User:Oldelpaso/RfA 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)

   If someone is an experienced user who knows the ropes and has their head screwed on the right way, then giving them admin tools is likely to be a net benefit, and one shouldn't be shy about asking.

2. Administrator coaching (either formally or informally)

   Not too keen on it. I associate it in my mind with those who I term "career admins" - those who either see adminship as a big status symbol and an end in itself, or who edit almost exclusively in Wikipedia: space and hardly ever in the mainspace. Both of which are Bad Things.

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

   Prefer nominations by others over self-noms but not too fussed. Don't see the point in co-noms, just put your reasoning in the support column instead.

4. Advertising and canvassing

   Use common sense, can't really say much more.

5. Debate (Presenting questions to the candidate)

   Additional questions can be useful if there is a particular issue which is causing concern to some, as it can help to make matters clearer. I find it silly when a candidate is asked about 20 questions.

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

   I find "strong support/oppose" meaningless. It doesn't make your opinion count for more if you put it. Greater explanation in reasoning is always preferable in such cases. Other than that, reasons are useful but should not be mandatory, though an unexplained oppose is inadvisable.

7. Withdrawal (the candidate withdrawing from the process)

   No strong opinion on this.

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

   No real issue with the status quo here.

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

   No strong opinion on this.

10. Recall (the Administrators Open to Recall process)

    I put my name in said category, so obviously I support it. Adminship is no big deal, and the converse of this is that not being an admin is no big deal.

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?

   Less important than a lot of people think. The main purpose of admin tools is to prevent damage to the encyclopedia. Use of admin tools does not make Wikipedia better, merely stops it getting worse. Mostly a case of housekeeping. I think it is important for an administrator to be able to lend a hand if someone comes to them with a problem, as admins are experienced users who should all be capable of doing so.

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

   A good admin candidate has been around long enough to know how things are done, shows willingness to learn from mistakes, shows tact in communication, and preferably has done things of substance in mainspace. If you can't name at least one article you've made a decent contribution to after thousands of edits, then what was the point of those edits? I firmly believe that adminship is no big deal.

Finally, when thinking about Requests for Adminship:

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

   Yes many times, but usually only if I am already familiar with the candidate. I do not think a quick glance at Special:Contributions is enough to get a decent idea of what a candidate is like. I have also nominated five users for adminship, all of whom I had known (in an on-wiki sense) for several months previously. They all passed unanimously, so I must have been doing something right.

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

   Yes. It was a low traffic RfA with one neutral and no opposes. It was less eventful than one might expect, given the trial by fire reputation of the RfA process. Personally I think FAC nominations are far more stressful. If someone opposes your RfA there isn't a lot you can do about it. It someone opposes your FAC then you are very much expected to do something about it.

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

   RfA is the worst form of selection process, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. (with apologies to Winston Churchill)

Once you're finished...

Thank you again for taking part in this review of the Request for Adminship process. Now that you've completed the questionnaire, don't forget to add the following line of code to the bottom of the Response page by clicking this link and copying the following to the BOTTOM of the list.

* [[User:Oldelpaso/RfA review]] added by ~~~ at ~~~~~

Again, on behalf of the project, thank you for your participation.

This question page was generated by {{RFAReview}} at 18:31 on 22 June 2008.