User:Pedro/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)
This needs to be done with due dilligence. It should be noted that candidates will feel flattered if they are offered a nomination. This may cause them to run prematurely - possibly maring their enjoyment of the project.
Administrator coaching (either formally or informally)
Training / coaching should be focused on how editors can use admin tools effectively to the betterment of the main aim of the project. Training to pass RFA for its own sake seems fundamentaly wrong in an open and collaborative website.
Nomination, co-nomination and self-nomination (introducing the candidate)
I take a great deal of effort in approaching this. If you believe a candidate needs the tools it is only fit and proper to speak on their behalf in your nomination and to do the job well. A nomination is not a sales pitch. It's an opportunity to demonstrate your personal conviction to the wider community. Short, punchy statements are best.
- People
- Like
- Lists
and they read them. People do not like rambles.

Too many nominators is seen as an issue by the community.

Self nominations are explicitly permitted under the current RfA template. Opposing due to self nomination as the only reason displays a lack of good faith. It implies that an editor has requested admin buttons for the sake of them and for no other reason. WP:AGF is a commonly cited guideline and to break it seems outside of community norms and expectation.
Advertising and canvassing
Blatant canvassing is bad - e.g. by sticking a link at the end of your signature. Canvassing off wiki is a disgrace. However, whilst RfA is not a vote it seems that limited on wiki communication should be acceptable.
Debate (Presenting questions to the candidate)
A review of contibutions should determine wether one offers support or otherwise to a candidate. Where something in the contribution history is unclear then it is best to clarify it, for example if a candidate has few deleted edits yet state they wish to contribute to C:CSD it may be hard to tease out their abilities without questioning them. However I find boiler plate questions to be without value. Questions are made to glean further information through the answer and hopefuly solidify an opinion of the candidates ability to act as a quality administrator.
Election (including providing reasons for support/oppose)
At present, it is generally seen that supporters can make minimal comments whereas opposers are expected to provide specific justification through diffs. We must take some givens here - that adminship is not a reward, and that in a perfect world every visitor to this website would be granted with the full toolset on sign up. Alas, we don't live in a perfect world. However the default position at an RFA should be support through virtue of AGF. So it is only right and proper that opposers provide more "evidence" than supporters. Of course, this is only the present way that the community has moulded RFA.
Withdrawal (the candidate withdrawing from the process)
Declaration (the bureaucrat closing the application. Also includes WP:NOTNOW closes)
Well, I worked with a number of editors on creating NOTNOW as an alternative to WP:SNOW to create a specific essay for RfA that captured the essence of a SNOW closure whilst being more "friendly". In terms of bureaucrat closures ....
Training (use of New Admin School, other post-election training)
Recall (the Administrators Open to Recall process)
We need something better.

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

Finally, when thinking about Requests for Adminship:

Have you ever voted in a request for Adminship? If so what was your experience?
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Have you ever stood as a candidate under the Request for Adminship process? If so what was your experience?
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Do you have any further thoughts or opinions on the Request for Adminship process?
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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:Pedro/RfA review]] added by ~~~ at ~~~~~

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

This question page was generated by {{RFAReview}} at 15:37 on 13 June 2008.