User:EverSince/RfA review

Welcome to the Question phase of RfA Review. We hope you'll take the time to respond to your questions in order to give us further understanding of what you think of the RfA process. Remember, there are no right or wrong answers here. Also, feel free to answer as many questions as you like. Don't feel you have to tackle everything if you don't want to.

In a departure from the normal support and oppose responses, this review will focus on your thoughts, opinions and concerns. Where possible, you are encouraged to provide examples, references, diffs and so on in order to support your viewpoint. Please note that at this point we are not asking you to recommend possible remedies or solutions for any problems you describe, as that will come later in the review.

If you prefer, you can submit your responses anonymously by emailing them to gazimoff (at) o2.co.uk. Anonymous responses will be posted as subpages and linked to from the responses section, but will have the contributor's details removed. If you have any questions, please use the talk page.

Once you've provided your responses, please encourage other editors to take part in the review. More responses will improve the quality of research, as well as increasing the likelihood of producing meaningful results.

Once again, thank you for taking part!

Questions

When thinking about the adminship process, what are your thoughts and opinions about the following areas:

Candidate selection (inviting someone to stand as a candidate)
I'd like to see statistics on what kind of editors tend to get invited.
Administrator coaching (either formally or informally)
No comment
Nomination, co-nomination and self-nomination (introducing the candidate)
I've seen (after the fact) a successful nomination where the candidate's answer to the standard question about previous edit disputes was highly selective, only indicating the existence of one of the editors who'd been in dispute with them, and then only giving a link to a tangential arbitration with that editor and a general link to the article, when the relevant stuff was by then in the talk page archives (archiving started by the candidate) - and what had actually gone on there was never addressed in the RfA. Maybe the question could be tightened up so it requires the candidate to specifically link to significant disputes in which they've been involved (not because it's bad in itself, but so people can see how they conducted themselves).
Advertising and canvassing
Need to raise awareness in editors that this process is going on. Maybe a link to current RfA's in userspace. Regarding canvassing, I imagine that even people's "friends" will likely be aware of their RfA one way or another (and may have nominated), whereas those who may have had less positive encounters are less likely to be made aware, so perhaps there needs to be a suitable degree of "reverse-canvassing" by an independent person...
Debate (Presenting questions to the candidate)
Seems ok the way it's done, though I've not been directly involved.
Election (including providing reasons for support/oppose)
Seems good the way it's done, though I've not been directly involved.
Withdrawal (the candidate withdrawing from the process)
No comment
Declaration (the bureaucrat closing the application. Also includes WP:NOTNOW closes)
Does it state who made the final decision and something of the rationale behind their decision?
Training (use of New Admin School, other post-election training)
No comment
Recall (the Administrators Open to Recall process)
I've found it quite hard to understand what this is all about - I think it's about de-admin'ing someone if there's sufficient objection to them? Needs to be clearer. Not sure why it's only voluntary to be subject to this - I can see there's a lot of concern about trival or bad faith accusations. Also needs to be clearer how your average editor can actually record an objection or concern about an admin.

When thinking about adminship in general, what are your thoughts and opinions about the following areas:

How do you view the role of an administrator?
To Protect and Serve, administratively
What attributes do you feel an administrator should possess?
A devotion to the spirit of Wikipedia and fair representation of all, and the proclivity and ability to undertake admin tasks to aid that. NOT a devotion to political networking or oneupmanship. Ability to be firm and thick-skinned, but also to fairly explain own position and listen to and fairly represent others.

I feel strongly that admin candidates should have made significant content contributions as well as just admin-type edits. By which I mean contributions that weren't just about fixing or criticising or deleting other's work, but independently adding their own material and sources to cover issues they cared about. Otherwise they may be more out of touch with what it's like being in that position, and may have been more interested in exercising control and politics over others (although they may just be the kind of person who genuinely likes helping in that way).

Finally, when thinking about Requests for Adminship:

Have you ever voted in a request for Adminship? If so what was your experience?
No, I never knew where it was happening until I saw the link to this questionnaire at the top of my watchlist
Have you ever stood as a candidate under the Request for Adminship process? If so what was your experience?
No and probably wouldn't.
Do you have any further thoughts or opinions on the Request for Adminship process?
Glad it's being consulted on.

Once you're finished...

Thank you again for taking part in this review of the Request for Adminship process. Now that you've completed the questionnaire, don't forget to add the following line of code to the bottom of the Response page by clicking this link and copying the following to the BOTTOM of the list.

* [[User:EverSince/RfA review]] added by ~~~ at ~~~~~

Again, on behalf of the project, thank you for your participation.

This question page was generated by {{RFAReview}} at 21:51 on 24 June 2008.