[WikiEN-l] No RFAs in progress...

[Anthony]

On 8/23/07, Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org> wrote:
> On 8/23/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > The backlog is probably in the area of making sound judgements
> > > (especially in deciding whether or not to delete).  This can be done
> > > without adminship at all, though.
> >
> > That's an interesting point. People seem to miss that there is more to
> > adminship than the technical admin tools. Closing AfDs is an admin
> > power,
>
> Last time I checked policy stated (*) that only closing highly
> disputed AfDs was "an admin power", though those are the only ones
> that take a significant amount of time anyway.  This was a step up in
> power from the rules during the early days, when the rules
> specifically said that non-admins were allowed to close VfDs.
>
> (*) I can't find the policy at the moment, though.
>
And here it is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_process

"Non-administrators closing discussions"

According to this, non-admins can close keep results, but shouldn't
close delete results.  They can even close high disputed keep results,
but they are discouraged from doing so if they "are not familiar with
deletion policy or the workings of deletion discussions".

The rationale for saying that non-admins shouldn't close delete
results is that "they lack the technical ability to delete pages".
But that ignores the fact that the vast majority of the work of
deletion is deciding what to do, not in hitting the delete button.