User:Lankiveil/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)
No strong opinions one way or the other.
Administrator coaching (either formally or informally)
Admin coaching is a good idea in my opinion, and I especially think that it should last beyond the successful conclusion of an RfA - that is in my view the time when the most mistakes can be made. The benefit of admin coaching I suppose is that even if the candidate is not successful, it usually makes them a better and more productive editor. I think straight RfA coaching is a bad idea, but I haven't seen very many straight out examples of coaching purely geared at passing the "exam". Full disclosure: I am currently going through admin coaching myself at the moment.
Nomination, co-nomination and self-nomination (introducing the candidate)
No firm feelings. To be honest, I usually skip over this part, since I don't really see any use in reading the gushing words of a nominator. I suppose I might do it in unusual cases (like the MONGO or ^demon RfAs, or if Kurt nominated someone).
Advertising and canvassing
It's gotten to the point where even a neutral mention of "hey, I'm running for RfA" sparks frantic accusations and shrieks of "CANVASSER" (try to imagine this in a Helen Lovejoy voice). I think that there's nothing wrong with a neutral announcement on a page with a wide readership, such as a Wikiproject noticeboard. I really don't think this is the problem that it's made out to be.
Debate (Presenting questions to the candidate)
I really see no value at all in "cut and paste" questions. While filtering out those who still get the "cool down block" question wrong is probably a useful indicator of someone taking the process seriously vs someone being careless, extensive lists of pop questions on policy are useless in my view. It might be controversial to say, but I think that a thorough knowledge of all of policy need not be required, as long as the prospective candidate is willing to check out the policy before they block someone or delete a page.

I think the real value in the questions section is to see what a candidate will do in an ambiguous situation that isn't clearly covered in policy. I wish more people would ask questions like this.
Election (including providing reasons for support/oppose)
I honestly think that providing a rationale should be mandatory, even for support votes. I also think that "discussion threads" should be promptly removed from the voting section, the last place I want to see a heated policy discussion is in the support section of someone's RFA.

With that said, civility should be strongly enforced at all times in RfA (and everywhere else, in my opinion). Bizarre conspiracy theories and irrelevant voting rationales (and I'm thinking of the "white power" debacle on Giggy's RfA here) should be struck and editors who persist in making such votes should be sanctioned.
Withdrawal (the candidate withdrawing from the process)
No strong opinions here. I think that snow-closes should only apply when there's a unanimous Oppose vote after some time, and that even a couple of good-faith support votes should keep an RfA open until the candidate withdraws. I don't feel particularly strongly about this, however.
Declaration (the bureaucrat closing the application. Also includes WP:NOTNOW closes)
Rarely, if ever, read this.
Training (use of New Admin School, other post-election training)
Prospective admins should read widely on policy. If they find the New Admin School or other pages helpful, then why not? Again, similar to my response on coaching, if it makes them better users, it can only help the project overall.
Recall (the Administrators Open to Recall process)
I think it's the least worst mechanism that's been devised so far for keeping admins accountable.

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?
An admin is simply a trusted user. I dislike the "janitor" metaphor, I prefer to think of admins as users that the community trusts enough to bestow the "full" set of tools upon them.
What attributes do you feel an administrator should possess?
A level head, a fanatical devotion to remaining WP:CIVIL, a sense of humour, and a decent knowledge of the policy in the area that they want to work in.

Finally, when thinking about Requests for Adminship:

Have you ever voted in a request for Adminship? If so what was your experience?
Frequently. I never enjoy voting Oppose, but it's usually not a negative experience. The exception is the odd controversial RfA that derails horribly, which is never a fun time for anyone.
Have you ever stood as a candidate under the Request for Adminship process? If so what was your experience?
No, not yet.
Do you have any further thoughts or opinions on the Request for Adminship process?
The conduct of some users on the Giggy RfA in particular was absolutely repugnant. Acting in that fashion in a real life vote or meeting would be grounds for expulsion from most groups or organisations, yet most of the culprits (both on the Support and Oppose sides) have gotten away scot-free. I don't feel that the process is actually that bad, but the behaviour of some people who seem to enjoy derailing the process really has to be addressed in some way.

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

This question page was generated by {{RFAReview}} at 10:49 on 30 June 2008.