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The moderator's daily job is mostly similar to the /review for which one could get the silver Reviewer badge after some good effort. Why isn't this one of the criteria for a moderator candidate? It's even not mentioned in the list of noteworthy badges at elections.se. The badge is IMO relatively easy to earn and users with the badge show off that they are familiar with the boring day-in, day-out job of a moderator.

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    +1 | As far as noteworthy badges, I think this would be more noteworthy than Outspoken and Pundit. Also, why isn't Marshal in there?
    – animuson StaffMod
    Jun 5, 2012 at 3:58
  • I was going to say it's one of those badges that everybody except the moderators gets, but it seems most of the other mods do have it.
    – mmyers
    Jun 5, 2012 at 4:28
  • @mmyers: yes, it's also much similar their job. Do note that /review and the badge is relatively new, they are introduced around the time of the last elections (Nov 2011). So that wasn't applicable during the previous elections and it must tell something about the current users with the badge, how small it also is. We ultimately need "only" 3 new moderators.
    – user138231
    Jun 5, 2012 at 4:45
  • You can change badges that you think are noteworthy on the elections site and add any that you want (even supporter :L). I agree that reviewer should be included by default though xD
    – Rory
    Jun 5, 2012 at 11:25
  • Why don't we require candidates to have Copy Editor to show that they've spent a lot of time actually editing and salvaging posts, and Marshal to show they can pick problem posts? The noteworthy list is simply that, not everything on it is mandatory for the election.
    – slugster
    Jun 5, 2012 at 12:58
  • @slugster: There are already the Strunk&White and Deputy badges for that which are just silvers. If Reviewer were an gold (and is theoretically thus much harder to obtain), I would probably not have asked this question.
    – user138231
    Jun 5, 2012 at 12:59

2 Answers 2

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I would imagine that it's because only 208 users on Stack Overflow would qualify.

That's a fairly small cross-section of the Stack Overflow User Community. I believe that we're looking for a bit more diversity and representation of the community than that. We want to draw from a larger pool.

The sorting-out process doesn't end when a moderator gets elected. I've only been a mod for a short while, and I've seen what I thought to be highly qualified individuals wash out, simply because... well, I don't really know why. Conversely, I've seen people get elected who made me go o_O, but who turned out to be exceptional moderators.

Consequently, once a user has demonstrated willingness, good judgement and an enthusiasm for sweeping the floors, I'd be more apt to endorse them than someone who simply spent a month earning a silver badge.

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    Well, new moderators are of course enthusiast about the shiny new tools and status which motivates them to work hard on moderation. But once those are not shiny anymore after some months, the effort of certain users would also fall back that hard. I'd like to filter out this kind of users before I cast my vote. I think having the Reviewer badge is very close to this. After all, wouldn't it be a good idea to see the /review stats for each nominatee? So that we can for instance see if one didn't immediately stop after ~1000 reviews or so.
    – user138231
    Jun 5, 2012 at 4:21
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    What @Chichiray said, if you want good sweepers up, you need to pick from the existing sweepers up. If there aren't that many sweepers up, this might explain why finding (and keeping) good moderators is so hard...
    – Benjol
    Jun 5, 2012 at 5:09
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I don't think this should be a requirement. However including the review stats on the voting page, so the voters can decide would be good.

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