Is 10k reputation the same as it used to be?

Question

For the past 3+ years users with 10,000 reputation have had access to a moderator dashboard [A Theory of Moderation].

There are 3,269 users on SO that have these privileges. I am assuming that this number was much, much smaller back 3 years ago. Has the growth of users with high reputation been proportional to the total number of users?

My question: Is 10k reputation still a good level to gain access to the mod tools or does it need to be changed to have a better ratio with the total users?

Answer 1

I headed over to https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/queries?q=count+users+

Using this query 4 times I counted the number of 10k users over the last 4 years:

SELECT Count = COUNT(*) FROM Users WHERE Reputation >= 10000
and CreationDate <= '1/1/2013'

Using this query 4 times I counted the number of users over the last 4 years:

SELECT Count = COUNT(*) FROM Users WHERE CreationDate <= '1/1/2013'

Since a 10k user Mod's main job is to look at flagged posts I used this query to try and find the number of flagged posts over the last 4 years:

select count(v.Id) from Votes v
where (v.VoteTypeId = 4 or v.VoteTypeId = 12 or v.VoteTypeId = 13)
and v.CreationDate < '1/1/2013'

I then charted the results in Excel:

Although the trend in user growth is not backed up with additional (10k user) moderators the trend of flagged posts still appears manageable.

The recent improvements I've seen (and subsequent popularity) of the Review system has empowered the community with greater control of the overall site quality.

***Disclaimer: *** *I'm not a 10k user so I dont know how to calculate the time and effort spent in 10k user moderation.

Edit: Some data here is not correct, the user page suggests there is 4 * 9 * 36765 = 1323540, not 1597594.

Update Shog9 and Stackoverflow team have a great blog on this: https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2013/03/2013-so-moderator-election

Answer 2

tl;dr: We have enough hands. It's a matter of coordinating and teaching them.

It's important to remember that the privilege scale adjusted past 10,000 reputation points, which used to be the point at which all privileges on the site were unlocked:

• Users with 15,000 reputation can protect questions to prevent noise
• Users with 20,000 can collaborate to delete negatively voted answers

This adjustment helped quite a bit in offloading some of the most common tasks from diamond moderators to the community, but a very small group of people (mostly, the diamond moderators) were still doing most of the 'dirty work'. Problematic posts were just not getting enough views by those equipped to do something, so we ultimately had to keep stepping in.

The problem was getting our small army of 10k, 15k and 20k+ users coordinated through a central system so that more eyeballs were reviewing and taking action on the same set of posts at once, which is what the new /review system is effectively doing, despite the problems we're still kicking out of it.

While I realize I'm stating the obvious, it's very important for people to use the privileges they unlock as often as they can. Every 3 20k+ reputation user is almost like having another moderator on the team as long as they're working in coordination. The first thing I'd like to see is /review handling the additional load that /review creates, then ultimately reducing the daily moderator queue average little by little as time goes on. It looks like we're on track for that, I'm pretty optimistic. I'm reviewing more and more closings and deletions that the community handled by themselves, and that feels good.

Ideas have been floating around regarding unlocking more moderation tools on merit (badges earned) instead of just reputation. That's also something we can explore if it makes sense.

For now, though, I think we're good - as long as people remain willing to put time into reviewing effectively in a coordinated manner, and the review system continues to identify additional ways to help people hone their moderation skills.