Congratulations Jesse, and sincere thanks to every single candidate who put themselves forward!
I think this election has helped the community come to terms with a number of issues and concerns which have been plaguing the site for a while. Over the past year we have experienced a general decline in experienced users participating in the communal administration of the site, whether for philosophical reasons or otherwise. Whilst this is understandable on an individual basis, the collective apathy impacted the quality of site content notably, and meant that moderators had to step in more frequently than we reasonably should under the SE model. This is partly why there was a need for further help in moderation in the first place.
The past month it has been extremely heartening to witness a significant number of users from across the site stepping up to raise flags, close Questions, contribute in Review Queues, and generate chat discussions or Meta questions about how to improve things on BH.SE. One user went so far as to create a Meta feature request that may eventually benefit the entire SE network!
So thank you everybody who has made a renewed effort to understand the site scope, get involved with the voting processes, flag questionable content, or engage in discussions around what kind of site we all want this to be. SE sites are built on community participation rather than top-down control, and it's been fantastic to see so many people actually talking to each other about how to make the site better. You know who you are - keep it up!
I participate in this site because I love the Bible, I love hermeneutics, and I love the SE model. And I think I speak for the whole moderation team when I say that we're collectively passionate about enabling people from all views and backgrounds to disagree and debate respectfully, kindly and honourably, in a safe space - that is the nature of a Q&A site, after all. The frequency of arguments and flags has dropped sharply over the past few weeks, which hopefully means that people are making a bigger effort to care about others as they disagree - which is a rare thing to find on the internet.
If you're reading this, you are an especially important member of the site, who cares enough about it to read Meta posts and even go past the fifth paragraph of a needlessly long answer. What's more, you're a valued member of this community, and your participation is always important in helping it move forward. Thanks again for every little thing you have done in the past, or will do in the future, to make this site and its content better, and to show unusual kindness to those you disagree with.
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