Wikipedia talk:Requested moves

Closure of talk page entries for a multi-move request?

When a multi-move request is approved, should a bot be closing the entries that were placed on all of the talk pages? Cf. Omega1 Aquarii. Just curious; it seems odd to leave inquiry messages dangling out there. Regards, RJH (talk) 22:21, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Nah, I think most people who see them will look at the timestamp and realise the RM has probably been closed by now. Jenks24 (talk) 23:15, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

If we can get the damn bot ever working again, I think it's not a bad idea that it leaves a terse note like:

Automated note: the discussion has been closed.--User:RM bot 12:00, 10 January 2036 (UTC)

This is what I did in the past before we ever had a bot, and do now that we're manually updating. I don't think it's a pressing issue though.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:48, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

A note to optionally do this (leave a terse note) could be added to Wikipedia:Requested moves/Closing instructions, along with the notes to update or add {{Oldmoves}}, {{Old RM multi}} or {{Oldmove}}. There is no transcluded template or category flagging these messages, so once the RM is closed it would be hard for a bot to find them. The closing instructions are getting pretty complicated, so a possibility would be to see if a new program could be created to assist this closing process. – Wbm1058 (talk) 16:30, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Tenedos

Can someone look at Talk:Tenedos ? Something weird is going on, since a new RM request appeared in an archived RFC section -- 76.65.131.248 (talk) 03:48, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I've removed the tag. There is a bit of an edit war going on over whether the closure was valid or not. In the midst of the un-closing and re-closing, the tag re-appeared and wasn't subsequently removed. I hope the edit war ceases; the discussion needs to take place on the closing admin's talk page or at WP:Move review.--Aervanath (talk) 14:02, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

And it currently is: Wikipedia:Move_review/Log/2012_September_13#Tenedos.--Aervanath (talk) 16:51, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

The problem seems to be that there is no instruction here for the closing person to have done any kind of thorough investigation. Administrators just sort of scan it for any sign of consensus, and, finding none, close, giving information in the edit summary that betrays they don't understand important facts and giving a sort of head-count of dispute participants even though WP:NOTAVOTE states that they are supposed to take into account the strenth of arguments, only, and without asking any questions or checking to make sure that their understandings are correct. In order to come to the correct decision, the adminstrator should be sure to do a thorough investication first, or we will have cases like this. Chrisrus (talk) 19:52, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Can non-admins relist?

I don't see why not, but I thought I'd ask. --BDD (talk) 16:39, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't see why not either. Excepting, of course, editors who are involved in some way. --regentspark (comment) 17:05, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Any situation where a judgement call needs to be made shouldn't be made by a non-admin. If a relist call is made when the situation could reasonably be closed as a move or not moved then a non-admin shouldn't be making it. Non-admins should only act when the situations is 100% obvious one way or the other. -DJSasso (talk) 17:31, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Many non-admins also have good judgement. The only advantage an admin has is that they were chosen to be admins because of their demonstrated good judgement. Difficult decisions are more easily left to admins for that built in credibility reason, but there is no rule that non-admins can not exhibit good judgement - and exercise it. Most of the time the axiom of leaving difficult situations to an admin applies, but not always. Apteva (talk) 02:17, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

But perhaps old discussions with one or no votes could be considered "100% obvious" cases for relisting, I would think? --BDD (talk) 17:45, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

As an admin if there are no votes in it then I would consider it not-controversial and move it personally as opposed to relist. This isn't Afd where relisting to get a better idea is definitely needed since any editor can move an article. But doing such as a non-admin might be considered a controversial close. -DJSasso (talk) 17:48, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Hm. I wish there were more clarity in that area. See the "Backlog" section above. As that title suggests, more editors could help manage this backlog with better defined procedures for such RMs. --BDD (talk) 18:14, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes please, the more editors helping out the better. I made plenty of relists as a non-admin and can't recall it ever being a problem. The only thing to really watch out for is, unlike AfD, we don't relist simply because after a week the nom is the only one to participate – most of the time admins will just close them as moved. Jenks24 (talk) 12:42, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

• If they do it appropriately, then of course. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:04, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

• IMHO, one of the issues that contributes to the backlog in RM, is that there are RMs where the listing rationale and/or the discussion itself provides no clear indication of what should be done. Relisting doesn't solve that, it just delays the RM reaching the backlog again. RMs with zero discussion (and poor rationale) are sometimes difficult because one must ask the question, is the alternative title really appropriate? The hardest RMs to close are those where a move is warranted, but there are multiple suggestions for the new title (many times without any real discussion/consensus to distinquish which title should be chosen. I have no objection with a non-admin relisting an RM, but it probably isn't going to get closed until it hits the backlog again. RM backlog is merely a symptom of a bigger issue, that of an undisciplined RM process. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:37, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Mike on this. Relisting as a means of addressing the backlog problem is merely a cosmetic. The backlog is there because many move discussions are contentious and the closing admin has to be willing to address questions and comments well after the close. Real life issues can make this difficult. I know that I try to close only 2-3 at a time for this reason. However, that's not necessarily a bad thing because it does force admins to be more careful in their closes and backlogged requests do ultimately get addressed. --regentspark (comment) 16:18, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Linking to G6

There has been misused in the past of G6 to move articles without RMs, or even counter RMs. Would it be possible for the G6 list, Category:Candidates_for_speedy_deletion to be linked on the page here so Users can easily click through to it and see if moves are being accomplished using G6? (I don't really understand why this way of circumventing RM even exists) In ictu oculi (talk) 02:28, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

The history: G6 was the original way to request moves which needed admin help. Non-admins can still use it to implement moves which need admin tools to go through. Before admins started paying attention to this page, almost all requested move discussions were evaluated by non-admins, who used G6 to get admin help when needed. As to its use or mis-use now, I couldn't say.--Aervanath (talk) 09:37, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I've added a couple of links in the section Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests:

• Pages transcluding {{db-move}}
• Category:Candidates for uncontroversial speedy deletion

The transclusions link may show pages with malformed {{db-move}} requests (i.e., page to be moved and/or reason for move missing). Malformed db-move requests are not included in categories Candidates for speedy deletion and Candidates for uncontroversial speedy deletion-- the latter category is a subset of the former ({{db-move}}-tagged pages are put in both categories). Wbm1058 (talk) 20:25, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Wbm1058, many thanks for this. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:43, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Multiple requests on one page?

Can we have 2 parallel different move requests on one talk page? --WhiteWriter^speaks 13:30, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I assume you're referring to the example at Talk:Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia, where there are currently two move discussions open:

• Talk:Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia#Proposing a move in good faith
  • Wikipedia:Requested moves/Current discussions#October 05, 2012
• Talk:Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia#Alternate proposal

The second proposal was entered as an untagged new section [1] followed by an edit to post the tag {{Requested move/dated|Military Administration in Serbia}} Wbm1058 (talk) 23:39, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

No. Multiple move suggestions should be consolidated into one section with one move template, which can leave the suggested move blank - and in the section list out the multiple proposals. See next section about verbosity also. Apteva (talk) 05:18, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I will ask for some admin to close second request then. --WhiteWriter^speaks 13:52, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Not necessary. Any editor can do that. Apteva (talk) 01:49, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Verbosity

The move instructions have quite a long suggested text:

"Place here your reasons for the proposed page name change, ideally referring to applicable naming convention policies and guidelines and providing evidence in support where appropriate. If your reasoning is based on search engine results, please provide the results of searches using Google Books or Google News before providing any web results."

What it actually should point out somewhere is that if the move suggestion can not be summarized in one or two sentences it should be separated with a separate signature, one inside the template and one outside, so that what appears on WP:RM will be a short summary. If it can not be easily summarized, simply use (see talk page) ~~~~ and add the full information outside of the template with a signature. WP:RM does not need any of the details, just a very brief indication of the reason for the move. Apteva (talk) 05:18, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

How about:

"Place here a brief reason for the proposed name change."

And outside of the curly brackets add:

"After making the RM request please add a detailed reason for the proposed page name change, ideally referring to applicable naming convention policies and guidelines and providing evidence in support where appropriate. If your reasoning is based on search engine results, please provide the results of searches using Google Books or Google News with links before providing any web results. No Internet links should appear in the above brief reason sentence or sentences."

A lot of what I am having to fix are 1) huge long summaries and 2) no summary at all appearing on WP:RM. The above will fix both of those problems. Apteva (talk) 08:57, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Requesting a single page move

(If your proposal involves moving more than one page—for example, if you will need to move one page, such as a disambiguation page, to move another page to that title—please use the process for "Requesting multiple page moves" below.)

To request a single page move, create a new section at the bottom of the Talk page of the article you want moved. Format it like this:

First edit to talk page:

== Requested move ==
{{subst:requested move|NewName}} Place here a brief reason for the proposed name change. ~~~~

---

Second edit (if needed) to talk page:

A detailed reason for the proposed page name change, ideally referring to applicable naming convention policies and guidelines and providing evidence in support where appropriate. If your reasoning is based on search engine results, please provide the results of searches using Google Books or Google News with links before providing any web results. ~~~~

--Apteva (talk) 21:35, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Requests made by an editor

Is there any way to find move requests made by an editor? It'll be helpful for me to track those later!--Tito Dutta ✉ 05:22, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Actual completed moves, sure. Look up their Move log. Finding current or archived {{move}} requests is a bit harder. You can try a talk page search, but that would include discussions participated in as well as initiated. -- Wbm1058 (talk) 20:31, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Greetings, for the search result I am getting bunch of other discussions where I did not request but posted opinion! Can someone create a tool like AFD vote count? Possible? --Tito Dutta ✉ 23:28, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi, I think it's possible to write pattern-matching code that distinguishes between requests and "votes". I believe you're referring to the AfD Statistics Tool. Its author User:Scottywong has written a number of similar tools. You might want to ask on his talk page if he could write a tool to do this. Wbm1058 (talk) 02:04, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I have requested to create a tool! --Tito Dutta ✉ 06:20, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Not practically possible. I assume you're asking for a tool that will show you every time you have substed a {{move}} template on a talk page? That would require the tool to download every edit you've ever made to an article talk page, as well as the revision directly before all of your edits, so that it can tell whether you added the {{move}} template, or if it was already there when you made your edit. If you have 1000 edits to article talk pages, that means downloading 2000 revisions, which would take forever and monopolize too many server resources. This isn't something that's very well suited for a toolserver tool. -Scottywong| chatter _ 16:56, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Which procedure for new, non-confirmed, users?

"Thirdly, unregistered users and new (non-confirmed) users do not have the capability to move pages. They must request moves using this process." Using this process? Which one do you mean? --Diggan (talk) 02:30, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Doing a quick search, it shows, you have copied the portion from WP:RM page. So, they mean RM by that process, I think! --Tito Dutta (talk) 07:49, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Or if you are trying to follow the process and can not understand where to start, start reading from here: Wikipedia:Requested_moves#Requesting_a_single_page_move. --Tito Dutta (talk) 07:50, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Back up a little. The first question is "which one?" So the answer is that there are two possibilities. If it is a non-controversial move, the instructions are in that section: WP:RM#Requesting technical moves. If it is potentially controversial, then the instructions in Requesting a single page move apply. Apteva (talk) 21:20, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

A question regarding multimoves

Yesterday I committed a minor gaffe here by posting a multimove request for Sakuradamon incident (1860) to be moved to Sakuradamon Incident, and for the article currently located at that title to be moved to Sakuradamon Incident (1932). In my haste, it did not occur to me to check if any article currently existed at Sakuradamon Incident (1932), and only realized now that none does. Would it have been a better idea for me to just move the latter article myself and replace the resulting redirect page with the content from Sakuradamon incident (1860)? What should I do now? Will the bot organizing these moves just do as I request regardless? elvenscout742 (talk) 01:37, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes to the first part and no to the second part. Cut and paste moves lose the page history which is very important, so if a move can not be done, it can be requested in the technical moves section, and an admin will perform the move, retaining the page history. Apteva (talk) 03:06, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

{{RMinc}}

template:RMinc has been nominated for deletion. What template replaced this, since it says its deprecated. So how do you inform someone that their speedy rename was contested? -- 65.92.181.190 (talk) 20:36, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

If someone places a move request in "uncontested", and it is contested, simply delete it from there and (carefully) add it to the "contested" section. From there it will either disappear or result in an RM being created on the article talk page. There is no obligation or requirement to notify the nominator. It is the nominators obligation to monitor the process and if the move does not take place or it is contested and no one else opened the RM, open an RM. Some of the regulars open RM's when clearing out the contested section, but it is not clear that that is required. The bot does the rest. There is no need for the template. See Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 October 20#Template:RMinc. Apteva (talk) 03:21, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

See:

• {{subst:RMcontested}}
• Wikipedia:Template messages/Moving#Requesting technical moves
• WP:RM/TR

– Wbm1058 (talk) 13:04, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Do a thorough investigation before closing

This should say that no administrator should close any thread without first conducting a thorough investigation. If he or she can not do a thorough investigation, he or she should do nothing. Uninformed or misinformed closings should not happen. Unless the administrator understands the issues, he or she should not close. Chrisrus (talk) 13:58, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

A thorough investigation of what, beyond the move discussion? -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:30, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

The facts of the case. The appropriate policies and guidelines. The arguements being made. Chrisrus (talk) 16:44, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

The "facts of the case" are usually in short supply, as opposed to the opinions and arguments of the participants. We could say something like "Administrators are expected to follow Wikipedia policies and to perform their duties to the best of their abilities" (cribbed from WP:NOTPERFECT), but there's nothing specific to the RM process here that I can see. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:50, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

If one cannot determine the important facts of a case, one should not close. They could state that they could not close because they lacked certain key important facts which could not be determined. When looking at a dispute, it may seem that the participants agree about nothing, because the points where they disagree are the focus of attention. One needs to investicate at times to find out what facts are in dispute and which are not in dispute, and whether claims to fact check out or not. Chrisrus (talk) 17:08, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

[I drafted this before the above responses, so this is a question based on your original post] Chrisrus, if there was consensus to add the language you suggest, I'd like to know how you (or the community) would know if an RM closer had not thoroughly investigated the RM before closing. Please address this generically, and do not bias your answers with specific article situations. Specifically what does thoroughly investigate entail? How should the RM closer investigate situations where supporters and opposers use the same evidence but come to different conclusions? This is a fairly common occurrence with Primaryname and Commonname. How does an RM closer investigate situations where supporters and closers are interpreting WP:title, MOS and naming conventions differently, especially where there is a history of limited or no consensus around some particular guideline? Diacritics, capitalization and disambiguation are common stumbling blocks here. How does an RM closer investigate situations where some participants claim that some part of our title policy, MOS and naming conventions trump other parts of policy and other participant’s interpretations are wrong? How do you investigate situations where some participants say a particular source is reliable but others claim it isn't? You suggest that RM closers should not close an RM if they are uninformed. Please describe how you would determine that an RM closer was uninformed when they made the RM decision? The implication of the language you suggest is that there would be some admonition or penalty if an Administrator made an uninformed decision, so it would useful to examine how that might be determined before we add the language. --Mike Cline (talk) 20:55, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Before closing, one should ask quesions such as "You seem to be arguing X", is that correct?", or "On point of fact, what was the price of rice in China in 1942?" or whatever other points of fact that should be needed to arrive at an informed decision. One might find it necessary to ask "Is there any disagreement about point of fact X?" "At this point, I am leaning toward decision X based on line of reasoning Y, why wouldn't this line of reasoning be valid?" "On point of fact, what was the reason that decision X was made in the first place?" Doing this demonstrates to everyone that you are making a good faith effort to make a thorough investigation. I can point you to an investigation of mine which I feel would be a good example, but you may know of a good example you'd like to provide. On the contrary, making demonstrably false or misinformed statements on closing would be a good sign that an uninformed decision had been made. Closers should be careful not to write edit summaries and such on closing that betray that they have a less than good understanding of the facts and reasoning of the case. Chrisrus (talk) 21:46, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

You seem to be suggesting that an RM closer engage participants in the discussion with questions. First, wouldn't that then make the RM closer involved and thus preclude them from closing. Additionally, what if the prospective closer did engage Particpant A with a question, but participant B decided to respond with a completely different position. What happens when the prospective closer asked participant C a question and there is no response? How long does the prospective closer wait for an answer. What if another closer comes by and closes the discussion? I don't think you understand the RM closing process very well. The prospective closer reads the discussion and makes a decision based on an appropriate balance of the consensus (or lack of) in the discussion and the policy/guideline arguments being made along with whatever evidence is presented. The prospective closer may have been following the discussion since it opened and just chose this particular time to close the discussion. You seem to be asking for irrefutable evidence that the closer did in fact act in an "informed" manner but have failed to explain how that would happen. On the edit summary, indeed good advice, although language more suited to an essay, rather than closing instructions. --Mike Cline (talk) 22:57, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Do you have any specific examples where, in your opinion, a sufficiently thorough investigation was not done?

We already have some trouble keeping the backlog of RM under control. As one of the admins who spend a lot of time doing investigations (which I would hope are already thorough) to close RMs, I'm skeptical that this proposal will improve Wikipedia. Interested in evidence of, dare I say, a thorough investigation on which such a proposal might be based. (;-> Andrewa (talk) 20:10, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

General instructions remain while details are added

You are right that it should say more than simply “do a good investigation before closing”. It should detail and explain what should be done. Deleting the new section, however, is making the "even better" the enemy of "the good". Please do add to and detail what arriving at an informed decision would entail. Please do not delete the general instruction that a thorough investigation be made before closing. I hope you will restore that section soon, and I inform that I will re-do it after a reasonable period of time. This discussion above as to what else it should say may proceed while the general instruction remains. Chrisrus (talk) 21:25, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand why we need to add a new section when the section Determining Consensus covers the responsibilities of the RM closer in making the RM decision. What purpose does a duplicate and possibly conflicting section serve? --Mike Cline (talk) 22:43, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Reinstate WT:RMCI

I propose that discussions relating directly to editing the text of Wikipedia:Requested moves/Closing instructions aka WP:RMCI be conducted at Wikipedia talk:Requested moves/Closing instructions. That page currently redirects here (apparently, as decided by a two-day active IP on 11 November 2009‎). --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:49, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Too many talk pages. I would prefer limiting to two - one for WP:MRV, one for WP:RM. Apteva (talk)

Exactly the right number of talk pages. Whenever an editor has a topic relating to just WP:RMCI, they should WP:BOLDly edit the redirect and turn it into a talk page. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:40, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Fixing malformed requests

One of the maintenance functions that I have been doing is editing any long or missing summaries on WP:RM by adding – (see talk page) and copying the signature of the proposer so that it will appear on WP:RM. If the summary is long and has an obvious introductory sentence I have been keeping that sentence by inserting a duplicate sig after it, and adding a newline. Once in a very great while I have had editors complaining about changing their edit, and have not pushed the issue. I think it helps to use a clear edit summary such as "split summary for display on WP:RM". WP:RM will still function with one entry that has 50 lines, but functions best with very short summaries. After some trial and error of trying to get missing signatures to show up, what the bot is parsing from is the dash – see above just before "(see talk page)", to (UTC), so both those – and (UTC) need to be present. Apteva (talk) 02:30, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

That has nothing to do with the existence of a talk page for RMCI. You should stop editing other peoples' statements (but I've told you that before) -- that's not a "maintenance function". If you're unhappy with a proposal's introduction, suggest changes to the OP and let them make any changes. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:08, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I couldn't work out what his post had to do with this section. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:29, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about forgetting to put in the section heading. Normally talk page edits do not get refracted, and in the case of move requests where someone forgets to put in the new name, accidentally putting in the old name for example, or obviously misspelling the new name, asking the proposer, either on their talk page or on the article talk page is warranted, but some fix ups are more easily just done, with or without comment - but I always make sure I use an edit summary that explains what why and who. As JHunterJ pointed out, insisting on refracting someones post over their complaint is not permitted, which is why I never push back - if someone objects, that is the end of it - either they fix it or it stays the way it is.[2] Of those two, the first one was shortened to (see talk page), the second remained as is. A lot of requests forget to capitalize the first letter of the title, and fixing those still warrant at least a comment, I would think. There are title moves that the question is about capitalization, but those do not involve an actual move and do not get discussed here. Apteva (talk) 16:16, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Non-admin closure template

I've created a template for non-admin closures of RMs. I basically cloned {{nac}} with directions to the RM NAC guidelines instead of Wikipedia:Non-admin closure, which chiefly deals with AfD. The new template is {{RMnac}}, so feel free to proof my work on it. --BDD (talk) 18:38, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Unilateral controversial move today without RM process

Discussed started here: Talk:Cleveland_Heights,_Ohio#Controversial_move_without_RM. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:47, 30 October 2012 (UTC)