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The 2011 Community Moderator Election is now underway!

Community moderator elections have three phases:

  1. Nomination phase
  2. Primary phase
  3. Election phase

Most elections take between two and three weeks, but this depends how many candidates there are.

Please visit the official election page at

https://serverfault.com/election

for more detail, and to participate!

If you have general questions about the election process, or questions for moderator candidates, feel free to ask them here on meta -- just make sure your questions are tagged .

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Reading the blue box on the right I notice the following:

After 7 days, the top 30 nominees, ordered by reputation, advance to the primary phase.

I suspect we may never reach that number of candidates but nonetheless I believe that has the potential to remove from the list a (relatively) low rep candidate who might make an excellent mod in favour of others with higher rep who might not even get a single vote other than their own.

I realise that sometimes arbitrary lines need to be drawn but is this really the best way? Perhaps a decision based on comments might be fairer and more beneficial to the community.

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    @John - agree'd. I even found the concept of a primary foreign (I had to look it up, the only other time I'd ever heard of a "primary" was the first season of the TV show 24) - still, at least there won't be Kevin '07 campaign and then have the same political party blame us for voting for a person not a party when they stab him in the back.
    – Mark Henderson
    Jan 19, 2011 at 21:43
  • Looks like someone over at meta.stackoverflow has shared your sentiments: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/75527/…
    – Mark Henderson
    Jan 19, 2011 at 22:04
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    This talk of election "primaries" does seem to be a very American convention, which is a shame on a site that hopes to have world wide appeal.
    – Rob Moir
    Jan 19, 2011 at 22:07
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    Yes, the concept of primaries is foreign to the majority of this planet's population. FWIW, I've never even been able to understand our own absurd ("Westminster") political system. :(
    – John Gardeniers
    Jan 19, 2011 at 23:13
  • Candidate-spam is an issue in some localities, though I myself have yet to sort through 30 candidates in a Primary Election. Judging by Jeff's answer, the 30 line is arbitrary, and a means to perform a minimum-quals sort similar to the 5%-in-previous-general-election rule used by many US States. With only 5 so far, I doubt we'll hit even 20, but I still don't like the 'ordered by rep' thing much.
    – sysadmin1138 Mod
    Jan 20, 2011 at 0:45
  • @sysadmin1138, maybe it's just me but I can't make heads or tails of what that means. I've never heard of a minimum-equals sort and that 5% thingy is a real mystery. Whatever happened to "if you get more votes than me you win"?
    – John Gardeniers
    Jan 20, 2011 at 1:13
  • @John It's like the HR test before resumes get handed off to a hiring manager (if $MCITP=False, then Pass=False). States do kind of the same thing. In order to appear as a major party, a party must earn 5% (or something) or more of a Statewide election in the previous general election. Like the 10K limit on SO, it's a very significant barrier to participation.
    – sysadmin1138 Mod
    Jan 20, 2011 at 1:45
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I haven't been able to find any mention of how long these community mods remain in "office". I hope it's not an indefinite position. Is there a discussion about term lengths and limitations?

For example, I like the idea of:

  • 1 year term length
  • 1 year ineligibility before re-running

We should avoid tenured positions.

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  • At least one of our current mods has asked, "Um, do I have to reapply?" The answer to which was "not this round". In other places Jeff Attwood has said that this'll be at least an annual event. Future mod-elections may include existing mods.
    – sysadmin1138 Mod
    Jan 21, 2011 at 3:54
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    Also, it doesn't look like this has been brought up on Meta.SO yet (though maybe my search-fu is too weak) so bringing it up there would be a good idea.
    – sysadmin1138 Mod
    Jan 21, 2011 at 3:58
  • meta.stackexchange.com/questions/984/…
    – Warner
    Jan 24, 2011 at 5:07
  • @Warner Thanks for the link! I stumbled on it after posting this answer. That's always the way it goes. =|
    – Wesley
    Jan 25, 2011 at 19:51
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I noticed the elections- and was thinking about applying, even with my low rep, but have noticed that the rep requirement then changed? Or was I just imagining it?

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  • My memory is fuzzy. Right now it's 2000 minimum rep to put your hand up, but I can't precisely remember if it was that case when the nomination period started. I do know there were 3 mod positions available when it started, and has since been cut down to 2 positions. Don't know if they made some rep-changes at the same time.
    – sysadmin1138 Mod
    Jan 20, 2011 at 17:18
  • I think I remember it being a lower value, when it first went up. It seems likely to me that they copied the settings from the elections being done on all the new se site being created that haven't been around for long.
    – Zoredache
    Jan 20, 2011 at 20:20
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    Nothing personal, but it seems pretty unlikely to me that a person with less then 2000 rep would get elected, even if you where able to be listed. Not because you wouldn't make a good moderator, mostly just because you haven't been as active on the site as people with a higher reputation. In my mind reputation tells me how active you are on SF.
    – Zoredache
    Jan 20, 2011 at 20:25
  • @Zoredache - I understand that, and wasn't going to nominate myself, just interested that there was a box, then there wasn't :)
    – AliGibbs
    Jan 21, 2011 at 9:30

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