Warning potential new moderators?

I don't necessarily think that a warning is what is required here.

AFAIK, moderator candidates receive a list of questions to answer prior to the election itself.

If a specific community cares about the "CoC 2019 updates / de-modding related situation", then that community could include a question like

What is your stance on the CoC 2019 updates / de-modding related situation?

Then the people who will be voting can draw their very own conclusions on the response they receive for that question. Very much up to the individual communities to make that choice.

My personal two cents: at least for any upcoming election during the next months, a candidate who doesn't talk about that situation right on their profile upfront, that person definitely won't get my vote. In a year from now, who knows if "we" will still be here. Or how "the community" works and thinks 4Q2020.

Meaning: right now, a warning is useless, because a person for a moderator position better knows what is going on, and has made a conscious decision.

So that warning would be for the future?! But as said: how could we possibly know today what exactly we should warn a moderator about in 2021 or so?

Finally, from a "technical point of view", the question really looks at this from the wrong end.

People shouldn't discuss how to warn moderators.

Be proactive, be creative, and as mentioned before: the moderators could/should sit down and discuss the set of rules/practices that they want SE Inc. to uphold from now on, so that every current and future moderator knows exactly what to expect. And maybe, just maybe all moderators agree that all of them would step down if SE Inc. ever violates that to-be-defined contract.

To warn someone, point them to summary posts or just use your own words

This is a very complex issue with lots of intertwined concerns; it would be pretty impossible for us to come up with an impartial warning that was relevant to every person and would effectively convey the issues that you want to convey to a moderator candidate. If you have a particular concern that you think the candidate(s) should be aware of, write your own and focus on that.

Either that, or just post a message to any one of the several summary MSE posts and let them come to their own conclusions.

Just be aware there has been a lot of drama recently surrounding MSE and moderation that potential moderators should be aware of. See [insert links] and read up.

Ideally, moderator candidates should already be aware or will make themselves aware

Moderator candidates should be aware of the situation on MSE already or, if not, they should be checking into things as part of deciding whether moderation is something they want to do. Since one of the roles of a moderator is to be aware of such things, I'd hope that it would be important to them.

I'd also be shocked if questions at the very least hinting at this were not going to be put on nearly every moderator candidate questionnaire, which could serve as a warning if not a call to investigate things further.

Adding such a question (assuming it gains community acceptance) yourself would be a good way of ensuring that candidates are both aware of and actively think about the issues at hand.

I think this could extend into a general guideline for involving yourself in an online community. Nothing is truly anonymous, but a lot of people are well served to protect their real identities, especially when stepping up to a position in which conflict and strife will be unavoidable to some extent.

Even diverging from the point that the company may publicly out you (ugly and depressing as that state of affairs is), it is generally a good idea to protect your privacy if you're going to moderate a SE site. By nature of your job, you will have to tell a lot of angry and perhaps dangerous people to calm down or suspend them. Making the mod messages themselves pseudonymous was a good first step, but wasn't comprehensive.

Guarding your online identity is a good idea regardless of circumstance in these times.

I believe all "mod-only guidelines and FAQs" should be made public.

For any potential moderator to decide whether or not they are willing to become a moderator, they should be able to know exactly what rules and guidelines they would be expected to follow and enforce.

Currently, there are guidelines which are not public, but which moderators are expected to follow and uphold.

This creates a hidden line of information. That's a bad thing in this case.

Of course, I understand that moderators need to have the ability to have private conversations. That's a different point. What I'm talking about is knowing what rules you would be expected to follow if you become a moderator.

I think knowing such rules would provide sufficient "warning."

If by "warning" you mean telling them that "Stack Exchange is a mess" or some such thing, I can't really get behind that. But I definitely believe that potential moderators should know exactly what they are signing up for, which they cannot do when there are secret but still authoritative guidelines for moderators.

There was some discussion on this exact topic on an answer to a now deleted question.

One user pointed to the mod-oriented FAQ about recent code of conduct changes.

Another user replied (with 38 comment upvotes):

It'd be helpful for non-moderators to have access to this, so they can determine if they would be willing to become moderators in the first place.

My own reply (13 comment upvotes) was:

I look forward to the first post from someone who wins a moderator election, then immediately resigns when they read the secret FAQ. If the moderator guidelines aren't made public for this contentious issue, it's only a matter of time before it happens....

When you say warning I'm thinking of something like the new post notices, something that jumps out at you when you click the button to nominate yourself for an election.

No I do not think SE needs a warning to new mods. Better documentation, and clearer focus (publicly facing) for all mods, but not a warning.

If someone does not know enough about SE to know about "the mess" then does that person know enough to be a mod?

There is a whole heap of things SE should do, lets hope that they try to fix some of them before jumping into replacement mod elections; and this warning would just be a band-aid on the elections - not a fix for the real problems.

For me, there are two possible answers to your question:

A: Any election would not need a warning on a site that no moderator are on strike against SE or where a moderator left (resigned)

B: For sites with moderator(s) on strike, aka suspended activities: Stack Exchange needs to fix the situation before running any new election that would replace any moderator(s) that has stepped down their activities.

In my book this would not be ok, like strikebreaker in such case if they do that.

I have personally sent an email to the SE team in the past, still unanswered, that their mess is putting a pressure into moderators that are left, but if they want to resolve the issue they need to solve it at the base.

A large number of moderators have recently taken a stand-down. [Firing mods and forced relicensing: is Stack Exchange still interested in cooperating with the community?]

Some people are blinded by their innocence and desire to help moderate this great platform.

Sometimes, a minimal amount of enlightenment is but required in order to bring awareness to extremely controversial topics, especially when they concern the company to which they wish to moderate.

A large number of moderators have recently taken a stand-down. This is one such perfect example. It's counter-intuitive for anyone to be applying as a moderator, unless they're perfectly aware of the situation, and still wish to proceed.