User:Coralmizu/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:

Candidate selection (inviting someone to stand as a candidate)
As long as an experienced editor (generally 5+ months of activity) meets RfA's general standards and has sufficient experience in tasks such as AIV, XfD, CSD, PROD, NPP, Wikipedia maintenance, and other admin-related duties, has a clean history of incivility and/or vandalism, and possesses a sense of trust in the community, they meet my personal standards for adminship. While adminship is generally not a big deal, administrator hopefuls must be undoubtedly worthy of the mop, as admin tools are very powerful and are granted only to the most trusted of users.
Administrator coaching (either formally or informally)
I see admin coaching as an acceptable process in which editors seeking adminship can gain additional experience and improve wherever they can so as to increase their chances of success in RfA. I feel it is greatly unfair that a candidate be opposed solely based on whether or not they have undergone administrator coaching, and instead consider it to be a plus in RfAs. I believe it is both an effective and gratifying method of preparation for the responsibility of adminship — and, aside from RfA, can even help an editor improve in communication in general.
Nomination, co-nomination and self-nomination (introducing the candidate)
I have little bias between another user nominating a candidate and self-nomination. While some see self-noms as wanting adminship 'too much', I, and many other users, view it as boldness and a positive demonstration of willingness to serve as an administrator; I believe self-nominations and nominations presented by other users are equally legitimate.
Advertising and canvassing
Notifying other users of a current RfA is acceptable to me if it is not done in a disruptive or nonpartisan manner. Brief template messages such as {{RfX-notice}} may be used, while mass-posting on user talk pages advertising one's RfA is considered unacceptable, as is recruiting new users with the intention of influencing the outcome of the discussion. Canvassing in ways such as this is frowned upon, insofar that some RfAs fail for this reason alone, and !votes by single-purpose accounts or biased editors should be discounted.
Debate (Presenting questions to the candidate)
I see questions as quite crucial in determining a candidate's reasoning and understanding of policy. A simple wrong answer to a question can cause several editors to oppose. Likewise, responding to tough questions with good, solid arguments and clue shows a good sense of judgement that will give editors reason to trust a candidate. While silly questions are fun at times and highlight a candidate's sense of humour, they are generally not constructive and should usually be avoided. I believe questions presented to the candidate should be friendly and civil, and should help contribute to the discussion.
Election (including providing reasons for support/oppose)
IMHO editors should provide informative reasons for both supporting and opposing, as well as for neutrality. It may seem a bit harsh for a participant to oppose and not leave a reason for doing so, though it is not required to state why one is opposing. I see !voting as something that should be done with care, and a participant should take time to consider why they are supporting/opposing/going neutral.
Withdrawal (the candidate withdrawing from the process)
I don't see anything wrong with withdrawing a nomination if the candidate doesn't feel they are fit to be an administrator at the time (and for other reasons), but it is usually better for the nominator to check with the user to be nominated first, lest they submit an RfA for a candidate who doesn't wish to be an admin. I believe that a candidate has the right to withdraw at any time unless otherwise prohibited by policy if their RfA is obviously failing (usually if under half of all !votes are supportive).
Declaration (the bureaucrat closing the application. Also includes WP:NOTNOW closes)
WP:NOTNOW closures seem to be much less WP:BITEy than using the recently deprecated WP:SNOWBALL closes. I think it is far better to kindly close a request as "not at this time" than "your RfA doesn't have a snowball's chance in Hell of closing as successful". As for closing adminship requests as WP:NOTNOW, it is generally a matter of common sense: if you see an RfA in which the candidate has less than 1,000 edits, does not appear to be familiar with policy, and the RfA is clearly not succeeding, it may very well be appropriate to close it per NOTNOW.
Training (use of New Admin School, other post-election training)
I think New Admin School is an excellent way to get accustom to the new administrator tools, and I have used it in the past when I was granted rollback. It seems to be a great (and rather fun, too) way to practise and play around with blocking, deleting, rolling back, etc. in a way that will not harm the wiki.
Recall (the Administrators Open to Recall process)
WP:RECALL is very controversial, and there are many issues with it yet. Although I believe in some cases users may, out of good faith, request that a questionable admin go through reconfirmation, I strongly believe de-sysopping via the usual process (Jimbo Wales and the ArbCom) suffices. If an administrator is clearly misusing the tools, especially in bad faith, they can be de-sysopped easily; I see little need for an admin to go through another RfA for abuse of the mop.

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?
It is the admin's job to responsibly help maintain the encyclopaedia as best as possible using the tools given to them. Admins should possess a certain level of maturity, as the job of an administrator can sometimes be stressful.
What attributes do you feel an administrator should possess?
As stated above, admins should be mature, responsible, friendly, willing to help build the wiki, sensible, and capable of handling difficult situations. Again, much responsibility comes with the tools, and good judgement is a very crucial trait.

Finally, when thinking about Requests for Adminship:

Have you ever voted in a request for Adminship? If so what was your experience?
I am an active contributer to RfA. I always try to be as honest but kind in my opinion as possible (especially when opposing), as I understand that RfA can be a stressful process for the candidate, and criticism can sometimes be taken too personally. I also try to provide advice when possible to help the candidate improve, whether or not I am supporting or opposing.
Have you ever stood as a candidate under the Request for Adminship process? If so what was your experience?
I have not. However, I am a current admin coachee, and may run for adminship in the future at a time when I feel the community will trust me with the tools.
Do you have any further thoughts or opinions on the Request for Adminship process?
Remember that everyone has feelings, and try to remain civil and assume good faith. Comments such as "is this a joke?" or "this is ridiculous", even when an RfA (such as one in which the candidate has less than 500 edits) is clearly unlikely to close as successful can intimidate some. Remember: we were all newbies once — try not to bite and instead direct them towards other things that can help them improve so that they may one day succeed in an RfA.

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:Coralmizu/RfA review]] added by ~~~ at ~~~~~

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

This question page was generated by {{RFAReview}} at 05:50 on 22 June 2008.