Wikipedia talk:Redirects for discussion

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Default outcome[edit]

Following this edit by C. A. Russell, the guiding principles of RfD now states in relation to the default outcome:

  • If a good-faith RfD nomination proposes to delete a redirect and has no discussion after at least 7 days, the default result is delete. Note that this does not apply if the nomination does not propose deletion; the mere existence of an RFD submission does not imply deletion.

I'm now wondering why the default outcome is restricted to deletion? If a nomination unambiguously proposes retargetting and gets no comments, why should the default outcome not be to treat it as uncontroversial and retarget as suggested? I suggest rewording the bullet to something like:

  • If a good-faith RfD nomination proposes a single clear course of action (e.g. deletion or retargetting) and has no discussion after at least 7 days, the default outcome is to enact that proposal as uncontroversial. This does not apply if the nomination is unclear, ambiguous, suggests multiple possible outcomes and/or explicitly seeks discussion.

I nearly made the change boldly, but figure (a) discussion can't hurt, and (b) my proposal probably benefit from wordsmithing. Thryduulf (talk) 13:01, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For a non-delete action, what I have been doing is instead of the default close, I support the nomination as the first vote of the discussion, and let another closer take a call. If it is disambiguation, I try to draft a dab if it is easy. My thought has been if the close action without a vote is reverted, the strength of a close by consensus should prevail over any editor's challenge. And we cannot demonstrate consensus if there wasn't even a single editor who voted in the discussion. On the other hand, I find the delete nomination with no discussion as unchallengeable (as opposed to a soft delete), because if challenged, the challenger has to approach an admin, unlike a non-delete action which any challenger can revert. I would still support at least one editor other than the nominator, agreeing with the non-delete nomination before it is closed. Jay 💬 15:33, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This definitely makes sense, given that in the process of retargeting a redirect or drafting a dab RfD is an optional step (and if it does seem controversial to the closer they should vote on it!). J947edits 20:32, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A non-delete action resulting by "default" in the nominator's proposal just tracks the ordinary editing process, plus a superfluous RFD. E.g. Alice proposes to change Foo to redirect to Bar instead of Baz. She posts her proposal to RFD. There are no takers. After some time, someone closes the RFD and retargets Foo to Bar. What did the RFD contribute to this? Three things: procedural boondoggle, a Foo redirect broken in the interim by {{subst:redirect for discussion}}, and the false perception of a public mandate—primarily from the types of people who trawl RFD submissions and aren't particularly equipped to contribute meaningfully to the discussion anyway, rather than folks with subject matter interest. -- C. A. Russell (talk) 04:35, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@C. A. Russell and Jay: I've read your responses a couple of times and I'm still uncertain whether you are agreeing with the suggested change or not? Thryduulf (talk) 15:43, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was not agreeing. My questions would be: What should happen if an editor reverts an actioned close that had no participation? Should the revert be reverted because the close is unchallengeable simply by virtue of being listed at RfD for 7 days? Or is it unchallengeable because there was consensus? (Can there by consensus when there was no participation?) What are the options available with the challenger (just someone who was on a week's break from wikipedia)? Immediate renomination? If so, doesn't this burden the RfD process further? Jay 💬 17:39, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My initial answers would be that we don't have a big problem with challenges of default closes at present and I don't think this is likely to change. However any reverted close should be reinstated and the reverter told to challenge the close as they would any other - i.e. discuss with the closer in the first instance, take it to DRV if they can't reach agreement. If one of my closes was being challenged then I would almost certainly either reopen and relist or encourage the challenger to open a new discussion, depending on the circumstances (what was the default outcome) and the reason for the challenge (e.g. are they rebutting the original nominator's arguments or making new ones?). The burden on RfD will never be greater than the burden imposed by a relisting, in practice only if every default closure was challenged would it even equal the burden of relisting. There would be a slight increased burden on the person who made the close, but this would always be a "can be closed" not a "must be closed", with closers able to use their judgement about what it likely to be challenged and what isn't. Thryduulf (talk) 18:19, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Some questions have been answered. What if the challenge comes a month after the close? Reopening or relisting would not be an option. If we're going to be routing more discussions to DRV, discussions that could have been settled long-term by waiting and having couple of editors to participate, would be an impact to DRV. The DRV talk page should be notified of this default outcome suggestion discussion, as something the DRV stakeholders need to be aware of coming their way. Soft deletes at AfD have the uncontroversial forum of WP:RfU that bypasses DRV. "Soft" closes at RfD will be something new, without a forum other than DRV. DRV is about the process of discussions and closure, so won't the DRV simply endorse the close stating that the closer waited the requisite 7 days? We don't expect the DRV to become a de facto RfD, so how does it benefit?
I would also like to know what was the trigger for this enhancement consideration (apart from Russell's edit which was only about delete). Is it the increasing number of per-day nominations, which may have been turning off participants from having a go at a good number of discussions, resulting in more relists, and hence longer pages? We would need to find a balance between solving a problem vs creating multiple. Jay 💬 19:12, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If the challenge comes more than about 1-2 weeks after the close then it would just be a new discussion with the rationale for having a new discussion so soon being limited participation in the first. DRV impact will be extremely minimal as it's only going to be for cases where the challenger and closer couldn't come to an agreement, which will only be a small subset of those default closes that are challenged, which will only be a small subset of discussions that are closed by default. DRV isn't hurting for participants, so there will be very few potentially controversial default closes in the first place. If as many as two discussions a year end up at DRV I would be surprised - remember default closes for deletes are already a thing and I don't recall a single instance going to DRV (although I haven't checked).
As for the impetus, it was just rereading the section after Russell's edit and wondering why default closures were limited to delete outcomes not other types of outcome that could just have been implemented boldly in the first place. Thryduulf (talk) 20:12, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree I haven't seen default delete closes being challenged although some may have been recreated. I guess any default outcome close can be renominated if challenged, with the clause that the new nomination not be closed as default. Otherwise we'll get into the endless circle of AfD soft deletes followed by restorations. Jay 💬 15:36, 3 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I support the proposed default outcome. I think it's a good change to make that could help reduce the number of relistings. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:54, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I note that there has now been some back-and-forth between C.A.Russell and Hey man im josh about the edit. Contrary to the latter, I do think that it is beneficial to make it it explicit that a default outcome of delete only applies when the nomination is clearly seeking deletion - this is redirects for discussion not redirects for deletion. Thryduulf (talk) 15:43, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's fine if you think it's beneficial, I felt as though it's redundant and already clear, but I respect that you disagree. After giving it some though, I'm not opposed to a clarifying comment, even if I do still believe it's already clear. What do you think of "This does not apply is the nominator has proposed an alternative to deletion."? This may however end up being entirely moot if your above proposal is implemented, which I'm about to reply to and support. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:52, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can we reduce the number of RfDs transcluded on this page?[edit]

This page already gets very large and is very difficult to scroll and navigate, especially on lower end devices like phones. I think we should maybe take the approach that is done at AfD and only list all of the nominations on subpages. We can have a bot update the counters for the number of open RfDs on a given day. I did some stuff in user space and found that we could reduce the post expand include size from about 1,000,000 to just above 100,000 (about ten times) if we just linked to each RfD nomination rather than transcluding them. Awesome Aasim 17:51, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also see Wikipedia talk:Redirects for discussion/Archive 16#RfD is getting too long for listing in a single page, needs break-up like AfD. Jay 💬 17:57, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Subpages make it much harder to navigate and to track changes to discussions. If we got rid of the missing-space RDAB redirects (see WT:CSD#Improper disambiguation redirects) then the volume of nominations would be much more manageable. Thryduulf (talk) 12:46, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, for the record. The following explain my stance:
  1. The comments above
  2. Wikipedia talk:Redirects for discussion/Archive 8#Splitting daily log page
  3. Wikipedia talk:Redirects for discussion/Archive 11#"Current list" section
  4. Wikipedia talk:Redirects for discussion/Archive 12#Improvements to new discussion closure template
...In other words, a lot of work has already been put into RfD's current setup, splitting it up into nomination subpages has been rejected in the past, the current situation is temporary, it was a lot worse when all nomination headers were listed in the table of contents, and ... dang, I just realized all that work to improve RfD's structure happened in 2017. How time flies. Steel1943 (talk) 21:50, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
...A temporary solution is indeed one of the more permanent types of solution. 𝔏𝔲𝔫𝔞𝔪𝔞𝔫𝔫🌙🌙🌙 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔐𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔫𝔦𝔢𝔰𝔱 (talk) 14:32, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

on suggesting too many things at once[edit]

i found a good few redirects of varying degrees of uselessness in the lists of pokémon, and will ask about them in the project page once i've looked a bit further into pokémon-related articles. for now, the list is compiled elsewhere

so before i clog the rfds or accidentally break them trying to edit each one individually, is there a way to propose deletions en masse? cogsan (nag me) (stalk me) 22:07, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Cogsan: WP:RFDHOWTO explains the only real way to do it. Steel1943 (talk) 22:17, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
so no real way to propose at least 53 of them at once (will probably be more once i'm done looking), aside from tagging each one? cogsan (nag me) (stalk me) 22:23, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. I get why you asked since yes, I know how long that takes for creating a discussion for larger nominations (I did a 357-redirect nomination once), but that's the only way we got. Steel1943 (talk) 22:31, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
got it, thanks
i'll get on it once i find the least useful ones cogsan (nag me) (stalk me) 22:33, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) @Cogsan: Also, may be worth noting: If you are not familiar with WP:TRAINWRECK, I would recommend reading that to ensure a grouped nomination is and should be your preferred path over nominating the redirects individually. Steel1943 (talk) 22:34, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village Pump (proposals) § Bump XfD heading sizes about potentially increasing the header size of XfD discussions. Primefac (talk) 06:57, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed CSD criterion for RDAB redirects[edit]

 You are invited to join the discussion at WT:CSD § Improper disambiguation redirects, where a new speedy deletion criterion has been proposed. InfiniteNexus (talk) 07:07, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Excess focus on deletion[edit]

I have long had the impression that this page and related pages contain too much of an emphasis on deletion of redirects, as contrasted with discussion of them. The 'D' in "RfD" is for discussion, not deletion. I suggest that the introductory sentence of the daily log pages be changed from

"This is a list of redirects that have been proposed for deletion or other action on [date]."

to

"This list contains the discussions of redirects that were proposed for discussion on [date]."

Note also that I also changed the wording to reflect that this is not just a list of redirects, but rather a list of discussions.
—⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 21:28, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion § RfC: enacting X3. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 17:38, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]