Wikipedia:Requested moves/Closing instructions Information & Wikipedia:Requested moves/Closing instructions Links at HealthHaven.com

Shortcuts: WP:RMCI WP:RM/CI

This page in a nutshell:

Don't close requested moves where you have participated in the move survey;
If you are a non-admin you should only close certain types of requests;
Determine consensus on the request or relist it for further discussion;
Investigate the page history of the target page title; if minor, it may be deleted; if major, perform a history merge, history swap, or archive and place a link on the talk page;
Clean up after the move by fixing all double redirects, fair use rationales of images included on the moved page, and the page's category sort key;
Formally or informally close the move request on the talk page.

The following are guidelines for closing Wikipedia:Requested moves discussions. Please only apply these after the normal seven day listing period has elapsed. These guidelines are only applicable to formal move requests that occur on talk pages, i.e. controversial move requests. Requests listed in the uncontroversial requests section can be simply removed after they have been processed. Where uncontroversial moves are contested, move the listing to the incomplete and contested proposals section and notify the editor with {{RMinc}}.

[edit] Who can close requested moves

[edit] Conflicts of interest

No user, whether an administrator or otherwise, should ever close a requested move discussion they participated in except if the discussion reaches a unanimous result after a full listing period (seven days).

[edit] Non-admin closure

Experienced editors in good standing are allowed to close some requested move surveys.

Non-administrators should restrict themselves to:

Unanimous or nearly unanimous discussions after a full listing period (seven days);
Where there is no contentious debate among participants;
Which do not require a history merge or history swap; and
Which do not have large numbers of subpages that need to be moved along with the move of the project page, such as voluminous archives (administrators have the ability to move up to 100 pages in a single click).
Where a move is not technically possible without administrative intervention, non-admins closing a discussion and then tagging the redirect with {{db-move}} should be actively monitoring that speedy deletion request, and ready and willing to perform all tidying after the move (as instructed below), such as fixing all double redirects created and fixing fair use rationales of images included on the page. If you are not willing to wait for the deletion and follow up in this manner, please only close requested moves that do not require administrative abilities.

[edit] Determining consensus

Unlike articles for deletion, where lack of participation requires relisting, no minimum participation is required for requested moves because for most moves there is no need to make a request at all; the need arises only because of a technical limitation resulting from the target article name existing as a redirect with more than one edit. Thus, if no one has objected, go ahead and perform the move as requested unless it is out of keeping with naming conventions or is otherwise in conflict with applicable guideline and policy. The subtext here is that closers are expected to be at least passingly familiar with such matters, so that they have the ability to make such an assessment.

If objections have been raised, then the discussion should be evaluated just like any other discussion on Wikipedia: lack of consensus normally means that no change happens (though like AfD, this is not a vote and the quality of an argument is more important than whether it comes from a minority or a majority). However, sometimes a requested move is filed in response to a recent move from a long existing name that cannot be undone without administrative help. Therefore, if the closer feels that no consensus has been reached, they may move the article back to the most recent stable name. In the event what the most recent stable name is is itself a matter of dispute, closers are expected to use their own judgment in determining the proper destination.

If a discussion is ongoing or has not reached a reasonable conclusion, you may elect to re-list the discussion, though it is entirely optional and up to the closer. Relisting simply consists of stating Relisted.--~~~~; see this diff for an example. This gives the request a new timestamp which RM bot will use as the date to relist the entry on the requested moves project page.

[edit] Moving procedures

[edit] Edit history of destination page

The majority of target names for move requests already exist as redirects to the present names. Whether a redirect or otherwise, that existing target title should be investigated to see whether it has a minor or major page history. If it has a minor page history, generally meaning it only existed as a redirect, and was never a duplicate article, never had content that was cut and pasted to the present title, nor merged there, it may simply be deleted. However, if the target page title has a major history it should never be simply deleted, as we need to retain such page histories for proper copyright attribution. There are three ways to deal with target pages with major histories, dependent on circumstances. In the event this situation presents itself on a move, click "show" below for instructions.

Procedure for redirects with major histories

For page histories resulting from cut and paste moves, the correct way to fix this is the merge the page history of the present article and the redirect, using the procedure outlined at Wikipedia:How to fix cut and paste moves. On rare occasions, this procedure will not work correctly. Once a history merge is done, it cannot easily be undone, so don't pick this option unless it is definitely the right one. You can request history merges at Wikipedia:Cut and paste move repair holding pen.
For duplicate articles and merged content, or alternatively for cut and paste moves, the page histories of the article and the redirect can be swapped. For cut and paste moves this leaves a bifurcated history, but has less chance of causing problems. Simply move one of the pair to a temporary name, and then delete the new redirect which that move will leave behind at the original location; next, move the other page of the pair across to the first one's old location, and delete that left-over new redirect; finally, move the first one from its temporary location to its new name. You will then need to delete the new redirect at the temporary location, and finally fix the old redirect to point at the article again (at this point, it will be pointing to itself). See also WP:SWAP.
Another option is for redirect pages with major history to be archived into a talk namespace, and a link to them put into the article's talk page. (An example of such a page is at Talk:Network SouthEast, which was originally created as a duplicate article at Network SouthEast and later archived, when the original article was moved from Network South East).

[edit] Cleaning up after the move

It is important that you clean up after any move you perform. Accordingly, you should not close any move if you are unwilling to do the necessary clean up tasks listed below.

[edit] Fixing double redirect

Moving a page changes any redirects that pointed to the original page location, into double redirects. These make for an unpleasant experiences for the reader, waste server resources, and make the navigational structure of the site confusing. It is the responsibility of the closer to fix these. Periodically a bot will attempt to fix any double redirects missed but that does not relieve the closer of the responsibility which should be handled soon after the move.

The "move succeeded" summary page that that you are taken to directly upon a move provides a link entitled "Check what links here" specifically geared to listing offending double redirects created by a move. Fix any double redirects shown on the resulting page.

Some talk pages, archive pages and subpages that you may also have been moved, may also have had redirects that have become double redirects. These associated moved pages are listed at the bottom of the move succeeded page. Open up the prior page names (which should now be themselves all at redirects) and click on "What links here" in the toolbox on the left hand side of the page, then click on "Hide transclusions" and "Hide links". This is the manual procedure to perform the same search the move succeeded page provides with the "Check what links here" link noted above.

[edit] Fixing fair use rationales

Please check whether there are any images on the moved page with fair use rationales (any Commons images can be immediately excluded, easily recognizable by the logo on the image page: ). If you find such fair use images images present, change all mentions of the prior article name, to the retitled name, so that the image is not marked for deletion as orphaned.

[edit] Fixing the category sort key

Many pages have a template above the page categories in the form {{DEFAULTSORT:Name}} Where the name field provided in the template is the old title of the page (pages are sometimes categorized in other ways), change it to the new title. Alternatively, in some pages categories are piped in the category links themselves, e.g., [[Category:Monty Python films|Name of Film]]. In the example you would fix the name of the film.

[edit] Closing the requested move

When you complete an entry on the project (whether the move was accepted or rejected), don't forget to remove the {{movereq}} tag from the talk page. You should also add and sign a comment to indicate whether the move was accepted or rejected in the discussion area for the requested move. This can take the form of an informal note or a more formal close (see below).

There are a few options for formally closing the move request survey on the affected article's talk page. One is to use the templates {{subst:RM top}} and {{subst:RM bottom}} (although some editors prefer {{polltop}}/{{pollbottom}} or {{discussion top}}/{{discussion bottom}}). The other is just to leave a statement like "This article has been renamed per the above move request". For requests that for some reason did not apply, you can use {{notmovedmalformed}} or a similar statement based on the circumstances.

[edit] Bot considerations

[edit] Malformed requests

A request will be listed in a special section on Wikipedia:Requested moves if the listing bot cannot ascertain the date on which the request was made. There are two causes of this:

The {{move}} template was not substituted, and as a result, the expected [[OldName]] → [[NewName]] string is not found on the page. • To fix this, substitute the {{move}} template, and the bot will list the request anew.
If the template is a bare {{move}} without any page specified. • In that event, try to figure out what the intended request was; otherwise, use {{subst:move|?}}.
The move request is not signed. Sign the move request, and the problem is solved. If you are signing for someone else and you use {{Unsigned}}, you must place today's time/date stamp for this to remedy the problem, so you can use the form {{subst:unsigned|Foo|~~~~~}}, and note this uses five tildes to place the time stamp.

[edit] Header confusion

Because the instructions state that the talk page section containing the move request should be called "Requested move", and {{subst:RMtalk}} creates a section called "Requested move", occasionally two sections with the same name will appear on a talk page. When this happens, the bot will link to the first one, even if the move request is in the second one. This can be remedied by giving the section containing the current move request a different name (such as "Requested move 2" or "Requested move (month year)".

Contents