This is my RfA debrief, I suppose. I ran the gauntlet, so to speak, in April. My RfA closed on the 19th, with a 65.8% support percentage. This put it in the discretionary range, and a crat chat was opened, which ended unanimously in no consensus to promote.

Before I pulled the trigger, so to speak, on a nomination, I was definitely nervous, and not really sure if it would even stand a chance. I decided to do so anyways, even sans nominator, because I wanted to help out, and I didn't see the AELECT as really being too much of an indication either way on which way an RfA would go. I'm definitely not a big writer or anything, as can be clearly seen by the fact that this very reflection is only around a few paragraphs, so I'm sure my RfA nomination and questions answers seemed pretty small to a lot of people casting !votes.

During the RfA, I had a lot of support and more opposition than I originally expected. I knew I would face a significant opposing force due to content creation, though I never thought it would be as significant as it turned out. I really appreciated the supportive comments I received privately, and the polite tone that many of the oppose !votes even had. It also helped with the stress that did arise to have others that responded to some of the opposition, such as those in the technical areas, like 0xDeadbeef and Pppery, among others.

The biggest question, I guess, is "do you plan to run again", which I think I've seen float around a bit near the end of the RfA. The answer is almost definitely no. I think one shot through a standalone RfA may well be where I draw my limit. I don't think I could stomach putting myself through it again. If at some point the viewdeleted rights are unbundled from the admin toolset, I would likely put myself before the community again for solely those unbundled rights, but absent that occurring, I am doubtful I would bite the bullet again.

As to where I go from here, I suppose just where I always have been. Tucked away in the backend of the encyclopedia. While the admin toolset would have made many things far easier (viewdeleted to view deleted revisions, and editinterface to edit MediaWiki pages, for example), they are ultimately tools I can obviously live without, and can make requests of admins to do for me, even if doing so is sometimes tedious.

It's been pointed out on my talk page that I'm the first person to have experienced going through AELECT, then going through a traditional RfA, and I received some questions about the two processes and my experience with them. I definitely found AELECT to be less stressful, though I felt it had less focus on the individual candidate and more on the slate of candidates. On the other hand, a traditional RfA vets exclusively the specific candidate being put up for adminship, and tends to also show more explicit participation than I received in my candidacy in AELECT. As surprised as some may be at this, I actually found a traditional RfA to be less nerve-wracking, as it was a straight week of a nomination, and I could easily see all the !votes coming in, with reasons attached that I could read through and reflect on in the moment. AELECT, though, had a week of voting, where I was completely in the dark. I'm sure that will be more helpful for some, and I found it to be an interesting new way to request adminship, but I feel like it didn't give me nearly as much of a chance to answer questions (indeed, there are almost double the questions in a traditional RfA, allowing more opportunities to answer direct questions from others) as a traditional RfA did.

I found a lot of really respectful and helpful discussion, and a lot of very well-researched points made on all sides of the RfA. I'm proud to have made it even into the discretionary range, especially with no significant content creation, which has been described on my talk page as something of a badge of honour. It's definitely something good I'm taking away from this RfA, and something I'm definitely happy about.

I absolutely didn't expect some of those in the support camp to be in there, which was really moving. I genuinely found myself moved by the amount of people who were willing to show up and opine at my RfA overall, regardless of which opinion they espoused or which side they were on. I discovered the true attraction of nominators, being frankly just someone to ask about all of this. Self-noms are great to have around, and I received a few very positive messages privately from various people with words of encouragement, but I also definitely was on my own with the answers to questions that really were outside of my depth, in hindsight.

Personally, I think the biggest part I was truly shocked by was that RfA didn't make me feel stressed so much as helpless. I spent a little while staring at RfA !votes, and sort of realizing how out of my depth I was by some of the oppose comments, while also being emboldened to keep the RfA open based on the support comments still trickling in.