User blog:Sonasaurus/Proposal for administrative re-evaluations

I'll get right to the point. A few months ago, I was approached by a user (who I will not name for the sake of anonymity) who speculated to me the idea of having intervals where we the community would evaluate our administrators, and then either reelect those who are deemed adequate, or replace those who are not with other users more suited to the position. And I'm asking all of you for your thoughts, since I've weighed the pros and cons and I'm having a tough time deciding what I think.

First things first. No, you're not going to be taking a vote on this. I just want to hear everyone's thoughts to begin with. And since you can already guess what the general idea here is, I'll ask two things of everyone, one for our administrators, and one for everyone else. And I implore you to really take in what I'm saying.

To my fellow administrators, I realize that this can't be a comfortable topic. You all worked hard to earn your positions among Halo Fanon's leaders, and you know that the community puts its faith in you in supporting your election, be it recently or however many years ago. But don't think that you must oppose this proposal because you feel that your administrative power is being threatened. You don't even have to ask yourself honestly if you believe that you've carried out your duties to the standard that you are expected to. Because this isn't about any of you individually, but rather what it means to be an administrator for the wiki. For that very reason, I'm willing to put my position on the line by writing this proposal, and I hope you are too.

To everyone else on Halo Fanon, I ask you in equal emphasis to be unbiased about this matter. Perhaps some of you have an administrator or administrators that you don't like. Don't see this as an opportunity to get rid of them. Because like I said, this isn't about any individual user or administrator, but the operation of the wiki as a whole. If you genuinely believe that this proposal would do great good to Halo Fanon, then support it with good intentions. If you don't think so, then by all means, oppose it, but also with good intentions.

Now that I've hopefully gotten the personal words out there, I'm going to elaborate on the full details of this proposal as clearly and thoroughly as I can. What I'm suggesting is that on set dates, ideally 18 to 24 months, our wiki's entire list of administrators are going to be subject to evaluation to get a good idea of how well they're doing their jobs. This evaluation isn't going to be as simple as a support/oppose vote, but each administrator will be rated or reviewed on several levels of their conduct in multiple traits by the community. For example, users will be permitted to write comments under sections titled "Resolving issues", "Administrative tasks", "Willingness to help", "Conduct with other users", to name a few. To make these reviews as fair as possible, contributing users will be required to write out a minimum length in their review to avoid black-and-white ratings such as "does well" or "unfit for admin". With elaborate, open opinions as the basis of each evaluation, the administrator would be reviewed with avoidance to an unfair decision made out of a simple vote.

For admins that are being considered for de-administration, there will be a lot more to it than waiting for an outcome. If it becomes clear that a great number of users believe that an admin is not carrying out his or her duties properly, he or she will have the chance to write an appeal addressing points made against him or her. This is not meant to be an opportunity for debate, and any admins that would potentially come under this kind of scrutiny are encouraged to be honest rather than defensive about the shortcomings that they are accused of. Likewise, users should not take the opportunity to attack an admin for isolated incidents or personal bias. Once the admin has submitted the appeal, users will then be permitted to address anything that the admin has stated, within reasonable limits (again, without turning into debate). The admin will not reply to these specifically, but will then make any closing remarks that he or she sees fit. The final decision will then be made by the other administrators (even those also being considered for de-administration).

Take note, this is not meant as a replacement of RfDAs (Requests for de-administration). DfDAs are still open for submission at any given time, should a large number of users feel that an admin is behaving in a manner that is harmful to the wiki. But remember that firstly, just because an admin isn't unprofessional doesn't mean that they should always retain their position even if they perform zero administrative duties. And secondly, and as another admin has said to me, administrators are picked by the community to represent the community. If an admin is ignoring the tasks that they are expected to carry out, then there is no reason that they should be an admin (remember, good writer ≠ good admin), when there is possibly someone else more suitable for the position but can't be promoted because (and I've heard this reason many times before) we already have enough administrators. And I know you're all thinking this, so I'm just going to say it; once we promote someone to admin, we just don't want to bother taking them off the list because (a) we feel it's too much hassle, and (b) they might feel offended. But if you agree with me on the points I've made above, then you might also agree with me when I say that these aren't good reasons at all.

This proposal isn't perfect, and I'm sure that if it does go through, we'd have to work out a lot of kinks before we set it as official Halo Fanon policy. One question I have is whether a user who has been taken off the administration would be eligible to be reinstated (something that has never happened in the history of Halo Fanon, and something which I'm still pondering). Another question is if there should be restrictions on who is allowed to have a say in these matters, or if it should be open to absolutely any user who joins. Because we may be chosen by the community, but there are an awful lot of users who may not be part of our "active community", come and go frequently, and don't really talk much to other users. But would it be fair to cut them out of the loop? These aren't easy things to consider, and for all I know there could be a lot more that I haven't thought of, so I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter. I ask again for everyone to be open, unbiased, and polite upon discussion.