I don't care what the bureaucratic process is, all I know is one guy went on a rampage electing pages for deletion and they're gone. This "plausible deniability" of page deletion so nobody is to blame really is odd.
There's a discussion at each AfD where anyone can come in and say why a page should or should not be kept. In the end, it is the adminstrator's decision as to whether or not there is a consensus to delete (default is to keep), and there are processes in place for getting the decision overturned.
Chris nominated 8 pages for deletion over a period of 3 days. While it's a spree that's likely hasty, it's by no means a rampage. I believe he was wrong to do as he did, but only a couple pages were deleted, and there's a discussion to have Nemerle restored. He's hardly a one-man wiki-wrecking crew.
it is the adminstrator's decision as to whether or not there is a consensus to delete (default is to keep)
The de facto process is to default to delete. As this embarrassing debacle has shown, there were no votes to delete, and yet poof! the articles were deleted and a day later, with significant backlash and discussion, almost all in favor to reinstate or at least open the pages back up to be reconstituted, are not back up.