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A couple of new elections have popped up that I would like to keep tabs on, and I'm still missing being able to get updates to the election post in my inbox.

We had an election happening on English Language Learners, and I wanted to follow the post so I could be notified of new nominations (and other updates) but it appears that's not possible. I'd also like to keep up with elections on other sites, so it would be nice if I could just follow the ones I'm interested in and get updates in my inbox instead of having to check each election page.

I would like a way to get a notification without having to constantly check the page or election chat. I would like to know when there are new candidates, when a candidate updates their nomination post, and when the election moves to a new phase.

Notification of new comments on a nomination might be nice, but I can see how that might overwhelm someone's inbox on a larger site. Maybe we could only be notified of new comments by the candidate.

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    I know you don't want to check chat, but we are developing an election bot, and you could keep notifications on and leave it as a background tab to get notified of new candidates. Here's ELL's election chat.
    – Samuel Liew
    Commented Oct 20, 2021 at 13:33
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    @SamuelLiew Looking at the election chat transcript was how I noticed the new nomination. It's a cool bot, but I do not want to participate in chat. There are several elections across the network I'd like to keep track of, and I don't want to have to sit in a chat room for each of them.
    – ColleenV
    Commented Oct 20, 2021 at 14:13
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    @SamuelLiew Also, I'm not comfortable being in chat on my work computer. The policy is that company resources may only be used for work-related things, and getting updates on ELL's election is definitely unrelated to my work. I want pull notifications, not something that will distract me when I'm doing other things. Leaving chat going in background tabs isn't a good solution for me.
    – ColleenV
    Commented Oct 20, 2021 at 14:30
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    @SamuelLiew A feature for the bot to ping subscribed users whenever there's a new nomination would fix that. Those chat pings would result in site notifications (15 minutes later by default, but that delay can be disabled in the chat profile settings). The only caveat is that the user must have posted a message in the last 7 days, but most elections' nomination periods are only that long (unless the team extends the nomination period).
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Oct 21, 2021 at 2:39
  • @ColleenV What do you think of my feature proposal in the above comment?
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Commented Oct 21, 2021 at 18:58
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    @SonictheAnonymousHedgehog I don't want to participate in chat, not even to type a message to a bot so it can send me notifications. If the bot can ping me, that means other people can too right? Also, I'm not just interested in new nominations; I'd like to be notified when the post is edited and maybe when comments were added under a particular nominee's post. There's also a reputation requirement for participating in chat that doesn't exist for following posts. I think the election bot is a worthwhile endeavor, but it doesn't meet my needs.
    – ColleenV
    Commented Oct 21, 2021 at 19:04
  • I'M constantly visiting hoping for new candidates, it's quite disappointing but telling a the same time. Six years ago we had 11 candidates running for two positions, today that number has shrunk down to three, two of whom had disappeared (or virtually) from the site for over two years.
    – Mari-Lou A Слава Україні
    Commented Mar 17, 2022 at 15:11
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    @Mari-LouAСлаваУкраїні I hope that more folks will toss their hat in the ring, but I think there is some natural decline in people interested in becoming a mod as a smaller site becomes more mature. In the beginning, the site is still evolving and growing and there is a lot of opportunity to shape the future. Once a site is mature, moderation becomes more about maintaining stability and looks more like work than something engaging to volunteer for. There's not a lot of glory in being a moderator on a smaller, mature site.
    – ColleenV
    Commented Mar 17, 2022 at 15:17
  • Back in 2014 there were "just" 8 candidates for three positions so something happened between 2017 and 2021 for that enthusiasm and spirit to shrivel. Hmmm...I wonder what could that be? (It's a rhetorical question mine, I could talk about this for hours).
    – Mari-Lou A Слава Україні
    Commented Mar 17, 2022 at 15:22
  • @Mari-LouAСлаваУкраїні I don't discount the effect SE's treatment of Monica may have had on some sites' pool of people willing to be moderator, but I think we would both be surprised at how many current users know nothing about that situation and don't really track what is going on here on Meta. ELU has had its current mod team for a very long time and that leads to some complacency about how much a site really needs moderators (I think). I wonder what the record is for the length of time between elections for non-beta sites...
    – ColleenV
    Commented Mar 17, 2022 at 15:28
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    The number of active hi-rep users on EL&U has dropped dramatically in the last two years, it's the hi-rep users who keep a site alive, who keep it running, they're the ones who have invested their energies and time. We don't lack new users, they're a dime a dozen, and the vast majority don't care about quality they just want to know if something is correct in English or not. In the end, it's the enthusiasts and experts who have stopped posting and visiting. Activity on meta is reduced to a minimum. Sven Yargs is holding on but he's not interested in running.
    – Mari-Lou A Слава Україні
    Commented Mar 17, 2022 at 15:34
  • @Mari-LouAСлаваУкраїні I think we agree. If you lose your active veteran users there's no-one to counteract the natural decline in engagement a more mature community experiences. Very few new users sprout into highly engaged veteran users after a certain point, because a lot of the interesting parts of the work of the site has already been accomplished. It's harder to come up with a question that hasn't already been asked. It's harder to find a policy that still needs to be agreed upon (we just have disagreements over what exists already now), etc.
    – ColleenV
    Commented Mar 17, 2022 at 15:40
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    I wonder if there's Javascript we could use to make this happen (though I'd certainly appreciate something official more). It certainly looks like a "post" to me since the election text itself can be edited by a moderator. Nominations also look like posts, plus they have comments like a post. I need to remember to experiment later when I'm at my computer...
    – Laurel
    Commented Mar 17, 2022 at 16:06

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