Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in adminship discussions

This is an essay on the Requests for adminship. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

Shortcut WP:AAAD

Reading time: approx. 14 mins. This is one of two important advice pages for RFA voters. The other one is Advice for RfA voters which is aimed mainly at new users, or users new to voting at RfA. It is strongly advised to read both.

This page in a nutshell: Users contribute to Wikipedia in different ways. Don't deny Wikipedia a valuable administrator simply because a user contributes in a different way than you do. Regardless of whether you support or oppose the candidate, be sure to also provide good reasons for your choice.

This is intended as a guide to getting the most out of the request for adminship (RfA) procedure. It is not intended to be binding policy, nor is there an expectation that editors who comment on RfAs should be familiar with it; it is, rather, to be an informative guide to useful participation in the forum.

The question posed with every RfA is "Can this user be trusted with the administrator tools?" Making a decision whether to trust an unfamiliar candidate is often difficult.

It is often said that "adminship is no big deal", bearing in mind that admin actions can be undone by another admin.

RfA is not a popularity contest, nor is it designed to force potential administrators to meet arbitrary criteria. It is not designed to judge whether a potential administrator holds the correct view on a controversial issue—which is different from asking whether they will apply a current policy consistently.

It is particularly helpful to give examples when commenting. The best way to do this is usually to link to the page or the diff showing the behaviour you are commenting on.