Why aren't there moderator elections on Meta Stack Exchange?

Question

Why aren't there moderator elections here on Meta Stack Exchange?

It seems to be moderated only by employees. I know that there aren't elections because here it shows no election history.

Is there a reason for this? Should there be elections here?

Answer 1

There haven't been any elections because SE initially saw no need for there to be community moderators. We do now and they were appointed from the existing moderator pool (as I suggested in the last paragraph).

The real problem with having elections here is that there really isn't a community in the same way as on other sites to draw the potential candidates from. You want people who know the system and how SE works both at the individual site level and the network level.

The people best placed to do that are employees or moderators from other sites.

Back when this site was Meta Stack Overflow the moderators were appointed and were the "trilogy" moderators (Stack Overflow, Server Fault and Super User). That worked, but there were rather too many for the work that was required.

This is only my personal view but if there were to be community moderators here then the candidates would have to be drawn from the existing moderator pool. Whether they'd be appointed (if they wanted the job) or have to nominate themselves in an election is immaterial.

Answer 2

Well, at the time of posting of the question, there was no community moderation here. The site was moderated mostly by the Community Team.

It seems to be moderated only by employees.

Is no longer true.

We have appointed moderators - though as anyone following the network is aware, the line up has changed a little with Monica's removal, and us getting Glorfindel to top up the team.

• There are no real growth initiatives that other sites might take on, or liaison roles between moderators and Stack Exchange like we'd see on other sites. However, we need people with demonstrated experience in navigating treacherous interpersonal dynamics and that's something that we're just going to have to select for based on observation. ^(Source)

I think this is partially true. Meta's political. While I'd not say it's a 'first amongst equals' amongst mods, it's a role that needs us to work with other mods, staff (occasionally when folks higher up do things that cause trouble) and the community in general. We don't always get advanced warning of changes (good or bad), so you're entirely likely to wake up to something new and exciting or new and terrible on your site.

The moderation program for meta was also meant as an experiment, one that's occasionally being tested and I'd argue in many ways still ongoing. It has been tested in quite a few ways, we have a few wins and a few failures, but for the most part, the core of the moderator team is the early appointees.

There's probably valid arguments for elected moderators - that 'appointed moderators' may lack independence - and ones against it, that practically there's a small number of regulars and 'meta enthusiasts' and we deal with issues across the network, for example. We might not be as big as MSO, but we're a resource for the wider network, not just 'us'.

Practically - it's a system that's mostly workable, and we don't have a huge amount of turnover since the original appointment of moderators. I have a certain bias towards saying we're essentially independent from the company's influence (though some may disagree). We have a moderator team that can handle the needs of this community - admittedly most work here is curation and cleanup. There's a fairly limited pool of folks interested in the role - there's a preference for folks who have moderation experience elsewhere and meta experience as well. If we need a top up, it might be worth opening up a conversation over how we handle it (full elections? Contacting folks to stand for an election? Having current mods suggest new mods?) and so on.

In short, we haven't had a moderator election since we've never really needed one, and while I certainly feel we need to consider our options as time goes on, things mostly work as they are.

Answer 3

The trivial answer is that there hasn't been any need for elections yet, as the current mods are doing just fine. (This is the same proximate cause for a lack of active elections on any site at any time.)

The deeper answer is that not only is it conceptually elegant to have the dedicated whole-network meta site moderated solely by SE employees, it's also practical. On most sites, the elected (or appointed) mods do almost all of the moderation that the users can't (or won't). And, with the possible exception of SO and SU (which are a bit unwieldy to get a good grasp of), there really aren't any sites that all SE employees can contribute to. Here, neither of those is an issue, so, as a group, they get a peerless view of the entire workings of a healthy but medium-sized site from top to bottom.

And, of course, having no elections at the central site gives a healthy balance to the sometimes excessive focus on democracy elsewhere.

So not only do we not need elections here, I don't want them.