User:Jasper Deng/Voting on an RfA

This essay concerns how to properly (in my opinion) RFAs. Many of the suggestions like the time you should look back on a user are only minimums and are there only to show flaws in the way RFA votes currently go.

Oppose

Remember when you last commented on an RfA. How did you vote? Likely, you voted as "oppose." Did you ask yourself why? Did you give a reason?

Why you would vote oppose

I have observed that it seems to be purely instinct to oppose others. Some say racism results from a human instinct left over from long ago, which is to be wary of people outside the family clan. In addition, you may have been jealous. You may have been cringing at the thought of someone else about to succeed while you did not. If you were an admin at the time of the vote, it still applies - your inner instinct is to try to not accept that person.

Although you may deny it, it is still a human instinct. This is especially true when commenting on RFAs of users you don't really know.

Policies like WP:NOTNOW and WP:SNOW are commonly cited by commenters on RFAs, and maybe you have at least once done so. So are the edit count and block log. People often cite these right away without fully understanding the nominated user and his/her behavior on Wikipedia. You probably voted oppose mostly because of these reasons.

Why you should vote oppose

You should definitely vote oppose for non autoconfirmed users and those that are clearly still learning basic rules like WP:3RR. You should also oppose users who had fairly recent blocks and/or bans, but only for extreme reasons like trolling.

You should oppose a user who has never done dispute resolution properly and one who does not get involved in vandalism fighting at all.

In short: Only oppose a user for extreme cases of potential mishaps like blocks.

Why not to vote oppose

Voting oppose sometimes gives the impression that you are engaging in a pileon, especially if you cite a previous user's comment. Voting oppose sometimes breaks the self-esteem of the nominee and it is very hard to overcome. Opposing other people for adminship also inhibits an increase in our admin count, and WP:ADMIN says we will only grow with the addition of more and more admins.

In addition, judge users by their quality in the past two months or so, not their quantity (of edits and/or blocks). There's a reason why vandalism-fighting-only admins typically take twice as many edits as other admins to pass RfAs. If you do not have the time to critique users in this way, do not vote.

Conflict of interest

If you have a real conflict of interest, or simply you disagree with the nominee over something, your vote should not be influenced by that.

Personal RfA criteria

I disdain strict personal RfA criteria. I think the criteria of most users with such criteria defined are too quantitative and not qualitative. In addition, you should not vote oppose just because the user did not achieve a minor part of your criteria. If you do have criteria, considering ignoring it for a little amount of time while you actually critique the user on quality.

Why content creation is not as important as acting like an admin

Being good at content creation does not correlate to being a good admin and vice versa, unlike what some users think. Being able to handle disputes is more important to adminship than very deep knowledge of organizing data in tables. You should not fail a user just for lack of featured content creation. This is very discouraging and does not reflect a real evaluation of the user.

Delta, not negative

There's a difference between Delta and negativity. Delta is constructive criticism. If your comment's reason is just negative, you may want to consider not voting or voting neutral. That's one of the purposes of RfA. You tell the nominee what specifically is wrong with him/her and tell him/her how to improve.

(This section is in relation to Plus/Delta charts versus Plus/Negative charts)

Support

Did you vote support? Did you consider why?

Why you would vote support

You probably voted for support because the user has created lots of content, the user has done lots of dispute resolution, and/or the user shows clear understanding of policy. If the user you are supporting has collaborated with you for a long period of time, you may want to avoid supporting that user based just on that. Just like it's human instinct to distrust insiders, it's also human instinct to endorse people part of your clan. In general, do not support a user on basis of a single reason.

Why you should vote support

You should definitely support a user who has almost complete mastery of the policies and knows what administrators do, in addition to acting like an admin. You should support regardless of edit count if the count is a thousand or higher.

Why not to vote support

You should not support someone for a single reason. Admins have to have many different qualities; supporting a user on basis of having just one of them does not make sense.

Personal RfA criteria

If the user does not show the necessary qualities even if the user meets your own personal criteria, you should not support the user, regardless of what your own criteria say.

Why acting like an admin is sometimes not enough

If the user frequently gets in any trouble with civility when acting like an admin, and the user does not show that he/she has passed that, the user cannot in general be supported.

Praise

Praise should not be baseless, like "I'm supporting him because he is awesome." Praise should direct other people to support the user with concrete reasons. The Bureaucrat may consider your vote to be of little importance if it seems to be baseless.