Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase II/Mentoring process

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Discussion following up on a successful proposal from Phase I of WP:RFA2024 which called for better mentoring for becoming an admin and the RfA process. --19:30, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Welcome! This is the discussion following up on a successful proposal from Phase I of RFA2024, which called for better mentoring for becoming an admin and the RfA process. The discussion close by AirshipJungleman29 is reprinted here:

There is consensus to implement this proposal. Considering its broad-strokes nature, it will have to be heavily worked on in Phase II.

The original proposal by SportingFlyer follows:

I am proposing to expand the mentoring options available for users considering putting their hat in for the mop.

My general idea is to provide an additional process for mentorship besides the optional candidate poll by creating a separate, distinct process which would feature the following:

• structure the RfA poll to make the user provide more information on why they are interested
• time when the feedback will happen, perhaps annually or bi-annually, and promote it to allow as much feedback as possible
• start promotion the week before as a call for people potentially interested in being admins to express their interest publicly
• use a support/oppose/unsure system instead of a 0-10 poll
• moderate it to keep things as civil as possible. Unlike an RfA, this would be a chance for someone who would oppose to have an honest discussion directly with the candidate. I think you would probably have to disallow directly responding to other users in a threaded manner.

I've noted above I believe the problem we're trying to solve here are the edge cases, the candidates who either don't fail so spectacularly or aren't complete shoo-ins, because the community can get very difficult about deciding what conduct is and is not disqualifying when vetting a candidate.

Right now my two biggest reasons for not wanting to be an admin are that I don't want to do anything which might increase my time spent on here and that I don't want to go through an RfA. Right now, the only real way of getting public feedback is through the optional poll, which is often poorly attended, and feedback not necessarily helpful.

Changing the way we do admin intake to make it more conversational and collegial before an RfA is even started should help candidates understand what they are "up against" when being formally vetted.