When will the next election take place?

Question

It's been over 2 years since the last election. It seems to me that it may be time to have another. This election article doesn't explain how or when the election process starts.

From what I've experienced, the moderators of this community do a pretty good job. So to be clear, this question/suggestion has nothing to do with current moderators and their ability/performance (with exception to ʍǝɥʇɐɯ, he hasn't been active since 11/25/2011).

There are users such as Daniel R Hicks, Batman, Móż, Criggie, and andy256 to name a few, that are deserving of elevated privileges. These users are some of, if not, the most active and trusted users of this community. The impact and difference they make on the community is undeniable.

Answer 1

The short answer to your question is: If the moderators feel that we need an additional moderator or moderators, we hold an election.

A little background information about moderator elections, removals, terms of service and limits:

1. There is no set schedule for moderator elections.
2. Moderators are elected for life, except in rare circumstances.
3. Moderators can only be removed by other moderators in conjunction with the Stack Exchange overlords.
4. There is no set limit on the number of monitors for the site. There is, however, the guiding principle that high rep users should handle most issues which implies, in my personal opinion, that fewer moderators is better.

Right now, I think that the community does a good job handling the vast majority of issues before moderator intervention is needed and that the moderators handle the rest in a reasonable amount of time. However, if you feel that this is not the case, please raise the issue in a new Meta question or chat.

If you're particularly astute, you noted that I said it's up to the moderators to decide when to hold an additional election, not the community. While that is technically accurate, I think the moderators on this site do a good job of responding to community input (I hope that you all agree) and that we would be very likely to respond favorably to a call for elections from the community.

If you wanted to find out more about moderation, everything you ever wanted to know is available in a moderator FAQ on Stack Exchange Meta.

Answer 2

I'm pretty happy with the moderation here -- its one of the smaller non-beta SE communities and we have good coverage and good behavior (usually). The number of moderators needed depends on the size of the community (and I think the system does the determination of this on its own).

Once you have 20k rep, you have most of the tools moderators have. Most of the extra abilities moderators have are needed very rarely. Enough users have high enough rep to not need binding votes very frequently. We don't lock posts very often, need to suspend/delete users very often (*) and our tags are relatively clean, and I've never come close to my flag/close/delete/etc. limits. Converting answers into comments (and better yet, the reverse ability if they allowed it) would be something I'd use occasionally, but I can flag these anyway so its no real loss. Its usually pretty easy to reach the moderators on chat here anyway.

However, if we are allotted 5 moderators and one hasn't logged in for nearly 5 years, I think it is time to replace that one. It may or may not be necessary for the moderation load, but as a just in case, it might be useful.

Finally, I'd like to note that I don't want to be a moderator -- I've got enough other things to do these days that I pretty much cast votes/flags, write comments and sometimes answers. I rarely have the time or will to go through the review queues unless someone points something out in chat.

(*) I can only think of two users of note who has been suspended, and I wouldn't have done either. Content outweighed attitude in my opinion, though I fully understand the (justifiable) decision to suspend them.