This is such a great read thank you @mnse for bringing this up!
I think part keeping an eye beyond who is active to also remain culturally and gender inclusive is also important.
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Hi @mnse I’ve been juggling quite a few other responsibilities but I haven’t forgotten this thread!
One thing I have figured out since my last messages is that Discourse already has a pretty well designed trust level system in which people get more rights over time and as they contribute positively to the community.
Most (if not all) of the people mentioned above as potential moderators are already at trust level 3 (Regular) which grants some moderation privileges. Trust Level 4 (Leader) is quite close to moderator status (perhaps similar to the Codeacademy Super Users mentioned by @javagar) and the number of users in a trust level group is not limited in the same way that the number of moderators is limited by our current Discourse plan.
So what I would suggest in the short term is to promote active Trust Level 3 users who want the responsibility to Trust Level 4 so they can help with the moderation. As a TL4 user, flagging a post will hide it immediately, you can add a staff notice to posts, edit/pin/unpin/archive posts, etc. You can see the full detail in the Trust Level Permission Table linked below. If you are at Trust Level 3, let me know in the replies if you want to be promoted. Note: your TL4 status may be revoked if you don’t fulfil the requirements for TL3 anymore or don’t follow the code of conduct.
@javagar thanks for your input! For the moderator role, nominations can be done in a dedicated thread. Same for discussing the candidates and (why not) campaigning if we’re doing the full democratic process 
For the voting system I thought we could use the Discourse Post Voting plugin but it doesn’t seem included in our plan. A possible setup would be a thread with the names of each candidate in a separate post that people can like to vote. Regarding vetting: the Processing Foundation should have the right to veto a candidate if their nomination goes against our mission statement. This should be an exceptional measure.
I started writing a document as an addendum to the Discourse Moderation Guidelines. I’ll share it with the community for feedback once I have a decent draft. I want to make sure that moderator candidates know what the responsibilities are and feel both supported and held accountable.
In the meantime, I have been taking care of reviewing flagged posts together with @montoyamoraga. FYI: it’s mostly a few bots and some akismet spam filter false positives, pretty mild stuff.
That’s all I had today! If any urgent moderation questions arise in the meantime, feel free to send me a direct message.
Thanks to all of you for your enthusiasm in being involved in the forum’s governance 
Raphaël de Courville
Processing Community Lead Fellow
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Hi @sableRaph,
Thanks for the detailed post, which provides pretty good insight and suggested solutions. 
I have looked at the trust level 4 options and in my opinion that covers quite a lot of what is often required to solve the problems that arise.
So, if you’re willing to put us at a higher level, I’m pretty sure we’re willing to take the responsibility and do our best to help. (At least that’s true for me. 
)
Cheers
— mnse
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I have granted you TL4 
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