Misplaced Pages

Plowback retained earnings (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (XfD|restore)

I believe the closing administrator interpreted the consensus incorrectly and I would like to request that his/her closure be reviewed.

As the discussion was quite extensive, and determining the consensus required the analysis of material from more than one page, I have prepared a table which will hopefully make reviewing the closure easier for uninvolved editors. The table contains all the relevant arguments and observations that were either made during the course of the discussion or that were made prior to the discussion but were directly or indirectly linked to during the discussion. Each entry is followed by a diff or a number of diffs that point to the statement(s) where the arguments/observations were made. The diffs are provided for convenience only.

The subject of the discussion was whether the Plowback retained earnings redirect should be deleted. The outcome of the debate was, in my opinion erroneously, determined to be "no consensus."

Note: The matter was discussed with the closing administrator prior to the opening of this review, see User_talk:BDD#Plowback retained earnings 2.

@Iaritmioawp:@BDD:@Ivanvector:@SimonTrew:@Steel1943:I am pinging the participants of the discussion so that they can check whether the above table accurately represents the arguments for/against deleting the redirect that were either made or linked to during the discussion. If anyone believes an argument to have been either omitted or misrepresented, please leave a comment to that effect so that I can update the table; please remember to include pertinent diffs where necessary. Iaritmioawp (talk) 00:20, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

• Overturn No argument in favor of keeping the redirect was left standing by the time the discussion concluded. As merely counting keeps and deletes isn't an acceptable way of assessing consensus, the closure should be overturned and the redirect deleted. Another problematic thing about the closure is that it was performed by an WP:INVOLVED administrator. Common sense would dictate that if you close a discussion in a controversial manner, explicitly endorse said closure in its deletion review, and then participate in round two of essentially the same discussion, it would probably be a good idea to leave the closing of that second discussion to another administrator, even if technically you aren't required to. Iaritmioawp (talk) 00:20, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
• Relist and let someone else close. Personally I can see no possible reason for the redirect, but in any case the same person should not have closed the second discussion. If that is not formally stated anywhere, it's because it would seem to be utterly obvious. For the same person to close a second time inherently defeats the purpose of a second listing, for this or any XfD or related process. DGG ( talk ) 02:45, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
• Overturn. A previous closer is WP:INVOLVED. As per DGG. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:12, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
• Wrong forum. Nobody's arguing about the target, we're arguing about the redirect. And it appears more tricky than it might seem at first. None of us arguing at WP:RFD, the right forum, has any problem with where it goes. "Useful" involves a bit of clairvoyancy because we can't see what people type and what they want to find, but if they did type this then where would they want to get: and we don't get stats for the because the R takes them straight to where they want to get. It is hard, then, at RfD to do thigs on stats: have to be a bit clairvoyant, unfortunately. Thanks for pinging me in, and I know I'm in a minority with my opinion. Si Trew (talk) 05:23, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
• Overturn and delete. Having commented in the discussion, it was not appropriate for BDD to close it. In any case, as per the analysis of the discussion by Iaritmioawp, the closure was not one to which any reasonable administrator would have come. Stifle (talk) 09:40, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

  Just to be clear, Stifle, it's your opinion that an administrator who has made a general comment on a discussion is unfit to close that discussion? --BDD (talk) 13:48, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

  I'm sure you've already found a listing which I've done so, but I will refer you to WP:INVOLVED, which says "In general, editors should not act as administrators in disputed cases in which they have been involved. This is because involved administrators may have, or may be seen as having, a conflict of interest in disputes they have been a party to or have strong feelings about. Involvement is generally construed very broadly by the community". Stifle (talk) 13:57, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

No, I haven't done so, and I wouldn't seek to make this personal. INVOLVED also says "an administrator who has interacted with an editor or topic area purely in an administrative role, or whose prior involvements are minor or obvious edits which do not speak to bias, is not involved and is not prevented from acting in an administrative capacity in relation to that editor or topic area." --BDD (talk) 14:29, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

• Overturn and reassess - I have no more comments to make on the redirect itself, you can read my opposing comments in the two discussions if you think it should influence this deletion review. On the close, generally I am comfortable with BDD's closes and I was comfortable with this one, based on the discussion, but since it's clearly controversial, it makes sense that the close should be overturned and an uninvolved closer allowed to reassess the discussion and immediately re-close or relist as they see fit, simply to eliminate the controversy. That's all. Ivanvector (talk) 14:24, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
• I'm not going to offer an opinion on how this review should be closed (in part, because I closed the last one). I don't know if it's strictly against the rules for somebody to participate in a discussion and then close it, or to close two discussions on the same item, but as the saying goes, If you're explaining, you're losing. Worse than that, we're all losing. We're supposedly trying to figure out if a redirect should be deleted or not, but that discussion is now hopelessly intertwined with a meta-discussion about process, and whichever way this goes, someobody will have their nose out of joint about it. It also astounds me that such a non-consequential thing as a redirect has wasted so much time. Two RfD's? Two DRV's? We're here to write an encyclopedia, people, not indulge in some wiki-lawyer role playing fantasy. -- RoySmith (talk)
• Overturn just to make everyone happy. I'm not at all convinced by the alleged "you can't close a second XfD on the same X" limb of WP:INVOLVED. But it seems to have created a massive out-of-proportion blow-up here and that's good enough reason just to re-list and re-close it. Like RoySmith, I have always felt that there are few things on Misplaced Pages more asinine than redirect wars (article-title wars would have to come a close second). Seriously, there is a PhD thesis on human behaviour to be written here. --Mkativerata (talk) 10:49, 10 March 2015 (UTC)
• Endorse but allow a relist. The comment BDD made at RFD2 was, I think, not expressing an opinion on the validity of the redirect and should not disqualify him from closing later. Some other types of administrative comment (e.g. "personal attacks will be disregarded") are also of this nature. Closing both RFDs is probably not the best thing to do but I think is OK provided the closer has not previously expressed a substantive view. However, the discussion before DRV1 (but not the endorsing of his close of RFD1) does come close to expressing a substantive view. In both RFDs it seems to me the discussions led to a lack of consensus and the job of the closer is not to discount opinions which have been criticised as lacking sound editorial judgement but to discount errors of fact, completely irrelevant criteria, socking, abuse, etc. The criticisms this nomination raises of other opinions are all of judgement, not fact. Finally, I think the greatest lack of judgement demonstrated here is in the raising of all these RFDs and DRVs. Thincat (talk) 09:21, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
• Overturn & Delete per Stifle & DGG. involved admin - failing to recognise obvious consensus... twice - wikilawyering minor points blind to the elephant in the room - personalizing the dispute and poking the bear god only knows why (the closing remarks where he says he's tagged the redirect unprintworhty to ' make you' (who's 'you', and whys it there to begin with) 'feel better' and his smug talk papge reply, the guy comes to him says he wants to complain about the close, whats the reply? 'yes, I know you do', inacceptable imo - textbook example of bad close. I Strong Oppose Relisting, enough time was wasted on this (what to me appears as) nonsense (both the pointless redirect and the walls of text written about it), and I want the 10 minutes of my life back that it took me to look at all this baloney... but Im not getting it back am I now?? None of us are and enough is enough185.58.82.6 (talk) 14:22, 11 March 2015 (UTC)