It is conceivable that in the resulting confusion, Harry Gindi ends up with the only non-negative total.

Heh, that'll be the day.

Exactly what it means to be a moderator is a little fuzzy. The workload is hard to quantify because a lot of moderation is a natural extension of being an active participant on MO and here on meta. Here are some typical moderator activities. Other moderators can chime in if I missed something important.

• Occasionally use your super powers to keep MO running smoothly.
• Set a good example for others on MO (e.g. leave constructive comments, be patient and respectful). Non-moderators should do this too, but moderators should really do it.
• Pay attention to flags for moderator attention. Resolve them if possible.
• Get in touch with users by email to resolve problematic behaviors. Be available by email to resolve account problems.
• Discuss issues with other moderators (usually by email or via google wave). We try to resolve most problems on meta, but some things are best handled behind the scenes.

There are plenty of other tasks that you don't have to be a moderator to do, but which are generally done by moderators. For example, Scott and I have done things like set up meta, get jsMath working, and write code to produce public database dumps and automatically generate arXiv trackbacks.

Basically, by being a moderator you are officially taking on the responsibility of making MO as awesome as it can be. This isn't too hard because it mostly hums along being really awesome all by itself, but there are lots of opportunities to help it along. See also this post by Scott

Current moderators simply use their regular email addresses for "official MO business", but I can give moderators an ---@mathoverflow.net email if they want. I think it's usually best to use your personal email address and keep emails fairly casual.

@Andrew, Mariano: I think a crude election will produce a better short list with less energy than just about any other method. I probably wouldn't use MO for a "real" election, but in this case I don't think precision is that important and voting on MO will definitely get us maximum voter turnout. The objections that (MO is a poor election platform) and (an election isn't exactly what we want) sort of cancel each other out in my head.

On top of that, I think MO is rather poorly adapted to be used as a voting platform!

It seems like a good time to elect a new moderator. Appointing a new moderator every so often will bring new energy to the task, offer existing moderators a way out if they're ready to move on, and ensure that the moderation process reflects community consensus.

Can you elaborate on that first point a little, please?

I disagree with the second sentence. I thought that the whole point of having moderators was that they are a safety net for when the in-built community moderation doesn't work. I like knowing that the moderators are there, but I dislike it when I see them active. Knowing that they are there means that I can relax a bit over whether or not the "community moderation" is working since I know that they can always step in if things get out of hand. But when they do step in, that means that something has gotten out of hand which is Not Ideal.

I would not favour (or favor) a vote on MO. Indeed, I would not favour a vote at all. I think that it is reasonable to have a discussion (as seems to be happening) and I would go for "nomination, acceptance, seconding": someone nominates a candidate, the candidate decides whether or not to accept the nomination, then someone else needs to second that candidate. The eventual list of such will probably be quite small, and then the current moderators can have a private discussion about who best fits their idea for MO. I would have the public part take place here, but clearly announced over on MO. If someone is vocal about MO, but doesn't come over here to join in the discussions, then I question their commitment to MO and would view them as someone just "sounding off".

(PS I'm glad to see that the conditions for being a moderator don't include any familiarity with programming; indeed, getting Markdown syntax correct doesn't seem to be a prerequisite!)

Interestingly, Stack Overflow has held several elections -- early on they used the Stack Exchange software, then switched to a custom STV system.

Why did they switch? I'm a bit skeptical of using a question as a poll booth...

We're not absolutely sure how this should work: this thread on meta is intended to work this out! Please use this thread to discuss how the election should work. If you're itching to nominate people, do it on this other thread.

Since it's important to have high turnout and to involve the entire community, we're almost certainly going to break with policy and hold any actual election on the main site, as a question, and use the built-in voting tools. There are a few potential problems with this, which we'll need to think about. (Interestingly, Stack Overflow has held several elections -- early on they used the Stack Exchange software, then switched to a custom STV system.)

I see the whole process as having the following steps

0) We start talking about the election, here.
1) A nomination process, done informally on meta. (Perhaps with a site announcement on the main site.)
2) Create an election question on the main site, along with a site announcement pointing to it.
3) Anton decides whether he likes the answer or not, and appoints a new moderator :-)

At some point we'll also need to come up with a "prompt" for the election question. It's important that we describe the powers and responsibilities a moderator has, so nominees know what they're getting into, and voters know what they're doing. I'll start doing this in the thread below.

Some open questions:

a) Should we just skip the nomination process, and have people self-nominate by answering the election question?
b) Should the election question be community wiki (this has an effect on how voting works)?
c) Should we make any (hard to enforce?) rules about downvoting and multiple voting?
d) Is voting on MathOverflow a terrible idea? If so, does anyone want to implement an alternative system?