Now that @TimCampion has joined the race, I'll happily withdraw my nomination.

Now there are 8 candidates - gmhv dropped out, Tim Campion and Pedro Tamaroff joined.

Number of posts: meta, main

Citizenship score: data.stackexchange.com/mathoverflow/query/1393079/…

Citizenship score + badges: data.stackexchange.com/mathoverflow/query/1393080/…

Carl-Fredrik Nyberg Brodda is the only current candidate with a Stewart badge.

Among the 8 candidates, nobody has the Marshal badge. gmvh has one, be they decided not to run.

@MartinSleziak I am not sure I can edit Catija's post and add the link to my replies.

Could you do this?

@PedroTamaroff I see, because of 2k limit for edits on meta. I have edited the post.

@MartinSleziak Thank you.

@gmvh Sad to see you drop out. Makes me wish you hadn't promised to do so initially :)

@gmvh If I withdraw my nomination, would you put yours back into effect?

@gmvh And if the answer is positive, would you do it under the threat of me dropping out? :)

@AsafKaragila I hope you're joking ...

@MartinSleziak I noticed this too. I think this is very admirable. I just left a comment on the Candidate Q&A page asking Carl-Fredrik if he could say a few words about his reviewing experience.

I also noticed an interesting pattern in Daniel Loughran's reviewing history, and left another comment asking about it.

@TimCampion I'll reply to you questions soon. But do note that in my post it says "(I have been a moderator there for about 7 years)" and in my nomination it says "I have been a moderator on the sister site math.SE since 2014".

@PedroTamaroff Ah, sorry, I should not try to parse this kind of information on a Sunday morning!

I think the candidate statements and the candidate Q&A duplicate each other a bit -- both in and of themselves, and in terms of a place to post comments. Maybe there should be automatic links between the two.

For instance, Pedro very clearly answered my question in his candidate statement, but I was looking at his Q&A when I left my comment. His Q&A also contained the information I was asking about, but it was a bit more buried in there in the answer to Question 9.

Hi all. I'm sorry if this is not the right place to ask. Has it been discussed what the purpose of being able to up/downvote the Q&A is?

@luisl There's a bit of discussion of this in the comments on Asaf's Q&A, which for some reason got a lot of downvotes. I think no consensus was reached, but Asaf's comment suggests upvoting / downvoting either to show support / non-support for a candidate, or to indicate that the questions were well / poorly answered, and that kind of makes sense to me.

Thank you @TimCampion. The second reason you mention makes sense to me. Regarding the first one, it seems that that's what the actual vote is for. Of course it may not be that easy to disentangle the two reasons, and there may be no way of enforcing a policy about how the up/downvotes should be used in this scenario.

@TimCampion: I've made an edit and answered your question.

@luisl In my past experience with elections on MSE it's a good indicator for the end results, but only in broad terms. It's not clear to me at all how to parse the current scenario. I think that a lot of the downvotes on my answer came from Daniel claiming that I'm grilling him, rather than some inherent disagreement (after all, François' suggestion that I run was very well-received).

Indeed, if you can see deleted posts you'll see that gmvh received +9/-1 votes on their answer, while my comment that he'd make a good moderator received +12 votes. That means that four people agreed with my comment, but didn't upvote the answer itself.

I also think that people underestimate the janitorial role of the moderators. Most of what you do as a moderator is deleting comments or warning/suspending users who break the rules. Yes, moderators set policies, but they are neither binding, nor in any kind of way significant. And I think this distinction is most visible in the term limits questions.

If you view moderation as janitorial, then term limits serve no real purpose: if I'm tired after two years, I'll quit; if I'm not, I won't. But it's my feeling that users see the moderators as somehow department heads or something like that. It's not to say that moderators don't have influence on policy, mood, etc., but at the end of the day, most of the role is in fact clean up and policing. Shepherding the community is indeed minimal, and is usually decided by internal discussions in advance.

(At least in my limited experience on MSE...)

And you can say, what if an elected moderator turns sour and does things against the grain of the community? Well, they can be held back by the other moderators, the CMs can step in and help rein them in, and if all else fails, there are procedures for recalling moderators.

@AsafKaragila Thanks, that's very clarifying!

@TimCampion The edit or the thing I wrote here about moderation?

:)

@AsafKaragila I meant the edit, but really both!

@AsafKaragila: There may well be procedures in place if things turn sour. But it seems prudent also not to set up structures where someone can be unaccountable for an indefinite period of time. This is not aimed at anyone in particular --- just a general statement that there are very few institutions for which I can imagine someone being appointed for ever.

Also, it is good to have periodic elections --- what we have here is the first after almost 8 years --- and having a fixed term would ensure that there is some rotation as the community itself changes.

@Lucia I have never felt unaccountable for my actions on MSE.

Do you feel that Todd or Scott are operating without accountability?

(Regardless to the fact that everyone here is fully trusting their actions.)

@AsafKaragila: I believe I stated very clearly that my comment was not aimed at anyone in particular. I think there is a definite benefit to having a term --- there are more regular elections, and more opportunities for others to express themselves.

@Lucia Again, I just think that I have a different view of moderation. And so I don't see why term limits are important or necessary. Tim was able to raise issue and make plenty of positive contributions to meta without having a diamond to their name. In what way would a diamond give him more opportunities or power to express himself?

And how would taking a diamond away from Todd would make him less able to express himself (perhaps less willing, but that's a different story)

@AsafKaragila: I don't really know why you're arguing with me about this. You may have an opinion, and I am free to disagree with it. In particular, I have already indicated why I disagree with your statement that there is no benefit to term limits.

I understand, completely, why the community has a strong feeling towards term limits, and why "everyone on the team should be grandfathered in" (even though the most were elected either on MO 1.0 or in the 2013 election). I just think it's stems from the wrong idea as to the role of moderators.

@Lucia Fine.

My dinner is ready anyway. Have a nice evening!