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Followup-ish question to Why was there no election since 2011?.

Based on the growth rate of U&L, and the rate of increase in spam (I'm assuming that we have data on these), and based on other Stack Exchange communities, when will we next have an election? I'm assuming that no one steps down. Not very precise answers like "probably in a couple of years" are fine.

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    The revolution will not be televised... – jasonwryan Nov 18 '13 at 6:28
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As slm mentions, we don't typically run elections unless needed. Elections are triggered when either:

  1. we need to replace a moderator, or
  2. the workload increases enough that the moderator team needs help.

Unix.SE is blessed with:

  1. three committed moderators, and
  2. an exceptionally quiet site in terms of flags.

So there's really no plans to run another election.

I should note that while the site has been growing in terms of traffic, posts, etc., flags are being handled quickly and the flag queue is rarely very large. That's a sign of an efficient and diligent moderator team. I should also note that any number of things could change the situation, so I won't hazard a guess about when you could hope to gather election related badges. Sorry about that. ;-)

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    I.e. strugee, if we start flagging things more we can have another election ;) – goldilocks Nov 20 '13 at 15:50
  • @goldilocks: Heh. In all seriousness, probably not. The measures we look at are things like how long it takes for flags to be handled and whether or not the moderators are feeling overworked. You're mods are extremely efficient at handling flags partially because they are awesome, but also because the issues raised are not generally time consuming. It's a tribute to the quality of the site and its participants that an election has been unnecessary recently. – Jon Ericson Nov 20 '13 at 16:51
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I've seen no evidence that we need more. Is there something specific that wasn't addressed in Why was there no election since 2011??

A few months ago we had a troll incident that was handled very well, IMO, and other than that the site has been very quiet otherwise.

We still have the 3 mods and they're very active within the site, again just my opinion. Additionally we have a very strong secondary core of users that handle much of the day to day that I don't really see the need for additional mods at this point.

  • I agree that our mods are fine; they do a great job. To be 100% honest, this question was mostly prompted by me wondering when I could get the election-related badges – strugee Nov 18 '13 at 5:33
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    @strugee - LOL, I had that same thought before too 8-). There are also the beta ones that I wished I'd got in on the ground floor that some times bug me that you can't get now. Like an idiot I used to listen to Joel & Jeff when they were podcasting as Jeff coded up the original SO site, and I never thought to participate till much later. – slm♦ Nov 18 '13 at 5:35
  • right? don't forget the one about reading the FAQ that now has "(retired)" on the end of its description – strugee Nov 18 '13 at 5:37
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    Yes, not having complete sets of things bugs me. I hope I don't have OCD 8-). – slm♦ Nov 18 '13 at 5:48
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    Stack Exchange, paying you in free OCD stimulation, we appreciate your contribution. – xenoterracide Nov 18 '13 at 8:33
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    A troll incident - on some forums you get 10+ silly spammy questions/answers/edits in one day... – Wilf Jan 16 '14 at 20:05
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There will be one on Monday.

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