+1: I agree with this idea wholeheartedly and will amplify it with these two cents: There are users who come here who grow and accumulate rep but don’t do so with any great competitive aspirations; they simply “mesh” with an SE community. Others here clearly just want to make every interaction a game to gain rep and end up suspending themselves. Yes, there are other reasons for suspensions, but that happens. Which is to say someone running for a mod role clearly should have a more responsible mindset from the beginning and—as a result—would be able to accept a nomination framework like this.

I agree with this anyway, but are we taking chat suspensions into account too?

@IͶΔ Likely not, they happen very often and most of the time are rather innocuous. Being thrown out of chat for 30 minutes because you posted something questionable in chat seems a bit too insignificant to ponder on for 1 year.

Not suspensions in chat, @IͶΔ. If you end up getting suspended on main for behavior in chat, that'd be another matter.

Definitely a big +1 for me. Thought this would have already been practice, but as it's not, definitely good to introduce it now to avoid any issues in future.

While there may have been very few cases where this would have been mattered, in at least one case it would have mattered a great deal (the difference between a candidate being disqualified or actually elected to be a moderator). That can be considered a plus or a minus of this proposal; I’m just pointing out that it is not just about avoiding unnecessary controversy and distraction.

"Your response to the proposal was positive..."

I voiced a concern already @Shog9 - the way you like it, in the answer not in comments. Though one can argue that it isn't credible, thanks to the voting of your diamond carrying buddies (the very thought that these folks will decide whom to block from elections on my site send shivers down my spine)

Any length of suspension? I know that a lot of new users have initial issues adjusting but make quick improvements after a reality check and become valuable members of the site.

If you get a one-day suspension your first day on the site, I still think you're probably best served spending a year to build your reputation before running, @Catija. As others have noted, there may be good reason to ignore some very short suspensions, but the truth is these are extremely rare (the only relevant examples I've come across thus far appeared very early on on Stack Overflow and I suspect were tests).

@Shog9 Seems fair enough, I guess. My knowledge of the suspension system and what is required to earn them in the first place is limited... not having ever experienced it first hand on either end. If the use case of very short suspensions is limited based on data, that seems understandable... though I think it would be nice if there were a "review" system for borderline cases.

Will this be applied retroactively?

@Ward: Yes, in the sense that suspensions now in the past would be counted; no, in the sense of rewriting in-progress or already-over elections. "Next time someone nominates themselves" is the idea.

What Nathan said, @Ward. The goal here is to reduce distractions in future elections; no point in trying to close the barn doors where all the horses are already gone.

The problem is people, so let's change the proposal to, "Let's disallow nominations from people" and eliminate the subjective human element altogether.

@AdamDavis So I or another non-suspended user could nominate someone who has been suspended/is currently suspended? Or did you mean "disallow nominations of people"? Or do you mean to remove the democratic election process from the network altogether?

@TylerH I mean it in the same way the title means it, "of" rather than "from".

I'm pretty sure that Adam was trying to say "no people should be allowed to be moderators", @TylerH; presumably that would include AIs and open for discussion such items as whether chimps, dolphins, crows, and other intelligent non-humans qualify for moderatorship. Also up for discussion would be whether non-intelligent humans qualify.

@JoshCaswell I, for one, bow to our new, non-human, non-AI overlords.

How many of those 54 nominations were Evan Carroll?

But only 8 at the most, if your numbers are right... 1266-1258 means that only 8 people (max) or one person 8 times has nominated themselves in more than one election? Or am I misunderstanding?

Wow. Ok, that just clued me into a serious problem with the logic I'd been using to count these, @Catija. Numbers updated.

That makes much more sense :D Thanks! Numbers are fun.

Am I right in saying that of 984 users standing for election 76 users (nearly 10%!) have been suspended and most of those (54 user) within the year following nomination. This seems like a very significant number. Do these numbers pan out within the wider community? If so it appears something needs to change as these seem are surely extremely high figures. Do we know how they compare to other forums? Do other forums really suspend ~10% of users!?

No, it's not even close to representative @Peter. Elections tend to bring out a good portion of folks whose primary goal is simply to be disruptive, a tendency which often leads to suspensions (and also motivated this policy). On Stack Overflow, roughly 0.1% of users have ever been suspended.

@Shog9 also, perhaps, the disaffected and those who want change.

Good points OP! I think you're right, it does remove any hint of personal attacks against nominees due to revealing suspension details.

Robert Harvey cannot nominate himself as an SO mod because a different mod on Meta banned him for a week (last year) and then an employee banned him for an entire year on Meta. RH deleted his account in retaliation or because he felt wounded, I think the latter. RH is one of the most dedicated, smart, level-headed persons I came across on Meta and SE uses this suspension rule to twist the knife in the wound.