The real question is whether admins are mere vote-talliers. Can users simply: (1) Tag any article as "unmergeable" for a five-day period, to (2) Force a vote on whether it should be kept or deleted? If so, is it the job of the admin simply to count the votes and then judge whether the percentage constitutes a "consensus" one way or another? Apparently this custom has acquired the strength of Policy. Last month I tested this policy by removing what I felt was a hastily-applied vfd tag and merging the information into a new article. The response had all the fervor of a personal attack: how dare I, don't I know (being an admin), etc. But here's the point: if I had found out some other way besides seeing the VFD template, that the article was unsuitable in its current state - and read the reasons it was deemed unsuitable, I would have DONE EXACTLY THE SAME. The only difference is some Deletionist claimed the right to stop all merges until the end of the 5-day vote. This is BAD because 1. It requires me to come back to the article 5 days later, and re-acquaint myself with the matter (twice as much mental preparation work). 2. It stops everyone else from repairing the article (if all it needs is a merge and/or redirect). 3. It's un-wiki: the saying "anyone can edit any article, any time" no longer applies to this. 4. "Be bold" is suspended: I was bold, and get my wings clipped in a Big Hurry. (I can't remember now whether this resulted in an RFC on my action, but I worried about this at the time. How can editors be bold, if they have to worry about being the Target of a Public Hearing just for merging and redirecting info from a sub-standard article?) Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed [snip] [snip]