Do you think that there should be a poll for people to vote of people to become moderators. The people that could vote would be people with 6000 points or above. To keep away hackers and spammers.
I like the system we have. Hand picking moderators is a much better way to know we are getting good mods for the site, rather than a mass-vote which may get sloppy or controversial.
And you can only vot once. And the people that make the poll get to select the people that should be the ones running. Oh, and the first one that 200 people say yes to, gets to be the mod.
Hmmmm, I'm not sure this would work unless they hand-picked every voter and candidate so they knew they weren't getting false results, but it is much easier and reassuring to them if they hand pick them, so I think they will probably stick with the system they have now, it just would cause to much of a problem if they changed it.
It would be much too biased this way. Most members do not know what's best for them and who the best person to chose would be. Most of the 6000 and over members aren't the best nominees for mod either.
The thing is that we can have a hoax and someone will get everyone or try to get everyone to vote for one person. Moderators aren't tempted so that is the best system. If we could make sure no one can be bribed or anything, possible idea later on.
Most members do not know what's best for them and who the best person to chose would be.
Since this coming from a moderator can be seen as offensively patriarchal, I'm going to chime in and say that given the demographic and size of this community, this is also my assessment.
Furthermore, it's not like the user's voices aren't being heard. The trends in the posting and the trends in the moderator picking happen to coincide because the criteria for being noticed and for being 'mod material' happen to overlap, to a limited extent.
However the extent is limited. It is also true (with all due respect) that moderators do not necessarily have 'high AP'. Given the current scoring system, where profile comments give you 2AP as well, the majority of those who currently have over 6000AP have done so through forming social networks and chatting...which is in fact generally at odds with the behaviors desired for being a moderator.
Furthermore, there have been clear exceptions to this rule. The name may have faded into the musty annals of AG history, but many of you may remember a time when a certain character whom people were recommending to be moderator left right and center went rogue and attempted to maliciously spam the forum for several days until he was eventually banned. The moderators and the administration were well aware of the details that prevented their considering him to becoming a mod despite the popularity he had manipulated into being.
So yes. I'm sure the administration will hear the wishes but ultimately the decision is theirs. This is, after all, a kingdom, not a democracy :P
Haha, I guess you are referring to Switchfoot? Well, that was an interesting way how he got a ton of people on the site, on his side. Seriously, if we let the people directly pick a moderator, we could have spammers, hackers etc. running the site! Now we don't want that! I am sure mods take into considerstion people that the community like, but not ultimately based on it.
As usual, I am not sure that it could be said better than Strop put it.
Why do so many people want to be a moderator? I know my personal reasons for wanting to be one. I am curious. From what I can tell it seems that mostly the younger crowd wants to be a moderator purely for the POWER. That only is going to exclude most members.