2015 Moderator Election Q&A - Question Collection

Question

In connection with the moderator elections, we will be holding a Q&A with the candidates. This will be an opportunity for members of the community to pose questions to the candidates on the topic of moderation. Participation is completely voluntary.

The purpose of this thread was to collect questions for the questionnaire. The questionnaire is now live, and you may find it here.

Here's how it'll work:

• During the nomination phase, (so, until Monday, February 9th at 20:00:00Z UTC, or 3:00 pm EST on the same day, give or take time to arrive for closure), this question will be open to collect potential questions from the users of the site. Post answers to this question containing any questions you would like to ask the candidates. Please only post one question per answer.

• We, the Community Team, will be providing a small selection of generic questions. The first two will be guaranteed to be included, the latter ones are if the community doesn't supply enough questions. This will be done in a single post, unlike the prior instruction.

• This is a perfect opportunity to voice questions that are specific to your community and issues that you are running into at current.

• At the end of the phase, the Community Team will select up to 8 of the top voted questions submitted by the community provided in this thread, to use in addition to the aforementioned 2 guaranteed questions. We reserve some editorial control in the selection of the questions and may opt not to select a question that is tangential or irrelevant to moderation or the election. That said, if I have concerns about any questions in this fashion, I will be sure to point this out in comments before the decision making time.

• Once questions have been selected, a new question will be opened to host the actual questionnaire for the candidates, containing 10 questions in total.

• This is not the only option that users have for gathering information on candidates. As a community, you are still free to, for example, hold a live chat session with your candidates to ask further questions, or perhaps clarifications from what is provided in the Q&A.

If you have any questions or feedback about this new process, feel free to post as a comment here.

Answer 1

As a moderator, your votes become binding. Actions you used to take like flagging, reviewing, closing, and deleting will take effect immediately without any input from any other users or moderators.

How will you adapt the way you currently flag and vote to deal with this change?

Answer 2

While M&TV has a large userbase and many visitors, the meta participation is relatively low and discussions are usually held within a small active core group.

Do you see this as a problem? If yes, how would you try to improve the situation as a moderator?

Answer 3

How willing are you to commit time to this site every day to ensure that everything is seen by at least one mod in a relatively decent amount of time?

Answer 4

How you are going to handle spoiler complaints?

People here have submitted many complaints about spoilers and a new user can give a big spoiler very clearly. So how are you going to handle this?

Answer 5

Here is a set of general questions, gathered as very common questions asked every election. As mentioned in the instructions, the first two questions are guaranteed to show up in the Q&A, while the others are if there aren't enough questions (or, if you like one enough, you may split it off as a separate answer for review within the community's 8).

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

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• In your opinion, what do moderators do?
• 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?
• 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 6

A new user has arrived and doesn't really understand the way the Stack Exchange system is supposed to work. They're complaining that people keep editing their posts and a roll back war has started on a question that they've asked.

You need to step in and moderate the situation. What actions do you take?

Answer 7

This site generates a lot of identification questions. The general consensus for a while has been to keep them, but that we need to enforce some quality rules on them. What is your personal opinion on the identification questions we receive on this site?

Answer 8

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 9

What current policies do you believe are too strictly enforced (either by mods or the community)? Which do you believe are not enforced strictly enough?

Answer 10

What, if any, previous moderator (or similar) experience do you have from a different Stack Exchange site, a different website, and/or the real world (e.g. arbitration)?

Answer 11

What time zone do you live in? When (UTC) would you be active on the site, moderating? And how are you going to keep the international nature of the site thriving?

Answer 12

2 users with competing answers begin to bash each other in comments under the other person's answer. What's the proper course of action to resolve the conflict?

Answer 13

How do you feel about the current activity on the site, and do you have any intentions for attempting to increase activity?

Answer 14

What area do you feel the site could use the most improvement in?

What would you propose as a solution in order to work towards that improvement?

Answer 15

How are you going to cope with the additional workload of being a moderator in comparison to your activity as a normal user asking and answering questions? To which degree do you feel your new moderator duties might decrease your rather content-wise contributions to the site? How will you balance that if necessary?

Answer 16

What changes to yourself do you think you need to make after becoming moderator?

Answer 17

What do you admire most about the way the pro-tem mods have done their job over the whole time? And whats they were missing?

Answer 18

A new user comes into the system posts a bad first question, you correct it and guide him onto writing a proper question. The same user once again posts another complete bad question. How would you go about addressing this issue and the user.

Answer 19

How will you handle accusations of racism or racist behavior?

Answer 20

Why do you personally want the power and responsibility of being a moderator?

Answer 21

Given hypothetical absolute authority, what current community policy/policies would you reverse or otherwise change (regardless of community consensus)?

Answer 22

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

Answer 23

How would you address the issue of an experienced user welcoming a new user who has posted a not so good first question with a really snarky unhelpful comment?