Wikipedia talk:Non-admin closure

Discussion regarding NACs at VPP

There is a discussion regarding this essay at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) § Taking the temperature on NACs in CTs. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:58, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

New template for recusal

I have created {{Recuse from closing a discussion}} for the benefit of closers who later decide to withdraw or recuse, and want a quick way to comment while removing the {{Closing}} message.

— Jruderman (talk) 03:30, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Misleading language

@GreenMeansGo: An RfC about how to word a part of an essay has no more authority than the essay itself, and so the essay should not cite it as a source of authority, purporting that it is setting forth the convention of the community. This is the problem with that part of the sentence which I removed in Special:Diff/1269013471, with the edit summary of: that RfC was held at this essay's talk page and is only about how a sentence of an essay should be worded; it has no more authority than the essay itself so it should not be cited (doing so is highly misleading, implying there is a community consensus behind the idea that unregistered editors may not close formal discussions, when there is only a consensus about language in an essay). That is the problem with a construction in the form of "per the result of a request for comment, X convention exists". It is a false statement. A true statement is: "per the result of a request for comment, this part of the essay is worded the way it is worded". —Alalch E. 17:33, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Umm...no. I have written essays on profoundly stupid things, which no one should ever read. An RfC is an RfC. Gaining consensus of particular language is the process of moving an essaytoward being a guideline. GMG^talk 17:59, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

You are incorrect. Wikipedia:Non-admin closure is an essay just like any of the essays you have written. For an essay to become a guideline or a policy it needs to go through the procedure described in Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Proposals; as a proposal, it needs to gain support at a high-enough level (see WP:CONLEVEL). This RfC only resolved a content dispute on a project space page marked as an essay, nothing more. —Alalch E. 18:22, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for instructing me. And what policies or guidelines have you written or had removed? You seem quite confident. GMG^talk 18:54, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

Try being a little more serious please. —Alalch E. 19:13, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

I was being quite serious indeed. You seem to be treating this as a discussion about an article where we decide whether to call Ringo a drummer or a singer. The base premise of the RfC in question, and the general understanding of everyone involved, was that we were working on general guidance for the community, and not fussing about phrasing.

Take yourself slightly less seriously and please don't WP:ABCDEFG me. GMG^talk 23:57, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

The base premise of the RfC in question, and the general understanding of everyone involved, was that we were working on general guidance for the community, and not fussing about phrasing. "General guidance for the community"? What I am telling you, and I realize that it is hard for you to accept that this is something I am really telling you, but, yes, this is what I am really telling you: It doesn't work that way. Irrespective of what you think the "general understanding" was, that RfC was—according to policy (that one which I linked to; see that shortcut starting with "C" in my previous reply)—not good for setting general guidance for the community. It takes a discussion at a different level, a discussion capable of achieving consensus at a sufficiently high level, to make a decision about general guidance (how that works is described in that other linked policy in my previous reply; it starts with "P").

For this reason, it is not appropriate for the essay to contain the specific language which you reverted to: "Per the result of a request for comment (linked here), unregistered editors may not ...". That specific sentence construction misleads the reader into believing that the RfC being mentioned is an RfC in which the community decided on its general guidance.

The purpose of this discussion is to ensure that you understand that the above language which you restored by performing your revert is not appropriate language for this essay, because it is misleading language, and so that you understand the reason why I had removed it, and the reason why the essay now does not include that specific language (it includes different language), in the hope that you will not restore said language. —Alalch E. 05:43, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Yeah...it does work that way in an essay that documents accepted practice. We have plenty of essays that function this way. NOTHERE is an essay, and there have been a zillion people blocked using its rationale because it represents a general community norm. It's not even really a lawyerly requirement that project wide discussions be closed by an admin, but non-admins don't do it, because that's a cultural norm. In some discussions, the closure is made by a team of admins and/or functionaries to ensure finality.

The RfC in question was a formality to document agreement on the issue. I should know; I started the RfC. There is no world where an unregistered user can realistically come in and close a discussion and people would simply accept it. GMG^talk 11:57, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

The RfC shows that this sentence has a higher level of consensus than the rest of the essay can be assumed to have. It is appropriate to flag that. Trialpears (talk) 07:11, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

+1.

Also, this whole page is still an essay - feels redundant to point that out in prose, that an RFC about this essay is "about... this essay." PhotogenicScientist (talk) 16:37, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

That's the whole point. You admit yourself that the RfC [was] about this essay, and yes, it was an RfC about the essay. However, the language in the essay (the originally disputed language) was such that it stated that the RfC was an RfC that created "general guidance for the community" (quoting from GreenMeansGo). This is because it specifically used the construction "Per the result of a request for comment, unregistered editors may not ...". An RfC about an essay can't determine what editors may or may not. It is not "per" that that they may not. It is per a community convention, a living practice, that they may not, which living practice exists independently of any essay, it transcends any essay. And this essay should simply state that this practice exists, not that it exists because in the year 2017, editors decided to ban unregistered editors from closing formal discussions, because that is not what happened. What happened is that language was clarified so that the essay says the right thing about how things are being done. The practice would have been exactly the same even if that RfC had never happened, and even if this whole essay had never existed. The community at large was never asked "Should unregistered editors be allowed to close formal discussions" and responded "no", it was only asked about what viewpoint should be represented and using which language in this essay. An essay does not need to artificially buttress its position by grasping for sources of formal authority which aren't real. —Alalch E. 17:28, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

No participant in that discussion made a distinction between what should be in the essay and what should be in policy. There is a long precedence for IP editors not being allowed to close discussions and it even is enshrined in actual policy for XfD at WP:XFDCLOSE. If you feel like it's unnecessary to include the RFC in prose I would be fine with moving it to a footnote but removing it entirely doesn't feel right; it clearly illustrates the reasoning why unregistered editors shouldn't be closing discussions. Trialpears (talk) 18:00, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. Please see Special:Diff/1269235487. I've both mentioned the fact that the deletion process guideline has this (the deletion process is often a template for other processes as it is the most worked out in PAG), and moved the RfC to a footnote. —Alalch E. 18:14, 13 January 2025 (UTC)