[WikiEN-l] An alternative system to work alongside RFA

[Ron Ritzman]

On 4/10/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:

> To be quite honest, is there any reason why the community should even
> have a say in appointing admns? Why not just have candidates be vetted
> by bureaucrats (or some similar group if preferred)? Would the project
> be worse off?

I don't think that RFA should be replaced by such a system but this
post got me thinking about an alternative way of selecting admins to
operate alongside RFA. I would call it "Plan B" and here's how it
would work.

It wouldn't be an "open nomination" system like RFA. A candidate would
be selected and vetted by "some group of experienced wikipedians".
Bureaucrats, your "similar group", stewarts, the foundation, a group
of admins, Jimbo's secret cabal (tinsc) etc. The point is that the
candidate would be somebody that "insiders" have investigated and
believe would make a good admin.

The candidate is then presented to the community for discussion. The
presentation could be paraphrased something like this "This is
user:JoeShmoe. He has been on Wikipedia since $DATE, has worked on
$THESE_PROJECTS and done $THESE_THINGS. We think he would make a good
admin and we trust him with the tools.

The community would then be invited to comment. It would not be a vote
and there will be no "questions". The only way that the candidate
would not become an admin is if somebody in good faith presents a
"DAMN GOOD REASON" why JoeShmoe should not be given the tools, perhaps
something that the nominators had missed about his past behavior. What
would not be considered is anything that the nominators have already
considered such as his edit count, his work or lack of on a FA, his
votes in AFD/RFA, his experience in article space vs policy
discussions. Irrelevant or ambiguous comments would not be considered
such as "no need for the tools" or "He's a Scorpio" :)

When should "Plan B" be used? I don't know, that could be decided later.