User:Frank/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 wonder about this sometimes...seems to be somewhat "clubby" but I suppose that's unavoidable.
Administrator coaching (either formally or informally)
...Nothing wrong with it, but shouldn't be a requirement.
Nomination, co-nomination and self-nomination (introducing the candidate)
...Although some people don't appreciate self-nominations, I personally think that non-self-nominations can be political. It almost appears as if nominators are in some sort of competition to nominate the "best" candidates, or the most.
Advertising and canvassing
...Advertising on one's own talk page: OK. Canvassing: definitely not OK.
Debate (Presenting questions to the candidate)
...Excellent and works well as it currently is. Candidates who are less well-known or appear less experienced do have to answer more questions, but that is to be expected.
Election (including providing reasons for support/oppose)
...The consensus process seems to work. The bureaucrats have their work cut out for them, but they seem to handle it well. I haven't seen any RfAs closed in a way that I disagreed with given the discussion of the candidate (thinking of the 2Q of 2008, roughly, as that's my frame of reference).
Withdrawal (the candidate withdrawing from the process)
...Doesn't happen often enough. Candidates don't realize early enough what the trend is and why it's meaningful.
Declaration (the bureaucrat closing the application. Also includes WP:NOTNOW closes)
...No opinion.
Training (use of New Admin School, other post-election training)
...No opinion.
Recall (the Administrators Open to Recall process)
...I think this is a good idea in principle, but I don't like the criteria I've seen for it. Given the natural human tendency toward cabalism, it seems to me that a recall should be nearly as well attended as an RfA in order to be meaningful.

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?
...Generally as a judge, in the sense that judges in the United States preside over proceedings and rule on points of law. (I make that locality distinction because judges in other countries have varying roles in their justice systems.)
What attributes do you feel an administrator should possess?
...Experience is primary. This brings with it knowledge of how Wikipedia works as both an encyclopedia (of primary importance, of course) and as a community (politics never go away). Knowledge of policy is important. From what I've seen of a few administrators I've followed after successful RfAs, patience and a thick skin are also important.

Finally, when thinking about Requests for Adminship:

Have you ever voted in a request for Adminship? If so what was your experience?
...Yes, several. I found it to be generally well run; I don't like the drama that sometimes shows up but I guess it is to be expected to some degree.
Have you ever stood as a candidate under the Request for Adminship process? If so what was your experience?
...Not yet, but I expect I will soon enough.
Do you have any further thoughts or opinions on the Request for Adminship process?
...I think that the sheer size of the project probably means that some change will have to be made. One relatively benign idea that I have at this point is requiring recertification (for lack of a better word) of administrators periodically, perhaps every 18 months. Another is to require some minimum standards before allowing users to even apply to become administrators. I think it is disheartening to some users who apply without really knowing what they are getting into; they mean well but are shot down very quickly and if that drives them away, it could be a loss to the project.

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:Frank/RfA review]] added by ~~~ at ~~~~~

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

This question page was generated by {{RFAReview}} at 20:45 on 25 June 2008.