Who should be our moderators?

Question

From the Moderator Blog article

About a week into the public beta, we will seek out members who are deeply engaged in the community’s development; members who:

• Have a reasonably high reputation score to indicate active, consistent participation.
• Show an interest in their meta’s community-building activities.
• Lead by example, showing patience and respect for their fellow community members in everything they write.
• Exhibit those intangible traits discussed in A Theory of Moderation.

Bonus points for:

• Members with participation in both meta and the parent site (i.e. interest in both community building and expertise in the field).
• Area 51 participation, social network referrals, or blogging about the site.
• Members who have already shown an interest or ability to promote their community.

Candidates will be contacted and three of them will be selected to act as provisional Moderators until the community holds formal elections after the Beta period. Besides the normal abilities of a Moderator, they will:

• Have access to a special chat room where we will collectively work through the challenges of moderation and community self-policing.
• Organize the process of selecting the site’s attributes (domain names, design issues, the FAQ, etc.).
• Rally community support and drive the mission of getting publicity for the site.

Essentially, they will have the ear of the Stack Exchange team for anything we can do to help their sites succeed! Make Sure Your Community is Well Represented

If your meta site does not have a post to nominate Moderators, start one now! Pro Tem appointments will begin about two weeks after the site is created. The more guidance we receive, the more informed our choice.

This is the basic structure of a Moderator nomination thread:

• The question should be community wiki.
• Each nomination should be a separate answer. Link the name to the user’s profile (parent and meta) so we can see their activity.
• The nominee should indicate their acceptance by editing the answer, adding that they accept the nomination. Optionally they can write something about themselves.
• Self nominations are okay, and even encouraged. Most sites have not had sufficient time for many users to stand out. Self nomination is simply a way to say, “I’m interested. Let my record speak for itself.” Links to other activities may be helpful: Area 51 participation, participation in other sites, blog posts reviewing or announcing the site, etc.

Answer 1

Yoda certainly sticks out. (Meta) Yoda has been heavily involved in both meta and the main site, and is currently the highest ranked user. Yoda has already been taking a moderator-like role, as much as one can do without the full mod powers.

Answer 2

I nominate Phonon. Phonon has been active on the site, especially in seeding it with good questions (which is very critical and we came --><-- this close to shutting down). He's a prolific voter and has also been active on meta, raising important issues and providing good suggestions.

Answer 3

I'll add another name to the pool: datageist. He is calm, level headed (from what I could tell from comments here and elsewhere on the network), has good knowledge of the field and has a fair meta participation, given the general low activity on the site.

Answer 4

I nominate Peter K. He was initially responsible for the idea, followed through all the way and is now active on the site. If anyone, he should definitely be among the moderators.