2018 Moderator Election Q&A - Questionnaire

Question

In connection with the moderator elections, we are holding a Q&A thread for the candidates. Questions collected from an earlier thread have been compiled into this one, which shall now serve as the space for the candidates to provide their answers.

Due to the submission count, we have selected all provided questions as well as our back up questions for a total of 6 questions.

As a candidate, your job is simple - post an answer to this question, citing each of the questions and then post your answer to each question given in that same answer. For your convenience, I will include all of the questions in quote format with a break in between each, suitable for you to insert your answers. Just copy the whole thing after the first set of three dashes.Please consider putting your name at the top of your post so that readers will know who you are before they finish reading everything you have written, and also including a link to your answer on your nomination post.

Once all the answers have been compiled, this will serve as a transcript for voters to view the thoughts of their candidates, and will be appropriately linked in the Election page.

Good luck to all of the candidates!

Oh, and when you've completed your answer, please provide a link to it after this blurb here, before that set of three dashes. Please leave the list of links in the order of submission.

To save scrolling here are links to the submissions from each candidate (in order of submission):

• iBug
• Firelord
• beeshyams
• Andrew T.

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1. This is a tough one but to stimulate your thinking to what you can do as a moderator to improve the situation. Our site has about 180 users with reputation in the bracket of 2k to 10k and this number doesn't seem to have changed significantly, at least in the three years I have been a member of this community. I like to think of this section of the community as the White Blood Cells (immunity cells keeping the site clean and healthy by editing questions and answers, casting close & reopen votes, approving tag wiki edits, reviewing and deleting questions) while the moderators are like lungs, liver and kidneys taking care of eliminating more toxic stuff.

   But, there are a couple of issues around this: Low strength of this section of community is perhaps endemic to the site as discussed several years ago You need the bourgeois blues. Low activity levels of this section as discussed recently, though focusing only on review aspects (How can we spend some effort on improving our over all activity?). A clear indicator of the low involvement is the fact that one rarely sees even a blatantly off-topic question being closed by 5 votes; invariably you find the mod hammer as the deciding vote. As a moderator, how would you address these two issues (if possible) to keep the site more vibrant and active, while freeing your time for more important stuff that only moderators can do?

2. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

3. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

4. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

5. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

6. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

Answer 1

Andrew T's answers to your questions

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1. This is a tough one but to stimulate your thinking to what you can do as a moderator to improve the situation. Our site has about 180 users with reputation in the bracket of 2k to 10k and this number doesn't seem to have changed significantly, at least in the three years I have been a member of this community. I like to think of this section of the community as the White Blood Cells (immunity cells keeping the site clean and healthy by editing questions and answers, casting close & reopen votes, approving tag wiki edits, reviewing and deleting questions) while the moderators are like lungs, liver and kidneys taking care of eliminating more toxic stuff.

   But, there are a couple of issues around this: Low strength of this section of community is perhaps endemic to the site as discussed several years ago You need the bourgeois blues. Low activity levels of this section as discussed recently, though focusing only on review aspects (How can we spend some effort on improving our over all activity?). A clear indicator of the low involvement is the fact that one rarely sees even a blatantly off-topic question being closed by 5 votes; invariably you find the mod hammer as the deciding vote. As a moderator, how would you address these two issues (if possible) to keep the site more vibrant and active, while freeing your time for more important stuff that only moderators can do?

elderarthis has thoroughly explained the underlying issues in which I fully agree, but as a mod, don't really have a ready solution. This is something that needs community participation to work on, but there is not enough community participation, which is already a vicious circle. Without the community, moderators are as powerless because they don't really have better tools to fix this situation.

As for some ideas... I observed some sites have "weekly topic challenges" (detail on Meta SE: How do weekly topic challenges work?). The community can propose a topic idea that covers a widely-used/popular app or a hot topic based on recent news. With current community participation, we can extend from weekly to monthly. Hopefully, this can attract more participation and make the site more active.

In addition to that, I think some sites have a "bounty week", in which a meta post is opened to nominate posts that are extraordinary and deserve the bounty. Hopefully, this can help to bridge the reputation gap that is needed for the community to moderate more effectively and also encourage users to contribute more quality posts at the same time.

One thing that I also want to focus on is the large number of "troubleshoot my device plz" questions. They take time to be triaged (is it unclear? is it a duplicate?) and it also affects the impression of this site on future potential answerers, that this site is just "another boring troubleshooting forum" (personally, that's one factor I reduced my activity since back then).

The reason I bring that issue specifically is because of "moderation fatigue". Not only moderators, but regular users are also exposed to this. When they are too often reviewing bad posts, they might get tired and give up the review queue (could be worse because they don't have a binding vote and feel powerless, which is the reason I stated in my nomination).

Unlike diamond mods, moderation by regular users is certainly a voluntary action. If we can reduce the source of moderation fatigue, hopefully it will increase the community's enthusiasm in reviewing once more. However, this might need multiple iterations which is better to be discussed on another meta post in the future (e.g. rescoping? specific close-reason banner? guideline in meta?).

In my humble opinion, a site with only 10 regular active reviewers is already enough to maintain the site. In the end, moderators can only facilitate the feature, they need the community to work together in improving this situation.

2. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

Knowledge is extremely valuable, but after all, we are all human beings and have some ego.

Recently, there's a change in "Be Nice" policy to a more extensive "Code of Conduct" which applies to everyone, and also I believe is a good guideline for moderators to follow.

However, considering the current situation, we desperately need users who are knowledgeable and can self-moderate, and a large number of arguments/flags will just worsen the situation. I believe the best approach is to guide and make them understand what are the acceptable practices without a need to be aggressive/confrontational, so they can lead others by example too.

3. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

First, try to know their reasoning privately and politely, and then try to work on the solution constructively. If no consensus is reached, ask for other mods' input to prevent conflict of interest. At this point, I really hope the issue can be resolved without requiring the community input, but if the consensus is still not yet reached, then...

Next, just like regular users, open a meta discussion on child-meta to discuss the issue only (no need to call out if it's by a mod, etc.). There's a possibility that input from the community may give a different and better insight than just of the moderators. Take their input into consideration to make a better decision. **Different opinions can't be avoided, but **

In the end, I believe in open, transparent, and civil discourse for the better of the community. The reason I'm okay with letting the community input is that most of the moderation actions are already public (anyone can access the /timeline or /revision of a post). It can look more suspicious to the community when there are contradicting actions done by different mods without any discussion at all.

4. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

Borrowing the terms from the 9th question of 2014 Stack Overflow election, moderators are considered as "janitors" and "exception handlers". They are janitors, in which they have more powerful tools to clean-up the site, but they are also exception handlers when there are disputes between the members.

The balance between being a janitor or an exception handler might be different on this site while it lacks active reviewers, but ideally in a situation where reviewers are plenty, they should mainly be an exception handler.

They are also the "leaders", not the "bosses" (further reading: The Difference Between a Boss and a Leader). They lead the community by example and care for the overall result, not only thinking about their own goals.

5. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

I have no problem with that.

While I did have a period where I was brash in commenting for moderation (moderation fatigue is real when you're so obsessed with it), the past is the past, and I always strive to become a better person (I learned so much, changed, and improved my approach on moderation while participating on Anime.SE). If else, the diamond will always remind me to become more humble.

As for perceiving by other users, I personally don't see my "diamond indicator" (if elected) as a special status, because in the end, mods are also parts of the bigger community. With or without the diamond, everyone (including me, nonetheless) should strive to build a conducive community.

6. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

One of the biggest impacts is comment moderation, something that even high-rep users cannot do until now (and one of the popular but controversial feature requests on Meta Stack Exchange). I have to admit, I'm in the "no unnecessary comments" group because I love to see clean posts, and will possibly clean-up comment thread if it has served its purpose. (I have raised many useful flags on Anime.SE to clean-up comment threads)

Second is... the binding vote. While this should not be the answer, the current dire situation that has been stated on the question (1) makes this feature more effective, though I really hope we can improve the situation if possible ("treat the cause, not the symptom").

However, all of these won't be effective without the support of underlying community. (There were some SE beta sites that got closed because they were not moderated for a long time. While Android.SE is already graduated and won't be closed, we certainly don't want to be that site)

Answer 2

iBug's answers to your questions

In case anyone is wondering, my answer to the first question is at the bottom, because I think it's the most important one and should be put at last.

2. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

I'd like to answer this question from two aspects.

First, we value our users. I am also a believer in the saying that "human is born kind". I will try to communicate with the user, via chat or mod messages, to figure out why they're behaving like this, and more importantly whether they know they're being disruptive and can stop. Communication is always the key to success. If the user stops such behavior and continues to contribute valuable answers, then who would object that this is a happy ending?

Second, we have our policies. If the softer approach (talk to them) doesn't work, then unfortunately, we have to hold our ground with the weapons we're equipped with. I will gently ask the user to have a break, and if that doesn't work, manually put them to a break. In my opinion, keeping a site clean, free of abuse and harassment, is more important than having valuable knowledge. To sum up this paragraph, I'd say that the Be Nice policy is NOT optional.

Some extra words: Coming from the same source "human is born kind", I don't think this will ever be a real case, as users who gives valuable answers are highly unlikely to become disruptive. I'm confident that our moderator team can handle it if it really happens.

3. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

First allow me to put the same bold word again: Communication is the key to moderation.

In general, I believe that the other mod who closed/deleted/etc the question has their reasons. Therefore I will talk to them and ask for their reasons. I will try to understand their thoughts and ideas. If we can't form an agreement between us, I'll try to hear from other mods or the community. That's why we have moderator teams and the supporting community so any one moderator don't act like a dictator.

4. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

Moderators are moderators. They keep the site clean and healthy. As said in A Theory of Moderation, moderators are also the human exception handlers whenever something needs their attention and input.

5. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

I'm fine with that. I am always careful about what I say, while in the meantime trying to maintain a baseline sense of humor. That says, what I've said in the past are what I'll say in the future. I am and will still be proud of them. The primary difference will be in what I do. For example, I will become more careful when doing reviews, closing questions, flagging NAAs, etc, because there will be no more community consensus before those actions take effect.

6. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

This one is another tough question. As brought up many and many times on Android Meta, gaining reputation is particularly difficult here due to the lack of overall activity. This makes it very hard to gain more moderation privileges by reaching higher reputation. Gaining diamond moderator privileges enables me to moderate the site more effectively, by cleaning NAAs, off-topic questions, filling out tag wikis etc, quickly.

1. As a moderator, how would you address these two issues (if possible) to keep the site more vibrant and active, while freeing your time for more important stuff that only moderators can do?

First I'd like to thank @beeshyams for bringing this question up again. I am the one who asked one of the two Meta questions linked in the proposal of this question, so I can say that I'm a bit prepared for this.

As I have addressed in my question, the real problem behind these two issues is that we aren't effectively turning new users into long-term users. Many users just ask one question or two before turning away.

To start with, I'd like to first state that moderators aren't much different from a regular mid-to-high-rep user, in terms of dealing with this problem. The special privileges that moderators have don't particularly help. Everyone can share their efforts and dedication to helping with this. From the most simple tasks like guiding users through the help center, especially the tour, to advanced ones like improving others' posts by suggesting edits or going through the review queue, none of them are specific to diamond moderators, or the moderator privileges help doing them more effectively or efficiently.

As a moderator, I will try to focus on what moderators can do better than regular users, for example encouraging users to participate in review queues and advocating good behavior, alongside doing those tasks myself. Since this is a community, we need our effort in making the site better and healthier, not just the moderators. I'd also like to thank whoever has helped the site grow, because without you. this site would not have been so great and kept attracting attention from visitors.

I wrote a more detailed answer here, although it doesn't directly answer this. Warning: Blocks of text ahead.

Answer 3

beeshyams

1. This is a tough one but to stimulate your thinking to what you can do as a moderator to improve the situation. Our site has about 180 users with reputation in the bracket of 2k to 10k and this number doesn't seem to have changed significantly, at least in the three years I have been a member of this community. I like to think of this section of the community as the White Blood Cells (immunity cells keeping the site clean and healthy by editing questions and answers, casting close & reopen votes, approving tag wiki edits, reviewing and deleting questions) while the moderators are like lungs, liver and kidneys taking care of eliminating more toxic stuff.

   But, there are a couple of issues around this: Low strength of this section of community is perhaps endemic to the site as discussed several years ago You need the bourgeois blues. Low activity levels of this section as discussed recently, though focusing only on review aspects (How can we spend some effort on improving our over all activity?). A clear indicator of the low involvement is the fact that one rarely sees even a blatantly off-topic question being closed by 5 votes; invariably you find the mod hammer as the deciding vote. As a moderator, how would you address these two issues (if possible) to keep the site more vibrant and active, while freeing your time for more important stuff that only moderators can do?

This is the elephant in the room and has been for a while and a tough one to deal with. It warrants a serious discussion beyond the confines of election platform and asked a question on meta with my answer.

This task is not that of moderators alone. It is to be owned and acted upon by the community. Moderators are doing what they can, it is for others to pick up the baton and run. See the linked answer for details on what I think the community needs to, the most important being to up vote more (without diluting standards) to increase this base and encourage milestone achievements and further exercise associated privileges.

2. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

• .... a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers is an asset ! That is what the community needs in sufficient numbers. We have a huge base of askers but a small group of people who answer (for various reasons). That’s one reason why many questions go unanswered. ibug says 13149 out of 20975 questions on our site has zero answers, that translates to a whopping 62%. So all efforts need to be made to retain and encourage such people.

• Next, it is unlikely that such a contributor is being deliberately disruptive. Engage and understand why. There are many ways of doing that but my preferred way would be discrete. I would give an example of myself being almost like the contributor. Use Hanlon’s razor as guiding principle

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity

expanded to

Never attribute to malice/ disruptive behavior/ [Insert behavior term]..... that which is adequately explained by stupidity / ignorance / [Insert reason other than deliberately disruptive].....

Confession. When I joined the site , I was bitten by the reputation bug and gaining rep was my sole aim without even understanding what this site was about (Thankfully, that started reducing and now not anymore my focus). In early stages I got this crazy idea , a game plan of having only 100 highest voted answers to my account and deleting low score answers (zero to start with) . I just wanted to see what is the highest rep I could get with just those 100 top voted answers. Crazy. Stupid. Yes , agreed. This periodic deletion caught the attention of Matthew Read. He mailed me . Extracts below

Stack Exchange auto-generated a flag because you recently deleted a bunch of your answers. I took a look through them and noticed that some were on closed questions and some were more like extended comments than answers. However, a few were great answers that just hadn't gotten much attention. Please don't be discouraged when this happens! It's unfortunate that we have a lot of "drive-by" users, but your answers will help future visitors — and as such, I undeleted (and up voted!) a couple of your posts. I don't believe this was done maliciously, so I'm not suspending your account temporarily (as we typically do when this happens)...

(Emphasis mine)

I replied and told him that indeed I had no malice , shared my 100 answer only plan and the thoughtlessness behind it. The issue was closed win-win. Now imagine if my account had been suspended. One thing for sure I can say for sure is that I wouldn’t have been a regular contributor with about 750 answers and 50 questions if that happened. Power of positive moderation.

• In case I failed, I wouldn’t hesitate a wee bit in seeking help of other mods. In the unlikely eventuality that it is proved to be willfully disruptive beyond doubt, I wouldn’t hesitate to take remedial action. Details would, of course, depend on specifics of case.

(Matthew Read: thanks again, I hope you see this)

3. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

This, is a rhetorical question, knowing the current and prospective mods and having interacted with them closely, I am confident this wouldn't happen. If it does :

• Discuss discretely and hopefully resolve the perceptions that lead to the disagreement.

• If we can’t resolve, agree to disagree and move on without the shadows of this incident colouring our future interactions.

• In case, this deeply affects me, put it in the storage for a while and revisit. If it doesn’t help , drop it and move on.

All this is behind close doors with other users completely out of the loop.

4. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

They are elected for life and not term based. While human exceptional handlers is a functional description, they need to be focussed on keeping the site healthy and vibrant both in the community of SE sites and outside. It sounds like a hyperbole and I am not sure what it takes to do that but that’s the long term vision- that’s why they are elected for life

5. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

No sweat. There would be evidences of my rep mania, beginner indiscretions et al. They are a reminder to me not to take a holier than thou attitude and for others to know that I too did wrong things and worked on becoming better. And continues to work on it.

6. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

On second thoughts, this again is a rhetorical question which is relevant only if moderator actions in clearing flags, closing questions etc are delayed. The present lot of moderators are doing an excellent job, so I don't see any need for wanting privileges to do things faster

How effective one is not governed by the privileges one has. It is how well does one exercise the privileges. In an indirect way, this is related to what the second part of my answer on meta is about.

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Note: In case you missed reading my nomination , please do read the caveat section again. In short, I may not be able to met the job / community expectations due to time constraints and I want to state that clearly (unlike real world elections). If elected, I will obviously work with other mods to optimize.

It's your choice and I fully respect it

Answer 4

Firelord answers to your questions:

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1. This is a tough one but to stimulate your thinking to what you can do as a moderator to improve the situation. Our site has about 180 users with reputation in the bracket of 2k to 10k and this number doesn't seem to have changed significantly, at least in the three years I have been a member of this community. I like to think of this section of the community as the White Blood Cells (immunity cells keeping the site clean and healthy by editing questions and answers, casting close & reopen votes, approving tag wiki edits, reviewing and deleting questions) while the moderators are like lungs, liver and kidneys taking care of eliminating more toxic stuff.

   But, there are a couple of issues around this: Low strength of this section of community is perhaps endemic to the site as discussed several years ago You need the bourgeois blues. Low activity levels of this section as discussed recently, though focusing only on review aspects (How can we spend some effort on improving our over all activity?). A clear indicator of the low involvement is the fact that one rarely sees even a blatantly off-topic question being closed by 5 votes; invariably you find the mod hammer as the deciding vote. As a moderator, how would you address these two issues (if possible) to keep the site more vibrant and active, while freeing your time for more important stuff that only moderators can do?

My full explanation can be found here, so I summarise that Moderators don't really have much time, because they are regular users, like us, with added burden and responsibilities. We are at liberty to stay away from this site, don't return for long, but Moderators have to think a lot (I believe) to do just that, at least I would for being a carrier of so much trust of community. So there is not much the Moderators can do within their free time reserved for this site, especially when they are working professionals and have a family too, except to do their job well enough, efficiently and in time. As long as they clear the mess swiftly, amicably, maintain good will with others, and guide users wherever needed, the overall burden of the responsibility actually falls over the shoulders of us, the community, together.

Please follow the link if you feel unsatisfied with this response.

2. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

Network wide Be Nice policy evolved into Code of Conduct for many reasons and primary among them is to remain respectful to others, no matter the degree of their expertise, efforts and behavior, at all times. That said, our site suffers with an adversity of persistent contributors adding valuable answers, so I must consider the community's health vs community's needs. While I would continue to fulfill my duty of handling flags, I would gladly setup a private chat with the user and make attempts to have them follow our Conduct. In addition, if the situation calls for, I would ask a fellow Moderator's assistance to help mould that user's behavior in compliance with our Conduct. However, if the user continues to violate the policy, I would take graded action as sketched out in the policy.

3. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

Opinions sometime can be misplaced, be it theirs or myself. If a fellow Moderator takes any of the aforesaid actions, I would first reevaluate my own opinion in light of that Moderator's action. The reasoning behind is that another Moderator also carries the trust of the community and stands at equal standing as mine, so it never hurts to undertake a reevaluation when a competent person does something contrary to your position on a matter. If I still continue to hold onto my view, I would privately talk with them and explain my opinion. Hopefully, things would work out well. Unlike what I would do as any ordinary user, I would not take the matter on public chat or meta site because disputes between Moderators themselves, discussed openly, is never good for community, since if we cannot solve our own disputes amicably than for what reason the community would trust us with settling other users' disputes.

4. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

Primarily, they are exception handlers. They, but not limited to, perform mundane and repetitive tasks which if not performed regularly, frequently and efficiently, can bring to ground the site's quality and community within time. Primarily among them is to handle disputes in the form of flags, reviewing queues just like ordinary fellow users but with additional powers of immediately closing, deleting, reopening, undeleting, merging, migrating et al.

If not all, at least some of them needs to be easily accessible, so they have to be available in or at least visit a chat room frequently. They have to frequent Meta in order to answer/solve/dispose/ of a matter.

All of this sounds easy but it comes with one big disadvantage. As the representative of the trust of their community, all of their actions are in-turn decisions, executed immediately, with overriding power sometimes resting with Moderators only, and so, they should take only that decision which they can justify at any point of time in future. Even if they make a mistake, they have to own it when need be.

5. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

Barring the stint in my initial days here when I did silly things just like any new user, I have got nothing I need to worry about for what I have done, as I have done everything in good faith, for the benefit of my intellect and the community. I have learned tremendously from this community, and I have been able to contribute to community in the form, behavior and manner it expects from any other ordinary user. In addition, I believe I can channel more contribution in certain areas, hence, I'm here for your support for me in the elections.

Furthermore, Moderators are representatives of the community outside the site, be it in chat rooms and meta of other sites network wide, or in the real world, so they have to be careful to a degree and sometimes sophisticated in what they say or do. This would necessarily help me to become more careful, helpful and useful (mostly on network) when dealing with people outside the community for the benefit of latter.

6. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

I firmly believe in my decisions, and so, compared to privileges limited by reputation points, I would be able to handle posts, with respect to closure and deletion, immediately. I would be able to get rid of "not an answer", custom Moderator attention posts, plagiarism, spam, and what not, immediately and help increase signal-to-noise ratio more which we are always in dire need.