By fiat or tradition or something, all candidates for moderator are self-nominated. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, first of all, there's the rampant Dunning Kruger syndrome, in which the skills of the sufferers are inversely proportional to their confidence in their illusory skill. This explains the survey results that show that 80% of people surveyed on a topic think they're in the top 20% of experts in that topic.
Let me hasten to add that this is a societal issue (at least in the US), and not one particular to ELU. And while I'm hastening to add things, let me also say that this isn't directed to anyone in particular in this year's list of hopefuls and that I include myself as possibly infected.
The second problem is that those striving to attain authority over others thereby offer prima facie evidence that they shouldn't be allowed anywhere near that authority. This applies to the police, the military, the political apparat, and moderators of online forums. Perhaps all will turn out for the best, but by my count more than half the self-nominees are card-carrying members of the CPVPV, and there's at least one I once regarded as a stalker.
There are other ways of selecting moderators, but I don't know of better ways given that the gentle con of the StackExchange business plan is based on convincing people to exchange their time, effort, and expertise for the nugatory.
Will the election results be streamed live this year? I, for one, can't wait to hear the stirring words "May I have the envelope, please."
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"... unclear what you're asking. Please edit your question." OK, I don't mind if I do. First, I call nonsense. Not least because this isn't Jeopardy. Many discussion topics do not appear as questions, especially when it comes to discussing the mechanics of keeping out the riff-raff. We've heard calls for forcing newcomers watch a video, requiring them to register, and making them post bond before they can post questions.
(OK, I made that last one up.)
But all of a sudden, when it comes to a discussion of the mechanics of moderator selection, things become so murky the "question" needs to be put on hold. At least in the opinion of one moderator, one candidate for moderator, and one other who seems eminently qualified for the position.
This is exactly the kind of behavior I'm talking about.
So is it clear yet?
Now maybe this is pointless to discuss because the procedure is set in stone system wide. And maybe it's fair to criticize me for not proposing alternatives. (Sorry, I don't have any. I've dealt with one other site in which the moderators groom high-rep users for an invitation to join their circle. I didn't think that worked any better.) But these are different considerations.
But thanks for making my point for me. Well played!