Jump to content

Wikipedia:Admin coaching/Coaching methods

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by MBisanz (talk | contribs) at 02:24, 10 March 2008 (add image). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Wikipe-tan says "There is no one right way to coach"

Coaching methods:


The Four Phase System

The four phase system developed by Malinaccier is designed to maximize the benefits of admin coaching by discovering strengths and weaknesses more efficiently and effectively.

  • Phase one deals with questions designed to let the coach know what the coachee's best contributions are, and what their general strengths and weaknesses are. This phase is also very important in developing a nomination statement.
  • Phase two is all about policy. The admin coach will ask several series of questions dealing with policy, or questions that often come up in RFA's. They will then critique the coachee's responses and provide help in areas where the coachee needs it as shown by the responses
  • Phase three has to do with Wikiphilosophy (inclusionism/deletionism, orthodoxy on Wikipedia, etc.). The coach will ask several questions about Wikiphilosophies and controversial areas of Wikipedia policy.
  • Phase four is a mop up phase. The coach and coachee will work on whatever weak areas still need to be addressed.

Resources have been detailed here including questions for the phases, ideas, and processes of usage.

Virtual Classroom

WBOSITG has developed a comprehensive and elaborate Virtual Classroom. It has several exercises and activities people can engage in to learn more about Wikipedia.

Editor Review

A good way to find out what others think about the edits of a particular candidate is to have them undergo an Editor Review. This will bring others in to help evaluate the candidates strengths and weaknesses.

Default RfA Questions

Have the candidate answer the RfA questions to obtain an understanding of where they are and what they are currently thinking about adminship.

1. What sysop chores do you anticipate helping with? Please check out Category:Wikipedia backlog and Category:Administrative backlog, and read the page about administrators and the administrators' reading list.
2. Of your articles or contributions to Wikipedia, are there any with which you are particularly pleased, and why?
3. Have you been in any conflicts over editing in the past or do you feel other users have caused you stress? How have you dealt with it and how will you deal with it in the future?

Speedy Deletion Exercises

EWS23 designed the following speedy deletion exercises. The original exercises can be found at speedy deletion exercises.

The following is a test EWS23 designed to make sure that admin coachees understand the policies of speedy deletion. The "articles" here are actual cases that he came across while clearing out CAT:CSD. Assume that the title of the page is everything following User:EWS23/CSD/. You are allowed to use any technique that you might usually use to assert notability (e.g.- Google), but you are not allowed to use Wikipedia in any way (you cannot see if the page still exists on Wikipedia, go through my deletion log to see if it was deleted, and any Google searches you do should use "Subject -Wikipedia" which is a good tool anyway to help eliminate Wikipedia mirrors).

Assume for this exercise that you are an administrator. View the page, but do not edit it. Then, return to your coaching page and comment on each entry in question. Write whether you would delete the page or not. If you would, cite the specific criteria at WP:CSD that you would use to delete it. If you would not delete it, state why, and state what you would do to the page (simply remove the tag, redirect it somewhere else, keep it but remove certain information from it, etc.).

P.S.- In real cases, you should ALWAYS check the page history before making a decision. Sometimes the page is a legitimate article that got vandalized, or page moved, etc. In these cases, the page history won't tell you anything, but remember that in real cases the page history is important.

Policy Questions

Balloonman designed the following policy and guideline essay questions. They can be found at Policy Essay Questions

As an admin nobody expects you to know all of the rules, but they do expect you to be able to research the policies and guidelines--show me that you can do the research and navigate them. These questions deliberately do not include links and some are deliberately vague and open to interpretation. If the question is vague, demonstrate your expertise of the subject by covering the different options. In your own words, citing the applicable policies/guidelines/essays/etc (and link to the applicable policy/guideline/essay), please answer the following:

1 Why are the criteria for speedy deletion so strict?

2 What alternatives to speedy deletion are there?

3 What is a "level three warning" and why is it significant?

4 Under what circumstances can an established editor be blocked?

5 How long can an IP address be blocked?

6 How many times can an editor make the same edit before violating 3RR? Can an editor be blocked before they reach that number?

7 How can you tell if an editor (whether an account or an anon IP) is a sockpuppet?

8 What is "rollback"?

9 What is the difference between protection and semi-protection?

10 An article has been vandalized several times. Under what circumstances can it be protected or semi-protected?

11 Under what circumstances would you invoke IAR? Can you provide a scenario where IAR might apply?

12 A page has been deleted several times, and keeps being recreated. What options do you have?

13 Explain how one goes about changing one's name

14 What types of names can be blocked?

15 You come across a page with material you consider to be highly libelous material on the page. Others don't believe it is, what should you do?

16 Somebody makes a legal threat, what do you do?

17 What are your personal criteria for a potential admin?

18 You are involved in a content dispute with another editor that is starting to get nasty. The other editor then vandalizes your talk page. What do you do?

AfD/DRV Exercises

The following is a test Balloonman designed to make sure that admin coachees can assess AFD/DRVs. Most of the cases are actual cases that were closed one way and overturned by DRV. All of the cases were at AfD or DRV.

Assume for this exercise that you are an administrator. View the page, but do not edit it. Then, return to your coaching page and comment on each entry in question. You can also click on the article link itself to read the article as it stood at the time of the AfD/DRV. Write whether you would delete the page or not based upon the discussion alone. If you would, explain why you would. If you would not delete it, state why. Remember to pay attention to the date/time the article was listed for AfD and assume that you are editing shortly after the most recent comment.

Do not use Wikipedia to see if the page still exists or if it was deleted. For best results, once you've made a decision about a page, don't go back and change your answer based upon subsequent exercises. But if a subsequent review has you questioning/changing your position, discuss mention it under the latest question.

  1. Exercise 1
  2. Exercise 2
  3. Exercise 3
  4. Exercise 4
  5. Exercise 5
  6. Exercise 6
  7. Exercise 7
  8. Exercise 8
  9. Exercise 9

DRV

  1. DRV Exercise 1
  2. DRV Exercise 2
  3. DRV Exercise 3
  4. DRV Exercise 4