[WikiEN-l] Merge vs. Keep/Delete (was: Dispute resolution attempt in the Ashida Kim case)

Sat Oct 8 13:06:39 UTC 2005

On 10/8/05, Michael Snow <wikipedia at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Tony Sidaway wrote:
>
> >I wonder if we could agree to change policy to permit an administrator to
> >"speedy redirect" a merge candidate and close an AfD where notability is
> the
> >sole or principal reason given for deletion, or no reason is given.
> >
> I endorse that, although I don't see why the authority to
> merge-and-redirect should be limited to administrators.

I agree. I don't know why I thought it should be limited to administrators.
A non-administrator can close a clear non-delete debate (indeed I believe
some adventurous non-administrators may have closed delete debates by
putting a delete-because tag on the article).

I can see that a speedy redirect of this kind could encounter severe
resistance where there is already an emerging consensus to delete. I
wouldn't like to be there when something like that happened; it could be
very unpleasant. There is a strand of thinking that regards any alternative
to deletion in such case as illegitimately thwarting the decision-making
process--perhaps this stems from a belief that the purpose of AfD is to
delete rather than to debate deletion.