I'm a relatively new (active) user from Mathematics SE. We are about to have an election and I asked a similar question on the Q&A thread, where I was encouraged to post it here.
Rounding up, our current moderators were elected {8,8,7,7,6,6,3,2,2} years ago. My limited experience with them has been positive: as far as I can tell, they are doing a great job to keep the site working as it's supposed to. However, two-thirds of them have served for over five years, which is a rather long time, specifically when elections happen somewhat infrequently. More to the point, as far as I can tell re-elections are non-existent: once elected, mods are free to retain their privileges indefinitely.
My questions:
- How frequently are elections "supposed" to take place?
- Are re-elections a thing?
- Several mods indicated it is a network-wide policy that moderators do not have term limits. If this is correct, why is this so?
Personally I am in favor of gentle term limits. Over at MSE, which is a larger site, 3-5 years is probably a good length of time to get acclimated to the responsibilities and make meaningful contributions while allowing other active users to participate in the same way. Being a mod is a lot of work but I think most people have enjoyed doing it and more people should have the opportunity. Maybe the length can vary by community.
To be clear: the mods at MSE are doing good work!
Update: I am aware that a similar question was asked in a thread 11 years ago. I think this discussion is worth having anew.