User:Sphilbrick/RfA reform

Our approach to selecting admins is unbelievably inefficient.

As a thought experiment, imagine that we decided to use the RfA approach to vet Supreme Court Judges:

We need a new Supreme court justice and a person, NewJerseyJanet is proposed. We need to determine whether they are a viable candidate.

So how do we proceed? We ask roughly a hundred people to investigate this candidate and respond with a simple yes or no. Then we tally the yes votes, and see if there are enough.

NewJerseyJanet happened to be involved in a well-known case, so almost every one of the 100 people pores over the complete transcripts to see what they can glean. She also accepted money for a boondoggle trip to the Cayman Islands, but no one picked up on that incident.

I hope we can agree this is an incredibly inefficient use of resources. Extreme duplication of effort in some areas, while leaving other areas untouched.

I hope the actual process is more sensible. I imagine that areas of review are identified - cases litigated, law review articles written, law school transcripts, interviews with professors, interviews with peers, review of public and private speeches, and that these would be allocated. A few reviewers work on cases litigated, and divide them up, maybe making sure that at least three read each case, but making sure that every case is reviewed. Etc. I trust I don't have to spell out the process. Then each person or group reports back on the facet they have investigated and a composite recommendation is given.

Far more thorough, with far fewer resources.

I contend that something like this could be done for RfA. While the real-life SC appointee situation involves someone in charge who can make assignments, very unwiki like, I don't think it would be hard to devise an organized way to look at a candidate. Make a list, and volunteers can sign up. The list might include:
 * CSD nominations
 * AfD nominations and !votes
 * Interaction with other editors
 * Contribution to AN/ANI/3RR etc
 * Cohorts of edits

If a volunteer already see that five have signed up to look at AfD contribution, but none are looking at interactions with other editors, they should realize they contribute more to the process if they concentrate on that. Then they can do a reasonably thorough review of that aspect, and report on that aspect.

I used to be active in RfA, but I've stopped. Unless I know the candidates, I feel I need to look at too many things to feel comfortable supporting. In contrast, under my scheme, I would be happy to, say, review one aspect of the candidate, and opine on that aspect.

I actually envision a two step process, where an initial review is done, and then potentially problem areas are investigated more thoroughly by a larger group, but that's a detail.

Other than inertia, and the initial work to set something like this up, what's not to like? It would not preclude anyone from checking every box and reviewing everything, just as they do now. But many would be happy to spend less time, and do a more thorough review of one aspect of a candidate. I contend it would both save valuable time, and produce a more thorough review.