From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Essay on editing Wikipedia
| This page in a nutshell:
As a non-admin, be careful not to allow your lack of deletion tools to influence your decision when closing a discussion. Relist only when doing so will improve the quality of the discussion.
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Below is an example
Articles for Deletion
discussion.
- Example
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edit
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talk
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history
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protect
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delete
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links
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watch
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logs
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views
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View log
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Stats
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Find sources:
Google
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books
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news
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scholar
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free images
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WP?refs
)?
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FENS
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JSTOR
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TWL
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Obviously fails
WP:GNG
. Only source is a press release from the company, and I'm unable to find any online sources that even verify the company's existence. Their claims pass
WP:A7
, at least, but they're not covered in reliable secondary sources. ~ Experienced Editor #1
- Delete
, mostly per the above. The press release is only available via the company's cookie-cutter website. This could even be a hoax, for all we know. ~ Experienced Editor #2
- Keep
. If they deliver the product they're promising, this would revolutionize the world! Wikipedia would look backwards if it failed to cover this. ~
WP:SPA
#1 / article creator
- Keep
. As the CEO of the company, I can guarantee that we're for real. Email me at <redacted@company.com> if you need to verify. ~ Apparent CEO
- Keep
. We're real and here to stay. ~ SPA #2
- Delete
. No sourcing indicating notability. Fails
WP:GNG
and
WP:NORG
. ~ Experienced Editor #3
An experienced admin would properly close this discussion as "delete", as all policy-based rationales clearly favor deletion. Non-admins can't close as "delete", however. Faced with the options of keeping, relisting, or walking away, a non-admin closer often chooses to relist the discussion. Their rationale for relisting is that the vote tally was close, and at least relisting is better than doing nothing. In another week, maybe the tally will be more one-sided and assist the admin in closing as "delete".
That's
relist bias
. Non-admins are welcome and encouraged to close deletion discussions, but they're unable to close most XfDs as "delete". Because of this, it's possible to intentionally or unintentionally develop a bias toward alternative outcomes, such as relisting. This is harmful to the project.
By relisting a discussion which has already fully debated the merit of the article, the non-admin has unintentionally wasted the time of any other editors who stumble upon the open discussion before it is next closed
and
the time of the next closer. As more and more discussions are relisted, they can also unintentionally cause a backlog to develop, as closers a week from now will need to close all of that day's discussions in addition to the relisted discussions which should have been properly closed the first time around.
Non-admins can prevent themselves from developing a relist bias by doing the following:
- Don't relist discussions unless there is a clear reason to do so. For instance, if new information shows up late in the discussion, relisting is usually appropriate.
- Make use of "no consensus" closes when appropriate. If all points have been fully debated but no consensus has emerged, closing as "no consensus" is preferable to relisting.
- As a non-admin, don't relist discussions you think should be closed as "delete". If an admin will eventually need to close the discussion as "delete", they might as well do so now. Kicking that close a week down the road isn't helpful.
- Participate in the discussion. Review the issue in question, research, form an opinion, and post your interpretation of the issue. Help make the closing decision a little more clear for the next editor/admin who comes along.
- Don’t relist discussions with low or no participation in the absence of any dissenting opinions. For articles, admins can
treat them as expired proposed deletions
, usually resulting in immediate
soft deletion
.
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- Adminitis
- Akin's Laws of Article Writing
- Alternatives to edit warring
- ANI flu
- Anti-Wikipedian
- Anti-Wikipedianism
- Articlecountitis
- Asshole John rule
- Assume bad faith
- Assume faith
- Assume good wraith
- Assume stupidity
- Assume that everyone's assuming good faith, assuming that you are assuming good faith
- Avoid using preview button
- Avoid using wikilinks
- Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense
- Barnstaritis
- Before they were notable
- BOLD, revert, revert, revert
- Boston Tea Party
- Butterfly effect
- CaPiTaLiZaTiOn MuCh?
- Complete bollocks
- Counting forks
- Counting juntas
- Crap
- Don't stuff beans up your nose
- Don't-give-a-fuckism
- Don't abbreviate "Wikipedia" as "Wiki"!
- Don't delete the main page
- Editcountitis
- Edits Per Day
- Editsummarisis
- Editing Under the Influence
- Embrace Stop Signs
- Emerson
- Fart
- Five Fs of Wikipedia
- Seven Ages of Editor, by Will E. Spear-Shake
- Go ahead, vandalize
- How many Wikipedians does it take to change a lightbulb?
- How to get away with UPE
- How to put up a straight pole by pushing it at an angle
- How to vandalize correctly
- How to win a citation war
- Ignore all essays
- Ignore every single rule
- Is that even an essay?
- Mess with the templates
- My local pond
- Newcomers are delicious, so go ahead and bite them
- Legal vandalism
- List of jokes about Wikipedia
- LTTAUTMAOK
- No climbing the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man
- No one cares about your garage band
- No one really cares
- No, really
- No sorcery threats
- Notability is not eternal
- Oops Defense
- Play the game
- Please be a giant dick, so we can ban you
- Please bite the newbies
- Please do not murder the newcomers
- Pledge of Tranquility
- R-e-s-p-e-c-t
- Requests for medication
- Requirements for adminship
- Rouge admin
- Rouge editor
- Sarcasm is really helpful
- Sausages for tasting
- The Night Before Wikimas
- The first rule of Wikipedia
- The Five Pillars of Untruth
- Things that should not be surprising
- The WikiBible
- Watchlistitis
- Wikipedia is an MMORPG
- WTF? OMG! TMD TLA. ARG!
- What Wikipedia is not/Outtakes
- Why not create an account?
- Yes legal threats
- You don't have to be mad to work here, but
- You should not write meaningless lists
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