- Familiar (talk||history|logs|links|archive|watch) (RM) (Discussion with closer)
Puzzled by closer's calling 7/5 opinion split (8/5 counting nominator) "general agreement." Closer (an excellent editor) did more thorough analysis in their talk page discussion, but still doesn't seem to carry the weight. Hyperbolick (talk) 18:40, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn. uninvolved No clear consensus, woefully inadequate closing statement for such a divided discussion, WP:Supervote, WP:BADNAC. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 20:45, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Interesting view... opposers, of whom there were five, had no basis for their opposition in policy nor guideline. Supporters on the other hand, of whom there were eight, were founded in COMMONNAME, PTOPIC and CONCISE policies and guideline. I saw a clear consensus, and I'm not fresh out of the IP realm. PI Ellsworth ed. put'r there 23:20, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Certain participants' !votes having no basis in policy is for other participants to call out, not the closer. The question is whether a !vote needs basis in policy or guideline is contentious, and there may be unstated connections to policy that won't be defended until challenged. The importance of the assumed failure to not connect to policy or guideline is quite a call to make and is never suitable for a closer. If you feel you deserve a special privilege of respect for a sense of consensus in complicated situations, get qualified at RfA. This was obviously a close that another might have closed another way, and is therefore a BADNAC, not a net help, and especially with a non-explanation in the closing statement. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:34, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- It is precisely a closer's job to assess the consensus in a move request based upon policies and guidelines. And that is precisely what I did. Wikipedia as you know is not a democracy and outcomes are not decided by !vote. Where do you get these ideas? I get mine from here. Where do you get yours? PI Ellsworth ed. put'r there 03:10, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- WP:Consensus does not speak to any specific issue in the discussion. WP:Supervote does, as does WP:BADNAC. For closes to be respected, they need to be easily understood. That discussion is not easily understood, it is not obvious why the "keep" !votes should be summarily devalued. I don't agree that they should. There was no explicit mentions of policy harmony except for the few mentions of NOTDICT, and NOTDICT is well known to be historically contentious as a factor in RM discussions. You did not serve the community by summarily closing, but you could have helped another close by !voting yourself. Contested discussions sitting in the backlog is not a bad things requiring urgent closes. I think Cúchullain made a strong !vote, but it sits begging for someone to back up his argument, the following four !voters ignoring it. Dekimasu's terse VAGUEWAVE actually serves to weaken Cúchullain's preceding articulate !vote. I might have accepted an experienced admin closer enjoyig their privilege of calling "rough concensus", but "per general agreement below" just cannot be swallowed. The participants were not in "general agreement". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:32, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, perhaps I use "general agreement" a little too much. I use that phrase to mean "consensus" so I don't always say "moved per consensus below" or "not moved per consensus below". I look back at that RM in an effort to learn from you, and yet I still see a clear consensus based upon the good faith concerns of the participants and on policy and guideline. No supervote was intended, and certainly no badnac. PI Ellsworth ed. put'r there 12:47, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- When closing a contested discussion, you should cite which stronger arguments were countering the weaker arguments (whether by argument, policy or !voter name), and a later reader of the discussion should be able to understand it at face value. I think if you were to do that explicitly, you would see that you are introducing new statements not made by the participants, which implies "supervote". I think you were influenced you experience in recognizing a "rough consensus", which is is not "WP:CONSENSUS", but an intuitive wisdom on prediction where the discuss will end up if allowed a lengthy continuation, but calling "rough consensus" is an admin privilege for close calls, also forbidden to you per WP:BADNAC#2. Closing summarily with "general agreement" is an insult to the respectable editors who were not in agreement, and is dubiously OK only for WP:SPA left-field participants who clearly do not understand the process they are engaged in. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:58, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- The observation "a rationale was provided on their talk page", even if that rationale were good enough, is not good enough. If a rationale is needed, it is needed in the closing statement. The purpose of sending complainants to the closer's talk page is for the education of the complainant, or the pre-bureaucracy fixing of an error, not for a closer's user_talk thread to be a critical supplement for the record of the RM. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:11, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- My reading of the RM:
- Good arguments in support.
- 1. The nom, ZXCVBNM
- 1a. Supported by Randy Kryn
- 1b. Supported by Pfhorrest
- 2. Axem Titanium (good argument despite not citing policy)
- 3. Cúchullain
- 4. Xezbeth. Supports previous support arguments.
- Good arguments in opposition.
- 1. In ictu oculi, but triple rebutted.
- 2. SnowFire, good detailed argument, rebuttal is weak
- 3. Johnbod, rebutted by ZXCVBNM, but ZXCVBNM relies on a controversial reading of NOTDICT, thread unresolved (thread taken up under Srnc), this deserves a policy discussion.
- 4. Srnec (challenged again by ZXCVBNM on the NOTDICT rationale, Johnbod defends.)
- Weak contributions (no rational or a weak assertion).
- s. Necrothesp (asserts something previously challenged)
- s. Dekimasu (VAGUEWAVE)
- o. Hyperbolick. No rationale given, although it challenges the nom's PRIMARYREDIRECT point. A very late !vote that could have been discussed, but the RM was closed a mere four minutes later.
- To my reading, strength-of-argument policy-lens !vote weighting is unclear. It comes down to how one reads NOTDICT. Some seem to read NOTDICT as stating that title decisions are blind to dictionary meanings. Others read no such thing; WP:NOTDICT says nothing clearly or directly informing. The concept of WP:PRIMARYMEANING, a challenge to PRIMARYTOPIC decisions based on there being a dominant meaning of the word that readers could expect to find covered by/in an article, has been raised on policy_talk pages, contested, and is unresolved. I suspect that the RM closer has their own NOTDICT-reading bias, and that it has been supervoted.
- The reading of this discussion is so complicated that it demands either: more !votes; or an expert close. The closing statement was woefully inadequate, and I feel it demands an "overturn". I would not have closed this discussion. If a closure was required, it would have to be "no consensus".
- --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:47, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Just because one's reading of the discussion differs from the closer's doesn't necessarily mean that the close was unreasonable. Many RMs are not obvious and have more than one reasonable possible outcome. That was the case here, but I would have come to the same conclusion as the closer. The main complaint seems to be that the closing summary was dismissive or insufficient. I agree with that, but that does not call for the overturning of the close. At most, the closing statement could be amended or clarified. Station1 (talk) 06:42, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Perhaps it would be helpful if you could suggest a better closing statement? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:02, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Paine Ellsworth's initial responses on his talk page, for example, would have been better: "I saw a rough consensus per the policy with support args stronger than oppose args, having cited both PTOPIC and COMMONNAME. ... And I see no policies or guidelines used to oppose, which makes those args weaker than the support args that cited a policy and a guideline, not to mention WP:CONCISE." Station1 (talk) 05:20, 20 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- (edit conflict) Endorse (uninvolved editor). 8/5 by headcount, yes, but I don't see many policy-based arguments on the opposing side. The eight supports all cited some combination of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC (redirect at the target location already redirected to the article), WP:COMMONNAME (most common usage in reliable sources), WP:CONCISE (prefer shorter title where possible), and WP:NOUN (prefer the noun usage over the adjective) in their arguments. By my read of the opposing comments, I see one naked oppose, one saying that "Familiar spirit" and "Familiar" are both commonly used in sources, and
twothree saying that there may be confusion regarding the more familiar (pun intended) adjective. The latter was refuted by several of the supports with WP:NOTDICTIONARY, and the fact that there is no article on the adjective (note that there is somewhat awkward DAB at Familiarity with nothing there pointing to "Familiarity" as a topic). None of the support arguments were adequately refuted: the one oppose that came closest was that said both terms are used in reliable sources, but even it agreed that modern sources favor the shorter "Familiar". It also made a claim that "Familiar spirit" is the term of art, but did not offer any supporting evidence. Agreed that the closing statement should have explained this in much more detail, but the decision itself was sound, as the later discussion on the closer's talk page showed. CThomas3 (talk) 23:23, 17 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse (uninvolved editor). I agree with CThomas3's comments. This was a reasonable close that might have benefited from a slightly less off-hand closing summary. Closes should be based on an assessment of the discussion as a whole as it relates to policies and broader consensus, not on vote counts. I think that was done here. Station1 (talk) 07:50, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. I'm a little disappointed that editors seem to think policies and guidelines must be cited explicitly. I wrote in opposition that "this meaning is rather niche for a perfectly everyday word", which in policy terms means that (a) this isn't the real-world PT for the term and (b) even if it is the only or primary encyclopedic topic competing for the space, the principle of least astonishment kicks in. Readers unfamiliar with the topic will find the title and contents jarring since it is not in fact a very familiar use of "familiar"; it is niche. Srnec (talk) 12:43, 18 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- I do not think policies and guidelines need to be explicitly cited. An experienced closer should be familiar with all relevant policies and take them into account. And not every germane argument is necessarily rooted in one specific policy. Citing policy, however, can be helpful, especially for less experienced editors. Station1 (talk) 06:42, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse (uninvolved editor) – I also agree with CThomas. I don't see any violation of WP:RMNAC. The closer should have left a closing rationale in the closing statement, but a rationale was provided on their talk page, and I think it was within the closer's discretion to give the keep !votes more weight than the delete !votes, particularly because the delete !votes weren't policy based (there is no policy, meaning no broad consensus, that we should avoid using a PT if it's also a dictionary word, and WP:ASTONISH is not a policy), were based more on speculation than evidence, and because they were more or less rebutted with the counterargument that "Familiar" is already a redirect to this article and has been for 7 years. – Levivich (lulz) 00:57, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Levivich, what is this "closer's discretion" you speak of? "Admin discretion" is a familiar term, but "closer's discretion"? You write
it was within the closer's discretion to give the keep !votes more weight than the delete !votes . Does any closer have "discretion" to weight things? This gets very iffy, when one can have personal unconscious biases. Admins are tested for this sort of thing. NAClosers are not. Your use of "particularly" implies that the rationale is not necessary. Where you wrote "I think it was within the closer's discretion to give the keep !votes more weight than the delete !votes, particularly because the delete !votes weren't policy based", do you think the following is better: "I think it was within the closer's discretion correct to give the keep !votes more weight than the delete !votes, particularly because the delete !votes weren't policy based". NB. I think a good closing statement says *why* the delete !votes weren't policy based, and one should be wary of policy lagging practice. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:02, 9 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn I've looked yet again at User:Zxcvbnm's supposed rebuttal of my oppose, and I still completely fail to see how it makes any point relevant to my argument at all (as my comment at the time implied). As is often the case, there was a fair amount of brandishing policy links by supporters, and rather less considering whether they were actually relevant. Imo, there was most certainly no "general agreement", nor any consensus, so the close should have defaulted to the status quo (something closers do too rarely in my view). The closing statement is unfortunate, which is mainly why we are all here. Johnbod (talk) 04:04, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse This still seems like a clearcut case of WP:NOTDICTIONARY to me. Most of the opposes were citing the fact that "Familiar" is an existing word, but Wikipedia is not to direct people to definitions of words. And Familiarity is not a WP:BROADCONCEPT that could serve as a potential primary topic. I see no evidence of a WP:BADNAC or not considering the entire picture.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 06:15, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- That again! What on earth does WP:NOTDICTIONARY have to do with it at all? You keep saying this, but it simply isn't relevant. Nobody was trying to define anything in the title, and all articles begin by defining their subject. The idea was simply to avoid taking readers to a place where they had no interest in going. Johnbod (talk) 14:11, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Johnbod, if I read it correctly, the point appears to be that most readers who look for the term "familiar" who want the definition or synonyms of the common term would
type the word into the Wiktionary search engine look it up in a dictionary or thesaurus. And most people who type the word into the Wikipedia search engine will be interested in "familiars" that are associated with witchcraft. PI Ellsworth ed. put'r there 14:27, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Really? That thought was never expressed anywhere, and both parts seem very wrong to me, ignoring everything we know of how web search works (which isn't enough, but isn't nothing). Most WP readers have no idea Wiktionary exists or where to find the Wiktionary search engine. Now that the page has been moved the pageviews have suddenly jumped x 10, which seems to effectively prove that this proposition is nonsense, and that the misdirection I feared is indeed happening! On a google search for "familiar" WP now appears 2nd (for me) of the standard websites, which is how the majority of our readers arrive. Ok, they may see the first sentence of the article on the search screen, but clearly large numbers are just seeing "Familiar - wikipedia" and clicking that. Johnbod (talk) 14:42, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- It doesn't have to be Wiktionary, as that was just an example. Any dictionary would do. Point is that page move supporters seemed to believe that most people won't come to Wikipedia just to find the general meaning of "familiar" or its synonyms. They'll use a dictionary or thesaurus for that. Most people realize that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a dictionary. PI Ellsworth ed. put'r there 16:09, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Epic missing the point here (again). Nobody is suggesting people intend to come to this article "just to find the general meaning of "familiar" or its synonyms". It might just be true (or might not) that "Most people realize that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a dictionary" if given time to think, but all research shows that most internet searchers click on familiar-looking links on sight without that sort of consideration. Johnbod (talk) 18:29, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Maybe that's true about "most internet searchers", which covers a lot of broad ground. Am I too naive to think that internet searchers who are interested in improving their knowledge by reading dictionaries and Wikipedia are not your average searchers? I mean... it's not like searching for hair rollers or good films to watch, is it? PI Ellsworth ed. put'r there 19:05, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- For those who understandably haven't read all this, I have this question. Why have the pageviews suddenly jumped x 10 since the move, and is this a GOOD thing or a BAD one? Johnbod (talk) 14:45, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- It's simply due to the name change on 17 Feb. Most people get to any article directly, not through redirects. Until 17 Feb, the article's title was Familiar spirit, so that's what got 95% of the hits. Now that the title is Familiar we are transitioning to that title getting most of the hits. It will increase further with time, although since Familiar spirit has 500 incoming wikilinks, that redirect will continue to get some hits for a while. The total hits for Familiar spirit plus Familiar was 855 on 15 Feb and 874 on 21 Feb,[1] so no significant net change, making it neither good nor bad. Station1 (talk) 16:31, 22 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Exactly: the increase in page hits to Familiar matches the decrease in hits to Familiar spirit; I'm not seeing any actual change there. [2] Levivich (talk) 16:44, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment. As closer, I've revised my closing statement based upon what I've learned from this review. PI Ellsworth ed. put'r there 00:47, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Thank you for that. As an aside, I've noticed that, for reasons I don't understand, the Template:Tmbox that you use, does not show up in mobile view. There's a note from 2018 about it, but no answer, at Template talk:Tmbox. Something to bear in mind when closing, if it can't be corrected. Station1 (talk) 07:53, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- It appears that the devs are working on this and several other issues with mbox-based templates, e.g. → T202919. I'm sure it will be resolved soon. PI Ellsworth ed. put'r there 13:29, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- As a PS, I checked to see if the {{Requested move/dated}} template, which is found at the top of all open move requests, appears in mobile view. It doesn't. PI Ellsworth ed. put'r there 18:43, 27 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse a perfectly reasonable reading of consensus, well-explained. Red Slash 23:08, 20 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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