@skullpatrol I see your video and raise this random webcomic (+ next 2 pages). (Warning: Those specific pages are mostly work-safe; most of the comic is very definitely not.)
@Behaviour sounds good to me. Maybe posted once a month for the last 6 months would be better?? Many people post once and run.
@Behaviour including meta and comments. Maybe there should be two criteria. (1) activity in the short term (2) activity in the long term. For instance, 2 post, comment, meta a week for a month or 1 post, comment, meta once every month for 6 months. If you meet any of two, you are active.
Let's extrapolate. In 2013, there were 317 votes on Alex Becker's nomination (maximum among the nominations). 437 voted in the final round, the factor of 1.38. Accordingly, we can expect 1209 votes in the final round of 2014 election.
So much for extrapolation: 1250 users voted already in this election.
@Behaviour yes I think it was good in the end that we had those nominations (early on), as it set some discussions in motion.
Maybe some users will vote in a completely careless way. But also, it is not that hard or time consuming to get some impression of the candidates and to vote accordingly.
The number of voters is still pretty small. There are more enthusiast badges than votes ever cast; this is a bit strange.
There were many users who became interested in the site for a short period of time, and then moved on. If their period of activity is between two elections, they don't vote.
I still feel that the number of voters is really not high relative to the size of the site. Of course better informed voters are always better. But then one should also not exaggerate the complexity of the matter.
So in the primaries there were likely around 1000 voters. Did they vote in some strangel way. It did not seem so to me.
Anyway that recent meta thread on the subject seems in bad faith to me.
I am sufficiently familiar with Dilaton. :) No, I saw nothing strange in the primary. The votes are consistent with the voters recognizing a user who left some helpful answers or comments, and upvoting them.
There are 11377 users with reputation 150+. Of them, 9881 have visited meta (i.e., have an account there). Of them, 3342 have Supporter badge on meta. And only 1250 have Quorum (1 meta post with score 2 or more).
In any event, I'm not worried about the election anymore; what's done is done, the results (in all likelihood) are already determined as we speak. Congratulations to the 10 finalists on getting well-deserved SE swag.
Mathematics 2014 Moderator Election
Mathematics 2014 Moderator Election