User:LindsayH/RfA Criteria

Background
I that i plan on taking part in more RfAs, in part because if generally positive editors don't, then by default those who have stricter or more bizarre criteria are given more voice, which i think is something that helps poison the RfA well. If i am to take part, i thought it behoves me to actually lay out ~ primarily for myself, but also for anyone who might care to read them ~ the reasons behind my positions. I know what i think, vaguely, but it makes sense to clarify in mine own mind my thoughts.

So, then, why would i support someone in an RfA? What, in other words, do i consider important qualities or experiences for an administrator?

Default to support
Generally speaking, i think that my default position would be to support an RfA, to think that a user is to be trusted with the tools that the position brings. Partly this is related to what i trust i always do, which, in this context, i take to mean that i assume that someone is trustworthy unless or until proven otherwise. This is not to say that i don't look for any reasons not to trust, just that i will start from the assumption that i do trust editors here in general.

Content Creation
A point that frequently arises is the experience of the candidate in article writing, often with emphasis on article creation or “promotion” to good or featured status. While i think it is important that there be some experience, i am not one to have a set minimum number of edits in article space. This is for a couple of reasons: People gain abilities at different speeds, so the level of skill it took me five thousand edits to attain, someone with a better grasp might require only two thousand, or even fewer.

While, as it frequently said, the purpose of the whole project is content creation ~ the making of an encyclopaedia ~ i do not think that it therefore follows as an automatic corollary that the administrators have to have a certain level of content creation. It is no matter to me if the candidate has created a certain number of articles ~ obviously, one or two would be useful, just enough to show an understanding of the mechanics of it ~ nor if there is or is not a set number of articles shepherded through to become Featured. Nor can i say that i am concerned if a large number of edits are automated by some script or other, so long as all of them show evidence of having been examined before committment or, at the very least, the candidate has gone back and found and corrected any errors: I cannot say automation is likely to break the project.

An obvious supplemental point to this is that i do not believe that gnomic work is valueless for a candidate for RfA; it simply doesn’t matter, so long as the contributions are positive, what those contributions are. Correcting typographical errors, formatting articles, rebuilding sentences to make them slightly more readable ~ all of these, while not creating content, are highly useful in the matter of making the encyclopaedia better, more useful to our readers.

Experience
As for time spent on the project, i think i would probably look for a minimum of about six to eight months, simply so that the candidate has had the opportunity to see and participate in some of the cycles ~ RfAs, Requests for Comment, Deletions and Deletion Reviews, and so forth. If there has not been, during that six months (or however long it may be) any participation in these areas/cycles, then i would suggest that the candidate is not yet ready. There is no reason to expect someone to have been to all the behind-the-scenes areas ~ heck, i'm not bothered if there are swathes of WP namespace which are an unknown territory (there certainly are for me!) ~ but some familiarity with some of them is useful.

Disputes
An area that i think it is a good idea for a candidate to have had some experience is dispute resolution. While i do not hold that it is essential to have worked in one or more of the usual or “official” areas, it certainly might be a point in favour. It is useful to be able to look at how the candidate behaved when involved in a dispute, and for that reason i think the third generic question of the process is essential, and i would have a little less respect for a candidate who didn't answer it or was unable to point to any disagreements at which i could look.

Whether in participation or in resolution, i think it important that the candidate be able to show a record of calmness, of non-reaction to disagreement, of the ability to look at and assess arguments on their merits rather than on their emotional appeal. Ideally, if there has been a dispute, it will have been resolved without outside intervention, by which i mean a solution imposed from “above”, and acceptable to and accepted by all participants. So much the better if the candidate was actually on the “losing” side and is able to show continued productive editing in the area after the resolution.

While it might be ideal to have some experience in dispute resolution to point towards, i do not consider it essential. What is essential, however, is that if there is some evidence, it shows the candidate is level-headed and calm, very clearly not taking sides in the dispute, and able to pin-point the area of disagreement without being distracted by side-issues. The end-point should have been the same conclusion the majority of people would have reached were they in that position.

Being helpful
Similarly to my belief about the behind-the-scenes awareness above, i don't think it essential that the candidate have done any administrator-like (“proto-admin”?) work such as closing deletion discussions, reporting vandalism, expressing opinions on ANI, or assisting in any other ways. What is important is that if such activities have taken place, they should show the ability to get it right ~ i.e., not being overturned for stupid mistakes or misunderstanding consensus. For me it is far more important that a new administrator be willing to start slowly, to take the time needed (which varies by person, so i'm not demanding a commitment not to block, for example, for three weeks and two days) to learn the new abilities. I would also approve of a candidate who admits that the buttons are new and unknown and will require learning and practise, and taking one thing at a time. Thus, being willing to “attend” new admin school and committing to do so over a period of time is a plus in my view.

That being said, it is clearly beneficial to the community that a candidate have already read through the Reading List, be aware of what admins do and have the potential to do ~ not, in other words, going in blind or just because it's the next step to world dominion (making no further comment on any current administrator's passage towards that end). It's not, i mean, a nice shiny badge for someone to pick up; there has to be some value to the community to giving the tools to the candidate.

Community
I think it utterly vital that any candidate recognise that WP is a community. Certainly it is one with a specific goal but, like any group of individuals i can think of, there are social aspects as well as the teleological ones. In particular, in mine opinion, as a community we ought to realise and recognise that for some people some of these social facets are important, very important, to some of the community's members. Everyone knows that WP is NOTTHERAPY. The truth is, though, that for some people it is close to therapy, certainly some of their most important ~ if not sole ~ social interactions. Like it or not, this truth requires acknowledgement and understanding in the administering of certain policies.

In mine opinion admins must use compassion in dealing with editors who may not fully understand the primary purpose of the WP site. This does not mean that they need to allow it to become nothing more than one of the social media, nor even have that as one of an editor's major uses of the site. What it does mean is that the candidate i support will show evidence of behaving as one does in a community, with civility (yes, incredibly hard to define, yet vital), affirming other editors in their actions, even when those actions are not what the community finds useful. I suppose the bedrock upon which this criterion rests for me is that behind every account or IP is an actual human being ~ we have not yet reached the point of being fully automated ~ who deserves to be treated as such, no matter what the provocation. This doesn't mean that a candidate should never have lost their temper; if, however, it has been lost, later apologies must have been made. The appropriate human actions must be taken.

Signature
I do have one or two other, less broad criteria which i may consider in deciding whether to support an RfA candidate. One regards the signature: It should follow all guidelines at SIGNATURE, even the suggestions, so there should be at least some Latin character set in it to be readable by people who have no alphabet other than the Latin. It should link to the candidate's talk page, at least, if not the user page also. And, though this is rather more subjective, it should not be garish or overly big or complex, as i feel that such signatures can be either an attempt to gain an advantage in a discussion or a sign that content creation is less important to the signer than the social aspects of the site.

User space
Another requirement, from my perspective, regards the candidate's user and talk pages. Blue Raspberry has had (sadly, that page has been deleted) some good points here about the necessity of a welcoming tone to an admin's userspace; while i don't think for me it rises to the level of primary criterion, it is important enough to be mentioned here. I don't care about protection on the user page (in mine opinion no one but a user should be editing that space anyway), an admin ~ and therefore a candidate ~ should not have a protected talk page. I have seen some which are semi-protected, with a link to a separate, unprotected page where IP editors can edit; i find that acceptable, but less than satisfactory.

Trial by RfA
A final, perhaps, indicator for me of the ability of a candidate to perform as an administrator is the demeanour during the RfA process. I prefer to wait and watch for a part of the week, because i have on several occasions been given what felt like some insight into the character of the candidate, which has affected my response. As everyone says, RfA has some issues; but the way it works, potentially raising a bit of stress in the victim candidate, is not altogether a bad thing.

Actual opinions
A list of my edits to various Requests, most recent probably at the top; perhaps they actually reflect the theory above, perhaps not!

(Bolded entries were successful, whether i supported or not) (+/- indicate whether i was in line with the community as determined by the closing 'crat ~ currently 77.17% ~ hmm, going down, am i developing independence or losing touch with the community??)