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This is a follow-up to my previous question...

I think this is the second election for moderators in Physics.SE. As Larian and Manish (and several others including me) are also nominating, I believe that we'd definitely have a lot of competition. Why is the community assigning only two positions for new moderators? (Not more than that?)

Is it because, Physics.SE has low users, less attentions, few questions (but a lot answers), etc. like that? Or, Are there some other reason?

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  • $\begingroup$ I imagine that it comes down to our modest activity level. It's certainly more than when we launched, but still not really high. $\endgroup$
    – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
    Nov 29, 2012 at 3:05
  • $\begingroup$ A large portion of the moderation can be done by the high reputation users. $\endgroup$
    – MBN
    Nov 29, 2012 at 13:59

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Why so many moderators?

Normally, the first election on a site is for three moderators.

Elected moderators aren't replaced unless they don't want to be moderators anymore (or, rarely, violate the moderator agreement or just stop showing up for whatever reason). So subsequent elections need only add enough new moderators to handle increasing demand for moderation.

That usually means one, but can also mean (and in this case does mean) two.

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    $\begingroup$ Yeah, I was going to say the same. Three or four moderators is pretty normal across the SE network. $\endgroup$
    – David Z
    Nov 29, 2012 at 5:27
  • $\begingroup$ Hello Shog, Thanks for your response. So, the other sites (such as overflow or superuser) have a lot of mods due to the it's age and the activity of users. Isn't it? $\endgroup$
    – Waffle's Crazy Peanut
    Nov 29, 2012 at 14:03
  • $\begingroup$ @CrazyBuddy: Pretty much. Their flag queue is huge due to the high level of activity, so they have lots of mods. Note that their jobs as mods are pretty much solely flag handling; they need not look for problem posts on their own. Here, on the other hand, I guess moderators will have to check front page questions on their own as well as handling flags. I giess. $\endgroup$
    – Manishearth
    Nov 30, 2012 at 5:00
  • $\begingroup$ @Manishearth: Yes, Manish. David once told in chat that "homework" questions are banned in SO. But here, we are dealing with a lot homeworks (especially under mechanics) than "research-level" :-) $\endgroup$
    – Waffle's Crazy Peanut
    Nov 30, 2012 at 12:44
  • $\begingroup$ @CrazyBuddy: Nah, that's not the issue. There still are a lot of crappy questions on SO which are akin to homework, but aren't bad enough to be removed (and IIRC, they do allow homework--just the tag is not allowed). The difference is mainly in the type of tasks that the mods have to do. On SO, the community finds bad posts/other issues for the mods via flagging. Here, this will probably be at a lower level and mods may have to comb through posts themselves. $\endgroup$
    – Manishearth
    Nov 30, 2012 at 12:49
  • $\begingroup$ @Manishearth: I haven't been to SO yet. But, yeah... I understood the problem now. $\endgroup$
    – Waffle's Crazy Peanut
    Nov 30, 2012 at 12:54

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