User:Hiberniantears/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:

1. Candidate selection (inviting someone to stand as a candidate)

   Seeking out skilled, willing editors who can help the project should be viewed as the ideal. But this should not mean only those invited can stand.

2. Administrator coaching (either formally or informally)

   Terrible idea. It is a symptom of the problem with RfA wherein people are not coached to make great admins, but to pass the RfA.

3. Nomination, co-nomination and self-nomination (introducing the candidate)

   All should be permitted, and nobody should be penalized for doing/having any one of these.

4. Advertising and canvassing

   I think this should be open in a limited fashion. Reaching out to those you have worked with via talk pages should be permitted.

5. Debate (Presenting questions to the candidate)

   Questions should be limited to actual admin related topics, or to questions of past actions that speak to integrity.

6. Election (including providing reasons for support/oppose)

   This is what it is in practice. If that is what it is, then specific criteria must be established for valid support/oppose reasoning.

7. Withdrawal (the candidate withdrawing from the process)

   No problem here.

8. Declaration (the bureaucrat closing the application. Also includes WP:NOTNOW closes)

   The Crat should be required to explain every close, in detail, indicating which votes were discounted.

9. Training (use of New Admin School, other post-election training)

   Should at least be offered, as it is now.

10. Recall (the Administrators Open to Recall process)

    I think this can only lead to drama, and oppose it. The idea is nice, but I don't think we could make it work in practice.

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

1. How do you view the role of an administrator?

   To some extent, the admin is counted on by editors to be a voice of reason. Admins are very much the first person most editors will turn to for assistance with technical questions, or in a conflict, and it is important that we can be both informed, and objective when giving this assistance.

2. What attributes do you feel an administrator should possess?

   Patience is key, with a healthy dose of objectivity. Likewise, as many issues are complex, and hard to discern on the surface, an inquisitive mind is also a great asset. Most importantly, we must accept that we can get things wrong from time to time, and be willing to appologize when we overstep our bounds, or hand out an errant block.

Finally, when thinking about Requests for Adminship:

1. Have you ever voted in a request for Adminship? If so what was your experience?

   Many times. I am astonished at the number of qualified RfA's that sink because one faction of RfA regulars or another latch on to an insignificant fact or statistic and oppose for it.

2. Have you ever stood as a candidate under the Request for Adminship process? If so what was your experience?

   Twice. I failed my first one, and passed my second one. I found the first RfA insulting and thought many of the voters were stunningly uninformed. I also found it highly informative, and filled with valuable constructive criticism which allowed me to improve as an editor, and eventually pass a second RfA.

3. Do you have any further thoughts or opinions on the Request for Adminship process?

   We need clearly established rules which establish the acceptable qualifications, and standards of behavior needed in a successful candidate. Further, we need to see that each candidate is judged fairly against all other candidates.

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

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

This question page was generated by {{RFAReview}} at 21:25 on 24 June 2008.