Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2014-11/Require third-party closures of RfD discussions

• Voting on: At present, it is perfectly acceptable for someone to close an RfD they started or that they voted in. I believe that this is a conflict of interest and that deletion and verification discussions should be closed by an uninvolved editor (who need not be an administrator if the consensus is anything but deletion of an entire entry). Some would say our community is not large enough for this, but I would respectfully disagree. Speedy deletions would be exempt from this. Purplebackpack89 00:35, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I propose to change the text of the head of RfD to read as (new text in bold italic):

• Closing a request: A request can be closed by an uninvolved editor when a decision to delete, keep, or transwiki has been reached, or after the request has expired.

• Vote starts: 00:01, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
• Vote ends: 23:59, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

• Vote created: Purplebackpack89 00:35, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
• Discussion:

  Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2014/November#Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2014-11/Require third-party closures of RfD and RfV discussions

  User talk:Purplebackpack89

  Wiktionary talk:Votes/pl-2014-11/Require third-party closures of RfD and RfV discussions

1. Support as nom Purplebackpack89 16:00, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
2. Support Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:48, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
3. Support This is the policy for closing article deletion discussions on Wikipedia. I don't see why we should do things differently. The smaller size of our editor pool does not justify dispensing with such a basic principle as striving to avoid conflicts of interest. Fairness and transparency outweigh convenience. Also note that the proposal only holds that the closer not be someone who "started" or "voted in" the RfD. I don't see a problem with closing admins commenting in RfD discussions - e.g. giving information or views for others to consider — but not with them being actively involved in shaping the outcome of the discussion. -Cloudcuckoolander (talk) 01:30, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

   An editor abstaining from posting a boldfaced vote is not guaranteed to have no stance or bias. Under the proposed regime, it would be advantageous to not post anything, and have a final say when closing the nomination. There are no "conflicts of interest" in RFD in the sense of business administration and government; people cannot buy shares in words, collect dividents per word per year, and thereby have an objectively existing benefit deriving from keeping the words. Even if such conflicts of interest existed, the proposed regime would do nothing to limit their harmful influence. --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:28, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

4. Support in principle. Donnanz (talk) 13:46, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
5. Support We have enough participants to allow this. DCDuring TALK 18:20, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

   There are enough RFD participants, but few editors actually help to close RFDs. I know of an editor who posts a lot of RFD nominations but almost never closes any. By contrast, bd2412 does not post many nominations but does a lot of work in closing them. It seems not very nice to punish bd2412 for helping with the key bottleneck action of the process--closing--by preventing him from boldface voting. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:41, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

   Actually the wording is "uninvolved editor" — which probably means they should not even participate in the discussion proper. And I disagree even about there being enough RFD participants. (Also: since I was curious who it is that you might be referring to, I compiled a list of most frequent RFD initiators. Counting closures will be harder, unfortunately.) — Keφr 20:14, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

   Whether it's possible and whether it's desirable are two different things. Renard Migrant (talk) 20:54, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

   Could you disambiguate "it"? — Keφr 22:32, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

   Whether it's possible to have uninvolved closes and whether it's desirable to have uninvolved closes are two different things.Purplebackpack89 16:32, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

1. Strong oppose, for the following reason.
   1. A small number of editors do most of the RfD closures. I happen to be one of them. Discussions tend to linger for many, many months before someone gets around to closing them, and putting additional restrictions on closure would eliminate some of the more active participants in the page from keeping it reasonable. To my knowledge, no one has ever suggested that I have closed a discussion incorrectly due to a bias derived from my involvement in the discussion. To the contrary, I have frequently closed discussions wherein I have participated, and where the closure went against my expressed preference. In fact, I am not familiar with a situation where any editor has been claimed of making a closure biased by their own participation in the discussion.
   2. As has been pointed out elsewhere, under such a rule, potential closers who do have a personal preference for an outcome may merely avoid participating in the relevant discussion so that they will be free to close it as they prefer.
   3. Our discussions (and their closures) are completely public and transparent, and our rules require that a closed discussion be left on the page for a week following the closure. There is, therefore, ample time for an objection to be raised following the close of a discussion, if concerns about closer bias need to be aired.
   4. Though we do have some contentious discussions, many of our discussions overwhelmingly favor one side. If there is a discussion where a half dozen editors have voted to delete an entry, and only one has voted to keep it, then it shouldn't matter who is closing the discussion in favor of the overwhelming majority. bd2412 T 19:05, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
2. Oppose per bd2412. Let me take this opportunity to thank bd2412 for his job of closing RFD nominations and helping make the RFD page so much smaller. I encourage editors to close even their own nominations, and do so fairly, with view on the principle of consensus and our common RFD practice. --Dan Polansky (talk) 00:46, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
3. Oppose —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:32, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
4. Oppose. This will just worsen the piling-up of unclosed RFDs. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 17:43, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
5. Oppose --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:31, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
6. Oppose basically per BD. Equinox ◑ 01:33, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
7. Oppose pretty much per what DP said under Cloudcuckoolander's vote. — Keφr 21:50, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
8. Oppose If it ain't broke don't fix it. --Fsojic (talk) 21:56, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
9. Oppose, I'd oppose if nothing else for the poor drafting. What's an 'uninvolved editor'? Also transwiki is not a valid outcome of an RFD debate. BD2412 covers everything else, see above. Renard Migrant (talk) 20:39, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

   @Renard Migrant An uninvolved editor is one who didn't start or vote in the deletion discussion. It said that in the head. Purplebackpack89 16:29, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

   But not in the proposed change to the page intro. — Keφr 17:31, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

   Also policies are on their way out. If this passed, we could still ignore it by consensus. Renard Migrant (talk) 15:06, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

   @Renard Migrant I think it's wrong to interpret the impending failure of your vote as an indictment of all policy. What the failure of your vote means is that people are not comfortable with CFI having to be followed 100% of the time. That may mean that they are not comfortable with CFI being policy, but it could still be a guideline (AKA a policy that's allowed to be ignored from time to time by consensus). Purplebackpack89 17:49, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• Fails 5:9:0 (support:oppose:abstain). --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:37, 4 January 2015 (UTC)