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Summary: Freelancing Stack Exchange will begin the nomination stage for a special election on November 1 to bring in two more moderators, as a third attempt after last October’s failed election and last April’s failed election.

For full details of the process, see the announcement on Meta Stack Exchange. The timeline:

  • Starting on November 1, users can nominate themselves. Users can also ask questions on meta for potential moderators to answer. (Use the and tags.)

  • On November 8, if there are three or more candidates, we’ll run an election. If not, I’ll extend the nomination period for a week. If, at the end of that extension period there are still less than 3 candidates, I’ll simply appoint the candidates. (There’s a small chance we’ll need to remove a nomination, but I doubt that will come up.)

  • If there is an election, I’ll announce the results on meta on November 16 (or November 23, if we need to extend the nomination period).

  • If we can't appoint at least one candidate as a result of this election, the site will be shut down. This possibility had been mentioned in this previous post, and we sincerely hope it doesn't get to that. That being said, we think it's important to set expectations properly on what's at stake for this election.

If you have any questions or concerns about the process, please stick them in an answer here. We hope to see some good nominees in this election! ^_^

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  • Is there still an age limit on this election?
    – Ekadh Singh - Reinstate Monica
    Oct 12, 2021 at 17:23
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    If you're referring to this policy, @EkadhSingh-ReinstateMonica, then yes it is still in place.
    – JNat StaffMod
    Oct 12, 2021 at 17:42
  • any chance of that getting included in the meta posts in the future?
    – Ekadh Singh - Reinstate Monica
    Oct 12, 2021 at 18:03
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    As the post I linked to shows, candidates are informed of this upon nomination.
    – JNat StaffMod
    Oct 12, 2021 at 18:08
  • JNat I agree with @EkadhSingh-ReinstateMonica that it should be stated up front rather than waiting for them to start the nomination process before telling them.
    – Nike Dattani
    Oct 12, 2021 at 21:17
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    A very active stack exchange user has offered to help moderate here, but says he's been told he isn't eligible.. If the goal is to find candidates why are people being rejected from running?
    – ibid
    Oct 12, 2021 at 23:11
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    @JNat There are some people that have expressed their ability to help moderate the site, however they currently lack the required reputation to nominate themselves. Will the CM team shut down the site, knowing that there are people willing to moderate, but are barred from the election? This site doesn't have that many visitors that one can easily raise their reputation to the threshold and contribute in a meaningfull way before the nomination ends.
    – Luuklag
    Oct 13, 2021 at 7:25
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    Got dragged in here by the discussion of the topic elsewhere - and well, just as much as getting butts on the seats, it feels just as important to consider both the failure of the last two elections, and the needs of the community as is. There's been some discussion of why folks don't stand - but as having sufficient moderators is a key sign of the health of the site, and looking at how some of the interest is primarily about saving the site, what does the community feel that new moderators need to be and what are the qualities expected of them?
    – Journeyman Geek
    Oct 13, 2021 at 12:02
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    On SE's end, as someone who tends to be a little enthusiastic about the smaller communites - I'd also wonder if there's anything the community can ask of SE to improve the health of the site
    – Journeyman Geek
    Oct 13, 2021 at 12:03
  • Personally, I came in to Freelancing.SE after only being a freelancer for a couple months - but I've dealt with lots of freelancers, which gave me my experience to answer questions. The modding part came as we needed people to moderate. It hasn't changed much of how I feel about the site, but it is an extra thing on top of answering questions. Obviously, mods do not need to answer every single question, but they need to be willing to participate in more than dropping the ban hammer.
    – Canadian Luke Mod
    Oct 13, 2021 at 19:26
  • Thanks JG and Luuk for visiting. The end of a protracted discussion is: Juan and JNat have declined the two volunteers (due to reputation), after starting on an written understanding that it made no difference. Fortunately freelancing question are accepted on Workplace.SE and other sites; there'll be somewhere to go if it comes to that. I have explained that it's expected that the CMs will be filling in and visiting with sufficient frequency to assist per: freelancing.stackexchange.com/legal/moderator-agreement
    – Rob
    Oct 13, 2021 at 21:01
  • @ibid Without mentioning too much, there's extant context elsewhere that makes the user fall short of the explicit requirements to nominate.
    – gparyani
    Oct 14, 2021 at 4:31
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    Just to make sure we're on the same page, @Rob: your comment makes it look like Juan and I decided that you're not being appointed because you don't have enough rep, which is not the case — Juan's comment on your rep being insufficient is in relation to you not being able to nominate in the election. We've been trying to convey that the initial offer was made in error. You understood that we aren't appointing anyone because we're going ahead with the election process, which is our standard way of giving out diamonds, right? There's still ~3 weeks to get the ~90 rep you need to nominate ;)
    – JNat StaffMod
    Oct 14, 2021 at 9:42
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    I've deleted some of the comments here that roamed beyond the scope of the discussion.
    – Catija
    Oct 22, 2021 at 6:31
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    I used to be very active here (freelancing.stackexchange.com/a/1623/27218 is my answer) but deleted my account due to stepping away from SE in general for a while. I'm would be interested and available to be a moderator but wouldn't be a candidate right now due to lack of rep.
    – stanri
    Oct 29, 2021 at 9:01

1 Answer 1

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I'd be happy enough to step up and help out moderating the site here. I've had experience before (I was a moderator on The Workplace). I know I don't have any rep here, but the site does (to me) seem to be healthy and has some great contributors. It would be a real shame for the site to shut down through no fault of the users.

I have enough rep now, so hopefully the site will now be protected from closure. Other candidates may well self nominate, which is fine, but at least there's now a guaranteed backstop.

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  • Gosh, what happened here?
    – Valorum
    Nov 3, 2021 at 7:20
  • @Valorum the CM team stepped in is what I've heard. Not going to make any assumptions on the what and why. The user here left some comments regarding their suspension on the MSE chatroom Tavern on the Meta, but I don't want to copy anything here.
    – Luuklag
    Nov 3, 2021 at 8:32
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    The nomination had to be withdrawn due to some circumstances surrounding it that led to a suspension. As you know, though, we don't usually discuss suspensions publicly, so I won't go into details about what happened there.
    – JNat StaffMod
    Nov 3, 2021 at 10:31
  • @Luuklag - I saw those notes. It didn't look like what he'd done was suspension-worthy (e.g. soliciting votes to help them gain enough rep to nominate themselves). Perhaps there's more to it than that.
    – Valorum
    Nov 3, 2021 at 11:10
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    @Valorum sollciting votes is not something we generally think off as acceptable behaviour AFAIK. But I won't start discussing their suspension here, and I suggest you do the same. If it was justified or not, either way it won't make any differences.
    – Luuklag
    Nov 3, 2021 at 11:16

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