We saw the fallout of The_Fall-19, also known initially as Monicagate, mainly on MetaSE.
But this is also: the very reason why we need an election now, as two moderators resigned from SkepticsSE in response to that (at least partially).
During the heated debates and struggles that were prompted by the unpopular actions of StackExchange, suspension were handed out left and right on MetaSE.
Sure, nerves of the mods on MetaSE were certainly not in the distanced and relaxed mode. And in my opinion they were also quite often not accurately thinking and acting.
While I tried to keep track of every suspension issued, and adding a mental plus1 as a badge of honour to the vast majority of very respected users falling victim to this arbitrary looking regime, my system for identifying users 'brave enough to speak up in the face of injustice' was certainly not as perfect as the hidden-from-view-of-ordinary-users database that SE keeps as a 'permanent record' of 'misdeeds past' on all users. Note that I do not imply that all suspensions dealt out on MetaSE in that period were incorrect, false, in error, or unjust. Just that there were such cases, and frankly, for my tastes, their number was high. A little too high.
The thing here is:
I noticed that in my view, quite many of those who did voice their thoughts and fought for them in a civil way by means of discussion were silenced away to crowd-control the situation. Quite a few of them showed enormous virtue — and don't worry, I know a few names of quie hirep users acaross the network affected by this, but won't spell them out here – would be exactly of the kind of quality I'd like to see in a moderator. A mod here on this site.
Turns out, a strange decision that makes the theory of https://stackoverflow.blog/2009/04/06/a-day-in-the-penalty-box/ obsolete and untrue, but also in effect into an extreme and unusual form of punishment:
Disenfranchisement of good people despite having time served and the ban then rightfully and in due process lifted again:
Let's disallow moderator nominations from people who've been suspended in the past year
And perhaps even disenfranchisement of good people on and for this site despite having time served and the ban then rightfully and in due process lifted again on totally different sites, and if on MetaSE for way too often totally intransparent 'reasons' — which if I tried to watch, analyse re-trace and understand, simply could not accept as 'right'.
The overlap of two terrible decisions influencing this election seems quite obvious to me.
For a real life comparison to StackExchange, one might also look at how democracies handled that kind of thing, for even higher 'forms of office'
Therefore, I want to know: how many potential candidates from or for this site are now bannned or at least automgically discouraged from running for mod here by that one 'let's extend punishment across all sites' decision on MetaSE?
This is not only about The_Fall-19 on MetaSE, but 'across the network' suspensions. Although it is my firm request to get numbers that differentiate between SkepticsSE itself, other sites, MetaSE, and MetaSE during the purges of The_Fall-19.
