User talk:J.delanoy/RFA

The following is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it.

I want to nominate YOU for adminship!

Hello, and welcome!

If you are reading this, it is most likely because you would like me to nominate you for adminship. Which is good, because I want to nominate you for adminship!

To me, the "ideal candidate" is someone who:

1. Works hard.
2. Is dedicated to the project.
3. Always tries to do his or her best.
4. Is civil.
5. Tries to do the right thing, but is not afraid to admit it if he/she does something wrong.

However, before we turn your RFA page into a bluelink, we need to look at what RFA entails, and what other users are looking for in admins.

What is RFA like?

A request for adminship is a very, very stressful experience. Your contributions will be put under an unbelievable amount of scrutiny. If you have ever done something wrong on Wikipedia (Or even occasionally on other websites), and you have not taken action to rectify your mistake, I can practically guarantee that someone will bring it up on your RFA. If you did whatever it was within the last six months or a year, you will almost definitely be opposed for it. Be incredibly honest with yourself when (if) you give me your answer to the "skeletons in the closet" question, because I do not want to put anyone through the pain of failing an RFA. I have been there, and even though I knew I wasn't ready, I very nearly left the project as a result of my failure. I have seen many people leave the project after failing an RFA, and I do not want to see the same happen to you.

What do you need to pass an RFA?

In general, to pass an RFA, you have to have good character as well as experience in several areas of this project. Most of the moral/character areas you need in order to pass are obvious - don't flip out on people; be firm if necessary, but remain civil at all times; don't break policies, don't edit war, etc.

Once you get the personality issues out of the way (hopefully with no trouble at all), we need to look at your physical contributions to this project.

Cleaning up messes and resolving disputes will likely consume a large portion of your time as an admin.

Observing many Requests for Adminship, there seem to be 4 key areas that RFA !voters look for significant contributions in. Users standing for RFA should have some experience in all or most of these areas, and they should be fairly proficient in at least one of them. If you have little or no experience in many or most of these areas, it is highly unlikely that you will be able to pass an RFA.

1. Vandal-patrol. Fighting vandalism is a great way to gain experience in admin areas, since most likely, as an admin, you will often use your tools to block vandals, delete pages, and protect pages that are receiving unacceptably heavy amounts of vandalism. Vandal-patrol also helps prepare you to deal with irate users who will question your actions and the motives behind your actions. However, many people who primarily write articles are distrustful of serial vandal-fighters; since fighting vandalism is, for the most part, robotic, and does not give much information about the user's temperament and personality. If you stand for RFA based wholely or mostly on your history of fighting vandalism, you will almost definitely fail.^{[citation needed]}
3. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. AFD allows people to see how good you are at determining consensus. It also helps to show something about your judgment, as you weigh out whether or not you think an article meets the criteria for inclusion. But if you always say "per XXXXX", you will get shot down at RFA for not thinking for yourself.
5. Noticeboards, Wikipedia talk, Village pumps, etc. WP:AN, WP:ANI, WP:VP, WT:RFA and others. These are where the day-to-day administration of this project takes place. It is also where new policies and ideas are discussed and implemented. Hanging around these will give you invaluable experience into the less straightforward areas of adminship. Helpful, clueful, well-thought-out comments in these places will earn you major respect among other users. Also, the threads on AN and particularly ANI will show you what you can expect as an admin if you involve yourself in controversial subjects. If you look at what other admins are going through, and think to yourself, "I could never handle that,", do not apply for adminship. If you do, you will burn out and either go out with a massive explosion or you will simply leave in disgust. (And not all that admins put up with shows up on the noticeboards... [1])

   

   Writing articles. This is why we're here.

7. Article writing. Last, but definitely not least. Writing articles is THE single most important quality that users want to see in RFA candidates. If you have extensive experience in this area, you will almost definitely have little difficulty passing your RFA as long as you have at least some experience in other areas. And I think that this is largely a good thing, since, in the end, the article space IS Wikipedia - everything else exists to support and maintain it. While the relationship between editors and maintainers is somewhat of a chicken-and-egg paradox, writing good and/or featured articles is almost the most difficult thing to do on this site. Get this one down pat, and the rest will seem like first-grade math class. In general, RFA !voters aren't looking for absolutely insane FA-machines, they just want to see hard evidence that you know what it takes to write articles. The reasoning is, if you write a lot, you know how hard it is, so you will be more likely to take that extra second to look around before pressing "delete" on a kinda-sorta-may-be-notable page, and you will tend to be more lenient when protecting pages from editing. If you don't have much experience in this area, passing an RFA will likely be more difficult for you, but it is not impossible.

Disclaimers, notes, etc.

I am attending college and working part time. As such, my editing patterns are likely to be very erratic depending on my hours at work, and on how many outstanding assignments I have and how difficult those are. Quite often, when I have some free time, I will fight vandalism, but I am disinclined to do something that requires a large amount of thought. So if you ask me to nominate you, it may be a week or two before I actually get around to writing up a nom.

Also, while I will consider any and all requests that I get, I will not nominate someone who I do not think will pass. If you cannot handle me telling you that you will not pass an RFA, please don't ask me to nom you!!! I cannot express how much I do not want to directly or indirectly drive someone off this project.

And finally, when I actually !vote in RFAs, I tend to have a much lower threshold than many people at RFA, so just because I think you can pass doesn't mean that you will. I have only nominated one person so far, so if you are looking for someone who is experienced at writing RFA noms, you should probably ask someone else to nom you.

Notwithstanding the artwork on this page, I am in no way implying that you must be female before I will consider nomming you, nor am I implying that I am female or aspire to be. :P

Okay, now for the million-dollar question... [drumroll]

You've read everything on this page. Are you ready to take the plunge?

If you are reading this section, you have read my thoughts on the subject,and you are pretty sure you can pass an RFA. Also, my disclaimers/notes/etc. don't really bother you.

If you think that you have a good grasp on policy, and you have experience in some or most of the areas of this project that I mentioned above, then you're all set! You can click on this link to start a new thread on my talk page.

Answering the following questions will greatly aid me in determining what I think your chances are at RFA, but it is NOT NECESSARY to answer them.

I look forward to answering your request! Cheers! J.delanoy^gabs_adds 17:55, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Questions

It is easiest to just click the section edit link to the right, and copy/paste the code from this section to the new thread on my talk page.

Giving credit: User:Dweller came up with most of these questions, and something similar that he did was the inspiration for this page.

1. Have you ever been blocked?
   1. If so, when?

   2. For what?

2. Ever had an Editor Review?

3. An RfA?

4. What (if any) horrible skeletons lie in your editing closet?

5. Got much recent experience at AfD?

6. Are there any major mainspace contribs or other subsantial edits that you are particularly proud of?

7. Is there anyone else who has expressed interest in nomming you for adminship?

8. Is there anyone specific (other than me :-) ) you would have particularly liked to nominate you? (If yes, I can ask them if they would like to co-nom.)