User:OrangeStar/On edit counts and roles

This essay contains some thoughts after starting my first RfC in Miraheze, as well as reading archives of requests for permissions/global rights/stewardship.

While every editor is free to perform most actions in a wiki, there are some functions reserved for a comparatively smaller amount of editors. In Miraheze, there are some roles one can apply to to help the project in some of the more admin-like and counter-vandalism tasks, like Global Sysop, the smaller Global Rollbacker, if you're exceptionally trusted, or willing to power through an RfA like process, and have identified yourself to the board of directors, Steward, and lastly, the small and specialized Global Interwiki administrator.

This last one was the subject of my first RfC in Miraheze, lower requirements for global Interwiki administrator. In its original form, the RfC contained only one proposal, drop the 1000 global edits requirement for candidates. This would've allowed everyone with a 2-month old account to request the right at RfGR.

My opinion on edit counts

It is no secret that I don't base my votes in any request for any right in edit counts. I have multiple reasons for this.

Edit counts are not an indicator of quality

An editor may have 1 million billion edits (the amount recommended by w:Wikipedia:Requirements for adminship), but if I haven't seen them in places like RfC, RfP and such, I'm not going to support them, but I'm in fact going to oppose them. This is because the kind of user that makes a good editor and the kind of user that makes a good admin are different. Being a good editor is great, but that doesn't automatically translate to being a good admin, as the requirements are different.

Another reason is that edit counts are not representative of an user's contribution to the project. Miraheze exists in places other than Meta and the wikis in the wikifarm. There's IRC, there's Discord, and there's Phabricator. Contributions in those places are important, however they'll not be counted in any edit counter.

Not all edits are equal

Edits in RfCs and such are more valuable when considering an user's suitability for administrative roles or other advanced permissions, as those are the places where you can get to know an editor's opinion on all the various issues facing the farm, and can get an idea of how they'd do if they were to be admins. Also valuable are interactions of that user with other users. Yet, these do not matter to edit counters, and for them they have the same value as edits fixing grammar, for example, which are not relevant for these purposes.

For these reasons, edit counters are misleading indicators when considering how you should vote in any request for permissions, and you shouldn't even be looking at them when reviewing a request for any right. It's my opinion that they should never be part of any requirements for any roles.

What I look for in a candidate

If you're going to vote in any requests for rights, or run for any position, you should be someone involved in the administrative side of the community to begin with. In other words, participate in RfCs, participate in discussions in all the various noticeboards here on Meta (or the equivalent in other wikis) or at IRC, etc.

Community involvement

My first and only strict requirement is that the candidate must participate in the aforementioned places. If at RfCs, don't just vote for the sake of voting, give a reason in your vote. This is important, because RfCs are not democratic elections. To better build consensus, you must discuss with the other editors, not just vote.

If you participate in the community, I (as well as the regulars who vote in these requests) will get to know you somewhat, and I'll be better informed should you ever request any advanced permissions that require community discussion.