User:Animum/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:

1. Candidate selection (inviting someone to stand as a candidate)

   They should be chosen based on tangible contributions, not the potential you think they have; on facts rather than feelings; on maturity and levelheadedness, rather than age.

2. Administrator coaching (either formally or informally)

   I'm of two minds with respect to this. There shouldn't be much need for it, because it really only helps users to pass a process that has become political enough nearly to require it. However, it does get the users started on their right feet and it produces benefit to the encyclopedia by the improvement of users.

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

   No opinion. To me, myself, and I, they're 3 ways of doing the same thing.

4. Advertising and canvassing

   Absolutely not. It's a grossly unfair way of fudging the real picture by getting a number of your good friends to support you through clandestine means, not to mention the drama that would ensue when (not if) doing so was exposed. This is part of the quasi-political atmosphere surrounding RFA.

5. Debate (Presenting questions to the candidate)

   They're generally a very good thing, excluding the rude, sneaky questions that some people try to use to incriminate candidates (e.g., asking if the nominee has the "minor edit" box checked by default, and then accusing the user of rarely making major edits).

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

   User:Animum/RFA – which, by coincidence, I wrote before this review – sums up (somewhat prolixly) my views on the matter.

7. Withdrawal (the candidate withdrawing from the process)

   They had to consent to the process to start it, so they have the right to terminate it at their discretion.

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

   Fine as is.

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

   It should be stressed more to avoid new-admin-related problems.

10. Recall (the Administrators Open to Recall process)

    Too easy for people to abuse unless you have a very clever set of criteria.

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?

   Administrative, of course. They are obliged to use their wisdom, judgement, and technical abilities to the betterment of the project, so it is both social and technical.

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

   Levelheadedness, maturity, wisdom, the ability to see things from a different perspective, the ability to compromise, the ability to apologize, the capacity to discuss, the strength to stand up for what he or she believes, and, ultimately, the trust from others resulting from having these traits.

Finally, when thinking about Requests for Adminship:

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

   Yes; it was too easy.

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

   Yes; it was one of the farthest things from pleasurable that I've ever undergone. The tiniest flaws are blown completely out of proportion and some people oppose, without questioning or with minimal questioning, for the most frivolous of reasons.

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

   The one thing that RFA was constructed to determine is trust. We need to go back to the basics.

This question page was generated by {{RFAReview}} at 02:26 on 23 June 2008.