Wikipedia:Miniguide to requests for adminship

This is an explanatory essay about the Wikipedia:Request for adminship page. This page provides additional information about concepts in the page(s) it supplements. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community.

Shortcuts WP:MRFA WP:MGRFA

The following is a very basic guide to Wikipedia:Requests for adminship (RfA). This is intended to be an informal, minimalistic guide. For the full guide to RfA, please see the Guide to requests for adminship. Note: This is not policy. Please do not quote it as such.

• Please be aware RfA is often a harsh, even brutal process. People will look at, and likely criticize, everything and anything you have done (or not done).
• People sometimes oppose for no reason at all, or for reasons that may seem silly. People are not required to explain their position. Don't feel bad, it happens to a lot of people.
• If someone nominates you, feel free to decline if you do not think you are ready. Decline politely and keep up the good work. Even after the process starts, you can withdraw at any stage.
• If you are doing a self-nomination, make sure you set up the nomination correctly and don't support yourself. People tend to have higher standards for self-nominations, and messing them up can lead to oppose votes. Perhaps consider requesting a nomination.

These are not required standards. People may have personal standards when considering nominees, but in general, editors are probably looking for:

• A substantial number of non-automated (e.g.: edits not making use of Twinkle, Huggle, AWB, et cetera) edits within a wide variety of namespaces (Most successful nominees have more than 10,000 non-automated edits. See your stats at this page).
• A reasonable amount of time with the project (Most successful nominees have been on Wikipedia for at least 6 months.)
• A willingness to do "unglamorous, repetitive work"
• A civil manner with no recent personal attacks, POV pushing, vandalism, or edit warring. Conflict resolution issues are a strong minus for most editors.
• Few errors or "bad calls" involving AfD's, CSD's, or other deletion matters.
• An enabled email address
• Good use of edit summaries

See what happened in some recent successes and failures for a guide.

Strictly observe Wikipedia:Civility. Please see the full guide for information on voting directions, decorum, and demeanour.

• Wikipedia:Guide to requests for adminship – more detailed version of this summary guide
• Wikipedia:Administrators – the admin policy, including requirements
• Wikipedia:Administrators' reading list – read before and use as a reference list later
• Wikipedia:Administrators' guide – the how-to collection for admins
• Wikipedia:Advice for RfA candidates – also includes a list of individual users' criteria for admin candidate assessment
• Wikipedia:RfA cheatsheet – advice on the questions you'll be asked as a candidate
• Category:Matters related to requests for adminship – lists many essays and other materials of use to candidates