User:Hidden Glass 2/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[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)
...Works fine
Administrator coaching (either formally or informally)
...It has turned into a "how to pass RFA" method and does not enhance the quality of the candidates submitted to the process. I don't think it should be abolished, but I would tend to look slightly unfavorably upon candidates who undergo the process.
Nomination, co-nomination and self-nomination (introducing the candidate)
...I'd prefer to require self-nominations on all applications for adminship. This would eliminate a strange sense that candidates that are nominated by someone else are somehow "better" than candidates who volunteer for the task. I've also seen candidates draw unwarranted opposition due to the reputation of the person who nominated them. I've always viewed co-nominations as a complete waste of space.
Advertising and canvassing
...If a candidate knows several editors who think they'd made a good admin, then by all means let them know that you'd appreciate their support. There's this silly emphasis that canvassing somehow disrupts the "community support" aspect of RFA, but all it means is that the very slim minority of wikipedia editors who frequent RFA have disproportionate weight with their opinions. It's not like anybody is pretending that off-wiki canvassing isn't happening anyway, I'd rather have it out in the open and if I know 30 respected, hard-working Wikipedia editors who never pay attention to RFA, why shouldn't I encourage them to voice their support? A the same time, if I leave a message at the top of my talk page that I don't want any RFA spam and someone spams me with a request for support anyway, that candidate should be prepared for an appropriate backlash on his or her RFA. The only restriction that I would place on such canvassing is that it must take place after the RFA is transcluded and announced to the public because transcluding an RFA with a large number of pre-populated support votes unfairly games the process.
Debate (Presenting questions to the candidate)
...RFA needs more questions, not fewer. I'd definitely encourage more real-world "what-if" hypotheticals and fewer boilerplate "what does IAR mean to you" questions, but frankly, any candidate that flubs such a boilerplate question clearly has not spent enough time considering his or her candidacy. The same people who are decrying the huge numbers of questions are the same people who parrot the "RFA is a discussion, not a vote" baloney. All questions are optional, just like any job interview question is optional, and any candidate who refuses to answer one should be prepared for the fallout (read as: don't refuse to answer one, it never helps your case). That's fine with me. If a candidate refuses to answer stupid nonsense questions like "what is your favorite color", or obviously out of line questions like "what is your age", I won't hold it against them, especially if they sidestep the question with a high degree of civility and tact.
Election (including providing reasons for support/oppose)
...Get rid of this "RFA is a discussion, not a vote" baloney. RFA should be a straight vote, and "bureaucrat discretion" should be thrown out the door. Limit participation to editors who meet certain time and contribitions standards and allow for preventing obviously disruptive voters from participating (THAT's a can of worms, I know, but the reason for supporting must be supported by the community). Reasons for supporting or opposing should be encouraged as a means of influencing fellow voters, but at the end of the RFA, the only thing that should matter is the number of support votes and the number of oppose votes. I do think that well-reasoned oppose votes are very useful and even some irrational oppose votes as they frequently reveal some very unpleasant traits in the candidate that we might not have seen until it was too late. Neutral votes are largely pointless. The obvious exceptions are in clear cases of sockpuppetry and meatpuppetry, which are votes that should be striken, not silently disregarded by the closing bureaucrat. If someone wants to oppose for a reason that I feel is silly or irrelevant, like "self nom", they are free to oppose that way and their vote should be counted in full, but it's not going to sway my vote. At the same time, other RFA participants who get their panties in a bind because they disagree with someone else's vote should be encouraged to take a long walk on a short ship. If that one vote tips an RFA into the "failed" category, then that candidate shouldn't have passed to begin with. It's no different than the multitude of morons who voted for George Bush because he was "someone they feel they could have a beer with" vs. John Kerry being too "intellectual". Get rid of this silly notion that "all opinions are equal, but some opinions are more equal than others".
Withdrawal (the candidate withdrawing from the process)
...Candidates are free to withdraw at any time, and should continue to be allowed to do so.
Declaration (the bureaucrat closing the application. Also includes WP:NOTNOW closes)
...NOTNOW closes have been fairly unconroversial, although I sometimes see a few people getting itchy trigger fingers. As mentioned before, get rid of "bureaucrat discretion" baloney, it taints the entire process and encourages valued contributors to discontinue their participation in RFA.
Training (use of New Admin School, other post-election training)
...Fine with me
Recall (the Administrators Open to Recall process)
...The current voluntary process is pointless. Administrators absolutely, positively need to be accountable for their actions, and an involuntary process short of arbitration is needed because the current system of arbitration is totally broken. I see too many instances of power tripping once someone is granted the bit. I see such a forum taking place in the form of a "request for de-adminship", where the hurdle for deadminship is just as difficult as getting it in the first place, and once again, canvassing and advertising is perfectly acceptable. Except, of course, you can be nominated involuntarily by any editor in good standing. If you can't dig up 25% support votes even with canvassing, you need your admin powers taken away. There should be no limit to the number of times you can be RFdA'ed in a specific period of time, because just like frequent and repeated RFA's, participants are going to tire of your requests, especially if they rehash the same arguments over and over or use stupid reasons for the request. Well, perhaps a restriction on nominations by the same editor against the same admin for the same reasons within a certain reasonable period of time should be discouraged.

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?
...
What attributes do you feel an administrator should possess?
...Patience, even-temperment, compassion, humility.

Finally, when thinking about Requests for Adminship:

Have you ever voted in a request for Adminship? If so what was your experience?
...I have frequently under a different account. I do not view the process as positive or negative, except in several cases where community consensus has clearly been disregarded under the guise of "bureaucrat discretion".
Have you ever stood as a candidate under the Request for Adminship process? If so what was your experience?
...No I have not. I do not meet the "qualifications for adminship" held by the majority of RFA regulars and although I feel I can be of use to the project with the bit, I am perfectly content to not have it.
Do you have any further thoughts or opinions on the Request for Adminship process?
...I'd like to see some serious efforts spent revising or redirecting the "NOBIGDEAL" essay that so many RFA regulars like to mindlessly parrot without understanding the context in which it was said. The only context in which it is correctly applied is that adminiship is not a trophy or a pat on the back for doing a good job. Too frequently, I see clueless nitwits try to cite NOBIGDEAL to mean that adminship should be handed out to virtually anybody who wants it, absent some compelling evidence to the contrary. That is flawed thinking. Abusive and insensitive administrators have frequently shown that they can cause serious harm to Wikipedia. Adminship is a big deal and should be treated that way and RFA should be enhanced to emphasize the process of weeding out editors who are unsuitable for the task.

Hey, by the way, I'll be watchlisting the discussion section of this page, so if you have comments or questions, I'll try to address them.

Once you're finished...[edit]

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:Hidden Glass 2/RfA review]] added by ~~~ at ~~~~~

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

This question page was generated by {{RFAReview}} at 07:54 on 21 June 2008.