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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.

Sanity check on 2025 Nepalese revolution move

I just closed a Move request on Talk:2025_Nepalese_revolution#Requested_move_9_September_2025, but another editor brought up valid counterpoints on my talk page. I wanted to get a quick sanity check from other editors, in case my initial close was inaccurate.

I do think this was the most reasonable of the possible closes, but would appreciate feedback. Soni (talk) 05:00, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like it's pretty much undisputed in the discussion that reliable sources hardly ever use "revolution", so I wouldn't have moved it to that title. Much of the support for "revolution" was either raw unreasoned votes or personal opinions about what the event should be called, both of which need to be discounted. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 05:13, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I did account for the latter, but missed the former. I believe the simplest solution will be to undo my close, thank you for the quick feedback.

@Extraordinary Writ in the interest of not hitting a technical issue once more with the move, could you please fix/move the article and talk pages back? If you cant, I'll edit my Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests post to request the same. Soni (talk) 05:30, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, done. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 05:46, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2025_August_25#Category:Algerian_writers_in_French

Old CfD with no comments since September 3. The headline of the discussion is straightforward; there's no consensus on whether to do Options B or C. But what's unclear is what that "no consensus" means; normally no consensus means to keep the status quo ante, but here nobody is really satisfied with the status quo and everyone wants some kind of consistency. Despite "Option C" being named as an alias for "Keep" (somewhat confusingly), the status quo is a mix of all options, and I don't feel I can justify moving any titles that currently follow the Option B format to the Option C format when there wasn't a consensus to do so, that's stretching the idea of bartenders' closes past the breaking point. So what do others think? * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:31, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's a tough situation. Part of me thinks that your best move is to !vote yourself, and thereby let the next admin have an easier time declaring that there is a consensus. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:40, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Given that relisting hasn't made consensus any clearer, I've had a look at WP:RMRELIST to see if I could garner any advice from it; and I think the idea of broadening the scope to which the discussion was publicized to garner more editor opinions would be the next step. Anderlaxe (talk) 09:42, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pppery, first of all, what other editors said. But in the case that no one else comments on the proposal, I'd close as B over C. There's roughly equal support for both, with most of the editors feeling that either would be acceptable. Of the editors that strongly favoured C over B, there was just Just N., who gave no rationale, and NLeeuw, who argued with Οἶδα over whether it sounded more natural. There's no clear case that Foo-language Barian writers is more ambiguous (the -language fairly clearly doesn't refer to nationality) - as PARAKANYAA said C isn't really any clearer. Primarily it seems to boil down to taste. Kaffet i halsen also gave some reasonable arguments as to why B might be better than C.
But honestly I think closing as either B or C would be better than letting this discussion stay unclosed. — Qwerfjkl talk 20:56, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My reading of the discussion would also put option B as the most favored option, both in terms of volume of support and in strength of argument for support. BD2412 T 22:26, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Closed by HouseBlaster as Option B. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 16:14, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: Omission of Russian SFSR from biographical infoboxes

Hi, I'd like to close [RfC: Omission of Russian SFSR from biographical infoboxes]. There have been no comments since July 31, but 1) my English isn't good enough 2) this is gonna be my first time closing a discussion. Thanks in advance! Thedarkknightli (talk) 09:11, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

you don't need to notify us just to close something lol. Just reach out here if you need help!
Your link also doesn't work; to link to e.g. "RFC on framing of a sentence in article text" on Talk:Scientology, you'd have to do Talk:Scientology#RFC on framing of a sentence in article text. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:08, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oops. It should be WT:RUSSIA#RfC: Omission of Russian SFSR from biographical infoboxes. Thedarkknightli (talk) 06:13, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Thedarkknightli: how can we help? BD2412 T 18:39, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, can I close the RfC with "No consensus for the proposal"? Thedarkknightli (talk) 05:33, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Thedarkknightli: Yes, I would agree that the discussion can appropriately be closed as "no consensus for the proposal". Participants can always come up with a new proposal to discuss. BD2412 T 17:14, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Fall of Phnom Penh

There was an objection to my close at Talk:Fall of Phnom Penh#Closed RFC November 2025.

I think my analysis was correct but I should update my closure statement with the following:

While there is no local consensus on which sentence is better, there is consensus in the community to avoid duplication in the introduction. Editors should prefer “Phnom Phem fell” to “The Fall was the capture”.

I appreciate any insights or suggestions. The above was influenced by the essay Wikipedia:What "no consensus" means. Dw31415 (talk) 19:05, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Because only five people participated in that RFC, you could suggest re-opening it, and this time advertise it more heavily, specifically at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section.

The difficulty in this dispute is finding a path that is acceptable under two potentially conflicting MoS rules:

MOS:REDUNDANCY, which says "Keep redundancy to a minimum in the first sentence" (which might be better fulfilled by option #1), and
MOS:FIRST, which says "If possible, the page title should be the subject of the first sentence" (and which would be better fulfilled by option #2).

It's possible that what's needed is a third option. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:01, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@WhatamIdoing, the debate has spilled over to Fall of Saigon as well. Cinderella157 made an articulate comment that I thought you might like to see. He explains that MOS:Redundancy is part of MOS:First so, while they might not be clear, they are not conflicting. Dw31415 (talk) 13:04, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Sirdog, @BusterD, I would appreciate your council too. Dw31415 (talk) 13:32, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I left it closed with no consensus Dw31415 (talk) 03:09, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My closure did nothing to move things forward so I'm leaning toward reverting it. The discussion has spilled over to Fall of Saigon. Alternatively should there be a broader RfC somewhere that addresses all the "Fall of" pages? Dw31415 (talk) 13:07, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You can revert it. The usual reasons for doing so are that the closer is convinced by some of the arguments, or the closer is just disgusted by the behavior and has decided there are better things to do with their time. It is not necessary (or necessarily advisable) to say which one is applicable in any given case. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:31, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the guidance! Dw31415 (talk) 00:33, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I do think that maybe the reopened RfC could address generally the question of whether stating in the lede sentence that the "fall of" somewhere is "the capture" of the same place does or does not violate MOS:REDUNDANCY. Does MOS:FIRST's provision that the lede "define the subject" take precedence over REDUNDANCY here? Is "Fall of" sufficiently obscure terminology that it might be necessary to restate it inline as the "capture of"? Does an article's recognition as a GA forestall other editors besides the editor who developed it from making changes to the lede sentence regardless of whether they think that's in keeping with policy/MOS?

Obviously there are a lot of questions here ... Daniel Case (talk) 21:07, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted my close. I think there was some guidance for Daniel to advertise it on MOS:Talk and some of the other "Fall of" pages, but I can't remember where I saw that and I hope that's not considered forum shopping. Dw31415 (talk) 00:35, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have posted a note to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style, and I see you have posted a neutral notice at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section#Fall of Phnom Penh has an RfC. Thank you for doing that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:10, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RfC on consensus of WP:DESTNOT: Broad or specific.

The nominator of this (Wikipedia talk:NOT#RfC on consensus of WP:DESTNOT: Broad or specific.) RfC requests an experienced closer, which I am not. I'm suggesting this edit now because the RfC has sat for a while and does not seem to raise complex policy questions. I'd appreciate a co-signer or review here of my proposed close here to ensure that I'm not missing some deeper issue at play. Here's how I propose to close. Any thoughts, edits, etc are very welcome.

There was no consensus that the previous RfC was either "broad" or "narrow" (applied only to the two articles mentioned). As more than one editor pointed out, discussions are not legalistic (WP:NOTCOURT) and the previous RfC (and this one) will inform future discussions but not be strictly binding. Editors mentioned potential areas for future discussion to improve consensus such as defining the criteria or sourcing for including routes in articles.

Thanks for reviewing! Pinging recent, experienced closers for advice @Paine Ellsworth, Beland, and Bluethricecreamman:. Dw31415 (talk) 16:07, 7 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds reasonable! -- Beland (talk) 18:06, 7 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Thank you for reviewing! Dw31415 (talk) 19:37, 7 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

George Formby RFC: Should there be an infobox?

Talk:George Formby#RFC: Should there be an infobox?

This seems like an obvious close. An even split of editors for and against including an info box meaning: No consensus and the info box should not be included. This was mentioned as a contentious topic so I’d like an experienced co-signer.

Alternatively if there is some policy that would override the need for local consensus to include an info box, please let me know and I’ll back away from this one. Thanks!! Dw31415 (talk) 18:50, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Dw31415, as I'm sure you know, an even numerical split doesn't actually mean no consensus.

I suggest that you don't close it. Instead, I suggest that you look at the relevant rules (e.g., try to find a reason why it's good bad for the individual article [not for all articles, all biographies, all musicians – the individual article]) and then place a vote yourself. Please consider looking for ways to advertise it. Achieving consensus, even if it takes longer than 27 days to do so, would be preferable to having this discussion repeated at this article next year. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:11, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Or just close it, given it's run its course. There really is no need to drag this on any longer, given there isn't a consensus in either argument or numbers. And unless there is a change in policies or guidelines, there really will be no need to have another discussion for a long time, unless people want to have one just because they can't accept that some people have a different opinion to them. - SchroCat (talk) 19:18, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would not recommend that an inexperienced closer take on any infobox RFC.

I do expect infobox disputes to recur endlessly until an infobox is added. I doubt that's "because they can't accept that some people have a different opinion", but I still expect it to happen. (And if anyone were to ask my advice, it's that they empty Category:Wikipedia articles with an infobox request before having an RFC over a disputed infobox.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:28, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Dw31415 has asked for an experienced co-signer, which seems to be a good path to take, so I don't see a problem, given much of the responsibility will lie on the shoulders of that more experienced colleague.

It is, of course, possible that people will disruptively keep pushing for an IB until they get their own way - I've certainly often seen the same people responsible to pot-stirring and continued pressing when a trip to ANI or ArbCom would be the better way to stop the dramah-mongering and disruption, but there we go, such is life. Until there is a change in the policies or guidelines that's the situation we're in - and every time there is a centralised debate to change the guidelines, the community roundly rejects it. - SchroCat (talk) 19:35, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the input. I’m likely to heed it. I’ll give this section a day to see if any experienced editor desires to mentor/co-sign on this one.

Reading more, I see @Tol’s closure of the controversial Stanley Kubrick discussion still managed to achieve and rely on local consensus Talk:Stanley Kubrick/Archive 14#c-Tol-2021-11-15T18:46:00.000Z-RFC: Infobox or not. Tol, I’m interested if you have thoughts on this potential closure.

Does anyone else support @WhatamIdoing‘s suggestion that the RfC be encouraged to run longer? Dw31415 (talk) 20:12, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, not when it's pretty much a 50/50 split and no compelling arguments based on policies or guidelines. Keeping contentious RFCs running longer than necessary only increases the possibility that people will overstep the mark. There have been no comments in ten days, so it's moribund as it is: just someone close it and we can all move on. - SchroCat (talk) 20:16, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Beland, TarnishedPath, and Paine Ellsworth: pinging for help because you are recent, experienced closers. Dw31415 (talk) 20:22, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As is S Marshall, who may be willing to assist. - SchroCat (talk) 20:28, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for all your comments here. For transparency, I’ll record here that you are involved in the RfC. Dw31415 (talk) 21:41, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, I'm happy to look at this. I'll need between 30 and 60 minutes, and a cup of coffee. Putting the kettle on.—S Marshall T/C 21:42, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Closed.—S Marshall T/C 22:35, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@S Marshall, thank you and a master class in closing. (I naively think, I’d love to hear if others disagree. Now I’ll just head over and edit my name over yours to take credit 😉 Just kidding! I’ll edit the close request if you haven’t already. Dw31415 (talk) 22:59, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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