Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-09-30/Interview

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It would be an interesting series of interviews if you talked to every candidate who had had such a contentious RFA that they had been the subject of a crat chat. Painful, painful memories of my RfA although they gradually fade over time as you focus on all of the work that needs to be done and less on the random comments that come with any type of intense scrutiny. Congratulations, SFR, on weathering the storm! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:23, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

I would definitely be open to an interview like that. Thank you to SFR and Formal for this. Moneytrees🏝️(Talk) 06:45, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

• This is an illuminating interview and I thank SFR for the frank answers. I had a fairly easy RfA but even so, it dominated my thinking for a week. I can only imagine how grueling a borderline RfA must be. I support the proposed reform of bringing RfAs to a prompt end after exactly 24X7 hours. The art museum analogy has some merit, but on the other hand, this is more like a gigantic project to create works of art. Museums curate and display instead. Cullen328 (talk) 05:00, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

  I agree the analogy isn't perfect, but we do creation, curation, and exhibition, and all are important. None can succeed without the others. I think an administrator should have broad experience on the project, since they're going to have to deal with issues in a lot of different corners of Wikipedia, but that doesn't have to mean extensive experience in specific parts. I also wanted to work out a way to reference this discussing experience in curating content, but I couldn't come up with a good way, so let's imagine I did. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:49, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

I have to agree with our new Admin that curatorial experience is a more important qualification than content creation. There is more repair, deletion and improvement happening every day than growth, and from where I stand, adminship seems far more a curatorial job than a creative one. Jim.henderson (talk) 05:59, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

It's not that it's more important, it's just as important. It's become even more obvious to me in the short time I've been patrolling RFPP and AIV that there's a constant flow of some of the most horrible shit, and I don't think someone needs to have written a certain number of articles to revdel, block vandals, and protect pages to stop crazy disruption. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:52, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

I get the argument that there have been admins in the past whose treatment of content contributors might have been different if they had skin in the game, and therefore all new admins need to have contributed some content. I also accept the argument, and think that the RFA crowd have mostly accepted the argument that anyone going for adminship needs to have demonstrated that they understand what a reliable source is and that they know how to do an inline cite. What was odd about that RFA was that a number of people were disregarding those two GAs, opposing for lack of content contributions, but without in most cases giving any indication why those two GAs didn't qualify. ϢereSpielChequers 05:21, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

With all respect to SFR, I thought the answer to that question was rather obvious, and was in fact touched on by SandyGeorgia and others: writing two GAs isn't actually that much work. For me it was rather hard to tell how much article editing SFR has actually done, but it was undisputed that the balance of his activity didn't favour mainspace, and I think that was the main reason for opposition. – Joe (talk) 08:35, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

• Congratulations to SFR on passing a very difficult RfA. I'm sure there are lessons we can learn from it, but before we start can we please retire the janitor/mop analogy? If the janitors at the museum could decide when to take works down to storage, suspend and fire curators, and had a majority of seats on its governing board, the qualifications demanded probably would be quite high. – Joe (talk) 08:41, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
• I love the points SFR raised about RFA and adminship in general. I have always felt that being an admin is more of a anti-vandalism specific role (blocking users and IPs, ability to rev del, delete articles and pages) rather than content creation (something pretty much anyone can do). I also love that he stated that (I can't seem to find the exact quote he used... maybe I'm having a Mandela effect situation) RFA kinda shows if you are truly ready to be an admin by basically allowing you to show your restraint in countering other users who disagree with you just because you disagree with them. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 13:17, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

  It's this what you're looking for? A lot of the time you're left just shrugging and leaving incorrect assumptions or false statements unchallenged. Maybe that's part of it? Making sure you can sit and take abuse, because that is a common position for admins to find themselves in. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:15, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

  That's the part I most disagree with, though it is a common suggestion. None of us would design a system in which people are deliberately subjected to highly personalised criticism from the en.wiki community in order to see if they can handle possible future abuse of a completely different kind as an admin. This is just backwards justification for the bad environment of RfA that has arisen. — Bilorv (talk) 19:09, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

• SFR's responses display a remarkable depth of perception and reflection that is exactly what I'd hope for in an admin. A very nice read. Congrats and good luck going forward. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 16:10, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
• Nice interview! I was interested to read this after the contentious RfA. Suriname0 (talk) 15:40, 11 October 2022 (UTC)