Wikipedia:Move review
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Move review is a process to formally discuss and evaluate a contested close of Wikipedia page move discussions, including requested moves (RM), categories for discussion discussions (CfD), and redirects for discussion discussions (RfD), to determine if the close was reasonable, or whether it was inconsistent with the spirit and intent of Wikipedia common practice, policies, or guidelines.
Prior to submitting a review of a page move's close, please attempt to resolve any issues on the closer's talk page. See step one below.
While the page move close is under review, any involved editor is free to revert any undiscussed moves of a nominated page without those actions being considered a violation of Wikipedia:No wheel warring.
What this process is not
[edit]This review process should be focused on the move discussion and the subsequent results of the move discussion, not on the person who closed the discussion. If you have ongoing concerns about a closer, please consult with the closer or post at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Move review requests which cast aspersions or otherwise attack other editors may be speedily closed.
Do not request a move review if someone has boldly moved a page and you disagree. Instead, attempt to discuss it with the editor, and if the matter continues to be unresolved, start a formal WP:RM discussion on the article's talk page.
Do not request a move review simply because you disagree with the outcome of a page move discussion. While the comments in the move discussion may be discussed in order to assess the rough consensus of a close, this is not a forum to re-argue a closed discussion.
Disagreements with Wikipedia:Requested moves/Closing instructions (WP:RMCI), WP:Article titles, the Manual of Style, a naming convention or the community norm of consensus should be raised at the appropriate corresponding talk page.
CfDs[1] and RfDs can only be reviewed here if the relevant discussion was limited in scope to renaming; CfDs or RfDs[2] involving deletion should be reviewed at Wikipedia:Deletion review.
Instructions
[edit]Initiating move reviews
[edit]Editors desiring to initiate a move review should follow the steps listed below. In the reason parameter, editors should limit their requests to one or both of the following reasons:
- [Closer] did not follow the spirit and intent of WP:RMCI because [explain rationale here] in closing this requested move discussion.
- [Closer] was unaware of significant additional information not discussed in the page move discussion: [identify information here] and the discussion should be reopened and relisted.
Editors initiating a move review discussion should be familiar with the closing instructions provided in WP:RMCI.
Steps to list a new review request
[edit]| 1. |
Before requesting a move review: please attempt to discuss the matter with the closer of the page move discussion on the closer's talk page. Move review is a process that takes several days, sometimes weeks, to close. On the closer's talk page, you can probably resolve the matter much more quickly. There could have been a mistake, miscommunication, or misunderstanding, and a full, formal move review may not be needed. Such discussion also gives the closer the opportunity to clarify the reasoning behind a decision. If things don't work out, and you decide to request a review of the closure, please note in the review that you did first try discussing the matter with the closer. To clarify: You absolutely MUST attempt to discuss the matter with the closer FIRST, and give them a few days to respond. |
| 2. |
Follow this link to this month's log and paste the template skeleton at the top of the discussions (but not at the top of the page). Then fill in page with the name of the contested move page, rm_page with the name of the move discussion page if needed, rm_section if needed, closer and closer_section with the post-move discussion information, and reason with the reason why the page move should be reviewed. For example: Copy this template skeleton for most pages:
{{subst:move review list
|page=
|rm_page= <!--Not needed if the move discussion is on the talk page of the page-->
|rm_section= <!--Name of the section with the move request-->
|closer= <!--User name of editor who closed the move request-->
|closer_section= <!--Name of the section of closer's talk page where discussion took place-->
|reason=
}} ~~~~
If either the
are correctly filled in, the result will include a "Discussion with closer" link to that discussion. If the |
| 3. |
If you have not done so already, inform the closer of the Move review discussion by adding the following on their user talk page:
|
| 4. |
Leave notice of the move review in the same section as, but outside of and above the closed original move discussion. Use the following template: |
| 5. |
If the current month discussions are not already included in the discussion section below. Add the new log page to the top of the active discussions section.
|
| 6. |
The discussion with closer and notices required above are sufficient notification; you are not required to individually notify participants in the prior move discussion of the move review. However, if you individually notify any of them, you must individually notify all of them by posting a message about the move review on each participant's respective user talk page. |
Commenting in a move review
[edit]In general, commenters should prefix their comments with either Endorse or Overturn (optionally stating an alternative close) followed by their reasoning. Generally, the rationale should be an analysis of whether the closer properly followed Wikipedia:Requested moves/Closing instructions, whether it was within closer's discretion and reasonably interpreted consensus in the discussion, while keeping in mind the spirit of Wikipedia policy, precedent and project goal. Commenters should be familiar with WP:RMCI, which sets forth community norms for closers of page move discussions.
If the close is considered premature because of on-going discussion or if significant relevant information was not considered during the discussion, commenters should suggest Relist followed by their rationale.
Commenters should identify whether or not they were involved or uninvolved in the RM discussion under review.
The closer of the page move under discussion should feel free to provide additional rationale as to why they closed the RM in the manner they did and why they believe the close followed the spirit and intent of WP:RMCI.
Remember that move review is not an opportunity to rehash, expand upon or first offer your opinion on the proper title of the page in question – move review is not a do-over of the WP:RM discussion but is an opportunity to correct errors in the closing process (in the absence of significant new information). Thus, the action specified should be the editor's analysis of whether the close of the discussion was reasonable or unreasonable based on the debate and applicable policy and guidelines. Providing evidence such as page views, ghits, ngrams, challenging sourcing and naming conventions, etc. to defend a specific title choice is not within the purview of a move review. Evidence should be limited to demonstrating that the RM closer did or did not follow the spirit and intent of WP:RMCI in closing the page move discussion.
Closing reviews
[edit]A nominated page should remain on move review for at least seven days. After seven days, an uninvolved editor will determine whether a consensus exists to either endorse the close or overturn the close. If that consensus is to Overturn Close, the MRV closer should take the appropriate actions to revert any title changes resulting from the RM close. If the consensus was to relist, the page should be relisted at Wikipedia:Requested moves, Wikipedia:Categories for discussion, or Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion. If the consensus is to Endorse Close, no further action is required on the article title. If the MRV closer finds that there is no consensus in the move review, then in most cases this has the same effect as Endorse Close and no action is required on the article title. However, in some cases, it may be more appropriate to treat a finding of "no consensus" as equivalent to a "relist"; MRV closers may use their discretion to determine which outcome is more appropriate.
Use {{subst:move review top}} and {{subst:move review bottom}} to close such discussions.
Alternatively, the opener of a move review can withdraw it if and only if unanimous opposition is obvious or the discussion has not had any comments yet. A review that was initiated via block evasion may be closed at any time.
Also, add a result to the {{move review talk}} template on the talk page where the original discussion took place, e.g. {{move review talk|date=April 24 2015|result=Closure endorsed}}.
Typical move review decision options
[edit]The following set of options represent the typical results of a move review decision, although complex page move discussions involving multiple title changes may require a combination of these options based on the specific details of the RM and MRV discussions.
| MRV closer's decision | RM closer's decision | Move review closed as | Status of RM after MRV close |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Endorse | Moved / Not moved | No action required | Closed |
| 2. Overturn | Not moved | Option 1: (If RM consensus is unclear or significantly divided) Reopen and relist RM | Open |
| Option 2: (If consensus to move to a new title is clear) Move title to new title and close RM | Closed | ||
| Moved | Move title back to pre-RM title, and reopen and relist RM if appropriate | Open | |
| 3. Relist | Moved / Not moved | Reopen and relist RM and if moved, move title back to pre-RM title | Open |
Notes
[edit]- ↑ Those that involve renames (Template:Cfr), for all other types of CFDs use deletion review.
- ↑ Generally for those that don't involve any proposed or suggested deletion, where only the redirect's target was being discussed or if the redirect should be a disambiguation page, for other (even those that were retargeted where deletion was proposed or considered) use deletion review.
Active discussions
[edit]- Xinjiang re-education camps (talk|edit|history|logs|links|archive|watch) (RM) (Discussion with closer specified)
A few days after this RM wrapped up, User:TimothyBlue created an RfC which is basically an attempt to take a second bite at the apple regarding the name of the article, at Talk:Xinjiang re-education camps#RfC: Describing the Xinjiang camps. Since this RfC is likely to be malformed, I am opening a move review for further discussion of the article title. Maayaaaaa (talk) 11:23, 11 November 2026 (UTC)
- Comment: Move reviews are not a place to relitigate discussions that have already taken place on a talk page per WP:MRNOT. Qwerty123M (talk) 11:39, 11 November 2026 (UTC)
- To summarize, User:TimothyBlue's objections are:
The page was moved dispite pervious discussions to a name that violates NPOV.
A prior consensus was reversed without explanation. The January 2021 requested move moved the page from Xinjiang re-education camps to Xinjiang internment camps, citing NPOV, WP:NOTADVOCACY and WP:COMMONNAME; it was closed as consensus to move on 10 February 2021.
New name violates NPOV.
The common name was not established and probably does not exist "concentration camps" "internment camps" are widely used and Chinese friendly sources use "reeducation camps". In this event we need to follow NPOV and internment camps is the only option that fits.
Non-admin closure of a controversial reversal.
Maayaaaaa (talk) 11:52, 11 November 2026 (UTC)
- To summarize, User:TimothyBlue's objections are:
- Reopen: This move discussion was poorly publicized, and it reached a different result from an earlier discussion that had much higher participation. The article falls under a contentious topic area subject to general sanctions, and the outcome here was likely to be controversial; a closure of this kind should have been left to an administrator, or an admin closer should have been requested. A non-admin closure is not appropriate for a contested move in a contentious topic area. I am asking that the discussion be reopened and that the participants in the earlier move discussion be notified so they have the opportunity to comment. // Timothy :: talk 12:15, 11 November 2026 (UTC)
- Endorse The principal argument made is that this is a case of WP:BADNAC, given that Uyghurs are a WP:CT. However, this RM had already been open for 40+ days, and it's rather unlikely that relisting this is likely to generate a clearer consensus than was already reached. The RM was well publicized on many WikiProjects as well. The closer was a page mover, and while this is less ideal compared to an admin close, they are still rather experienced when it comes to moves, and I'm not seeing much evidence to suggest that they were unqualified. Maayaaaaa (talk) 12:25, 11 November 2026 (UTC)
- No grounds to re-open. There was a numerically strong and strongly-policy based (WP:COMMONNAME, WP:NOTPOV, WP:NOTADVOCACY, WP:CONTLABEL, and WP:PRECISE) consensus for the move. The move was re-listed three times and listed on five different wikiproject pages, providing enormous opportunities for the community to weigh in, which it did in force, in favor of the move. JArthur1984 (talk) 13:32, 11 November 2026 (UTC)
- Endorse the move was open a long time and the evidence doesn't support Timothy Blue's claims about the page title. (t · c) buIdhe 15:01, 11 November 2026 (UTC)
- Closer comment – I said most of what I wanted to say in response to Timothy's initial comment on my talk page, but I didn't cover why I didn't leave the discussion open/relist it, so I'll cover that now; the discussion had been going on for 40 days, had been relisted three times, and five separate WikiProjects were notified. Given the fact that I also see a fairly strong consensus in that discussion, I did not think relisting the discussion made sense (and still don't). Skarmory (talk • contribs) 16:00, 11 November 2026 (UTC)
- Endorse close The closer reflected the content of the debate fairly and with reference to the arguments that are grounded in consensus policy. Cambial — foliar❧ 18:28, 11 November 2026 (UTC)
Comment: I didn't see the discussion, and I'm sure others didn't. Locking down a consensus when new editors get involved seems a bit odd. Re-education camps is the term used by the Chinese government, while other sources refer to them as internment or concentration camps. The definition of internment camp isn't really in line with what these camps are, given that they are housing Chinese citizens, and concentration camp would be the more appropriate term to use. There are citations to support this, and I already made much of this argument on the now closed RfC.
- GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 19:42, 11 November 2026 (UTC)
NBT Bank Arena (closed)
[edit]
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| The following is an archived debate of the move review of the page above. Please do not modify it. |
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I believe that this discussion was closed before a consensus was truly established (WP:BADNAC). Additionally, the closer cited me in their rationale, but I believe, at least from my perspective, that they misinterpreted what my actual viewpoint was. (Note: here is a more direct link to the discussion I left on the closer's talk page. Red0ctober22 (talk) 01:06, 8 October 2026 (UTC)
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| The above is an archive of the move review of the page listed in the close of this review. Please do not modify it. |
I believe that the no consensus close of the discussion was a WP:BADNAC. While I brought up my concerns on the user's talk page, they were unresponsive. My concern is that the discussion could have still been relisted again multiple times and wasn't, there was no need to close it right away assuming there was in fact no consensus. I also believe the oppose arguments were weaker and refuted, which the closure did not acknowledge. Discussions are not a vote and the merits of the arguments must be considered. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 03:27, 3 October 2026 (UTC)
Weak reopen.In terms of general principles, I don't think the closer did anything wrong. Based on the content of the discussion at that time, I view "no consensus" as a reasonable read of the discussion; additionally, WP:RMRELIST advises us to usually avoid relisting discussions more than once, so I don't think the closer inherently erred by closing the discussion rather than relisting a second time. My concern is mainly that the discussion was still reasonably active at the time of closing—there were comments from multiple users just three hours before the closure. In these circumstances, I think it would have been better to let the discussion sit another day or two and see if the latest comments helped swing consensus in one direction or the other, rather than closing it right away. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 13:56, 5 October 2026 (UTC)- Shifting to endorse given the passage of time. Reopening a recently closed RM may help ongoing strands of discussion be explored more fully, but the longer a discussion has been closed, the more stable the new status quo becomes, and the more dramatic of a change it becomes to reopen it. Like I mentioned in my original comment, I don't think the closer erred in their read of the discussion that existed at the time; my concern was just that they had been too quick to find a lack of consensus while the discussion was ongoing. However, the longer the RM sits closed, the less likely it becomes that participants will be able to productively pick up and continue the same discussion they had been carrying out pre-closure, and so the less is gained by reopening the discussion. In the wake of this shift, I think it's now better to let the no-consensus result sit. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 20:10, 19 October 2026 (UTC)
- I find the idea that the outcome of a discussion should change just because we spent too long deciding what it should be unreasonable. * Pppery * it has begun... 06:19, 26 October 2026 (UTC)
- In terms of general principles, I view the timing question as essentially a manifestation of "when is it better to reopen an existing discussion vs. start a new one"; if we're going to reopen a discussion, I'd want to either feel like there was an error in the closing analysis that a second closure would repair, or like there were additional strands of discussion that felt like they could be viably teased out in further conversation. I thought at first that there may have been lines of discussion that hadn't been fully explored, but as time went on and the original participants had more time to weigh in on the MRV, I found the odds of further discussion to be increasingly unlikely—until eventually I felt that I couldn't in good conscience continue to support the reopening I'd originally proposed.That being said, though, I think in hindsight your criticism is essentially correct—I probably should have just focused on the merits of the closer's analysis instead of trying to read the tea leaves of what other editors might have done with additional time. (In this case, the lack of comments from involved editors—besides the MRV nominator—could have implied to me that no one felt they'd been cut off from saying everything they'd wanted to say.) Accordingly, it's probably true that I should have just endorsed from the start; I'd said even then that I felt the closer's reading of the discussion was justifiable, and that should been a bigger factor in my !vote. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 18:55, 26 October 2026 (UTC)
- "your critiques are right but let's just move forward"" (paraphrasing) was argued against me in a discussion at MRV last month, I don't see how MDT's position here is much different. ―"GraveDragon-X" (hihi) 05:36, 27 October 2026 (UTC)
- Okay, even putting aside the whole relisting thing, which I now realize is debatable, the fact remains that the opposes were drastically weaker and it was treated like a pure up and down vote. The first was straight-up ignoring DABMENTION, basing their opinion on the fact that "There is no other article using this title". The second made a flagrant claim without evidence at all. The third was "per others". The fourth ignored DABMENTION again. In no universe should the Chewbacca defense lead to a page not being moved. There needs to be some sense made for there to truly be no consensus. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 12:37, 27 October 2026 (UTC)
- I find the idea that the outcome of a discussion should change just because we spent too long deciding what it should be unreasonable. * Pppery * it has begun... 06:19, 26 October 2026 (UTC)
- Shifting to endorse given the passage of time. Reopening a recently closed RM may help ongoing strands of discussion be explored more fully, but the longer a discussion has been closed, the more stable the new status quo becomes, and the more dramatic of a change it becomes to reopen it. Like I mentioned in my original comment, I don't think the closer erred in their read of the discussion that existed at the time; my concern was just that they had been too quick to find a lack of consensus while the discussion was ongoing. However, the longer the RM sits closed, the less likely it becomes that participants will be able to productively pick up and continue the same discussion they had been carrying out pre-closure, and so the less is gained by reopening the discussion. In the wake of this shift, I think it's now better to let the no-consensus result sit. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 20:10, 19 October 2026 (UTC)
Chipping in again since I realized I haven't yet explained why I viewed a "no consensus" read as reasonable. The opposes from Station1 and Dekimasu expressed doubt that the tails of whales constituted a standalone encyclopedic topic, and also remarked upon the low pageviews of other topics relative to the fashion article; I read these points as essentially making a PRIMARYTOPIC argument, asserting that—regardless of whether the competing topic has a standalone article or not—most people looking up "whale tail" land at the topic they had wanted to access. I don't think the existence of DABMENTION invalidates this line of thinking. The other opposes weren't especially strong, true, but the same also applies to several of the supports, which include some equally evidence-free claims about what the primary topic was or wasn't and one !vote that appears to just cite definitions of "fin" and "fluke". Overall, I think the two sides of the argument laid out cases of reasonably comparable strength; if pushed, I think the supports are probably the marginally stronger side, but it's a close enough call that I think "no consensus" is within the spectrum of reasonable interpretations of the discussion. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 14:47, 27 October 2026 (UTC)
- Endorse. « uninvolved » Per MDT this RM closure was reasonable and in line with the closing instructions. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. – welcome! – 15:28, 27 October 2026 (UTC)
- Relist Not the worst BADNAC but I think a closer could have closed this as moved based on the strength of the arguments, so we need someone else to look at it. SportingFlyer T·C 19:56, 30 October 2026 (UTC)
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