Graduation election: interest check

Question

UPDATE: Thanks to all who demonstrated interest in running in an upcoming election — the election has now been scheduled.

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Sitecore Stack Exchange left beta in December 2021. This meant, among other things, that we might have "full-site moderator elections" (or "graduation election") scheduled in 2022 or 2023. (Organizing elections for 59 sites takes time.)

What's the difference between a pro-tempore election and a graduation election, you ask?

• In a pro-tempore moderator election, there would be as many slots as there are moderators who are stepping down. All mods on our site would likely step down. So, in our case, we would have a three-slot election.
• In a graduation election, there would be as many slots as there are moderator positions, i.e., three on small sites such as our own. This means that even moderators who wish to continue moderating would need to nominate themselves and stand for election. In a graduation election (and in full elections generally), the number of candidates must be higher than the number of open moderator positions, otherwise the election is not competitive. Non-competitive elections get cancelled, after which moderators and community managers figure out how to continue. (For a recent example, see Moderator election canceled due to insufficient nominees; what happens next? on French Language SE.)

A pro-tempore election only gets cancelled if there are no candidates. If there is only one candidate but no more than the number of open positions, the candidate(s) win(s) the election at the end of the nomination phase without going through the actual voting process.

The intent of this post is to find out how many users would be willing to nominate themselves as potential moderators. So please comment on or respond to this post if you would be interested. If we have at least four potential candidates, a graduation election is feasible. If we have at least one potential candidate but fewer than four, we can have a pro-tempore election. If we have no candidates, there will be wailing in all the moderator chat rooms - or perhaps not; we'll figure something out.

Answer 1

I would be happy to work as mod on SSE

Answer 2

In the interests of Community

I think it's only fair that I, a prominent and/or dominant person on the Moderator lines of the Sitecore Stack Exchange, make my intentions known.

Let me be clear on this:

I do not intend to run for Moderator again

So I am the "person of record" for launching this site.

And as far as moderator activities go, there is no doubt I have been the most actively engaged.

So I backed the effort to launch this site, I fought hard for it in the early days, and I've been investing literally thousands of hours into it year since we launched.

A few historical posts of note:

• Accepting Nominations — Who should moderate this site?

• New to the beta? This is what we're currently focusing on

• Extending the private beta to 10/18 — NOW OPEN!

• When do we expect sitecore.stackexchange.com to come out of public beta and goes fully public?

In short; it's been quite a ride :D

We we all started this, one late evening in some Slack channel, I made a promise to myself that I would try to help make this happen and that I would see it through to its eventual graduation. In my mind I optimistically saw this as a 1, maybe 2, year effort.

Turns out it took a little longer :-)

And I don't mind at all. I've enjoyed working with the site and helping to bring it to where it is today. It started as a community idea and I think it goes without question, that the site is a massive success. Our SEO rankings are high - Google trusts us - the traffic to the site remains steady and high. We have a steady base of users that keep coming back to the site, day after day.

And I feel, as far as my promise to myself goes... my job is done. The site is now fully graduated, it thrives, it is well known throughout the community. It has become everything we could have hoped for back when we started.

It's time for someone else to step in.

Answer 3

While my contributions over the past two years have been not as immersive as they were in the previous years, seeing this site grow to what it is today has been nothing but a labor of love for many of us, including most importantly, the current group of moderators that have been keeping the wheels greased.

The biggest help that anyone one of us can be here, is to be a contributor. Regardless of whether you're a moderator, long-time contributor, or a new member, being active, helping, and self-moderating using the provided flags are the most important.

Being a moderator is not a glamorous job. You have to be able to deal with people who might not agree with the heavy-handed decisions that moderators have to make day in and day out. It's a thankless job. But it's an important job.

In a lot of different categories, not just within Sitecore or Stack Exchange, I've been a community moderator and leader in a number of different groups.

I think my Stack Exchange history speaks for itself, but more importantly, it is going to take a lot of big feet to fill the big shoes that Mark, Rich, and Kamruz have been wearing. We would not be where we are today without them.

All that being said, I'd be willing to jump into the nomination pool knowing full and well that I'd only partially be able to fill those shoes, but happy to continue growing.

Answer 4

Very happy to see many people already interested - this means our community is still alive :)

And as I spend so much time here already, you can count on me as well.

Answer 5

I never pass up a good pro-tempore opportunity. I'm in.

Answer 6

It's my pleasure to help the Sitecore community, please count me in.

Answer 7

Happy to help the Sitecore Community. Count me in !!