User:Lomn/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)

   No particular thoughts.

2. Administrator coaching (either formally or informally)

   I'm not a fan of pre-RfA coaching. I think someone who aspires to the position of trust and responsibility that is an Admin needs to be able to figure out what the qualifications and duties are on their own merits. This is not to say that I object to spontaneous interaction regarding adminship -- far from it -- but I object to the formalized notions of a 12-step process that makes you appear to be a better candidate. I look at that and see little more than "here's how to trick the community for a week."

   Post-RfA coaching, a willingness by a newly confirmed admin to ease into the role slowly and with guidance, I'm all for.

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

   Apart from the sometimes-excessive numbers of co-nominators, I've got no issue with this as it exists, and even that's just a minor irritation on my part.

4. Advertising and canvassing

   I acknowledge that shotgunning everyone who signed your guestbook with "I'm at RfA!" is an issue, but "users who regularly observe RfA" is a subset not entirely in lockstep with the active community as a whole (no specifics, just a general observation that a non-random self-selected sample is going to deviate from the mean). I've got no problem with a limited announcement to areas of the project where a user is strongly involved. I think there's value getting that sort of day-to-day "here's how this user operates" input. Along those lines, I prefer announcements to non-user-space (say, article or wikiproject talk pages) to avoid the appearance of selective notification.

5. Debate (Presenting questions to the candidate)

   I think we get a lot of common user-added questions with no value -- "what's the difference in a block and a ban" being my poster child for this inanity. In this specific case, the problem is that the answer is a matter of parroting the relevant section of WP:BLOCK. Adding "in your own words" doesn't really help, because the community-consensus version is likely to be superior to the average rephrasing. All we've established is that the candidate is capable of searching for "a block and a ban" on Google and pressing "I'm Feeling Lucky!"

   However, that's the nature of a community process. It's not a big deal, it's just a pet peeve. And should I file an RfA, I've done my research: I know the area of a Manhattan block and the value in dollars of a Romanian Ban.

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

   "Need for tools", "active in Admin areas", etc: these phrases are worthless. I can't demonstrate where I need tools, or put the admin bit to use, or what have you, because I'm not an admin. I can provide hypotheticals, sure, but all too often responses like these (and questions like these) assume an untenable premise. I'm also a fan of DuncanHill's comment that no individual editor actually needs the tools - rather the community as a whole needs to have some editors who have the tools.

   The tendency of supports to get a free pass while opposes garner increasingly indented challenge (and sometimes discussion) is frustrating.

   What? That's not true.

   Did you just say rebutting supporters aren't interested in discussion? You should AGF!

   Well, yes it is, and yes I (sorta) did. The great majority of supporters are absolutely fine, but it's a recurring theme that one supporter takes the candidate's RfA personally, jumping down the throat of every oppose present. Discussion is good, but so is trusting the community process. Dissention does not require a challenge in response.

   And then there's the responses to Kurt's opposes....

   On the other hand, I'm a big fan of the growth in justification, however small, being attached to supports. Opposes will likely always be held to a higher standard, but the decline in "support" and "support per nom" is welcome, even if it's a fairly trivial restatement.

7. Withdrawal (the candidate withdrawing from the process)

   I'd rather not see candidate-initiated withdrawals. I strongly feel that a candidate for this position of trust and responsibility needs to adhere to the tacit pledge to accept feedback from the community for the full week.

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

   Ooh, the consensus-versus-vote thing. I'll punt and follow up on the previous answer. I do not equate NOTNOW closes with candidate-initiated withdrawals. If Joe Autoconfirmed saw "no big deal" and created an RfA on his 12th edit, there's no need to run the thing a week -- and there's no need to treat a newbie mistake like a Sword of Damocles should he later apply in a more appropriate context.

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

   As noted above at Admin Coaching, I'm a fan of post-RfA mentorship or training. I've no experience with NAS, so I can't comment there directly.

10. Recall (the Administrators Open to Recall process)

    I think recall is a good idea. I don't think we should say "Arbcom can de-admin, therefore Arbcom is sufficient to de-admin and should be the only non-voluntary means." I think the community has made good strides in setting up recall criteria that are resilient against abuse.

    However, it's important to remember that we've got a lot of good admins who are also controversial. It's a natural consequence of applying and enforcing unpopular policy (or of enforcing a flexible policy in a particular way). Mandatory recall would quickly see many of these admins lose that status and capability, which would likely then discourage others from picking up those particular mantles. So I don't support mandatory recall. Once you accept recall, you adhere to it -- but you don't have to accept it.

    Note: it may well be the case that community consensus means that there's an effective requirement for recall on future RfAs, but that's a different matter.

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 don't think "Janitor" really holds up in a connotative sense, even if it's denotatively correct. Admins are frequently seen as a higher authority (c.f. all the "Admin Abuse" ANI threads that don't involve admin capabilities) and de facto operate as such.

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

   An admin has to be flexible, open to change in a personal stance or opinion. This is not to say that every time an admin hears a counterargument he changes his mind -- that would be worse than useless -- but an unalterable perspective is a detriment. That leads to the dismissal not only of the relevant idea but of editors who hold to that idea.

   An admin has to be patient. Comparatively few things on Wikipedia need to be enforced NOW. It's safe to let a consensus develop for an extra day or two, and it's safe for the first action not to be the final stance. This is especially important when admins disagree about something.

   Suppose Admin A has agressively removed something per BLP. Within 10 minutes, Admins B, C, and D have weighed in that A's action was a mistake, unrelated to BLP, and the content should be reinstated. Fine! Great! But at once doesn't need to be appended to that statement.

   An admin has to be willing to lose. Not every dispute will be "won", and not all that are "lost" need to be revisited.

Finally, when thinking about Requests for Adminship:

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

   Yes, though it's been a couple years since I regularly participated -- instead, I periodically lurk now. For a while I was dismayed by the growth of what I saw as varied and irrelevant standards imposed by the community, but I haven't encountered that problem as much lately. I'm not sure if that's because it's actually decreased or because I've mellowed out.

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

   No.

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

   I think that about covers it.

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 13:15 on 25 June 2008.