[WikiEN-l] Requirements for Adminship

[Keitei]

With all this hubbub about admins and making more admins with no  
criteria and why shouldn't we just bump everyone up a level! and all  
that jazz, I think it is high time we evaluate what admins need to be  
or do to be successful. Then from there, in my opinion, we can lower  
the bar, leave things as they are, or continue to pursue this  
everyone's an admin!!! deal. (Sorry if I've inserted my POV too much  
into the preceding paragraph)

So. This is how I see it.

Admins must:
	be neutral, above all else.
		when they block
		when they protect
		when they delete
	recuse when they are unable to be neutral
	have the understanding of policy to know when it is objectively okay  
to block/protect/delete
	be able to judge consensus
	not be a timebomb

Therefore, admin candidates must:
	demonstrate they can participate in discussions in which they have  
no personal invested interest, with positive effect to those who do  
have personal invested interest
	demonstrate they know the difference between their opinion,  
consensus, and the Truth (which doesn't exist on wiki)
	demonstrate they recognize their own bias and will refuse to act  
upon it

To be honest, I have no idea how they would demonstrate this. But  
perhaps if we switched to a system of vouching, whereby different  
people would say "I have worked with this user and they have always  
been neutral in disputes and blahblahblah." like the nomination,  
except more of them. And no edit counts and no FAs and no namespace  
distribution. If one is cautious enough to always work within policy,  
one will always check unknown policies before doing anything one has  
never done before. And then perhaps once the candidate has enough  
people vouching for them, they're promoted.

Or maybe something completely different. But in my opinion, adminship  
is not edit counts and vandal fighting; it's dealing with things as a  
neutral agent of the 'pedia. Well, at least when one has one's admin  
hat on.

--keitei