User:Lifebaka/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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Questions

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

Note: I user the gender-specific "he" below. This in no way implies anything other than I'm too lazy to type "he/she" but am still willing to put this note at the top to head off people complaining. :P --lifebaka (Talk - Contribs) 21:08, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

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

   As I understand it, this works well as is. I was invited to stand privately through e-mail, and I believe that this is the best way to handle an invitation as it prevents users from feeling somehow "required" to stand after being invited to.
   As far as selecting candidates go, it seems to work well from what I've seen. Relatively few candidates who have had other invite them have been unready for the mop while I've been watching.

2. Administrator coaching (either formally or informally)

   I don't see it as necessary, and I haven't been through it myself, but I doubt that there's anything seriously wrong with it overall. I've read on many other reviews that some are coaching to pass RFA instead of coaching to be a better admin, and this should be frowned upon, but those that focus solely on being an admin should be useful. I personally plan to do informal-ish coaching to anyone who approaches me, as long as the user requesting it wants to learn (and hopefully learn from me).

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

   Keep it simple. If it's too long, people don't read it. Three paragraphs of decent length, at most, should do. Co-nominations are fine as long as they introduce new information each time, and as long as the whole nomination doesn't get too large.
   On the topic of self-noms, I'm rather neutral. Quite a few seem doomed to fail (WP:NOTNOW closures), in other cases there probably isn't anything wrong with them. And to everyone who likes to harass Kurt, try just providing evidence that he's wrong in each particular case and generally lay off the guy.

4. Advertising and canvassing

   If an RFA is likely to succeed I doubt any of either would happen. People who're clueful enough to make the +sysop are clueful enough to know the RFA community frowns on this heavily. A neutral place to advertising all RFAs might help fix this issue a little (or at least draw in more people to participate), but truly I doubt that it matters much to those who will likely pass already.

5. Debate (Presenting questions to the candidate)

   The standard extra questions are kinda' silly. Anyone can read the WP:RFACHEATsheet. While nothing really needs to be done about them (wrong answers to them are a very good reason to oppose), I'd fully support any candidate who didn't answer them with a reason such as "I can read the WP:RFACHEATsheet" or the like.

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

   First off, ick. That this section is titled "election" shows that closing these needs a bit of fixing. But I will cover that below.
   For the most part it seems okay. It really bothers me that some users don't give reasons, even short ones, for supports, however. Even just saying that you agree with everyone else would be nice, so people know why the user said what he said.
   I'd also like to see less of candidates replying to opposers on their own RFA. Correcting mistakes (or explaining reasoning) is fine, but arguing is not.

7. Withdrawal (the candidate withdrawing from the process)

   A candidate should be able to withdraw whenever he wants. Stuff happens, and forcing candidates to go through a stressful and possibly doomed RFA is harmful to those who have to do it.

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

   In the time I've been watching, most of the RFAs have been very clearcut. The numbers of !votes have been much heavier on one side or the other. However, quite a few users have mentioned elsewhere that there's an iron-clad bar at 75% that one must pass to get the +sysop, and that's not how we say we work. While those under 70% should most likely usually fail (except in extreme cases), we should let the 'crats do what we !elected them to do: judge consensus. I personally plan to have an RFB in a year or three to attempt to change this.

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

   As long as it's not mandatory, it's fine. I oppose mandatory training or trial periods; since RFA is supposed to screen for qualified admins, it seems excessive to have them jump through some more hoops to get the +sysop after "getting" the +sysop. (Like, did anyone see Wipeout? Only the first episode has aired, and it kinda' sucked, but I mean that kinda' excessive.)

10. Recall (the Administrators Open to Recall process)

    I'm really not a fan of the current system at WP:AOR. I personally plan to be open to recall, and I've been thinking about what sort of system I'd set up for myself, but it'll be different from the one there.
    I oppose any initiative to make the current system mandatory, either. It seems too easy for a group of editors to "lynch" an admin to -sysop him. While ArbCom is a slow way of getting it done, I at least trust that they will be fair.

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?

   An admin is an editor who is trusted by the community and has some extra buttons which, for the sake of sanity, cannot be given to every editor. (For instance, vandals would go crazy if they could block people that reverted them and delete the article on George W. Bush every five minutes.)
   However, quite a few new users aren't aware that adminship isn't a big deal, so admins also have to be able to field any sort of question a new user can throw at them, from "how do I do this?" to "OMGWTFBBQ Y DID U DELITE MI ARTICAL!!!".
   In short, admins are both janitors and ambassadors simultaneously, as well as anything else the community needs them to be.

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

   An admin should have a working knowledge of policy, in at least the area where he works, and should know where to find everything he doesn't know. He should be civil and kind, he should be able to express himself, and he should be able to make decisions. He should be able to listen to the points of others and know when to both concede and hold firm. And most of all, he should enjoy editing Wikipedia and should have the best interests of the project at heart.

Finally, when thinking about Requests for Adminship:

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

   A few times, you can count them with one hand (without even using binary!). I've only !voted in RFAs where I felt my !vote could count for something. RFAs that would clearly fail (well under 70%) I've stayed away from, and I've waited until the last few days to make my opinion known. So far, I've found that the research necessary to make an informed !vote is kinda' fun, especially when the candidate is a good one.

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

   Yes, my current RFA closes about 14 hours after the question phase does. My experience has been largely positive, given that I currently lack any opposes. Looking at some other RFAs going on at the same time, I find myself rather lucky in this regard.

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

   It doesn't appear to me that the process itself is broken, only that some of the people who !vote in it are.
   Other users have made points about this as well, and I agree with them, but let me offer this analogy: One doesn't say a car is broken because the person behind the wheel can't drive. Short of inventing a computerized driving system, no amount of "fixing" the car can't help with the driver. And then there's no guarantee what kind of admins we'll get. Please keep this in mind.

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 20:14 on 30 June 2008.