User:Theonesean/Advice from administrators

Do you want to be an administrator? Do you think that administrators are awesome? Have you read all of the documentation on administrators and are left wanting more? Look no further than this page. Over the next few months, I will send out notifications on the talk pages of all administrators notifying them of this project and asking for their comments.

Beeblebrox
The best piece of advice I can give you is to be patient. Seeming over-eager to become an admin is a great way to convince a lot of people you should not be one. Most admin candidates who pass a request for adminship have beenactive editors for at least a year and have established a reputation for making good decisions and being familiar with policies, as well as making good contributions to discussions. Some specifics include:


 * Admins are expected to be very well versed in deletion policies espescially the criteria for speedy deletion
 * New page patrol is one area that you could try as it will test your ability to differentiate articles that qualify for speedy deletion from articles that, while they may have problems, cannot be speedy deleted.
 * Participation in deletion discussions is another area where you can learn how deletion and consensus work.
 * Warning and reporting vandals or username violations are activities that will bring you into regular contact with active admins so you can see how they handle them.
 * Participation at WP:RFA will give you a good idea of what you will have to go through and the microscope you will be under when you do decide to run.
 * When you feel like you are about half way there it is a good idea to ask for an editor review to get feedback on your progress so far.

Remember to assume good faith and don't bite the newcomers when doing any of these things. As you are aware Wikipedia can be a bit overwhelming with all its policies and guidelines, and sometimes the only reason a user runs afoul of them is because they just didn't know about them, not because they are malicious and trying to destroy Wikipedia, although those people are certainly out there as well. Once again, the most important thing you need to remember is to be patient, it takes time to acquire the knowledge and experience the community expects of an admin. I was here two years before my first try, and it failed pretty badly because of one single careless mistake I had made a few weeks earlier. The second one went much better because I showed that it was just a single screw up and not part of a pattern of making the same mistake.
 * Beeblebrox (talk) 16:46, 7 May 2013 (UTC)