I’m not really well versed in how the RFCs work, so if this doesn’t count as the start of one, that’s fine. I just mean to open discussion.
I think a great way to rotate mods is to have a sign-up for people to be mods and put them in a queue. I don’t know how many mods we should have or need, but the people in the queue would just replace people ending their terms.
I don’t think votes are necessary at all for people becoming mods. If there are any objections to someone there can be a vote, but I certainly would not object to anyone. A lot of people talk about how they would ban a lot of people if they were mods, but that’s always just been talk. People say “you wouldn’t want me as a mod because…”, but when push comes to shove no one here really wants to look that bad. If we want to get along, let’s just start trusting each other a little bit. And it’s not that big a deal and olink or gregorio or spidercrab can save us from anything terrible.
Let’s not let every new mod who is going to rotate in be an invitation for people to criticize them before they even start.
Think this is a good idea and should make for interesting discussion. From the other RGC’s you might want to phrase the issue as a question and add it to the OP as a straw poll.
I don’t mind this idea, but I would be more hesitant to put my name in a queue if I didn’t have a good idea of when my term would come just in case it overlaps too much with real-world shit (this is also why I like the certainty of the six-month term limit). I’d propose adding an option that when your name comes up in the list you can defer to the next opening if the timing doesn’t work out for you; that seems like it’d resolve that issue and make people less hesitant to put names on the list.
I am also a little less trusting than you that every poster will make a good mod. An example that comes to mind is boredsocial, who (IIRC) said he’d immediately ban victoar and watevs if installed as mod. I think his honesty is exemplary but I obviously don’t think that would have been a good idea, and I think the vote process (or maybe it didn’t make it to a vote? either way, “the process”) preventing that was the right result.
BS subverted his own election. That’s one of the things I was thinking of when I said people don’t actually want to look that bad. Not saying he wouldn’t have followed through, but in the few cases that someone declares they’re going to go HAM, we can object.
On the one hand asking to let the person behind you take your turn should be a non-event. An admin should do that with no vote or anything. In the other hand, there’s plenty of precedent for being mod, here 2p2 and elsewhere, and doing absolutely nothing for long stretches.
I’d like to see the new process we just approved play out before making any additional changes. So I’m gonna be a no on this. Could maybe see going to this in the future if there’s good reason to, but I don’t see any value in this idea at this time.
If factions have been formed, such factions may try to manipulate their placement in the queue so that they control all mod positions at the same time.