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2. The criteria for choosing a global mod should not be who wins a vote (which are virtually meaningless due to the potential for alts), it should be based on who is qualified.....in other words who has the experience in moderating the forum (or other forums). Some of the main reasons why someone will become a non-local board moderator are that someone makes a lot of accurate reports, has a good understanding of the rules, and mostly maintain neutrality in disputes -- the criteria for who becomes a local moderator appears to be much more lenient. After someone has proven themselves to be a competent patroller, they should take responsibility for a few sections, then eventually have responsibility for major sections (including the marketplace and related subs, bitcoin discussion and the altcoin sections) -- until someone has successfully moderated one or more major sections for a "decent" amount of time, they probably should not be considered for a global moderator position for the most part.
I agree and like to add that a vote is mostly a popularity contest. I dont know how active - in terms of moderation - any of the mods are I voted for. My 1st vote went to mprep mainly because they have been around for some time and had - for me - noticable positive impact on the forum. The same is true for mitchell, lauda (lets not open the can whether or not they should be mod in the first place here as well) and achow101, from my perspective. I can say little about other mods, their activity and ableness in this regard. Does that mean they deserve the position less? No. I still voted, but I think it should stay an internal decision and it is my understanding that it still is.
Well the majority of what the various
moderators do is done 'behind the scenes' and the public does not know which moderator took a specific action. When a mod reports a post to the moderators who have authority to act in a section, no one else knows, when a mod moves a thread, much of the time, no one knows, when a post is deleted no one knows who deleted said thread.
Thats exactly why I hope this decision will not be made based upon the outcome of this vote. Let the vote be the decider in case of a draw, but it should not be more.
Speaking strictly in terms of what the various mods have done for the forum while wearing their "moderator hat" -- I agree that mprep has done a good job in cleaning up the altcoin sections; I agree that mitchell has used his bot in order to stop much of the 'backlink spam' from impacting most users; I agree that achow101 has used his "staff" title to help users filter out bad advice in the "help" sections, and leverages his expert technical abilities to give very good advice in the "help" sections.
My concern about making mitchell a global mod is that many months ago, he said that he mostly reads a few select sections (I am not sure if this is still true or not), so he might not be interested in reading threads outside of those sections, which would be necessary to handle reports outside of those sections. I would vote that archdow101 be made moderator of the dev & tech section without further consideration, and the bitcoin discussion section if he has an interest in becoming a global mod -- after he gets more experience in moderating a more broad range of boards, I would not doubt that he will become qualified.
I agree that archow101 is a capable mod, they did not get my vote because of the time served. I trust Mitchell that they - since they are willing to do the job - take the time needed to read up on sections they usually do not frequent. I would expect that of any (new) global moderator.