How do you respond to a Wikipedia Articles for Deletion nomination?

Articles for Deletion is a community discussion run on a specific procedural format, and the right response is to engage that format on its terms rather than to react around it. The mechanics: the AfD discussion runs for about seven days, during which any editor can argue keep, delete, merge, or redirect, citing policy and sources. At the end of the period an uninvolved administrator closes the discussion by reading the consensus, not by counting votes. The right response from a COI perspective is structured. We address each specific concern raised by the nominator and other delete-supporting editors substantively, citing policy. We disclose the COI relationship transparently in the AfD itself, since trying to hide it during a high-attention discussion is the worst possible time to get caught. And we accept the community decision: if the article is deleted, the response is to build the underlying notability further before any recreation attempt rather than to fight the closure.