User:JoshuaZ/RfAs
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A more detailed, although unorganized discussion of my attitude towards Requests for Adminship I may at any time to ignore these conditions.
Major issues:
- Edit count: As a rough number, I'd like to see an edit count of at least 1500 but I am willing to see arguments why a user's number is not accurate in either direction. I have voted support on RfA candidates with edit counts around there, and have voted oppose to users with many more edits. Note that I am likely to oppose most candidates with 1500 edits for other reasons.
- Distribution of edits: This is important to me. I prefer to see a lot of edits to article space, article talk space, and Wikipedia space. Article talk space is important to see how the user interacts with other users. Wikipedia space is important to see understanding of policy. Template space and image space are not important to me. I also insist on seeing edits in the areas that the candidate intends to do admin actions. For example, if someone wants to help out with deletions I would be annoyed if they had no AfD edits. Or an editor with no WP:AIV edits or no sign of prior work against vandalism would not be an editor who I would want dealing with vandals. Within article space, I want to see a wide variety of different articles edited so the editor has had ample opportunity to interact with many different editors and cliques on Wikipedia.
- Edit summary percentages: Reliance on them is a waste of time. Edit summaries can be useless (such as comment' in a talk section). If the number is low it may be something to look into, but it is not something which is problematic in and of itself.
- WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL. One or two problematic edits are not fatal, however any extended history of personal attacks or uncivil remarks will merit an automatic oppose vote. Violating WP:NPA within the RfA itself will also merit an automatic oppose vote.
- Signs that the user does not understand a major policy in some way are not good. Minor policies and guidelines are not as serious. If, for example, the user does not know that WP:SIG frowns upon pictures in signatures, that isn't a big deal.
Minor issues:
- Seeing adminship as a prize is not good.
- Not altering behavior based on legitimate criticism from previous RfAs is not good.
General remarks: I will not deviate often from the above guidelines. For non self-noms my default setting is support. For self-noms I will investigate a little. My default setting is leaning towards support. For special candidates I may ignore the above conditions. For example, for User:AzaToth RfA, I ignored his lack of article space edits because he was interested in adminship for template work and he is the most talented template editors we have. For User:Tawker's second second RfA I again ignored these conditions due to his unique contributions with his bots and for his detailed, highly satisfatory answers to a batter of questions. Quoted here is a section from my support vote in Tawker's RfA, since I it summarizes my attitude towards RfAs well: "we often lose sight over what RfAs should be about. An RfA should determine 3 things: 1) Can the user benefit from admin priveleges? 2) Is the user likely to abuse the admin priveleges? 3) Is the user lacking in knowledge of policy or general competence to an extent that they can do serious accidental damage with admin priveleges? To determine answers to these questions, people have developed a battery of different tests. Common criteria involve edit counts, edit summary percentages, number of articles brought up to "good" or "featured article" status etc. However, we sometimes forget that these criteria are a means to an end, not definite necesseties in and of themselves."
