User:FT2/Article supervision/Article supervisor nominations

Article supervision is one of Wikipedia's dispute resolution processes. Under this process, highly experienced editors can be granted communal approval to supervize and enforce stricter editorial standards within exceptionally contentious disputes.

Granting of this approval follows a detailed examination of their editing record, in which any editor in good standing may provide evidence or an opinion.

This page summarizes the process and criteria relevant to these requests. It also includes the conditions under which approval can later be revoked, and the list of current and past article supervisors.

For more details on article supervision, see article supervision. For present and past article supervisors see To request supervision for an article see requests for supervision

Approval to supervise articles
Supervising articles requires a range of skills and experience, and is carried out by experienced impartial editors who have demonstrated their ability to address complex articles and disputes from a policy-based approach. Supervisors have shown they tend to stay calm, helpful, and courteous in disputes. Editors with these qualities are welcome to request approval to supervise by submitting a short evidence-based statement below.


 * Examples of qualities favored:
 * General experience and standards comparable to that required for adminship and mediation.
 * Competence in long term hostile disputes, particularly if this includes puppetry, bad faith, etc
 * History of presenting good quality policy-related cases, rulings or evidence, at Arbcom, AFD, Third Opinion, RfA, article talk pages, etc.
 * History of involvement in evidence-weighing roles, such as suspected sock puppets, page protection, etc.
 * Good quality of judgement and perception (essential in order to see through smoke that is thrown up in hostile disputes).
 * Good judgement of appropriate remedies for problematic editorship (explanation, discussion, supportive warnings, sanctions).
 * Comments in disputes remains civil, consensus-seeking and policy-based under pressure.
 * Visibly neutral and transparent, but focussed in disputes.
 * Careful and thoughtful.
 * Considers different sides rather than instantly jumping to conclusions
 * Open to considering genuinely good points made by apparent bad-faith editors, and improper actions of apparent good-faith editors.
 * General good and stable reputation.
 * Consistent and reliable conduct across all areas edited.
 * Doesn't rise to personal attack. (Some bad faith editors don't like to go down without a fight)
 * Both patience and decisiveness; draws a fair and clear line when problematic conduct goes too far.
 * Addresses substandard conduct impartially and dispassionately.
 * Calm even-handed handling of stressors.


 * Examples of qualities avoided:
 * History of aggressive or reactive adminship (too quick to warn, block or react without seeking mutual solutions first)
 * History of non-neutral or non-policy based conduct in disputes
 * History of antagonistic approach to editing (asking direct questions, seeking evidence, and making comments in a civil manner and with good faith, is not usually considered 'antagonistic')
 * History of avoiding clear cut responses, smokescreens, stonewalling, and similar, when asked direct questions or challenged.
 * Makes allegations and claims without good backing, or unable to evidence claims made when evidence is requested.
 * History as an editor, of editing not in accordance with policy themselves.
 * Blocks, bans, desysopping, arbcom or admin noticeboard censure, tendentious or substandard editing, and the like, where these may reflect upon present suitability.

Because supervision can involve blocking users, most (but not all) supervisors are also administrators. Not being an administrator is not a reason for non-approval, in particular where there is strong experience and visible competence, but it may be a serious impediment.

Approval process
Editors seeking to supervise articles should read the criteria and understand how article supervision works, before summarizing their experience with any evidence or examples in the section below. Nominations of other editors should be discussed and agreed with that editor beforehand.


 * (For non-admins only:) Supervising is open to non-administrators; however non-adminship may be a serious impediment since supervision at times will involve on-the-spot short term blocks. It can help to consider how you plan to promptly enforce the supervision in practice, and whether your experience and other qualities outweigh this impediment.

Past supervisors who resigned or voluntarily were desysopped, without blemish, may request their account is re-added to the supervisors' list when their previous sysop status is restored.

Removal process

 * For complaints or grievances about the handling of a specific supervision case, see Article supervision#Review.

Removal of editors (either from one or more supervised articles or from the supervisors' list altogether) is by resignation, by consensus discussion and evidence of involved and uninvolved parties (usually at WP:ANI), by decision of Jimbo Wales, or by Arbcom ruling.

Editors who are permanently removed from other groups requiring higher levels of responsibility (adminship, mediation committee, arbcom, stewardship, oversight, etc) other than by their own choice, including resignation at a point when involuntary removal or desysopping is a strong possibility, or whose editing privileges are removed for part or all of Wikipedia for an extended period (2 months or more), will automatically be removed from this list, unless there is consensus at #Review that the matter does not reflect on their suitability and credibility in supervisions.

Current requests for approval
{Suitable template/subpage system along the lines of RfA, RFM etc needed here, plus directions for completion}


 * {empty}

Closed requests for approval are archived here.

List of editors able to supervise articles
{Details of editing/format required to submit a request}

List of supervisors

 * {empty}

Past supervisors

 * {empty}