On 6/15/06, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I would also suggest more standard questions for
candidates, and
encourage people who add questions of their own.
I actually dislike the questions, as it reduces RfA to a beauty
pageant. Most of the questions are pretty retarded anyway, like "a
vandal shows up, but claims to be Jimbo, and starts heavily editing
FAs. Three hippos in pink tutus come past and tell you that he's ok,
but then a purple geranium points out that this user has been blocked
in the past. What do you do?" In most cases, RfA candidates aren't
equipped to deal with such questions, and they shouldn't have to: the
mechanics of being an admin are learnt on the job, by asking other
admins. In other cases, the candidate is probably going to end up
giving a "safe" answer, which sounds good, but which no one is ever
going to hold them accountable to.
In other words, the questions only test whether the candidate knows
what RfA voters want to hear. Unfortunately, that's not a particularly
useful quality.
Steve