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 | This page in a nutshell: Administrator candidates should always be weighed up based on what they have done for Wikipedia, not what they haven't done for Wikipedia |
Absence from X seems to be one of the reasons people choose to knock back candidates from receiving Adminship. A candidate may have otherwise proven to be exemplary in most or even just a few select areas that they are involved in, but they are simply declined because of areas that choose not to participate in. This is a mistake.
Why is it a mistake? edit
There are literally dozens of administrator related tasks to get done. Several of these have backlogs that are rarely, if ever cleared. An administrator does not have to involve themselves in all of these, in fact, they shouldn't involve themselves in all of these. It's a lot of work to process and is why we have so many administrators.
If you are for example concerned about the lack of activity on Articles for deletion, then you know what? There is a fair chance that the administrator candidate in question is rarely (if ever) going to take part in AFD if they pass RfA. They will take part in areas that they do have the necessary experience with.
Content creation edit
Content creation is completely irrelevant to administrators. Anybody can write articles.
Let me go through an example:
AdminCandidate123 has submitted an RFA after 5 years of dedication to the project. They clean up behind the scenes, have clocked up 25,000 edits, has never been blocked, rarely has disputes with other editors. They have however never written an article.
For reasons that seem to defy logical thinking there is a disturbing number of editors that oppose candidates like this. Why is this bad?
- Scenario 1 - User does not receive access to the tools. They continue to fix up behind the scenes, but other people still have to give blocks and delete poor quality articles. User is completely capable of doing it themselves but is not allowed to based on not doing something that is completely irrelevant to the job at hand. The project is worse off for not opping them.
- Scenario 2 - User receives tools. Is able to continue fixing things up behind the scenes, but in this scenario they are able to save a lot of time (both their time and the time of other administrators) and simply do it themselves. The project is better off for opping them.
Do not misunderstand me, content creators are important but so are the people that keep these articles from falling into disrepair.
Opposing candidates like this is the equivalent of thinking the people that build your car are important, but your car mechanic (the person that fixes your car when it needs repairing) is unimportant.
Better indicators edit
- Examine their edits in relation to administrative tasks they have taken part in as in ordinary user. Are their comments/reports helpful and generally correct in judgment?
- Time on Wikipedia; Have they been around in the magnitude of months or years?
- User talk; How do they handle disputes on their talk page? Are they level headed, helpful to others and able to admit when they have made a mistake?
- Editcount; Is this in the order of hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands?