Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-33668185-20181229231243/@comment-5811199-20181231020025

C.Syde65 wrote: For one thing, I've noticed that a lot of the current members were chosen because they were recommended to Staff by those who were already part of the team. My major concern around that is that prospective cccrew members are getting chosen because of their relationships with current cccrew members, rather than because of their quality when it comes to moderating. I agree that the process isn't unbiased. It's hard to find a balance between making sure that a team is functional and works cohesively, and picking people purely based on skill and behaviour. There are times where promoting friends that we know and trust (and the team all agrees is appropriate for the moderator task) is the easiest way to get new members. However, we also receive nominations through S:C, from private messages and as a team, and we do take a serious look at potential new members who we may not be friends with.

Even when I joined - I was friends with Joey and Mime, which is biased, but my adminship was a group and Staff consensus from people who were looking at my contributions and activity. And I think that this sort of process - of having a mix of knowing someone and objectively looking at what they've done - is what we all do on all wikis, not just on Central but in other volunteer groups and on some of our own home wikis.

Perhaps the nomination process could be more transparent, in some way - and this may be something that we'll talk about and figure out with Staff.