User:Hey man im josh/RfA thoughts

Note that this page is a work in progress... I've long meant to write a debrief, but I think I've been waiting too long instead of casually chipping away at it. So, to start out, I'm just throwing some thoughts down as a starting point that I'll begin to expand on and reformat appropriately.

I'm a HUGE believer in putting the tools in the hands of competent individuals, even if they won't be doing hundreds of actions a month.

What I want in a candidate:

Humble
Good temperament
Willingness to admit when they're wrong
Can be firm when necessary, if necessary, without being a prick about it (firmness does not necessarily = being a dick, there's a fine line)
Know their own limits
- This one is particularly key
- I know what areas not to mess around in and I know where I'm comfortable
No one knows every policy and MOS guideline by heart, it's ok to be wrong at times. What matters is being able to accept this and know your limits.

Musing from my RfA

I held off for several months on running because I wanted to promote an article to good article status
- I couldn't force myself into it, nothing peaked my interest enough to want to write or expand one, it's just not me
Good articles are not required to pass at RfA, as demonstrated by 3 of the 5 people at WP:RFX300 not having had GAs at the time of their successful run (Tamzin, Floquenbeam, and myself)
Content work is necessary to pass, but not in the traditional sense of
Even if your RfA is successful, it can still be stressful
There's no need to rush to answer questions
Questions are optional, but some people may infer incorrect opinions based on a lack of answer
While opposes and criticism suck at a regular rfa, I do appreciate that opposes are generally expected to state why they believe a candidate is unfit, mostly because people also want to know if they should be concerned or opposing the tools being put into the hands of someone.
A first failure isn't a death sentence, so long as your issues were more related to WP:NOTYET than serious temperament issues, or having said something racist at some point.
I truly and honestly believe people should not be afraid to RfA. One RfA can tell you everything you need to improve on. People are WAY more forgiving than we initially give them credit for. Look at Theleekycauldron. Leeky failed at RfA her first time, but she had the fourth most supports and second most supports in an uncontentious RfA EVER, that's fricken insane, and holy crap am I ever grateful she gave it another go. People underestimate the value of an editor who shows they can improve based on feedback, which they did, and they're one of my favourite admins. We'd be much worse off if you they were not around and had left after their first RfA was unsuccessful.

Preparing for RfA:

Avoid ANI if you have any intentions of RfA ever. Nobody wants a drama llama or loose cannon with the tools.
Know your history, consider what type of questions may come your way

At the RfA itself:

Set aside time to disconnect during the RfA, do not be watching it like a hawk because you WILL stress yourself out
Don't overexplain when you can be direct (see Q4 for me)
Some questions can be answered quickly, some need to be drafted and revisited an hour or so later and further tweaked. I would draft answers in the evening, sleep on it, and adjust my answer as necessary in the morning, sometimes entirely rewriting my answer.
If you were wrong in the past and someone calls you out on it, as they did on mine, explain exactly where and how you were wrong, how you've improved upon that
It seems obvious, but don't lie. If you're caught in a lie and called on it, you're probably toast. You'll be seen as untrustworthy and people won't want you to have the tools.

Some notes

I really wish more competent folks were less scared of failing at RfA. One unsuccessful RfA can give you the blueprint to succed there a year later, so long as you actually work at the spots and reasons that were brought up. People who are competent and able to improve based on feedback, while actually caring ot do so, are invaluable.
For the love of all that is good, do not ask unnecessary questions if you have absolutely no concerns about a candidate, unless you're trying to give them a chance to highlight an aspect of their contributions. Every additional question sucks.
If someone is a good editor, and isn't going out of their way to do admin actions but maintains admin status, is that really a problem? (Hell no)
Adminship IS no big deal
You might do a lot better than you expect, I believed I was borderline and I received the 4th most supports EVER, and had the second highest supports in a non-contentious RfA. I didn't deserve that in comparison to some of my peers, but I had enough exposure and good will from rubbing people the right way
I nominated Pickersgill-Cunliffe, who I think had the third or fourth highest supports in a UNANIMOUS RfA, that was stressful for ME!
RfAs can flip quickly if stupid stuff is found and if a candidate screws up even a single answer sometimes. I'm not talking an answer is incomplete, but, if they're just so wrong on the answer, they can be toast.

Other notey notes

After 1 year of adminship, I had made 17,416 admin actions, sixth amongst non-bot admins in that time [1]
During my first year of adminship, in terms of admin actions among non-bots, I ranked... [2]
- Total actions – 6th (17,416)
- Deletions – 4th (15,715)
- Revision deletions – 46th (139)
- Log deletions – N/A (0 actions)
- Restores – 9th (399)
- (Re)blocks – (785)
- Unblocks – N/A (0 actions)
- (Re)protects – 58th (76)
- Unprotects – N/A (0 actions)
- Rights (permission changes) – 1st (214)
- Merges – 6th (87)
- Imports – N/A (0 actions)
- AbuseFilter – N/A (0 actions)
- Content model – 20th (1 action, template editors were included in this stat)
I expected to do more work blocking individuals than I have because I used to make a LOT of reports.
It's easier to request someone else be blocked when you know there's someone checking your work. When you're the last one checking it becomes more difficult to say, with certainty, that an individual should be indeffed, except for the most obvious cases.
I have immense respect for the admins working at ANI based on the above, I just don't have it in me.

Section regarding "content work" and what that may entail?

GA / FA work
FLs are recognized as sufficient content work to some, but seemingly not in the same way that GAs are
NPP work – A revelation from my RfA was that NPP was appreciated and recognized as sufficient enough to compensate for my lack of GAs
AfC work
Creating articles

During a discussion on Discord, Leeky posted this when I said I hope you don't mind me bringing up your first failure @leek, but you should honestly be an inspiration story for people 😛

my personal experience is that RfA... actually isn't hard. People think its standards are insanely high, but I think that it's generally not difficult to pass if you're a competent, dedicated, flexible editor with competent, dedicated, flexible nominators. If you own up to your mistakes, know your limits, and have a clear pitch as to why the project would be better if you had the tools, adminship isn't too far out of reach.

It just sucks. RfA is cruel and insanely stressful. It's arbitrary and capricious. It's an opportunity for users across the project to put your happiness and wellbeing on a pike because of whatever of whatever stupid thing they care about. If RfA is too difficult, it's mainly because you have to have a steel fucking spine to handle whatever RfA throws at you, and lots of people... can't.

Am I proof that the process can work? That every once in a while the right dose of opposition and feedback can make a better Wikipedian? Sure, it can. But for every one person who can make a comeback, there's three others RfA leaves demoralized and beaten, or too scared to try. You might be the kind of person whose personality matrix skews heavily towards passion and neuroplasticity and being able to bounce back from a lot, but I still cried after I withdrew. It's done worse to lots of others. RfA's reputation as a toxic pit is, in my opinion, very earned, even if the system is beatable.

That's why I was so dead set on making RFA2024 happen from basically the moment I passed, and why I'm so thrilled to see admin elections rack up so many candidacies. RfA needs to be better, and I'm happy that this year has made it better :) there's a long way to go, though.