Oh, ballots aren't limited to top 3 anymore? Interesting. Too many exhausted ballots in prior elections?

@MBraedley There's just no reason to limit it to three. Particularly on elections where multiple people are running and there's multiple slots, it becomes really easy to go through all three selections so, yeah, as you say, potential for exhausted ballots. Also, when we're running elections for three seats, it's essentially guaranteed.

I'm gonna be honest here: I'm not sure why the moderator elections on a site the size of Arqade even allow people with less than 30/40 candidate score.

Then again, I can just follow my own rule and only vote for people who score above 35

I'm gonna be honest here... candidate score is not a good measure of a good candidate. ;)

@Catija Yup, like I said on the Bridge. Candidates could be active network wide and have full power somewhere else and still have bad score here. Good people with bad score.

@dly neither of the 2 candidates with the lowest score have ANY network account with more than 10K rep

@Nzall I haven't checked, but it's a possibility. I have 20k rep powers on Sports with 4.5k though.

@dly I'm not sure how you got those powers though

Like, it's possible that for beta sites powers get given at a lower rank

but Sports isn't a beta site

@Nzall it's still a Beta internally, because it's too small to fully graduate.

maybe smaller sites then? dunno

We only very rarely customize the expectations for candidates on a per-site basis, and never strictly by score. For example, SO requires 3k (or 5k? I can't remember right now) rep instead of 300 and has a handful of required badges in order to nominate. Math also has a higher minimum rep.

If a site doesn't have a theme, it has the privileges of a beta site.

A couple of required badges would be a good idea for Arqade too. But that's probabaly someone elses business. :D

@Catija yeah, and I can understand why. But I'm honestly unconvinced that someone who has only earned 2.5K rep after 5 months on this site as their most active site and has very low metrics would be qualified as a moderator

It's worth remembering that it's a bare minimum. I don't think any SO mod has been elected in recent years with less than ~15-18k rep... but that doesn't necessarily mean that we have to make it so unapproachable that we prevent anyone else from running. It's a bare minimum. Unless you're concerned about someone stacking the vote, there's usually plenty of other candidates...

and if there's not, you have to worry that the site might be struggling. There's usually little harm in having a low rep person moderating the site. They have a bit more of a ramp-up to understand the tools but not much. Close voting isn't the only way to show that you know when to close things - you can flag to close at 15 rep.

Are we allowed to publicly state our voting intention?

I guess, in the end, what value does it serve to prevent people from participating in the election? If they have other candidates who hugely outrank them in experience, then they probably won't win, and if they're the top of the pool, they may be necessary to keep the site moving... but rep isn't the only (or even best) indicator of moderator ability.

@Nzall Sure. Assuming you do it in a respectful way.

@Nzall I can't be bothered to track down the graphs people have made on this before, but the election results have a high correlation to a persons rep, so a low rep person being in the election doesn't really impact things much at all.

Plus at the end of the day sites do need moderators. If the only users willing to step up are those with low rep, then well, not really much else you can do. A few sites have recently struggled to get any candidates at all.

@Catija In my opinion, Timmy Jim is by far the most qualified: perfect score, high reputation, tons of badges, years of experience and some really high scoring answers. He's my top pick, and I'd honestly be very surprised if he doesn't make the cut

I wasn't going to post my ballot to avoid swaying things but I guess here you go twitter.com/peakcapitolism/status/1424438535466242049 (recycled AND stolen joke 0/10 boo this man)

@Nzall Just an FYI that comments like this are perfectly acceptable on a users nomination.

@Nzall Out of all of those things, pretty much none of them mean that Timmy Jim will be an excellent moderator (no offense, Timmy Jim). Moderators don't need any of those things. They need to be thoughtful, non-reactive, patient, responsive, willing to talk about their decisions, and able to guide others effectively. Timmy Jim may also be all those things, but I'll honestly take a person with my list over yours as a mod any day.

@Catija I agree 100%

One reason all of those things are important is I can guarantee you moderators make mistakes. We do it all the time. So being able to step back and go "huh, yeah okay I messed up" is really important.

Being able to admit you're wrong is an extremely important trait to have as a moderator.

Those skills @Catija outlined are vital to being able to step back like that.... or even to just being able to swallow you pride at times when you're 100% convinced you're right, but the rest of the community disagrees (including other mods).

@Catija The problem is that I also don't know any of these people. For the past 2-3 years I've pretty much only been active in chat, but none of my top 3 pick appear to be

These soft skills are why we have the questionnaire. It's a chance for candidates to show that they have those skills and are able to be a moderator who is willing to change their mind or admit that they're wrong or listen when others have something to say. :) So spend more time reading the questionnaire and less time focused on the Candidate Score.

and I'm not that active on the main site these days because of disillusionment with stack exchange as a whole

For the old point about 'not allowing people below 35 score... there would literally be only 1 candidate in the 6 that threw their name in the ring that would comply to that. And well, i have problems with having an election just for some people to win by default. You can vote however you wish, but since only 6 people put their name in, i don't think Arqade is in a position to restrict that hard who may put their name in

And this is why Catija is the best

My biggest disillusionment with the SE network is how they try to crowdsource moderation through review queues and chat flags

@Nzall That's one of Stack Exchange's hallmark features: The network is moderated by you.

To some, that may seem like delegation. To others, that's about trust, and giving back to the places that have platformed useful information for you.

@Spevacus and I think that's okay, but I also think there should be an option to fully opt out of moderation, to the point that none of the moderation tools or options ever appear in the UI

@Nzall I mean, if you don't like those things, SE's probably not ever going to be something you're happy with. We're investing many hours rebuilding review to make it better and easier for more people to participate successfully but there's no way this platform could be successful without moderation. We'd rather not have that site than leave it as a free-for-all.

Like, just seeing that tiny blue number near my chat avatar appear makes me anxious, and it doesn't go away until I click on it and see what's going on

Well, user-level moderation is fully optional, to be fair. The tools are still visible of course, but you absolutely do not have to participate. If they give you anxiety, there are probably scripts available to make them invisible.

More to the point... What about them gives you a feeling of anxiety?

@Spevacus my particular problem with the chat flags is twofold

I understand that this might be a potentially sensitive subject so you absolutely don't have to answer if you don't want to.

@Wrigglenite :P

The first problem is that because chat flags are network-wide, including networks from other languages, chat messages to be moderated are often in a foreign language that I do not speak

Like, I can't read Russian, Portuguese, Japanese or Filipino, so I have no meaningful input in whether these messages break the rules

@Nzall So just an FYI that you don't need to vote for more than 1 candidate, or any candidates at all. Don't feel like you need to vote for X number of people.

Oh yeah I forgot, yeah STV allows you to rank as many or as few candidates as you want

just waking up here

@Nzall Apologies, when I read this (in conjunction with the other messages), it sounded like you were saying that the site shouldn't be moderated at all, which is what I was responding to. It wasn't clear that you wanted a way to opt out personally. :)

@Catija I misunderstood as well. An opt-out feature has been suggested before. I think it would be great, but I know resources are limited.

@Nzall I've run into this too. Chat flags should be looked at with relative importance. If someone's flagging a message as rude/abusive, there's probably something serious going on. However... Barring putting the text into an auto-translate service (which can have mixed results) I typically just choose "Not sure" and let a moderator, or 10k+ network user who can read the language, handle it.

My second problem is that moderation is effectively a very thankless and depressing activity. You're effectively seeing the worst of the community, by design, and the various tools are still there, even if you're not interested in them, and sometimes they even get quite "up in your face", like the blue orb that indicates posts have been flagged in chat

I think that having a userscript is likely the best option (though I admit it's not perfect). The thing is, there's a risk that if we make it too easy to opt out of some moderation tasks, we'll end up with too few people willing to review and help the site. When it comes to chat, I'd like to see an overhaul of chat moderation. I think there's enough mods now that there's little reason to involve non-mods in chat flags for the most part.

@Wipqozn Ah yeah, ok, that makes sense. This is the first election i actively participate in so there are some parts I do not know. Like the thing I just realised, that you need to drag them in the box above and not just order them

@Catija yeah, especially when you take into account that chat is active across the network, so you have not just your own moderators, but those of the hundred or so other communities as well

And, well... it becomes somewhat easy for people to dismiss flags against their friends' content if they happen to be in the room at the same time.

@Nzall I don't know if it'd help, but I think the mobile chat interface doesn't have flags, so you could use that instead. Not a perfect solution since it doesn't have some nice features, but it's something.

@Catija As far as I know, SE is deprecating and removing the mobile-specific sites, moving to responsive design based on screen properties

Not mobile chat.

@Nzall Yeah... I can understand that. The way I see it is, Stack Exchange (Stack Overflow, Arqade, MSE, etc.) have provided me a service in the form of platforming content that has very frequently been helpful. I give back to it by trying to help keep it clean. Lately, that comes from flagging spam across the network with Charcoal. That's how I rationalize helping out from a user-moderation perspective.

It's separate.

Mobile chat is actually the responsive version of chat.

Mobile chat should be integrated into the app :P

@Catija And does the mobile chat work on a 1080p screen as well?

Regular chat is not responsive.

@dly App's been deprecated fully now.

I use mobile chat in the app all the time... ? I mean, it's in a Safari sub window but... I'm in chat regularly in the app.

meh... I liked it. Easier to use than the 10th browser window

@Catija yea, the app just opens a new browser window, but it's not in the app itself.

@Catija Could I get a link to mobile chat?

oh wait, I think I see it

Very bottom right corner of the window.

Okay, that seems workable, but I'd probably have to put This is Fine and The Bridge next to each other, and I'm not sure if there's something for that

I don't do that currently because it's too much of a hassle to have 2 extra browser tabs

You're talking to the wrong person. I have 395 browser tabs currently. 2 extra isn't a big deal. :P

I have so many tabs that I have a browser addon that tells me how many tabs I have.

@Catija are you secretly my boss? The number of tabs she has running is an office meme.

@Catija sorry, I don't mean tabs

I mean Windows

As in Edge window tasks at the bottom

I have 3 of those right now and I'm already confused what is where

@Wipqozn HAHAHA. :D I don't think so.

I think I have... 16 windows? Across two monitors.

@Catija That is... Unholy. My goodness.

I'm a tab purist. No more than like 9 or I start to get anxious :D

One of the best feeling you can have as a programmer is closing 30 tabs you opened while researching a bug

@Nzall Agreed

@Spevacus Do you work for a website?

At least 100 of those tabs are to various places across the network. I have a set of a dozen tabs or so just to keep track of the elections I have running on various sites.

The "Elections window" is one of my windows. It has my spreadsheet to view all the elections, and then the election tabs for each election and, if appropriate, the chat rooms for those elections.

I have five tabs for Arqade alone. :P

I generally have the following tabs open on my work account at any given time: YouTube subscriptions, 2-3 YouTube videos, Tweetdeck, The Bridge, This Is Fine, Discord, Tweakers.net, PC Gamer and VRT NWS

@Catija I feel so blessed.

Tweakers.net is a Dutch language IT news site and VRT NWS is the news site of the Flemish public TV channel

@Catija ... Well... No... :)

:D

@Spevacus My boss sometimes bitching about his mac being slow. I check his computer, he got a good 30 tabs open...

Yeah, close your fucking tabs

Sounds like your boss's rig could use an upgrade.

Is his mac pretty old or something?

wonder if a I VOTED sticker on your avatar when you voted (could reuse the hats code probably) would make people participate more in elections?

because I dont have stats, but I feel like its a very small percentage of the community that actually participates and votes

There's a badge for it

@Wrigglenite yeah I know, but I wonder if it was a patch on the avatar on all your posts it might boost participation in elections? idk. I'm spitballing without data

Very much doubt it, people already get an inbox notification

I'm just curious, after the election, do we get to see the vote counts for respective candidates somehow? It's an interesting statistic after the fact.