Wikipedia:Optional questions are optional
 | This is an explanatory essay about Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. This page provides additional information about concepts in the page(s) it supplements. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. |
When an individual requests adminship, three mandatory questions are presented to them. These three questions are:
- Why are you interested in becoming an administrator?
- What are your best contributions to Wikipedia, and why?
- Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or have other users caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?
Aside from these questions, each and every editor is welcome to ask up to two questions of a candidate in an RfA, plus follow-up questions. Each question is prefaced with the same three key words—Optional question from
—followed by the username of the individual who is asking the question.
Optional questions are optional. It is an RfA candidate's decision as to whether or not they will answer an optional question—nobody can compel a candidate to do so.
As such, if you are a candidate for adminship and you believe that an optional question is a trap, asked in bad faith, plainly silly on its face, or otherwise irrelevant to your fitness as an administrator, recall that you have the option to simply ignore the question. Keep in mind that, should you choose to ignore a question, RfA voters may factor this into their decision to support, oppose, or remain neutral on your RfA. Ignoring a question has the potential to both help or hurt your chances at success, but the decision to answer an optional question remains yours alone.