User:BryanG/RfA criteria

Some general thoughts on what I look for in RfA candidates, here because I believe in transparency of standards and because I get lazy in my "support" comments sometimes ;).

Questions, comments, and complaints are welcome at my talk page.

Caveats

• This criteria is subject to change. In fact, it has changed once already. So don't be surprised if it looks different later.
• I get to ignore what this page says whenever I want, of course, as each RfA is different.
• I basically stole the current format (but not the criteria!) from Grandmasterka's RfA criteria page, because I liked it better than my old one. Not really a caveat, but I'm throwing that in there anyway.

Reasons I might Support

Factors

1. At least 1000 and preferably 2000 total edits.
2. At least 200 Wikipedia: namespace edits. Note that this does not include edits to the Sandbox, the Esperanza coffee lounge, or similar pages; while these pages have their place, they're not what I'm looking for here.
3. At least 3 months of fairly heavy recent editing.
4. Good answers to questions. I want to see why you want the tools, and preferably experience in those areas that non-admins can help out in.
5. High edit summary usage. What's high? It's not really defined, but I have yet to see anyone fall in the "grey area" that I haven't found other reasons to determine my "vote".

Rationale

1. Well, it's a quick and dirty, although certainly not perfect, way to judge experience.
2. The Wikipedia: namespace is where policy discussions are, where deletion debates are, and basically all sorts of other places admins will be involved. Yes, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, but admins do a lot of the behind-the-scenes work that keeps this place running, and so just being a good writer isn't necessarily enough.
3. You can't get enough experience to be an admin in less than 3 months, period. And a lot can change around here in 3 months, so I want to see you've been around here recently. Besides, recent edits are the ones I like to check.
4. If you can't be bothered to write good answers to questions on your own RfA, this gives me serious concerns about what you'd be like as an admin. I can't tell if you have the right kind of experience if I don't know what you want adminship for. And if you want to, say, close deletion debates, I want to see you have some idea of how things work there.
5. You really should explain what you're doing to an article. It doesn't take long, either.

Possible mitigating factors

1. You have contributed significantly to articles, such that you haven't had time to rack up thousands of edits. Featured articles really help here.
2. I'll consider <200 if you've been here a long time, contributed significantly to a featured article, or everything you want to do with the tools doesn't really require Wikipedia: namespace experience (i.e. vandal fighting).
3. I may consider waiving the recent part if you've been here a while or have a good reason for your inactivity.
4. I might ignore poor answers if you look good everywhere else. I probably will be neutral if you don't say what you want the tools for. I'll consider waiving lack of experience on a case-by-case basis, this is never an "automatic" oppose.
5. If you've clearly made a good-faith attempt to improve recently or there's some reason your numbers are off, I'll probably ignore it.

Reasons I might Oppose

Factors

1. Obvious failure in any support criteria.
2. General incivility, POV-pushing, etc.
3. Blocks within the last couple of months.
4. A previous involuntary desysoping by the ArbCom.
5. No email activated.
6. A very recent unsuccessful RfA (less than a month or two ago).

Rationale

1. Hopefully this is obvious.
2. Incivility should not be tolerated, and having the tools makes POV-pushing a lot easier.
3. Basically evidence of meeting some other oppose factor.
4. This wouldn't have happened if you had used your admin tools better before, and is probably a sign of meeting oppose factor 2.
5. Admins should be easy to contact outside Wikipedia.
6. Likely nothing has changed within the last month.

Possible mitigating factors

1. See the ones under reasons I support.
2. Probably none.
3. I feel the block was unjustified, or it was for 3RR. Lots of 3RR blocks are a bad sign, however.
4. I feel the desysoping was unjustified or I feel you've learned your lesson and won't do it again.
5. Activate your email.
6. I supported you last time, you've fixed whatever I opposed on last time, or I didn't comment last time and would support otherwise.