The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Allowing the nominator to advocate redirect is current practice, and this debate shows no consensus to change that. The case is also well made that this has obvious utility in establishing an unambiguous consensus that an article should not exist in its own right, even if a redirect is appropriate. Guy (Help!) 18:01, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

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I see this somewhat often on AfD. A nominator will bring up an article for deletion, but suggest redirecting to a target instead of plain deleting. Sometimes it is speedy kept per SK (1) if there are no delete !votes, sometimes it runs full term. Currently, the only option (that I am aware of) for redirecting an existing article is to do it yourself BOLDly. This can be awkward when it is an established page with lots of editors and redirecting would be contentious, and it seems like there should be a venue for discussing these scenarios. SK (1) seems like an overly technical reason to shut down an AfD whose only fault was suggesting redirection, but there isn't a venue to do so. What I really want is just a consensus: Should SK (1) be refined to exclude nominators seeking a redirect? Deadbeef 03:06, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

I think this is an excellent topic for discussion. However, may I suggest you close the discussion here and repost this at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion? -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:16, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

I thought about making the discussion there; however, an outcome of "yes" would involve changing the SK criterion itself, so I decided this would be a more appropriate location. I'll leave a note there linking to the discussion here. Deadbeef 03:35, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't believe that closing an AfD as speedy keep when the nominator suggests redirection is appropriate, as it's essentially the same as soft deletion. I've also never actually seen it done before, as far as I can remember; I've always thought that the nominator suggesting a redirect was valid and have done it myself. ansh666 04:08, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

I've seen it done (or at least !voted for) many times, most recently closed as such today at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/5 fine frøkner. It's enough of an apparent issue that I'm raising it for discussion. Deadbeef 04:14, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, maybe I haven't been around the right AfDs then. In that case, support. ansh666 21:48, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Full support statement moved below. ansh666 22:50, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose bringing possible redirects to AfD, since in my view, that venue is for people who sincerely believe that an article should be deleted to start a discussion toward that goal. Editors can boldly redirect articles. If an editor thinks the redirect is controversial, the article's talk page is the proper place for discussion leading to consensus. Redirection is not deletion, as redirects can be undone and the edit history is preserved for all editors, not just administrators. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:26, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support. We have places like AfD and RM set up so that discussions can be brought to the attention of a larger pool of editors, as opposed to just the ones who happen to have the article in question on their watchlist. A discussion on whether or not a subject is capable of supporting an article being held in a location which is almost entirely viewed by people with a strong interest in said subject will often have a different result than one held amongst less partial editors. For example, articles on fictional characters, especially the more obscure ones likely to be the subject of redirect discussions, are mostly viewed by people who are fans of the work the character's in. Are fans of a movie/book/TV show/video game really the ones most capable of determining if their favorite characters truly meet the notability guidelines? (No.) Since proposing that an article be turned into a redirect is proposing that the subject is not capable of supporting an article, the discussion should be held in a place that has the best chance of an impartial consensus. Egsan Bacon (talk) 05:32, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support- I agree with Egsan Bacon. Turning an article into a redirect means removing its text, therefore it falls under the concept of "deletion", and obviously the discussion should be held where it has the greatest chance of reaching an unbiased consensus. My experience of SK is that it is frequently used as a way of invalidating productive discussions with technical objections, and for the purpose of infuriating the deletion nominator. Anything that explictly limits that kind of misuse is to be supported. Reyk _YO! 08:21, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support giving the OP in an AfD discussion the option to recommend redirect in their nominating statement. There is currently no effective mechanism for getting around one or two determined obstructionist editors when it comes to deleting an article by redirect. In theory seeking consensus on a talk page discussion sounds wonderful. But the reality is that all too often the article is on an obscure topic that generates little interest among other editors. And as noted above, if you send it to AfD the obstructionist invokes SK to kill the discussion. AfD is the logical place to discuss contested redirects. That said, I would encourage editors to first attempt a BOLD redirect, unless they know the redirect is likely to be contested, out of deference to the fact that AfD is already under some strain. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:51, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support; Ad Orientem puts the issue very well. I'm frankly tired of redirecting obviously non-notable articles such as the multitude of minor planets to their lists only to be reverted by the author or some other mega-inclusionist, and without such a redirection process at AfD I can't do a thing about it. I would, in fact, actually support an entire renaming of the process to articles for discussion, where other outcomes such as merge are allowed to be proposed as well. StringTheory11 (t • c) 19:27, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
  • The "articles for discussion" thing is a perennial proposal that probably won't ever come to pass, unfortunately... ansh666 21:49, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support as the creator of the discussion, in case it wasn't clear, for the reasons given up top. Deadbeef 01:39, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose' AfD is just for deletion proper because that is a function which is restricted to admins. Ordinary editing requires no special process and so, per WP:BOLD, one should just get on with it. If the redirect is opposed then, per WP:BRD, a talk page discussion should be started. If more input is needed for that then you use the WP:RfC process. AfD is moribund now as many nominations get no response. Encouraging misuse for ordinary editing would make this worse as the process does not scale well. Andrew D. (talk) 04:04, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support but with a caveat. I think that in general it is preferable for merger/redirect discussions to be held on the article's talk page, so I wouldn't want a change to this policy to lead to an avalanche of AfDs seeking redirects both for AfD and the articles' sake. However, in certain cases where there are very few eyes on a talk page I believe it is better to have the option to list it on AfD for the wider community to see. So I would change SK(1) to allow for redirect AfDs, but with it also stated that in most cases it is preferable to have it on the article's talk page. Chuy1530 (talk) 21:57, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
• Conditional support; as I said above, redirection is essentially deletion (in this case the fact that technically anyone can view the removed content is irrelevant, since it is still removed from open view). However, the caveat that I'd suggest is that no AfDs should be opened where the only option suggested is redirection: the nominator should be perfectly fine with deleting the page, with redirection as an option only if enough people support it. ansh666 22:50, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
  • For a very recent, typical example of an AfD where the nominator's suggestion was redirect or merge but it wasn't challenged or speedy-kept at all, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Waterfront Elementary School. ansh666 07:39, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
    • And it's worth noting that in that case the article was redirected in Nov 2012, which was then reverted by the original editor, who has continued to spend time working on the article since then. If the original reverted redirect could have been brought to something like AfD to get a community approval, that editor wouldn't have carried on spending time on an article on a non-notable school. (There seem a surprising number of blue links in the table at Buffalo_Public_Schools#Primary_Schools, suggesting that there are probably other articles on non-notable elementary schools there which need attention.) PamD 10:03, 1 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support some mechanism whereby a controversial (e.g. tried and reverted) proposal to redirect a topic can be given a community consensus; this might mean expanding "AfD" to be "Articles for Discussion" where a nomination can be brought with the intention of redirecting (as in non-notable elementary schools where an initial redirection has been reverted). PamD 10:03, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

• We already have a mechanism for that. It is called RfC. James500 (talk) 12:36, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

• Strongest possible oppose. This is a truly terrible idea. This is probably the worst proposal that I have ever seen. These type of nominations are already a serious nuisance, pain in the neck and waste of time. If allowed, they would rapidly totally swamp and overwhelm AfD. It would become very difficult to identify real deletion nominations due to the massive background noise that this proposal would generate. The result would be innapropriate deletions due to lack of scrutiny. As deletion cannot be undone by a non-admin, this is an unacceptable outcome. (To some extent, this is already happening, but the proposal would make it much worse by increasing the amount of chaff). This problem could be avoided by the creation a new process along the lines of "mergers for discussion", but it would need to be completely separate from AfD. Even then, such a process would be completely redundant to RfC, which is the correct way to generate consensus for a contested BLAR/merger. The next problem with this proposal is that it would involve the creation of large numbers of completely unnecessary new pages in the project space, one for every single merger proposal. Deletion discussions need to take place in the project space so that we have a permanent record of why an article was deleted. But since an article's talk page isn't deleted when the article is redirected, there is no need for the discussion to take place anywhere else. The next problem with this proposal is that proposing a redirect/merger of an article at AfD, instead of in an RfC on the article's talk page, is forum shopping. The next problem is that some AfD volunteers are not interested in merger proposals and find their appearance at AfD annoying. The next problem is that there isn't sufficient manpower at AfD to deal with the enormous flood of merger proposals this proposal will generate. The next problem is that discussing the redirection of an article elsewhere than on that article's talk page will turn our discussion pages into an extremely complicated "maze" that will make it difficult to find such discussions and which will confuse and annoy anyone trying to find such discussions. The next problem is that there is no similarity whatsoever between redirection and deletion because content from a redirected page can be merged into another article or otherwise put back by anyone whereas the addition of deleted content to another article would be incompatible with the attribution requirements of the creative commons licence that we use because the history is gone (WP:CWW). So redirecting a page doesn't necessarily remove any content from open view at all because it is normally part of a merger, which cannot be viewed as deletion in any sense. James500 (talk) 12:36, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

• I would strongly urge the closing admin to take into account that many of the "support" !votes above fail to advert to the possibility of using a talk page RfC to obtain consensus for a merger or redirection, and discount those !votes so far as they erroneously assert that there is no alternative to AfD for attracting the attention of the wider community (whereas such RfCs are in fact listed centrally and thus attract diverse attention). James500 (talk) 13:38, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

• Translation: "Admin please note- I disagree with all these people, therefore you should disregard them". Reyk _YO! 14:05, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

• Pointing out a manifest factual innacuracy is not a disagreement because facts are not opinions. It is a fact that RfC can be used to propose redirection. James500 (talk) 14:58, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

• But the question isn't whether RfC can be used to suggest a redirect. Of course it can, though IMO it is not the best venue to do that- AfD is. The question in this discussion is whether people can say "redirect" in an AfD nomination without it being speedy closed as "keep". I don't see a single support voter saying that AfD is the only centralized discussion venue for this kind of thing- just that it is the best one. Reyk _YO! 15:20, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

• AFD isn't best because it is usually backlogged. My impression is that AFD gets abused as a catch-all because Twinkle makes this an easy option. Twinkle does not offer options like posting to the talk page and so these are ignored and under-utilised. It's a good example of the law of the instrument. Andrew D. (talk) 15:29, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

• Moving redirect discussions to RfC would backlog RfC. I don't think that moving a problem elsewhere is a solution to it. At least AfD has historically handled all the possible outcomes of keep, delete, merge, redirect, userfy, etc. Insisting that redirects have to be spun out to a different venue does not make sense to me. My impression of the backlog at AfD is that it is because Wikipedia is full of rubbish articles and not enough editors to curate it, and because people keep relisting debates over and over, long after they could sensibly be closed. Reyk _YO! 06:22, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
• Redirect discussions cannot be "moved" to RfC because they already take place there. Leaving redirect discussions at RfC, where they already are, cannot create any new backlog that does not already exist. I am under the impression that outcomes other than "keep" and "delete" were added to AfD relatively recently and are not really suitable for that forum. They encourage inappropriate attempts to delete pages that could plausibly be redirected (already a very serious problem). Deciding whether two related topics should be merged is much harder than deciding whether an orphaned and obviously non-notable topic that could not possibly be redirected anywhere should be deleted, and AfD isn't really an appropriate or healthy environment for making such complicated decisions. AfD is backlogged because WP:MASSNOM very large numbers of innappropriate nominations are being made by people who have either simply not conducted an adequate search for sources or have absolutely ridiculous ideas about what should and should not be included or who are unwilling to improve articles on notable topics or wait for someone else to improve them or who oppose non-notable topics being merged or redirected at all on principle or who are trying to waste time or damage the mainspace. Any increase in the scope of AfD would only serve to encourage even more innappropriate nominations. James500 (talk) 13:44, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

• It is not true that the backlog at AfD is due to mass nominations (inappropriate or otherwise). I checked this by looking at the AfD lists for January 4,5,6, and roughly defining a mass nomination as either a single nomination containing at least three articles, or three consecutive nominations of single articles by the same nominator. This is, of course, a very generous definition but I found only five mass nominations. Five in three days, when there are 250+ total nominations on those days, cannot in any way be considered a significant contribution to the backlog. It is also not true that outcomes other than "keep" and "delete" have been added to AfD recently. A simple search for "The result was redirect" gives many hits, dating back at least as far as 2008. The same thing is true for "userfy" and "merge". It stands to reason that if an AfD can be closed as redirect or merge, then these things are also able to be part of the nomination statement. Reyk _YO! 08:33, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• I've struck the link in view of the lack of precise statistics and the absence of a quantitative definition of "mass nomination". 2008 is many years after the project began. I used the word "relatively". An AfD closed as redirect or merge is a failed AfD and therefore a nuisance. I don't see the availability of those outcomes as having any relevance to this proposal. By that logic, the availability of "keep" as an outcome would argue in favour of allowing nominations to argue that an article should be kept as it is, which can't be right. James500 (talk) 10:22, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• Why would anyone nominate an article with a keep recommendation? You seem to be making arguments based on ridiculous hypotheticals that don't and won't ever actually occur. For that matter, nobody could or would nominate something with a "no consensus" recommendation either, thoug they can be closed that way. All nominations that argue that an article is unsuitable for mainspace should be allowed. As for the other thing, AfD was created in 2004, therefore the ability to close as something other than keep or delete has been there for more than half its existence. This is not a convincing argument. Reyk _YO! 12:05, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
• You argued that an AfD nomination should be allowed to propose that an article be redirected or merged because those outcomes are available at AfD. The point that I was trying to make is that that argument is demonstrably unsound because it produces an absurd result when taken to its logical conclusion. To put it another way, the fact an outcome is available doesn't make it desirable that the process be used to seek it. I consider it ridiculous (or at least illiterate) to use "articles for deletion" to propose a merger, which is not deletion. The counter example that I gave is not hypothetical. Some people, who evidently don't understand the purpose of AfD, are apparently actually in the habit of posting AfDs arguing that the nominated article should be kept, such as in response to a PROD they did not agree with. The guideline actually expressly refers to this scenario ("An example of this includes posting a nomination in response to a proposed deletion but advocating a keep position"). A nomination that argues that an article should be redirected does not argue that the page is unsuitable for mainspace: redirection doesn't take a page out of the mainspace. 2007 is sometimes said to be the date when our approach towards inclusion and deletion went wrong, so having existing since 2008 might not be a good thing. James500 (talk) 13:59, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• Note: to increase visibility, I have added this discussion to WP:CENT. Mz7 (talk) 20:27, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose as bureaucratic creep. This proposal is essentially a proxy discussion for changing AfD's "deletion" → "discussion". It would effectively become a muzzle on AfD's "before". Our established consensus is that the talk page is the designated area for the nom's "established page" scenario. We should be using those areas more, not less, and defaulting to boldness before process when there is no opposition or need for further discussion. If outside input is necessary, get a third opinion or set up an RfC. I disagree with the above statement that redirection is the same as deletion, but I don't want to get off topic. If this proposal is meant as a gauge to see if consensus has changed, that's a different story (and not how it was phrased). Still, almost all redirect noms I see at AfD have not tried talk page discussion or a bold redirection themselves, which is precisely what we ask noms to do before coming to AfD. My opinion from the trenches of AfD and in the interest of efficiency is that we should take every opportunity to encourage boldness before process. czar ⨹ 21:10, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. Per User:James500. If anyone still supports after reading his post, go back and read it again. -- œ^™ 02:23, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support: Replacing an article with a redirect is a fine idea if you believe that the contents of the article's history is either useless or harmful. People get stuck on the notion of a redirect as invariably being a form of keep, while others seem to view it as a form of delete. If the intent is to say "there's no way this term should be a standalone article, the current contents are crap, but I think a redirect should be in place because it's a reasonable search term", that needs to be taken to AFD.—Kww(talk) 02:49, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• It is already permissible for an AfD nomination to propose that an article be deleted and then recreated as a redirect if the entire page history of the article (ie each revision individually) satisfies the criteria for revision deletion (WP:REVDEL). Such a nomination does not presently fall within the scope of criteria 1 of WP:SK because such a nomination does argue for the use of the page deletion user right that non-admins do not possess. The proposal that we are !voting on now, however, has absolutely nothing to do with such nominations. The proposal that we are !voting on now is a proposal to allow AfD nominations to propose that an article be redirected without deleting it first, and is a terrible idea for lots of reasons enumerated above. James500 (talk) 07:45, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose; this can more than adequately be handled by way of talk page discussion and WP:BRD. Stifle (talk) 14:01, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support as deletion and redirection without merging are extremely similar. Both constitute a decision that we shouldn't have an article at that title and that the content shouldn't be used anywhere else. Functionally they are similar as well - if an AfD is closed as Delete then that doesn't usually prevent someone redirecting the title, and a closure of Redirect is essentially the same as deleting the article and creating a redirect at the title (since the content isn't merged).
  The alternative - redirecting the article and taking any disagreement to the talk page - has a few drawbacks. Firstly there is basically no oversight, as it is unlikely anyone is watching the kind of obscure page where this usually happens. I can remember a case where someone redirected an article they wanted to get rid of which an AfD would almost certainly have kept. Unless a passing editor happens to notice all sorts of articles can be "deleted" this way. Secondly if someone does contest the redirect then the result is pretty similar to sending the article to AfD. As the article is usually obscure the talk page discussion is unlikely to get much input unless a full-blown RfC is opened. That is basically what AfD is, an RfC on whether we should have an article on something which is advertised to people with an interest in such discussions. An AfD is more likely to attract uninvolved editors with an interest in the discussion than a talk page discussion is. Hut 8.5 22:41, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
• Limited support. I see an AfD nomination with a recommendation to redirect as legitimate when at least one of two conditions applies - firstly, where the article has previously been a redirect, and an editor has been trying to replace the redirect with either an earlier version or a newly-written article that is not within Wikipedia guidelines (in which case the nominator should make it clear that they want a resulting redirect to be protected); or secondly, where not only is the current version of the article inadequate but there are strong reasons (e.g. gross BLP violations) for making the page history unavailable (in which case this should be made clear). If there are no particular reasons either for having a protected redirect or for having the page history deleted, then bringing such a nomination to AfD is inappropriate. PWilkinson (talk) 23:47, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• The first case is a matter for WP:RFPP. If there was a dispute over that, it could be resolved by an RfC. The second case is already allowed at AfD by the guideline and is not what this proposal is about. James500 (talk) 10:38, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• Comment I stand by my original Support !vote and the comment I made. But I do want to clarify that I think AfD should be the last recourse. Before going to AfD there should be evidence that a BOLD redirect was attempted without success and that a talk page discussion failed to resolve the disagreement. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:26, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• Why, in your opinion is AfD a better means of resolving such a dispute than RfC? Why do we need two broadly equivalent processes instead of one for the same issue? How will you prevent forum shopping (ie doing an AfD after a failed RfC, or vice versa, or selectively choosing the venue one imagines is more likely to produce a favourable result)? James500 (talk) 10:38, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't think RfC is the appropriate venue for resolving this sort of dispute because redirection is de-facto a specie of deletion. If consensus cannot be reached in a talk page discussion the issue should go to AfD. RfC should not come into play here. -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:02, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support More discussion is never a bad thing, being able to suggest a redirect as the possible outcome by the person without the discussion being cut short cant hurt. AlbinoFerret 02:25, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support allowing nominating editor, starter of an AfD to provide alternatives to deletion in their opening of the AfD. While a subject may not be independently notable warranting a stand alone article (some articles like this are created and kept because they are sub-articles), sometimes the subject of the AfD might fall within the scope of another article. Therefore, suggesting a redirect to an appropriate target may be appropriate. For instance there are cases of politicians who did not succeed in winning their elections being nominated for deletion. Sometimes an editor will not boldly redirect the article per WP:POLOUTCOMES, but instead nominate for deletion. However, it helps to go through the process as occurred with GySgt Popaditch where AfD found that although the subject may have been redirected, other in-depth significant coverage was found unrelated to the event of the election, and the article was kept. Therefore, we should not be opposed to allowing AfD nominators to suggest alternatives other than deletion.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 22:07, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose We've had the idea of "articles for discussion" come up before--it's a solution in search of a problem. And it's been shot down--the talk page (with an RfC if needed)-- is the way to go here. AfD should be for deletion. Right now, if you bring an article to AfD that meets our inclusion guidelines then you've made a mistake. With this, we'll get noms like "I think this should be merged into X". That's not a question of notability--that's an editorial call. And the week deadline for AfDs just is far too tight for what is a content call. Hobit (talk) 04:09, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I think you are responding to a proposal that has not been made. The proposal is quite narrow. It is whether or not it should be possible for the OP to include a recommendation for redirect in an AfD nomination since redirection is a specie of deletion. There is no proposal to change the name or basic function of AfD. -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:38, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

• On Wikipedia, the word "deletion" technically refers to the use of the page deletion and revision deletion user rights possessed by (and only by) admins. Redirection is not a form of deletion in that sense of the word. (Removing all of the text from a page is termed "blanking" instead). Allowing editors to nominate pages for redirection (even without merger of content) at AfD would change the scope of AfD, which until now has been confined to nominating pages for deletion in the strict sense of being deleted through the use of the said page deletion user right possessed only by admins. This increase in the scope of AfD would certainly be a partial implementation of the perenial proposal to turn AfD into "articles for discussion". Since redirection of a page does not remove the page history, it is significantly different from what is strictly called deletion, and thus allowing nominations for redirection at AfD would change its basic function. James500 (talk) 08:18, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Rubbish. I have zero interest in wiki-lawyering or engaging in a debate splitting hairs over technical definitions. COMMONSENSE clearly indicates that when an article is entirely blanked, it is de-facto a specie of deletion. This belongs on AfD. -Ad Orientem (talk) 18:04, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Actually the point that I was trying to make is that nominations for redirection are not presently allowed at AfD because of criteria 1 of WP:SK. I only mentioned this because you appeared to be saying that such nominations are allowed at the moment, which is not true. I was merely trying to clarify the facts of this.

To answer the points you make, I my opinion, common sense clearly indicates that redirection is not even de facto a specie of deletion. Not only does redirection leave the page history intact (with the potential for merger even if it does not happen immediately), it also doesn't blank the whole page either. Redirects do contain code, including substantive article-like code such as categories (and these are not confined to maintenance categories either, but can include substantive categories such as, for example, one categorising the redirect as a peer reviewed chemistry journal; indeed one can imagine categories that add up to a detailed description of the redirect's topic). I think that characterizing redirection as de facto a specie of deletion just because the page ceases technically to be an article, and changes its function, is, to use your own words, rubbish that splits hairs over technicalities. In fact, I could run your argument in reverse and suggest that AfD and RfD ought to be combined into "mainspace for deletion", which might not be a bad idea at all. James500 (talk) 23:07, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support - One of the primary points in opposition—that this proposal will overwhelm an already-backlogged AfD—is in my view not supported by current practice. Here's the deal: if you want to redirect an article, the first thing you should do is try to do it WP:BOLDly—this action automatically eliminates the majority of nominations and is akin to the PROD process. In my experience, I've seen several scenarios where the bold redirect was reverted, and the article will be subsequently nominated to AfD. The nomination is not speedily closed because the nominator specifies that they will accept both deletion and redirection as valid outcomes. In other words, editors can and do get away with doing this right now. (An example mentioned above is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Waterfront Elementary School.) Also, I have rarely, if ever, seen an RFC created for the sole purpose of determining whether an article should be blanked and redirected. (There are no such RfCs active at the moment, either.) Moving redirect discussions to AfD would not create a forum shopping problem, because an RFC is almost never used for this purpose (and if they are now, they will be superceded by AfD). I also note that there is a difference between a merge and a redirect—namely, merges preserve content while redirects hide content. We already have a separate process for merging articles, so AfD will not be flooded by requests for merging. No need to change AfD to "articles for discussion", per Ad Orientem above. In the way I see it, AfD is the better process for discussing proposed redirects. Mz7 (talk) 20:31, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support - For most people, the first step in the redirect process is to be WP:BOLD in changing an article into a redirect. Often, this will stick; however, it doesn't always work that way. So, what is the next step? Right now, it's AfD. But what other solutions are there? An RfC? Those often get far less traffic than the AfD page does, and don't get relisted. A merger request? Seems a bit redundant if there's nothing worth merging, or you've already done the merger, and those tags can stay in articles for years, with no consensus ever being generated (or even any response). Also, as some people point out above, it's far from unheard of for a spam (or attack) article to be a valid redirect, but for the content of the article to be better off deleted. And what if you don't know exactly what the best target page is? What other process is there for discussing that? I don't see why "articles for deletion" should become "articles for discussion", unless merger requests were shoehorned in as well, and then AfD would be potentially overwhelmed. I tend to agree with several things Ad Orientem has said; a BOLD redirect should be made prior to any AfD discussion that seeks a redirect result, and that blanking an article is effectively a deletion on its own. I also believe that this is far from "bureaucratic creep", but in fact is merely updating policy to what standard practice seems to support. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 13:08, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose AfD is a process for removing not only text in the mainspace, but also the history logs of an article. The AfD process should not be used to discuss anything other than the possibility of deleting the history logs of an article, and to propose using AfD as a process for starting discussions about something other than the possibility of deleting history logs subverts the power and seriousness of the AfD process. The seriousness of AfD is what makes the process so well developed, respected, and codified. If the process were treated lightly as a place where people were invited to do article moves and redirects then the process would lose its weightiness. I do not want AfD diluted. It is still okay to call for an article to become a redirect during AfD, but no article should be nominated for the purpose of raising a redirect discussion without the possibility of deletion of the history. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:00, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose change to the current system at AfD. Advocacy for redirect is rare; sometimes the situation calls for it — such as, for example, Kimberly Q. Smith, founder of XYZ Corp. may not be notable under GNG, but her company is. In this case it makes perfect sense to advocate for a redirect (that is, for deletion, leaving a redirect). This proposal is another example of instruction creep, I feel — don't try to fix what isn't broken. Carrite (talk) 19:24, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support, but I think it should only be done when the redirection is controversial. Be bold and redirect it yourself, and if someone disagrees with that redirection, then it should be permissible to take it to AfD. This is especially useful on pages that don't get a whole lot of traffic, if any, to the article talk page (I've encountered that problem before, and it's really frustrating to try to figure out what to do). Tavix |  Talk  01:24, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
• Not in this form. I agree that the current system of dealing with redirection/merger requests that are either relatively complex or particularly contested is inadequate. Yes, talk page RFCs, but the purpose behind AFD is a neutral venue. I don't think the solution is as simple as dropping these cases into AFD, however. It's both likely to strain the effort of AFD's contributor pool (which already struggles to keep up with the churn, as the insane volume of daily relists demonstrates), but also the technical demands of the system (which scales poorly and would risk transclusion limits). I would be more likely to support some sort of parallel clearinghouse system that attempts to attract neutral attention to pending merger and redirection requests, although I'm not precisely certain the best way to accomplish that in a manner that would actually function. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 18:34, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
• Handle at proposed mergers This is the place to handle such ideas since this is quite similar to merging. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 02:23, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

  Y'all think the AfD backlog is big, I think that's nothing compared to the backlog at WP:WikiProject Merge. That project already has had over a hundred Articles to be merged after an Articles for deletion discussion dumped into its lap. You say that AfD risks being snowed under by WP:Deletion by redirection proposals, well, WikiProject Merge, whose original mandate was to deal with WP:content forks, i.e. duplicate articles covering the same topic, with the same scope (e.g. two biographies of the same person), has already been snowed under by WP:Summary style "deletion by merging" proposals! And it's not uncommon for these discussions to fail to discuss or determine what to merge. Just to take a hypothetical example. Say that a decision has been made to merge "Obscure Minor OS" into the Operating system article, because its article is "just a stub" and is "unlikely to be expanded". How the heck am I supposed to merge that piece of relative trivia into a major article without giving the trivia undue weight? Just redirect it you say. So readers searching for "Obscure Minor OS" are redirected to a lengthy article which says absolutely nothing about the topic they're looking for. What's the point of that? It's not helpful. Wbm1058 (talk) 19:36, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support. There should not be any artificial distinction between where to discuss "this should be redirected and the history kept" and "this should be redirected and the history deleted". The only reasonably place to discuss the latter is AfD, so the former should happen there as well. RfD would be the only other potentially logical place to host these discussions, but RfD is not a competent venue for this - it is underwatched and not populated by subject experts. When articles have been converted to a redirect without a discussion and the redirect subsequently nominated for deletion, RfD regularly restores the prose and sends it to AfD. Thryduulf (talk) 00:43, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose A proposal to change an article to a redirect doesn't need to come to AfD, as the content can easily be restored by another editor. Like any other major content removal, such a proposal should normally be posted on the talk page first; if this had not been done, a restoration of content would no doubt win support if challenged. If the history has gone, then the article is much more difficult to view and reinstate, and that's why the more extensive AfD process is appropriate there: Noyster (talk), 16:46, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose - It is not necessary to use AFD in order to attract community attention to a proposed redirect even if the article is poorly watched. A proposed redirect, like many other types of changes, can always be brought to community attention by an RFC. AFD should be used, as its name implies, when deletion is the proposed option. If deletion is not proposed, use some other mechanism, such as RFC. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:26, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support giving the OP in an AfD discussion the option to recommend redirect in their nominating statement, for exactly the reasons that Ad Orientem eloquently put: "There is currently no effective mechanism for getting around one or two determined obstructionist editors when it comes to deleting an article by redirect. In theory seeking consensus on a talk page discussion sounds wonderful. But the reality is that all too often the article is on an obscure topic that generates little interest among other editors." Moreover, as others have identified, a redirect is functionally a delete. And it is always good to centralize discussion. Neutrality^talk 02:16, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
• Strong support AfDs close as redirect all the time, so preventing editors from requesting that in the first place sounds like bureaucratic nonsense to me. I'm all for some bold WP:D-R, but for controversial pages, especially where there has already been disagreement or an AfD in the past, AfD is a much more sensible and natural way of dealing with this than an RfC. --BDD (talk) 19:22, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

No consensus to change existing policy and practice, and the case is well made that that this would be process creep. Guy (Help!) 18:02, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

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There was a recent addition by Philg88 which was reverted by Kww. The idea was that, if WP:BEFORE had not been followed, then this might be grounds for a speedy keep. The opposition is based on the idea that WP:BEFORE is entirely optional but I see some recent incidents which indicate that we should expect reasonable compliance:

1. Fram warns an editor: "if you continue to nominate articles for deletion which are about notable subjects (as established after spending some effort on Google searches), you will be blocked."
2. Ravenswing warns another editor: "you failed to make the cursory checks for sources that WP:BEFORE requires BEFORE you file an AfD. It would be the best thing for you to do to pull ALL these nominations, until the point where you have the time to take the required steps before filing an AfD. I'm afraid the alternative to you doing this within a day is to take this to WP:ANI for further action."

Note that AFD is now overloaded to the point that the daily listing pages can't cope - see Daily AfD pages are getting too long. This indicates that there ought to be more vigorous use of the speedy keep process to terminate weak nominations and so reduce the clutter and noise.

Andrew (talk) 12:21, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:BEFORE contains lots of clutter and is sometimes used by some people as a weapon to dismiss perfectly valid AfD's. Much of it can't be checked anyway (have you really checked whatlinkshere and read the talk page and so on?). Other things are plainly weird ("Confirm that the article does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, proposed deletion or speedy keep." What, an article that can be Prod'ded may not be at AfD?) More seriously, BEFORE contains things like "If an article has issues try first raising your concerns on the article's talk page, with the main contributors, or an associated WikiProject, and/or adding a cleanup tag, such as "notability", "hoax", "original research", or "advert"; this ensures readers are aware of the problem and may act to remedy it." This is rarely, if ever, followed, and should not be a reason to speedykeep (or even keep) an article. So making the current WP:BEFORE a requirement would be a very bad idea and would give a few unreasonable inclusionist warriors to much of a weapon to dismiss AfDs on proecdural grounds (note: most people are neither unclusionist nor deletionist, and most self-declared inclusionists are not unreasonable or warriors; but a few can cause a lot of disruption if you give them the tools for it).

So, while I think that some parts of BEFORE should be followed (like, don't nominate something for lack of notability without having searched for evidence to the contrary first), as a whole it is much too long and strong and generally ignored anyway, so I too oppose making it a requirement or a Speedy Keep reason. Fram (talk) 12:32, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose- Really we don't expect any more from AfD nominators than that they make a decent effort to look for sources, and make a coherent case for deleting the article. Other participants in the discussion are capable of judging the article based on its merits. I don't like the idea of people trying to invalidate AfDs by pointing out that the nominator hasn't ticked off one of a list of largely meaningless tasks. Reyk _YO! 12:55, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose: if the problem is that AFD queues are getting too large, my first approach would be deal with the artificial template limit. Next would be to deal with editors that disrupt the PROD and Speedy Delete processes and artificially place an unreasonable load on AFD.—Kww(talk) 13:17, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
• Neutral - I disagree with Fram and Reyk on the premise that WP:BEFORE is optional, believe it is anything but, and think that unambiguous language on it being mandatory to filing an AfD ought to go in, if there are still confused editors. (This, of course, isn't the place for such a discussion, any more than it's the proper venue to discuss WP:BEFORE's shortcomings.) On the other hand, "Speedy Keep" would be more disruptive than the problem it solves. Too many AfDs is a problem for which solutions need to address the underlying issue, not produce gimmicks. The parade of endless renominations, especially where there IS a consensus, has to stop. The ability of diehard inclusionists disrupting the PROD system without needing the slightest justification, that has to end. Ravenswing 17:47, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
• Weak support I've modified my position based on further consideration of the situation. My intention in making the change was to cut down the number of frivolous Afds that just clutter up the queue and waste everybody's time. I now think that imposing WP:BEFORE as a requirement is probably over the top. What I would still like to see is the rider "and taken reasonable steps to search for reliable sources" added at the end of "Applicability 3", which I think goes far enough.  Philg88 ^♦talk 04:44, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
  • But that only makes sense if the nomination is about notability / verifiability. If the nomination reason is e.g. "just a dicdef", or "POVfork of X" or whatever, then your proposed addition wouldn't make any sense. Fram (talk) 07:21, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
    • Fair point, Fram. Adding "where applicable" would cover the non notability/verifiability cases but as I said, I'm not that hung up on adding anything beyond what's already there. Mkativerata's points below further weaken my support for any change.  Philg88 ^♦talk 08:46, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose, both the principal proposal and Phgilg88's alternative. Both are well-intentioned, and at first glance appear sensible. WP:BEFORE is very important. But on further examination the proposals would have quite a deleterious effect on AfD.

• First, there is no evidence that there is a problem. It was a problem when I started editing six years ago. It is not a significant problem now. By my very rough estimate, about three in every four AfD nominations are closed as "delete" these days. Whatever the actual rate, it's probably higher than it has ever been. That rate reflects not that 'deletionists' have 'won' but that the vast majority of nominators now follow WP:BEFORE and follow it carefully. As Kww says, if the AfD logs are getting too long, that is for other reasons, and there are other solutions.
• Second, WP:BEFORE, while very important to comply with, should not be made mandatory. There are AfDs where the nominator has plainly failed to follow WP:BEFORE, yet the nomination is still perfectly good and the article should be deleted. We should be more concerned with the substance of whether an article should be deleted and not the process by which a nomination takes place. WP:BEFORE violations are properly dealt with as a user conduct issue. Trouts usually do the job without needing to progress further.
• Third, the speedy keep criteria need to be clear and objective. That is because they are a mechanism to shut down discussions early, and can be controversial when deployed. This criterion would not be clear or objective. How do we assess whether a nominator has taken reasonable steps to search for reliable sources? Do they need to certify to that effect? What are "reasonable steps"?
• Fourth, it is a recipe for wikilawyering, especially in light of my third point. It is not hard to see how an editor seeking to shut down an AfD could use the speedy keep mechanism to do so, claiming (just on a hunch, without evidence, etc) that the nominator had failed to follow WP:BEFORE. It is best just to let these nominations sit for seven days while the nominator collects trouts. And we always have WP:SNOW as well. --Mkativerata (talk) 07:54, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

• Support in principal, though I'm not sure what the wording should be. We do need a way to shut down mass nominations quickly. They are still a significant problem, especially by way of PROD. Sometimes it will be very obvious that the nominator is not looking for sources. WP:BEFORE certainly should be mandatory, even if it could be improved. James500 (talk) 08:37, 25 November 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - I agree wholeheartedly with Mkativerat's four-point statement on why this is a bad idea. Neutrality^talk 02:27, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.