49

I've made a feature request out of this

I found myself doing lots of clicking through to profiles to try and compare nominees with (what I consider to be) useful/interesting information.

I've cobbled together an Excel file with some metrics, may help you with your decision, and possible inspire the dev team to put together something like this to help inform the democratic process...

Google doc published as web page here: EDIT, no don't bother, just jump straight to the link in YiJiang's answer (and give him all the votes he deserves!)

Can we squeeze a question out of this? :)

I'd be interested to know which of theses metrics you think are useful, and if you think they ought to be included automatically into nominee info in the election process.

13
  • Warning: Nominations are changing fast, and I won't be up all night to update it...
    – Benjol
    Jan 19, 2011 at 13:43
  • 1
    nice compilation @Benjol Jan 19, 2011 at 14:00
  • I think age and location should be the least important. Also, I think your MSO chat stats are wrong. I've been on MSO chat far more than SO chat, but you have me listed as 0. Also, votes per answer, would be a cool statistic. Not sure how helpful that would be though...
    – jjnguy
    Jan 19, 2011 at 14:24
  • @Justin, age and location both had ? in my original 'feature list' :) Location is mostly for timezone interest. Sorry 'bout your chat stat, fixed, according to Google Docs available in 5 minutes.
    – Benjol
    Jan 19, 2011 at 14:48
  • @Benjol, also, you should order by rep, and number the list. There are only 30 spots in the primary.
    – jjnguy
    Jan 19, 2011 at 14:49
  • But, I should mention that it is a good spreadsheet. Makes it easier to view candidates.
    – jjnguy
    Jan 19, 2011 at 14:50
  • @Justin, ordering by rep is biasing the data, it's currently ordered by inverse order of arrival, and I just left the bumped ones for comparison...
    – Benjol
    Jan 19, 2011 at 14:56
  • @benjol, ok. That makes sense.
    – jjnguy
    Jan 19, 2011 at 15:44
  • 3
    Most SE accounts! I should win automatically Jan 19, 2011 at 19:09
  • @Michael, wasn't that what I said? (Oops! :)
    – Benjol
    Jan 20, 2011 at 6:03
  • 4
    You should update with current mod info, for comparison.
    – user1228
    Jan 20, 2011 at 15:23
  • @Will, suggestion transmitted to @Yi
    – Benjol
    Jan 20, 2011 at 22:09
  • 1
    Starting bounty to award it to @YiJiang in 24 hours.
    – Pekka
    Jan 22, 2011 at 13:02

4 Answers 4

92
+500

Update: Please use the Stack Apps page for bug reports, feature requests etc, the comment thread here is getting a little long.

Ah right, the page Benjol was talking about in the comments is about finished. It pulls in a pretty impressive amount of information by using an obscene amount of API calls to the Stack Overflow API. It's all client-side, so please do not set it to auto-refresh every minute, or else it will eat through a lot of unnecessary API calls.

The page itself isn't heavy at all, but as stated above, the script pulls in a large amount of data, so it will take some time to load - the last few sections may take up to half a minute to fill.

With all that aside, you can find the page here:

Stack Exchange Moderator Candidate Statistics

Update: Now working for all sites!
Update 2: Local cached copies now available for all sites. Click on the "static cached version" button to toggle between the live and cached version. There's also a button on the footer that allows you to save a copy of the page yourself.
Update 3: Moved over to an actual server, kindly provided by Dan Grossman, since the Dropbox link is erroring out (probably under the load). Please use the new link from now on.
Update 4: Now with official sanction!
Update 5: Now with even more official sanction!!

As usual, all comments and suggestions welcome, especially which data you might want to see appear there.

48
  • Could you add sorting? Rep, site age, rep per post, etc...
    – jjnguy
    Jan 20, 2011 at 19:57
  • +1000 if I could. @Pekka, you know where to leave your bounty!
    – Benjol
    Jan 20, 2011 at 19:57
  • @Justin'jjnguy'Nelson That was on my list for quite a while now. In fact, I've had razorjack.net/quicksand open for several hours now :P Just a little busy with the other features
    – Yi Jiang
    Jan 20, 2011 at 20:04
  • @YiJi, well get your priorities in order. I COME FIRST. :P
    – jjnguy
    Jan 20, 2011 at 20:05
  • 1
    Does this have to be regenerated for every person who loads it? Can the data be fetched once (or once a day) and kept as a static page? Jan 20, 2011 at 20:58
  • 5
    Is it just me, or is anyone else not seeing any actual data on this page? I just see a title and a description paragraph. At the bottom there's a request to Yahoo APIs but even after 10 minutes of waiting, nothing has changed on the page.
    – Aarobot
    Jan 20, 2011 at 21:05
  • @Aarobot, not just you. I've never had any problems, but others have reported no - or partial - results. @Yi's looking into it (or rather, he will be, when he wakes up :)
    – Benjol
    Jan 20, 2011 at 22:09
  • 1
    it works like a charm Jan 20, 2011 at 22:35
  • This works beautifully on FF, but just dies without displaying anything on Chrome 8.(chrome version of the day)
    – Tim Post
    Jan 20, 2011 at 23:10
  • Works in FF for me too, but not Safari. Is this a WebKit incompatibility? Jan 21, 2011 at 0:40
  • 1
    I just created a static version of of the page. It won't be updated as frequently (at least once per day) but it should work for those of you who can't get the thing to load. I'm sorry to say that, given that this is built in JavaScript, there isn't a very good way of automatically generating the cached version
    – Yi Jiang
    Jan 21, 2011 at 1:37
  • 1
    @YiJiang, would it be possible for you to release a version of this which works for the Super User and Server Fault elections, too? If you don't want to do the work of putting in all the users (if it doesn't grab them automatically, not sure how it works internaly), I'd be happy to provide you a list of UIDs for the users who've nominated themselves so far.
    – nhinkle
    Jan 21, 2011 at 1:47
  • 1
    @nhinkle Sure, I think I can - it'll just be as simple as changing a few URLs around. Hang on while I finish what I'm doing now and I'll get back to you.
    – Yi Jiang
    Jan 21, 2011 at 1:48
  • 7
    Holy crap, its beautiful. I'm making a note here: huge success!
    – user1228
    Jan 21, 2011 at 16:45
  • 1
    @GeorgeStocker That's already done :) Go have a look at it now
    – Yi Jiang
    Jan 26, 2011 at 13:22
2

I think anyone who wants to be a moderator should have demonstrated extensive participation in SO already. That includes voting, making useful comments, editing, etc. I believe anyone who has trouble with those duties is going to struggle as a moderator. Is there a way to collect stats on these? (So far I've just been checking the nominees for badges like Strunk & White or Pundit.)

9
  • 1
    Good idea. Strung and White, Copy-Editor, Pundit (maybe), Electorate (Maybe), Civic Duty. Those all show community participation besides reputation earning.
    – jjnguy
    Jan 19, 2011 at 16:54
  • @Justin Right, I've been checking for all of those plus Sportsmanship. I know I can query for badges through SE's data export, but I'd still need the list of nominees for an automated report. Jan 19, 2011 at 17:04
  • 1
    @chris, I forgot about Sportsmanship. That's another good one.
    – jjnguy
    Jan 19, 2011 at 17:05
  • I'm strongly in favor of seeing both total numbers of votes as well as the ratio. Personally, I'm looking for a moderator that has voted a lot, and has not been afraid to downvote.
    – Phrogz
    Jan 19, 2011 at 20:24
  • @Phrogz define not afraid to downvote? 10% is there a metric? Is it just a gut? More than 1% and less than 5%?
    – jcolebrand
    Jan 20, 2011 at 1:23
  • @drachenstern As a crotchety bastard, I would actually look for 50%-100% as many downs as ups.
    – Phrogz
    Jan 20, 2011 at 1:34
  • @all, YiJiang is working on an automated version of my file, I'm feeding your 'requirements' to him, so keep 'em coming :)
    – Benjol
    Jan 20, 2011 at 6:17
  • @Benjol Ah, great. Basically I'd want to see which silver and gold participation badges a nominee has. (So ignore bronze badges, tag badges, and any questions or answers badges.) I'm looking to gauge participation rather than technical competence, which is already factored-in with the top-30-by-rep requirement. Jan 20, 2011 at 6:21
  • @chrisaycock, agreed. Looking at the list as it stands, the rep/gold ratio is quite variable. I'm not sure that which gold/silver badges is interesting - there's a high chance it wil be in the user's top tags (which are shown).
    – Benjol
    Jan 20, 2011 at 6:39
2

Would probably be useful to expand the notable badges to include the new Review badges (Steward, Reviewer, Custodian)!

2
  • Please use the Stack Apps page for bug reports, feature requests etc, the comment thread here is getting a little long :)
    – Benjol
    May 15, 2013 at 5:28
  • Might be worth copying the "update" block into the question and getting this locked! :)
    – Flyk
    May 15, 2013 at 9:11
0

Flag weight. I know you can't display it, but still...

1
  • Don't forget to tell @Yi :)
    – Benjol
    Mar 24, 2011 at 9:41

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