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This forum is for discussion closers to discuss their evaluation of consensus in preparation for closing specific discussions, such as pending XfD, RM, or RfC closes. Any editor who intends to close a discussion, and has concerns about how consensus in that discussion should be assessed is welcome to initiate a discussion here.

Please note that this is not a place to discuss the merits of the underlying matter. It is solely for discussing whether a consensus can be discerned in a discussion, and how the discussion should be closed on the basis of a finding of consensus, or of an absence of consensus. Editors who are involved in discussions of the merits should generally avoid engaging in extensive discussion of how consensus in those discussions should be interpreted.

This is also not a venue for review of discussions that have already been closed; the appropriate place for such a request will generally be Wikipedia:Move review or Wikipedia:Deletion review. This forum is also not for requests that a discussion be closed; the appropriate place for such a request will generally be Wikipedia:Closure requests.

I've read over the proposed merge of Nuseirat refugee camp massacre into 2024 Nuseirat rescue operation and wanted to get some feedback to make sure I did everything correctly. Since this is a sensitive topic I want to make sure I'm doing things correctly and if I've made a mistake or overlooked something I would really appreciate some help and resources so I can be better. Dr vulpes (Talk) 05:56, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Dr vulpes (Talk) 05:56, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Assuming it's a reasonably accurate summary (I've read none of the discussion), then that looks good to me. If you are curious, as of right now, there have been 179 comments by 71 people in that discussion. Some editors seem to be comforted by some reference to the number of people voting for/against., though IMO you have correctly focused on the reasons.

I suggest waiting a day or two after posting the closing summary before trying to edit the articles. Hot-button topics sometimes provoke unwarranted WP:CLOSECHALLENGEs by anyone who feels their side "lost", and if you wait for the reaction to happen first, you might prevent a few needless edits/reverts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:37, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks that's some good advice, I didn't think about letting everything calm down for a little bit before moving things around. Dr vulpes (Talk) 06:41, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Don't forget to summarize the discussion. Just like if you were reading secondary sources and then using those to write a Wikipedia article, in my opinion a good close should involve reading the RFC and then summarizing it in your close. I would expect to find something like "X side argued Y, Z, and A, B side argued C, D, and E" in there somewhere. after reviewing the sources in both articles I am not seeing a clear bifurcation that would warrant two articles sounds a bit WP:SUPERVOTEy. As an RFC closer it is arguable if you should actually be reading a bunch of sources, but rather you should be letting the RFC participants read those sources for you and you just summarize the participants. what I believe is the best and most sensible path forward This could also be seen as a bit SUPERVOTEy. You shouldn't really be posting too many of your own opinions, but rather summarizing the discussion, and ideally only bringing in your own opinion if there is a major breach of Wikipedia policy that needs to be pointed out. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:50, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks and I agree, there was a point made about making two articles and I was trying to point out that in other cases the sources warranted two articles but that this case it doesn't. But that it might in the future seeing that this happened a few months ago and not years like other topics. I like the idea of summarizing both sides, that adds to it in a much more sustative way. Dr vulpes (Talk) 06:55, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Courtesy link: Talk:2024 Nuseirat rescue operation#Proposed merge of Nuseirat refugee camp massacre into 2024 Nuseirat rescue operation –Novem Linguae (talk) 11:37, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You pointed that I am aware of the issue of the name of the merged article, that is a different discussion then what is happening here. This is indeed not a different discussion at all, as the name of the merged article defines its scope (and thus what is merged), and a very large number of !votes were conditional on having a neutral title for the merged article. Since the move discussion was closed as "no consensus" (and thus not moved, although it could be reopened after the merger), I believe it isn't reasonable to discount those !votes like this by claiming that is not what this merger is about. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 09:10, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm confident in my read of the consensus here but much less confident in how I've phrased my close. There are very few guidelines on how to write closing summaries so I'm looking for some feedback on my close here. I understand there's quite a bit of leeway in closing summaries, but I'm still concerned my close might be too long (?) or might lack enough detail (?) or might fail to address key points (?). I would very much appreciate a second pair of eyes on this. ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 19:27, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Freedom4U, thanks for doing this. I glanced over the discussion, which has 199 comments from 40 editors, but I did not read it. Overall, I think you did a good job. I'll start with two small weaknesses, neither of which seem like they would have any effect on the outcome:

It is possible that your summary could be faulted – though I would expect this only from editors who feel they "lost" and are grasping at straws in the hope that WP:Close challenge would let them "win" – for saying that past precedent that has not been codified in an official written rule is less important than the written rules, citing Wikipedia:Consensus can change. However, Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines and WP:NOTBURO disagree, with the latter saying "the written rules themselves do not set accepted practice".

It is also possible that your statement that brand-new accounts were discounted could be challenged. That is something the community routinely does, especially in smaller discussions, but it often prefers that to pretend that everyone is equal on wiki.

I particularly like your line that "arguments based on verifiability alone were given less weight over points that considered the weight and context of sources". I think this is a good way to explain the limitations of what amounts to a Wikipedia:Search engine test in this particular case. Context matters a lot in this case, and I agree with you the keyword-based attempts at source analysis were weak on that point.

I'm also glad that you mentioned the vote count, because I feel like that is important to less-experienced (or less-indoctrinated) editors. People who mistrust an analysis on the basis of argument strength can often accept that they have lost the majority vote, so when the two align, it seems like a good idea to mention both.

Again, overall, I think you did a good job with the closing statement, and I hope that will bring some resolution to that article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for taking the time to do this and for the points brought up here. In the future, how do you think I should address arguments that only point to other articles when closing discussions? My understanding is that the community generally views these sorts of arguments as weak, given simply pointing to other articles doesn't mean there is an official or unofficial consensus (e.g. articles can be changed anytime by anyone, individual contexts are always different, a lack of discussion does not necessarily imply consensus, etc.).

Your second point is also helpful, I think I've misinterpreted a suggestion to discount these users in some cases, to instead be a rule. Although I noticed that there was a discussion about potential sockpuppetry in the last RfC on the article page, there probably wasn't any good reason for me to say that. ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 20:46, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that there is a single ideal way to handle either of these situations. "Pointing to other articles" can be a case of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS ("He broke the [notability] rules, so I should get to break the rules, too") or a demonstration of precedence ("We have a lot of similar articles, and most of them...").

For example, one of the first comments in that RFC is me giving an example of an article about an doctor infamously convicted of murdering multiple patients, followed by an editor saying that having a nursing license is the most important point, so we should follow the example shown in some other articles. Which example should we follow? I don't know; we didn't pursue it. If we had, I might have said that in a third of his six examples, the murderer's status as a nurse was irrelevant, that half of them involved Americans (so a possible AmEng/BrEng difference), a third of them involved men, etc., but I probably would have found the article on Beverley Allitt to be very similar, and therefore its approach worth considering.

OTOH, neither of us attempted to establish that there was a single preferred style in use. If that could be demonstrated, then that should be accepted as a sign of what the community's usual practice is. For example, we can demonstrate that infoboxes are more common now than they used to be, and they are nearly universal for certain subject areas (e.g., athletes, chemicals, species). So if someone said "All the other articles about this exact subject area have infoboxes", then that would be an indication of the community's usual practices, rather than a case of OTHERSTUFFEXISTS.

The Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry problem is easier if someone makes a big stink about possible socks during the discussion. In that situation, I think the main job is to reassure the participants that you have not been hoodwinked. (In particular, I think some editors are gratified when we can reassure them that the possible socks wasted their time, because the result would be the same either way – your line about "Both before and after discounting" is very good for that.) When the facts are ambiguous, I don't know what to advise. I suspect that the answer is that no matter what you do (or don't do), someone will likely think it was the wrong decision. I also suspect that so long as you do something that feels reasonable and proportionate, it will be supported by the rest of the community. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:35, 7 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've now closed two discussions that are rather contentious, and I'd like if someone could look over them really quickly to make sure I'm not making some obvious mistake that a more experienced closer would avoid. Talk:List of U.S. executive branch czars#RFC Proposal: Kamala Harris as "border czar" in the Biden administration and Talk:Imane Khelif/Archive 4#RfC lead. If anyone wants to take a closer look, I have my notes for the list of U.S. czars discussion and my notes for the Imane Khelif discussion. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 18:56, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Thebiguglyalien you did a good job and it was not easy to weed though everything. No matter what you did someone is going to be upset or displeased. I did't see anything wildly out of place. Here are some notes from the two for you, these are just my opinion and if I'm wrong about something I welcome feedback on the feedback (we're getting real meta now).

• List_of_U.S._executive_branch_czars you made the right call. I'm not really seeing consensus and even if someone leaned towards option 1 it has the same effect as not finding consensus. The more options there are the harder it is to get consensus and I don't have a good way of untangling everything. My only very minor comment would be not to mention votes since that's not how things are decided but given how large the discussion is I see how it makes it a little easier to sort of what was going on.
• Imane Khelif again you made the right call for the two major points that were brought up. I think the "assigned female a birth" took awhile to gain consensus but it showed that consensus does work it just needs time and a willingness to work though the process. I noticed that there were a lot of newer/less experience editors in the discussion which might have explained the discourse a bit. Same note as above about voting, I get why you mentioned it and it's not a big deal. Also the work you put into this with documenting is important and shows you really put a lot of work into it. BLP are sensitive and I am often much more conservative/play it safe when evaluating these types of articles.

Dr vulpes (Talk) 19:59, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think that mentioning votes can be helpful, particularly in 'no consensus' cases. It can reassure people that a slight majority was duly taken notice of (and perhaps prevent someone from wasting time at Wikipedia:Close review). TBUA, if you end up closing a similar discussion in the future, I prefer describing the votes towards the end of the summary, like you did in the second RFC. That might help less experienced people understand that the arguments are primary, and the votes are confirmatory evidence rather than primary.

Another thing that I think is helpful, if you don't feel like tallying votes is relevant, is to give some idea of the volume of the conversation. There were 96 comments from 35 editors in the second RFC. That's enough that we should consider the matter well and truly Discussed™, even if every editor had a different opinion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:09, 22 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't read either of the discussions, but both of your closes are concise, well-structured, and make clear that you are weighing arguments rather than conducting a vote count. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:35, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am preparing to close this discussion and feel a little outside my experience, so I would be grateful for feedback. It is clear that the community overwhelmingly prefers option A; it is also clear that Buidhe has articulated a serious policy objection that requires careful consideration.

I think there remain difficult questions about whether this work is public domain both in France and the United States despite the relevant Commons discussions. On the French side, it seems unclear that this work meets the criteria necessary to enter the public domain 70 years after publication. The information box asserts that the author is anonymous, but I see no indication of this at the source, and while the identity of the author is unknown today, this is quite distinct from the real requirement: that their identity must never have been disclosed. This is more difficult to establish, and I see no compelling arguments establishing it. On the American side, I am dubious that {{PD-US-alien property}} applies. It is clear that the image in question is a colored version of https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10336769n/f25.item, and while it is plausible that the Vichy government held the copyright to the original photo (though this remains unproven), I doubt the French government colored it, and I suspect that coloring a black and white photograph is sufficiently creative to grant a derivative copyright (although input on this point would be appreciated) which the US government would not have seized.

So I think those considerations are sufficient to, at minimum, establish reasonable doubt as to the public domain status of the work. Buidhe contended that this is sufficient to bar its use, which sounds correct, but much to my surprise, I cannot find a clear articulation anywhere in English Wikipedia policy of an equivalent to Commons' precautionary principle. Am I just missing it? If it isn't there, is it reasonable to say that this is an oversight and we ought, out of proper deference to the law, to behave as though it were policy? Input on these questions and everything else I've expressed is appreciated. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:23, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You're not missing it; we don't have a matching rule. It doesn't usually matter, because Commons has the rule, which then affects us.

I wonder if you would rather join the conversation instead of writing the closing summary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:42, 6 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Compassionate727, if you're still working on a closing summary, I think you could write a summary that says something like "Editors prefer X", and if the preferred one happens to be the one for which the copyvio concern was raised, add something like "Obviously, if editors later conclude that X is a copyvio, then we can't use that, and..." (the clear second choice would be Y, or editors will need to have another discussion). You could also add links to the relevant discussions at Commons, briefly note their conclusions, and recommend that anyone who is concerned about the copyright situation follow up on that in some suitable forum. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:59, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have decided to follow your original advice and vote. Given the policy and legal issues, I believe it would have been within my prerogative as a closer to find a consensus against using this image... but I don't really want to deal with the drama that might ensue. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 11:24, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This would have been the route I would taken. The editor who created the RFC is now topic banned from infobox discussions so I doubt there's going to be much drama about the close. Nemov (talk) 14:51, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Had I closed the discussion the way I wanted to, I could legitimately have been accused of supervoting. I don't know that I would've been—that depends on how passionate and procedurally literate the participants are—but... well, sometimes it's better to be humble, take a step back, and let others do things too. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 18:10, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations on finding a way out of that. I think you're right: there was an above-average risk of drama. This way, you are helping shape the consensus. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:23, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]