User:Davidwr/RfA review

'''Note: I am no longer interested in adminship  This page is kept for posterity and in the hopes it will be useful to others who might want the bit. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  10:08, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

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)
 * In general it's fine. As someone who will likely "run" for adminship later this year, it would be nice if there was a standardized way for me to invite people to critique me other than the editor-review process.  Perhaps a category "Users who want to see if they have a snowball's chance in hell of passing RfA" or, for a more professional tone, "Users who want feedback before running for adminship."
 * 1) Administrator coaching (either formally or informally)
 * It looks good on paper but I've never experienced it so I can't really comment on its implementation. Don't get rid of it.
 * 1) Nomination, co-nomination and self-nomination (introducing the candidate)
 * I don't have nay problems with how this works now.
 * 1) Advertising and canvassing
 * I would loosen up a bit on restrictions here. Let people advertise freely on other people's user:talk pages and create a centralized location for advertising.  This goes for both pre-nomination "feeling people out/soliciting co-nomination" solicitations as well as post-nomination solicitations.  There's no need for the candidate to be coy, we aren't electing a pope.
 * 1) Debate (Presenting questions to the candidate)
 * This works fine. I would consider extending the election if questions were added late in the debate and these questions seemed to change the outcome.
 * 1) Election (including providing reasons for support/oppose)
 * This seems to work fine in clear-cut cases, there isn't a good way to handle borderline cases though.
 * 1) Withdrawal (the candidate withdrawing from the process)
 * This works fine, especially coupled with early-close-deny under WP:SNOW when a denied candidate refuses to step down gracefully.
 * 1) Declaration (the bureaucrat closing the application. Also includes WP:NOTNOW closes)
 * This is usually a formality. I don't see a way of improving it on close !votes.
 * 1) Training (use of New Admin School, other post-election training)
 * I can't comment on this on the English Wikipedia. However, it would be nice if there was an experimental Wikipedia where everyone could practice being an admin using the same tools the English Wikipedia uses.  If nothing else, this would give would-be candidates some sense if they really wanted to be an admin, and it would give editors some sense of what it is like to carry the mop and broom.
 * 1) Recall (the Administrators Open to Recall process)
 * I think administrators should serve fixed terms, say, 1 year, then run again under what will probably be a rubber-stamp election. If nothing else, this would de-sysop inactive editors.  To prevent cabals, I would prefer a 3-month break after 24 months of service before running again.

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?
 * Administrators serve as janitors who do necessary cleanup work, keepers of secrets such as the contents of deleted articles and the contents of the administrative mailing lists and IRC channels, and, in conjunction with other experienced editors, as leaders in the project.
 * 1) What attributes do you feel an administrator should possess?
 * He should have the attitude of a servant leader, someone who cares about the project more than himself or his friends. Everything else follows.  It is helpful if an administrator has patience, a good grasp of the English language and idioms used in the English-speaking world, a good grasp of popular culture in the English-speaking world, good general knowledge, respect for process, respect for authority - in this case the authority of the entire Wikipedia editorship that he serves, good interpersonal skills, wisdom, self-awareness of where he is weak or has a conflict of interest and should defer to others' judgment, the ability to use tools such as a spelll-chekker correctly, a sense of humor, and other traits too numerous to mention.  To make it short:  If he would make a good supervisor in an office environment AND make a good janitor in the same office AND make a good co-worker, he'll probably make a good administrator.

Finally, when thinking about Requests for Adminship:


 * 1) Have you ever voted in a request for Adminship? If so what was your experience?
 * Yes, it was routine.
 * 1) Have you ever stood as a candidate under the Request for Adminship process? If so what was your experience?
 * Not yet.
 * 1) Do you have any further thoughts or opinions on the Request for Adminship process?
 * Adminship duties and user-rights should be split. For example, the right to delete or undelete an article does not have to be tied to the right to block or unblock a user.  Some people's tasks require both, but others do not.  There are ongoing discussions of creating new user-rights such as seeing deleted content.  This is a step in the right direction.

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.

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

This question page was generated by RFAReview at 02:27 on 29 June 2008.