The future of RfB
These are some ideas about how I see that RfB will run (and should run) in the year 2007:
- Thoughts on RfB in 2006:
- I look at the 4 bureaucrats who were promoted in 2006 and I come to the conclusion that these people were not pre-ordained to serve as bureaucrats, they just had the good fortune to sail through the process without running into resistance. With the exception of Redux who had run several times before, none of the successful candidates would necessarily have been on our radar as soon to be bureaucrats. They decided to run, and they passed.
- There were other candidates in 2006 who could have served quite well as bureaucrats had they passed, but they ran into enough opposition to not pass. The community did not necessarily pick the most qualified people, nor did they pick unqualified people to be bureaucrats, they simply picked several of a pool of qualified bureaucrat candidates, and could very easily have chosen differently. (it goes without saying that there were some unqualified candidates that did not get close to getting approval, but I am ignoring them in this analysis and just focusing on the pool of qualified candidates, some who were promoted, some not.)
- What will happen at RfB in 2007:
- A dozen or more qualified admins will apply for the job for the simple purpose of offering their services to the community to help ensure that the tasks requiring bureaucrats get done (and remember changing names is more likely to be short handed and backlogged than RfA).
- These applicants should/will apply without much concern as to whether their own request is confirmed by the community or not. They are offering to help the community. Whether between two qualified candidates, AdminA and AdminB, which is chosen to fill that role is not a reflection on whether they could do a good job or whether they are positive contributors to the project, but is rather the consequence of the vagarities of each particular RfB and the community. In an alternate reality AdminA would have been selected instead of AdminB, but either way, the job gets done for the benefit of the project.
- There is a good deal of luck and circumstance in RfB. Quality candidates get rejected all the time for issues that don't reflect on any real inability of the candidate to be a good bureaucrat. We should accept this, even though it is undoubtedly and understandably frustrating to many.
- Call to action:
- If we accept the somewhat unsettling randomness of the process and keep in mind that keeping the bureaucrat realted areas of the project running is the objective, not personal ambition, then accepted or rejected, it is worth submitting yourself for consideration.
- When offering yourself as a candidate, you are basically asking the community "do you want me to slightly alter my project participation to take care of some of these tasks that bureaucrats can do?" And the community will say yes, or they will say no. If they say no, you continue as you have been contributing in other ways to the project or find a new area to work on. The community's decision most often does not reflect on your ability to do the bureaucrat job.
- I encourage those admins who feel that they are capable of doing a good job (and there are many of you) to go ahead and offer your services sometime in the next six months, but not to worry about whether the community gives you job or not. Only a small fraction of candidates will succeed, but if you submit yourself as a candidate for the benefit of the project, that is a contribution to the project whether successful or not. If you are fortunate enough to get the job, commit to doing it steadily. If you don't, you have my thanks and the thanks of others for offering your services, and are commended for having the interests of the project at heart, even as you find yourself working on other areas of the project as a result.
- What will result of the RfBs in 2007?:
- Enough people will be promoted to ensure that the work gets done. and it will not be so important who the individuals are that are selected as long as they are selected from a pool of qualified candidates, as they will be.
- The community will never let the bureaucrat tasks go undone. As in the past, when there is clear indication that more bureaucrats are needed, the candidates will appear and the community will promote some of them. I expect several to be promoted during the current year. Just because we can't predict who or how many there will be, doesn't mean that progress will not be made in this area.
An earlier comment on bureaucrats:
Bureaucrats are just functionaries, not another layer of authority
They are trusted, but are really just people who are trusted to do an extra job or two, not as an extra layer of supervision in the organization chart. I regard the Checkusers, Arbitrators, Oversight, and Board Vote functionaries the same way, just with different special jobs to do. I don't remember anyone voting for a bureaucrat to be a supervisor over the community, we just loaded them up with another job to do, and we appreciate those who do the job they asked us to permit them to do.