User:Prashanthns/random musings

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All editors have biases. Most of these are path dependent. If bias is also your employment or source of income/living, it becomes conflict of interest.

1. If it's your bias, it can make a great article. Begin it!
2. If your bias is giving you your salary, it may may be a conflict of interest. Proceed with caution!
3. If your bias drives you, your passion may be blinding you. Take it easy!

Response to RFA review

The following is in response to Wikipedia:RfA Review/Question. If you come across this page, you are free to comment in the Comments section below. I have not yet answered all the questions. I intend to in the coming days, which is why this page is not listed at the review.

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)

   I agree with this.

2. Administrator coaching (either formally or informally)

   Admin coaching tends to 'taint' RFA's. I have witnessed snowing of RFAs sometimes, only for history of admin coaching. On one hand, admin coaching 'prepares' the candidate's attitude for becoming an admin. This is however a grey area. A little down the line, one could argue that admin coaching 'prepares' the candidate to give the 'right answers' to become an admin, not necessarily changing his attitude. The goal of the RfA process is to be inclusive, not exclusive. Helping other candidates with the RfA process should be an informal engagement between individuals and should not be formalised. If formalised, it should not be used for opposing candidates.

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

   A percentage failure of self-noms in a few sample months should help understand if the community views self-noms badly. There does seem to be this sentiment against self-noms. I do not see enough or any reason though to do away with them.

4. Advertising and canvassing

   I see nothing wrong in advertising on one's user page definitely. Ads are not targeted at individuals, and anybody chancing to see an ad for RfA would go through the nom anyway. There is in any case, no telling how many people who religiously vote at RfAs go through the candidate's contribs seriously. It seems like that some of the oppose voters definitely do. I seriously doubt if a majority of support voters actually go through contribs or scan the nom.

   Canvassing is a serious grey area. Now, blatant soliciting of votes is something that is tracable, and has been dealt with in the past. However, what would one do about a reply to a routine question on a wikiproject, saying "I will reply later, busy with my RfA now". Would that be canvassing? It could be for people who are actively participating in projects and FA discussions. Should this be considered canvassing? Perhaps not. But, how would a gnomish editor get such votes and visibility? This brings up the whole question of how the RfA process favours 'more visible' and 'networked' noms. Perhaps the chances of false-positives are quite small, but it keeps the risk of high false-negativity, the result of the process being too specific rather than sensitive.

5. Debate (Presenting questions to the candidate)

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

7. Withdrawal (the candidate withdrawing from the process)

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

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

10. Recall (the Administrators Open to Recall process)

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?

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

Finally, when thinking about Requests for Adminship:

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

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

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