User:SGGH/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)
... I think many requests for adminships are instigated along "wiki-social" lines too. It certainly isn't spontaneous, it requires a lot of discussion and normally a clear indication on behalf of the candidate that he or she wants to be an admin before they can be selected.
Administrator coaching (either formally or informally)
... I think too few people do it formally, but too many people do it formally who don't really know what they are doing, and too few of the people who do it informally and know what they are doing would actually be interested in doing it formally.
Nomination, co-nomination and self-nomination (introducing the candidate)
... I think self nomination creates an unfair level of extra scrutiny, some seem suspicious of the self-nominator. Co-nominations, in contrast, seem more trusted. Too much stead it placed sometimes on the standing of the nominator, over the quality of the candidate.
Advertising and canvassing
... I think too much is made of this, if you know the user who is being nominated, you most likely have an opinion or input that will be useful. It is the mode of response from those invited that can be bad (e.g. "yeah hes my mate ill say yes") not the issue of canvassing.
Debate (Presenting questions to the candidate)
... I think this is very inventive, it is the best part of the process.
Election (including providing reasons for support/oppose)
... There is a minor issue or unelaborated opposes, but thats rare.
Withdrawal (the candidate withdrawing from the process)
... Never any issues, one may wonder why but I don't believe it causes problems.
Declaration (the bureaucrat closing the application. Also includes WP:NOTNOW closes)
... All the judgments I have seen appear fine, those who WP:SNOW nominations seem to get it right.
Training (use of New Admin School, other post-election training)
...I've always had the suspicion that these go off half-cocked, like the informal formal tutoring I talked about above, it is not always done by those who know what they are doing, is a bit hit and miss and inconsistent.
Recall (the Administrators Open to Recall process)
... I don't have any experience in that area.

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?
... A cross between friendly arbitrator and truncheon wielding anti-vandal warrior. I know the latter is an unpopular image, however we do nuke vandalism fairly quickly with our admin-tools, however in a situation where a user is involved who contributes helpfully to the wiki, then its the diplomatic, calm approach. However, if a decision is made and a user then disrupts because they are not happy with it, then they are fighting concensus and thats what a bit more "force" is used.
What attributes do you feel an administrator should possess?
... Objectivity, objectivity objectivity objectivity. That is paramount. If you take even the slightest side in a debate (other than a vandal fight) then you are making some user feel marginalized, which is against wikipedia's ideology, we marginalize neither users nor knowledge. Second is an awareness of policy, so you can back yourself up.

Finally, when thinking about Requests for Adminship:

Have you ever voted in a request for Adminship? If so what was your experience?
... I have, though sometimes it feels as if your vote is lost amongst the other supports, though opposes are nearly always listened to.
Have you ever stood as a candidate under the Request for Adminship process? If so what was your experience?
... I have, I found it a fair appraisal, however I think that sometimes (not unlike the FAC process) a significant part of the "preparation/work" happens in the evaluation process, rather than before. You only attain some of the best potential admin qualities when you are actually reading your own RfA and its comments.
Do you have any further thoughts or opinions on the Request for Adminship process?
... All in all, out of all the processes here on wikipedia, I think it works quite well. I haven't met a bad admin yet, and there are about 1,500 of us aren't there?

Once you're finished...[edit]

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This question page was generated by {{RFAReview}} at 21:21 on 25 June 2008.