User:J947/sandbox/12

Possible early closure, per WP:SNOW, at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 February 24#Nautical units?

Hi Rosguill,

I've got to try and remember I don't need to {{ping}} someone on their own talk page. So, I've remembered this time. ;-)

Anyway, from the above RfD discussion, as you will likely see, the participating editors are all in agreement with retargeting to the List of nautical units list article that PamD had created. Towards the end of the discussion, you'll note that I had asked Uanfala if they had wanted to withdraw their nomination early under the "speedy" provisions, and they said they'd prefer to wait for a non-involved administrator or editor to come along and see if early closure was warranted. In an entirely good-faith attempt to avoid bureaucracy, J947, as a participant in the discussions with me and others, closed it under the "speedy" provisions. However, as noted by Uanfala and I, there are important, albeit somewhat nuanced, differences in the meanings of "speedy" and "SNOW" or, indeed, just early closure. So, seeing as there wasn't concurrence with the nominator to withdraw their nomination yet, I have reverted the good-faith closure by J947 (see also the discussion at J947's talk page where I attempted to reach out to him first to see whether they would amend the closure result to "retarget" or "WP:SNOW retarget"), and was wondering if you can assess the discussion to see whether early closure, per WP:SNOW or just as an early closure to "retarget," is warranted, and, if so, close the discussion appropriately. If WP:SNOW wouldn't yet apply, perhaps you might be able to make a comment to let the discussion continue for a few more days?

Anyway, thanks for looking into this...I'm reaching out to you on your talk page since I had already alerted you to the discussion via an early {{ping}} in one of my comments.

Thanks,
Doug Mehus T·C 14:24, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Comment Tavix has reverted my reversion, noting that I asked for a "speedy retarget." That's true, but only if Uanfala was okay with it. Since they wanted to wait for a non-involved editor to come along and see if early closure was warranted, I just thought that we should respect that, particularly since "speedy" and ordinary results have different meanings in future deletion discussions. I guess it is fine since Tavix has reverted my reversion, but I'm not happy about it. The result should've been "retarget; early closure due to clear consensus" or "WP:SNOW retarget," as applicable. So, consider my request above withdrawn. Doug Mehus T·C 14:36, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

@Dmehus: The end result is the same and everyone (including you) is in agreement to what that end result should be, so you really don't need to get too caught up in the Wikilawyerese. Also, I think it prudent to add that you are dangerously close to violating WP:ADMINSHOP if you haven't already. If you think something requires admin action, just be patient. There are enough admins patrolling RfD where you don't have to knock on your favorite admin's door to try to get what you want. -- Tavix ^(talk) 14:40, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Tavix, Sorry, I wasn't aware of that policy; I will bookmark that to read later. I did contemplate listing it at the closure noticeboard, but (a) since it had already been closed and (b) since it would likely be attended to longer after the natural closure period, didn't go that route. Yes, I'm absolutely in favour of the end result—everyone was—but just like how (as noted above in an unrelated RfD discussion), "speedy keep" can have a different meaning in potential future discussions than "retarget; early closure per clear consensus." There's also speedy redirect, which seems to refer to a common outcome, principally, at MfD. So, like I said above and elsewhere, I didn't even have a problem with an involved closure; J947's closing it was fine, but my concern was with the wording of the result. Doug Mehus T·C 14:48, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

You can ask J947 to tweak it if you think it matters that much to you. Usually editors are perceptive to constructive criticism on their closes and will take feedback into consideration. I know I have. That doesn't mean you should invoke the nuclear option and revert them and try to find someone you prefer to close it instead. -- Tavix ^(talk) 14:59, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Tavix, I did try and ask for the wording to be tweaked, but J947's reluctance to do so seems to stem from the idea that involved closures are generally frowned upon, which is true and they absolutely should be avoided where possible. However, in this case, given the unanimity here, I don't think anyone would've had a problem to removing the word "speedy" from the close. "Early closure" or "per WP:SNOW" could've been added, but that would be within the closer's editorial discretion, so I wouldn't have insisted on that. That was literally all I was seeking. Doug Mehus T·C 15:05, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

My reason for reaching out to Rosguill was only to assess whether it could be closed early. If they wanted to perform the close, great. If not, given that I had reached out, that'd be fine also, but was just looking to see whether early closure on non-speedy retarget/nomination withdrawn grounds was possible. I guess, in hindsight, was that maybe instead of performing the revert first, I should've reached out to Rosguill to peer review the close and see if they could engage in a discussion with J947 and I vis-a-vis the rationale behind tweaking the wording of the close/result a bit? Is that more or less what you are saying? Doug Mehus T·C 15:10, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
In hindsight, you should have recognized that J947 made the correct call and moved on to something that might actually be productive. There is no reason to pull Rosguill away from other things he is doing to clean up your messes. Again, you are caring way too much about the detail for a result that everyone is happy with. This was never complicated until you made it that way. This is another good example of why several editors are exhausted of your antics. -- Tavix ^(talk) 15:16, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
But wording matters, as shown by the discussion between Uanfala and I. "Speedy retarget" generally means that the nominator has concurred with the unanimous argument of the other participants and, rather than withdraw their nomination and close as "speedy keep" and retarget boldly, they close as "speedy retarget." This wasn't that. Future hypothetical deletion discussions are often influenced by the previous results, even though they shouldn't be, and, so, I think this is point Uanfala was making was that they would rather have the closure be simply "retarget." I disagree with your assessment this being "antics," but merely trying to make things right. Nevertheless, I disagree with the inclusion of the word "speedy" in there, since there was not unanimity for that, but I will not worry about it any further. Doug Mehus T·C 15:24, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Sorry y'all, had a bunch of stressful IRL stuff to deal with yesterday. For future reference there's really no need to hurry to close RfD discussions. The backlog there rarely is longer than a week and a half, which is ridiculously good by Wikipedia standards. The only reason I could think of off the top of my head for urging an admin to implement a speedy closure would be if for some reason we anticipate a ridiculous amount of traffic to that redirect in the coming few days such that having an RfD tag on there causes significant disruption. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 17:33, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
No worries. Yeah, that was my concern, that it didn't really need early closure, at least not by an involved participant. That said, J947 is very competent, just as any of the participants in the discussion, so I'm not bothered by the early closure (involved or uninvolved). My issue was really just the inclusion of the word "speedy" because that has special meaning.

As to the RfD backlog, yes, it does seem to be a little longer than sometimes (it's usually pretty good relative to the other XfDs...or requested moves, which are even longer). CfD seems to have a ridiculously long backlog. At any rate, I think I need to self-enforce my own wikibreak temporarily and tend to other things.

As always, though, I appreciate your reply! Doug Mehus T·C 17:42, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, everyone, I must have suffered an uncharacteristic bout of punctiliousness, and I hadn't anticipated there'd be such a knock-on effect. I should have closed the discussion myself and spared you all the trouble. I don't think the particular wording of the close makes that much of a difference, even my own preference for having "retarget" rather than "withdrawn" doesn't matter in the big scheme of things - this is not the type of redirect likely to be RfD'ed ever again, so any close other than "delete" would probably not matter in practice. – Uanfala (talk) 18:10, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Regarding your reverting my edit

@J947:

Regarding your good-faith reversion of my equally good-faith correction of your close, I thought of discussing it with you first, but figured since you and I had a good rapport, that you would not mind.

Nevertheless, I still feel that it is not a "speedy disambiguate." I'm not sure there is such a thing, but logically, it would be the same as a "speedy keep" when the nominator withdraws their nomination except they concur with the unanimous recommended outcome of the participants (as we do with "speedy retarget"). Since you were neither a participant or the nominator, it is not, technically, a "speedy disambiguate," but can still be closed early per WP:SNOW. Thus, I believe "WP:SNOW disambiguate" should be the result.

Cheers,
Doug Mehus T·C 00:17, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Dmehus, you don't need to ping me; it's my own talkpage.
The nominator supported the disambiguation, as did many others, so I felt there wasn't a need for further bureaucracy. It was speedy as it was unanimous; being a participant in the discussion isn't a required prerequisite for speedy closure. J 947 ^{^{^(c)}}, at 00:53, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
J947, I know being a participant in the discussion isn't a prerequisite for closure, but I also know, like me, you are a stickler for details, and, while I have no problem with you closing the discussion early, I just think that "WP:SNOW disambiguate" reflects our current guidelines. There are speedy redirects, but that seems to be related to drafts from Draft: namespace and typically the outcome over at MfD. Yes, I guess, you could've noted in your close, "closing for nominator," which would make it a "speedy disambiguate," but at the same time, Uanfala specifically requested that it be closed as WP:SNOW closure (presumably, because "speedy keep/disambiguate/retarget" has a different meaning in that it was withdrawn by the nominator). Doug Mehus T·C 01:04, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

See also WP:SPEEDYKEEP and WP:SNOW. In the past, I used to get the terms confused, but essentially, "speedy" results are either from the nominator's withdrawal or early closure by anyone when the nomination is out of process or made in bad faith, etc. So, like I say, no concerns with the early closure whatsoever—thank you—but just thinking it should be "WP:SNOW disambiguate." I know the "speedy" checkbox makes it easy, but what I did is just type WP:SNOW disambiguate/keep/retarget into the "result" box of the "other" option (similar to how you have to use the "other" box to enter "delete" when closing as "speedy delete" for a processing administrator). Doug Mehus T·C 01:09, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Okay, there were two closures that you closed as "speedy"; the one for disambiguation can probably stay as "speedy disambiguate," but I would add to your closing rationale, "Withdrawn by the nominator. Closing for her." That way, it's clear. With regard to nautical units, which I didn't amend as you closed that afterward, that one should be amended to "WP:SNOW retarget" because that's what it was—you came along as a non-involved editor and closed it early, and Uanfala wasn't withdrawing the nomination. Hoping you won't mind making those minor changes with this added clarity. Doug Mehus T·C 01:27, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
Involved SNOW closures are generally frowned upon; it was unanimous so I was being unbureaucratic about it. J 947 ^{^{^(c)}}, at 01:42, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
J947, no one had any objections to Uanfala even doing an WP:INVOLVED WP:SNOW closure, including me. So, at minimum, I do think that one should at least be updated. No one is going to mind. After all, we're not a bureaucracy, as you say, and have no rules. ;-) Doug Mehus T·C 01:48, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

If you are still not wanting to do an involved WP:SNOW closure, could you at least revert the closure of the nautical units RfD and let a non-involved participant close as "WP:SNOW retarget" since that's what Uanfala and I were wanting? I personally have no issues with your involved closure, but since the terms "speedy retarget" and "WP:SNOW retarget" have different meanings in the context of subsequent deletion discussions (think about it at AfD or MfD; an article withdrawn as "speedy keep" or "speedy retarget" can influence future deletion discussions were an article closed early per WP:SNOW). I get the desire to avoid bureaucracy, and that's why I have no issues with the involved closure, but it's key that we get the closing rationale right. Doug Mehus T·C 02:28, 26 February 2020 (UTC)