User blog comment:Shadowswimmer77/The Long List for PoTM/@comment-24101790-20150516180747/@comment-25148755-20150516190236

So, one thought I had: nominations should definitely be open to anyone, as is, but maybe everything that gets nominated shouldn't be included in the vote? So like, for the first half of the month, anyone can nominate whatever story they want. Then over the course of the week, the mods all look at the nominees and narrow it down to the top three or five or whatever to ensure quality control. Then for the last week or two the population at large votes between those three. That way it wouldn't just be moderators selecting the stories since you guys aren't everywhere, but at the same time you might have fewer "how the hell did this story get nominated?" comments.