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TGO currently has 3 moderators. all of them are also moderators on other sites. Most of them are not very active at TGO.

None seem to have the time for basic tasks like Renaming Tags

There is Experimental Pro Tempore elections for sites still in Beta.

Should we hold an election to add a moderator?

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3 Answers 3

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TGO does indeed have three mods. However, moderation and the number of ♦'s taking care of a site is all about scale. TGO has very experienced moderators (as evidenced by moderating other sites) and TGO is also a very low-traffic Stack Exchange, so it realistically requires much less of our time/effort than some of the other sites.

Secondly, the site is doing very well via community moderation at this time. We haven't had a high flag volume due to things being handled by the community, from edits being approved to post deletions, etc.

The other consideration that is often forgotten is that the community sometimes expects moderators to be the primary or even sole custodians of the site. It's not the moderator's job to answer or even monitor all of the meta posts - I understand that mods (like myself) should be on Meta more frequently, but Meta is about community discussion, not necessarily one asking questions and mods answering or even setting "policy" - rather Meta is a safe space for the community to discuss and come to a consensus on various issues, like if we need another diamond.

Personally, I think TGO doing well with the current staff. I wish there was more discussion on this question than just us three ♦'s, the OP, and one other community member, that doesn't display broad meta involvement across the board.

Discussion welcome!

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  • Thanks for posting an answer. Personally I think that moderation elections increase community involvement Adding some of the newer blood to the moderator pool periodically is good for the community. The community evolves over time, the moderators should evolve as well. Had this site graduated there would have been elections long ago.
    – James Jenkins
    Commented Apr 10, 2019 at 13:43
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    @JamesJenkins it's a double-edged sword, like the chicken/egg argument. Need a strong community to have a good moderator election pool/involvement, but the election itself can (sometimes) stir things up as well. I'm doubtful, however, that this site would have had more elections if graduated, due to traffic. The pro-tempores may or may not have been replaced, some sites have added and others have replaced them. It's all about balance.
    – studiohack Mod
    Commented Apr 10, 2019 at 13:52
  • I hate to seem like I am picking on you, but after you made this post it was about 4 months before you came back to TGO Meta. I saw you finally came back in the last 24 hours or so. I have issues seeing you as a community representative when you don't seem to be motivated to be involved in meta. Look at your meta last visited calendar, do you really feel like your doing what you would expect from a moderator?
    – James Jenkins
    Commented Aug 21, 2019 at 18:10
  • P.S. I am not suggesting that you step down, you have been a mod since the beginning and there have been some tough times in there. But I do think you need to think about if you should be listed as semi active, and maybe add a mod who is more active.
    – James Jenkins
    Commented Aug 21, 2019 at 18:12
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    @JamesJenkins I understand your point. I disagree but I understand.
    – studiohack Mod
    Commented Aug 22, 2019 at 14:53
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Let me correct a couple of misapprehensions:

I know you may not be able to see it, but our moderators are active here, carrying out duties.

Also, speaking for myself, there is ample time to carry out things like renaming tags, however we would rather wait for significant community support for most of the ones suggested.

So... I'd suggest we don't need this yet, but happy to see what the other mods think.

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    I agree. Not wanting to go through dozens of pluralizations that aren't doing any real harm isn't really about not having the time.
    – Kevin Mod
    Commented Apr 8, 2019 at 22:40
  • @Rory can you define active? I find it difficult count a person as active in the community when months pass between visits to meta.
    – James Jenkins
    Commented Apr 9, 2019 at 12:28
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    @James - we have activity logs, so we know what actions mods take and when. The vast majority are behind the scenes. And you cannot even tell when someone visits meta, so I would suggest your assumption that people aren't visiting is also unfounded.
    – Rory Alsop Mod
    Commented Apr 9, 2019 at 17:55
  • It is easy to see when someone visits meta (or main space). Open their meta user profile (different from main space) the last visited/seen value is on the right. For you own profile, you can click on the time/data and see what dates you visited. If you are a site mod, you can see the calendar for all users. I can see that you last visited meta 58 minutes before I posted this, you can see I have visited TGO meta 549 distinct days since I joined 4 years and 10 months ago.
    – James Jenkins
    Commented Aug 22, 2019 at 15:57
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    I know this James. It's still not really relevant to the point, is it.
    – Rory Alsop Mod
    Commented Aug 23, 2019 at 18:41
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The real question is: does TGO have housekeeping problems that haven't been solved, or that have taken too long to solve? I don't think so. If we had more traffic on the site, we probably would need another moderator. Someone mentioned a problem with renaming tags or making plural tags singular, or maybe it was vice-versa. Sorry, but whenever I see tags as a topic, my eyes glaze over.

As for having an election to bring new blood into the moderator mix, I am an agnostic, and that wasn't the topic of this question.

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  • I was kind of thinking more along the lines of "if we make Charle a moderator, he would take care of these tags things and we would not even see the conversation in meta" but I didn't want to say that outright. I have not asked him, but I think if there was an election, I would nominate him and the the community would elect him. But as studiohack points out elections are a "double-edged sword", I tend to be optimistic, the community here is pretty up beat.
    – James Jenkins
    Commented Apr 11, 2019 at 13:04
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    Not just upbeat, @James, but generally very easy going, pleasant and polite. On some sites, I spend all my time mediating between people, editing, suspensions, and the far less fun side of things.
    – Rory Alsop Mod
    Commented Apr 13, 2019 at 9:48
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    @JamesJenkins On large sites, there are enough high rep users to get tag synonyms approved and to tackle mass re-names. On a small site like TGO it often takes mod power, but I wouldn't want a moderator who just makes things happen behind the scenes. I want moderators to act on the consensus of the community.
    – StrongBad
    Commented Aug 21, 2019 at 14:12

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