Is Stack Exchange the only major network where moderators are democratically elected?

Question

The Stack Exchange 2015 Year in Review blog post claims:

After five years of democratically electing moderators, it’s mind blowing that Stack Exchange is still the only major network that embraces this form self-governance. It’s a strategic advantage we wish more internet communities would adopt. We simply cannot thank our 476 volunteer moderators enough for their patience and dedication.

I approved your comment, which obviously is _not spam_. ;-) This is an interesting question I probably should have asked before I posted. — Jon 'links in bio' Ericson, Jan 13 '16 at 01:11
Define: "major network". Because it certainly seems like SO is a major network amongst the IT community! — Möoz, Jan 13 '16 at 02:37
It's not entirely true that all moderation is done by designated elected moderators. Standard users can gain some moderator power over time from building up a good reputation. There's therefore also an element of meritocracy in SE moderation. — GordonM, Jan 13 '16 at 11:37
Some of the user-editors indicated to me the stack exchanges where a form of meritocracy which isn't exactly a democracy. Various writers in the Philosophy Stack exchange said this.. — 201044, Jan 14 '16 at 08:51
Not enough for an answer, but I think this all hinges on the definition of "major network". In my experience, democratic moderator elections in online communities are fairly commonplace. A [search for "moderator election" -"Stack Exchange"](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22moderator+election%22+-%22Stack+Exchange%22&t=ffsb) returns plenty, and that's just people who use that exact terminology. Some sites may even have *more* self-governance, since AFAIK Stack Exchange reserves powers for appointed employees, e.g. in legal matters. — IMSoP, Jan 14 '16 at 18:07
@201044 SE is not a meritocracy in that there are no minimum reputation requirements for being nominated for elections and lowish ~1000 reputation users have won elections on their platforms before. That said, reputation is often an important indicator - as it is in all democratic elections - and it should be no surprise that many of the mods have high reputations. — DampeS8N, Jan 14 '16 at 20:13
The other half of this question is relevant also: "*is StackExchange really democratic self-governance?*" Given that ultimate power and policy decision making is still held (and regularly exercised) by the company, I would argue that this is democratic self-governance only in the sense that High Schools student councils are, in PR only. The purpose of this PR positioning is to encourage self-maintenance and self-administration, not to allow actual self-governance. — RBarryYoung, Jan 16 '16 at 14:41
@DampeS8N ; these sties are meritocracies , that is according to some of the user-editors who have communicated with me. Virmaior answered a question on the Philosophy Stack Exchange ( asked on Aug. 16, 2015) about why a question was deleted automatically, saying, 'this is not a discussion forum , it's a meritocratic Q&A website'( answered on Aug 17 ,2015 at 4:15). And Camil Staps answered S.E. policies are indeed not democratic ( answered on Aug 16 ,2015 ). — 201044, Jan 18 '16 at 18:31
@201044 Let me be clearer: moderator elections are not meritocratic, they are democratic. Is that better? — DampeS8N, Jan 23 '16 at 02:33
Let me be clear, that is not what Camil Staps and Virmaior indicated to me. I didn't even think of using the word meritocracy until THEY brought it up.. — 201044, Jan 25 '16 at 06:57
GordonM above said 'there is an element of meritocracy in S.E.moderation'. RBarryYoung above said the self-governance of S.E sites is like the PR positioning in a High School student council '..not to allow actual self governance'. If democratically self governing a website should allow all members ( with no minimum requirement as someone else mentioned) to have an equal say in voting and policy making. That is theoretically what a democracy is. I was just surprised when Franck Dernoncourt and some others referred to the S.E. sights as democratic. — 201044, Jan 25 '16 at 14:31

score 117 · Answer 1 · 2016-01-12T19:47:00.163

117

Wikimedia holds democratic elections for its board member positions.

Wikipedia's nomination and selection process for administrators and bureaucrats is roughly democratic, with requests for adminship almost always being accepted if they receive at least 75% support and request for bureaucratship almost always being accepted if they receive at least 85% support.

Physics Overflow holds democratic moderator elections.

Young socialists united subreddit holds democratic moderator elections.

Rational wiki uses democratic moderator nominations.

Which, if any, of these is "major" is a subjective judgement call, but beware falling into a no true Scotsman fallacy.

edited Jan 12 '16 at 19:47

answered Jan 12 '16 at 19:20

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I suspect that Wikipedia is the only of these anywhere near in size of the SE network, the last three are tiny compared to SE. – Mad Scientist Jan 12 '16 at 19:33
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@MadScientist Agreed, but I think both Wikis easily satisfy the 'major network' criteria. – David says Reinstate Monica Jan 12 '16 at 20:45
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There are probably other external offshoots of the SE network (besides Physics Overflow) that also hold democratic moderator elections. – David Z Jan 12 '16 at 22:40
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Maybe Wikipedia is not a "network", and the others are not "major". Or maybe even if Wikipedia is a "network", it does not elect "Moderators", only "Administrators" and "Bureaucrats". – GEdgar Jan 12 '16 at 22:54
42

For what it's worth, if I had been aware of Wikipedia's process for selecting administrators, I would have phrased the sentence differently. In fact, I might very well change it tomorrow. – Jon 'links in bio' Ericson Jan 13 '16 at 01:50
1

Your RfA link is only about the English Wikipedia; the generic page on the matter is https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_power_structure . Wikimedia Foundation trustees are not comparable to moderators at all; the board of trustees would compare to the assembly of shareholders of StackExchange Inc. (cf. http://meta.stackexchange.com/a/270020/248268 ), on which users clearly don't hold any vote (mostly [A. Horowitz does](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2015/01/andreessen-horowitz-invests-in-stack-exchange/)). OTOH see https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_transparency_gap – Nemo Jan 13 '16 at 15:12
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Wikipedia seems relevant, the rest is by no means a major network -- e.g. physics overflow's top voted mod had exactly 10 votes. – Sklivvz Jan 13 '16 at 16:43
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Speaking as both a mod at SE and and admin at Wikpedia, the roles *are* equivalent regardless of the name difference. – SevenSidedDie Jan 13 '16 at 19:52
@IMSoP: [Arbcom is a mess](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2015-10-21/Editorial) and the rest of the wiki is no better (citation for the latter: read the comments under that article). – Kevin Jan 14 '16 at 18:54
Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been [moved to chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/34355/discussion-on-answer-by-dawn-is-stack-exchange-the-only-major-network-where-mode). – Sklivvz Jan 15 '16 at 13:19
Comments are *not* the place to have conversations. Please limit your contributions to comments *on the answer itself*. If you want debate finer points please use the chat, which is a much better medium. – Sklivvz Jan 15 '16 at 13:20
2

I've updated [the post](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2016/01/year-in-review-2015/) to reflect this answer. In terms of "no true Scotsman", my thought while writing that sentence was to compare Stack Exchange with roughly similar networks such as Quora and reddit (as a whole). More remarkable, to me at least, are much larger networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube that populate the [top 50 US networks](https://www.quantcast.com/top-sites/US/1). These tend to have entirely opaque moderation for better or worse. So I had already excluded all but Wikipedia beforehand. – Jon 'links in bio' Ericson Jan 16 '16 at 02:59

score 6 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 15 '16 at 09:55

6

Ubuntu Community Council is democratically elected.

http://fridge.ubuntu.com/2015/11/11/community-council-election-2015/

answered Jan 15 '16 at 09:55

Anon

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Is Stack Exchange the only major network where moderators are democratically elected?

2 Answers2