" (non speedy) as "keep" after 5 days if consensus is clear. Delete closes should run the full 7 days (give or take a few hours) unless the article qualifies for speedy deletion or if it becomes apparent during the course of the discussion that the subject of the article is completely "unverifiable". ( WP:HOAX, WP:MADEUP) -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 04:10, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support, but ONLY the initial proposal, and NONE of the riders. This isn't a senate bill. We can Line-Item, so do each as its own thing. ThuranX ( talk) 04:12, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
• Strong Support Ikip ( talk) 05:52, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support It makes sense to allow people with limited access to participate in discussions that would be closed by the time they get around to commenting in the current system. There's no need for early closes unless it's a clear copyright violation or something similar. If any early closes are allowed, then evidence that was overlooked in a debate that led to deletion should lead to an immediate reopening as per contested prods if they're brought to DRV. - Mgm| ^(talk) 09:34, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
• Strong Support (for 7 day listings) I'm not trying to !vote twice, but I just wasn't sure at what point we started using the bold bulleted !vote process to count? transparency: I had commented a couple times earlier, so don't count me more than once. — Ched ~ ^(yes?)/ _© 11:06, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support but think this should be balanced by a campaign to remind editors of when to/not to use "speedy delete" as an option in AfD responses, as I predict we'll see an increase in contributors using this. -- Dweller ( talk) 11:14, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

• I would say not to say "speedy delete" unless one thinks the article meets one of the speedy deletion criteria or if it's, as I said above "blatantly unverifiable" sometimes colloquially known as "calling bullshit". -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 13:45, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose AfDs are tedious enough as it is. Perhaps if there was some pressing need, but are there hordes of users complaining that they didn't get a chance to express an opinion during an AfD because it only ran for five days? Why not extend it to two weeks, as many people vacation for an entire week and could miss their chance to chime in. Also, if a user has a crucial piece of information that could change the outcome of an AfD but couldn't post it until day 6 or 7, we have an existing mechanism to deal with that. It's called deletion review. One of the reasons it exists is so people can express things that may have been overlooked at an AfD, though I'm sure the next argument will be that deletion review should also be extended. AniMate ^talk 12:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support extending deletion discussions to 5 years, with an additional 2 year grace period if any user, in good faith of course, says they need more time to get to the Zemblan national library or whatever. Also, support recreation of AfD'd material at will. Also support getting rid of those no fun notability and sourcing guidelines, too. Bali ultimate ( talk) 13:41, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

• Whack Can we use this as a !vote too? :) -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 13:52, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

• nah in seriousness, obviously, i'm opposed and view this as another chapter in the myspaceization process. Yes the next step will be to extend AfD a little further beyond 7 days ("Ten sounds like a nice round number -- but what if someone is on a 2 week vacation and gets back late at night? Hmmm... 15 days works even better, so they get that extra night's sleep") while simultaneously lowering standards on various inclusion criteria. An encyclopedia with over 40 separate articles on the Power Rangers has a problem, and it isn't that its standards for inclusion are too high. Bali ultimate ( talk) 15:32, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
• Neutral. I understand the rationale behind it, but honestly, the final day or so of a 5-day discussion rarely gets comments, and it it's issue of getting somewhere then two extra days aren't going to matter. Wizardman 17:52, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support Because there are a lot of editors who work full time, those extra two days may fall on a weekend but with seven days it means that all will be open over one weekend, and this will allow full time workers to catch up on the important AfDs of the week. Darrenhusted ( talk) 18:43, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

• Comment AniMate's " AfDs are tedious enough as it is ... Why not extend it to two weeks, as many people vacation for an entire week {ironical} ... deletion review ... exists is so people can express things that may have been overlooked at an AfD ..." sounds attractive as WP:DRV focuses the effort on deletions that are dubious for all sorts of reasons, including that defenders wwere not available at the time. However here's a comment from a recent deletion review: "Deletion review is a venue to correct cases where the deletion process was not properly followed. It is not a de novo examination of the article, nor a chance to get a second bite at the cherry and convince different people of the article's merits" - the writer did not think WP:DRV exists to handle "defenders not avilable at the time", etc. - only "improper process". It might be reasonable to change the rules for WP:DRV to include explicitly cases where defenders were not available at the time or new info is availabe, and to require the closing admin to to post a notice (? template) about the existence and purpose(s) of WP:DRV at the top of the deletion discussion whenever the result is other than "keep". - Philcha ( talk) 20:20, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

• Comment Another possibility would be to appoint one or more admins as "public defenders" to ensure an article is not deleted by default and that a serious attempt is made to find sources that could be used to improve the article - most deletion discussions ignore WP:DELETE's statement that efforts should first be made to improve articles and that deletion should be a last resort - except for clear WP:COPYVIOs and clear breaches of WP:BLP. - Philcha ( talk) 20:20, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
• Support, per all of the other suppport !votes that I read. :) This is a good idea, and will also unify AFD with most of the other XFDs. – Drilnoth ( T • C) 21:09, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
• Comment I started a discussion at WT:PROD concerning the possibility of 7 days for PRODs as well if this passed. -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 01:13, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
• Strong support. I've always felt that 5 days was arbitrarily short, and with certain admins closing some discussions after 4 days and a few hours (going by the calendar date, rather than by the time of day the AfD was opened), it is effectively even shorter in many cases. I believe we do need to explicitly clarify whether this means at least 168 hours (seven 24-hour periods), or 7 days by the calendar (i.e. any AfD opened on 1 April can be closed at any time on 8 April, UTC). Without this clarification we have a bias introduced which favors early closers, which may be a bias towards admins who interpret rules in a certain way; and we have uncertainty as to when a discussion will be closed—if I want to contribute to a discussion I'd like to know exactly how much time I would have to do further research. DHowell ( talk) 02:41, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

• I've always supported "informally by the calender" because it allows a closer to evaluate any AFD for close on the "closable log" without worrying about the exact second it was opened and I don't want to see DRV flooded with editors pissed about AFDs closed contrary to their wishes wikilawyering over a few hours. With a 7 day cycle, "by the calender" makes even more sense because the discussion would still get its "weekend". A strict enforced "168 hour" rule would mean that many closers would not eveluate AFDs for close unless they are on the "8 day ""old"" log and many AFDs would be open a lot longer then they need to be. -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 14:13, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

On the other hand "informally by the calender" means a lot of AFDs are closed a lot earlier than they should be. Seven days of discussion to me means "at least 7 days", not "anywhere between 6 and 7 days, depending on what time of day the discussion was opened". And occcasionaly admins get off by one day—I've seen a significant number of AFDs that have been closed by a particular admin after only 3 days and a few hours. DHowell ( talk) 09:52, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose If an article isn't salvageable after 5 days, difficult to see why two days more will help, I don't believe the "only edit at weekends" argument jimfbleak ( talk) 05:21, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose: the current system works fine. If editors are unhappy their article has been deleted there is of course the Review process, so it's not as if an article that was borderline delete has no recourse for further discussion and/or action. JamesBurns ( talk) 05:34, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
• I suggested this a while ago but nobody listened. tleSif ( atlk) 08:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
• Of more concern than 7 or 5 days is the spread of "Snowball close" that means an item doesn't even get 5 days discussion. Wikipedia:Snowball clause is for cutting through pointless red tape - it shouldn't be used to shorten discussions on AfD. I have known a number of discussions that changed radically from what was said by even a large bunch of users on the first day or two. What "appears" to be obvious, can change as more people join the discussion with different points of view and knowledge. There is nothing lost by letting an AfD run the five days, but much can be lost if the discussion is cut short. We haven't had a closure backlog for ages because editors (especially non-admins looking to get a bit of experience of responsibility) fall over themselves to close an AfD with a "snowball". An early close should only follow the guidelines here: Wikipedia:Speedy keep or Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion. SilkTork * ^YES! 13:17, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I agree although I would not have singled out non-admins; this is of greater concern than the question of 5 vs. 7 days. (In particular, a discussion can swiftly shift from "delete per WP:N" to "keep per sources found" once someone adds some.) That said, I suspect that the longer period of time would reduce the number of early closes, once people get used to the longer average time of discussion. Paul Erik ^{(talk) (contribs)} 01:26, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose: 5 days is long enough to determine consensus; people who want to weigh in on AfD discussions should be looking at AfD more often and make up their minds instead of waiting until the very last minute. And if there isn't consensus, we can always relist. Valley2 city^‽ 23:59, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose - As someone above noted, the discussions die off well before even 5 days arrive. Why bother with 7? It's not as if the discussion can't be relisted if there is good discussion going on (or if there is a decided lack of discussion). Also, I think the initial premise of comparing this to RfA is a red herring. Consider that in an RfA, the result can be "for life", with it being a difficult process to overturn. While in the case of an article, DRV is right around the corner. - jc37 04:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose Five days is plenty of time for editors to comment on articles, and extending this would achieve nothing but to increase the AfD backlog. Editors who were unable to participate in an AfD discussion are able to use DRV to overturn the result if they think that it was seriously wrong or ask any admin to move the material to their user space if they want to work on it. Nick-D ( talk) 07:19, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I don't think people who say "there's alays DRV" are really getting the point. We, experienced bureaucracy-lovers as we are, of course know about DRV and would always welcome the chance to initiate another process. But the people who are likely to turn away from WP when they see their articles deleted after a few days are new users, they have no idea about DRV or AfD or any other XxX. They are just going to see their work gone with no explanation, assume WP is not for them, and decide not to work with us any more. This is the problem; it's not some technical issue with the procedure.-- Kotniski ( talk) 08:09, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support In fact, I would support anything up to 10 days as a maximum time. This gives editors who are only active one or two days a week a chance to contribute and then come back later and re-visit the discussion. (I realize that such a long time limit is unlikely to gain consensus, though.)-- Aervanath ( talk) 07:28, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support More time the better. More chance to get the article better. More time to resolve whatever the issue is. More chance of newbie who may be part of the article joining in. Less chance of having to resubmit article for further comment. Downside is it sits in a queue a bit longer. So massive upside and almost no downside. Really a no brainer. BTW if there is more fundamental rethink of the AFD process I would think that is good also. The Afd in general is a rather flowed process imo. SunCreator ( talk) 08:23, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support. Small but important change. The discussions typically die off well before even 5 days, and they can still be closed. But for those discussion that don't, we won't have a forced closure after five days, only after seven, and the two extra days can in some cases be very useful. Power.corrupts ( talk) 10:29, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support Noting that some people may actually be off-wiki for several days at a stretch, and their input is precisely as valuable as someone who lives here. Collect ( talk) 10:33, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support, since there are many advantages noted by my fellow editors above, and the disadvantages are relatively minor. Those who are arguing that four or five days is enough time are, in my view, not sufficiently taking into account the idea that finding references can take a fair amount of time for subjects that do not have much web presence. As someone who often edits articles for the first time because they are appearing at AfD, I would feel that I could do better work if I knew that the two days of the weekend were always available to spend the extra time to research the subjects. Paul Erik ^{(talk) (contribs)} 16:33, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose - The purpose of AfD is to get a sampling of the community's thoughts. Statistically, the same result will come out from seven days as it would from five. There are lots of just stupid articles out there that can't be speedied and won't be PRODed, and we don't have to let them stick around for longer than they have to. As noted above, this seems like a solution in search of a problem. AfD has worked fine as it is. Jd027 ( talk) 23:16, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose I really don't think two days is that much of time to swing consensus one way or another, as usually an AfD gets the majority of comments on the first day of the AfD and after subsequent relists. This would just drag the process out longer then it should be. Tavix :  Chat  03:07, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose - I agree with User:Jd027, and with User:EdJohnston. Anecdotally, some 60%+ of AfDs are closed within 3 days (whether per WP:SNOW, WP:CSD or withdrawl), therefore 5 days is usually more than enough time. I notice that those languishing after 3 days are usually ones which receive little interest, and are almost always relisted anyway. The extra administrative burden of allowing those remaining AfDs to remain open is only slightly mitigated by the smaller number of relistings needed. Ohconfucius ( talk) 08:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support I expected to oppose before I started reading the argument in favor. Give the weekenders some time -- it sometimes happens that an article can be saved by adding sources at the last minute. I don't understand how this would be an added burden to the closing admins. -- Noroton ( talk) 13:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose Afds drag on long enough. To suggest that the minority of people who don't edit that often are magical article savers is a little fantastical. There are more than enough regualar editors involved in afds who are familar with DP to make decent afd decisions. There's no need for any editor to be involved in every decision or to feel 'disenfranchised' because they aren't. Decisions can easily be made without any of us. Consensus is commonly established within 1 or 2 days and can easily be established in the allocated time, if not, it already gets extended and in the rare times that afd fails there deletion review. --neon white talk 14:38, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

• Nobody's suggesting that every editor needs to be involved with every decision. But a lot of AFDs are on quite specialist topics where most people don't really know, so excluding weekend editors who may have just that knowledge (perhaps statistically may even be more likely to) can be a problem. So letting them run for 7 days, to ensure weekend editors can have a say, may make a difference for those AFDs. With stronger use of WP:SNOW for self-promotion, I see little problem with this minor extension. Rd232 ^talk 15:05, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

It seems to be suggested that every editor need the chance to be potential invovled in every afd. My point is get involved in the onee you can and leave the others to other editors. As i pointed out afds without input are already extended and likely in the rare cases (i very much dispute your assertion that "a lot of AFDs are on quite specialist topics", that's simply uninformed speculation, most afds are on subjects that are very easily researched) that expert knowledge is needed and if no input is forthcoming the default is to keep the article. To suggest that 'weekend' editors are the only hope for articles up for deletion and they alone are the only ones able to interpret DP and research topics is a preposterous claim. I would suggest that, for a part-time editor, taking part in afds isn't the most productive use of time. --neon white talk 18:34, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, if it's the article creator (and I suspect that these articles are very often the work of one person), then it is worth making some effort to ensure that particular person is involved. Firstly as a simple matter of courtesy (and because we want to retain new editors, not make enemies of them), and secondly because that person may well be able to cite sources that aren't instantly available to the rest of us. Perhaps rather than change the time limit for all discussions, we should make a rule that says that the main author should be given a reasonable time to respond. If he's responded after a couple of days and doesn't provide the requisite arguments, then OK, we can apologise and say that the article isn't really suitable for WP but we hope that he will continue contributing etc. etc. But for a normal person (i.e. not us, who are rarely off WP for longer than it takes to use the bathroom), a reasonable length of time to wait would seem to be at least 7 days. There's really no hurry to delete these articles - the obvious rubbish gets speedied anyway. Commmunity building and saving the occasional baby from the bathwater seem to me to be far more worthy long-term goals.-- Kotniski ( talk) 19:17, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

While that is true, the creator does not need to be involved for a decent result and quite often isn't. In the extremely rare cases that elusive sources exist, a deletion review is the existing solution. Your suggest, whilst well meant, has some obvious flaws, what about editors that are no longer active? In my experience a sizable amount of article i have nominated were created by editors that are no longer active and by that i mean they created and edited the article 2 years ago and never edited again for example. What about editors that simply don't want to comment? We are simply suggesting dragging on a discussion that likely had a consensus in the first day. Also let's remember that afds are usually a stage after a prod has been rejected suggesting that at least someone involved with the article is watching and if you want to increase afd time it would be logical to increase prod time too, further dragging out the whole deletion process. --neon white talk 06:33, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

• Provisional Support: 5 days if the author has interjected. 7 days if not.-- It's me...Sallicio! ^{${\displaystyle \color {Red}\oplus }$} 21:19, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support An extra two days will not hurt anything, and if it allows for a more thorough consensus to be formed even better. However as some have noted this could be used by some to argue for further extensions or increase the load at DRV with "The AFD only ran for 6d 11hrs" to combat thisI urge that we adopt some sort of standard to curb no SNOW early closures, regardless of whether the proposal is adopted or not. This could take the form of clarifying the procedures in regards to closing(i.e. Closures in non-SNOW cases should not occur until 5 (7?) calender days have elapsed.) TonyBallioni ( talk) 19:19, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
• Weak oppose – I can understand the desire to be consistent with other venues such as RFA, but I am not convinced that this will necessarily help improve the current situation at AFD. Extending two days won't help those articles that get virtually no response after nomination; that's why nominations like that are better handled via PROD, which we need to hit harder for those more clear cases. MuZemike 01:06, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

• If this passes I plan to re-propose this idea as a way to deal with some of those "dead" nominations. -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 14:00, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

• Support — If is not speedy, then a reasonable effort should always be made to involve the author. Not everyone is always on Wikipedia — the less fortunate (or perhaps more these days) among us have to work — and work interferes with editing — a couple of days more to improve the odds the author can be involved are well worth investing. The author will learn (and may teach us) something — and if it is still deleted the author understands why. Williamborg ( Bill) 02:40, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose If consensus is clear after 5 days, close it. If it needs more time, that time will be given. That's common practice now. No need to change it. I echo the "solution in search of a problem" sentiment mentioned by others above. hmwith τ 17:21, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

• As I already mentioned, if this passes I would support closing after 5 days if there's a clear consensus to "keep". -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 00:31, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

• Support. Would extend the limit to 7 days for PRODs, too. I have been unable to access Wikipedia except on weekends several times, and I think this also applies to other people. -- A. di M. (formerly Army1987) —  Deeds, not  words. 19:58, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support — 5 days has always seemed too short to me, though I didn't think to do anything about it. This is, of course, the obvious fix. -- Cyde Weys 15:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support This should be the norm for all related deletions. — BQZip01 —  ^talk 05:02, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
• support because 1/people who are interested in articles need a chance to defend (or oppose) them, and many users come only once a week. 2/ The participation in many AfDs is marginal, and a longer period will increase it. 3/ In some AfDs, however, there is a a pile on of votes oneway or another, and a longer period will decrease that effect. 4/ Its a move to fairness, which is a key element in process for etaining the confidence of Wikipedians in the project. DGG ( talk) 18:40, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
• Support. I see no valid reason not to extend the period to 7 days, and plenty of justification for the extension. It may mean that more articles get rescued, which would no doubt irritate a significant number of AFD contributors, but would be a good thing for the project. Too many AFDs are closed (either way) with only a handful of contributors to the debate. If it's a clear snowball keep or delete, that's fine, but anything marginal needs more input than that, and allowing more time may well help.-- Michig ( talk) 19:14, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Which is current practice, afds are extended is there is no consensus or not enough input. "no valid reason not to" is hardly an appropriate reason for change especially as there are in fact quite a few listed in the debate. --neon white talk 08:34, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

• Support - would like to be able to have the option of checking AfD on a weekly basis (e.g. at the weekends) for discussions that I might want to contribute to. At the moment, if you do things on a cycle, you have to check different places at different points in the cycle (which might be a good thing). I also do think that there are thoughtful editors who mostly contribute (or read) at the weekends, and we should encourage that slower attitude. I've also seen enough debates closed early that may have had turned out differently if someone (given time at the weekend) had weighed in with improvements to the article (including alleged hoaxes that were not hoaxes), so I would support an extension to 7 days for that reason as well. Carcharoth ( talk) 10:32, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

SNOWing closes

In reading the above, it seems to me that there's more of a concern about snowball closes than the difference between 5 and 7 days for the length of closes (which seems to have no consensus at this time stamp.).

And since, as noted by several, the issue is with non-admin closures, how about we just set a time limit on that?

Let's say a minimum of 3 days for a snow close by a non-admin (or even in general, for that matter)?

For any situation in which snowing sooner than that may be necessary (such as Oversight-related reasons), IAR still applies, though now at least, the closer would need to explain why IAR applied. (Which they should have to anyway for a SNOW close, but I digress.) - jc37 04:32, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I would venture to say that placing a time limit on an action whose very core is the dismissal of arbitrary limits would be missing the point. Protonk ( talk) 04:46, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

And AfD disappears in a puff of logic! -- Nick Penguin_{( contribs)} 04:50, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

If only both the above comments were so : ) - jc37 06:13, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Why? WP:SNOW is needed to avoid time being wasted, and I've never seen it misused in about two years of monitoring AfDs. Nick-D ( talk) 07:19, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Then consider yourself fortunate. I (and apparently other above) unfortunately have had a different experience. - jc37 07:28, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I have seen Snow invoked on two opinions and a total of about 2 hours in MfD. Slowing down the process a bit hurts few people, I trust. Collect ( talk) 10:33, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

If there are reasons to close early, they should be in Wikipedia:Speedy keep or Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion. SNOW closes are made using a different criteria which appears to be: "An "x" amount of people have quickly said this article should be kept, so I'll close it now as it appears obvious what the intention is." However, we have seen AfDs which have turned when a previously unthought of comment is introduced. We can't assume that we know everything about the matter being discussed. A SNOW close is a narrow minded close as it doesn't account for or accept the notion that AfD is a wideranging discussion which invites opinions and viewpoints that may not be obvious at the start. If the outcome was so obvious then a PROD or SPEEDY DELETE should have been used in the first place. Sensible reasons for early close are given in our early close guidelines. SNOW is not an acceptable close for an AfD. And, as Collect says, a number of us have seen SNOW used in highly inappropriate cases. The temptation to a SNOW close an AFD because you agree with the comments should alert you that a SNOW is not appropriate. Example: Someone suggests deleting an article on Bouncy widgets because it clearly doesn't meet our core policies. However, Bouncy widgets have a large fan base who within one hour have alerted each other so that there are 10 Keep !votes which say nothing more than "Of course this is notable!"; "Widgets are always kept"; "Bouncy are the best widgets." Along comes an editor who also kinda likes Bouncy widgets. It seems so obvious that Bouncy widgets should be kept that the editor does a SNOW close. A clear case of meeting SNOW - 10 keeps in an hour. But the article doesn't meet basic requirements and hasn't been properly considered. SilkTork * ^YES! 18:32, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, 10 keeps in an hour can just as much be a sign of friends piling on. One still has to use judgment about what they say and give people a chance to reply if there is any chance of a reasonable reply. But normally SNOW makes a little more sense after a day or so than halfway through. If its gone 3 days out of 5, or 5 days out of 7, it might as well stay the rest. (the exception is of course when really clear new evidence emerges one way or another). the reason snow deletes can be desirable outside of speedy is because speedy deliberately only addresses common cases, and there will still be all sorts of really obvious things. DGG ( talk) 04:16, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Early delete closes outside CSD should be rare. One possible reason is that the article is what I call "blatantly unverifiable". That is, the subject doesn't technically qualify for CSD but nobody can find anything on the subject. This would include hoaxes not blatant enough for G4 and things that are WP:MADEUP. In otherwords, "bullshit". This is a perfect example.

A "verdict"?

Even though there's no "RFC" template on this proposal, might it be time to make a call, "Yup", "No way Jose", "No consensus", "Relist" (we keep yammering about it).? IMHO any of the "riders", or "provisions" (including mine) can be discussed if the verdict is "Yup". -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 13:02, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Policy change not advertised widely - review sought

This policy change discussion and poll was not widely advertised (no WP:AN notice, no Village Pump notice) and a number of people have expressed concerns on the Wikien-L mailing list following a notice about it being posted there.

While on review I believe that this was a reasonable result, there are two issues of concern. One, the lack of wider visibility meant that this discussion and policy change happened effectively in a side room. Two, the closing administrator had voted on the issue prior to closing and was not neutral.

I have posted a notice to WP:AN ( [1] ) letting a wider audience know of the discussion and results. I also suggest that anyone who objects to the decision and wasn't aware previously open a discussion here to review that decision.

My personal opinion is that the results were reasonable. However, we need to strive to avoid cutting corners on policy change process. The wider audience needs to be notified and heard from, and if there are objections then the issue needs to be reopened. Georgewilliamherbert ( talk) 02:14, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

It was listed on WP:CENT, which is at the top of every AfD daily log, so its hard for me to believe that anyone interested in AfD process would have missed it. If this were posted on WP:AN and the Village Pump but not WP:CENT, I probably would have missed it. I barely have time to keep up with AfD—following those forums would take up far too much of my time. DHowell ( talk) 03:32, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Still participating in poll I would support a wording that said "5 to 7 days", no need to have a bright line. Chillum 05:31, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

One of the primary arguments for going to 7 days is that many editors only edit on the weekends. Therefore to say "5 to 7 days" would still mean that if an article is nominated for deletion, it still may get deleted before such an editor has a chance to add his two cents to the discussion. That's why I have been arguing that a discussion can be closed as "keep" in 5 days (if a consensus to keep is clear at that point) but must run for 7 days for a "delete". I'm not concerned about a discussion being closed as "keep" before a "weekend deletionist" has a chance to chime in. -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 14:25, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

The problem with that idea is that it create 2 days when an article can only be kept, and not deleted. This creates a bias towards keeping not in line with consensus and policy, but rather in line with a rule that encourages one type of result and discourages another. Chillum 16:41, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Would a slight bias toward keeping be a bad thing? I'm only suggesting that debates with a clear consensus to "keep" be closable after 5 days. That is, debates where an 11th hour "delete" argument is unlikely to to change the outcome. Anything close should still run 7 days. An 11th hour "keep" argument from a weekend editor in an AFD with a clear consensus to "delete" likely won't change the outcome either but at least he still had his say. -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 22:04, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, a bias in either direction will move us away from the correct answer. Leaving a debate open for 2 days with one answer being allowed and the other not is no way to find the correct answer. Chillum 22:04, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to see the poll re-opened, it's clear that there is some concern that it wasn't advertised widely enough. I'd support 5 to 7 as I think that with some AfDs there has been disruption (canvassing, etc) that would only be extended by extending the time. I also am a bit surprised that the closing administrator had voted, and had thought that something that shouldn't happen. Dougweller ( talk) 06:03, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to "reopen the poll" per se, but I think that new comments (and here's as good a place as any) should be allowable per WP:CCC. The fact that no one has reverted it and no one is yet coming here to argue the outcome, as opposed to the process, is telling. If opening the poll wider just ends up with the same result, then reverting the change pending more comments would just be pointless bureaucracy. Jclemens ( talk) 06:08, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

• Process wonkery gone mad! Guidelines and policies are edited all the time - check the histories of policy pages. As this particular edit to a process guideline seemed one step up from trivial the proposer did the appropriate thing and raised the matter on this talkpage, and then widely advertised it via Village Pump and Cent. Over 60 people who had an interest, took part and expressed an opinion. The proposer called for a decision to be made, and this was a no brainer (even the person questioning this has said: "you clearly called it right based on the obvious 3:1 margin"), so I made the decision. This was not a formal RFC because there was no dispute here - this was people discussing a possible change and then agreeing it. But even a formal RFC on content can be closed by someone who took part in the discussion. It is AfD discussions and RFC on users in which it is recommended that the closer isn't involved in the discussion. As the person who is questioning this has said; "I don't see this change as wrong or a mistake", "I think the result will remain" and "poll probably was an accurate gauge of wider community feeling", then calling for this to go through a review is being done purely for the sake of process. Challenge it if you feel the outcome was wrong, not because you feel there wasn't enough process - as there was more than enough appropriate process. Let's all read WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY then get back to building the encyclopedia. I'd hate to see another mammoth date autoformatting drama in which people who are opposed to the change game the system by putting up process objection after process objection until people are wearied of the whole thing. Due process has been followed here, the result is obvious. Let it go. SilkTork * ^YES! 17:30, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

The decision was completely wrong. We never make decisons based on numbers, this is not a democracy, we use consensus and there wasn't one, so i think it would be a good idea to revert the decision and reopen the discussion which clearly was not completed. There were still many outstanding concerning that had not been addressed and there was no conclusion. This just seems like the typical wikipedia attempt (it seems to happen with all major changes these days) to force through a change quickly without support by ignoring any objections, closing the discussions, effectively censoring objections, and going ahead anyway. These kinda of false consensus decisions are disruptive and damaging the project. It's a collaboration and all voices are equally important not just those who think they are right. --neon white talk 19:07, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but a lot of things work very democratically about consensus. The change was not forced through quickly, but only after wide consideration and canvassing. These sorts of objections hold back the project from forward progress and adapation to change, by holding it hostage to vocal minorities. The fact was that the consensus was clear, and not just by a nose count. Jclemens ( talk) 23:55, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

You made my point about forcing things through based on nothing but numbers ignoring valid objections. It's very much misprocess. --neon white talk 20:55, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

So numbers are unimportant in consensus? Your position is that as long as one person is dissatisfied, no change can be made? Good luck giving every single inmate veto power over running the assylum. I'd rather Wikipedia be a bit more functional than that, and I really don't care if you disagree. :-) Jclemens ( talk) 21:12, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, go read Wikipedia:Consensus#Consensus is not in numbers, "Wikipedia does not base its decisions on the number of people who show up and vote; we work on a system of good reasons". If the one person is making a valid point it needs to be addressed with discussion not ignored. This is supposed to be one of the five pillars. --neon white talk 12:02, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Your reason for strongly opposing the proposal was discussed and dismissed. You can't block consensus with an argument that only convinces yourself. -- Hans Adler ( talk) 12:21, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

None of the valid points against the proposal made by anyone were discussed in the slighest. They were ignored as they are in most railroaded processes. Consensus is an agreement and compromise. I suggest reading up on it. THere was no consensus here. --neon white talk 19:33, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Who keeps closing this? Just because a decision is made does not mean people cannot still discuss things. Chillum 03:22, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

5 days was always just a guideline, so I think that 7 days should be too. While I agree 7 days should be the standard I don't think early closures should be "discouraged". We can use common sense and not get bogged down in firm rules. Chillum 03:27, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

In case this gets reopened, please add me to the Support column. I thought it was 7 days already, 5 days is too short.-- Goodmorningworld ( talk) 16:33, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with many things that have been said above: The discussion was advertised wide enough for a change of this type, the result is fine but anything like a 5–7 days solution would be bad (careful discussion closers are already disadvantaged relative to premature knee-jerk closers), we are not (or rather, should not be) a bureaucracy. However, there seems to be nothing wrong with deferring implementation for a few days, advertising the change even more widely, and keeping a discussion open in order to see if there are any new arguments and a chance of a landslide. If so, we can still open another poll. -- Hans Adler ( talk) 17:24, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Someone in this discussion said that there could be "plot twists" changing an almost sure deletion to a keep, but not vice versa. This is not the case: see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Unhexseptium for a counter-example. -- A. di M. (formerly Army1987) —  Deeds, not  words. 23:43, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

• The fact that it was closed by someone with a clear bias strikes me as alarming, and though I haven't reviewed the close I think someone else should re-write the closing statement, or the poll should be re-opened altogether with wider notification as to its existence. I don't disagree with extending it to 7 days, but letting the "no snow closures" hang off the coattails of this decision seems suspect. I don't look at the CENT box, and I don't watch this page, and I don't visit AFD often. That doesn't mean my opinion, or others like me, is not relevant in this poll - especially the snow bit. How many of the participants knew that eliminating SNOW was on the table? – xeno ( talk) 17:00, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Why do you think it has been eliminated? SNOW is just a manifestation of IAR, isn't it - and that's not something we can overturn here.-- Kotniski ( talk) 17:29, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
    • I don't have a problem with the closing of the discussion as consensus to move from 5 days to 7 days, (but I do understand the concern over not enough exposure). My suggestion to that is that perhaps WP:CENT isn't quite as well known as it should be, but the discussion did take place on the main AfD talk page. Do we really need some formal "hear ye, hear ye" declaration to make minor adjustments when we're extending the abilities of our process? Now for the part I didn't care for: It looks to me like that "NO SNOW" thing was kind of thrown in at the last second, I don't particularly care for the way that was done. But, I'm willing to drink my own medicine, and accept it since I didn't check back soon enough, or often enough. (although I do agree with Xeno, that the closing might achieve less friction if an uninvolved admin re-wrote the closing) — Ched :  ?  17:51, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
      • WP:CENT is as central as it gets. If people don't watchlist that, or check it at least once a week, then they have no basis to complain about a major decision being made without their input, period. Having said that, yes, I wouldn't at all mind a more neutral closer, and the "no SNOW" bit was not explicitly endorsed by the majority of those supporting extension. Since SNOW is IAR anyways, I agree that there's insufficient justification for tacking it on, although I wouldn't mind a separate guideline discussion about how SNOW should be best applied to AfD's. Bottom line is, though, there's no process issue that should undermine the decision to switch to 7 day closures. Jclemens ( talk) 18:07, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
      • The issue with the closing is that there was no consensus and the discussion was on going. Closing it prematurely, announcing a consensus based soley on the fact that a certain number of people were in support, seems to me to fly in the face of the core principles of consensus and is certainly a major issue. --neon white talk 12:07, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
        • Just to clarify, my concern about changing the weather is because of this discussion where someone feels that because of the above, "SNOW is not to be used anymore" and can be reverted on sight. – xeno ( talk) 22:00, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
          • Oh dear. SNOW can always be reverted if the outcome is really uncertian, that's part of its IAR manifestation, but to revert a SNOW because it's a SNOW is wrongheaded and misunderstands IAR. Jclemens ( talk) 22:16, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
          • Certainly the primary change here was to bring the time for discussion up from "minimum 5 days" to "minimum 7 days". The note about WP:SNOW to be used in rare circumstances is not new, but a useful reminder of previous discussions we've had, such as Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive182#Wikipedia:Articles for deletion, where it was becoming more apparent that it was becoming the routine to close discussions early—the consensus was that was not a good thing. To re-state my own concern: It does not make for a healthy deletion process if AfDs are being closed mostly by admins who invoke WP:IAR regularly or otherwise operate outside of deletion policy. (All that said, I'm not making any particular comment about the specific discussion that Xeno brought up.) Paul Erik ^{(talk) (contribs)} 02:05, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

The result of the discussion was Withdrawn by proposer. Concensus is obvious. I would like to see some discussion on administrators closing AfDs simply using the line "the result was keep" or "the result was delete" with no further comment. Sebwite ( talk) 20:27, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

{{ RFCpolicy}} Here is a proposal for a fixed guideline on non-admin closings of AfDs:

• Any non-administrative editor (NAE) who has been active for at least 90 days with 500 or more edits, and has not been blocked from editing during the past 30 days may close an AfD.
• An administrator would still have to do the actual deletion; the NAE would simply be the one making the decision on the outcome.
• The NAE would be required to follow a set of guidelines on a project page or section of an existing one that would be created for this purpose (see this soon-to-be created guideline when it is). A link to this page would be provided on all AfD pages in order to make it explicit.
• The AfD cannot be closed simply by saying "The result was keep" or “The result was delete." This would apply to administrators as well. The one making the decision would be required to explain, in accordance with closing guidelines, why s/he made the decision. If a NAE simply says "The result was keep" or “The result was delete," the administrator who finalizes the closing can make a different decision.
• The following guidelines would be in place to avoid conflicts of interest:
  • No NAEs can close an AfD in which they commented
  • No NAEs can close an AfD of a page they have created
  • No NAEs can close an AfD of a page they have previously edited, except for edits not related to the article content itself (such as wikifying, spelling fixes, or reverting vandalism
  • The same guidelines apply when he NAE has previously been involved with a very closely related article
  • The nominator can close a discussion as withdrawn, which is therefore a "keep."
• No discussion less than a week old can be closed unless it is withdrawn by the nominator, speedy-kept per WP:SNOW, or speedy deleted per WP:SPEEDY guidelines.

Sebwite ( talk) 01:58, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Eh, seems like WP:CREEP to me, and abusive NACs can be reverted by absolutely anyone, so any problem whould be self-limiting and of minimal lasting disruption. Jclemens ( talk) 02:21, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Is there a problem that goes with this solution? Chillum 02:27, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd completely oppose this. NAEs should not be closing any AfD that is a delete nor should they be closing any that has a single valid delete comment (already a growing problem). Giving "more" leeway is not a good idea at all. -- AnmaFinotera ( talk · contribs) 02:30, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

NACs in any case should only be done when it is absolutely procedural. There is a reason AfD closures are limited to admins and that's because they have necessary experience and tools to provide appropriate judgment. The instruction creep above is confusing, befuddling and would only help create more disputes and revert wars at the AfD. ^Leave Sleaves 04:04, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't like that there's an objective restriction on which non-admins can close. Any closure which requires admin intervention might as well require admin closure, and anything else which has clear consensus can be classified as a case of WP:ignore all rules. Is there some sort of actual software restriction against non-admin closures? If not, then either they will do it anyway when it's wrong and it will be reverted, or they will do it anyway if it's right and it shouldn't matter if they're an established user or an anon IP. -- Raijinili ( talk) 05:14, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't see a reason to create a policy this strict. Protonk ( talk) 05:19, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

• Current system is fine. It's imperfect, but it generally works, and there's safety nets in place for when things get goobered up. This proposal would create a lot more problems with NACs than it would solve. Townlake ( talk) 05:24, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
• Instruction creep. There's not exactly a backlog on deletion closures (with the possible exception of FFD, but pretty much everything there is either a delete, which non-admins can't do, or controversial, which they shouldn't do). Indeed, just three of the listings at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2009 April 12 were left for a full 168 hours before closure. No need for this. Stifle ( talk) 08:55, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
• Instruction creep, per Stifle. There are times when a NAC is appropriate (I've just done one, in fact) but they have to be pretty much unequivocal.

  I do want to endorse what Jclemens said: NACs can be reverted by anyone. This should be clearer in the guidelines, I think. The principle is that NACs are for non-controversial closures. The act of reversion indicates that the NAC was controversial, so the NAC was automatically inappropriate; in other words, reverting a NAC is self-justifying.— S Marshall ^Talk/ _Cont 19:05, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

• I oppose the whole premise of non-admins judging something as delete. There's not a huge backlog, and I can only see this as a recipe for future problems. Non-admins can already close any obvious keeps, but we shouldn't give them the ability to close anything as delete. In my opinion, that's part of the reason we give potential admins the mop, because they've proven they have the ability to judge delete situations properly. I'm uncomfortable giving non-admins the same blanket approval without judging their contributions thoroughly. Raven1977 ^{Talk to me} _{My edits} 20:37, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
• I don't see the need for non-admin closures - is there a shortage of admins, are they overworked at Afd? pablo _hablo. 20:53, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
  • When done appropriately, NACs free up admins to monitor areas where there are backlogs... and they save everyone else time they'd otherwise waste on AfDs where the result is objectively not in doubt. Townlake ( talk) 21:14, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
• Doesn't make sense. An admin is always held responsible for their actions; therefore deleting an article because "the discussion was closed as delete" just doesn't cut it - they would have to review the discussion themselves, eliminating any conceivable gain to be obtained by this procedure. I might favour a lightweight approval process for non-admin closers, but I would not impose any specific criteria - I think it should be based on the individual history of the editor and experience with AfD. Dcoetzee 20:59, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

• I think it should be based on the individual history of the editor and experience with AfD. Now that makes sense. If a non admin has a lot of experience with AFDs, then it shouldn't be a problem if he closes a few that aren't 100% slam dunk "keeps". That being said, it should be noted that NACing is not an easy avenue to adminship. Just the opposite may be true. I just saw 2 RFAs crash and burn with the big issue on both being "non admin closures". -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 00:56, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

• Complete oppose; NACs should never result in delete for damn good reason. Honestly, I've always hated NACs anyway, and would in fact support a measure to eliminate NACs where the editor was involved in the debate (or to eliminate NACs entirely). —/ Mendaliv/ ^2¢/ _Δ's/ 01:49, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

• No "involved" editor, admin or not, should close an AFD. The only exception would be a withdrawing nominator closing his own AFD in the absence of other good faith delete !votes. -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 02:18, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
  • I absolutely agree, Ron, but I'm referring to the current reality of AfD, where involved non-admins do close AfDs where the decision wasn't blatantly obvious. —/ Mendaliv/ ^2¢/ _Δ's/ 03:46, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
    • That's what this is for :) -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 04:20, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose NACs in the absence of very good reasons. There is no backlog on straightforward, uncontroversial closes. Also, No debates should be closed by an involved editor of any status. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 02:09, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose NACs as per SmokeyJoe. Dougweller ( talk) 05:37, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose NACs for reasons above - admins can check for e.g. resurrected articles, admins can be unfrocked if they misuse their position, 1 or 2 even slightly controversial NACs can ruin the propsects of a good candidate for adminshiop, etc. -- Philcha ( talk) 06:10, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
• Comment Please note that this is not an RFC on "non admin closures" in general.-- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 13:43, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
• I'm not sure I support this specific proposal in all its detail, but setting out some clear guidelines on discussion closure would certainly be a worthwhile aim. I also disagree with the idea that reverting a NAC in itself proves that the closure was controversial and thus that the reverter is right (in fact I saw someone blocked only yesterday(?) for reverting two different non-admins' attempts to close an AfD). All rules have exceptions, but generally speaking, if you don't like a closure (made in good faith), then you can ask an admin to review it - you don't have to revert it yourself.-- Kotniski ( talk) 14:46, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Not sure if you're talking about this one, but if you look at the history you'll see a lot of edit warring over the first try at an NAC. Eventually the closer made a good* close, but only after the AfD stayed open a while... and the nominator ended up 24h'ed... the whole thing was sort of a bummer. Townlake ( talk) 15:50, 21 April 2009 (UTC) (*=to clarify, when I say "good" I meant "a close that stuck." Poor word choice there on my part.) - Townlake ( talk) 16:46, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Yep, that's the one;) I think it's fairly clear in that case that it was the nominator being disruptive rather than the closers, but of course in other situations it might be a closer being unreasonable - we can't generalize. (Although we can make specific guidelines - for example, in this case it would have helped if there'd been a minimum time to wait before a repeat nomination, as was proposed somewhere not long ago.)-- Kotniski ( talk) 16:24, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

That appears to be a poster child for NOT being an NAC candidate. Having done a few NACs before I got the bit, I don't oppose them per se, but there are really only a very few AfDs that are good candidates, and this was in no way one of them. Jclemens ( talk) 16:52, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Why?-- Kotniski ( talk) 16:54, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Because of the repetitive, SPA, disruptive nom. Regardless of which non-admin did the SNOW closure, admin closures are not subject to random users reopening them--they go to DRV in case of disagreement, which is where that whole repeat nom belonged in the first place. NACs are for issues where there's no disagreement--when a bunch of keep !votes and sourcing additions prompt a nominator to withdraw his nomination, no reason in the world a NAC should be challenged. Anyone can fix vandalism or other minor silliness, admins are "hired" by the community to clean up moderately complicated disruptive messes, and Arbcom gets the truly complicated messes. (Oh, and if I ever run for Arbcom? It's a definite sign my account has been compromised!) Jclemens ( talk) 17:21, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Are you saying you think NACs should be restricted to situations where the nomination has been withdrawn?-- Kotniski ( talk) 17:54, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

To quote myself: "NACs are for issues where there's no disagreement". A withdrawn nomination is an example of one such situation, not the totality thereof. Jclemens ( talk) 18:36, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, if the nomination hasn't been withdrawn, on what basis do we conclude that there's no disagreement? (Presumably the nominator at least still disagrees.) -- Kotniski ( talk) 08:37, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't feel like endlessly splitting hairs. "IAR and use common sense in doing so!" shalt be the whole of the law. Seriously, if you can't judge when things are completely going one way or the other, you have no business doing NACs, because that's what they're all about. Jclemens ( talk) 15:04, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

A pedant writes - "The nominator can close a discussion as withdrawn, which is therefore a "keep." That's not necessarily the case - if an AfD has got Delete !votes from other editors, it should be left open (although clearly that's subject to common sense - an AfD with 30 Keeps and 2 Deletes that gets withdrawn obviously isn't contentious). Black Kite 21:29, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:AFD#How to list pages for deletion currently transcludes Template:AfD footer, which is some text, followed by the multi-colored table at Template:AfD in 3 steps, followed by this text:

Once listed, deletion discussions can, optionally, also be transcluded into an appropriate deletion sorting category, such as the ones for actors, music, academics, or for specific countries; which helps attract people familiar with a particular topic area. Please see the list of categories.

What follows at the end of the section is a list of other ways to attract attention to the AfD discussion by notifying people that have worked on the article.

The "following" text, particularly the paragraph quoted above, sort of disappears in the shadow of the table. I think it would be better to remove this text from the template and then use it to create a subsection immediately after the table, titled something like ===Attracting attention to the discussion=== or ===Notifying interested people===. The subsection would contain the two major ways of alerting participants to the AfD (deletion sorting or leaving a note at specific WikiProject's talk pages to attract the attention of people generally interested in the subject, and individual notices to contributors to the specific article).

The entire section should clearly be labeled as an optional step, but I'd like to see it appear in the page's table of contents because I think some nominators do look for this information, and because greater subject-specific advertising might reduce the number of discussions that end with no consensus or relisting. (And here's a plug for categorizing discussions under WP:DELSORT whenever you participate in a discussion. It's quick, it's easy, and it really does attract people that know where to find sources to support viable articles.) WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:27, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). Stifle ( talk) 13:37, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your 'vote of support', but

1. {{ sofixit}} is specific to the mainspace because we don't actually want to encourage people to re-write major pages like this one without at least checking in to see whether there's any significant opposition, and
2. this involves changing a template that is transcluded on three pages (I see that I didn't make that clear), which might have complications that I'm unaware of (although it looks fine to me).

If there's no opposition in a day or two, I will make the changes. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 18:13, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I think editing the process part of a page can be done without a great deal of prior notification so long as you are responsible about it. thanks for attempting to fix this up. I've long looked at it as awkwardly worded but didn't know how best to fix it. Protonk ( talk) 00:18, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

 Done. Feel free to expand with anything else that might be appropriate. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 16:43, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if there will be any discussion about the current AfD process in the light of the recent User:JamesBurns case. This case showed that it is possible to manipulate AfDs over a period of at least four years with up to eight socks per discussion (like here) without being noticed. I wonder if the project is interested in changing the AfD process in a way that massive manipulation like this will become more difficult in the future. Sorry, if I missed a currently ongoing discussion. --Avant-garde a clue- hexa Chord ² 15:40, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm beginning to wonder if this whole JamesBurns mess might not be some kind of long POINTy campaign to demonstrate that our deletion system is "gameable". If true then the only thing he has demonstrated is that any system is "gameable" if someone has enough time and persistence. This is especially true if the ordinary "good faith" editors who participate in AFDs have lives and jobs and therefore don't have time to scrutinize every AFD !voter for "fishyness". -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 16:17, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Who would mass-manipulate AfD discussions over a period of several years to proof a point? Combined with the other socks' edits this looks more like too much time on one hand and a serious amount of mental illness on the other. But this doesn't help to improve AfDs in general. Of couse it always will be gameable, but shouldn't we try to make it a bit more difficult? --Avant-garde a clue- hexa Chord ² 16:34, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

The best way to make it more difficult is for closing admins to take the time to weigh all the arguments, taking policy into account. That way anyone trying to game the system would have to at least make sound arguments for their position.-- Fabrictramp | talk to me 16:38, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

That was one of the problems. Some of the JB and sock delete arguments were "sound arguments" (at least as sound as many of the arguments from "good faith deletionists") that were slightly changed and paraphrased by different socks. It's not surprising that some experienced and AFD savvy admins were fooled. -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 16:53, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

That's the counter side of one line !votes only naming polices or other !voters, but no indication of own research or original arguments. --Avant-garde a clue- hexa Chord ² 17:00, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Here's one of the AFDs in question. Sound deletion rationale, one sound delete !vote and one "so so" delete !vote. All spaced a day or so apart and all with a different writing style but all the same person. If Paul Eric didn't come by and blow the whistle on this puppet show, I wouldn't have touched it and the article most likely would have been deleted and you couldn't have blamed the admin who did it. -- Ron Ritzman ( talk) 17:26, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you're right of course, but it still can be used as an example for my argument: While one sock !votes with the statement that there's no sources at Google or Google books, one could verify that very easy. The second !vote says nothing at all. Where did he look? Or did the !vote just repeat the above !vote? Of course it did. Also the nomination is quite good on this AfD. It is longer than most other nominations and actually shows the nominator did some research. Compare to lets say this one or even this one. --Avant-garde a clue- hexa Chord ² 17:38, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Looking at Hexachord's example above, I can't say I argee with the close, socks or no socks. While the delete arguments seem policy-based, they pick and choose a small part of the guideline and ignore the refs in the article. Reopening that AfD was the right thing to do. (Of course, I may just be hyper-sensitive to this right now because an article I put quite a bit of work into rescuing was deleted because the closing admin was swayed by the drive-by delete !votes that happened before the refs were added. *grin*) In Ron's example, I spent a couple of minutes trying to find notability for the band, and came up empty. Of course, I always get leary of basing notability solely on sources available on teh intertoobs for people and bands who had their day pre-intertoobs. -- Fabrictramp | talk to me 18:12, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the question is, what can we change to prevent this? We will always have problems with sock puppets, we just have to do our best. Chillum 17:42, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't suppose this problem will ever be solved to our full satisfaction, but it might be worth putting a notice at the top of AfDs (and all discussions where numbers are likely to influence the outcome), asking people who are not regular editors to briefly introduce themselves and explain by what route they came upon the discussion. Then we could have a bot picking out those commenting editors without much history and reporting them for possible discounting (perhaps on an admins-only page). Of course a really clever bot would keep records of voting patterns and identify sets of accounts with similar patterns... -- Kotniski ( talk) 17:51, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, it would be nice to be able to put a XfD into a category that caused a bot to come along and make a report about the involved users on a sub page or the talk page. Not automatically, but upon request. Chillum 18:02, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Manuipulation like that is happening all the time on AfDs at the moment. The only difference with the James Burns example is that they were all the same person. Black Kite 23:38, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to point out this comment by Uncle G. Flatscan ( talk) 05:44, 26 April 2009 (UTC)