@AlexanderGruber Well, claiming that the election has everybody's attention seems a bit overly optimistic to me. I would not be surprised to see another post on meta about: "How is it that I only found out about election after voting was finished?"
@MartinSleziak On CRUDE I asked Alexander to write to the CMs to push back the elections by a few days, so more people will have time to participate. The state of affairs is appalling, there's barely any participation on the Q&A thread, and most of the participation comes from a handful of users. If someone wants to pretend that this is a "democratic process", then someone is lying.
@AsafKaragila I'll link this in the mod room and talk it over a bit. We can probably ask the CMs to push back the nomination phase a few days, though I think it may be automated on their end so they may not be able to. Can't hurt to ask.
If $a$ is a scalar function and $\mathbf{b}$ is a vector,
$$\tag{*}\quad \boldsymbol{\nabla}\cdot a \mathbf{b}=a \boldsymbol{\nabla}\cdot\boldsymbol b+\boldsymbol{b}\cdot\boldsymbol{\nabla} a$$
Is there a simple proof to prove that identity?
What would be a good place for questions like @Sebastiano's - I mean an inquiry in chat of the form: "Here is my question. What else can I improve?"
This room is probably not the right one - this does not require response specifically from mods.
AFAICT Constructive Feedback was created for similar purposes, but it seems more-or-less abandoned. (Before that there was a similar room Why the downvote?.)
@DanielFischer I don't want to be the next target of serial upvotes. I received three upvotes all posted within one minute. I'll keep you posted if I see more of it (will flag if it continues.)
@amWhy Unless it becomes a recurring phenomenon, you need not worry about it. Three quick upvotes can happen quite innocently, and if you have no reason to believe otherwise, that's the best assumption to work with. If it repeats, your flag will be appreciated.
@AsafKaragila honestly I am not sure this would help or even be desirable. I think many just don't care all that much about the question collection. I mean if we are completely honest, the use is arguably quite limited, and it is also a bit repetitive, especially as the last election was rather recent. In a general election, how large is the fraction of people that would submit questions for a televised debate, say. Pretty low.
And it's not only that people don't care. But also that objectively the influence is rather limited. Maybe in some toss-ups a good answer to a question could change an opinion, but by and large people have set opinions that won't be swayed by an answer to this or that question.
If anything I rather think the thing is too drawn out. Once the actual elections starts it's already half forgotten that there is an election.
That said, I agree that this election might not be set in an ideal context.
@quid In all fairness, that may be how you experience elections, and how I do, or how anyone here daily that follows meta daily (or near abouts). But we cannot presume that the average user who might want to vote and learn about candidates positions stops in as often, and so I think @Asaf, is in part, trying to give users who want to vote for the next moderator, a chance to contribute questions, read their statements, etc., and choose their candidate(s).
That said, I think changing the date and calendar at this point would likely only confuse matters.
@quid I agree with this.
And, if voting was restricted to regular meta participants (we'd have to operationalize, of course, what counts as being a "regular meta participant"), then certainly elections could proceed more swiftly.
@amWhy but the process of collecting questions specifically, in my mind presupposes a certain involvement with the site and its "politics." Somebody not that much involved in the site likely won't come up with an interesting and not standard question anyway.
The post has accepted answer which says it should be no problem (posted by a user who is no longer a moderator). But it is not clear whether something was actually done.
The question has score 81 - which seems quite high, compared to most of feature requests posted here.
@AsafKaragila Do you have a question to contribute to the questionnaire? As of this moment, there are only five upvoted questions from MSE users, and one of them is only barely upvoted. Perhaps a question to candidates about their meta involvement, whether they think user involvement is important to the quality of SE, and if not, why not? I think you've likely articulated the need for potential mods to have been active on meta, more often, and likely better than, just about anyone.
Of course, there are other (perhaps more objective) ways to determine such involvement on meta; but those stats could be used to challenge, or verify, a candidate's claim.
@amWhy I feel that the work I've put into the "lessons from the last elections" mostly went unnoticed. Which is both frustrating and annoying.
I feel that from the various "generations" of users on MSE, most people have sort of gave up on how the site is working.
Either people from the early days sort of gave up after nearly eight years, and people from newer timelines either don't care anymore, or feel like they are fighting the rising sea with a cup.
@AsafKaragila I can totally understand that. And I am frustrated and annoyed, too. I'm in one of those older generations, too. But I want to stick around through the election. I'll determine at that point how much I care, or hope, at that point.
It's very unfortunate, I think, that the moderators did not speak up when the CMs said an election is coming. I think that polling a few users in private, or even mentioning something on meta, could have either generated some initial interest and "awoken the community", or the feedback would be that this is the wrong time for elections.
I mean, the summer is generally low-key, so even though Jyrki was a heavy weight moderator, it should be fine. We could have had elections a bit later.
@MartinSleziak I recognise my limitations and I am also proud to make them public. I trust you will always do your best to improve my questions (you can see the many corrections I make), but they are not appreciated the same. Obviously I can't get into people's minds and understand their tastes in a general sense. With such sincerity then I didn't like at all that you play with me with a myriad of downvotes to not be able to ask even a half question. Thank you for your attention to me. Hello.
This user is a self-proclaimed 12 year old. Is that close enough to 13?, as SE explicitly states that SE users must be 13 years or older. If 12 is okay, then is 11 too, since it's close to 12, and 12 is close to 13, and so on..... ?
Oops, looking at my third comment above this one, I should have said "I don't want anyone to be elected by default. I was using "any old user" in a figure of speech, but just reread the comment and it struck me as saying "I don't want anyone who is old to be elected by default" which is not at all what I wanted to say!! Apologies! (Unfortunately, as Jyrki is coming to realize, I am unable to edit that comment to make it clear!)
If $a$ is a scalar function and $\mathbf{b}$ is a vector,
$$\tag{*}\quad \boldsymbol{\nabla}\cdot a \mathbf{b}=a \boldsymbol{\nabla}\cdot\boldsymbol b+\boldsymbol{b}\cdot\boldsymbol{\nabla} a$$
Is there a simple proof to prove that identity?
