Wikipedia talk:Non-admin closure/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Wikipedia:Aministrator discretion

One thing I think is missing is the essay describing Wikipedia:Aministrator discretion. And I think its main application is here. I think admin discretion is most pointed when it comes to the calling of a rough consensus. A rough consensus is not a consensus, but it is a a decision made as to where the discussion is header, on what the outcome of the discussion would be were it to be allowed to continue involving more time and participation. It is particularly important for discussions that are approaching a decision, but are not worth the time and resources required to demonstrate that this decision is indeed the consensus of the participants. Dangerously, the calling of a rough consensus can border or even overlap with imposing an arbitrary decision. I think Wikipedia culture is that only administrators are encouraged to make borderline arbitrary decision and to impose them with an expectation that, barring a future stronger demonstration of consensus the other way, the decision will be respected. It falls dangerously close to WP:Supervoting, but there are times when the community needs a decision, usually a binary decision, to be made, and it doesn't really matter which way it falls, just that everyone involved will, for a time at least, accept the decision. I think this sort of thing is held over to Administration Discretion largely because admins have passed that ritualistic baptism of fire, because there is a level of extra respect to be afforded administrators, and because any crossing of administrator accountability carries the very great penalty of having to defend against a proposal to, and risk of, WP:desysop. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:39, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

(I really wish more people were taking part in these discussions.) I'm certain people have been TBANNED from closing discussions before. I'm not immediately finding diffs though. But this could be a good reference for precedent purposes that this may be the result of a pattern of improper closures. TimothyJosephWood 13:39, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I tend to think discretion eludes definition. It's one of those things developed via experience closing discussions and watching how the community reacts to those closures. You eventually realize that the community usually needs some direction coming out of a discussion, so you look for some rough consensus on one detail, a shared concern among supporters and opposers, etc. I don't think an attempt at defining discretion is wise, as discretion is ... well, discretionary. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 23:11, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Maybe not defining discretion per se, but perhaps dealing with it as WP:ADMINACCT does. It doesn't try to exhaustively or comprehensively define "bad behavior", but instead simply says bad behavior is a thing, and it can have consequences, as it did for these individuals. Of course, we can't do that anyway unless we can find examples where people have actually been TBANNED from closing discussions. TimothyJosephWood 13:55, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Who should close

Please review the following proposal and offer feedback. Rationale for inclusion follows.

Who should close discussions

There are many ways in which competence is required when editing Wikipedia, and often more so when accurately judging the outcomes of discussions. Although there are no formal requirements for non-administrators to close discussions, in terms of time spent on Wikipedia or number of contributions made, it is important that those who do close are able to do so properly. Improper closures may have detrimental effects on the project, such as necessitating potentially time consuming reviews or contributing to backlogs for various tasks.

Editors who are experienced

As experienced editors who have passed a community review, administrators will normally have gathered the knowledge necessary to close community discussions appropriately, or to identify when they cannot and defer to others. Non-administrators who close discussions should ensure they also have the requisite experience and knowledge necessary to do so.

• Knowledge of policy: Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, but it does employ a sometimes complex set of policies and guidelines which document established consensus, and in some cases, legal requirements which may have serious consequences if not adhered to. Editors who close discussions should have a good understanding of when and how these apply, as well as when they do not, and how this helps uphold the fundamental principles of the project.

• Knowledge of process: Different venues for discussion on Wikipedia often include their own agreed upon standards for procedural matters, such as how those discussions are formatted, how long they can or must continue, and what steps should be taken prior to their beginning and following their end. Editors who close discussions should have thoroughly familiarized themselves with these standards, and have enough history participating themselves that they are able to fulfill these expectations.

• Knowledge of subject matter: Wikipedia is written and maintained by a large and diverse body of contributors, each of which have individual strengths, interests or academic backgrounds. Editors who close discussions concerning highly technical subject matter, should have the necessary background to effectively evaluate the evidence and arguments presented.

Editors who are uninvolved

Closing editors should be aware of any actual, potential or apparent conflicts of interest they may have that could effect their decision making, or give the appearance of impropriety, potentially compromising a consensus reached by the community by casting doubts on a closure. Just as editors should not act as administrators in situations in which they have been personally involved, non-administrators should not close discussions in which they have cast a !vote or otherwise already taken a side.

Just as policy prohibits canvassing for participants with the intention of influencing the outcome of a discussion, editors should not attempt to close discussions they have been improperly notified of, or notified of in a way which may cast doubts as to their impartiality.

Rationale:

• The essay currently contains multiple references to "experienced editors", with little or no qualification or explanation. While it may seem self-evident to many what this means, those who are not experienced are often the least qualified to evaluate their inadequacy.
• The target audience of this essay may likely seldom be the old haunts of noticeboards and AfD, but rather newer editors who want to read guidance before making a mistake, or those who are pointed here after doing so.
• Telling an editor that they are not qualified to close a discussion may easily be interpreted as a personal attack, often because the editor doesn't know what they don't know. Providing an explanation to point to can deflect some of that feeling by helping to remove the just take my word for it from the equation.
• The purpose of the section, as well as the affirmative tone, is in the spirit of guidance at WP:PG, to tell editors directly that they must or should do something. In other words, it is about the experienced editor and not about the inexperienced editor. Those who are inexperienced should leave with instruction for what to do to gain experience, such as better familiarize themselves with policy, or participate in further discussions to better learn their process.
• Being uninvolved is a natural extension of the administrator requirement, since non-admin closures are a quasi-admin task. TimothyJosephWood 17:58, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Discussion

• I wanted to write: "Brilliant! Who are you really?" :) It reads great. I think the explanation you've provided, focusing on the need to understand the behavioral aspect of below par editors, is very well chosen. Save a couple of grammar improvements, rest seems perfect (e.g. "a sometimes complex set of policies and guidelines which document" should have "documents"; "each of which" could be "each of who"... but leave that for now; these can be improved later). Other editors may have more to add. Looks brilliant. Who are you really? :) Lourdes 18:33, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Who are you really? - A sock puppet of User:Timothyjwood. TimothyJosephWood 18:56, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

• Just to be clear, this is entirely new text, correct? It doesn't pull text from elsewhere or involve refactoring other sections? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 23:14, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

• Editing, important things first, avoid stating negatives,

Who should close discussions

Ordinary editors, non-administrators, may close many discussions. It is important that those who do close are able to do so properly. Competence is required when editing Wikipedia, and even more so when accurately judging the outcomes of discussions. Time spent on Wikipedia, or number of contributions made, are not requirements for non-administrators to close discussions. Improper closures may have detrimental effects on the project, such as necessitating potentially time consuming reviews or contributing to backlogs for various tasks.

I suggest, TimothyJosephWood, that this is just refinement, and that maybe you should put it in the page for us to edit normally. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:31, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe: Already  Done...after a few days where no one besides Lourdes commented. There's already been some quality of life edits added. Feel free to tinker of course. Also, I conned Rob into looking at this while it was still in my sandbox, and they suggested adding something about temperament, so that may be a direction to go in.

BU Rob13: Yes? It doesn't effect any of the other section in this essay. It is an entirely new section it its own right. It does pull from elsewhere in the sense that the section on being uninvolved is nearly copy paste/close paraphrasing of WP:INVOLVED. But it did not require changing anything else in this essay to implement. TimothyJosephWood 13:47, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Reping BU Rob13. May not have gone through the first time. TimothyJosephWood 13:50, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Alright, just making sure this wasn't a major refactoring of some unknown section. I strongly support this text, in its entirety. It brings us much closer to guideline material, in my opinion. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 23:27, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Scope

It may be a good time to have a discussion of exactly what the scope of the essay is going to be. Currently the purported purpose is to be an explanatory supplement to the Wikipedia:Deletion process page.

An argument from the current content of the essay seems weak, since if this is the purpose, content not related to this purpose should probably be removed as a given.

Instead, to try to gauge actual usage of non-admin closures, I went through the first 50 pages in Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Non-admin closure. The template is used on 3,539 pages so this is about a 1.5% sample, but hopefully is still useful. Here's what I came up with:

• Request for Comment: 22
• Requested Move: 12
• Proposed Merge: 8
• Non-RfC Generic Discussion: 7
• Redirect for Discussion: 1

So a single use of this was actually in the context of closing an XfD related discussion. Given that information, should this essay drop the pretense of being guidance primarily for XfD? TimothyJosephWood 18:20, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

• I think you make a wonderful point. The data you've accumulated is quite convincing to your point of view. I'll agree with it. Lourdes 00:55, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
• It is primarily for WP:XfD. Deletion is the important constrained privilege for administrators, and this is needed to informed non admins who want to cross into slightly dangerous territory. And fact is, WP:NACs are beneficial. However, the most important thing about XfD is the role of closing a discussion, and so this information very naturally generalises to WP:RM and WP:RfC. WP:RfD, like WP:CfD and WP:TfD, is already a generalised XfD process, D for Deletion generalising to D for Discussion. NACs are also accepted, although even more restrictively, and WP:DRV and WP:MR.
  So, no, it is not a pretence, and the primary application to deletion discussions should not be dropped. Instead, it should be explicitly stated that the essay also covers, secondarily if you like, these non-deletion discussions. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:19, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

SmokeyJoe: I'm not really seeing an obvious reason why XfD is a special case such that it would naturally be the locus to be generalized from, rather than coequal among many. If anything, XfDs are the easiest of all these closures for which to gauge consensus, and the most like an actual vote, while RfCs (evidently more likely to be closed by a non-admin) are among the most complicated and most likely to be a case where careful consideration of argument outweighs arithmetic.

They're certainly not the most high profile, compared with drama central, where nearly every thread is formally closed. They're not unique in being limited by access, as many move discussions require page mover. They're also far from the most technical, as many merge discussions may require days or weeks to actually complete the results of.

I'm really not seeing anything particularly special at all about XfD, other than it is currently specified as the focal point of the draft. TimothyJosephWood 13:32, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

I think we don't disagree. Not special, so much as first. I wouldn't say ANI threads are "formally" closed, I'd say "boldly" closed..And often with a large dose of admin discretion. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 20:39, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

And not a month goes by without someone complaining about improper closes at ANI. (cough cough) TimothyJosephWood 20:57, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

How I long for the days before I was notorious. For future reference, the reliability of a sample depends on its absolute size (# of items sampled, period) not its size as a % of the population. For your purposes 50 was fine for a rough result (though taking the first block from What links here is a serious mistake, unless we know how they ended up in the order they're in). EEng 21:12, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

No idea whatsoever. TimothyJosephWood 21:19, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Actually, number 50 out of 50 was closed by me. But there didn't seem to be any obvious pattern as far as alpha order or chronological order. TimothyJosephWood 22:48, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Famous last words in the history of statistical disasters. EEng 23:15, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure ANI threads should be straight out-of-scope of this page. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:53, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

I see the template used there fairly often. So at least the people who think they are linking to relevant essay are using it as if it were. TimothyJosephWood 22:46, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Me too. Very dubious. Closes by non-admins frequently cross the lines espoused here. Often hasty, even knee-jerk, not allowing interested participants time to contribute but closing as a means to shut down a conversation, a drama pit where everyone is mutually involved. The essay is relevant, absolutely, it is setting an ideal minimum standard, but no, no effort should be made here to write rules for how to close ANI threads. The biggest premise of the benefit of NAC closes is preventing a backlog of easy closes, and that never applies at ANI because no thread is dormant longer than 48 hours. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:04, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't propose that they essay should set standards for ANI closures in particular, but rather, that if the essay represented general guidelines on non-admin closures, and it were well written, that it would ideally be as applicable to ANI as to RfC, and that when someone at either undoes a closure, they could point somewhere and say this is why. TimothyJosephWood 00:46, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

OK, but I note there is a danger here if you look to ANI for reference cases. There is a large majority of very good NACs at XfD, RM, RFC, etc. ANI doesn't fit the group. But sure, the standard set on this page should apply to ANI, in so far as ANI allows or welcomes NACs. Another problem thing to say about ANI discussions is that they are rarely formal. A complaint, and then a few combatants slang it out, and then an admin may impose judgement. The good ANI NACs deal with threads that don't rise to the level of requiring administrator action, or where administrator action occurs but the thread is left open. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:55, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

See the Who should close section above. This is the kind of generality I am alluding to. Also, I don't particularly care about ANI, but it is useful as a thought experiment because it is probably the absolute hardest thing to accommodate, as you rightly point out. TimothyJosephWood 01:02, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Insofar as this is a documentation of community practices with regards to non-admin closures, the scope is all non-admin closures. It's certainly referenced that way. I vaguely agree with SmokeyJoe's point that non-admin closures at ANI tend to be premature on average, but there are definitely positive non-admin closures occurring there as well. The usual example is a non-admin closure of a discussion where the editor has been blocked uncontroversially or a page protected, but where the administrator commented to that effect instead of closing. Those closes are just procedural and proper material for non-admins. I'd rather see reverts of inappropriate non-admin closures and warnings over a reduced scope. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 23:14, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, there are many good and OK closes, but there are closes there that are not, WP:UNINVOLVED is not well respected at ANI for example. It should not be used as a model for documenting best practice. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:38, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

So per this thread, it looks like it's page ID number that determines the order of "what links here", which roughly, but not always exactly, follows date. But at any rate, the sample should not have been effected by anything other than long term trends in how people use the template. TimothyJosephWood 23:59, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Following up with scope

Revisiting the previous discussion that has died down a little (because I let it go a bit without actually getting to a point) I think at least two things are fairly clear, either from the section above, or from the actual current content of the essay:

1. The content of "this page in a nutshell" isn't actually the page in nutshell, but only one section of it.
2. The actual use of this essay, and its associated template, are not limited to XfD.

So I propose changing the nutshell to something along the lines of:

Some discussions may be closed by non-administrators and some should not. Before closing, non-administrators should ensure that the closure is appropriate.

Thoughts? TimothyJosephWood 21:21, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

• Comment: Agree with Timothyjosephwood, statement , non-administrators should ensure that the closure is appropriate.Junosoon (talk) 05:41, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
• It's bordering on truism, but I like it. I would change "ensure" to "be sure". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:57, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

 Done I have also tweaked the other header and lead to reflect a shift toward a more general purpose for the essay. TimothyJosephWood 13:40, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Small aside

@Timothyjosephwood: The discussion in the archives regarding Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Non-admin closure works on a flawed assumption, that all NACs would use the template in unsubsted form. The AfD close script that I and almost everyone else who closes AfDs regularly (admins included) use substs the template, and I know I alone have made hundreds of NAC AfD closes. I'm willing to guess that a majority of NACs are AfDs (given their volume compared to other XfDs and RfCs) that don't use that template. That being said, I agree that the scope of this page should be broadened, especially since we have WP:NACD as well, which is actually a guideline. ansh666 09:18, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Also pinging other participants in the discussion regarding this point: SmokeyJoe Lourdes EEng BU Rob13. ansh666 09:24, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Reverted reversion of possibly unintended change

In January, after a discussion, the header of this page was changed to show that this page applies to every non-admin closure. Incidentally, the heading was changed so that a sentence that formerly said"However, there are several situations in which a registered editor who is not an administrator can close a deletion discussion." to "However, there are several situations in which a registered editor who is not an administrator can close a discussion." Now, the denial of all closures to editors who are not registered was not previously in this page, and it wasn't supported by the wording change consensus. On the contrary, the section "Requests for Comment" states: "Any uninvolved editor can close a request for comment or RfC" Because the change changed the policy without that being originally intended... I reverted it. Someone reverted me on the grounds of "no consensus" Now we are here, and now tell me why this change should be kept. After all, IP's can be experienced editors who refuse to make an account, for whatever the reason is... and there are some reasons against editing with a special account.109.43.3.81 (talk) 15:29, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

I suppose I'll ping User:Tryptofish who was the one who took issue with the change. For my own part, I'm not aware of any formal requirement stating only registered editors may close discussions, although I would expect that, right or wrong, editors are likely to take issue with it if it is not the most exceedingly uncontroversial of closures, perhaps even more so than your run-of-the-mill NACs. TimothyJosephWood 15:43, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

You(User:Timothyjosephwood) basically changed the restriction from applying to deletion discussions to all discussions (right here).109.43.3.81 (talk) 16:03, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

My intention was not to "change a restriction," but to accurately summarize the content of the essay/supplement, which includes much more than coverage of deletion discussions. I'll also point out that this is neither a guideline nor a policy, and boils down currently to basically advice, not some kind of binding expectation of all editors. TimothyJosephWood 16:07, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the ping, TimothyJosephWood, but you are mistaken on some of the facts. Here is a diff of the last edit to this page prior to the IP's edit: [1]. It contains the bolded language about registered editors. And it was you who made that edit. I was around when the ideas on this page first came about, when there were concerns that non-admins were making bad closures and editors needed guidance about not overreaching – and there had also been issues of admins reverting closes by non-admins even when the closes were reasonable, leading to an RfC that established that non-admin closures should not be summarily dismissed. I don't know, and I don't particularly care, what the editing of this essay has been between then and now. But the fact is that until a few days ago, it had that language in bold about registered users, and you edited the page while that language was there, so you should have been aware of it. And that language seems consistent with the idea that we don't want dumb-ass closes by inexperienced users. I get it, that IPs can be experienced and clueful too, and I have no problem with an IP making a close that is thoughtful, accurate, and noncontroversial. But I came here from WP:ANI#IP close of a contentious RfC, where there is a very clear consensus that this IP is being disruptive. Bad closes don't get accepted just because an IP calls for IP-rights and keeps reverting experienced editors and claiming that the editors did not explain themselves when they actually did. And all that I did was return the language to the way that you had left it. So I did not really change anything. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:14, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

I've definitely edited this quite a bit, but I've still not written most of it, and just because I "left" something doesn't mean I thoroughly evaluated and implicitly approved of it. This has a been a longer term project of mine, but it has also been an intermittent one, and I never claimed to have yet combed over every inch of it, although I do intend to eventually.

This IP in particular may be objectively disruptive, but I'll be the first to say that even disruptive users can occasionally bring up legitimate issues. This does in fact seem to be one of those times. As I said at ANI, if a close is controversial enough that whether the non-admin is registered or not is a thing that matters, then it's probably inappropriate for an NAC to begin with, and the issue of registration is moot.

Besides that, if...misguided... but I'm sure well intentioned editors are going to start citing this unofficial guidance as if it were gospel, then we should probably be erring on the side of caution anyway. TimothyJosephWood 19:28, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

That's OK with me. I just don't think you should make it sound like I had changed anything, because I hadn't. If you and other editors want to make the change, fine, but own it. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:57, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

As I mentioned in the section above, WP:NACD is a guideline, so we can use it to inform what should be written here regarding general closures. NACD specifically restricts closes to non-administrators who are registered (i.e. not IPs), and since this page used to also only concern NACs for deletion discussions, that language was reflected here as well. With this in mind, I'm of the opinion that even though this is an infopage and thus technically not binding in the way that a policy or guideline would be (though really it should be, as infopages supplement or clarify technical or factual information about Wikipedia in an impartial way), you should get consensus for the removal of this language, so I'm going to start the WP:BRD (another should-be-guideline essay, huh.) chain here. But that's just sometimes-overly-bureaucratic me. (and before you point out that it's technically the 4th revert of the same material, I'm treating the IP addition as a separate thing because it was a fairly transparent attempt at justifying a poor close and subsequent edit war, not a good-faith change.) ansh666 09:31, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Sure. While NACD may be fine the way it is, the scope of NACD is more narrow than the scope of this guidance, and I don't believe there is similar precedence for non-XFD discussions with regard to IPs closing discussions. But I'd be more than happy to open an RfC on the issue. Broader community input on this page is probably long overdue and would probably help a great deal in moving this more toward an official guideline. TimothyJosephWood 10:15, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable, yeah. I think the main reasoning I have is that since NAC as an infopage is a logical extension of the NACD guideline to cover things other than XfDs, the two should be as consistent as possible. Now, that could mean that NAC mentions that deletion discussions should only be closed by registered users but other discussions are okay, but I agree that an RfC would be the best course to get the most eyeballs on the issue. ansh666 19:20, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

RfC regarding unregistered editors

The following discussion 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.

---

Should the current wording of the lead:

there are several situations in which a registered editor who is not an administrator can close a discussion.

be changed to:

there are several situations in which an editor who is not an administrator can close a discussion.

(emphasis in original) TimothyJosephWood 21:18, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Survey

• No. IPs, while editors, should not be closing RFCs formal discussions. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:24, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
• Kind of. There are occasions in which anyone who sees it should close (i.e. clear vandalism/bad faith of the "no reasonable editor would disagree" variety). That said, we do have IAR, and most NACs won't be that kind, so I'm not sure if we need to put those exceptions in. Otherwise, I generally agree with the "established editor in good standing" thing - for the vast majority of IPs, it's impossible to tell if that's true, so a general restriction of NACs to registered users only makes sense. So, basically no. ansh666 23:38, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
• I support adopting Uanfala's wording. Rebbing 00:28, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
• No. It's bad enough that registered users who aren't admins can close discussions. IPs, absolutely not. Coretheapple (talk) 13:45, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

• No. I don't think that IPs should be closing RfCs or similarly important discussions that need closing, especially not contentious ones. Too much room for socking to game the system. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:12, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
• Support : Per Wikipedia:IPs_are_human_too. I deal with a shit load of vandalism, and yes, alot of it is IP's, however, that's not an excuse to treat I.P editors differently than editors with handles. Allow it!  К Ф Ƽ Ħ  17:48, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

• So how are you going to deal with WP:NACEXP and WP:NACINV? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 17:56, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

• No. I mean, I don't want some drive-by random person's first edit to be closing our carefully worded and closely argued discussion, you know? Or fifteenth edit. You want to do that, register and join the community. I know a few editors think it sporty to have long careers and never register, and for them: oh well. Being sporty, like being ripped, extracts a fee. Herostratus (talk) 18:27, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

LOL!! Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:54, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

• No. per NeilN. -- Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 22:59, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
• No, IP address editors should not close discussions. There are a lot of fine unregistered editors and Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, but it is a community, and unnamed IP address editors should register if they wish to be more involved in the community and close formal discussions. Bright☀ 13:21, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
• No While I value the contributions of experienced IP editors, this change will lead to drive-by closures from wiki-lawyering, policy-spouting, logged-out editors. Exemplo347 (talk) 00:14, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
• No. Wikipedia:IP_addresses_are_not_people. Regular editors should register. Editors who wish to take on administrative tasks of responsibility and accountability must register to do so. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:35, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
• Yes. While I'm clearly in the minority here, I don't think there's a reason to formally delineate between IP editors and registered editors for the purpose of this guideline. If an IP editor closes a discussion, it shouldn't be reversed just because they're an IP. If it's a bad close, then it should be reversed; if it's fine, then it should stay. This is the same requirement I would use when evaluating if a registered editor made a proper non-admin closure, so I don't see the point in making the distinction.--Aervanath (talk) 18:24, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
• No I agree with the 'yes' reasons of Wikipedia:IPs_are_human_too and the ability to reverse bad closes, just as we would do with registered editors. However, I'm more compelled by Wikipedia:IP_addresses_are_not_people and the need for being a 'person' in order to have the consistency needed for administrative work. Utsill (talk) 15:25, 24 April 2017 (UTC)
• No. Actions that might require followup (questions on the close, challenged closes, etc.) should mean that editor can be reliably reached at their talk page. IPs can change. There's no problems with IPs editing in general, but closing discussions is a level of involvement where someone should be registered. Kingofaces43 (talk) 14:16, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

• User:NeilN - To be clear, the scope of NAC is all NACs, and not XFD or RFC in particular. Guidance can certainly still be added that IPs should not close particular types of discussions, but the question is whether IPs should be able to close no discussion of any type.TimothyJosephWood 21:27, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

• Adjusted. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:31, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

• The essential (but implicit) information in this piece of text is for an editor to be established. It is true that in most cases established editors are also registered editors, but this is not necessarily the case (there are several IP users with a long track record of contribution who I would trust with closing RfC to greater extent than some admins). I'd be unwilling to substitute an incidental (if often co-occurring) characteristic for an essential one. The wording that makes the overt text closest to its meaning is:
  

  there are several situations in which an established editor who is not an administrator can close a discussion.

  This I would support. – Uanfala (talk) 21:42, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

There are some excellent IPs, who simply prefer to 'stay that way', would there be any possible way of extending rights to such IPs on a 'request' basis ? Pincrete (talk) 22:08, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, my rationale for the change away from the current version was that if a closure is so controversial that an IP can't close it, that is, if the result is not fairly self-evident to any experienced editor, then it's not appropriate for an NAC anyway, and the issue of whether the closer is registered or not is moot. TimothyJosephWood 23:22, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree. If consensus is obvious, why does the discussion need a formal close? Also, this supplement instructs that non-administrator closes should not be carried out by involved editors or those with an apparent conflict of interest; if non-administrators were only permitted to close self-evident discussions, there would be no need for this requirement. Rebbing 00:28, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

In some cases, closure is needed precisely because the consensus is obvious, such as fairly off-topic talk page discussions rehashing previous RfCs. In others, the type of discussion requires a formal close regardless of whether the outcome is obvious or not. TimothyJosephWood 00:31, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

• Literally "for the record", I'll just add that I'm not particularly concerned about whether this passes or fails. I just want to have a solid link-able consensus on the issue. I'd like to see this get somewhere in the neighborhood of a guideline some time in the next year or so, and this is exactly the kind of sausage making that needs done in order to accomplish that. So if anyone's worried about "piling on" please don't be. TimothyJosephWood 14:57, 16 April 2017 (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.

Wording of "uninvolved" section

Timothyjosephwood recently made this wording change which I reverted because it changed the meaning of the sentence too much, but looking at the relevant discussion, I think that there needs to be some sort of discussion about clarifying exactly how much participation disqualifies someone from closing. I do agree that the level of participation from the closer ("I opened the RfC as a neutral third party and made a comment as a devil's advocate") made it inappropriate for them to close the RfC, at least by the spirit of NAC, but the existing text doesn't reflect that very well and TJW's change may be a bit too broad. Perhaps:

Original: non-administrators should not close discussions in which they have cast a !vote or otherwise already taken a side.

TJW's edit: non-administrators should not close discussions in which they have previously participated or otherwise already taken a side.

My suggestion: non-administrators should not close discussions in which they have participated in a non-procedural manner.

Though the last one still raises the question of what qualifies as "procedural". ansh666 16:13, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

I have tried instead to simply say "were involved". I don't believe it is wise to try to hash out every potential way someone might be tangentially involved but not involved. As a generally rule, any substantive participation is usually enough for cautious editors to allow someone else to close. And when in doubt whether a close is appropriate, it's usually better to let someone else do it. TimothyJosephWood 16:17, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

The "were involved" wording is good. It fits the general approach of providing the concept without a list of exactly what actions are "prohibited". If someone fixes a section header or makes a procedural comment ("this was mentioned at ...") they could be regarded as uninvolved. But if they say "X is correct" in the context of the dispute they are involved. Mentioning !vote is not needed and potentially misleading as it allows someone to say that they can close the discussion because they did not vote, all they did was write twenty comments attacking one side. Johnuniq (talk) 23:40, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm undecided on that since it seems a bit like defining a term using itself, but if you all think it's ok then I don't have a problem with it. ansh666 23:53, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

I've removed the vote bit then. As to definition, there is always a risk of over-defining things, which may invite wikilawyering. Most users should be able to look at the details of a situation and tell whether someone's actions constitute substantive involvement or not, without giving opportunity for users to argue that what in one case seems obvious to most, but somehow isn't because it isn't captured perfectly in the "letter of the law". TimothyJosephWood 18:08, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

I'd say 2 and 3 are both better than 1. I don't have a strong preference between TJW's version and Ansh666's version. Deryck C. 14:47, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

• The section excessively replicates, but in different words, the policy at Wikipedia:Administrators#Involved_admins. This mistakenly implies a different level of standard. So I fixed it with a new first sentence. What follows can now be shortened. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 15:14, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Already  Done TimothyJosephWood 15:16, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Other deletion discussions

The section on Other deletion discussions is wishy-washy. What does except by those who have extraordinary experience in the XfD venue in question mean? wp:CfDs have recently been routinely closed by non-admins (cheered on by the participating admins). So how does one gauge the experience of closers to understand whether it is extraordinary or simply ordinary? Ottawahitech (talk)please ping me 14:51, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Something's missing: reverting boneheaded NACs

We used to have a provision somewhere that anyone is free to revert an obviously wrongheaded NAC. While this page doesn't forbid this, which means its still permissible, it should explicitly mention that it's permissible, since it does have to be done from time to time, e.g. when it's just incontrovertibly wrong, or when the NAC's own closure statement makes it plain it's a biased supervote. Even those whose terrible NAC is reverted generally don't revert-war to put it back. I can't even remember the last time that happened. All we have is "With the understanding that the closure may be reversed, non-admins should generally avoid ...", without saying anything about the reversal. A footnote even implies but doesn't really state that only admins can reverse a bad NAC, but we know this isn't actual practice.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  05:09, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

This is a similar situation to the above, but the above was a clearly involved editor. So we addressed it in that way in particular. But thinking of editors who know policy better than they know the practice (after several days of reading and few days of actual editing), I'm not sure how you would word it in a way that wouldn't empower them to revert closures they simply disagree with. GMG^talk 10:12, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. I don't think we need that (avoiding WP:CREEP and all), just use common sense. ansh666 10:23, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

• Reverting closes is not accepted practice, as reverts do not leave a record in the discussion as is indicated by WP:TPO.  As for who may reopen NAC closures, WP:NAC isn't the guideline, and it is not necessary to repeat everything from the guideline, which currently says,

  Closures may only be reopened by an uninvolved administrator in their individual capacity, giving their reasoning, or by consensus at deletion review. If this happens, take it only as a sign that the decision was not as obvious as you thought. Editors reopening discussions are advised to notify the original closer.

  Unscintillating (talk) 12:15, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Well... that's not precisely correct. Ideally, the scope of NAC is all NACs project wide, and not just XfD. So, for example, if someone closes a talk page discussion as off topic, when the intent is obviously to shut down an on-topic discussion they personally don't care for, or if someone closes a clearly malformed RfC (but one which might be easily fixed), it's not explicitly spelled out anywhere that the close would need to stand until an uninvolved admin can be bothered to reopen it.

In the above thread I reopened the discussion myself (my account was recently renamed BTW, previously TJW), because the user was clearly involved. It was reverted by the user, and then again reopened by a third uninvolved non-admin, and remained open. I got some flak for it, because it's often considered good form to act as if the standard for XfD is the standard for the entire project. But when the rubber meets the road, it's only convention, and not actual policy.

I think the issue is probably whether that should be a case of ignore all rules generally accepted conventions, or whether it needs some form of written advice attached. GMG^talk 12:48, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, if admin tools are not involved, admins don't necessarily have any special standing.  Unscintillating (talk) 16:57, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's quite it either. Technically a public block review which is closed in favor of upholding the block isn't actually a use of the tools. But that's probably not a discussion people are going to stand for an NAC on, again, out of convention, although AFAIK it's not spelled out anywhere in policy. GMG^talk 18:03, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I'm not talking about AfD, and I don't care if AfD has some special "admins-only" NAC revert rule. It's been standard practice the entire 12 years I've been here that dirt-stupid, disruptive NACs can be reverted by anyone, when it comes to RfC and other stuff. I've done it plenty of times and I know many others who also have. It is not the job of a page like this to try to change community-accepted practice, either directly or by sweeping it under the rug and playing denial games. Carve out AfD, even all XfDs if you like. But we need to document the very long-standing operational consensus fact that bad closes of RfCs are revertable for good cause. If they weren't, RfC would have failed as a process not long after it started.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  12:28, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Draft

So what if we did something like this:

Failed attempt at first draft

Disruptive closes Disputed closes Unless otherwise prohibited by more specific guidance (such as is the case for deletion discussions), any an uninvolved editor, administrator or not, may reopen a discussion in cases where the close is obviously disruptive appears obviously inappropriate, or exceptionally procedurally flawed, such that it would seem self-evident to any experienced user. In accordance with Wikipedia's broader standards for closure, it is not sufficient to simply believe a closure is wrong, even where reasonable people may have closed a discussion differently. Editors should not repeatedly reopen a discussion if they are reverted, unless the close is obvious vandalism, or some other reason which would fall under the exceptions to edit warring. If reverted, editors should seek additional input from others who are also uninvolved, or consider opening a community discussion regarding the close. However, as in all circumstances, editors are expected to avoid edit warring behavior regarding whether a discussion is reopened or remains closed, unless the closure itself would fall under the normal exceptions to edit warring. If the reopening of the discussion is itself disputed, editors are expect to follow the normal dispute resolution process by discussing the closure, seeking outside input, and if necessary, opening a broader community discussion.

I agree with the above, in the sense that this page is for documenting, and not shaping community practice. It is certainly a longstanding practice that self-evidently unhelpful closes are routinely reopened by non-admins. So maybe this is warranted. Thoughts? GMG^talk 12:54, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

• I can't say it is not reasonable, but there are many cases with involved editors that come to mind.  It opens up contention such that any reopening labels the original closer as disruptive...that needs to be fixed.  The first thing that comes to mind is "Disputed closes".
  I don't like seeing the word "reverted", because it leads to just that happening without using WP:TPO, but I see why the words were used, and I don't currently have a suggestion.  Unscintillating (talk) 16:57, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Hmm.. I tried rewriting it, but I ended up just starting to rewrite the broader guidance for closure, which is really beyond the scope of this page. Maybe something different. Lets see... GMG^talk 17:21, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

I think the issue that I'm having trouble with is that... it's not really that anyone can revert an obviously wrong NAC; it's that anyone can revert an obviously wrong close period. Ideally (but not necessarily) admins are going to be experienced enough where they don't make obviously wrong closes, but I've seen it happen, and I've seen it reverted without needing a formal review of the closure. Per WP:CLOSE, if there is no more specific venue for review, it defaults to AN, and I'm not sure there is an obvious way to look at it that doesn't ultimately boil down to an application of IAR. And really, if someone needs detailed guidance on how to apply IAR, then they probably shouldn't be doing it. GMG^talk 17:40, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

• Some more about involved editors...it is normal for participants to close discussions, so it should be equally normal for participants to reopen a discussion closed by a participant.  What we don't need is someone reopening a discussion solely because a participant closed it.  There is also a whole issue of closing discussions to prevent them from getting comments, although this may fall in the category of closings by involved editors.  Unscintillating (talk) 19:33, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Yes, but again, that seems like more of an issue for WT:CLOSE, and not an issue with non-admin closures specifically. Again, I think that was the real issue above: if you can open any obviously botched closure, then of course you can open an obviously botched NAC. GMG^talk 19:41, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Proposal to allow NAC page deletions

Please see WP:NACDEL for a proposal I'm making to allow WP:NAC to include deletion of pages. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:56, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Roy: This kind of suggestion is highly unlikely to gain consensus, and probably entails a good deal more than you may have considered. For example, I'm not terribly sure it make much sense to have someone who can delete content, but who cannot undelete content, and view deleted content. At least with regard to viewing deleted content, the WMF has come down pretty strongly against it and from a legal standpoint. I'm afraid the only real answer to the admin backlogs is to get more admins. GMG^talk 18:27, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Hatnotes to RMNAC - any other objections? Or approvals?

I added a couple of hatnotes to WP:NAC but they were reverted. See Wikipedia_talk:Requested_moves#Anyone_else_object_to_restoring_the_hatnotes? for an explanation/discussion about the revert.

Does anyone else have an issue with the hatnotes I added? Anyone else object to restoring them? Anyone support the restoring of them?

Thanks! --В²C ☎ 17:54, 21 February 2019 (UTC) added approval/support questions --В²C ☎ 18:16, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

NAC and PERM

This is a follow up to try to solicit additional opinions regarding discussion here and here. What, if anything, should guidance here say about non-administrators and PERM? TonyBallioni makes the perfectly reasonable point that non-admins cannot accept these requests, which may be perhaps reasonably countered by the observation that neither can non-admins close XfDs as delete (with the exception of TfD), but that this would not prevent them from making closes that do not require administrative access. As WBOG point out, any guidance would be subject to IAR anyway, and it's probably mostly a given that in the spirit of NAC, that they should generally be confined to uncontroversial cases, any NACs that did occur at PERM (I can think of one previously that I personally closed IAR at AutoPatrolled, although I haven't found the diff), many of them would be subject to IAR anyway, and so guidance might not be necessary, or particularly helpful.

At the same time, as The Herald seems to imply, a strict reading of this page wouldn't outright forbid an NAC, even though as both Nick and Tony rightly observe, it goes generally against long standing convention.

I don't expect it would be controversial to say that NACs are usually inappropriate for PERM; however it's not totally clear that this is sufficiently obvious that it wouldn't be beneficial to some users to have this explicitly documented some where, since as far as I can tell, it currently isn't. GMG^talk 15:00, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks for the ping. Quite simply, NAC doesn’t apply because PERM is not a discussion to achieve consensus. It is a request for an administrator to take unilateral administrative action: the same as AIV or RFPP. A non-admin might decline in scenarios such as when several admins have commented declining but forgot to put the  Not done mark for the bot, but on anything where it’s an active exercise of admin discretion to approve or decline, they should not decline because they don’t have the capacity to choose the other option or change their mind if asked about it. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:08, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

As I indicated, I expect most will agree with you. I think probably the more important question is whether or not it would be helpful to document that here, since you can't very well fault someone who says in good faith essentially Well I went to NAC, and there was nothing that said I couldn't. GMG^talk 15:14, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Fair enough: I wasn't arguing with you, so much as explaining my view. I think we could include a line such as Non-admin closures should only take place in discussions where community consensus needs to be judged. Non-administrators should not take formal action at noticeboards that are requests for unilateral administrative actions, such as AIV, RFPP or PERM. Non-administrators are welcome to comment at those boards, but should not make edits that would be construed as taking administrative action. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:55, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

May need to add language excepting areas for which there are specified clerk tasks. Arguably SPI is a request for unilateral administrative action. WP:CHU and WP:CCI are both listed at WP:CLERK, but I honestly couldn't say if there is actually any active clerking going on there or not. GMG^talk 16:08, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Clerking is commenting, not taking admin action, so it wouldn't be affected by that. The final call in all of those cases falls to the individual admin and they are individually accountable for use of the tools. Saying "a clerk recommended it" doesn't change that aspect of it. Those areas also have very tight rules, and someone who did not have clerk status acting as a clerk would usually be told to stop (at SPI this would normally be quite forceful). Re: CHU, K6ka could comment there better than I could, but the impression I get is that the clerking isn't overly useful there most of the time, and they also have no formal clerk program. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:37, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Clerking at CHU is mostly about fixing malformed requests and notifying users about invalid requests. "Clerking" makes it sound too formal; I'd say it's more about just "helping the renamers out". A bot normally does most of the clerking, and human clerks are there to do the things the bot can't do. It doesn't require an awful lot of structure but it does require some maturity, and we do occasionally get less-than-ideal clerks that are there mostly because they're bored out of their gourd. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 21:50, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

• PERM has got along fine since the bot was introduced in an attempt to stamp out non admin comments and 'clerking' that were beginning to turn requests into a mini RfA. IMO, PERM is admin territory and the laity have no business there. If they want to participate in admin areas, RfA is thataway. Making new rules now, even if they are intended to close the gaps, will only have the exact opposite effect. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:07, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your comment. My question was not whether "PERM is admin territory", but rather whether guidance at NAC should explicitly state "PERM is admin territory". GMG^talk 17:18, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

"Laity". Alright then . Herostratus (talk) 18:09, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

• I would hope common sense dictates that NAC wouldn't apply, no need to put it in explicitly (WP:CREEP and all that). Permissions requests (with the exception of RfA/RfB of course) are not discussions that are closed; same deal with the other places. ansh666 19:53, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

• The WP:NAC 'explanatory supplement' is very clear - non administrators may close discussions. A Request for Permission is not a discussion, it is a request, therefore it falls outwith the remit (the NAC page lists discussions suitable for a non administrator close, none of which include the PERM pages). There is a practical reason for PERM not being suitable for a non administrator closure, however, and it's not just a rule for the sake of a rule. Administrators may wish to look at deleted contributions, which are only available to administrators, and filter logs, some of which can only be viewed by administrators and edit filter managers, before deciding whether or not to grant a permission request. I suppose we should formalise this, but I'm mindful of WP:CREEP too. Nick (talk) 20:51, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
• I've added most of my suggestion above. I left off the last sentence to avoid CREEP. Anyone is free to edit or tweak it in line with the consensus here. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:53, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
• I'm with Nick here, PERM requests are not discussions that need closing, they are specifically a request for an admin to use their discretionary ability. That being said, I'm fine with purely clerical NAC markings here - such as if the access was already granted and the request wasn't "closed", or closing purely invalid requests such as an IP editor asking for access groups. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:24, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Changing NAC Deletion Closures

As part of a recent ANI discussion, the concept of NAC at AfD has again been discussed. I think we should strike types 1 and 2 of Wikipedia:Non-admin_closure#Appropriate_closures. Pinging Pinging @Ahrtoodeetoo, Natureium as people who talked about this at AfD. I'll also post a notice at WT:AFD about this. (edited: and also noted at ANI and at VPI) Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:13, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Why? GMG^talk 00:17, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

GreenMeansGo first and foremost I believe in Wikipedia:Relist bias and think that the same reason that the bias towards relisting applies to keep discussions. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:21, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Your beliefs in and of themselves don't present a very compelling argument. GMG^talk 00:23, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Just to be clear I want to have a discussion here. If it seems like it still makes sense after discussing then we should do a formal RfC. So for now I'm throwing out my belief. Would love to hear what others say. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:33, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

To be clear following discussion on IRC, I had no idea what ANI thread was referenced, and no real opinion on the issue as of yet. GMG^talk 00:42, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

• I'd be fine striking relists. They're virtually never helpful, and what we have now is a somewhat vicious cycle of editors helping at AfD seeing all these relists, so they relist, while not realizing that the current policy on it (WP:NOQUORUM) has treating AfDs without comment as expired PRODs as the default. Yes, admins are in part responsible for this because some just ignored the change in policy when it happened a few years ago, but a big part of the issue here is that you have people trying to get into the maintenance side of the project who don't even have the ability to follow policy as written. That is less than ideal. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:32, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

  TonyBallioni, I personally think restricting relists or AfD closures admin-only is a good change; for it seems to be a magnet for quite many well-meaning but incompetent newbies.

  But; leveraging NOQUORUM as the locus is a bit ingenuous; *lot* many admins ignore that policy. On the last two occasions, I advised about the policy to a non-admin relister; they neatly pointed me to multiple admins breaching the same with glee. (There's this thread and another one, which I can't now locate. The latter tried to draw the conclusion that since so many admins were not abiding by it, NOQUORUM is hardly any followed and unless I do change that practice, I am invited to leave.)

  I feel active admins who fail to remain in touch with the policy changes (or rejects them out of personal preference) are a bigger issue than well meaning newbies not grasping a particular passage of policy. ∯WBG^converse 03:29, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

  Winged Blades of Godric, I agree wholeheartedly and I have raised this issue at WT:AFD. NOQUORUM has been policy for over two years, and we will topic ban non-admins for not letting admins make the call to soft delete, and that is almost always the justification for the topic ban. Admins should also follow it, which means evaluating AfDs as PRODs. Sometimes relisting will be called for, but not to the level it currently is at. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:35, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

• Noting no-NAC-relists here for AFDs makes sense given NOQUORUM if nothing else, per Tony. However, the bullets apply to other XFD, and I don't think that alone makes it reasonable to reject the practice of relisting at other fora given that NOQUORUM is mostly written to apply to AFD. (We don't have template PROD yet, for example.) --Izno (talk) 00:58, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
• I concur with Izno. --Bsherr (talk) 01:18, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
• I agree with striking types 1 and 2 from the above-mentioned section. I'm not in favour of a formal change in policy "prohibiting" non-admin closures of deletion discussions, but the truth is that these closes are rarely helpful or effective. Properly closing a deletion discussion includes reading the article, reviewing the history, reading the !votes, checking the relevant notability guideline, reviewing the sources, checking the !votes for single-purpose accounts and sockpuppets, and tallying up the results. This should be a careful and time-consuming process, and if at the end of it the consensus is to delete, someone who can't implement that decision is likely to relist it and kick it down the road for another week. Not only is this a waste of the closer's time, it wastes others' time who may be waiting for a result of the deletion discussion. There may be some examples where NAC deletion closures are helpful, but by and large they should be strongly discouraged. Bradv🍁 01:24, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
• I certainly oppose the suggestion of striking types 1 and 2. No coherent reason has been given here. There has been creep in NACs with many more now done inappropriately. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:28, 22 March 2019 (UTC).

  Xxanthippe So I agree that there has been a creep in NACs and many more are done inappropriately - striking types 1 & 2 would prevent NAC Keeps or Relists. Do you have a different thought about how to address what you and I are both seeing as an increase in inappropriate closures? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 01:33, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

  Xxanthippe, to be clear this proposal is to further restrict the types of XfD closes that non-admins can perform, per the last part of your comment. Are we on the same page? Bradv🍁 01:33, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Maybe not on the same page. My impression is that the present criteria are satisfactory but are often abused by non-admins. The same for RfC closures. Clarification would be useful. What is the AN/I thread? Xxanthippe (talk) 01:51, 22 March 2019 (UTC).

Xxanthippe, the ANI thread is Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Disruptive AFD clerking by User:SS49. This is not an isolated incident - non-admin closures at AfD are frequently a problem. Bradv🍁 01:56, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Thx. We are on the same page. Non-admin closures are useful to reduce workload of admins, but they need to be policed. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:00, 22 March 2019 (UTC).

• What is the argument to strike number 1? I don't see how that flows from the issue in the AN/I. --Bsherr (talk) 01:44, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

  Bsherr, I think relist bias would apply to keeps as well. The idea here is to discourage non-admins from even attempting to close XfD discussions so they are not biased in favour of the types of closes they are able to implement. Bradv🍁 01:47, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

• If any changes are made to Wikipedia:Non-admin_closure#Appropriate_closures it should be made explicit that the changes apply only to AfD, as other deletion venues sometimes have different standards with respect to the acceptability and range of non-admin closures. – Uanfala (talk) 03:50, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

• Ban Relists by non-Admins at least at AfD and MfD. Every so often some dummy thinks a bunch of MfDs need relisting at MfD too - so they clutter up the list. Way better to !vote so we get a decision. Don't ban clear Keep closes or closes where the page has been speedy deleted during the discussion (quite common at MfD).
  Also topic ban Admins that relist instead of treating it as a PROD if they refuse to follow policy after being reminded. Legacypac (talk) 04:15, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
• Definitely support striking relists as well. I've examined the current state of non-admin relists, and I agree that almost none seem constructive. First, non-admins are routinely relisting WP:NOQUORUM situations. This is a rampant problem. NOQUORUM is an affirmative policy directive that administrators should assess and handle discussions with little or no responses and no objections. They may decide to relist, if there is good reason, on a case by case basis, but the default result for valid nominations is soft deletion. This is something that I would actually consider to be disruptive, as it overrules admins' ability to perform such closes in these situations by incorrectly removing them form the "pending closure" queues. This is, of course, just good faith ignorance of deletion process, but ignorance of deletion process by non-admins acting as overseers of deletion process is unacceptable. Secondly, non-admins are unambiguously restricted to relisting "little or no discussion" situations that are "new". Non-admins are routinely flaunting this directive as well. Just from one day: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2019 March 18#Brandon Tatum, Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2019 March 18#Julieanna Preston, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2019 March 18#Saikat Chakrabarti, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2019 March 18#Man of the Year (album), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2019 March 18#FIBA Basketball World Cup Top Scorer, Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2019 March 18#David Risstrom. As you can see, problematic behavior is certainly not confined to one user. So in other words, these non-admin relists are hurting, rather than helping, and the simple fact of the matter is that they're not needed. ~Swarm~ {talk} 14:15, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
  • I am unhappy with this attitude towards non-admins. You say that WP:NOQUORUM is an affirmative policy directive and that non-admin behaviour is just good faith ignorance of deletion process. But WP:NOQUORUM is a deletion guideline, not a policy. It is indeed referred to from Wikipedia:Deletion policy which is, as it says, a policy, but the reference is pretty weak: "the closing editor may generally treat the nomination as a PROD". Is "routinely flaunting" WP:NAC a reasonable way to speak of failing to take a strong attitude towards this, an explanatory supplement to an information page? I think the situation regarding deletion is more nuanced than is being suggested here. Thincat (talk) 14:51, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

    Thincat, I know this doesn't address your main concern, but it's worth pointing out that the majority of people commenting here, including the proposer, are not admins. Bradv🍁 15:04, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

    Yes, I had noticed that. I had also noticed that it seems many people here, admins and non-admins, are not too familiar with deletion policy. However, your comments above look fine to me (perhaps we are both wrong!). Thincat (talk) 15:16, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

    ”Just a guideline” is a really weak argument. Deletion process is the defining document for XfDs. The policy sets out the principles, the guideline explains how it is actually supposed to work. If people are routinely ignoring it in spite of the clear consensus every time the issue is raised that this is the view of the community, this is an issue. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:39, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

    I wasn't suggesting it wasn't an issue (was I?). I was criticising admins lecturing non-admins by using claims that are not correct concerning deletion policy. Thincat (talk) 16:21, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

This is extremely petty and asinine. I should really not have to explain to you that it is common parlance to generally refer to the policies and guidelines as "policy". Attempting to refute someone saying NOQUORUM is "policy-based" with "it's actually a guideline" is an nothing short of comical, and something I would expect from an incompetent newbie. Secondly, you did suggest it wasn't an issue, you dismissed my arguments as "attitude towards non-admins", and attempted to portray me as out of touch and hypocritical to justify it, acting like you had me in some some "gotcha" moment because I referred to "a guideline" as "policy" (not "a policy"). Just like suggesting that NAC is not policy-based. WP:NAC may be an information page, but if you think NACs in deletion discussions are not regulated by policy, then you have no idea what you're talking about. We're trying to reform deletion standards in response to rampant unreasonable and incompetent behavior from non-admins. You are not doing the non-admin camp any credit with this unreasonable and incompetent argument. It's not a good look. ~Swarm~ {talk} 19:34, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

• Comment/Question There seems to be some consensus, among editors who've participated so far, that banning non-admin relist would be positive at AfD. A few people have mentioned that this might not be the case at other deletion forums. It seems that the problems of Relist Bias are just as possible at MfD and RfD the two other deletion community forums I am most familiar with. I don't really know about the others and someone above mentioned the lack of PROD at TfD as a potential concern for this. Could someone more familiar with TfD/FfD/CfD explain how non-admin actions at those forums might be different than AfD/RfD/MfD? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:24, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

  I actually may be mistaken in my understanding, and perhaps others are too. I was under the impression that WP:NOQUORUM applies only to namespaces that have PROD. But Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_process/Archive_12#WP:NOQUORUM_variation_depending_on_forum refers to a prior discussion establishing that it applies to all pages. Is that correct? @TonyBallioni:, I hope you don't mind me getting your attention directly since you had answered the inquiry before; do you have a link to that discussion? If NOQUORUM applies everywhere, then perhaps there isn't a reason to limit a prohibition on non-administrator relists to just AfD. --Bsherr (talk) 15:29, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

  Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_process/Archive_11#Counter-proposal:_Treating_these_like_PRODs. Regardless, I think there is a case to remove. If other forums prefer more discussion they can put it in their guideline page. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:39, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

  Yes, I saw that, but it looks like that discussion only applies to AfD. Was there a discussion applying it to all deletion processes? --Bsherr (talk) 15:41, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

• Comment - Education may be a better solution than banning. We have an admin shortage and plenty of backlogs. It seems NACs spring up to help fill that gap. If NACs are doing it wrong, why not teach them the right way instead of banning them? The solution should be one that results in more closers, not fewer. Leviv ich 15:23, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

  Levivich, non-admin closures of deletion discussions (particularly AfDs) usually don't actually help to clear any backlogs. Approximately 75% of all AfDs close as delete, which non-admins tend to relist and kick down the road for another week as they cannot delete them themselves. This means only the remaining 25% can actually be legitimately implemented by non-admins, and even those are subject to bias and should rightfully be checked by an admin. So I agree with you that NACs are generally helpful and necessary, but in deletion discussions they are a net negative. Bradv🍁 15:32, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

  We also don’t ever have an AfD backlog anymore for closings and all relisting does is extend the life of a PRODable article for up to two weeks. There is simply no need for it. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:39, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

• Comment Has anyone ever seen a non-admin manually relist anything at AfD? Pretty sure the attraction is that it's a script click that (from the clicker's perspective) doesn't take any special language or editing competence. Making a small change in XFDcloser to prevent non-admins from relisting AfDs would probably be a more effective intervention in the shorter term, and would avoid any policy fallout stemming from differences in practice among various XfDs. Any non-admin truly committed to exercising their ability to relist under the guidelines/policy would still be welcome to do so manually. Bakazaka (talk) 18:38, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
• Definitely supportive of the idea of taking out non-admin closures and relists from the AfD / MfD. As Bakazaka mentions, modifying the script may be the most straightforward solution. Deletion discussions need more participants not clerks. Disabling the relist / nac in the script for non-admins may encourage them to iVote instead of relisting. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:24, 23 March 2019 (UTC)
• Comment I am not an admin, but I also wholeheartedly support this as well, now thinking about the arguments (and finally understanding about NOQUORUM). One of the reasons why that should happen is this Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Deptford Society (Community Interest Company), not only was it relisted by an admin already, but it was also relisted again by a NA (Sheldybett) who participated in the discussion!! Jovanmilic97 (talk) 17:25, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Pinging TonyBallioni, Barkeep49, Legacypac, Swarm, Bakazaka, K.e.coffman to look into the AfD I posted for the issue. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 17:25, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

I went ahead and deleted that one. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:33, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the fast response! Jovanmilic97 (talk) 17:34, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

And now there are actually 2 AfDs that just got relisted without closures by a non admin but should have been closed already: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Red (nightclub) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Portland Urban Coyote Project. Also pinging Bradv and Xxanthippe who participated in this talk page (sorry if I forgot someone). Jovanmilic97 (talk) 17:34, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

• It certainly seems as if teaching / learning from example is the order of the day here; get the message through to the administrators who continue to act in the face of consensus, and, as they say, the "hearts and minds will follow". ——SerialNumber54129 17:54, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

  Serial Number 54129 I'm all for teaching admin to use their toolsets more in accordance with policy but that doesn't address the ways that well meaning editors who lack the delete button might be inclined to at the margin to implement a decision within their remit. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:41, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm afraid that answer is incongruous: please to explain? ——SerialNumber54129 23:01, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Serial Number 54129 I read what you were saying as "nothing to do here - instead we should be teaching admin to close right and the NACs will follow their example." I am suggesting that we should have admins follow policy, but even if NACs learn from that example it doesn't entirely solve the issues with NAC closures of deletion discussions. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:07, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

My point is that NACs will follow admin practice, but not the converse, so the latter should take priority. ——SerialNumber54129 13:56, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

• Being honest, it's difficult to see this as something other than "People aren't following policy. Instead of teaching them to follow policy, let's make a new policy that we need to teach them to follow." If we don't have an effective indoctrination regime for the current policy, and that's why the current policy isn't working, then the problem seems to be the indoctrination regime, not the policy. GMG^talk 23:16, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

  I've proposed this before elsewhere and people didn't like it but a WikiProject NAC could provide that indoctrination regime education. A post to the talk page of such a project about relisting and NQUORUM might get the word out faster and easier than changing policy. The number of non-admin editors who have relisted an AfD in the last week is small enough that each one could be reached out to and invited to watchlist the page. The project could also be used to direct NACers to suitable things to NAC (and away from unsuitable things), as well as provide a place to discuss/document best practices and questions. Leviv ich 02:22, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

• There's no discussion of eliminating Housekeeping closures, but this is just a reminder not to eliminate them. A few days ago I close a batch of nine AFD's.^(example) They were 13 years old. That works out to around 666 implicit relistings, or about 6000 relistings across the batch, chuckle. Alsee (talk) 12:31, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
• I don't have a full opinion yet about AfD, but I oppose this being extended to other XfDs without discussion related to each individual forum. I'm most familiar with RfD where, for the most part, the non-admin relistings we see are not problematic and so I see no reason to restrict it across the board. It's not without issues but these I feel are best addressed initially to the individual users and possibly improving the guidance. Thryduulf (talk) 13:54, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Moving forward

Based on the conversation above there seems to be consensus (though not without some disagreement) that non-administrative relisting at AfD is an issue (and to some extent so is administrative relisting). There is some sense that keep closures at AfD also present concerns but there is not not as much agreement on this. There is a feeling that NAC have not been a problem at some other deletion forums (TfD and RfD being the two I see specifically named). Even for the relist issue there doesn't seem to yet be consensus on the right next step. I see three possible options:

• 1. Educate administrators about policy and community sentiment (as Tony attempted to do here and hope/expect that administrators will follow their example
  2. Hold an RfC to address this. Very rough sample language: Should WP:Non-admin closure and WP:Articles for Deletion be changed to reflect that non-administrative editors should not relist discussions at Articles for deletion
  3. Hold an RfC to promote WP:Relist bias to an explanatory supplement (similar to this page) and link in appropriate places.

There might be other options as well that I just have not been creative enough to think about. Any thoughts from people? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:53, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

RFC promoting a relist bias would be a "testing the waters" thing which I support. Just looking today, a non admin relisted [2] [3] [4], [5], all of which should have closed by now. There is even this [6] (you can make a point that it had an AFD 5 years ago which ended in keep which would prevent a soft deletion, though that was long ago and it had a support vote). Jovanmilic97 (talk) 16:10, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Give me a couple days to run over WP:Relist bias again to improve the writing. When I originally wrote it, it was mostly intended to be something I could point to when coaching non-admin closers. I never really intended it to have a broad audience, but I'm certainly appreciative that others have found it useful. I'd like to ensure it's as high quality as possible before any RfC. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 17:13, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

I changed a couple minor things, and I'm more satisfied with the writing than I expected to be. I'd support it being an explanatory supplement. However, I don't know that an RfC is needed to make that "promotion", since it isn't much of a promotion. An explanatory supplement has the force of an essay. It is not a policy or guideline. WP:SUPPLEMENTAL specifically notes explanatory supplements aren't vetted by the community, which is what an RfC would be. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 04:01, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

• Support an RfC to promote this page, Wikipedia:Non-admin closure, to guideline. Supplement to an information page is very confusing taggery. This page contains excellent advice that applies more broadly than deletion process, WP:RM, non-deletion CfDs, and relisting for example. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:18, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
• I support an RfC to promote this page to a guideline, but only after having removed points 1 and 2 from #Appropriate closures. We don't need a policy prohibiting non-admin closes of deletion discussions, but neither should we be encouraging them or calling them "appropriate". Bradv🍁 23:42, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
  • I definitely agree. Good NAC actions should be allowable, but that convoluted excuse for defending overzealous NACs serves no useful purpose. More generally, good advice is not written in double negatives. The NOT-BAD section should go, whether cut, or rewritten into active tense and positive advice. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:50, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
    I removed the section only. Points 1-2 are unsound advice. Points 3-4 are so obvious as to be “how to suck eggs”, and if it needed saying (which it doesn’t) it should be written much more simply. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:02, 31 March 2019 (UTC)
• Other thought RfCs could publicise the issue, and hopefully promote Wikipedia:Non-admin closure and/or WP:Relist bias, but it wouldn't necessarily force editors who want to work on closing AfD discussions to read it. Could a pop-up be presented when an AfD is relisted with a link to WP:Relist bias (or Wikipedia:Non-admin closure, or both), asking users to confirm that they've read it? This could be a one-off thing, so you wouldn't need to confirm you've read it every time you do a relist - but, if it's news to you, you are encouraged to actually read the thing? Hopefully that would get the message across to new users (and the existing users who aren't aware). GirthSummit _(blether) 23:53, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Bans and blocks

I made this change without realizing Bbb23 reverted something similar only moments prior. I don't think that my addition would hurt any to be included. It doesn't change policy and will only help users understand what is and is not a WP:BADNAC. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 06:00, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Limiting Non-Admin Closure

I have sort of been asked or tasked at WP:ANI to bring up the need to clarify or tighten the rules about non-administrative closure at XFD. There have been several non-administrative closures recently that have been appealed to Deletion Review, and in some cases concerns that the non-administrator should not have closed the discussion. My own thinking is that a non-administrative close at DRV is like a speedy deletion at DRV in one respect. A speedy deletion should be non-controversial. If there is controversy, the speedy deletion should be voided and sent to XFD. If there is controversy about a non-administrative close, it should have been left to an administrator. Therefore my own opinion is that a non-administrative close should be reserved for situations where there is a rough consensus to Keep. A non-administrator cannot finish a Delete. Previous discussion has established that it is best to leave the close calls to an administrator to decide whether to Relist, to close as No Consensus, or to make a policy-based decision. That is my opinion, that we should clarify that Non-Administrative Close should be reserved for a rough consensus to Keep. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:16, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Well I learned when we were hear last time that the cultures of different XfD forum really are different. So I definitely support your "only clear cut keeps" (which would allow for speedy keep clerking which is helpful) but also think that this line of thinking might be best limited to AfD. But thanks for kicking this off as the person who nudged you at ANI. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 04:36, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, thanks for bringing this up. This is a bit of a repeat of the thread from March/April (still on this page), but it's a good idea to revisit. Personally I think that non-admin closures at AfD are rarely helpful or necessary, and that admins (who aren't biased as they have all the options available to them) are generally capable of managing the backlog. I would reserve non-admin closures to "speedy keep" closes only, if it were up to me. – bradv🍁 04:45, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Just chiming in here that another case I would support would be situations where the deletion subject has been deleted by while the XfD discussion remained open (be it through a glitch or that the page was deleted via CSD etc). I used to do a lot of those closes prior to becoming an admin. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 05:47, 14 January 2020 (UTC); correction 06:39, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Completely agree with the above. NACs should be limited to “speedy keep” (and the criteria identified explicitly, such as SK#1) or (speedy) delete, where the page has already been deleted but the discussion is still open. I don’t see any need for non-admin relists, as it’s not actually a problem for a discussion to fall into the backlog where an admin can still fully consider all options. CThomas³ (talk) 05:59, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

• There are also quite a few clear-cut redirects (not including the occasional "delete and redirect" request), which I'd view as non controversial. Nosebagbear (talk) 08:58, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
• Non-admin closures are already limited to uncontroversial cases per (with my emphasis added): A non-admin closure is not appropriate [when] the outcome is a close call (especially where there are several valid outcomes) or likely to be controversial. Such closes are better left to an administrator. Whenever I see a potentially-controversial or close call by a non-admin, I'll point that out to the NAC-er, and have been successful in reigning in some out-of-control NACs that way. I do believe that NACs should be limited to speedy, snow, and procedural non-deletion closures (unless the page has already been speedy deleted). I would also add a caveat that the longer the backlog is, the more lax we should be on that rule to give more flexibility to the XfD forum(s) that aren't trafficked by enough admins (I'm looking at you, CfD). -- Tavix ^(talk) 16:57, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
• I haven't personally seen massive problems with non-admin closes (though of course such an opinion is only to be expected from someone who is not an admin!). Yes, I've seen more bad closes than I would have liked to, but the issue with them is the fact that they were bad closes, not the user rights of the closer. I don't at all mind seeing non-admins perform good closes of controversial discussions. Though of course, non-admins should really stay away from discussions where deletion is still on the table (because of the obvious issue of bias against outcomes they wouldn't be able to perform). And contrary to the opinion floated several times above, I do believe this extends to procedural closes when the page has already been deleted. If a page being discussed at XfD gets speedied and the discussion remains open, then you've got a sure sign there's something iffy going on. Such closures should be left to editors who are able to view the deleted page and who can clean up any mess there might be. – Uanfala (talk) 20:58, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
• I think the issue here (and the ANI that prompted this), is very new editors to WP (and thus XfD) doing closes. Ultimately, editors with less than say 100 correct !votes at an XfD (and even possibly admins), should not be closing. I have seen experienced NACs who close better than admins with low AFD experience trying to "clear the queue" (and who can often have a bias to SUPERVOTE). Such a rule could incentivize more participation at AfD, encourage the prospective closers to observe the best closers (there are excellent closers out there to learn from), and should minimise obviously poor closes.

NAC closers face a higher standard of scrutiny imho, and outside of newbies, are therefore are usually more risk-averse in closing. The real issue is that the queues are lengthening all over WP, and if this continues, we will have to give some NACs the right to close as Delete – we mightn't like this, but on the current trajectory, it is almost a certainty. Therefore, we should minimize the impact of it by further disincentivizing NAC closing, except of course by editors whose !votes at XfD are below a threshold, and just don't have the experience. Britishfinance (talk) 21:21, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

@Britishfinance: - Sorry, I'm confused by the above, or there's a negative missing or such, you think we need (or at least, may need to use) more NACing in the future. How would further disincentivizing NAC-closing minimise the impact? Nosebagbear (talk) 21:29, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Nosebagbear. I think we need fewer newbies doing NAC (which is how the ANI started), but we are going to need more NACs from more experienced editors. Instead of further tightening NAC rules (per consideration above), we should enforce a threshold of valid !votes needed by an NAC closer (will address the newbie issue). After that, we should get ready for the fact that we will need to loosen NAC criteria for experienced editors that meet this threshold, to get the queues future cleared. Hope that makes sense? Thanks. Britishfinance (talk) 21:35, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

@Britishfinance:, ah yes, that makes lots of sense, thanks for clarifying. In terms of AfD, I think the current rules on possible NAC actions are okay, but I'd be fine with imposing some firmer minimum editor criteria. Obviously, I can't talk for the other XfDs. Nosebagbear (talk) 21:45, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

I would personally rather see would-be non-admin closers participate and !vote in the discussions rather than close them, even in most of the "non-controversial" cases. Does anyone have any data to show that our queues have been lengthening? I haven't been active at AfD lately, but that seems to be kept up fairly well. Are the other queues seeing larger backlogs? CThomas³ (talk) 22:55, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Up until about a year ago, the AfD queue would be almost fully cleared by the end of the 7 days, with just a few holdovers for more complex cases. Now, the queue is often only half-closed at the end of the 7 days, and we have straightforward cases that sit there for many days afterward.

For my perspective, the functioning of most "Boards" of WP is dominated by 1-2 ultra high-productivity admins (and some senior editors, where they can use the tools like NPP) who do the vast bulk of the work. Most of these are long-standing veterans who joined in the early days and they rarely seem to get replaced by newer admins. Anytime they leave/step-back/disappear, there are consequences. It is a trend that I do not as yet see changing. Britishfinance (talk) 10:15, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

It would be interesting to ask the newer admins (2018 onwards) where we focus - we're generally active, but I'd be interested to see whether we were clustered into certain areas differently than the overall mop corps. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:32, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

• I added a thing. Theres another active thread at ANI right now, so this defintely needs fixing. Guy (help!) 22:52, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

JzG, things certainly got wild at that new NAC ANI. However, per my comments above, NAC is an important tool in WP and is going be become more important given the trends. Some of your added criteria, "do not close where there are good faith Delete !votes", and "do not re-list if there are fewer than 5 !votes", seem overly restrictive and essentially kill NAC; which I don't think reflects the page. NAC does explicitly allow editors who are experienced to apply their knowledge of policy to effect closes? Your rules would largely over-ride this and limit anything but procedural NACs. Britishfinance (talk) 23:17, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

JzG Does it need fixing, or are people just not following the guidance given? GMG^talk 23:23, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with Britishfinance and GMG, relists with 5+ !voters are actually less suited to being relisted by a nac, as their complexity is likely to be much higher than, say, a 2 !vote 1-1 discussion. Nosebagbear (talk) 23:40, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

I mean, I wrote WP:NACINV, and I don't know what there is to fix when there is already guidance that says don't do that. GMG^talk 23:55, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

A comment re the latest NAC ANI linked above: if a problem is created by people not reading guidelines, then I don't think it's a very good idea to attempt tackling that problem by rewriting guidelines. – Uanfala (talk) 01:22, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

...unless people aren't reading the guidelines because the guidelines are poorly written. – Levivich 17:46, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

GreenMeansGo, it's mostly that the guidance is spread throughout the page and occasionally confusing, though failure to follow is an issue. In general we encourage people to do things that don't require the sysop bit, if they can, because admins are not special. However, in this case, it needs a pretty firm steer to avoid anything likely to cause drama. Guy (help!) 01:32, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: I mean, I certainly value your opinion. You are someone i agree with as often as we disagree, and those are the opinions I value the most. I'm certainly open to suggestions for specific changes that might be made. GMG^talk 02:32, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

• This discussion has primarily been concerned with AfD which I'm not qualified to talk about, but I do believe it's important that any changes made here are suitable for the other XfD venues as well or specified to only apply for AfD. I have been one of the most active closers at TfD for the last few months and in my experience it's working really well with the most relaxed NAC culture of any XfD venue. There have been few DRVs with NAC problems, I couldn't find a single one since March, and the venue is only rarely backlogged. That goes to show that while perhaps AfD would benefit from stricter rules it is far from certain other venues would as well. If anything should be changed I think Britishfinance suggestion to have stricter rules for newer editors rather than all non-admins would be preferable. My concrete suggestion would be recommending future non-admin closers to consult with an admin before they start closing discussions. This would hopefully stop many of the good faith but overeager closers from starting doing bad closes. This would be more in line with how I see this page actually being used, not like the concrete rules many think it is, but a guide to what is generally considered safe to close as a non-admin. These guidelines aren't set in stone and can be broken if the closer knows it will be considered acceptable through experience at the venue. I have on occasion violated 4 out of the 9 bullet points explaining what discussions are appropriate for non-admins to close without any controversy and have seen other non-admins doing the same. While this sometimes lead to unnecessary DRVs most of the time it doesn't. I often see experienced non-admins explain their reasoning better and are more open to complaints about their closures and doubt they have much higher DRV rates than admins. This is an especially difficult page to write since it has two audiences, people who aren't qualified to close discussions who should be discouraged from doing so and people who are qualified and should be encouraged to help out by closing discussions as well, both of which has to be accounted for when writing the policy. ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 23:31, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Really interesting to read, @Trialpears:. Nosebagbear (talk)

• One alternative for AfD would be creation of NAC-academy, I'd be game for helping set that up if there were a few other interested admins. However, the main thing remains individuals not reading the perfectly good policy already there, and I suspect anyone who signed up would already be out of that risk group (I should obviously note that I feel Störm is a great editor, who I've got along with when I've talked to them before, their particular case just happens to have been a flashpoint) Nosebagbear (talk) 23:46, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

  I have thought about this before and offered to do something like a NAC-academy (I of course planned on discussing it with some admins) with a very enthusiastic, but inexperienced closer that got into some trouble with BADNAC. While we didn't do it (the user decided to wait a bit before doing more closes instead) I think it would be useful in the future. I'm not that concerned about the only users signing up would already be out of the risk group seeing how well people who get denied at PERM/NPR react when Barkeep49 give compliments and offer alternatives such as AFC and NPP/S. If we do something similar with inexperienced closers I'm sure they would consider going through a NAC-academy just like people do at NPP. If we don't set up a more formal academy I think there at least should be a Category:Wikipedians willing to give feedback on discussion closures where queries could be directed. ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 14:27, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

  I forget where the discussion was, but I remember a discussion last year about a School for Non-Admin Closers (SNAC) and IIRC it received widespread negative feedback, over concerns it would become a cabal, or worse, an anti-admin cabal. But I still think NAC could use basically a WikiProject or noticeboard or someplace, like we have for countervandalism, where people can get training and ask questions, etc. – Levivich 17:44, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

• I removed the addition by JzG as there was no consensus to keep it and it creates more issues per above. Interesting ideas by Nosebagbear and others above. Why don't we square this circle by having a NAC close PERM per the NPP PERM? If you have less than 5,000 edits, or 50 !votes, or 1-year service, you cannot get a close PERM (you shouldn't be closing without this level of experience; and shouldn't be able to download the XfD closer). If you can meet this, you ask for a close PERM (per existing guidelines on NAC). If you perform poorly, your close PERM can be revoked, and won't be returned until you get more experienced !voting and showing the admin that you understand NAC? Britishfinance (talk) 23:59, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Britishfinance: - that's particularly tempting - each XfD could make a decision as to whether to allow it. XfD closer is a gadget so I think access can be figured to a userright, or if not then it might need something similar to AfC. Nosebagbear (talk) 00:04, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

It avoids soaking up admin time, it screens out those who really shouldn't be closing (per the case above), and if an experienced editor closes their own AfD, then it will be the last close they will do for a while. I also think that the concept of 5,000 edits + 1 year (+50 !votes for closer rights) is a useful benchmark that can be used for giving other advanced rights? Britishfinance (talk) 00:08, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

It's quite a common set, the only issue that comes to mind is that other XfDs (esp CfD/TfD) have said they don't want any further limitations on NACs, so they might reasonably not want closers in their XfDs to need a userright to get access to XfDcloser - and someone with that access could then use it in AfD. However that's a fairly edge consideration, and any that cropped up could always be reverted (I also suspect TfD is so specialised that anyone closing there probably doesn't break the normal policy) Nosebagbear (talk) 00:25, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Yeah this sounds like a good idea. Kind of like my consult an admin first suggestion but more formal. If this becomes a thing I feel like the edit and especially the tenure criteria should be lower. These criteria don't say much about the candidate and for the most part should only act as a quick filters. Perhaps the 3000 edits + 6 months used for page mover is more appropriate, which after all was primarily intended for RM closers. For reference my account is just 11 months old and I have been closing discussions since August. I also agree that it's important to ask each venue what their concerns are, but inexperienced NACs are a problem to some extent for all venues. ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 01:12, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with the lower tenure, particularly with regard to time - I had participated in well over 100 afds by my "real" six month point (that is, 6 months from when I became an actual editor). Nosebagbear (talk) 01:37, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Following the spirit of what JzG was doing, and given what happened, I have added the following sentence under "Editors who are involved": For the avoidance of doubt, editors should never close any discussion where they have !voted, or XfD discussions were they created or contributed to the object under discussion.. Britishfinance (talk) 00:22, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

• My two cents are similar to some of what was written above. Either closing should be a right limited to administrators, or this right should be granted to users who request it, similar to WP:AUTOPATROLLED or WP:RPC. --Enos733 (talk) 19:41, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
• I've made the roughest of rough drafts for how this page would look if non-admin closer was a user right at Wikipedia:Non-admin closure/draft. Feel free to change anything or give opinions. Given the positive opinion here I think the next step would be drafting a proposal to be used for an RfC discussing the matter. (diff) ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 21:51, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

I've made some suggested changes - I suspect there might be a strong viewpoint from certain areas (whether specific XfDs or otherwise) that they don't want their NAC-corps to be limited. Notwithstanding that, each XfD probably would want to give some viewpoints as to specific use/level of experience in that field needed. Nosebagbear (talk) 22:20, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Definitely. I'm just not sure how best to invite further input. Should we send a message to WT:AFD, WT:MFD, WT:RM, WT:RFC etc. now or later? I have no experience in drafting big changes and have seen discussions disrupted by inviting wide participitation too early in the process. My feeling would be to start posting an invite to come help drafting to some of the smaller venues first to make sure their voice is heard and the discussion stays focused. ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 23:33, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

• I generally agree with the sentiment that the guidelines should focus separately on different audiences, and should, e.g., discourage inexperienced editors from NACs while encouraging experienced editors to NAC. – Levivich 17:48, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Additions to policy discussion

I have also added as sentance to the first section "Who should close": While rare mistakes can happen in a close, editors whose closes are being overturned at decision reviews, and/or directly reverted by administrators, should pause closing until they have discussed these closes with an administrator, and that administrator gained comfort that the closer understands their mistakes, and will not repeat them.. Revert if anybody feels this is not useful/appropriate. Britishfinance (talk) 00:32, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

• I've just separated off the "what policy to add" part of the discussion from the above which is mostly how to avoid it as an ongoing issue. In regards to your most recent addition, @Britishfinance:, it's probably reasonable, though I imagine you might end with some discussion over how closes is takes for this to occur. For an admin, the phrasing wouldn't be quite right, but DRV purpose#3 doesn't apply to NACs (since they can't have deleted the article). Nosebagbear (talk) 00:40, 18 January 2020 (UTC)