Barkeep49's request for bureaucratship was closed as successful (219/5/8) on 7 March 2025.

Running for the role officially named "bureaucrat" on the English Wikipedia is a strange endeavor. Not just because it happens so infrequently, but because almost no one talks about it. I hadn't originally planned to write about my RfB, questioning its relevance to others, but after Giraffer published a debrief of his request for adminship, I asked whether a similar reflection on my request for bureaucratship would be of interest, and received strong encouragement.

Getting ready to run for RfA was an extended process. My friends first started asking when I was going to run for admin before I'd had 12 months of consistent editing. I got serious about positioning myself 6 months before my run. As I noted in my RfA debrief, I could likely have passed 3 months earlier than I ended up running. Starting a month out, and particularly a week ahead of time, there was plenty of coordination with my nominators, with all sorts of planning and preparation.

RfB was nothing like that. I started giving it serious thought on February 25th, and by February 28th I had launched the RfB.

In the past, when the topic of 'cratship came up, I had largely excluded myself from consideration for two reasons. First – and this was the major reason – I have concerns about having too many arbitrators who are also bureaucrats, and I thought I was likely to run again in the future for the Arbitration Committee. In fact, early comments by myself and TonyBallioni had helped to scuttle the chances of the RfB previous to mine (which was back in 2022). I knew that this concern about "ArbCrats" was a minority one in the community, but since it was one I held, it was enough to stop me from running.

However, I have really enjoyed the freedom I've experienced since stepping off ArbCom. Further, the work I've been doing on the U4C offers some of the same challenges without all the stress. My thinking has changed, and it's no longer clear that I would want to run for ArbCom again.

After I closed a series of Requests for Comment about administrator elections, I received some positive feedback, and shortly after, someone reached out to ask if I'd ever considered running for 'crat. That prompted me to seriously reconsider the idea. This brought me back to the second reason I'd previously ruled it out: I question whether the English Wikipedia truly needs bureaucrats. Ultimately, I concluded that running could be a productive way to surface that conversation, and that as long as the role exists, it's better to strengthen the team with new voices.

Having decided not to rule out the possibility, I reached out to about a half-dozen trusted people, asking their thoughts about the idea. This included my specifically asking them: "am I boring enough to run successfully at RfB?" I want the 'crat team to be excited about being boring, and I didn't think I was all that boring. But evidently the people I trust on-wiki do, because they all said I had the qualities they and the community look for in a 'crat, and that I would likely pass RfB.

It was then on to actually preparing for a run. I knew that if I wanted, I'd have no trouble getting some people to nominate me (in fact, a few of the people I asked about my running even offered to do so without my asking). I ultimately decided against having nominators for a few reasons.

First, I had prior experience with RfB as a nominator: I approached and then nominated Lee Vilenski in 2022, who (until me) was the most recently elected crat. Second, that experience gave me confidence that I could tell my own story effectively through a self-nomination, especially in how it would mesh with the standard questions. And because of my visibility from ArbCom, I felt name recognition wouldn't be an issue, and given how unfamiliar the RfB process is, I didn’t think I’d be missing any critical support by going it alone.

It then became a matter of writing the nomination statement and answering the questions – which I sent to a few for feedback. The most useful feedback I received was to cut down on my skepticism about the role of 'crat, and instead focus on my qualifications. This was good practical advice. Even while creating the RfB page, I wasn't completely sure I would go live. But it became clear to me the next day that there was really no reason to not run, and so I launched.

Compared to the instructions for launching a RfA, the instructions for launching a RfB are hard to parse. For instance, Create a new RfB page as you would for an RfA isn't entirely true, and there aren't any instructions about actually launching, including removing comments to launch the timer and vote counter, and about transcluding in the RfB section. I have thought about improving the instructions, but I've hesitated, having wondered whether they're written vaguely on purpose to prevent unqualified people from launching.

Once I launched, I felt that mix of excitement and nervousness I get when I'm a part of a RfX. I was optimistic about my chances, but you never really know until the community responds. There was early support, but I expected that (because that's how even unsuccessful RfXs tend to go at first). If my request was going to fail, it would be because of some high-profile concerns which would tip the balance. While there was some concern about the role of the 'crats, and whether I had too many hats already, there just wasn't much substantive opposition, and so the entire thing felt nice on the whole.

The questions also seemed more reasonable than the questions I feel like people get at RfA. Perhaps this just reflects the broad role of being an admin, and the narrower role of being a crat. With RfA, people are still deciding whether they trust you. With an RfB, you've already demonstrated that level of trust. I admit to being surprised at how much support I ended up receiving, and was even more surprised (and felt a bit surreal) when someone told me I was one of the most-supported 'crat candidates ever.

One interesting postscript, given how much question there is about a need for 'crats, was how much 'crat work I did in the first couple of weeks. In that time I:

• acknowledged (and then, after the 24 hour hold, regranted) an uncontroversial resysop,
• participated in a more complicated resysop discussion – including making the BOLD decision to create a 'crat chat as the procedures offer as an option, and
• closed an RfA.

RfA closing is one area where there are a bunch of manual steps across pages, and which are bespoke to the process, so I have done some scripting to make that process easier.