Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-01-17/Fvw

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Fvw granted adminship with record support

by blankfaze and Michael Snow, 17 January 2005

Fvw was granted administrator status last Wednesday after his request for adminship passed a community vote with a record 81 users supporting the move. A number of users voiced the old cliché "Thought he was already an admin".

Overall, the nomination had approximately 86.2% support from RfA voters, as a sizeable group totalling 13 users opposed the request. Among the primary reasons expressed for opposing the nomination were Fvw's experience (or lack thereof) and his perceived "deletionist" attitude.

Lack of experience, however, seemed to be less of an obstacle than on his previous nomination, which was supported by a small majority (15-9 with two neutral votes), but failed to achieve consensus to promote. The previous attempt closed on December 4, just over one month before the new nomination was posted. SWAdair, one of those who opposed the initial request based on lack of experience, was the user who nominated Fvw on the second occasion.

The record turnout seemed to illustrate that admin candidates whose initial requests fail are likely to get a significantly higher level of response on subsequent attempts, whether or not these are successful. Practically all of the other nominations to receive a comparable number of votes were second or third attempts. This may indicate that although the first request was unsuccessful, other users do take note of the candidate and observe them more closely in the following months to assess their qualifications.

Mediation Committee in limbo

Fvw is also a current candidate to be added to the Mediation Committee, which is seeking additional members after having lost four people from the committee when they were elected to the Arbitration Committee. However, action on this request (along with those of several other users) has been delayed as the Mediation Committee struggles to get the mediation process moving again.

Not only is the Mediation Committee understaffed, but several of its members are currently designated as inactive, including Bcorr, the current committee chair. Some requests for mediation have remained in limbo for weeks with no activity, and several users have begun to express concerns about the lack of response from the committee.

In the case of Fvw's candidacy to become an official mediator, some concern was again expressed that he was too new and inexperienced for this role, but several other candidates have universal support so far. While awaiting some form of confirmation, Fvw and Jwrosenzweig, another candidate-in-waiting, held some preliminary discussions about the possibility of candidates acting as informal mediators on one of the unfilled existing requests. But at what point anyone might formally be added to the Mediation Committee remains up in the air.