User:Mr.Z-man/RfA review

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)

   This is probably the only thing in RFA that actually works well, though some minimum requirements wouldn't hurt.

2. Administrator coaching (either formally or informally)

   This needs to be abolished, after having attempted unsuccessfully to admin-coach a candidate myself, I feel that if someone can't do admin work without having to be guided through it, they aren't fit to do it. If the only problem is that they can't pass RFA, then RFA needs to be fixed, we don't need a process to teach people how to succeed in another process.

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

   The "oppose all self-noms" stuff needs to stop or there needs to be a discussion as to whether self-noms should be allowed. Opposing for something explicitly allowed is ridiculous. I don't think co-noms serve much of a helpful purpose, but they aren't harmful either, so I'm fairly ambivalent.

4. Advertising and canvassing

   The bureaucrats need better ways to deal with canvassing. Right now the only solution we really have is to reverse-canvass to cancel out the effect of the original canvassing.

5. Debate (Presenting questions to the candidate)

   There needs to be a limit on questions each user can ask. Something like Wikipedia:RfA cheatsheet needs to be turned into a list of "common questions that shouldn't be asked because everyone that isn't a complete moron knows the answer to."

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

   This is the worst part. WP:CIVIL needs to be enforced much more. The bureaucrats need to take a more active role to make sure it doesn't turn into a flame war. If we ever want to make it seem like less of a vote we need to: remove the numbering, percentages, and tallies, and require supporters to give a reason.

7. Withdrawal (the candidate withdrawing from the process)

   This system seems to work fine.

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

   This also needs an overhaul to move it away from a vote. Right now RFB candidates are opposed if they even suggest that they will treat it as a vote, but people complain when they don't treat them like a vote in practice.

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

   The new admin school is fine. Ideas about a post-RFA probationary period are a waste of time, for a similar reason to why admin coaching is bad (and other reasons).

10. Recall (the Administrators Open to Recall process)

    CAT:AOTR is a cancer that needs zapping with radiation. For every legitimate use of it (I think there's been one or 2), there's probably 100 threats of using it immediately after one bad admin action and 3 lynch mob uses after a bad admin action. ArbCom isn't a suitable recall system, but AOTR isn't better.

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?

   Admins should be normal users with extra tools. Their job is to maintain the encyclopedia, not to mediate disputes or hand out judgments. There's far too much of an attitude that admins should be everything: judge, copyright lawyer, leader, model user, software engineer, mediator, researcher, content expert. While many admins do work in these areas, it shouldn't be tied to adminship.

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

   As they do often communicate with new users and sometimes the public, communication skills are critical. Good knowledge of most policies. Common sense is most important though.

Finally, when thinking about Requests for Adminship:

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

   Yes, I've particpated in quite a few. Most are uneventful, see answers to the "Election" question above for the not-so-uneventful ones.

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

   Yes, my RFA passed with only 1 oppose based on a content dispute and one oppose from an SPA or a meatpuppet.

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

   The current system of small discussions and small patches to the process isn't working very well. A total overhaul of the whole thing, all at once is needed.

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:Mr.Z-man/RfA review]] added by ~~~ at ~~~~~

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

This question page was generated by {{RFAReview}} at 15:38 on 20 June 2008.