User:Richard0612/thoughts on/RfA thanks

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it.

This page in a nutshell: Those little RfA thank-you cards that are sent round look pretty, but are often impersonal and meaningless and [in my opinion] border on spam.

After a successful RfA, it is customary for the new admin to send little thank-you cards to everyone who !voted [see here for an example]. This can often run into 100s of people, and must take an inordinately large amount of time to do, even if using a template. It really is not necessary. It annoys some people who don't like their talk page cluttered up, and generally wastes the time of the candidate [sending them] and the recipient [recieving one, seeing the 'New Message' box pop up only to find that it is a cookie-cutter thanks message].

[edit] A better idea

Far more constructive ideas include:

• Adding a simple thanks message to the RfA nomination page
• Only sending personalised messages to people who made in-depth commentary [and this includes opposers] and/or the bureaucrat who promoted you.