To be 18 or over.
To have earned 300 reputation points (equivalentthe equivalent of thirty upvotes).
Not be suspended on any SE site in the last 12 months.
In theory, these requisites allow the following scenarios:
- A user who has never posted a question, answer, or comment on meta, can be elected as moderator for life.
- A user who has never suggested an edit, or reviewed or edited a single post that was not theirs, could be elected as a moderator.
- A nominee who has cast zero votes during their time on the site is eligible for election.
- A user who has either raised no flags, or more worryingly, whose flags have been declined, is eligible for election nonetheless.
- A nominee might not have contributed, participated, or even visited the site in one or more years prior to an election but could, in theory, be victorious.
- A former moderator cannot run for reelection because they were suspended on a completely different site in the preceding 12 months. No distinction is made between a suspension of a single day, week, month or year. No distinction whether it was the first suspension in the former moderator's history or their tenth.
- In the candidate score, where 40 is the maximum, a nominee's score could be as low as 0. I don't believe this has ever happened on any election on any SE site but the rules do not explicitly state a minimum score is necessary.
Ideally, in a healthy flourishing community, the weakest and least qualified candidates should easily lose. However, as we have often seen, users on smaller SE sites are typically reluctant to nominate themselves. Last year ELL had four nominees running, this year three. In the future, there will be elections where only one or two seats are open and one or more nominees will have little to no history of reviewing, voting, editing posts (not theirs) or helping the community via comments via comments or through chat. These are under-qualified nominees runningare nevertheless eligible to run for a lifelong role.
What do I mean by an under-qualified nominee? It is a user who has not contributed significantly or activelyin any significant way to the community; sought to improve, and uphold standards, or help run the site in any shape or form. In fact, on Stack Exchange there are specific milestones which hinge on reputation points earned. For example, before a user is trusted to cast close and reopen votes, they must have earned 3K.
And yet once elected, the under-qualified ♦ moderator can unilaterally put on hold, lock, close, reopen, and migrate questions. They have the authority to close a hundred posts in a review queue in one single day. Moderators can also delete upvoted answers which they retain do not answer the question; delete and undelete comments, answers and questionseven meta posts. They can convert answers into comments, freely edit posts, and suspend users without knowing anything about the user, their background or their contributions, owing to the fact the newly-elected moderator has notnever participated on the main site. ItBut, Stack Exchange allows them to run in a moderator election just as long as they have 300 reputation points. It is worth remindingnoting that Stack Exchange does not allow a community to change their mind about a moderator once that nominee is elected. Unless the moderator voluntarily steps down (retires), is removed for inactivity or fired by Stack Exchange; an unqualified, ineffectual moderator will be allowed to hold that position permanently. For more information: Who are the diamond moderators, and what is their role?
For all the reasons above, I suggest that the aforementioned minimum requirements be revised. For example, raising the minimum candidate score to 4/40, one badge for eachper category: reputation, moderation, editing and participation. Failing that, demandit should be expected that a nomineenominees have one moderator badge and the Quorum badge (participation on meta).
