On 10/21/06, Earle Martin wikipedia@downlode.org wrote:
After reading David Gerard's post "RFA has gone weird"[1] two weeks back, I decided on a whim to nominate myself for adminship. [2]
Firstly, let me say that I was planning to support because of your attitude, but I must have forgotten. Consider it 25/32/12! The more candidates from the Mark Gallagher school, the better, in my opinion.
On 10/21/06, Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com wrote:
What a marvelous experiment! Well done, very well done. I was thinking of doing something like that myself; now I either (a) don't have to, because you already did, or (b) *really* have to, now that you've established the precedent...
I can't say I'm at all surprised at the results you got.
(I do wonder what can be done about the phenomenon?)
The issue is the people who participate and the requirements they impose, which are both wildly idiosyncratic and, to the casual observer, utterly abstract in their origin.
I think it's a good idea to judge candidates based on their contribution to the encyclopaedia. That's what we're here for, after all. But this is almost always done on editcount, and everyone has a different count they are looking for. Why not take a look at some of the pages they have written, or contributed significantly to, and judge them on whether they're well written articles? The same goes for other criteria people impose.
I generally only participate in RfAs where I know the editor who has been nominated (and thus feel qualified to make a judgment), or where I am so impressed that I feel justified in making a judgment despite not knowing them.
I may be setting the bar for participation too low here, and I am sure that there are many deserving candidates who I have not supported who turn out to be great admins whom I work well with once they are promoted. Nevertheless, my underlying criterion remains whether I trust the person to exercise good judgment.