Week 6 Shift: Deletion debate

A live deletion discussion, run properly, on a real borderline subject, with one of you closing it and having to justify the close

29 March 2027

Not a debate. A deletion discussion, which is a different thing, and the difference is that nobody wins it.

Before the Shift#

Your Conflict Autopsy is due at noon today. Bring it submitted, not in progress.

Read the notability guideline for your project and the three most recent discussions closed under it.

In the Shift#

We run a real one. Prue nominates a genuinely borderline subject — a person, a place, a piece of software with three passing mentions and no depth — and the cohort argues it to the project’s own procedure, over the clock, in writing.

One of you closes. You do not count votes. You weigh arguments against policy, discount the ones that are assertions of importance, and write a rationale that the losing side can read without concluding you were biased.

Then we look at the same nomination from the other end: who tends to get nominated, what the keep-rates look like across subject areas, and whether a correctly applied rule produced a defensible result today.

Afterwards#

The closing rationale is logged. Whoever closed is excused the following week’s log entry, which is the only mercy this course offers.