Wikipedia talk:Non-admin closure

A much shorter version

It's quite ok for any single person or group of people to close any debate, since closing debates works the same way for everyone. Typically you will find out soon enough if your closure did not have consensus.

In the case that a certain debate requires admin action, make sure you have an admin on hand to perform the admin actions required.

--Kim Bruning (talk) 00:29, 25 January 2008 (UTC) KISS: Keep It Simple and Smile :-)

JERRY ^talk _contribs 04:15, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Can you provide your reasoning for that? --Kim Bruning (talk) 05:21, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Sure, under your version, an anon, on his/her first edit to wikipedia is encouraged to close a debate that has been open for 11 minutes as speedy close against consensus. Just close it any way you like, and you'll soon find out if it was the right thing to do. In fact let's have bots close all afd's, and we'll just send them straight to delrev. JERRY ^talk _contribs 12:14, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

They can, but they will be reverted, and someone will explain the correct procedure to them. And then we'll have one more wikipedian with AFD closing skills, who will then go on to be a good admin at some point (after learning many other abilities as well). You have to start learning somewhere. Let's make sure that people can learn in as many places as possible.

At the same time, there are a lot of intelligent anons out there. I started out editing anonymously too, as did many others. Some people even never log in, and that's their right, even though they might be more skilled wikipedians than the majority of our admins. --Kim Bruning (talk) 13:29, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Nobody contends that an anon or a new user can not or indeed does not make valuable contributions. The purpose of this essay is to provide guidance BEFORE having to learn the hard way, as you seem to recommend, which would certainly create wikidrama and unnecessary wikistress for others. To say "let them just do it any way they want and let delrev sort it out" is not a proactive or responsible approach in my opinion. JERRY ^talk _contribs 17:46, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Who is delrev? And this approach has worked very well for as long as wikipedia has existed. Why should we abandon it now? --Kim Bruning (talk) 19:12, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

hmmmmmmm Actually no, this approach has not ever existed on wikipedia, as you are suggesting it should be. Deletion debate closures have been closed by administrators, except in certain limited circumstances. The reason this essay was written was that those limited circumstances were never put into a formal document, they were just part of the "tribal knowledge" of the place. delrev is WP:DELREV, or the deletion review process. That is where the deletions that people do not agree with are reconsidered. Deletion closures are never just "reverted" as you suggested, instead they are submitted for a formal review at delrev, and if the deletion was determined to be improper, the deletion debate process is re-initiated. Please read the references at the bottom of the essay, they provide all this information in quite good detail. JERRY ^talk _contribs 20:50, 25 January 2008 (UTC)