Board Thread:Community Voting/@comment-4845243-20150126004431/@comment-4845243-20150128072817

Rio, the point about efficiency is decent, but it simply does not outweigh the fact that neither all chat moderators nor all patrollers are qualified to be thread moderators. Some of the patrollers lack the social skills, and some of the CMs lack the technical skills (and, to be completely honest, there are some people I don't think should be chat moderators, who I likewise don't think should be thread moderators).

In a cost/benefit analysis, option #1 beats out all the others. The only cost it has is more work for the admins and more time spent choosing moderators. But the end result will be a more dedicated (since they actually decided to pursue the position), more accountable (since they were elected as an individual, not appointed or elected as a group), and more proactive (since they made the effort to get elected, as opposed to just accepting it) team of moderators.

Yes, it requires work, but having a high-quality team of users with any right should be a lot of work. Our admin, CM, and patroller teams didn't spring up overnight, they are the result of a long process.