User:Volunteer Marek/Qualities to look for in an administrator

I very much understand, and even support, the idea that division of labor improves a given project, including the writing of an encyclopedia. This means that I don't necessarily require administrators to be great content writers. Managing an encyclopedia and writing one, are two different tasks and different individuals have different skill sets which are better suited to one or the other (for the record, I'd be a really shitty admin). In an ideal world, competent and professional administrators would interact in an amicable and collegiate manner with knowledgeable and conscientious content writers. Indeed, the primary function of the former (that is, the admins) would be to facilitate (that is, make easier), the job of the latter (that is, the content writers). In that sense, administrators, and especially wanna-be admin candidates ought to view themselves as civil servants. Folks who are given special privileges and rights (the mop, the bucket, and most importantly, the almighty block button) in exchange for the self-sacrifice of helping others.

That's not how it is.

Familiarity with actual content
 * At the end of the day this is (supposed to be) an encyclopedia. If a candidate for admin privileges has barely gotten their toe wet in generating actual encyclopedic content, they're not worthy.
 * A content editor is not someone who creates a couple of DYKs, writes a GA or even FA article about some video game cribbed from the press release, or worse, makes some cosmetic spelling changes to a GA or FA and then puts up a "This user helped to get article XXX to FA status" on their user page. It's definitely not someone who thinks that because they changed some hyphens to dashes (or is it the other way around?) in a FA candidate article that they can somehow take credit for that article reaching FA status. A content editor is not someone who has created a large number of redirects or trivial small content forks to already existing articles.
 * Any admin candidate who trumpets the fact that they've "never been involved in controversy" is not worthy. Any editor who has not been involved in controversy at a place like Wikipedia is not making quality edits. Unfortunately, the way this place works, improving existing articles sooner or later generates controversy. If you haven't been there, it's because you're not trying. More likely, it is because you're trying, but only to become a "admin", not to improve (what's supposed to be) an encyclopedia. We don't need you here. It goes without saying that the reverse is not true. Just because you've been involved in controversy, does not mean you're automatically a good candidate
 * Here's a useful tool: . If that red slice of the pie is less than 40%, I'm not gonna vote for you. If it's less than 30% I will actively oppose you. If your "User:talk" is over 25% I will really, really oppose you. Why? Simple. If you spend most of your time on other user's talk pages it means you're either a) facebookin'. You're in the wrong place, b) politickin'. You want it to much to deserve it, or c) here to just argue with people. Again, a real content editor hashes out their differences on the relevant articles talk pages.
 * The block log of a particular candidate is relevant but needs to be understood properly. An editor who got blocked forty years ago is not the same as an editor who got blocked two weeks ago. An editor who got blocked five times in sixteen years on Wikipedia is not the same as an editor who got blocked two times in the past week. Hell, an editor who got blocked five times in sixteen years may very well be much better than a year old editor with a clean block log - give that guy another fifteen years, who knows how many blocks they'll wind up with? It also matters who, why and how people were blocked.