User:Toadspike/How to RMTR

This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

You're probably here because I just gave you pagemover.^[a]

These scripts are crucial for pagemovers:

• User:Ahecht/Scripts/pageswap.js for swapping pages (aka round robin moves)
• User:Nardog/MoveHistory.js for checking a page's move history. The move logs are no good for this, since they only show moves away from a specific title.

This script is very helpful for WP:RM/TR:

• User:Eejit43/scripts/rmtr-helper.js helps easily respond to RM/TRs and move them to another section.

How to handle requests at WP:RM/TR in a few simple steps:

1. Read the request. Does it make sense, follow our policy on article titles, and follow relevant naming conventions? If not, contest the request by moving it to the "contested technical requests" section.
2. Are there any open AfD discussions, RMs, histmerge requests,^[b] noticeboard discussions, or any other ongoing process on the page that would be disrupted by a move? If so, contest on procedural grounds.
3. Check the article's move history. Has this move been performed before? Has the article been through an RM or several recent BOLD moves? If so, contest; the move is likely controversial.
4. Check the article's Talk page. Are any past RMs listed? If so, contest; the move is likely controversial.
5. Do you see any other good reason not to perform the move? If so, contest and state your reason.

At this point, if there was no reason to contest the request, you should perform the move. That is the default outcome at RM/TR. You are not required to perform the move exactly as requested – you may correct typos, unambiguous violations of WP:NCCAPS, or other issues you notice. For example, if a request asks to move "Jimmy Jones (Television Actor)" to "Jimmy Jones (Actor)", you are allowed to instead move to "Jimmy Jones (actor)", as parenthetical disambiguations are normally written in lowercase.

If you contest a technical request, be sure to ping the requester to let them know why. This usually sounds like: "Your request is controversial because...". You may also explain how to open an RM (by clicking the blue "discuss" link in their request), especially if the requester is a new editor.

If one of the above steps tells you to contest, but you believe that the move should still be performed, you may do so, but you must take responsibility for performing the BOLD move. Potential exceptions to the checklist include:

• Requests to revert an undiscussed move, especially one during an RM or other process listed in step 2 above, should almost always be performed.
  • The main exception is if the undiscussed move was a long time ago. There's no consistent definition of "a long time", but a year is often enough and two years is almost always enough.
• Articles whose title has been changed several times uncontroversially (e.g. sports teams that regularly change their names for sponsorship reasons).
• The current title is obviously incorrect or violates a core policy (e.g. BLP violations, obvious vandalism).
• The last RM was a very long time ago.
• The last RM had minimal participation or closed as no consensus and is not recent.

If a requester at RM/TR is a very experienced editor, check if they are a pagemover. If so, try to teach them how to perform the move themselves. If not, take a look at their edits to RM/TR and quality of RM participation; if they look like a good candidate for pagemover, ask them to apply at WP:PERM/PM.