User:~delta/My criteria for adminship

In a nutshell

I like admin candidates who are experienced in editing Wikipedia and know all its internal policies. Although I do not expect candidates to have contributions in every area, I do expect candidates to display mastery in a couple of different areas. Candidates should both know how to create content and deal with vandals and disruptive editors, and they should act neutrally and impartially at all times and not allow their personal, political or religious views dictate the way they use their mop. They should also respect consensus and refrain from engaging in canvassing or bludgeoning. Candidates should be civil and be a good example for other Wikipedians to follow, and their block log should more or less be pretty clean (a short block for edit warring, accidental copyvios or other common newbie mistakes or an accidental block is OK). They should also not be under active sanctions by the community or the Arbitration Committee or have any other track record of long term disruptive editing. I don't !vote based on what permissions and user rights someone has, but I consider merit and merit only when making a decision. Even if candidates have made mistakes in the past, since no one is perfect I won't oppose people for something they did many, many years ago as they have likely changed since then. Last but not least, admins should actually use their tools and not just have them to brag about to their friends - hat collecting is a net negative to the encyclopedia.

Experience

First things first, admins should have spent a good amount of time editing as they need to have at least a basic idea of how Wikipedia works. Admins should have at least about 9 months of editing and 10000 edits from all of their accounts as of the time of being nominated, but 6000+ might work as well for an otherwise very strong candidate. I do not, however, judge candidates based solely on edit count or number of years on Wikipedia; some users who have tons of edits may not meet any of my other criteria I outline below.

Content work

Admins should have at least some experience doing content work as they sometimes have to deal with bad conduct that arises out of content disputes that get too heated (e.g. WP:AE) and/or work in areas such as WP:DYK where knowledge of content work is necessary. I don't expect every admin candidate to write 100 FAs or something like that, but I do expect at least some article creation/expansion from RfA candidates. Ideally a GA and a DYK or two is enough for me to support, but particularly experienced techies who make useful scripts and bots may be exempt from this rule. When it comes to content I value quality more than quantity; I will more likely support a user who took one article to GA and wrote 2 B-class articles from scratch that got successful DYK nominations rather than one who wrote 100 stubs full of cleanup tags. That being said, adminship should never be used to control the content on Wikipedia or to win content disputes as it would not be fair to non admins if an admin did so.

Maintenance

Admins should also have experience in maintenance areas and should know how to deal with vandalism and spam. Places like AIV, CSD, SPI etc. quickly get backlogged and admin help sometimes may be necessary to clear said backlogs. At least some experience with RCP/antivandalism and NPP is especially recommended for admin candidates. Also, admins should have a knowledge of how to distinguish between good faith but disruptive editing that is often from newbies (e.g. misunderstanding of WP policies, accidental copyvios, editing tests etc.) and bad faith vandalism (replacing a page with obscenities or gibberish, introducing factual errors deliberately etc.).

XfDs

I won't !vote on RfAs based on how many times someone has voted Keep or Delete in an XfD. Inclusionist, deletionist or whatever, what matters to me is that RfA candidates' XfD !votes have a rationale in policy and are high-quality and thoughtful and aren't just "Keep/delete/whatever because this editor said so." Also, the candidate should not have a history of bludgeoning or canvassing during XfDs as well. Admins should respect consensus at all times.

Neutrality

I believe that all admins should be neutral in their administrative actions. I won't oppose an RfA solely based on a candidate's views; as long as the candidate doesn't let their editing or on-Wiki conduct be influenced by their personal views I am completely fine. However, I do have an exception for this rule; I will undoubtedly oppose RfA candidates who have expressed hateful, extremist, or discriminatory views in the past, as this can lead to editors being treated negatively on the basis of their demographics. I myself will never discriminate candidates on the basis of race, age, class, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability etc. and will judge them purely on the basis of merit. I won't support candidates who have allowed their own views affect their onwiki editing or conduct in the past - admins need to be neutral and impartial at all times to maintain the neutrality and integrity of the encyclopedia.

Disputes and civility

Admins should have a history of staying cool in disputes. Causing too much drama at venues like AN, ANI, RfCs, DRN and AE or having a history of harassment, incivility or rudeness to other editors is a no-no for me as it creates an uncollegial editing environment. However, a long history of making constructive, civil comments in dispute resolution processes (or even helping out at DRN) is a plus though, as admins often need to deal with disruptive editors who engage in harassment.

Blocks and sanctions

I'd say a short block for edit warring or so that happened when the candidate was newer and was not very aware of internal Wikipedia policies and whatnot is OK for RfA candidates, as long as the candidate learned from the situation and improved their behavior. However, if the user was repeatedly blocked for the same behavior and never learned from it and/or got blocked for socking, TBAN/IBAN violations, repeated harassment, repeated copyright violations, as Arbitration Enforcement or other improper conduct then it is a clear no-no for me. If an editor has editing restrictions enforced by admins at AE and/or the community I am unlikely to support that candidate as well since that demonstrated that said editor is not trusted by the community.

A need for the tools

Last but not least, admins need to have a "need for the tools". Admins should be getting their tools because they would find them useful to continue their work. I do not like "hat collectors" at all. However, I do not view self noms or displaying the admin hopeful userbox as "hat collecting". I used to dislike self noms as I thought that it was potentially a sign of "power hunger" but on a second look I noticed that a plenty of selfnoms had a genuine need for the tools and use them constructively from reading old RfAs so I changed my mind on that. In my opinion, setting goals to be an admin does not always equal hat collecting. If one wishes to be an admin to deal with vandalism/spam, do maintenance work and/or otherwise help the project and actually use their tools, I do not see that as hat collecting. However, if one wishes to be an admin so they can brag about it to their friends or otherwise gain "status" while showing no real need for the tools, I view that as hat collecting.

Candidates don't have to be perfect

I don't expect every RfA candidate to be perfect and have contributions in every area. I do not expect someone who operates multiple bots and develops user scripts to have knowledge of copyvio cleanup, and I do not expect content creators with multiple FAs to know about how to fight vandalism. That being said, I still do appreciate participation in diverse areas of Wikipedia and are more likely to support candidates who display mastery in multiple areas instead of someone with extensive experience in one area but virtually no experience in others. Nor do I expect candidates to have zero mistakes or experience with conflict whatsoever. We all make mistakes, we all sometimes get heated during discussions, it's all part of being human and learning the ropes of editing Wikipedia. As long as the candidate learned from what they did in the past it is completely fine. I won't oppose people because of one mistake they did 10 years ago; people change over time, after all.

Criteria for automatic opposition

Indefinitely blocked or banned on 2 or more sister projects, or an otherwise strong record of cross wiki abuse
Repeated vandalism, spam, copyright violations, POV pushing, undisclosed paid editing, harassment, incivility or other forms of disruptive editing and failure to "learn from past mistakes"
Canvassing, bludgeoning or other inappropriate conduct during the RfA itself