Requests for comment/Proposal for change in RFC policy

The following request for comments is closed. There is consensus to adjust the inactivity period of Requests for Comment from 2 years to 6 months. Vermont (🐿️—🏳️‍🌈) 02:33, 20 May 2026 (UTC)

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Hello everyone, I would like to propose reducing the period after which a RfC may be closed due to inactivity.

The current policy states:

Requests for comment that are inactive for more than 2 years can be marked as closed due to inactivity (see Requests for comment/Closure of old RFCs).

I propose reducing this period from 2 years to 6 months. RFCs with consensus for actions are closed much quicker or are active during it's run. As a result, the proposed change will primarily affects discussions that have stalled or failed to attract participation.

This will allow clearly inactive discussions to be archived more efficiently, reduce cluttering of long-dormant RfCs, and enable people to start a new RFC for the topic if issue is still persisting. With new wave of notification, it has chances of becoming more active again.

The new proposed wording is:

Requests for comment that are inactive for more than 6 months can be marked as closed due to inactivity.

I welcome your feedback and suggestions on the matter. Thank you.--BRP ^ever 05:58, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

Comments

•  Support 2 years is a ridiculously long time for an RfC to go inactive, resulting in a woefully inefficient process and stagnant discussions that linger a lot longer than they need to. 6 months is a lot more reasonable; only few RfCs ever return to activity after such a long period of inactivity. //shb (t • c) 06:28, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support Per shb. --Count Count (talk) 06:32, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
• Some RFCs seem to achieve some sorts of consensus, just waiting a steward to certify and enact it. It is not good to close an RFC as stale if there are some obvious action items.--GZWDer (talk) 08:45, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support 6 months is fairly enough. _signed, Aafi ^(talk) 11:31, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support There is a backlog of de facto inactive RfCs that are unlikely to go anywhere, and this would help reducing it. NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 11:37, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support: Two years is completely unnecessary. For discussions that have had no consensus for two years, I think that for about three-quarters of that time no one is paying attention to them anyway. Therefore, it would be better to close them after six months as proposed by the proposer. 浅村しき (talk) 11:50, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support Two years is unnecessarily looong. 6 months is sufficient. --𝓰𝓲𝓷𝓪𝓪𝓷기나ㅏㄴ(T/C) 11:53, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Strong support. It's long overdue. Codename Noreste (talk • contribs) 14:13, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support The two year hiatus on closing stale RfCs prevents us from closing RfCs that got redirected to U4C in the interrim period and of those which issues already got resolved in the meanwhile. I cannot disagree more with GZWDer though, RfCs usually aren't properly filed in (especially regarding proper relevant communities/community members notifications) which causes RfCs to go stale rather quickly.--A09|(pogovor) 14:21, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support * Pppery * _{it has begun} 17:05, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support 2 years is ridiculously long. Jianhui67 ^{talk★contribs} 17:21, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support Support. This makes sense, six months feels more reasonable and it can always be reopened with a fresh RFC. HakanIST (talk) 20:32, 8 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support 6 months is reasonable. Ternera (talk) 13:10, 9 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support. 2 years... is really a very long time. --Sotiale (talk) 13:58, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

•  Support six months is more than enough time for a proposal to find consensus or be marked as stale.

  To reiterate what the proposal says, this should be an option, not a firm rule—if there is substantive discussion occurring, the RFC should not be shut down. HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 20:06, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

  Of course, this RFC is proposing only a change in management for inactive ones. I don't think anyone here would close a lively discussion. A09|(pogovor) 22:19, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

•  Support Two years is too long for an inactive RfC; six months is more reasonable. ~ Yahya (talk • contribs) 22:30, 9 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support I support, there is no reason for inactive RFCs to continue for 2 years. EggRoll97 (talk) 01:12, 10 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support I think 2 years is very long. Nemoralis (talk) 02:41, 10 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support Two years is too long. SCP-2000 03:22, 10 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support + reduce the time limit. aqurs 🍧 06:58, 10 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support Two years is such a long time that it is likely that the subject of the RFC and the status of the wiki in general will have de facto changed so much that it would not make sense. Six months is much more reasonable. --Geraki ^T_L 18:30, 10 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support as stated by House. --MarcoSwart (talk) 12:24, 11 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support I think 6 months are enough --NDG (talk) 07:01, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support Six month seems Okay. Ishtiak Abdullah (talk) 16:46, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support I would prefer going even further, requiring RfC creators to first get consensus to make the RfC or something like that, and have some sort of plan for how long it will go, what the intended outcomes are, how it will be closed, etc. But this is a step in the right direction. – Ajraddatz (talk) 23:21, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support. Even six months of no activity seems excessive, but it's better than letting stale discussions linger for years. Omphalographer (talk) 01:58, 14 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support – Aca (talk) 21:41, 19 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support per above. Dwccb10 (talk) 22:24, 19 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support Seems OK. --نوفاك اتشمان (talk) 07:47, 24 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support I agree; two year is a very long time, once the RfCs reach this point, they would rather be already inactive for many months. I agree that 6 months is just more than enough to consider a RFC as inactive. ToadetteEdit (talk) 08:05, 24 March 2026 (UTC)
•  Support a reduction to one year, but  Weak support a reduction to 6 months. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Another Wiki User the 3rd (talk) 19:48, 6 April 2026 (UTC)
•  Support I also believe that 2 years is too much and 6 months is enough.--Luigi Nakano (会話) 19:26, 14 April 2026 (UTC)