Inadequate Notification and Timeline for 2018 Election

Question

I apologize for complaining, but I'm rather taken aback by how the site has decided to run the 2018 election.

I don't check the main site on a daily basis, and I visit Meta even more infrequently---while I know the site's most active users are more aware of what's going in, I'm equally sure there's a long tail of us who don't stay as tightly in the loop, especially during the slow summer months.

So I was surprised to see that there's an election on, and that nominations close in two days, since I didn't receive any notification of any kind (via email, popup on the main site, red icon in the "recent inbox messages", etc). I'm not inclined to nominate anybody or craft campaign questions this year, but if I had been, two day's notice is inadequate, as is the one short week allocated to reading the candidate's responses to the campaign questions, and to voting itself.

I imagine there are many users who haven't happened to wander into Meta and who are oblivious that there's an election on at all.

If the intent if for only the most highly-vested Math.SE contributors to participate in, or even be aware of, the 2018 election, then perhaps all is as it should be; but given community concerns in 2017 about the low election turnout, I assume that's not the intent.

I propose a more relaxed timeline for the elections (two weeks for each step in the election process seems to me more reasonable) and that each step and deadline be prominently advertised on the main site (at least for reasonably-active users, say, those with 1000+ reputation.)

Answer 1

As noted in the comments, the election process hasn't actually started yet; what's happening now is more like a prelude: collecting information that'll be helpful once the process actually does start.

Once the process does start, there'll be an inbox notification for everyone on the site who is eligible to nominate themselves, directing them to the nomination page. They'll then have a full week to post nominations, answer questions, etc. before the voting starts.

When voting begins, there'll be another inbox notification - this one sent to everyone who can vote. If there are enough candidates to trigger a "primary phase" to the election (a pre-voting vote to reduce the number of candidates before the full voting starts), there'll be a notification for that too.

In short... You don't really have to monitor meta if you don't want to be part of the... well, the meta-discussion; there'll be ample notice prior to any stage where you might want to participate in the election proper.