![]() | This essay contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia users. Essays may represent common ideas, or ideas that many users would not support. They are not rules. Think carefully about what they say before following them. |
![]() | This page in a nutshell: Experienced editors sometimes close a Request for adminship if they see that this request will probably fail. They do this before the date when the request is supposed to end. This is not a bad judgment of the candidate and should not be taken personally. It does not change their chances of passing a RfA at a later date. |
Most requests for adminship run for seven days after being added onto the main RfA page. However, sometimes they are closed early. If you are reading this page it is likely that this has happened to your RfA.
Although RfA has no exact minimum needs, the community requires a certain quality of changing pages. Without this, a RfA is certain to fail. When a candidate fails to meet a number of community-accepted criteria, sometimes everyone begins to give opposing comments. This can be discouraging for the candidate and stop them from more good contributions. This is clearly not good for Wikipedia. Also, a RfA that is clearly going to fail will often provoke a number of calls for early closure and related discussion.
Any editor in good standing may close a clearly failing RfA. However, this should be done carefully and wisely. If there is any doubt, posting to the candidate's talk page and asking them about their RfA is often a better choice than suddenly closing their good faith attempt at adminship.
Any candidate who sees that their RfA is failing may make a request for it to be closed early. Simply strike through your acceptance of the RfA and note that you withdraw.