I'm not sure if this question has been asked before, but I believe there should be an age cap to run for moderators, because people as young as 13 have & are running for mods.
I have no problem with that, but considering mods are obligated to fulfill some tasks, these tasks would be better at the hands of more experienced people. In short, I think in the same manner as driving, drinking ... a minimum age should be applied for participants. >= 16
We don't ask you for your birth certificate when you sign up. There's a birthdate field, but some people don't bother filling it in - it's completely optional.
So all you're really suggesting is that we encourage younger candidates to lie or omit information. That's not really a good attitude to foster in folks you hope to trust with a fair bit of responsibility on the site.
If you don't think someone is up to the job, don't vote for them. It's really that simple.
Age doesn't really matter. Or at least, it's not of primary concern. If a 13-year old is not up to the task, their general behaviour (prior to the nomination) will show it. If they show however that they do have the qualities to become a moderator, there is no problem either.
Could one argue that a 13 year old is less likely to possess those qualities than someone significantly older? Sure. But the election will weed them out based on merit, not on age.
And in the case where an elected moderator really wouldn't be suited for the task (which is pretty unlikely), SE afaik reserved the right not not make them a moderator. So I would say there's no problem whatsoever.
It's not about age, it's about maturity. If someone sees a 13 year old nominating themselves, and they see they're a loon, they won't vote for them.
In any case, the age restriction on mod election should be the same as the age restriction of signing up (though SE doesn't ask for proof).
Being a 13 year old myself, I do feel kind of loonish, but that's why people are telling me under my nomination in the comments to wait for next year. My friend, on the other hand (who is also 13), is very mature and lots of people will probably vote for him (@Doorknob).
Even if your thoughts go in to effect (I'm talking hypothetically, of course they won't), people would easily avoid their fates by leaving the age field in their profile blank.
"You really think someone can know your maturity just by your posts?" Yes, assuming there are enough of them, in combinations with comments as well. On top of that, you can interact with the nomineessthrough comments on their application, ask them questions, etc. to judge how well they might do. It's worked quite well so far. For driving the main problem is that it's simply not possible for governments to spend the time/effort evaluating candidates with the same degree of effort as we can with mods here. Thousands of man hours go into vetting each mod. Each driver gets less than one.
Not all young people are immature.
There is a greater percentage of immaturity amongst the youth, but that doesn't make every youth immature.
We already have some really young mods (There's one on Stack Overflow, a couple others across the network1), and they're doing great.
If there's an immature candidate, the election process can filter that on its own. I've seen a couple of immature adult candidates in previous elections. For what it's worth, I think I've seen more of these than I have seen amongst the youth.
1. Including me, if you count 19 as an immature age.
First of all, how would you ensure that user indicated his age honestly?
There are many reasons to limit driving/alcohol by age, and some of them just because it's impossible to see in advance who is responsible enough.
But here on SO/SE community uses more fine-grained ways which are based on user contribution. Every candidate must have some of the participation badges for example. So during nomination phase community could examine thoroughly every candidate and take well informed decision.
