User:Adrian M. H./RfA review

Questions[edit]

When thinking about the adminship process, what are your thoughts and opinions about the following areas:

Candidate selection (inviting someone to stand as a candidate)
No comments to add.
Administrator coaching (either formally or informally)
A bit of coaching, pre-selection, may not be a bad thing if it helps to find admins who can do the job properly.
Nomination, co-nomination and self-nomination (introducing the candidate)
I would feel more inclined to accept a nomination from an experienced and capable administrator/editor who I (and the community) know and respect than from a relatively inexperienced editor. I would not nominate myself and I must admit that self nomination makes me a little uneasy. I wouldn't want to see self nomination prevented, however.
Advertising and canvassing
The line needs to be drawn at the point of no communications of a nature that can clearly be construed to have this intention. It is not necessary. If canvassing takes place, then the RfA should be closed.
Debate (Presenting questions to the candidate)
If it was possible to get away from the feel of a job interview in front of a panel, that would be welcome. After all, editing is not a job but a pastime. To a large extent, contributions and past history speak for themselves.
Election (including providing reasons for support/oppose)
No comments to add.
Withdrawal (the candidate withdrawing from the process)
Withdrawal is a candidate's right and should not reflect negatively on them. If feel that they need to withdraw, then they should do so and without prejudice.
Declaration (the bureaucrat closing the application. Also includes WP:NOTNOW closes)
No comments to add.
Training (use of New Admin School, other post-election training)
Informal mentoring and on-request support is far preferable. There is no need to make the admin learning process any more onerous than necessary. If an editor needs to be put through some form of course to be admin, perhaps they should not have been selected in the first place.
Recall (the Administrators Open to Recall process)
Obviously, a recall system is necessary, but what form that takes is not something about which I feel qualified to comment.

When thinking about adminship in general, what are your thoughts and opinions about the following areas:

How do you view the role of an administrator?
One who can be trusted to perform maintenance tasks that can be controversial while always maintaining a detached neutrality. If a situation arises in which neutrality is difficult, it is better to step back from it and let another admin deal with it. There is no room for egos. It seems to be a commonly held view among many editors — with which I disagree — that admins should function as judges, mediators and advocates. These skills are not specific to adminship and should not be seen as a requirement. Somehow, the perception of admins as the front line of dispute resolution needs to be changed. Some editors go running to an admin as soon as they get sand thrown in their face.
What attributes do you feel an administrator should possess?
To a large extent, that depends on what tasks each admin wants to focus on. I do not subscribe to the theory that admins should be accomplished in every aspect of this project and be judges, lawyers, writers, copyright experts and coders.

Finally, when thinking about Requests for Adminship:

Have you ever voted in a request for Adminship? If so what was your experience?
No. For the most part, I prefer to leave that to admins and would only provide an opinion if I became aware of a nominee who I believed was of questionable suitability.
Have you ever stood as a candidate under the Request for Adminship process? If so what was your experience?
No. I have had two or three offers to nominate me, but declined in each case.
Do you have any further thoughts or opinions on the Request for Adminship process?
They have been said before in previous attempts to review RfA.