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Wikipedia

Wikipedia:Advice for RfA candidates

The administrator role on Wikipedia is a special permission given only to senior-level editors who have demonstrated consistent proficiency and mastery with the necessary high level of knowledge, judgment, experience, temperament, and behaviour needed. Administrators also typically hold a high level of trust and respect by the community. It is not granted to new or inexperienced users, or even to average or proficient-level contributors.

The process of becoming an administrator is explained at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. The tasks that administrators can perform are described at Wikipedia:Administrators. Successful candidates almost always have at least one year of consistent editing experience, with thousands of edits showing their expertise in maintenance, policies, and content creation. The RfA process assesses not only a candidate's editing skills, but also examines their maturity, fairness, interactions with others, civility and temperament, and overall judgment. Strong preparation, understanding of Wikipedia processes, and a senior-level of familiarity with Wikipedia's WP:policies and guidelines are absolutely essential for an RfA to be successful.

See also: Guide to requests for adminship, Miniguide to requests for adminship, Administrators' reading list, and What adminship is not

More essays (especially those on users' criteria) and advice pages are listed at the end of this page. The footnotes also contain links to important examples. Viewed separately, they are an integral part of this advice, so please be sure to review them. When you have read this guide and gone through the other advice pages, you may wish to start a request at the optional RfA candidate poll before making up your mind, or you can email an experienced user for advice.

Preparing yourself for adminship

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The takeaway is: don't run for RFA unless you've really done your research on what it takes to pass, and even then assume you will do at least 10% worse than you would reasonably think you would. RFA is hard, and it can be very stressful for the candidate. Some users have failed at RFA and just left forever. Others took it so bad they decided to become trolls and/or long-term abusers (thus proving their unfitness for the position). In 2001–2007 it was more or less a cakewalk. Not so much anymore.

—Just Step Sideways, formerly Beeblebrox

 
No big deal

Wikipedia is not 'just another website': it's a serious encyclopedia that just happens to be published online. If you would like to be an admin someday, you should preferably begin preparations some time before making your application. Avoid making it appear as if your end goal here is to become an admin – first and foremost we are here to build an encyclopedia, not to administer it or control the behaviour of its participants. You should thoroughly read the instructions and advice listed here and on the RfA pages. Review old successful and unsuccessful RfAs, and be sure to generally meet the criteria required by regular participants (see the list of essays at the end of this page). Users who are not likely to pass may be considered by the community to be immature or not respectful of participant time. Some candidates whose first RfA failed, pass a second run with flying colours,[1][2] but previous attempts will be closely looked at again by the community.

Do bear in mind that long absences from editing may not convince the community that you will be here to stay for a while. It would be extremely rare to pass RfA with less than 12 consecutive months of recent activity that include the kind of participation in maintenance areas that demonstrate an intention for admin activity.

When you have done all that, and read this page and followed the links, if you are reasonably sure that you stand a good chance now, consider listing yourself at WP:Requests for adminship/Optional RfA candidate poll for a final check if you have not already done so. Check out some of the previous polls in the archives for the kind comments and advice you can expect. Be aware though that you're expected to first read up on advice such as this page, before starting a poll.

  • Basics: Although administrators are responsible for blocking users, protecting and deleting pages, and closing some debates, some other actions can have an effect on the entire Wikipedia website. Whichever areas candidates want to specialise in, they must convince the community that they can be trusted to use all the tools responsibly and intelligently. They must also demonstrate that they act civilly and maturely at all times.
  • Blocks: Users who have been previously blocked for any legitimate reason(s) will be required by the community to have learned from their block(s), and have been block-free for a considerable length of time (often 1 year).
  • Civility: Candidates should demonstrate cool-headed participation in discussions, and to have overcome earlier lapses in civility. They should never have engaged in making personal attacks.
  • Content: Admin candidates are expected to have demonstrated understanding of how to assess and cite reliable sources. This can be done either by contributing referenced content to articles or by adding references to unreferenced content contributed by others. It is a huge plus but not essential to have contributed good articles or featured articles. Little or no content contribution can lead to significant opposition.[3][4]
  • Creations: Candidates' own creations should demonstrate a knowledge of article policies, guidelines, and style and the pages should be free of old tags. A high number of creations that are mainly stubs, redirects, or disambiguation pages might not be taken into consideration. A history of creating bad articles that were deleted will not go over well.
  • Diversity: Candidates who have only been active in a limited number of areas, or who intend to be active in specific areas only can often incur significant opposition. As the tools can also be used in many areas in which the candidate is less familiar, a relatively broad scope of previous activity in policy and decision making is expected.[5]
  • Fresh/clean start: It is strongly recommended that fresh start users have declared their intention by closed communication to Arbcom. Please see WP:CLEANSTART#Requests for adminship.
  • Low edit count: A low edit count will obviously be regarded by most as evidence of insufficient experience. Contributions are the only available basic metric of performance. As such, editors with low counts generally fail. No candidate with an edit count below 8,000 has passed in the last several years.[6]
  • High edit count: A high edit count does not always demonstrate experience. The criteria are based on what and where those edits were. Editors with a high number of edits can fail, and having a larger percentage of automated edits, or being too proud of your number of edits, can backfire. (See WP:Editcountitis.)
  • Length of membership: Simply being a Wikipedian for a long time (see Xtools' year counts) may not count for much. The criteria are based on what the candidate has actually done in that time.[7] In contrast, being a Wikipedian for too short a time is usually an issue. It is extremely rare to become an admin within less than twelve months of activity, and successful candidates generally have accounts that are at least two years old. Individuals who might have the right temperament from day one must still demonstrate a broad knowledge of procedures and policies.
  • Activity level: An acceptable edit count (see month count) may not count for much if there has been a long recent hiatus or if the edits are too spaced out. 30,000 edits with only 1,500 edits over the last five years isn't going to demonstrate that there will be much admin activity.
  • Judgement: Candidates will need to show that they can make carefully considered contributions. The criteria are based on the ability to assess consensus in areas that will require admin decisions, input, and discussion closures; and especially to correctly implement deletion and blocking policies.
  • Maturity: There are no age restrictions for being an admin. Candidates are judged on their common sense, good judgement, and good prose. "Cool chat" and "teen talk" on talk pages may win fan club support, but may not go down so well with older editors. That said, Wikipedia has several very young successful admins.
  • Single-purpose candidates: Unless candidates have demonstrated a very high level of specialisation and contribution in some areas needing advanced knowledge such as bots, scripts, copyright, etc.,[8] it is unlikely that they will be elected based on a need for the tools for a single purpose. This doesn't mean that candidates can't focus their efforts on one or two areas (some candidates only state two or three admin areas they are likely to work in), but they will need to demonstrate they can at least be trusted with the whole tool set. (Note that an actual Wikipedia:Single-purpose account will have even lower chances of success; see "Diversity" above.)
  • User page: Commenters look at user pages. An uncluttered page with intelligent content goes a long way to not only demonstrating maturity, but also that editors recognise that Wikipedia is a serious project. An untidy user page may signify an untidy mind and careless work. A lot of highly self promotional content, userboxes, and/or excessive external links to one's own private and working life could be seen as the sign of a big ego and a possible power-seeker. Review the user pages of admins.

Specific points

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  1. Copyright: The most innocent copyright violations that you have added – even older ones – especially to Did You Know, good articles, and featured articles will almost certainly be detected, and will seriously compromise your RfA, and perhaps your future on Wikipedia.[9][10]
  2. Your username should not be unusual or overly long (especially the code it generates) and should respect Wikipedia user name conventions. Some participants will oppose if they feel a name does not look serious enough for an editor of an encyclopedia,[11] or if they find it confusing.[12]
  3. Flamboyant signatures are seen by some as ostentation. There are absolutely no rules against custom signatures, but there are guidelines: Readability (it might look fine on your computer or smartphone, but not on others). Pronounceable is best, and it should be typeable: non-Roman fonts, symbols, and dingbats are discouraged and may not be easily available from standard ASCII or QWERTY or AZERTY keyboards especially on mobile devices.[12] People should be able to easily locate your user talk page to ask you questions.[13] Fancy signatures are seen by many participants as a lack of maturity.
  4. Talk page scrubbing is not recommended. Removing warnings or contentious discussions leaves them in the page history where they can still be easily accessed by anyone. The many admins who participate at RfA can also view any user pages that you have asked to be deleted. Make sure people can see your past interaction by providing easy access to your talk page archives.
  5. Userboxes that express opinions on politics, religion, or other controversial issues have at times resulted in "Strong oppose" viewpoints based on fears of a potential risk of tendentious editing or systemic bias.[14][15]
  6. Humour, especially sarcasm, cynicism, and even friendly banter, is often seen as bad form. Unless you are extremely popular and your chances of failure are very low,[16] any comment intended as lighthearted will be wrongly interpreted by some. Most RfA commentators will instantly recognise humour, but those leaning oppose may not see the humour.[17][18]
  7. Old conflicts may resurface and people may have an axe to grind. Even some people who never have commented at RfA before might comment on yours.
  8. Older issues: Examine your past and try to iron out any old differences. This should be done at least three months before the RfA. If the candidate has clearly demonstrated reform, minor issues dating back six months or so might be ignored while more serious issues older than 12 months might be the reason(s) for opposition.[12] If there are issues you think might be brought up during your RfA, try to discuss them in your opening answers, rather than doing so in reaction to oppose statements. Your nominators can provide help talking this over.
  9. Off-wiki activity: While nominators may be unable to examine candidate's private lives and activities on other websites, other users may have leads to behaviour that may cast doubts on the candidate's overall suitability, and might oppose accordingly.[12] Don't be misled into thinking that being a moderator on a small internet forum will be a free pass through RfA – while it may demonstrate a mature and calm behaviour, small forums do not have the same problems and challenges that Wikipedia does, so it may not count for very much.
  10. Canvassing: Wikipedia policy on canvassing for RfA is clear; RfA is not a popularity poll and it should not be done, on or off Wiki – even an innocent mention on IRC will entrain opposition, and users will not hesitate to post copies of the chat log.[12] Consider using {{RFA-notice}} on your userpage, which is a more neutral way to communicate your RfA to other users.[19][20]
  11. Paid editing: Adminship candidates are required since January 2018 to declare whether they have ever edited or created articles for compensation or quid pro quo of any kind.[21] Although not forbidden by policy, paid editing is at best barely tolerated by the community and adminstrators are forbidden from using their tools or other special rights for advantage, gain, or profit for themselves, or for anyone else.[22]
  12. AfD: Many RfA participants look at a candidate's participation at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion (AfD) to gauge the candidate's understanding of the deletion policy. You can analyze your past AfD participation with this tool. A candidate is unlikely to pass RfA with no AfD participation or a history of making AfD statements that don't match the final results. You should also avoid making "pile-on" AfD statements to inflate your AfD statistics (i.e. not adding anything new to an already clear consensus besides perhaps "per nom" or "per WP:GNG"). In the past, RfA participants have interpreted some candidates with high AfD match rates this way and subsequently opposed.[23]

Are you ready?

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Just as a further reminder: If after reading the advice above you are still not sure, do consider obtaining some feedback at the optional RfA candidate poll. The comments from the experienced users there are very useful for getting a good sense of your chances – but do not start a poll if you have no intention of applying for adminship in the near future.

Nominations

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Every RfA needs a strong, convincing nomination. Generally, self-nominations are only likely to succeed from long-term, very experienced editors. New users who have an I want to be an admin userbox may been seen as seeking various "hats" to wear, and will wait a very long time before they are proposed. Nevertheless, the user category the box added your name to is regularly reviewed by experienced editors and admins who are actively looking for suitable candidates to nominate. If they believe you to be a potential candidate, they will contact you – probably by email, so be sure to have Wikipedia email enabled. As previously recommended, review the nominations of previous RfA that have passed and failed.

Self-nomination

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Shortcut

Successful self-nominations are uncommon at RfA If you're considering nominating yourself rather than asking for or accepting a nomination from a highly-experienced editor, you'll need to do your own evaluation of your candidacy.

  • While the formal minimum qualification for requesting administrator permissions is extended confirmed status – that is, 500 edits and 30 days' experience – in practice few RfAs pass without at least 10,000 edits and a year's experience, and most experienced nominators will recommend that as a minimum.
  • Many RfA participants will oppose a candidate who doesn't have some content creation; it's not uncommon for experienced nominators to recommend a candidate have at least one featured article or two good articles which they either created from scratch or did significant work to improve.
  • Most RfA participants will be leery of a candidate who has been subject to editing or interaction restrictions within the past six months, and most experienced nominators will recommend waiting at least that long.
  • A self-nomination prompts the community to examine the candidate's judgement. If you do not satisfy the three preceding items, nominating yourself will be seen as exhibiting questionable judgement, and can result in oppose statements on that alone.

If you have fewer than 10,000 edits and a year's experience, if you have not improved any articles to GA or FA status, if you have any recent editing or interaction restrictions: do not add "also has poor judgement" to the reasons to oppose by nominating yourself. Instead contact a highly-experienced editor and ask for advice.

If you feel confident you do pass these minimum recommended criteria, be aware that self-nominations get mixed reception. Some nominations are too short, some are too long, some are too witty, some are too bold, and some candidates simply inadvertently shoot themselves in the foot in their nomination statement. A self-nom must be strong, but not too long, and not sound self-promotional. Candidates who intend to self-nom are welcome to ask an experienced friend for advice on their draft. At Wikipedia all editors are considered equal; what a candidate has done outside of Wikipedia is of little importance for being an administrator.

User nominations

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Being nominated by another user demonstrates that at least another Wikipedian has confidence that the candidate will be successful. Strong nominations come from experienced users who have done significant research to be sure that the nomination will not backfire on them. Many successful candidates are those who have been nominated by an admin or co-nominated by a second experienced user. See: Requesting an RfA nomination.

Questions

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  • The three standard questions should always be answered before you transclude and start your RFA. If you are nominating yourself, your answers can be an opportunity to expand (rather than duplicate) some of the things you have said in your nomination statement. Do not make a joke in these statements; jokes do not go over well with participants.

Timing

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  • Choose a start date when you are fairly confident you will be able to participate regularly for an entire week. Your RfA is the only thing on Wikipedia that you can control the timing of, so telling others in the midst of it that you are too busy with real life to respond will likely not be received well (unless it's an emergency).
  • Choose a start time when you are fairly confident you will have time to answer questions that come in the first couple of hours. After the first few hours, questions can be usually be left for up to 24 hours.
  • If this is your second (or subsequent) RfA, you should wait at least 6–12 months while making sure you have addressed concerns brought up in the prior RfA(s). Having someone who opposed your previous request nominate you is an excellent way to demonstrate this.[2]

During your RfA

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  1. At the start, unless there are obvious reasons why the RfA should fail, most RfA's typically begin with a number of "support" statements, but seven days is a long time and !voting patterns can change dramatically. The more experienced participants will often hold off their comments until later in the process. There could be either an influx of supports or opposes, thus making the outcome unpredictable.[24] Many of the later participants just state "per user X" without bringing fresh rationale to the discussion; this is often referred to as a "pile-on".[25] If after giving it enough time, however, the voting is well below the pass mark and the opposers' comments are valid, it may be good to withdraw to avoid yourself pain and to be respectful of participants' time.
  2. Questions are unpredictable.[26] RfA is an open book exam, and Wikipedia is a huge repository of policies, guidelines, and help pages. Careful phrasing of the answers is required to demonstrate that the candidate knows how to apply the policy in question. Misinterpretation of candidates' correct answers can incur a pile-on of "oppose" statements.
    Many questions may not appear to be relevant to becoming a sysop,[27][28] but the opposers will sometimes argue that the answers demonstrate a candidate's capacity to act under stress or to address silly comments from other users. Although such questions often cannot have a "correct" answer, many participants will not see them as so and will oppose based on the answer; in the worst-case scenario such questions may even cause pile-on oppose statements. Some questions are posed by new users unfamiliar with the RfA process, and may seem irrelevant.
    Nothing in RfA process policy suggests that answering every question is a requirement, they can be ignored at will; however, not answering can occasionally create pile-on oppose statements. Advice varies from either putting on a brave show of making an answer, or ignoring the question.[29][30]
    If you are asked a question you feel is inappropriate, don't rush to answer it, and consider seeking private advice from your nominator(s). Bureaucrats and monitors may delete inappropriate questions.
  3. Many requests for adminship do not result in a fair process. The community is working to make the process as fair as possible, but there are no guarantees. Some candidates with tens of thousands of edits fail as a result of concern expressed about isolated minor issues, or pile-on opposition following deliberate improper oppose statements or inappropriate statements made in good faith.
  4. Avoid responding to oppose statements. It is usually a bad idea for an RFA candidate to respond to anything in the RFA that is not an official question in the questions section. In particular, replying to oppose statements can generate accusations of badgering and bludgeoning, and also create a lot of text and draw a lot of attention to the oppose viewpoint.
  5. Keep it short and sweet. Candidates may believe that sounding intellectual will put them in good stead. It does not.[31] While many Wikipedians are academics and intellectuals, most are not.
  6. Diffs of candidates' comments taken out of context: Cherry-picked diffs that do not reveal the full story in the thread they were taken from. Whether it seems deliberate or accidental, assume good faith.[32]
  7. Many participants comment based entirely on comments by others. It is possible that they will take these comments on face value without verification.
  8. Don't be fazed by comments by Wikipedians who frequently oppose candidates.
  9. Closure: Most RfA's with a final tally of 75% support or more will close as successful, while those under 65% will generally not pass. There have however been rare exceptions, with candidates passing under this threshold.[33] The 65–75 'grey' zone is subject to the bureaucrat's discretion after taking into account the quality of the arguments made by the participants, the strength of comments in the "Neutral" section, and after discounting any expressed viewpoints they consider to be invalid. In extremely close calls, an extension to the 7-day !voting period may be accorded, or a discussion ('crat chat) may take place among the bureaucrats.[34]

After your RfA

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If you passed

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  • Relax – it's over.
  • Enjoy the congratulations
  • Enjoy the pints of beer, don't get too drunk, and wear the T-shirt with pride.
  • Learn from any feedback you got.
  • Check out the Administrator's guide, learn to use the tools slowly, and watch out for some unexpected new links in strange places.
  • Be a role model and lead by example.
  • Never hesitate to ask another admin for an opinion or advice.

If your RfA does not succeed or if you withdrew

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  • Relax – it's over.
  • Read Failed RfA advice.
  • Don't be disheartened.
  • Learn from the feedback you got from the opposes.
  • Keep editing, don't retire from Wikipedia, and do try again another time.

Further reading

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RfA essays and criteria

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Years shown are those of primary development.

The Signpost (2018): from a survey of what other admins have said about their RfA and adminship

Project pages

RFA candidates experience

User essays on RfA

Individual editors' criteria for supporting candidates

Individual editors' criteria for nominating candidates

 
Wikiversity has learning resources about How to be a Wikimedia sysop

Notes

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  1. ^ RfA WereSpielChequers
  2. ^ a b RfA: theleekycauldron 2
  3. ^ RfA: Liz
  4. ^ RfA: Doniago
  5. ^ RfA: Pbsouthwood
  6. ^ User:0xDeadbeef had a successful RfA in 2023, with an edit count of about 8,000.
  7. ^ RfA: NickPenguin
  8. ^ RfA: Cyberpower678 2nd
  9. ^ "Cunard, RfA RCsprinter". En.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 2013-08-17.
  10. ^ "Ritchie333, RfA Checkingfax". En.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 2016-11-08.
  11. ^ "Lankiveil, RfA Catfish Jim and the soapdish". En.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 2016-03-07.
  12. ^ a b c d e Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Σ
  13. ^ "Andrew Davidson, RfA Peacemaker67". En.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 2016-11-08.
  14. ^ RfA: Ctjf83 2
  15. ^ RfA: SoWhy
  16. ^ RfA: Boing! said Zebedee
  17. ^ "RfA: Kudpung". En.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 2013-08-17.
  18. ^ "Shoessss, RfA: Kudpung". En.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 2013-08-17.
  19. ^ RfA: Cobi 2
  20. ^ RfA: Doniago
  21. ^ RfC about paid use of administrator tools
  22. ^ User:Salvidrim!
  23. ^ RfA: TheSandDoctor
  24. ^ RfA: Kudpung
  25. ^ "HJ Mitchel: RfA N419BH". En.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 2013-08-17.
  26. ^ Wikipedia:RfA cheatsheet
  27. ^ RfA questions 2011
  28. ^ RfA questions 2020–2024
  29. ^ Are the optional questions optional? (WT:RfA 27 February 2011)
  30. ^ "Optional" questions should be banned entirely. (Townlake, WT:RfA 25 February 2011)
  31. ^ "Korruski: RfA My76Strat". En.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 2013-08-17.
  32. ^ Wikipedia:Don't take the bait
  33. ^ RfA: RexxS
  34. ^ Wikipedia:RfA
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