Wikipedia:Speedy keep

XfD discussions may be closed as speedy keep before the normal discussion period ends if they meet specific criteria listed below.

Criteria

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A discussion may be closed as speedy keep in the following cases:

  1. If no other participants in the discussion recommend an outcome other than "keep", the discussion is eligible for "speedy keep" if any of these apply:
    1. the nominator withdraws the nomination, perhaps because of improvements to the article that happen during the discussion,
    2. the page is being discussed at AfD or MfD and the nominator fails to give intelligible grounds for deletion (in the case of MfD) and for deletion, merging, redirection, or draftification (in the case of AfD), perhaps only proposing an alternative action such as moving or keeping, or
    3. the nomination is obviously generated (not merely refined) by a large language model or similar AI technology.
    However:
    1. If the nominator indicates that the nomination is procedural in nature, then the nomination is ineligible for speedy keep. This includes a "relist" result from deletion review, fixing errors in the nomination process, or if a user stated a page should be deleted or merged on a talk page without actually nominating it.
    2. If the nomination would otherwise qualify for close to speedy redirect then suggestions to redirect the page are treated the same as moving or merging.
    3. Where the nominator withdraws their nomination, if a good-faith editor in good standing recommends an outcome other than "keep", the discussion should not be speedily closed using this ground.
  2. The nomination was unquestionably made for the purposes of vandalism or disruption and no uninvolved editor has recommended an outcome other than "keep". Questionable motivations on the part of the nominator do not have a direct bearing on the validity of the nomination. For example, nominations:
    1. that are obviously frivolous or vexatious, such as recently featured content or April Fools' Day jokes
    2. made solely to provide a forum for disruption, e.g., when a contestant in an edit war nominates the other editor's user page for deletion
    3. of the same page with the same arguments immediately after they were strongly rejected in a recently-closed XfD discussion
    4. that are clearly an attempt to end an editing dispute through deletion, where dispute resolution is a more appropriate course
  3. The nomination is completely erroneous. No accurate rationale has been provided.
  4. The nominator was banned or blocked at the time of making the nomination. In that case, the nominated page is speedily kept and the nomination can be removed from the log, tagged with {{db-banned}}, and speedily deleted as a banned contribution. However, if a good-faith editor in good standing recommended an outcome other than "keep" before the nominator's blocked or banned status was discovered, the discussion should not be speedily closed using this ground (though the nominator's opinion will be discounted in the closure decision).
  5. The page is a policy or guideline. The deletion processes are not a forum for repealing certain policies; such should be relegated either to the corresponding talk page or as a request for comment.
  6. The page or image is currently linked from the Main Page. In such cases, please wait until the link is no longer on the Main Page before nominating. If the problem is urgent, consensus should be gained at WP:ERRORS to remove the link before nominating.

If a page is nominated on the wrong forum (for example, a template on AfD or an article on MfD), the misplaced discussion may be procedurally closed and the page renominated on the correct forum, with the original nomination, and any comments made so far, copied over to the new nomination. The closing comment should indicate where the discussion has been moved. This does not strictly count as a speedy keep, since the page still remains nominated.

Please realize that while you may personally dislike having a deletion or merge tag on your favorite article, template, image etc, the harm it does is minimal, and either the article or the tag will be gone in around a week. Also be aware that the speedy keep criteria, particularly the first three, are not to be used to express strong disapproval of the nomination: a rationale that you don't agree with is still an argument for deletion or merging, is not necessarily vexatious, and does not imply the nominator has neglected to read the page.

What is not a speedy keep

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This guideline only to applies to "speedy keep" closures; the criteria for speedy deletion cover the circumstances under which pages may be deleted immediately.

A "snowball clause" indicates that consensus is obvious, while a speedy keep close indicates that the nomination was erroneous. The "snowball clause" is a valid criterion for an early closure and is not subject to any of the other criteria necessary for a speedy keep, but it is not a speedy keep criterion itself. "Snowball closes" are justified by Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy as opposed to a specific set of guidelines. For that reason, "snow closes" may be controversial and additional care is warranted. Though the two may seem similar, closes under the snowball clause should never be closed as "speedy keep".

How to close a discussion as speedy keep

When a discussion is closed as a speedy-keep, close the debate as you would a standard close, but use the result speedy keep instead of keep. The procedure for closing AfD discussions is laid out at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion § Closing.

Notes

  1. ↑ An example of this includes posting a nomination in response to a proposed deletion or an AfD discussion with consensus to delete, but advocating a keep position. (If you want to record a rationale for the PROD-tag removal, see Wikipedia:Proposed deletion § Objecting.)

See also