User:Nn123645/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.

If you prefer, you can submit your responses anonymously by emailing them to gazimoff (at) o2.co.uk. Anonymous responses will be posted as subpages and linked to from the responses section, but will have the contributor's details removed. If you have any questions, please use the talk page.

Once you've provided your responses, please encourage other editors to take part in the review. More responses will improve the quality of research, as well as increasing the likelihood of producing meaningful results.

Once again, thank you for taking part!

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 think the current system of inviting people to stand works fairly well, however I'd like to see the system be more acceptable to self nominations.

2. Administrator coaching (either formally or informally)

   I don't see any harm with a system to try to get someone to pass. If people want to setup a coaching system they should be allowed to do so. I don't see a problem with a formal system as long as it is separate and not part of the RFA process itself.

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

   I'd like to see the ability for an anonymous nomination. I see far too many opposes due to self nominations or who was nominated. Having an anonymous system would help alienate this problem. The person should be rated their merit, not on how they were nominated.

4. Advertising and canvassing

   I don't know about you, but I rarely check RFA, mainly because if you click the "Print Preview" button on an RFA it is unusual to see one under 18 pages. I really don't feel like reading through 18 pages of comments and looking through a few thousand diffs to make a decision on a person so I will only do it if I have seen the editor in action and have a feeling one way or the other. RFA could benefit from a summary page so people can see the key issues without having to sort through pages and pages of text.

5. Debate (Presenting questions to the candidate)

   I think questions are a good part of the process. They allow people to get a better feel for the canidate. I would like to see questions remain optional, and for it to be made clear that someone refusing to answer a question is not a valid ground for an oppose.

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

   The rationale behind support opposes is a nice thing in the RFA process. I don't think that should change, but I do think that RFA should be regarded as a vote. There should be a preestablished criteria for what are valid rationales and what are not. Bureaucrats should not be allowed to decide on their own what is valid and what isn't as this opens the door for abuse of the system, as mentioned above. If votes don't meet the critera for being thrown out they should be counted.

7. Withdrawal (the candidate withdrawing from the process)

   A candiate should have the right to withdraw from an RFA without penalty. The candidate should also have the option of having the RFA page and related talk page that was withdrawn deleted. We shouldn't force people to continue with RFA if they change their mind.

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

   I would like to see the process of bureaucrats closing based on how they feel the RFA went change. As mentioned above, there needs to be standard criteria that bureaucrats have to follow.

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

   Admins should have a petty good idea of how to use the tools before they are elected. Though it is important to have good documentation on the tools. This should ideally be included as part of an optional coaching process, though I don't see any problem with it staying the way it is now.

10. Recall (the Administrators Open to Recall process)

    There needs to be a way to desysop people that is not optional. Administrators open to recall is a nice idea but there should be some kind of mandatory system where a user can request that that adminstrator go through RFA again. It should be somewhat similar to an RFC/U where you need a certain number of people to confirm the dispute for it to go through. There should also be a timeout process so the system can't be abused.

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?

   I think the current role that WP:ADMIN describes is pretty good. Admins shouldn't have more power in the system, they should just be there to keep everything together. Since everything an admin can do is able to be undone the requirements shouldn't be too high. The worst thing an admin can do is alienating the userbase by issuing false blocks as this more than anything alienates the userbase. In a user generated website our users are the most valuable thing we have. No users means no content. As long as there isn't a high probability of an admin going off the deep end I don't think we have much to worry about provided the admin can be desysoped as easily as he was sysoped.

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

   An administrator should be someone who is mature, stable in all mental faciliates, understands wikipedia processes and polices, understands what the tools do and how they should be used, and is willing to set an example for other editors. Even though wikipedia admins have no more official power than a regular user almost every newcomer and all of the outside media don't understand that. Wikipedia is very much in the public eye as it is a top 10 website. Actions an admin takes could end up in an article in the New York Times, the Washington Post, or on a segment on NBC Nightly News, CNN, MSNBC, the BBC, or any number of other major news outlet. Admins need to understand that and act appropriately.

Finally, when thinking about Requests for Adminship:

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

   Yes, but to use the classic phrase "ITS A DISCUSSION NOT A VOTE". That is one thing I would most like to see change in RFA. Pretty much everyone knows RFA is a vote. If we could treat it as such instead of trying to fool ourselves that it isn't we'd be much better off. To quote one of the articles on wikitruth.org "[Consensus is]...how admins get to decide on the quality of votes rather than the quantity of votes". Having that kind of system leaves itself open for abuse and manipulation. If you had that system in a government it paves the way open for a dictator to come in an ignore votes that oppose him. We vote for arbcom and the board of trustees, why not vote for admin?

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

   No I have not stood as a candidate in RFA.

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

   I would like to see RFA be successfully reformed. It is a process where people say one thing and do another. The process is overly complicated and needs to be brought down to size. The way some RFAs go you'd think people are debating whether the candidate should have access to the nuclear launch codes. Provided a successful desysoping measure is in place we should be able to feel more comfterable with giving out tools. It is after all, just 3 tools.

Once you're finished...

Thank you again for taking part in this review of the Request for Adminship process. Now that you've completed the questionnaire, don't forget to add the following line of code to the bottom of the Response page by clicking this link and copying the following to the BOTTOM of the list.

* [[User:Nn123645/RfA review]] added by ~~~ at ~~~~~

Again, on behalf of the project, thank you for your participation.

This question page was generated by {{RFAReview}} at 16:54 on 26 June 2008.