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RfA reform discussions: An alternative analysis by an observer and participant
Tyrol5 has been an editor on Wikipedia since November 2008 and an administrator since July 2011. Below, he records some observations pertaining to his experience at and around the "Requests for Adminship" process and discussions pertaining to it and offers an analysis of the effects of discussions surrounding RfA reform.
Requests for Adminship (RfA): it's a touchy subject, one that's the topic of countless discussions each year, few of which reach any semblance of consensus. But they're discussions nonetheless. In 2010, having been an active participant at RfA for a number of months since becoming fully involved in the project in July of that year, I took an interest in these discussions. I participated actively in the discussions at the RfA talk page and elsewhere. Late that year, I made a decision to withdraw from participation in RfA discussions in favor of holistically observing the process without worrying about formulating an opinion on every candidacy that came up. Thus began a fascinating exercise in observation that culminated in my participation at the 2011 RfA reform project—perhaps the most advanced and comprehensive analysis of RfA in the history of the process—and enlightened me to the observations that follow.
While I've since returned to full participation in individual RfA discussions and the 2011 reform project resulted in very little change in policy, participation in that facet of discussion alongside my long-term observation of the process changed the way I participate there very much for the better. While resulting in very little policy change, the 2011 RfA discussions resulted in an influx of successful requests from some excellent candidates in early 2011. Additionally, WereSpielChequers' August 2010 article indicating a downward trend in candidacies galvanized a burst of successful candidacies that month and later (including my own in July 2011). Further, the 2007 discussions coincided with a sharp increase in candidacies in May of that year. This suggests, to me, that the discussions surrounding RfA reform during the past couple of years has had an unexpected affect. Increased publicity of the process and talk of it being "broken" appears to have led, perhaps ironically, to short-term increases in qualified candidates coming forward. My contention isn't that RfA isn't or is no longer broken, but that discussion alone seems to help in unexpected ways.