smccandlish/Rfa Standards

They're more flexible than they sound; I would expect someone to pass maybe 75% of them, and their relative values to each other are highly variable. And I don't use this as a checklist; it's more that you need to pass 75% of the stuff that I notice or look into. I reserve the right to waive any of these criteria, and add others, on a case-by-case basis. There are probably criteria that I employ on-the-spot that I've forgotten to list here.

This page in a nutshell: Do have enough experience to understand the community, policies, and processes quite well. Don't be a flaming asshat who desires a wiki-career in user-management drama, or any other kind of obvious power-seeker. Wikipedia needs competent people getting the work done, not self-appointed cops. Admins are more of a neighborhood watch, and only when they have to be.

Collaboration

• No recent personal attacks or unwarranted accusations of bad faith. However, I define that strictly, and recognize that legitimate, restrained criticism of edits is not an "attack". Nor is happening to have used swear words. Being nasty to someone in unctuously faux-civil wording is, however.
  • If there's a record of filing WP:SPI, WP:ANI, and other actions, few should have been rejected; these processes are not for witch hunts or fishing expeditions. See also WP:ASPERSIONS.
• Does not badger editors who oppose the candidate's RFA. Asking a few questions or bringing up an occasional valid point is OK.
  • Does not have an entourage doing this for them. If someone is doing it, ask them to stop; it's only making you look bad.
• No evidence of WP:TAGTEAM / WP:FACTION behavior – or any other form of intimidation or anti-consensus collusion.
• Habitually rational and civil, even if argumentative. Barely skirting WP:AGF, WP:NPA, and WP:CIVIL all the time counts as incivil. If your modus operandi seems to be the belittlement of others, just keep walkin'.
• No evidence of addiction to drama. Notably:
  • If most of your time is spent at noticeboards, or arguing at WP:XfDs this is probably a disqualifier.
  • If more than 30% of your edits are to Wikipedia and Wikipedia_talk namespaces combined, this is often a bad sign, though it depends (some processes generate a lot of churn, and I allow for that – my own ratio can get into this range).
  • No "hangin' judge" pattern of punitive or vindictive !voting at ANI or other noticeboards. Anyone who thinks its better the bring to hammer down hard on productive but imperfect editors, whose behavior can probably be groomed with short-term topic bans and interaction bans, has no business with the hammer in their hand.
• Evidence of evenhanded, productive dispute resolution, not WP:BATTLEGROUNDing
  • Especially impressive is even-keel participation in RfCs and other disputes that one has no personal editorial stake in. If you have a good WP:NAC track record this will matter more to me than things like your WP:AfD track record and whether something you say in your answer to a WP:CSD trick question isn't perfect. (I am unusual in this regard, so do try to get that stuff right.)
  • I draw a sharp distinction between A) WP:RfC / WP:RM, and non-deletion XfDs, which are largely about resolving conflict, versus B) WP:AN/I and other noticeboards that focus on editor behavior, and deletion WP:XfDs, which are drama magnets. You shouldn't be afraid of such areas, but if you live in them, you are here for the wrong reasons.
• Evidence that the candidate has gone out of their way to resolve disputes, especially if there's an incident of prolonged conflict with another editor. Show us that you "have the upper hand" in collegiality not in WP:WINNING.
  • Evidence of salvaging an inter-editor relationship in a way that prevented likely further conflagrations is worth 10× as much as taking someone to ANI, other than for absolutely WP:NOTHERE disruptors.
• Near-perfect usage of edit summaries – Not misleading or impenetrable; not misusing "minor"; not habitually abusing edit summaries as a substitute for the talk page. Extra "points" if you self-revert to correct mistaken edit summaries. (I used to use and expect rather lengthy ones but have been convinced of the value of using abbreviated ones, as long as the meaning is clear in the context.)
• You can't be a total WP:JERK. I accept candidates who are more curmudgeonly than most other voters will (because I am a curmudgeon). But there are limits.
  • See also the final point under #Wisdom, below. You can't be a nutter, either. If people don't want to or can't work with you, you're done.

Experience

• Probably at least 18 months of active experience (i.e. 6 months on, a year off, then 6 months on = 1 year, not 2). I sometimes go as low as a year, for exceptional candidates, and if it's all recent. Six months? Forget it. Nine? Very unlikely. Reason: It is simply not possible to adequately absorb all of Wikipedia's policies, guidelines, process norms, and community expectations in 6 months, and very difficult to do it within a year and half, even for editors who are on almost every day.
• Usually a minimum of non-automated 10,000 edits. While quality is more important than quantity, it simply is not possible to be a good admin if you have not been involved enough to absorb community values, practices, and expectations, in a project-wide manner, and especially as a content contributor. WP:COMMONSENSE is not actually common, but earned through sweat equity. I know this is a higher bar that most will set. I'm not strict about it. 7500 is fine for a great candidate. But 2500? No way.
  • At least 30% in mainspace – I'd go as low as 25% if the difference was in public-facing editing, including anti-vandalism, editing article-used templates, work on useful portals, creation of categories, etc. I make allowances for the fact that vandal fighting and deletion tagging involves a lot of user-talk posts. Many editors want to see 50% or higher mainspace work, but I expect candidates to have diverse project experience.
  • At least 10% in Wikipedia and Wikipedia_talk combined (as long at it's not mostly drama boards; see above). This is evidentiary of involvement in policy and process (or at least community participation – it might all be wikiproject-related).
  • Not overly reliant on automated tools. I don't count automated edits toward my 10,000 minimum, and such edits should probably not be an outright majority of the candidate's edits, unless there's a strong showing that the tool use is very constructive/protective.
• Actively and consistently editing for the last three months, with no longer than a 6-month gap before that within the last two years. Stuff changes here all the time, and admins will not be competent if not caught up. We also need admins with a real commitment to the project, not more dabblers looking for "achievements".
• Quality activity in "standard RfA Question #1" areas – including:
  • A better than 75% success ratio in those areas, e.g. WP:AfD – one can't be trusted to gauge consensus if one is consistently wrong about where consensus should be going. My standards here are much lower than average (some want to see 90%+); this is because I frequently file "test cases" at XfD, RM, and other processes to help establish what the consensus boundaries actually are. And AfD can actually often keep a seemingly non-notable article after someone with access to more sources (paywalled journals, non-free books) gets involved; this isn't the fault of the nominator if they did proper WP:BEFORE.

Wisdom

• No instances of vandalism, blatant WP:CoI, or gross WP:POINT violations – Exception: if it happened when the account was very new, and it was more than two years ago. I understand that it can take some people a while to "click" with the fact that this is a serious project. Many editors are willing to forgive-and-forget after 6 months or so. I am not among these people. Depending on the "wikicrime", 1 year may not be enough for me. It definitely will not be if there's been a pattern of disruptive behavior. You may be in my "never" pile.
  • I don't give a damn if you were 14 at the time and feel more mature. This is a professional-grade project and requires maturity in attitude if not in literal years. But, honestly, my experience of candidates and rare actual admins self-disclosed as minors has been uniformly negative.
• Hasn't been blocked, topic-banned, or strongly ArbCom sanctioned in the last two years for legitimate reasons. Exceptions:
  • Accidental 3RR or 1RR violation, once, is OK.
  • I won't count, of course, any blocks that are overturned, or which clearly should not have been issued (I've been the victim of WP:INVOLVED admin actions myself, so I directly empathize).
• Not the subject of a long pattern of barely-escaped noticeboard sanctions. If you are making a long list of enemies, there's probably a reason. (Exception, i.e. legit reason: if you're frequently active in a highly controversial topic area and are clearly on the WP:P&G side of it, but have gotten netted up in one of those "just punish everyone" pogroms, I'll let that slide. BT;DT.)
• Open to administrator recall – Not a must, but will do much to erase any borderline concerns.
• No evidence of WP:OWN behavior, anywhere.
  • This includes any pattern of WP:FILIBUSTERing, WP:CANVASSING, WP:MEATPUPPETtry, or other attempts to thwart normal consensus formation.
  • Also includes your own user-talk page; those who are always trying to "ban" people from their talk page are unsuitable for adminship, by definition.
• No pattern of WP:WIKILAWYERing, WP:GAMING, or WP:FORUMSHOPPING. I don't take random, infrequent accusations at face value, but will be looking for sustained patterns, you can be sure. WP:Process is important, but only up to a point, and not when used as a weapon.
  • Related: Not having a pattern that matches anything listed at WP:AADD and related arguments-to-avoid pages.
• No evidence of campaigning against any WP policies, guidelines, processes, or other established consensus. Trying to change something is one thing, but I have low tolerance for anyone trying to programmatically ignore or demote rules they just don't like, as this is among the top signs an admin will abuse the tools.
• Neither excessively deletionist, nor excessively inclusionist – we have content and deletion policies for a reason, and WP:MERGE exists for one, too.
• Recognition that WP:BRD is not a policy or guideline – it's just an essay, outlining an optional process that works well for some editors in some situations, not everyone in all. You are disqualified if you wikilawyer about BRD in ways that are counter to WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY, legit WP:IAR, WP:Common sense, WP:FILIBUSTER / WP:STONEWALL, or WP:WINNING. Just as you expect someone to have a defensible reason for making an edit, we expect you to have one for reverting it. Hint: WP:IDONTKNOWIT and WP:IDONTLIKEIT do not qualify (as a matter of policy – see WP:EDITING and WP:MERCILESS).
• Not previously desysopped or resigning under a cloud – probably. I won't auto-disqualify anyone on this basis, but you have twice the hurdle to jump, per "once bitten, twice shy".
  • Same goes if you were ever indeffed or site-banned (other than for something provably out of your control, like being mistaken temporarily for a vandal who has used the same IP address at some point; or if a "badmin" slapped an unreasonable indef for something that, say, needed a 12-hour block or a 1-month T-ban – per my above caveat about INVOLVED people flying off the handle).
• No extremist biases evidenced in editing patterns, especially WP:FRINGE, or discriminatory notions.
  • This cuts both ways. If you come off as some socio-political WP:TRUTH activist constantly accusing other people of being discriminatory because you are straw manning them and twisting their words into the worst possible interpretation, I will oppose you even more strongly than I would oppose a blatant flamer. People who do this are pure poison to the community, and the community tends not to realize it until after a lot of damage is done (nor even then to promptly to act on it, out of fear of receiving that "your a [whatever]-phobe" smearing themselves).
• I take WP:CIR seriously. If you clearly have mental problems, it's just not going to happen (though of course it would be impolitic to publicly state that's why I voted against you).
  • Major signs of this may include: psychodramatic histrionics like threats to quit the project if you don't get your way; continual failure at basic reasoning skills; long-term grudge-bearing; psychological projection of your own faults onto others; seeming inability to stop telling people to go F' themselves every other time you meet with disagreement; habitually leaping to the most negative conclusion available, especially when that interpretation is implausible; clearly engaging in "sport debate" by turning every discussion into an endless argument; or a habit of veering from sensible to crazy-seeming posts that may indicate a substance-abuse problem.

• Helped get articles to GA or FA status. As a WP:GNOME myself, I have a healthy respect for editors who fix 10,000 typos. While I do want to see lots of content work, Stub-improvement is actually more important for the project, along with a strong [non-deleted!] article creation rate, than is "polishing the chrome". It takes about the same amount of time to work 10 crappy stubs to solid B class as it does to massage a GA into an FA, and the 10 finally-proper articles are of way more value to the project and our readers than making a single great article "extra-great".
• Runs a WP:Bot, or has the WP:Template editor bit. Technical proficiency at geeky stuff has little to do with administrative mettle. By contrast, proper long-term use of WP:Page mover, a formerly admins-only user right, is a strong plus – it requires detailed knowledge of numerous policies and guidelines and an excellent sense of what will or will not be controversial.) That said, I do not share some other editors' opposition to "techie candidates" on principle; if you have a good track record of judgement and interaction, being highly proficient at templates and modules and other geek-work is a bonus in my eyes, not a negative.
• Self-nomination vs. nominated by others, other than the vague sense that a self-nom is questionable judgment of Wikipedian politics. If you're an experienced editor with a clue, a self-nom is fine.
• Lack of "practice" in quasi-administrative stuff some editors consider "sexy", like clerking for ArbCom or SPI, or whatever. I don't discount it, it simply doesn't carry extra weight with me, because adminship is largely about judgement not about practice. I care that if you want to close AfDs that your AfD !vote record be reasonable, etc., but as noted above I would rather see a great WP:NAC record than any of that stuff.
• Who is or is not among your "entourage" or "enemies". I give virtually zero weight to what other particular editors think about candidates, because our criteria so radically differ from person to person. (I literally do not even read nominators' comments, since they're all PR; it's just good to see that there are some, even if I don't care about the fluff in them.) I care more about the diffs voters provide, and about your answers to their questions.
• A focus on fighting vandals – we have plenty of people doing this, and there are 10,000 other things to get done on WP. I don't get as warm and fuzzy a feeling about this as some voters do. Frankly, sneaky PoV pushers are way more a threat to WP in this era than vandals; so, a history of anti-CoI, anti-socking, and anti-"civil PoV-pushing" work is more impressive to me.
• Focus on any particular content area, or any particular (non-drama) internal area. It doesn't matter to me if you write obsessively about golf, and spend all your "Wiki:" namespace time on the naming conventions pages. However, see previous WP:FACTION point; advancing the interests of a wikiproject against site-wide consensus is a deal-breaker.
• Previous failed RfAs. I'll look at them, of course, but I presume that people learn from the past. Exception: If you have, like, 5 failed RfAs ... yeah, that's an issue.

• Study WP:Advice for RfA candidates; it's very well-done. It's a "missing manual" that is more helpful in many ways than the official one.
• Get two to four co-nominators, who are well-respected, long-term admins. It's best if they approached you rather than vice-versa (if one such person taps you, a couple others are fairly likely to get on board as the nomination is drafted).
• Do not argue with people who oppose you, not even a little bit. This will be seen as badgering and evidence of intemperance and egotism. Instead, pre-arrange with your nominators (via e-mail) for them to regularly check the RfA page and ask posters of weird-ass opposes to clarify and to provide evidence. If someone posts something really nasty and nonsensical, the WP:Bureaucrats have the authority to refactor that noise to the RfA's talk page (or to delegate that authority to an admin clerk). But it's best if one of your noms asks them to do that for you. In short, your nominators need to be available and willing to step in, if really necessary, as a little bit of a campaign-management committee. (So, ideally, two or three noms who are going to be active per day but in different time zones will be the sweet spot. >;-)
• Never tell other editors, even a few whom you think you've wronged in the past, that you're up for RfA. The system "advertises" RfAs to the whole community, and if you do it manually to anyone at all – even two or three people who don't like you – you'll be accused of canvassing and your nomination will go down in flames.
• Do not launch an RfA shortly after any kind of dispute, and avoid getting into any for a least a month or so before your RfA; just do routine, calm editing and !voting in RfCs and so on, avoiding any controversy and heat. Sometimes all it takes is one angry and exaggeratory (even blatantly lying) "enemy" to sink an RfA, especially if they have friends on here (i.e., people they can canvass against you via e-mail).
• Read a bunch of RfAs. See how and why they failed or succeeded. Pay particular attention the Q&A; poor answers in this section are a frequent source of nomination torpedoes.
• Realize that RfA is pretty much exactly like a high-school popularity contest (class favorites, homecoming queen, etc.) It's mostly about personality, charisma, how many friends you have, and how much social capital they have. It's typical hominid politicking, except that chest-beating doesn't work because we're a little more civilized than chimps and than voters in things like real-world national elections.
• Realize also that RfA really is a vote, no matter what people say. It's one of the few processes on WP that actually is one. It has a hard cut-off point for a show of no confidence, a hard cut-off for definitely did pass, and a narrow "maybe" window settled by the Bureaucrats (who also basically vote it out, like an electoral college or a form of run-off election). No amount of wishful hand-waving or hand-wringing will change this.

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼   — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:45, 19 February 2020 (UTC)