Congratulations! You've met the participation and engagement expectations for an active private beta site, and will be moving into public beta in the coming weekson July 26, 2022!
We were worried for the first week or so there, but after posting some clear guidance to assist y'all in making sure this site grew into a healthy and successful community, we were happy to see a surge in activity and Meta discussions! ^_^
As we’re getting ready to wrap up the private beta for Bioacoustics Stack Exchange, that means it’s time to start thinking about what comes next: the election to choose your first pro-tem moderators.
What does it take to be a Moderator?
Prior to 2018, pro-tem moderators were picked by staff, and the Community Management team would look for users who:
- Have a reasonably high reputation score to indicate active, consistent participation.
- Show an interest in their meta’s community-building activities.
- Lead by example, showing patience and respect for their fellow community members in everything they write.
- Exhibit those intangible traits discussed in A Theory of Moderation.
- Have an eye for content that should be flagged, closed or removed and act on that within the expectations of the community and Stack Exchange generally.
Electing your moderators
In 2018, however, we started experimenting with hosting elections for beta sites to choose their pro-tem moderators, in addition to the community-elected moderators in sites not in Beta, in the rest of the network. The process is mostly the same, but if you’re interested in the full details, see the announcement on Meta Stack Exchange.
In accordance with that, I’m here today to announce this site’s first pro-tem election and invite users interested in nominating to state their intention to do so here. Additionally, if you feel someone would be a good fit as a moderator on this site, feel free to use an answer to this question to support them and encourage them to run.
The pool of nominees that the community can choose from will hopefully bring a good mix of skills to the table: folks who are experienced in the SE network, folks are who good subject-matter experts, folks who are skilled at community building, etc.
The timeline:
Starting on 1 August, users can nominate themselves on the election page. Users can also ask questions on meta for potential moderators to answer. (Use the discussion and election tags.)
On 8 August, if there are 4 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 4 candidates, I'll simply appoint the candidates. (There's a small chance we'll need to remove a nomination.)
If there is an election, I'll announce the results on meta on 16 August (or 23 August, if we need to extend the nomination period).
NOTE:
- This is not an official election nomination thread. It’s just a space to get some conversation about potential nominees going and a notion of who would be willing to step up, so you don't have to put up your whole election nomination here.
If you have any questions about the process, please ask them in an answer below.
