Summary: Writing Stack Exchange will begin the nomination stage for a special election on September 7th to bring on more moderators.
For full details of the process, see the announcement on Meta Stack Exchange. The timeline:
Starting on September 7th, users can nominate themselves. Users can also ask questions on meta for potential moderators to answer. (Use the discussion and election tags.)
On September 14th, if there are enough candidates, we'll run an election. If not, I'll simply appoint the candidate/s. (There's a small chance we'll need to remove a nomination, but I doubt that will come up.)
If there is an election, we'll announce the results on meta on September 22nd.
(Note for current moderators: there's no need to nominate yourself even though you'll likely get an email saying you should. The system assumes the first election is a graduation election, which would mean moderators would need to be re-elected. This isn't that sort of election.)
If you have any questions about the process, please stick them in an answer here.
A few notes.
This post is serving a couple purposes - different than it usually does. This site has changed a lot in the last year so this election means something different than it might have a year ago. Last year, after particularly strong nudges from the people in this community, I, and the other CMs were excited to have it leave Beta and enter "full site" status. It was something y'all celebrated and was an opportunity for future growth.
All of that changed in September when longstanding moderator Monica Cellio was removed from her position here and on several other sites. I can't discuss this; either the past events or the future but what I can say is that the impact on this site has been huge. Many of your most avid contributors and curators left, some even deleting their accounts. This loss of community has gravely impacted the site and changed its trajectory.
For the last few months I've been waiting for the right time to take this next step. Perhaps I've waited longer than I should have and I'd planned to get this rolling sooner but I was concerned about dredging up bad memories and I wanted to see whether the site pulled together or continued to degrade. I think that - hope that - moving forward and electing a moderator team will help this site work towards building up excellence again.
I can't give you back what you lost and I can't even say that this will get you back to where you were - I don't think it will - but I do think that this is an opportunity for y'all to decide what's next and how you can shape yourselves for this next era.
Because of everything above, this is a beta-style election. Y'all aren't in beta but it seemed unfair to run this election like a full site election, which would require Cyn - who's been keeping flags handled and tending the site - to run if she chose to continue. I don't want to force her into that but I do want to get her some help if she chooses to stay. Either way, much appreciation is due to Cyn. I understand this has been a rocky road and I'm sorry for that.
My ask
- If you're interested in nominating, leave a comment or answer below. This will help me get an idea of whether there's much interest and what I should expect next week. This is completely optional and non-binding - you neither need to say anything, nor are you expected to nominate if you say you will. The standard rules apply - you have to have >300 reputation to nominate.
- Let me know if you have thoughts or questions. This can be about the election, the site health, the future of Writing. If I can't answer for some reason, I'll let you know.
Thanks to those of you who have continued to be active here and to the people who built this site up over the years. This site has been an incredible resource for so many people I'd love to see that continue.
