I agree with Travellingcari. The tags serve a useful purpose, even after the article is brought to AfD, and especially so when they have been on the article for a significant length of time. They make it clear to visiting editors that any interested parties have had a fair chance to improve the article, and hadn't, which is often a point used in support of deletion. Conversely, if the article isn't tagged, it's not clear that interested parties have been given a chance to improve the article, which may be used to support a keep argument. Removing the tag makes the status either way less clear. Yes, it's available in the history, but why make editors go through the extra work of checking the history? In addition, an AfD can end without reaching a consensus, which means the tag most likely still applies and would have to be restored. No, the time to remove the tag is after a consensus has been reached at the AfD that the subject does meet the notability guidelines, i.e. after it is closed with result keep (or in some cases, when the eventual outcome is clear per WP:SNOW). PS, no, I'm not an admin.