User:Angelo.romano/RfA Review

I think it's fine now, let me note in case there are some grammar/orthographical errors to be fixed, or just WP:IAR and do it yourself ;)

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)

   I would only nominate users I fully trust, who can provide a thorough knowledge of Wikipedia policies and guidelines and clear and definite interest in admin tools.

2. Administrator coaching (either formally or informally)

   I am not a supporter of admin coaching; I always thought of adminship as something to be awarded only to experienced users, and experience cannot be taught or bought, but it just comes with time. Obviously users should be addressed to Wikipedia policies and whatever, however I would not define this process "admin coaching", but simply good sense.

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

   I am definitely against self-nominations, I think they should be simply abolished. Every admin wannabe should be nominated and presented by at least one experienced user (possibly an admin himself/herself), in order to ensure the candidate is accepted as part of the Wikipedia community.

4. Advertising and canvassing

   Good candidates don't need these practices, so they should be simply discouraged or even rejected.

5. Debate (Presenting questions to the candidate)

   Optional questions are fine, especially in case of potentially controversial candidacies. They definitely give the opportunity to assure a deeper understanding of the candidate's own opinions.

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

   Wikipedia is not a democracy, but is based on consensus, so I think a valid reason should always be provided in any case. When I say "valid reason", I mean something more than "that user is great", "he's funny" and sorts of things like these.

7. Withdrawal (the candidate withdrawing from the process)

   Nothing to say, candidates should be allowed to withdraw whenever they want to, it's a right of them to do so. They should decide themselves, in any case, that is with no pressures from other users.

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

   In the large majority of cases, when a majority of supporting statements reaches at least 75%, an explanation is merely unnecessary. My opinion of WP:NOTNOW is that it should be applied only if the running candidate does not reject the possibility. If he wants to complete the one-week process, he should be allowed to do it.

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

   I am not a fan of "admin schools" and whatever, as I said earlier. However, if a newly-elected admin thinks it is a good idea to join the New Admin Schools, he should do it (but only voluntarily).

10. Recall (the Administrators Open to Recall process)

    I am not a support of recalling as well. Wikipedia is actually in need of admins, and I think an RfA ending with a large support is way enough to ensure a user admin powers as long as he does not overuse them with bad faith.

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?

   Basically, as a Wikipedia controller. Copyright-violation contents to remove, bad-faith users to deal with and ultimately block (in case they fail to accept the Wikipedia rules and policies) and heavily-vandalized pages to be protected/semi-protected. These are the basic things to be done by an admin.

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

   Firmness, integrity, understanding and acceptance of policy and guidelines, and a lot of good sense.

Finally, when thinking about Requests for Adminship:

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

   Yes, of course; I seldom voted in RfAs, usually supporting users I really trusted.

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

   I ran as a RfA candidate (being nominated by another user) and I was later unanimously promoted as admin. Definitely a great experience.

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

   I don't think so (at least not now).