RationalWiki:Moderator elections/Campaigning

	The nicest bunch of assholes on RationalWiki; Moderators
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	Elections; Nominations; Campaigns; Voting booth; Results; v - t - e

★ 2024 ★

Moderator Election Schedule

Nominations and campaigning began on:
6 November 2024
and ended on on:
27 November 2024

Voting is closed.
Starts: 17:00 UTC, 27 November 2024
Ends: 17:00 UTC, 4 December 2024

Results have been announced.

We will elect:
6 mods, 2 alternates

v - t - e

Please remember to keep RationalWiki:Moderators in mind when making serious proposals as to what you want to do as a Mod. Please sign your posts as normal. This is a discussion space! You can check the archives for what crazy shit people said in previous years.

Archives for this page (edit)

Election of July 2011
- By-election of September 2011
Election of December 2011
Election of July 2012
Election of December 2012
Election of July 2013
Election of November 2015
- By-election of December 2015
Election of December 2016
Election of December 2017
Election of November 2018
Election of November 2019
Election of November 2020
Election of November 2021
Election of November 2022
Election of November 2023

Propaganda goes here[edit]

Flandres[edit]

I was a moderator in the past (December 2021-December 2023) and it was recent enough a lot of users here can remember it. I am confident my tried and true approach-only intervening when necessary, gentle but firm, so on-is well received. I've already been proven capable. I know I'm not the most active user here but I was present during every serious mod case in my previous tenure, so using that to claim I would somehow be negligent is laughable. Remember, even if I seem to be inactive I am still closely following recent changes.-Flandres (talk) 01:34, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

KarmaPolice[edit]

Return of the boggle-playing goat (or is that mahjong tiles?)

I was thinking about this earlier, and I ended up wondering - what's the point of mods? I think it's one of the little shocks for newbies to RW that being a mod here isn't some elevated position like other places, with clout and powers over all which may or may not be used for good. Yes, you get a couple of nifty technical toys you can play with but about 90% of 'mod work' can [and is] done by 'mere' sysops. Take Duce for example [not having a go or anything, merely example]; they list a lot of achievements and assurances of what they'd do in the future which doesn't require a mod position to do [bringing up the coop case against Luigifan or creating new articles]. What's more, I don't believe any of the candidates here are the sorts who'd stop doing that 90% stuff if they weren't elected - I wouldn't.

So, what's the point of mods, then? It's that 10% stuff; the random issues which crop up at 3PM on a Tuesday afternoon that only mod tools will sort, or more likely, the sort of thing that most folk semi-reasonably assume 'is part of the mod remit' - for example the Anatoly Karlin thing earlier this year. This means a lot of of the 'mod duties' is to simply be present at RW enough to be able to 'do mod shit' if/when it's required. The next aspect is to be willing to do a certain amount of laborious leg-work as/when needed - for example, the Pseudo-BoN which was 192.x last year which involved yours truly trawling through something like three years of SB archives to nail down their sealioning habit to show others. Next, as the duties of mod is often 'as/when needed' a lot comes down to whether you respect the candidates' judgement when they do mod stuff - that when the 'bolt out the blue' happens you believe they'd make a sound decision. Lastly as mods are kind of the face of RW it helps if said mods don't give the appearance of being 'far left extreme woke snowflakes with no sense of humour or perspective' to the outside world.

Now the pitch. I ran in '22 and '23 on the basis of ensuring there was an actual choice in elections and was frankly surprised when I turned out to have won last year. I believe/hope that I've not let those voters down - while I've not been the most diligent of using the mod powers, I have done so when I've spotted it and I feel I used them in a fair-handed and reasonable manner.

Why should you vote for me? My main argument is this [as 90% of the stuff I do shall continue to be done regardless of re-election] - that I offer two particular attributes which have value - and both are down to be being a Brit in BritLand. First, it means my 'hours of activity' are 'earlier' than folks in America - for example I came on today at 5.30 EST. Therefore, having me as a mod is a benefit because it gives RW 'more hours of coverage'. Secondly, as I'm not American I can be more dispassionate about the looming shitstorm which will be 'Trump v2.0' - it's not that I don't have views or sympathy [though it'll hit me too] but I won't be living in it. The other aspect I'll cite is that I've tried to be a voice of reason and a bit of a 'devil's advocate' in coop cases etc - I usually don't 'get my way' but I do think my presence has helped avoid mod groupthink.

So, like I said last year; vote for me, unless you think of someone better. KarmaPolice (talk) 11:19, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Plutocow[edit]

Having first been elected last year, I have an actual record to run on, which is cool. Among the things I have accomplished over the last year include bringing a user to ATIM who was spreading libelous claims about living people and successfully getting them topic banned, leading the charge to clarify part of the CS so that it wasn't confusing for new users, and exposing a long-standing ban evasion of a notorious troll. So, reelect me if you think I've done a good enough job; if not, I'm still a tech so I'll still be doing my thing with the filters. It is surprising that things have been relatively peaceful since the fallout from the Luigifan situation was dealt with, and even before that the only thing this year that even approached being a major incident was the AKarlin situation and even that was more or less mostly offsite drama. So I have faith in the community to handle the next year regardless of what crazy stuff happens or what my position on this site will be at the time. Plutocow (talk) 08:39, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

DuceMoosolini[edit]

HOPE

First off, I'd like to express my gratitude towards Cosmik for placing me in his first batch of nominations alongside much more prestigious figures like Spud and Bongolian. For those of who who may not know me, I'm DuceMoosolini. I'm usually working in the background to overhaul articles like England and Scotland, and create new ones like Chiquita, Red Summer, or Tulsa Race Massacre. Revamping the country articles in particular has been an ongoing pet project of mine. I am also currently serving on the Board of the RationalWiki Foundation, a position I filled due to a lack of other interested parties.

I am primarily running based on current role in the community. I believe I have an uncommonly high degree of investment in the success of RationalWiki due to the amount of written material I have produced for this website and my involvement in the Board. I am also a hard worker with a consistently high degree of activity on the wiki (usually). In past disputes on the Coop and Mod noticeboard I have typically been involved. From 2018 to 2019, I was even a moderator myself. This can sort of be considered a reelection bid.

In addition, I'd like to highlight a recent and relevant achievement of mine. I was the first person to take action against unacceptable comments by Luigifan and initiate a Coop case against him, which resulted in a 21-3 vote for a permaban. Unless I am forgetting something major, this is the only Coop case I have initiated against another user. I bring this up to highlight two facts. First, I'm not the kind of guy who's going to bring frivolous Coop cases or mod page issues or use moderation powers arbitrarily. Hell, I rarely even block anyone as a sysop. Second, if and when there is genuinely inexcusable conduct that no one else has responded to yet, I will be there and I will take action. In that kind of event, I think I've proven that I can make enough of a case to convince people.

As a mod, I will be hands-off and fair, but also present and aware. RationalWiki is and should be a nice place to discuss, learn, inform, and just have fun. And that's pretty much all I've got. Chef Moosolini’s Ristorante Italiano^{Make a Reservation} 23:15, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Bongolian[edit]

Bongos may safely graze…

I've been a moderator since 2017 and I'm running on my record. This past year, I was part of moderating the Luigifan18 saga. Bongolian (talk) 22:13, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Spud[edit]

Vote for Spud. There just might be some fish and chips in it for you.

I'd also like to thank Cosmikdebris for nominating me. And a big thank you to DuceMoosolini for calling me prestigious.

Well, here we are again. This is the ninth year in a row that I have been nominated to run as a candidate in the Moderator election. I was elected in 2017 and was reelected every year after that. I have also been a member of the Board of Directors since 2017 and have proven my commitment to RationalWiki by attending board meetings that took place between 1:00 AM and 2:00 AM for me here in Taiwan. I have been a RationalWiki editor for a little over 13 years now. I created my account on 10 September 2011, and I've made as near as damnit at least one edit every single day since then. On the whole, I am delighted with the way RationalWiki has developed. I have seen this place grow from a collection of bad goat jokes and crappy stubs that sought to imply all Christians are evil to a genuine source of actual information, all be it one that still has a sense of fun.

This has been one of the quieter years that I can remember on RationalWiki, in spite of the frivolous lawsuit and the emergency fundraiser needed to stop the site from disappearing. I think the whole year has gone by without anyone trying to destroy RationalWiki from the inside or even just trying to get on our nerves for as long as possible before getting banned. The community does not allow that to happen anymore. The days when we put up with arseholes who just wanted to troll or actively sought to do harm to the site, let alone the days when those arseholes were allowed to become admins, mods or members of the Board of Directors, are long since gone. Which is just the way it should be. It seems like all we have to worry about now are good faith editors who don't know their arse from their elbow, won't bloody listen when they're given advice over and over again and basically won't grow up. You know who I'm talking about.

If I am reelected, I will again try to check in on RationalWiki at least once a day every day. My current job is much more demanding of my time than either of my previous two jobs were and I doubt I'll have the time or energy to create any more articles any time soon. I will, however, continue to take a very active interest in all mod business, Coop cases, AfD discussions and general goings on here. I will endeavor to help newcomers and will happily give advice to anyone who asks for it. I will even try to improve new articles, if asked, although I can't promise anything there. And if I'm not reelected... Well, it's not the end of the world and I've had a great run. I'll also do most of the things I just promised to do anyway. I don't even think anyone would accuse me of mini-modding anymore.

Thank you for reading this. Have a fabulous day! Spud (talk) 12:17, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

OnlySortaDumb[edit]

Uh, sorry. I lost track of time. I hope I can still post here. If I were a moderator, I would like to take a pretty hands-off approach, sticking to the general implications of our rules and guidelines and trusting the judgement of my fellow moderators when they are largely in consensus on what to do. I would like to take a fair, balanced, and ethical approach when it comes to resolving conflict and put my faith in the rule of the mobocracy to what is best for this site. I will do what is expected of me in the positive sense of the term. That is to say I would accept the responsibilities of a moderator, but I will not work to undermine the current status quo of this wiki. Despite the impression I may give, I am largely fond with how this site is already. That being said if there are changes that users would like made, I say we handle it to a vote as we always have.- Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 23:54, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

ApooftGnegiol[edit]

I like how the RW community has shifted away in recent years from, in my view, an excessive tolerance of BS and manipulative behavior among members, which I think was the main cause of RW's past drama excesses. Compared to many but not all who've been moderators, I think I care more about such things, preferring more gentle moderation in the absence of such and a very firm response in its presence. Or so it seemed when I was new back in 2021. I like the current trajectory of change in that regard.

Previously I haven't ran as moderator, being content to just discuss stuff when I feel it matters. I don't think it really matters all that much which members are official moderators on RW, except when someone puts on the mod hat to do something official, which is a smaller portion of what goes into moderation. What goes down is mostly consensus-driven after all. I'm mostly running this time because otherwise the number of candidates would be short. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 21:22, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Candidate questions[edit]