Wikipedia talk:Deletion review/Log/2011 November 16

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From Aubrey Wentworth

Copied from WP:Deletion review/Log/2011 November 16 (diff)

I reply to those points in the same order that you raise them.

  • Enforcement: At the moment, enforcement of a close is rare, because (at least as I understand it) there are only really two kinds of close: "Delete" closes in which the bluelink becomes a redlink (which includes userfication and incubation) and "keep" closes in which the bluelink remains. You're right to say that it's not normally necessary to enforce these and on the rare occasions when it does happen, there are established procedures. If someone unilaterally recreates something deleted at AfD, then there is a well-documented speedy deletion process to use, and if someone unilaterally deletes something kept at AfD, then DRV will deal with the matter (and sometimes using quite sharp language, I've noticed).

    To me, the much more granular closes that arise from that RFC would seem lead to new questions. If the close is "merge", does that mean all the content is to be merged? What if there is disagreement about whether to merge three paragraphs or one line? Does the closer decide? Is his decision subject to a later talk page consensus? Can the later talk page consensus convert a merge to a redirect? Can someone then take the redirect to RFD or do they need to ask the closer first?

    It would seem to me that the close should be subject to later talk page discussion which has wide latitude to vary the close on the basis of editorial discretion. But if I'm right about that, I wonder whether the "merge" or "redirect" close has any real effect at all. Certainly, it leaves latitude for someone who dislikes the subsequent talk page discussion to refer to the previous closer and ask for enforcement. It seems to me that administrators would need some kind of guidance about how to react to such an approach, because where the community wants administrators to enforce something, the administrator should have the benefit of some indication of what the community actually expects from them.

  • Editorial actions: There was, previously, a clear dividing line between the decision to close a debate as delete or not-delete (which I see as an administrative decision requiring consensus-assessment skills) and the decision about what to merge, what to redirect, what to excise and what to add (which I see as an editorial decision requiring article-building skills). Post-RFC the dividing line is in a different place and I'm uncertain of the consequences. If an administrator or other closer decides to make it mandatory that a merge should takes place, but that someone else should do it, then the closing statement will need to be clear and specific about what should be merged to where and what should be excised, because the decision is enforceable and those expected to do the actual work are not mind-readers.

    Now that I think more about this, it doesn't seem completely insurmountable to me, but it does seem difficult and in need of more thought and input. I think that closers will need to improve their closing statements a great deal. Editors will require clarity and precision before they can obey. I also don't like the implications of this, since it puts administrators even more clearly into a managerial role in the encyclopaedia than they currently are, and I see this steady promotion of administrators—janitors!—into managerial roles as corrosive and dangerous.

  • Unilateral closes: In many cases only one close is possible, or at least, there is only one close that would survive DRV. In more interesting cases, that's not true at all: often two or more closes are possible. In these cases, our procedure is that a self-selected closer makes a binding decision. DRV can review it, but if there is no consensus at the discussion, then there will usually be no consensus at the DRV, which gives the self-selected closer a massive first-mover advantage. Essentially, our self-selected closer can make a unilateral binding decision that cannot be effectively challenged. The more I think about this, the more I see it as a problem, and I think a higher level of granularity in the closes will tend to exacerbate this.
  • Editorial brilliance: Our admin corps were appointed by processes of varying rigour. Those who received their tools more than about four years ago did not undergo very much scrutiny at all, and even among those who were appointed later, I think it's clear that RFA doesn't give much scrutiny to a prospective administrator's editorial judgment. But in this post-RFC world, closers are supposed to make what used to be editorial decisions.

    Now, our admin corps is generally well-meaning but of quite widely-varying competence. There are children and self-confessed drug users with the tools. There are people with the tools who have never written any kind of audited content at all. There are administrators whose role purely revolves around AN/I, XFD closes, RPP, countervandalism, and blocking, who rely on others do to the actual content-writing. These are important and necessary roles that I do not wish to belittle, but with such users, I do question their competence to make editorial decisions.

Although I've expressed concerns admins and questioned some admins' competence to make higher-level editorial decisions, I don't want this to be mistaken for a rant against administrators in general. I also don't want to be obstructive about the RFC's outcome. It's just that I foresee practical problems.—S Marshall T/C 08:34, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am still digesting and considering your comments after a few days, but I have a brief reply to start. I think of merge outcomes as merger discussions that happened at AfD – they may be overruled by stronger talk page discussion. WP:Non-deleting deletion discussions covers this method of appeal (note that I think that incorrect closures should be filed at DRV, even if they don't involve page deletion). AfD comments are usually too imprecise for the closer to dictate specific editorial decisions. In terms of merge versus redirect, I consider merge to be closer to 100% content merged and redirect to 0%, with the implicit (occasionally explicit, in a detailed closing statement) direction to finalize the details on the talk page. Flatscan (talk) 05:20, 28 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My comment that "The closing admin might be contacted to enforce the AfD outcome if the merge is reverted" might have led you astray. I clarified what the closer might do to "enforce" the close, but I didn't make it clear that I primarily meant undoing the redirect. Removal of the merged content is a potential problem too, but 1) my impression is that the disputes are most often between maintaining the pre-merge coverage and expanding substantially, especially for lists of episodes or characters, and 2) keeping two paragraphs, two sentences, or nothing is a finer content decision than a separate article versus a redirect. I discussed this general issue with User:82.19.4.7 at WP:Deletion review/Log/2011 August 27.
List of Quantum Leap episodes. Since the (non-G12) individual articles had been split from the list originally, merging them back would have effectively been a revert. Flatscan (talk) 05:29, 1 December 2011 (UTC)[reply
]
  • Good, then we agree. Sandstein's just opened a DRV (5th December) which may be relevant.—S Marshall T/C 01:07, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Regarding
      this anchor in the character list." I suggested similar wording at the RfC, but no closers have adopted it. I think that a "strong" close here would have been forcing a compromise. Flatscan (talk) 05:19, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply
      ]
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