User:MaterialsPsych/RfA criteria

Since I've voted at RfA a few times, I'm going to write down my main criteria. I don't think I look for anything particularly crazy or overly-complicated in candidates at RfA. My default tendency is to support any candidacy, unless if clear and convincing evidence shows the candidate to be unsuitable.

What I Always Consider

 * Civility is an absolute must. I don't expect anyone to be perfect, as we all have bad days and occasionally make dumb mistakes. A one-off incident that isn't very recent and that the candidate has unreservedly apologized for will generally not concern me, unless if it is of a unusually severe or aggravated nature. On the other hand, if there is a history of chronic issues with the candidate's civility, temperament, and ability to manage conflict without getting angry at others, I will almost certainly oppose. Unfortunately, administrators can and will be targeted by vile insults and placed into contentious situations, moreso than the average user. They need to have thick enough skin to handle this without getting angry and taking it out on others.
 * Experience in administrative areas, broadly construed. There are some administrative tasks that non-administrators cannot do or should not try to do. That being said, there are some administrative areas that rely on the involvement of non-administrators, such as AIV, UAA, XfD, RfPP, and many more. I want to see some indication that the candidate has some recent experience in one or more of these areas. Ideally, the candidate's interests as expressed in Q1 will align with demonstrable experience in one or more of these areas. I don't expect administrators to do only what they said they want to do in Q1 of their RfAs forever, but it provides a starting point.

What I May Consider

 * Content Creation. Despite all the stuff that goes on in the background, we are all ultimately here to build a free online encyclopedia. I don't look for featured content creation (see below), but it wouldn't hurt to see some evidence that the candidate can contribute clean encyclopedic content to the mainspace. This need not be in the form of writing new articles from scratch, and I would never use the number of articles a candidate has created as a metric for supporting or opposing. There are plenty of other articles that could be expanded from stub- to start-class, or higher. This type of work is frequently thankless and criminally undervalued at RfA, in my opinion. Nonetheless, I would never ever oppose somebody solely on the basis of a lack of content creation, although it could weaken my support or, in very extreme cases, push me into the neutral section. Content creation and administrative work draw upon two very different skillsets, but I think the former can provide a useful perspective to the latter that can't be obtained purely from reverting vandalism and participating at administrative noticeboards. It would also demonstrate a basic familiarity with Wikipedia's core policies (notability, verifability, no original research, etc.) that any administrator should have.
 * Involvement at ANI or other noticeboards. If the candidate is a frequent "contributor" to drama at ANI or elsewhere, it may weaken my support. In extreme cases, where a candidate is frequently embroiled in conflict (at noticeboards or elsewhere), it may indicate a deeper issue with their temperament that makes them unsuitable to be an administrator.

What I Don't Consider

 * Featured Content Creation. Although having FAs, GAs, DYKs, etc., is certainly impressive and can be a proxy for one's understanding of various content policies on Wikipedia, I believe they have very little direct bearing on most, if not all, administrative tasks. There is nothing that can be demonstrated by featured content creation that can't be demonstrated by creating "regular" content. Therefore, by default, I assign no additional weight to a candidate's track record of featured content creation, or lack thereof.
 * Edit count. Requiring a minimum edit count isn't a particularly useful or constructive proxy for experience. Of course, a candidate with a new account and/or an account that has very few edits could be problematic, as there may not be enough evidence to demonstrate sufficient experience in administrative areas.