1. Who moderates these boards in the absent of its moderators?
Global mods (hilarious, mprep and Mr. Big) have been moderating Beginners&Help for quite a long time since when Mitchell resigned from the role and Mining Buddy was removed as moderator. Admins didn't remove the name from moderators list but Mining buddy were removed from the position a long time ago. See this :
As I said, he was removed as a mod a long time ago. Theymos just hasn't removed his name from there and only he can do that. It's the same with the Press board.
2. What happenned to these accounts?
They could have become busy with their real life and stopped moderating our forum. It's a personal question which could only be answered by the specific account.
3. There are several good readers and very active users with good reputation although I don't know how moderators are selected or the criteria of selection but these users are just everywhere and very active why are these vital positions still vacant??
Moderators are chosen primarily based on reporter statistics but that alone isn't important as they should have good reputation and be neutral in decision making.
See this :
[1]
Who is able and willing to moderate the Politics & Society section? There will only be one moderator.
Report history is the most important consideration for a moderator candidate. Over the forum's many years, relatively "newbie" members with good report histories have consistently done much better as mods than veteran, well-respected members with poor report histories. That said, not all reports are equal, so a simple report count doesn't tell the whole story. Also, in addition to report histories, it's necessary to consider factors such as the ability of the candidate to be neutral, their trustworthiness, etc. It's also nice to choose a moderator who people generally already trust/respect, but sometimes this is outweighed by other factors.
why are these vital positions still vacant??
theymos feels that the current spam is being controllable by global mods. If we see a huge influx of spammers, theymos might appoint one based on reports and trustworthiness.
EDIT :
Just to be clear, I one sidedly resigned. I was not removed or forced to resign. There is a big difference between the two.
Changed. Thanks for the insight