IOW: I feel like y'all have the impression of HopelessN00b as "that jerk people complain to us about," and those of us answering questions regularly have the impression of "class clown." If you look at the situation as N00b being "class clown" it might look a bit different.

Fair enough, @Shog9. Besides, inappropriate levity is just something that HopelessN00b does. For as long as I've been here, he's put goofy jokes in comments on questions that end up deleted as off-topic. Which, you know. I enjoy them and see why they're deleted as off-topic, so there you are.

Oh, and for the record: "The support I've seen for Hopeless and the overt hatred and bitterness I've seen poured out on other members of the mod team are two sides of the same coin: folks dissatisfied with the site and wanting someone else to fix it for them." I'm supporting Hopeless because I like him--he's one of our regulars. I didn't vote for him because I took his initial nomination spiel as inappropriate levity, but I think he worked hard and did his best for the site, and I was pleased with him as a moderator.

I think part of the problem is morale--we do have a doomed tag in meta, after all. At the risk of generalizing, I believe we have a tendency as a career path to self-select for lone efforts and short, high-intensity bursts of activity, which... might not help? I know I find the close queue depressing in large doses, myself. I'm always relieved when the queue says, "You cannot have more close queue. You have a close queue problem. Go home, sober up, and do more in the morning." ;)

@JonEricson For what it's worth, this is why people are saying it looks biased. This speaks to how some people think SE views SF.

Thanks, Michael! It's too bad that we can't kill old, off-topic web hosting panel questions with our brains. </Firefly>

I think what I'm getting at is that if someone is going to possibly end up in the position of taking someone else's mod diamond, they might not want to be on public record as having a negative opinion of that someone. Just for their own comfort and public perception. That said, yes, snark did flow both ways, yes.

@Reaces I agree about the comments immediately after the election, yes. My concern about comments during the election cycle is precisely the weight they carry and the appearance of bias later. On the other hand, elected mods did endorse one of the other candidates, so perhaps I'm being unfair. But there's a difference between positive and negative campaigning and between elected mods and employees, to my mind. Clearly, not everyone agrees with me on that.

Thank you, @TimPost. I'm going to suggest that perhaps SE employees might want to avoid campaigning against moderators during an election cycle in the future to avoid the appearance of confirmation bias. Several SE employees (Shog9 was just the most vocal) expressed reservations against HopelessN00b becoming a moderator on the grounds that (to use N00b's phrasing) he's "temperamentally unsuited." Unfortunately, that pre-judgment means that later actions... have poor optics, yes.

I can tell you're not modding because the close queue is up to 89. UGH!

You're welcome. :) I still don't think swearing at someone like that is an appropriate reaction, though.

Yeah, it's tricky because tagging it "april-fools" kind of spoils the joke... unless people aren't reading carefully.