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TL;DR: There's been a change in the candidate list for the 2022 Moderator Election. If you've already voted, you should confirm your votes still accurately represent your preferences. Details follow.

I am Bella_Blue, a Community Manager on the Trust & Safety team for Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange. Part of my purview is to ensure the safety of the platform and to build trust within the community.

It has come to our attention that one of the nominees has participated in rule violations and is no longer eligible to take part in the election. The violation was discovered during a routine investigation and while we cannot go into the details of this infraction we have no choice but to suspend which makes them ineligible for candidacy.

Please understand this decision was not made lightly. We took into consideration that the title and responsibilities of a moderator comes with a heavy burden. As the election page states, they “are accorded the highest level of privilege on our community, and should themselves be exemplars of positive behavior and leaders within the community.”

We understood that by making this decision it would cause undue stress during what is supposed to be a fun and enjoyable time. However, our utmost responsibility as Community Managers is to the community as a whole and we believe it would be extremely remiss to not intervene. Our network is run by a standard of rules that apply to all users which means that even nominees are not exempt.

We ask for your patience and understanding at this time. Apologetically we can not disclose critical information due to privacy concerns and in this instance there is no way that we can submit the specifics for public review. Trust that our judgment here is reasonable.

Because of this change in circumstances there are two choices moving forward:

You may continue with the election- as we use a STV system as outlined here on this post on Meta and your votes will transfer to the next desirable candidate. By using this system there should be no serious issues with transferring votes.

You may choose to delay the election and start from scratch in a week. We know that there has been some interest in this on Meta and while that is not normal procedure this situation has opened the door for that opportunity.

If you choose to delay the decision must be made by Tuesday, April 5th by 20:00 UTC otherwise, the election will wrap-up as usual and the winners will be announced.

Whichever you decide please know we are here to support you and this election moving forward. We apologize for this disruption and thank you for your patience at this time.

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I also think the election should be delayed, not simply because there is still a small pool of voters, but also because I believe Nike's suspension was unwarranted. I think that the users here not being informed of what led to the suspension and Nike not being given any opportunity to dispute the claim before suspending him makes this a poor way of handling the situation.

Nike is an active user on a site I moderate and I think the situation can be explained without delving into personal details. The contention is that Nike created sockpuppet accounts to boost his rep on StackOverflow. These other accounts were noticed because they have similar IP addresses. However, the other accounts can very easily (at least prior to them being merged into Nike's account) be verified as belonging to other individuals who worked in close proximity to Nike. More specifically, SE merged the account Nike's account with his wife's account. I initially didn't want to include too many personal details, but Nike said I could include this information and I think it highlights that there is real, easily verifiable person behind this other account.

SE has said that, with the tools at their disposal, any voting between these accounts is indistinguishable from sockpuppetry, so the accounts have been suspended/merged regardless of the fact that they belong to different people. To me, this seems like a complete 180 of the position that SE has previously put forward in regards to these sorts of "questionable" accounts. Rather than giving users the benefit of the doubt that the accounts belong to coworkers/roommates/etc, it seems that any overlap of activity between users in the same area is potential grounds for suspension, as well as possibly losing your account by having it merged with your friend's/coworker's account. This seems to result in an implicit ban on multiple users from the same network, as apparently the standard doesn't actually depend on whether there actually is any sockpuppetry, but only whether there is any cross activity of nearby accounts regardless of if each belong to a different user.

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    $\begingroup$ Without going into specifics, that we never do, we look at much more than just "similar IP addressess". And are, in fact, firmly within the position you linked. Namely, folks shouldn't be: "Voting on your own posts or comments", "Supporting your own arguments ("+1: shog is right, don't know why the rest of you don't realize this")" and crossing the "if the second account allows you to do something on the site that your normal account would be prevented from doing, it is abuse" line. $\endgroup$
    – Cesar M StaffMod
    Commented Apr 1, 2022 at 15:17
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    $\begingroup$ I also wanna clarify the "SE has said that, with the tools at their disposal, any voting between these accounts is indistinguishable from sockpuppetry". That is not what we said. We didn't make generalizations. We said "There is a point where this behavior becomes indistinguishable from malice, and I'm afraid we've crossed the threshold here.". Which may seem small, but is an important distinction. It's exactly the distinction made in the MSE post linked in the answer. $\endgroup$
    – Cesar M StaffMod
    Commented Apr 1, 2022 at 15:20
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    $\begingroup$ @CesarM all of the those points center on the fact that the alternate account belongs to the same person. If there are multiple real people who will attest that "this is my account, that's there's", none of these points apply. I'm maybe missing the distinction between my paraphrasing and the quote: what you can see hints at user having a sockpuppets, the users in question can verify they are separate people, but whatever metrics you prefer to use say "sockpuppet" so whether they are different users or not isn't deemed relevant. $\endgroup$
    – Tyberius
    Commented Apr 1, 2022 at 15:50
  • $\begingroup$ Without knowing the backstory of the suspension, I would give both Nike and the moderators the benefit of any doubt about motives. However the suspension, even if the election were delayed until after the end of the month, would be disqualifying for a candidate for one year. So I'm not in favor of delaying the election of interim moderators on that basis, but I'd be happy to let folks wait because more time is needed to choose preferences. (I am not in need of additional time.) $\endgroup$
    – hardmath
    Commented Apr 2, 2022 at 16:27
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    $\begingroup$ @hardmath my hope would be that the suspension would be revoked assuming the charges were faulty. I agree there wouldn't be a point in delaying if the suspension was upheld. $\endgroup$
    – Tyberius
    Commented Apr 2, 2022 at 18:39
  • $\begingroup$ It the behavior only occurred on Stack Overflow, the user would have only been suspended there. However, they were suspended network-wide, which means there was activity on other sites involved. $\endgroup$
    – gparyani
    Commented Apr 12, 2022 at 18:22
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    $\begingroup$ I should also add that moderators are allowed to unsuspend network-suspended users on sites they moderate...see meta.stackexchange.com/a/257506/377214 $\endgroup$
    – gparyani
    Commented Apr 12, 2022 at 18:26
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Here is my view as I know how being a moderator and not hearing anything back leaves one wondering.

The Proof Assistants site is made up mostly of professionals and academics. As an admin (meaning I have full moderator rights and then a lot more) of a Discourse site made up of similar I know how little flags are used, which is a good thing.

If this site is similar I see no reason to change anything. I am quite happy with the way the election is progressing, even the election bot in chat is fun.

So for others reading this, feel free to disagree or post a different view.

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Currently we have 1172 users total of which half of those eligible to vote have voted, if everyone eligible votes the moderators elected will be decided by 11% of our user base.

Source: ElectionBot in chat, and Constituent badge page:

"I'm sorry to interfere, but... The election is in progress, and 64 (49.61% of 129 eligible) users have already voted! I can answer frequently-asked questions about elections (type @ElectionBot help for more info).".

Generally the lowest voter turnout exceeds 50% of the population, for political elections. Stack Exchange requires voters to have a reputation of at least 150.

If you would prefer a two week delay so you can earn some more reputation and vote then up vote this post.

If you believe that ~129 is a sufficient voter pool (plus a few more over the next few days) and there should be no delay of the election (scheduled to end Tuesday, April 5th by 20:00 UTC) you can down vote this post.

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