User:Parent5446/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.

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Questions

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)
This is a very unofficial process. Therefore, there is not much you can improve on, unless it is made formal, which is unnecessary. However, it would be helpful if people more actively looked for admin-worthy users.
Administrator coaching (either formally or informally)
Having not actually gone through this process, I cannot comment on its internal workings, but my view on this part of the process is that this should be mandatory. Specifically because it can never hurt to have one-on-one discussions with a real admin. Besides, it would better prepare users for their nomination, and their hopeful future life as a sysop.
Nomination, co-nomination and self-nomination (introducing the candidate)
I think this process is going pretty smoothly. An implementation I would like to see though, is maybe a change in the questions, or maybe an open-ended question that gives users more space in regards to their answers, maybe just a section labeled "Biography", where the user describes their experience on Wikipedia, etc.
Advertising and canvassing
I do agree that candidate advertising is not really good, but I believe an overall NPOV effort by the people at RfA to advertise the process as a whole could get more consensus among the community.
Debate (Presenting questions to the candidate)
As I said earlier, different questions would be better, and open-ended questions are encouraged.
Election (including providing reasons for support/oppose)
This is way too much like a vote. I think that this part of the process would be better with something along the lines of the following: "All supports/oppositions MUST have a reason associated with them. Any arbitrary responses will be removed and not considered by the deciding bureaucrat."
Withdrawal (the candidate withdrawing from the process)
This is a sad part in the process, when the user withdraws. A lot of the time, this occurs because of stress, and a good solution to help stop the many withdrawals, is maybe put a grace period where nobody can comment on the nomination for a couple of days, just to give the user time to think with so many bombarding comment being thrown at him or her.
Declaration (the bureaucrat closing the application. Also includes WP:NOTNOW closes)
Though bureaucrats are trusted a lot in the community, I think that more than one bureaucrat should work on an RfA at one time, in order to supply mutliple inputs about whether consensus is established, and as a "fail-safe" mechanism behind the process.
Training (use of New Admin School, other post-election training)
Again, as with coaching, I think this should be mandatory. New admins really need to get a feel for the tools, and to be comfortable with their new status. As with above, it cannot hurt, but it can almost always help.
Recall (the Administrators Open to Recall process)
This process is really key to adminship. Whether an admin agrees to this really shows his or her attitude, and it really is one of the deciding factors back in the nomination. One thing I think should be implemented, is that if a future admin states in his or her nomination that he or she would be up for recall if he or she was an admin, then they should be forced to stick to that.

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?
I know admins are "nothing special", but to put the truth in plain site, we all know the point of RfA is to decide if we trust a user with the tools, and that trust from the community is an award in and of itself. So even though adminship itself is not a trophy (since the tools definitely do not show anything), I believe that having the community trust you with these tools, which not too many people get, is an honor (that should NOT be taken advantage of).
What attributes do you feel an administrator should possess?
An admin needs to be like a judge, basically. They need to be neutral, level-headed, and calm, yet strong, bold, and out-going in the community. They need to be able to take control when necessary, but they need to know when to stop. For most, they meet this description as best as they can, which is good.

Finally, when thinking about Requests for Adminship:

Have you ever voted in a request for Adminship? If so what was your experience?
I have voted in RfAs multiple times (though not too recently), and I know that the process can be mind-boggling, even for the voters. I really felt as if my opinion wasn't going to count much, since the community always had their mind made up. Either way, that's just me.
Have you ever stood as a candidate under the Request for Adminship process? If so what was your experience?
No, I have not. However, one user (User:Maximillion Pegasus), has agreed to nominate me at some point. I am not in any rush to get to that nomination, but there is still no doubt I will have one sooner or later (even if I nominate myself), mainly because page protection can sometimes really get on my nerves since I have to wait for somebody else to edit the page for me.
Do you have any further thoughts or opinions on the Request for Adminship process?
I think the main overall thing this process needs is to be cleaned up. It needs to be smoother, more concise, and easier to navigate, which could relieve stress on the candidates.

Once you're finished...

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This question page was generated by {{RFAReview}} at 02:48 on 21 June 2008.