Wikipedia:Non-admin closure

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This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it.
This page in a nutshell: Administrators close most deletion discussions; regular editors may close some non-controversial discussions with "keep" closure.

Non-admin deletion discussion closures are situations when an editor who is not an administrator formally closes a deletion discussion. This essay offers guidance to editors considering doing such a closure.

Shortcuts:
WP:NADC
WP:NAC

Contents

[edit] Which discussions should a non-admin close or not close?

[edit] Appropriate closures

Non-admin closures of XfD's should be limited to the following types of closures:

  • Unanimous or nearly unanimous keep after a full 5-day listing period, absent any contentious debate among participants.
  • speedy keep closures, per the criteria at that guideline.
  • Snowball clause closes, where it is absolutely obvious that no other outcome other than keep is possible. Recommended criteria to use: (a) six or more participants have supported keeping the page; (b) no editor other than the nominator has opposed keeping the page or even supported another outcome, left a comment, or asked a question which could be interpreted as hesitation to support keeping the article; (c) the process has gone on for at least a full day; and (d) the nominator has not added a lot of comments and is not still attempting to make his/her case.
  • Pure housekeeping, such as a closing a debate opened in the wrong place or where the page under discussion has been uncontroversially speedily deleted but the debate is not closed.

[edit] Inappropriate closures

Non-admin closure is not appropriate in any of the following situations:

  • The non-admin has demonstrated a potential conflict of interest, or lack of impartiality, by having expressed an opinion in the deletion debate.
  • If the result will require action by an administrator:
    • Deletion
    • Moving an article into a page (such as a redirect) that can't be accomplished by a regular editor
    • Unprotecting a page
    • Merging page histories

Inappropriate early closes will either be summarily reverted by any administrator ("Decisions are subject to review and may be reopened by any administrator", from Wikipedia:Deletion process#Non-administrators closing discussions) or almost certainly will result in a successful request to redo the process at Wikipedia:Deletion review. Inappropriate early closes thus waste everyone's time.

[edit] Pitfalls to avoid

  • Contrary to popular belief, especially among newer editors, discussions are not a vote. Administrators use rough consensus to determine the outcome. The process of rough consensus requires administrators to occasionally ignore opinions (sometimes called "!votes") because they are against policy, made in bad faith, etc. If you are reviewing a debate and find yourself trying to decide if a !vote should be ignored per the rough consensus guidelines, and doing so or not doing so would likely affect the outcome, then this is not the kind of debate that you, as a non-admin, ought to be closing.
  • In general, XfDs other than AfDs are probably not good candidates for non-admin closure, except by those who have extraordinary experience in the XfD venue in question. If there is a serious backlog on one of these venues, consider asking a very familiar admin who closes many of this type of discussions for their advice. Many of these venues have complicated criteria to consider, employ complicated templates, require additional logging elsewhere, or require the use of bots to run jobs to complete the tagging or other cleanup tasks that are required. If a non-admin closes such a discussion and does not take all of the steps, it can create a mess.
  • In particular, closing IfDs should be avoided by anyone who is not experienced in closing debates in this venue. Images are frequently transcluded into articles, templates and user pages. Those closing these type of debates often have to review the "what links here" special page and determine if a bunch of other cleanup needs to be done, such as removing the "deletable image caption" templates everywhere the image is used. Those who regularly close these venue debates likely know how to use bots, scripts and third-party tools to help them do so.
  • Note that Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working has been protected from editing by non-admins due to exploitation by vandals. As such, CfD decisions which require admin or botwork to complete, such as "delete", "merge", or "rename", should not be closed by non-admins as they will be unable to make the necessary WP:CFD/W edits.

[edit] How to close an AfD debate

To close an AfD debate, it is necessary to perform all of the following steps (italicized text is optional):

[edit] Edit the AfD page

  1. At the top insert "{{subst:at}} '''Keep''' (non-admin closure), optional brief comment about the closing decision. ~~~~"
  2. Delete the line that reads "{{REMOVE THIS TEMPLATE WHEN CLOSING THIS AfD|X}}" (where X is the deletion category).
  3. At the bottom insert "{{subst:ab}}"
  4. Save the page with edit summary "closing as keep (non-admin closure)" (do not mark the edit as minor).

[edit] Edit the actual article(s)

  1. Highlight and rightclick-copy the text at the top that says "{{oldafdfull|page=PageName|date=[[2008-01-18]] |result='''keep'''}}"
  2. Delete the four (usually) lines at the top that start with "<!-- Please do not remove or change this AfD message" and ends with "feel free to edit beyond this point -->", which will include the text you copied above.
  3. Also delete any {{unreferenced}} or similar maintenance templates at the top of the article, IF the result of the AfD determined that such templates were no longer applicable.
  4. Save the page with edit summary "rem AfD - kept; unreferenced template also removed per discussion at afd" or similar (do not mark the edit as minor).

[edit] Edit the article talk page(s)

  1. add the following if not already there:
    1. {{skiptotoc}}
    2. {{oldafdfull|page=PageName|date=[[2008-01-18]]|result='''keep'''}} (the text you copied above)
    3. Optional: consider adding one or more wikiproject banners, and assess the article according to the wikiproject guidelines.
      1. eg: {{WikiProject Arbitrary examples| class=stub| importance=low}}
      2. or add a placeholder for future wikiproject banners, ie: <!-- add wikiproject banner(s) here -->
    4. {{talkpage}}
    5. __TOC__
    6. If any unsectioned comments exist on the page, insert a level 2 section header above them, like ==Comments==
  2. Save the page with edit summary "top matter - oldafdfull; add wikiproject Arbitrary examples, assess as stub, low importance" or similar (do not mark the edit as minor).

Note: a template is available to add the above element structures for you. To use it, just type {{subst:Topmatter}}, and save the page. Please then immediately edit the page again to correct the oldafdfull and add wikiproject banners, if desired. Do not transclude the template, use subst only.

[edit] See also