User:Sjb72/Admin coaching/nomdraft

So far I've had two successful admin coachees and two more are currently in the pipe. But of all the coachees that I've had, I can honestly say that I am proudest of StephenBuxton. I started working with StephenBuxton as an Admin Coachee about 3 months ago. When I took him as a coachee, I told him some pretty harsh things. For example, ''You are my third coachee, and to be honest with you, you need more work than my first two coachees did. Right now, if you ran for RfA, your candidacy would go down in flames.'' I said this because he was strictly a vandal fighter. He had a wonderful track record as a vandal fighter, but virtually no experience elsewhere. Furthermore, some of his posts failed to demonstrate an understanding of policies. But he attracted my attention nonetheless. In part because his XfD rationales were always more elaborate than "Delete"/"Keep", but attempted to give a rationale for his !vote. He routinely welcomed new users and he followed up with vandals.

But the reason why I am proudest of Stephen, is because he embraced the coaching. From November to January, Stephen averaged over 700 anti-vandal edits per month. When he accepted my coaching, his edits dropped significantly as he stopped using tools and started focusing on other aspects of the wikipedia community. In February, his edits dropped to less than 100! But that decline is a direct result of his reading of policies/guidelines, he probably learned more about Wikipedia in February than most have learned this year! With his newfound expertise, I ran him through some typical exercises: Speedy Deletions, AfD/DvR, Policies and Guidelines, and 3rr/Naming.

But what most impressed me about Stephen was how he embraced the non-vandal side of wikipedia. Stephen exposed himself to Peer Review, embraced article writing, and has become active at the helpdesk. He also did what a lot of us seek when we ask vandals to get more involved with building the encyclopedia. He got involved in a significant discussion concerning the role of "the secret" in magic tricks with TenOfAllTrades. Overall, I think Stephen handled this discussion well, as can be seen here.