Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment#Relisting an RfC

I just saw a new shortcut, WP:BADRFC, which points to Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Statement should be neutral and brief. What do you all think about this? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:25, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

:Two shortcuts for the same thing are one too many. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 02:44, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

:Should be removed. Instead of explaining why an RfC is "bad", editors will just misuse the shortcut to shut down RfCs they don't like. Some1 (talk) 13:05, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

::Do you think we should take it to Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:01, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

:::I think so, could you take "WP:GOODRFC" there too? Some1 (talk) 19:11, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

::::Also new, and also barely used, and also misleading (e.g., an RFC question that is brief and neutral, but also tendentious). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:51, 28 February 2025 (UTC)

:::::Agreed, I've removed them both [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment&diff=prev&oldid=1278094178] from this page. I guess WP:RFD is the next stop to have those two shortcuts deleted... Some1 (talk) 15:47, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::Please see Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 March 1#March 1, towards the top of the page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:42, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

:isn’t it said that a non neutral statement can still be debated as an rfc?

:the community is usually smart enough to point it out in discussion/polling and allow an rfc to continue. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 01:52, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

::Yes. That's the first question in Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/FAQ. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:00, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Talk:North End (café) has discussion listed, essentially a disagreement over if the sources are reliable/notable or not. Greatder (talk) 14:21, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

:If you mean is this talk page the place to get that opinion, then no. This talk page is primarily for discussing the information page WP:Requests for comment and additionally for discussing the RfC process and actual RfCs.

:The main place to get the opinion in question is the article talk page that you reference. If you believe a proper consensus cannot be reached there without inviting comment from a broader audience, then creating an RfC could be the way to get additional opinion (it would still be on that article talk page, just with more participation). WP:Requests for comment tells you how (and whether) to create an RfC.

:But I looked at that discussion, and I really don't see a dispute. I realize there is edit history that you might consider part of the conversation, but it is not. Talk page discussion is all that matters. I don't see anyone maintaining on the talk page that sources are unreliable and the article subject is non-notable. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 19:24, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

:{{replyto|Greatder}} There are three WikiProject banners at the top of Talk:North End (café). You could try leaving a neutrally-worded message at one or more of the WikiProject talk pages; templates such as {{tlx|fyi}} and {{tlxs|please see}} are available for this. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:42, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it's by design, but I see a little issue with this page. It describes what you should do if an RfC outcome is obvious, that formal closure is generally unnecessary and that one should {{tq|agree upon the results of most RfCs without outside assistance}} - but what about the rare cases when it is not and the formal closure isn't something that you believe the discussion was? Closure reviews and all that? I know it's in WP:CLOSECHALLENGE but still Szmenderowiecki (talk) 15:58, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

:It's also at the end of the instructions at Wikipedia:Closure requests.

:This has been discussed in the past, e.g., Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Archive 17#RfC close reviews, but mostly people either figure it out, or occasionally they ask and someone points them in the right direction. I don't think we get even one such question every other year. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:13, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

I understand that religion is a passionate topic. I am having editorial problems on Historicity of Jesus. The article is not presented in a NPOV. Additionally, attempts at helping the article are immediately attacked. Not only do the possessive editors bully editors, they have self-authored a FAQ page that tells everyone they are right. The most important take away is that the article relies on a cherry-picked segment of published sources; namely biblical scholars. These publications are rife with Christian authors who declare that they are right and that all other theories are wrong. These sources are being used, as if to say, "The issue is closed. It has been decided. And no other theory can be presented." Recently, they have started posting comments on my talk page (Talk) designed to intimidate me. Now, again, I know religion is a passionate subject, in fact, I posted a similar request for help on the tea house. I got one response that basically said, "walk away." I don't think wikipedia is supposed to be left to those who don't walk away. I am unsure how to begin a RfC or if I should. StarHOG (Talk) 23:47, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

:An RFC on the general question won't be useful. Talk:Historicity of Jesus#Article overhaul needed suggests to me that if the article's balance will change, it will not happen as a result of your efforts. But if you wanted to have another go at it, I suggest that you spend less time saying you believe the article is non-neutral and more time finding gold-plated scholarly sources, such as books published by a university press that are directly and mainly on that subject (and not, e.g., books primarily about why atheism is best that happen to have a few pages on historical questions). If you find such sources, you might be able to have a useful discussion (RFC or otherwise) along the lines of "Shall we include the following paragraph in the body of the article, cited to these two gold-plated reliable sources?" And once (i.e., if) the balance of the body shifts, you could later propose adjustments to the lead in a WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY way. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:20, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

:It must be a bit overwhelming to walk into a wall of criticism like this. If I may, I'm going to ask you to entertain that editors are judging the situation honestly, not pathologically or small-mindedly, and trying to give you honest feedback, if frustrated feedback. Unfortunately, to me, this really is a situation where I am going to tell someone "walk away" too—there's not much one can do beyond that but wait for the other to acquire the lay of the land for themselves. I stress that to me the lens of personal belief or disbelief doesn't even think to present itself here—we're just using the tools of history, and intentionally so. Remsense ‥ 论 01:33, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

This comment is prompted by a particular comment at a particular RFC, but I am really asking more generally about the guidelines on stopping an RFC. I will first describe the specific case, but I am not asking for any further comments about it, because I think that I handled it correctly. I will then discuss the more general question.

An RFC was started and is currently running about the format of the dates to be used in Pope Leo XIV. See Talk:Pope Leo XIV/RFC: Date format. At least two editors then suggested that the RFC was getting out of hand, and suggested that the RFC be discarded, and that the discussion should be moved to DRN. I closed the DRN request, and explained my closure at Wikipedia:Closure of Leo XIV DRN. I thought (and think) that the request to discard the RFC was made in good faith but was mistaken. However, I looked at the current guideline on ending an RFC, and I don't think that they clearly address either one common situation or the less common situation in point. The guidelines don't say that an RFC can be ended by an uninvolved administrator if it is malformed, but that is commonly done, and should be done. The guidelines say that an RFC can be withdrawn by the poster, but they don't clearly state that an RFC should not be withdrawn by the poster if the community has been responding to it in good faith.

So my main question is whether the guidelines on ending an RFC should be revised, both to clarify the existing practice that malformed RFCs are cancelled by an uninvolved admin, and to clarify that an RFC should not be withdrawn or discarded if there are being constructive responses.

Robert McClenon (talk) 02:46, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

:It sounds like you have three questions.

:* On malformed RFCs: Malformed RFCs are usually handled by a small number of editors, some of whom are admins but none of whom are pushing any admin buttons. Malformed RFCs don't usually require ending the RFC. They can often be fixed instead. When the problem is that you disagree with the question, then see what the FAQ at the top of the page says about how to respond to a non-neutral or overly long question.

:* On the role of admins: Ending and closing RFCs are not admin tasks. WP:RFCEND #4 says "Any uninvolved editor", not "Any uninvolved admin".

:* On closing your own RFC: RFCs should sometimes be ended by the poster after the community has responded to it in good faith. In fact, that's the ideal end to an RFC with a WP:SNOW result. A closing summary that sounds like "Thank you all for answering my question. I see now that the community disagrees with me, and I'll take that on board for the future" is a great result. See the FAQ at the top of the page on "Can the person who started the RFC, or another involved editor, write a summary of the discussion?"

:WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:18, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

::*I think this raises a fourth, perhaps more interesting question: When and how to move a RfC to a better venue.—S Marshall T/C 07:51, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

::*:Do you mean moving the discussion, or changing the dispute resolution method? Theoretically, it shouldn't be necessary to move an RFC to a different page, except for splitting an unusually long discussion off to a subpage. The purpose of an RFC is to bring people to the discussion, wherever that discussion is. Making the decision to change methods is more complicated. It's more of a "use your best judgment, taking into account all the facts and circumstances" thing than a "follow this simple rule" thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:32, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

I am coming to two conclusions from this discussion. The first is that I think there should be a statement about when not to end an RFC. If a good-faith editor tries to do something which most of the community thinks was a bad idea, it is worth considering whether there should have been a guideline against it (rather than only no guideline in favor of it). Since no one has disagreed with my assessment of the Pope Leo XIV situation, I will infer that the community agrees with what I did, which was to close the DRN request and to leave the Pope Leo XIV date RFC running. It is getting a lot of community input, and is doing what an RFC is supposed to do. So I think that the originator of the RFC made a good-faith error in asking to discard the RFC because it was asking the wrong question. So I think that there should be a subsection on When Not to End an RFC. You should not end your own RFC if there is community input, but the answers are not what you expected or were looking for. You should not end someone else's RFC if you disagree with them or dislike the question. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:13, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

:Again: You should {{xt|end your own RFC if there is community input, but the answers are not what you expected or were looking for}} – if you can do so while saying that the community disagrees with you and you'll abide by the apparent consensus. Gracious acceptance of an unwanted result is a praiseworthy behavior.

:It's almost always the case that {{xt|You should not end someone else's RFC if you disagree with them or dislike the question}}, but it's a little bit more complicated than that. If the question is extremely badly written (almost gibberish) or exceedingly non-neutral, then it is sometimes helpful for an uninvolved editor to pull the RFC tag, especially if it can be done very soon after it was started. There are two important details there: One is that this shouldn't be done by someone who could be credibly accused of bias. RFCs are an important mechanism for breaking down WP:Walled gardens and bypassing Wikipedia:Tag teams, so we can't have people preventing RFCs entirely, and we don't want drama over the decision. The other important part is that if the RFC question is terrible, you've got to provide a path forward for getting the question asked and answered. That could be a suggestion for how to re-write it, or a suggestion that the RFC poster ask for help here at WT:RFC, but you can't just treat this like a children's game, with some WP:OWNer demanding that the RFC poster just keep trying until he guesses right. Even if an editor believes that the RFC question is pointless or time-wasting, anyone who wants to ask a question must be allowed to do so. Sometimes, letting them ask their question and get the community's answer is the only way that we can settle a dispute, because sometimes people actually need to see a lot of editors all say "No, you can't do that because it is absolutely prohibited by BLPPRIMARY" before they'll believe that it really, truly, actually is prohibited by BLPPRIMARY. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:46, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

::I have occasionally pulled an {{tlx|rfc}} tag if it's not an RfC matter, or if it's clear that there has been no previous discussion - such as where somebody (often a newbie) uses {{tlx|rfc}} as a first step. A recent example of both occurring together may be seen {{diff|Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history|prev|1290184201|here}}, although I didn't actually pull the tag myself, it was subsequently {{diff|Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history|prev|1290197460|removed}} by the initiator. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:30, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Okay, okay. I said that I wanted to talk about the general matter of ending an RFC rather than the specific case of the Pope Leo XIV date RFC. However, the answers that I am getting don't seem to address the specific actual case. The originator of the RFC had been advised by another editor to discard the RFC, and to move the discussion to a different venue, DRN. I thought that the RFC should continue, and I declined the DRN. I don't think that you are saying that the originator of the RFC should have ended the RFC. That is a case where there was community input, and it raises questions about whether the existing guideline should be changed, and the answers were not what the originator was expecting. So can someone tell me either why the Pope Leo XIV RFC should not have been ended, or why it should have been ended? I didn't think that I wanted to discuss it, but the answers that I am getting seem to be inconsistent with what I thought was my common-sense action on the date RFC. I am sorry if I am being difficult.

Robert McClenon (talk) 03:33, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

• Since the closure of RFC/U, we no longer use RFC to discuss user conduct issues, and RFC is now content-only. I think RFC is Wikipedia's way of resolving tricky content decisions. DRN attempts to resolve disputes between users. There's overlap, because a lot of personality clashes are between people on the opposite sides of a content dispute, but I see them as separate mechanisms with separate purposes. {{pb

}} I think it should have gone to DRN if it was a personality clash between users, and remained at RFC if it was a content decision. {{pb

}} I think it's the disputants who should ideally make that call, because they know best what they're arguing about.—S Marshall T/C 08:36, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

• Well, User:S Marshall. I agree with you about RFC, and partly disagree about DRN. RFC is the community-wide mechanism for resolving content disputes. Maybe my concept of DRN is somewhat different from yours. One of the first rules that editors at DRN agree to is: "Comment on content, not contributors." Another rule is "Discuss edits, not editors". These two rules say the same thing because it needs repeating. What I try to do at DRN is to identify the content issues, sometimes so as to unwind the personality issues. But the editors are expected to check their opinions of the other editors on their user talk pages, not on the noticeboard.
• I will add that if a DRN thread results in an RFC being launched, I consider it a success because we have identified what the content issue is.
• Do you have a different idea for how DRN should work?
• In this specific case, the RFC was and is working to deal with a content issue, the date format. There may have been and may be other issues, such as whether the date guidelines should be reworked. But the RFC is working for the content issue. If there was or is also an issue of whether the guidelines are correct, is that a reason to stop the RFC? Wouldn't that be a reason for a separate discussion, not to throw away an existing productive discussion? Robert McClenon (talk) 21:41, 21 May 2025 (UTC)
• ::Well, exactly so. WP:DRN says "comment on content, not contributors" in two different ways, while WP:RFC doesn't need to say that at all. WP:DRN has a list of "users involved", i.e. parties, while WP:RFC doesn't need one. WP:DRN has a structure where users talk to the moderator and not to each other, while WP:RFC allows, and often contains, extensive threaded discussion. WP:DRN has a rule not to edit the article while the dispute is going on, and WP:RFC doesn't need one. Because RFC is structured to make a tricky content decision, whereas DRN is structured to move on from an argument between users.—S Marshall T/C 22:08, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

Are there any thoughts from User:S Marshall or anyone else on when to move an RFC to a different venue?

Robert McClenon (talk) 02:13, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

:I would say that if it's clear that the scope of the RfC is too broad for the venue, it should be moved to somewhere appropriate. For instance, a proposal for policy change being RfC-ed on an article's talk page should be moved to the talk page of the policy concerned. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:34, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

::Off the top of my head, and much in need of workshopping:

:::1. As Redrose64 says, where the scope of the RFC is clearly inappropriate for the venue, such as being clearly too broad or too narrow;

:::2. As WAID says, where the discussion is long and dramagenic, and we move it to a subpage to contain it;

:::3. Where there's consensus to move it;

:::4. Where it was started in a completely inappropriate place such as a user talk page or an AFD; or

:::5. Where an uninvolved sysop is managing a user conduct issue or an exceptionally fraught talk page, that sysop has discretion to summarily delist a RFC and move it to a user talk page.

::There may be others.—S Marshall T/C 08:07, 20 May 2025 (UTC)