User:J.delanoy/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.

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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.

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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)

   I see no problems here.

2. Administrator coaching (either formally or informally)

   I think that formal admin coaching focuses too much on "How to pass an RFA" instead of "How to be a good admin". That is not to say that it is impossible for formal coaching to help, but in its present form, by and large, I do not think that formal admin coaching is doing a good job preparing people for adminship. Informal training, where someone asks one or a few admins for advice with "admin-y"-type tasks when needed, is, IMO, a very good thing. I do it myself, and there are a couple of admins who could testify as to how much I cover their talk pages with questions/requests.

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

   I think that this runs pretty smoothly for the most part. I have absolutely no problem with self-nominations. Although seeing a nominator whose judgment I trust is very nice, support or opposition to a candidate should not be based on the nominator. The current situation, where people are afraid to nominate themselves, is unquestionably not a good thing. I do not think that opposing someone because they nominated themselves is valid. If a self-nominated candidate would not be a good admin, it should be easy to find a more substantial reason to oppose.

4. Advertising and canvassing

   I think that the current system works pretty well. All RFAs (that have any chance of passing) are live for 7 days, which is plenty of time for anyone who has a vested interest in the candidate, whether good or bad, to give their opinion, even if the candidate is not running around promoting himself. If advertising beyond a note on the userpage and talk page was allowed, one can easily see a candidate spamming hundreds of talk pages, messageboards, email inboxes, and so forth. In short, if advertising was allowed, there is practically no way the candidate would make any real contributions for an entire week, and passing an RFA would be dependent on how diligently a candidate worked to drum up support.

5. Debate (Presenting questions to the candidate)

   I think that the biggest problem here is "optional" questions that aren't really optional. I also think that asking questions with black-and-white answers is a waste of time. Ideally, all questions would either ask the candidate's opinion on something (related to adminship, not random nonsense) or ask how a candidate would respond to a difficult situation if they were an admin.

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

   For the most part, I think this works OK. I do think that people who oppose newbies that are clearly not ready for adminship should be nicer. I also think that stupid opposes "because I'm having a bad day" should be struck by a bureaucrat.

7. Withdrawal (the candidate withdrawing from the process)

   It annoys me when people clamor for the candidate to withdraw. If you think they should withdraw, close the nom per WP:NOTNOW. Don't annoy a good-faith candidate by demanding that they withdraw. Other than that, I have no problems with this part.

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

   I see no major problems with this area. However, I rarely visit RFA more than a two or three times a week, so I don't see a lot of closures.

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

   Since I am not an admin, I have only given the New Admin School a cursory look. Basically, from what I can see, most successful RFAs are those of people who have been at least passingly involved in admin-related areas for a long time; thus these people pretty much know what to do and what not to do. I think that the best thing a new admin can do is ask another, more experienced admin for advice if s/he is uncertain about something.

10. Recall (the Administrators Open to Recall process)

    I think that all admins should be required to subscribe to this, and I think that ridiculously difficult criteria for recall (ones that make ArbCom seem easy) should not be allowed.

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?

   I view them mainly as people that others can look up to, and ask for advice or assistance if needed. Kind of like your parents or teachers, but not quite that deep.

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

   They should be honest and trustworthy, always willing to help anyone to the best of their ability in any area. They should always try to make Wikipedia better. They should not be mean or nasty, but they should be willing to tell it like it is, and they should be firm if necessary. Actually, I think everyone on Wikipedia, not just admins, should act like that.

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 really haven't had any experiences, I just give my opinion and that's that.

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

   Yes, once, in late February 2008. At the time, I had practically no experience in the background areas of Wikipedia, and I was definitely not ready for adminship. As a result, I got snowed, and looking back, I am very happy I did not pass. That would have been a disaster.

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

   I think that admins in general should be more accountable, and I think that there should be a way to de-sysop misbehaving admins without having to go to ArbCom.

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.

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This question page was generated by {{RFAReview}} at 17:50 on 22 June 2008.