8
$\begingroup$

According to Lev Reyzin, he nominated himself as a moderator, canceled the nomination, and re-nominated himself (see the comment here). On the election page, his statement is grayed out, and there is no “add comment” link. This seems like a bug in the system.

$\endgroup$
2
  • $\begingroup$ Yes that's right. I was going to add a bug report this morning, so thanks for doing it :) $\endgroup$
    – Lev Reyzin Mod
    Jan 28, 2011 at 13:48
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Stranger still my nomination seems to keep being auto-deleted. Perhaps the site is trying to fix the color scheme... $\endgroup$
    – Lev Reyzin Mod
    Jan 28, 2011 at 16:24

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2
$\begingroup$

For the benefit of later readers, here is a summary of the facts explained in the answer by a site admin Rebecca Chernoff and the comments on it:

  • A grayed out statement means that the nomination was withdrawn.
  • The intent of the admins was not to allow renomination after withdrawal.
  • The description of the election did not state this restriction explicitly. In addition, there was a bug which made renomination seemingly possible.
  • In the case of Lev, the admins declared that the withdrawal was a mistake, and added him back to the candidate list.
$\endgroup$
3
  • $\begingroup$ @Lev: Actually my impression is closer to your edit, but I was afraid that writing “the admins declared …” might sound accusing. I do not care the wording here, so I will leave your edit as it is. $\endgroup$
    – Tsuyoshi Ito
    Jan 29, 2011 at 19:44
  • $\begingroup$ I do not mean to be so picky -- I just wanted to get the history right. Otherwise, the understanding is that I misclicked or something, and then people running in the future (assuming there are more elections) might misunderstand the precedent. $\endgroup$
    – Lev Reyzin Mod
    Jan 29, 2011 at 19:50
  • $\begingroup$ @Lev: I know the history, and I did not see the need to make that particular point precise. But maybe you are right. $\endgroup$
    – Tsuyoshi Ito
    Jan 29, 2011 at 19:54
-10
$\begingroup$

Nominating and withdrawing should not be a revolving door. Once you withdraw, you may not re-nominate yourself. These actions should be taken seriously and with finality.

We are fixing the UI so that it will not allow you to do this anymore.

To be clear, nominations that are grayed out are withdrawn nominations.

edit: we will allow exceptions on a case-by-case basis for mistaken withdrawals, but in general, withdrawing from an election is final.

$\endgroup$
22
  • 7
    $\begingroup$ Funny, because the way the policy was written it was clear that you can nominate/un-nominate yourself as much as you wanted as long as the nomination phase has not ended -- and the interface clearly supported this! It is precisely because I was serious in wanting to be a good moderator that I un-nominated myself to consider a new policy I was not aware of. I could have left my nomination up and withdrawn last minute had I wanted to. If you want actions to be taken with finality, perhaps you should not even allow withdrawal of nominations. $\endgroup$
    – Lev Reyzin Mod
    Jan 28, 2011 at 17:39
  • $\begingroup$ @LevReyzin, The wording seems fairly clear to me: Nominations are not binding; nominees may withdraw at their discretion at any point during the nomination phase. $\endgroup$
    – Rebecca Chernoff
    Jan 28, 2011 at 17:42
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ It also says you can nominate yourself during the nomination process. So the assumption is that if you withdraw, you can nominate again... $\endgroup$
    – Lev Reyzin Mod
    Jan 28, 2011 at 17:44
  • $\begingroup$ @LevReyzin, Each person can have one nomination. If you withdraw, you are not deleting your nomination, you are simply marking yourself as withdrawn. You've already nominated yourself, and you cannot have two nominations. $\endgroup$
    – Rebecca Chernoff
    Jan 28, 2011 at 18:12
  • 11
    $\begingroup$ @Rebecca Chernoff: Your attitude seems passive-aggressive, if not borderline nasty, to be honest. Lev has months of history treating this site in good faith, and he explained his denomination and renomination. I'm above-average at parsing sentence-meaning in more than one language, and I don't think the wording is "fairly clear" at all. If you produced an unclear explanation of the nomination process, shoulder the responsibility and deal, instead of impugning the character of someone who didn't understand your wording exactly as you wished. $\endgroup$
    – Aaron Sterling
    Jan 28, 2011 at 18:16
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ Thanks, Aaron, for your support. While I hope I'll be allowed to run, if I'm not, I won't go causing trouble. Luckily there are enough great candidates (such as yourself) that I am not worried about the success of the site. @Rebecca Chernoff, if you'd like an explanation of why I withdrew and renominated (or tried to renominate) myself, you can look at the comments here meta.cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/902/… . You'll see I took the nomination process quite seriously - if you want us to act in good faith, it would be appreciated if you did as well. $\endgroup$
    – Lev Reyzin Mod
    Jan 28, 2011 at 18:29
  • 10
    $\begingroup$ This is just plain silly. There was some lack of clarity about the duration of moderators, and Lev wanted to understand the implications. Having done so, he decided he now wants to stand. Using technical reasons to prevent him from doing so is crazy. This is not SO: we don't have a gazillion people volunteering to be mods, and I think we need to encourage those willing to sacrifice time to do so. $\endgroup$
    – Suresh Venkat
    Jan 28, 2011 at 18:55
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ I'm inclined to virtually withdraw (or declare that a vote for me is a vote for Lev) $\endgroup$
    – Suresh Venkat
    Jan 28, 2011 at 18:56
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ Thanks Suresh, but please don't withdraw! That would be the worst harm I could bring to this site and completely against my intentions. $\endgroup$
    – Lev Reyzin Mod
    Jan 28, 2011 at 19:02
  • 7
    $\begingroup$ I guess I won't. But @Rebecca, this is really a failure of the one-size-fits-all view of the communities: maybe on SO people are trying to game the system because it's a larger community. But not here. $\endgroup$
    – Suresh Venkat
    Jan 28, 2011 at 19:13
  • 8
    $\begingroup$ It's disappointing you see this problem as a UI bug and keep answering regarding fixing the UI, whereas the community views it as another issue entirely. $\endgroup$
    – Lev Reyzin Mod
    Jan 28, 2011 at 19:26
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ "in the political elections I'm familiar with, once you withdraw that's final." ... Here in the United States, in presidential elections, people like Ross Perot can withdraw and re-enter. I do not know which country's elections you are familiar with. Which elections are you referring to, please? $\endgroup$
    – Aaron Sterling
    Jan 28, 2011 at 19:56
  • 5
    $\begingroup$ As @LevReyzin's withdrawing was a mistake, the nomination is active again. $\endgroup$
    – Rebecca Chernoff
    Jan 28, 2011 at 19:57
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @Rebecca: Thank you for the help, I really appreciate it. There are six elections held at the same time, it must be a hard time for you to deal with problems like this. Hope all the elections end well! $\endgroup$
    – Hsien-Chih Chang 張顯之
    Jan 28, 2011 at 20:06
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Thanks for fixing the issue. $\endgroup$
    – Lev Reyzin Mod
    Jan 28, 2011 at 20:07

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .