User:Cenarium/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.

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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.

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Questions[edit]

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)
User A should propose to nominate User B for adminship, but user B should not ask user A for a nomination. My thinking: a RFA should be proposed to a candidate, but he shouldn't ask someone for a nomination.
Administrator coaching (either formally or informally)
Admin coaching is a bad idea in general. It has a lot of negative side effects (has been extensively discussed on WT:RFA: it makes RFA an exam to pass, conforms the status of admin, etc). Though on some occasions, it may be helpful for an admin on the moment, but not in the long run. I remarked that maturity cannot be taught this way, and that a user mature enough can learn how to make a decent administrator alone, with enough time and work. So basically, admin coaching is unnecessary (an immature candidate won't and shouldn't pass RFA), and has too negative drawbacks for what it's worth.
Nomination, co-nomination and self-nomination (introducing the candidate)
No problem with self-noms. A high number of co-noms will mean WP:TLDR, not a good introduction for the candidate.
Advertising and canvassing
Bad. It's everybody or noone. And we have the RFA template for interested people.
Debate (Presenting questions to the candidate)
Questions should be specific to the candidate. There is rarely a "debate" in this section, but many under the "non-conformal" !votes, which I disapprove.
Election (including providing reasons for support/oppose)
Shouldn't be viewed as a battle. The opposes/supports are divided to make it easier for bureaucrats to determine consensus.
Withdrawal (the candidate withdrawing from the process)
Up to the candidate. But no turn away. (In the sense, the candidate shouldn't cancel the withdrawal, see [1])
Declaration (the bureaucrat closing the application. Also includes WP:NOTNOW closes)
I don't see the reason to make a statement (actually, I do, but I think it's better without). Even for close ones, even when a discussion among bureaucrats happen. It would be cumbersome to make a statement for such a personal process, and that may rise the drama levels. Notnow closes are a good idea, but should be made by a good-standing user, preferably admin.
Training (use of New Admin School, other post-election training)
The papers have a reasonable usefulness. If it's not enough, just ask an experienced admin if you need help. But I don't think a whole process should be created.
Recall (the Administrators Open to Recall process)
We have two universal recall processes. The soft one is located here. The hard one is located here. Any other kind of recall process has no authority for me, as I believe that it should be the same for everybody.

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?
As the role of an administrator.
What attributes do you feel an administrator should possess?
The attribute to be a good administrator. (Which precludes certain behaviors and requires certain inclinations, like communication, consideration, etc, but there is no general requirement in my mind, I have no general "criteria")

Finally, when thinking about Requests for Adminship:

Have you ever voted in a request for Adminship? If so what was your experience?
Not very different from other community and consensus-based processes. Just more personal, which is inevitably problematic sometimes.
Have you ever stood as a candidate under the Request for Adminship process? If so what was your experience?
Subject to a constant anticipation of the new !votes arrival, but was quite easy compared to other RFAs.
Do you have any further thoughts or opinions on the Request for Adminship process?
I think that the process works fine and correctly reflects the wish of the community. The fact that it's very personal makes drama inevitable. Nothing can change that. Also, it's not an award, and not an exam. It's more like a rite of passage... It doesn't mean that we can't make some specific improvements to the process, though.

Once you're finished...[edit]

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This question page was generated by {{RFAReview}} at 23:54 on 30 June 2008.