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Relisting uncontested moves[edit]

The note under WP:RM#Backlog currently reads "Elapsed listings fall into the backlog after 24 hours. Consider relisting 8-day-old discussions with minimal participation." I propose changing the 2nd sentence to "Consider relisting 8-day-old discussions with no consensus and minimal participation." Running through the backlog today I've noticed that there's a tendency to relist requested moves which have received little participation even if nobody has objected to the move. IMO if nobody has objected to the move, then the discussion should be closed and the page moved. If there is a reason not to move the page, then the correct response is to oppose the move, not to relist the discussion. -- Aervanath (talk) 16:16, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree, although I'd suggest to "Consider relisting 8-day-old discussions with no consensus." – relisting uncontested proposals is a failure of WP:NOTBURO IMO. If no-one has objected to a move after a week, it can reasonably be considered uncontroversial and should be processed. Cheers, Number 57 20:15, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Not added to list[edit]

Lewis Cass, Jr. had a move request added a few days ago, but it has not been placed on the requested moves current discussion subpages by a bot.67.173.23.66 (talk) 18:52, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

It looks good to me. I see it listed at WP:RM under January 21, 2022. Station1 (talk) 01:21, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Request to speedy close[edit]

Talk:Manny SD Lopez had another RM opened hours after the first one closed. Howard the Duck (talk) 12:02, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Howard the Duck: the previous RM was closed as "no consensus", and this one proposes a different target. Looks fine to me, procedurally. No such user (talk) 12:18, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Noted, but this was sorta touched upon the previous RM, and the proposer didn't answer that suggestion until the original RM was closed. Howard the Duck (talk) 12:22, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Is there a Requested Moves log?[edit]

Is there a log somewhere of all the articles that have been moved as a result of being listed at Requested Moves? Rreagan007 (talk) 04:06, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Rreagan007, the closest thing to a log is Wikipedia:Requested moves/Article alerts and its archives. On my back-back burner is to make my bot create something, but that's something I may never get to. Also, for individual pages, their talk may or may not have an {{Old moves}} template or similar. – wbm1058 (talk) 04:15, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

I made a web app 3 years ago that indexed all RM discussions up to that point and allows searching them in various ways (e.g. you can sort by number of participants in the discussion, or by date; this page lists articles that have the most RM discussions; this page groups discussions by the policies invoked in those discussions - e.g. here are all discussions invoking WP:INCDAB; it also has a fun afdstats-style user stalking feature - e.g. @Rreagan007:, here are the statistics about your RM participation up to 2019). I don't think anyone ever really used it other than me (maybe my fault for not advertising it), so I never bothered to update it with more recent data. If you're curious, you can read about the scraping strategy I used here. Wbm1058's idea of using the history of Wikipedia:Requested moves/Article alerts is a clever one that I didn't think of, but it looks like the page only goes back as far as June 2016 (whereas my dataset includes RMs from much earlier than that). Colin M (talk) 19:24, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

review please?[edit]

Can somebody please look at this move of Republic of Afghanistan to Republic of Afghanistan (1973—1978) (with an em dash)? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 18:47, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Fourthords, I filed a request to revert the move at WP:RMTR. Rublov (talk) 20:30, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Given that, I hope I wasn't out of line in reverting this edit at Template:Country data Republic of Afghanistan. Please correct me if I was in the wrong. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 21:36, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Fourthords, No you weren't wrong , I've moved the article back to its original pending discussion. Cheers Megan B.... ^{It’s all coming to me} till the end of time 21:44, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

"Requests to revert undiscussed moves" template default[edit]

The template listed under the section "Requests to revert undiscussed moves" currently has a default of "discuss=yes". Since this is apparently in conflict with the technical aspect of immediate reversion of "undiscussed moves" upon request on this project page, should not the default in that template be "discuss=no", or else include no "discuss" parameter at all? Note the recent confusion at this edit because the requesting user (me) used the default, which generated an edit for a formal Move Request on the subject article's talk page, which the requesting user (me) executed in good faith. Alternatively, should the template generate a notice on subject article's talk page that a technical request is in process? I'm sorry to disturb you, @Tamzin:, et al. --Bejnar (talk) 14:25, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Talk page not moved[edit]

Resolved

Could an admin look at Talk:Armed Forces of the Philippines, which was not moved with its parent article leading to Talk:Philippine Armed Forces being made? Given the creation of the new page, albeit recent, I am not sure if a histmerge needs to be done or if it can just be cut onto the proper talk page. Thanks, CMD (talk) 11:04, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Sorted out (by ultimately reverting the undiscussed move). There's a nasty bug in MediaWiki when moving an article over redirect: if the article redirect is overwritable but the talk pages aren't, it will issue an unclear prompt and upon confirmation move only the article, with talk pages left intact (and usually divorced from the appropriate article). No such user (talk) 14:21, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, sounds an odd situation. CMD (talk) 17:35, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Updating WP:THREEOUTCOMES[edit]

Is there any objection to changing "Consensus to not move" under WP:THREEOUTCOMES to "not moved?" The latter is the more commonly used phrasing nowadays and is less of a mouthful. Calidum 23:18, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. Colin M (talk) 23:34, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

"Not moved" is ambiguous as it also accurately describes the effect of a "no consensus" closure. How about "consensus against move"? – Uanfala (talk) 23:41, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm not seeing what problem this is solving. "Less of a mouthful" also can mean "less precise". Just plain not-moving-the-article can occur for two pretty different reasons, one being nobody much wanted to move it, the other being because after some vague milling around nobody could decide what to do so nothing was done. I'm not sure that just "not moved" by itself is a sufficiently detailed description for the bolded heading for either case. But maybe I'm wrong, and I'm willing to be convinced. But thanks for asking and bringing it up. It's a reasonable proposition. Herostratus (talk) 02:37, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

I think Calidum's point is that, in practice, when there's consensus against moving, 95% of the time closers summarize this with a bolded "Not moved". It's all well and good to say that what they really should be writing is X, but how are you going to get closers to actually modify their behaviour? It looks like RMCI was edited in 2018 to try to establish "Consensus not to move" as the preferred verbiage over "Not moved", but 4 years later it still doesn't seem to have taken hold. Colin M (talk) 03:30, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I would prefer the closing instructions follow what actually happens in practice rather than some theoretically superior wording. Not only is "not moved" the more commonly used term, it's unambiguous in the vast majority of cases. I would also note "not moved" was listed as an alternative to "consensus not to move" until November when it was removed by the one user who seems to raise a stink about this issue [1]. Calidum 16:28, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support. That way it will match the script User:TheTVExpert/rmCloser, which also uses "not moved" to indicate consensus against the move. Vpab15 (talk) 09:59, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
• Also support a revert back to "Not moved". "Consensus to not move" in boldface type is overkill imho, so let's go back to what most closers use anyway. Since there is some ambiguity between "not moved" and "no consensus", I usually close with "Not moved per consensus garnered below," or similar. Maybe we should find a better way to get the correct info about "not moved" out to those editors who close RMs. WP:RMCI is considered by some to be a rather obscure, unvetted page, and yet closers should have a deep understanding of its content and why all those closure requirements should be done. Also, just as an important side note, NONE of the three outcomes need to be in italics. That's just more overkill – imho of course. P.I. Ellsworth - ed. ^put'r there 13:49, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Support (with caveat) "Not moved" has been used for a while, and is mostly used to indicate with consensus but can be ambiguous I'd suggest that a some advice be added to strongly suggesting the that closing statement impart if their was a consensus or not. Perhaps adding "The close should make clear if there was a firm consensus or not." before the list of options. Ambiguities in closes for "not moved" have regularly ended up at MR. PaleAqua (talk) 17:58, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support. "Not moved" has basically become the de facto standard way of saying "Consensus to not move" in closing a RM discussion for quite some time. It can and should be explicitly stated at WP:THREEOUTCOMES that when a RM is closed as "not moved" that that means there was consensus to not move the article. Rreagan007 (talk) 01:54, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose entrenching jargonesque practices. It is a bad practice by RM closers, and makes for poor closing statements for main audience, being non-RM regular editors who edit articles and occasionally browse talk pages. Documenting "what closers use" is not justified if their practice increases barriers. User talk:Paine Ellsworth's points about bold and italics are unimportant, or at least I don't have an opinion. The important point is clarity to a casual, non-RM regular, editor.

Example good close opening sentences are:

* "The result of the discussion below is consensus to not move".

* "The result of the discussion below is consensus to move to New title".

* "The result of the discussion below is no consensus. <Necessarily explanation>".

also fine is

* "Not moved per consensus garnered below, ..."

The shorthand "not moved" is ambiguous about consensus. It is ambiguous about whether there was consensus or not, and much worse, it is ambiguous about whether the closing of the discussion was an exercise in looking for consensus, as opposed to authoritarian decision making, or vote counting, or some technical detail in the closer's further explanation. All regular editors know closing discussions is about finding consensus, but (sources somewhere we could look) the most important editors for Wikipedia in terms of content added are not regular editors, but IPs and editors who nearly never edit talk pages. This broad group of editors should be accommodated by simple closing statements that can be read at face value, at least in the first sentence of the closing statement.

Title changes are perhaps the most important interactions between encultured Wikipedians and drive-by editors, and I have seen plenty of cases where the drive-by editors are somewhat excluded by the opaque nature of titling policy and RM process. WP:RMCI should never lock in sloppy practice that is convenient for closers at the expense of simple clarity, but should encourage best practice. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:37, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

I also wonder whether THREE in THREEOUTCOMES is not quite right, as "consensus to move but WP:NOGOODOPTIONS" might be considered not one of the three. SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:45, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

There are sometimes situations in which the three outcomes are combined into four, five, and so on. Multiple proposals where consensus is to move one or two and not move one or two, NOGOODOPTIONS where consensus is to move but there is no consensus where to move, and so on. KISS, or Keep It Simple SmokeyJoe. P.I. Ellsworth - ed. ^put'r there 04:13, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

I consider these cases to be bungled bundles. In a bundled multipage RM all the multiple pages are supposed to have all the same story.

I think we might agree, WP:RMCI is in parts overly BOLDly written? SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:51, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes, and one overly bold edit imho was Not moved to Consensus to not move. Overly bold overkill in more ways than one, again imho. P.I. Ellsworth - ed. ^put'r there 05:10, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Would you support "Consensus to not move"?

I think "The consensus below is to not move" is better. "Consensus" is found in the discussion; "consensus" is not the declaration of the closer. SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:31, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

For the same reason you suggested we be up front with the page move in the first sentence, e.g. "Moved to new title with no consensus per...", the Moved, Not moved or No consensus should be right up front, the first words in the first sentence. They should be the very first words that readers see. P.I. Ellsworth - ed. ^put'r there 08:40, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

• The main problem is that the premise of the section is wrong. There are not three possible outcomes. Generally, there are only two possible outcomes (per page). A page is either moved or not moved. The section conflates possible reasons for a closer's decision with the decision itself and the closer's consequent action (or lack of action). "No consensus" and "consensus to not move" are two of several possible reasons for an outcome, not an outcome itself. (No consensus, incidentally, can in rare cases be a reason for moving a page back to a recent stable title after an undiscussed move). A closer should state, first, whether the page (or each page, in a multi-move RM) was moved or not moved, and then give their reason for that outcome. It is the act of moving or not moving that is important. The closer's reason for that action is important only if the outcome is challenged, and carries only as much weight as other editors are willing to give it. Station1 (talk) 06:20, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

  Agreed. eg. "The result of the discussion is no consensus for the current title, which means move back to <Old title>, the status quo ante", or to "<Old title>, the first post-stub version, per WP:RETAIN".

  Maybe the section title

  WP:Requested moves/Closing instructions#Three possible outcomes

  should be changed to

  WP:Requested moves/Closing instructions#Write a clear closing statement

  -- SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:19, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, I think the three outcomes thing may be overblown anyway. The distinction between no consensus and not moved is really not that big anyway, other than possibly differing lengths of time after which it's "acceptable" to argue the whole thing again. This leads to pointless arguments with closers and sometimes even appeals at MRV, when the actual practical outcome is not in doubt.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:34, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

  • Basically, there are not just two possible outcomes for a move request. Yes, there are two possible outcomes for the page in question, but that does not help closers. When it comes to RMs, there are three possible basic outcomes, just as there have been for several years:
    1. Not moved, which means that there is agreement in the RM to keep the current title,
    2. Moved, which means that there is consensus in the RM to rename the page, and
    3. No consensus, which means that there is no agreement in the RM to either keep the current title or rename it to the proposed title, and this usually results in the page staying with its current title; however, that is not always the case.

That's the cake, and everything else is icing. P.I. Ellsworth - ed. ^put'r there 09:04, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support the original proposal. It is the long-standing tradition to use the three-pronged ("Not moved"/"Moved"/"No consensus") approach as described by Paine. Despite possible ramifications (NOGOODOPTIONS etc.) those should be the first words that readers see, and this page mostly became divorced from practice, which is never a good thing for a process-related page. The attempt to "fix" the wording and acquire "more precision" only resulted in mixed practices and ambiguity as to whether "not moved" exactly means. No such user (talk) 09:30, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
• Reword to "Stay / Don't move" XfD's close with a specific action: Keep, delete, redirect, merge. Not sure how RM came to the verbose "consensus to not move" versus an action like "stay" or "don't move". "Not moved" is the end status, not the closer's action. And "Not moved" could have resulted from a no consensus.—Bagumba (talk) 09:35, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
  • ? "Not moved" could have resulted from a no consensus. So could "Stay / Don't move", eh? "Not moved" has had the meaning of "consensus seen below to keep the current title" for many years here at RM. No matter how they're worded, the three basic outcomes still apply the same as they have for many years. If we try to change them now ("consensus to not move" is a recent change from "not moved") we'll just add to the present confusion. I think No such user nailed it with "The attempt to 'fix' the wording and acquire 'more precision' only resulted in mixed practices and ambiguity..." That is quite descriptive of "instruction creep". P.I. Ellsworth - ed. ^put'r there 10:11, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
    • Ha. Well I'm more used to no consensus in XfDs being closed explicity as "No consensus" and not "Keep". Barring new wording to be more intuitive, I'd defer to whatever was the last stable version.—Bagumba (talk) 10:42, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

      I think the status quo is better, where the closer expresses their decision as a fait accompli rather than as an action. If they say "don't move", this resembles one of the !votes in the discussion, suggesting it is a future course of action, rather than "not moved", which is the final decision in the past tense.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:27, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

      “The closer expresses their decision”? That is very poorly put. Closes are not the decision of the closer. SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:27, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

      In a way you are correct and I agree with you. Technically, the community decides whether or not to rename the page. The community comprises the editors involved in the RM and whatever PAGs (community consensuses) are used to support or oppose the page move. The closer ideally is not involved in that decision. The closer has to make a different kind of decision. The closer decides what the consensus is. The closer must analyze the survey and discussion and decide what the involved editors' combined !votes and rationales "add up to" for the disposition of the page. That's the decision I think Amakuru describes above. What is the consensus? We decide that the consensus is this or that or the other, and whether or not there actually is a consensus. It's kind of like a boxing match where the judges make a decision following each round. The fighters are deciding which punch to make, should I left jab or something else, while the judges assess their performance after each round. Both the fighters and the judges are making decisions, just different kinds of decisions. When I close, I sometimes feel like one of those judges, but instead of two fighters I have a friggin' ten- to thirty-editor melee on my hands. P.I. Ellsworth - ed. ^put'r there 15:07, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

      Paine Ellsworth, that’s exactly right. The closer’s job is to determine whether there is consensus, and, if so, what it is, and express that decision in the closing statement. That decision is what can be challenged by others at MR. —В²C ☎ 16:11, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support - given that this is de facto the way that everyone writes a "consensus not to move" close, it does more harm to omit it from the instructions than to keep it. At least someone who doesn't understand a "not moved" can then find or be pointed in the direction of that instruction. SmokeyJoe, with respect there doesn't seem to be too much support for your strong objection to this and it may be a hill you don't wish to die on at this time. Perhaps in an ideal world we'd "educate" all the closers out there and make them all comply with some other terminology, but that seems like it would be a lot of work for not a huge gain. As noted above, we also have the same issue with "Keep" closes at AFD, since "keep" is the default result there even if there's no consensus.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:24, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

  There are no stakes here for me, this is not a hill with a risk of dying for.

  Clearer closing statements for the non-regulars is for the good of the project, not for me.

  I am surprised at the lack of concern for reducing barriers to newcomers. These instructions inform the script writers that closers use for convenience, so it is not an question of educating closers, but of getting the scripts to write default closes more clearly. The issue seems to be with closers using scripts.

  XfDs are less of an issue because AfDs are not held on article talk pages, and, I’ve never come across Andy XfD closes being criticised for being ambiguous, yet it happens at MRV a fair bit. SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:23, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

  At AfD, it is commonly written “no consensus, which defaults to keep”. The closers there do write for the uninitiated. SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:24, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah, I don't disagree with anything you say. It does make life a little harder for newcomers. But the entire RM process can be a little confusing for them anyway - many first-timers think it's their job to close their own requests for example. But realistically we're not going to effect a wholesale change in all of our closers, short of correcting them one by one every time they effect a "Not moved" close. Better to document that it happens than to just have leave newbies wondering why so many closes don't correspond to what's written in the instructions.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:13, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

  A wholesale change will come from consensus here to tell the helper script writers to code for unambiguous statements. SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:32, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

  “Better to document that it happens”? In that case, the documentation needs to be linked from somewhere where the audience is reading. Normal editors do not casually read RMCI.

  An XfD example close is “ The result of the discussion was: Speedy deleted”. The action, in past tense, correctly implies that the action occurred without reference to the discussion below.

  Writing the outcome in a fait accompli past tense does imply that the action was independent of the discussion below. It’s ambiguous, unclear. SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:53, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support. Like in many other social endeavors (law, engineering, science, sports, social media, etc etc) , WP has developed its own terminology. For example, the meaning of “consensus” on WP is distinct from the dictionary definition. We don’t intend the literal dictionary definitions for many of the terms used in discussions about what we do here. This is normal. We need concise ways to convey specific meanings; it’s inefficient to spell it out every time. This is one of those cases. Yes, “not moved” in and of itself conveys literally only that there was no move, not why. In particular, taken literally, it doesn’t indicate whether there was no move due to a lack of “consensus”, or because there was “consensus” for no move. But what we’re saying here is that we’ve adopted the convention in the context of RM discussions that Not moved means there was no consensus to move. Yes, it’s one of many terms newcomers must learn. That’s why we explain it at WP:THREEOUTCOMES. —В²C ☎ 16:05, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

  It’s not reasonable to expect ordinary editors to go to RMCI to understand close jargon. SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:30, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support a return to Not Moved as it is an explicit statement of the RM result and is unambiguous. That said, the reason the page was not moved could be anyone of many. Over the years I’ve closed a lot of RMs and try hard to explain why a page was not moved in the close when it wasn’t just an obvious result. One of the most difficult reasons to sort out is when RM participants have wandered all over the map proposing alternative names to the original request, merges, deletions, etc. Another is when there is strong support for the move by obviously biased editors who think they own the page, but their rationale clearly contravenes WP policies and guidelines. IMHO, policies and guidelines should take precedent in closing decisions. I would also support the removal of the word winner in the second outcome description. It implies an RM is a contest and should be removed.Mike Cline (talk) 16:37, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

  “Not moved” is ambiguous as to whether it is not moved due to no consensus or due to consensus to not move. SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:29, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support. I think Station1 is spot on that the current language conflates at least two distinct things: the action (or outcome) and the reason. And SmokeyJoe's suggestion to rename the section to WP:Requested moves/Closing instructions#Write a clear closing statement is also good. older ≠ wiser 17:01, 17 February 2022 (UTC)