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

Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange is scheduled for an election next week, 2022-06-20. In connection with that, 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.

Here’s how it’ll work:

  • Until the nomination phase, (so, until 2022-06-20 at 20:00:00Z UTC, or 4:00 pm EDT 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.

  • If your question contains a link, please use the syntax of [text](link), as that will make it easier for transcribing for the finished questionnaire.

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

  • We, the Community Team, will be providing a small selection of generic questions. The following two questions are guaranteed to be included:

    • 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?

  • The community team may also include the following three questions if the community doesn’t supply enough questions.

    • 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?

  • At the start of the nomination 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. We exclude any suggested questions that are negatively scored.

    • We will post the final questionnaire on the Election page. Candidates will have the option to fill out the questionnaire, and their answers will appear beneath their intro statements.
    • 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 process, feel free to post as a comment here.

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    \$\begingroup\$ > 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 think this question is badly loaded and needs explaining. For instance, if a particular user produced a steady stream of valuable answers then the numerical volume of answers should be a mitigating factor because, the greater the number of answers produced, the greater is the likelihood of arguments/flags from comments. Simple stats. So, one guy who produces (say) 100 answers per year might have a "conflict" rate of 5 per year \$\endgroup\$
    – Andy aka
    Jun 15, 2022 at 11:41
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    \$\begingroup\$ This question's been in use in election questionnaires for at least 7 years, and this is the first time I was asked to explain what it means. While I do understand your point, I think the "large number" bit in the question is key. Furthermore, it is somewhat implied that the nominee responding to the question (along with the rest of the moderation team) would generally find that that large number of flags is valid/problematic. Furthermore, these flags could potentially be in chat, Meta, or on comments on other users' posts — it doesn't necessarily need to be in that "steady stream of answers." \$\endgroup\$
    – JNat StaffMod
    Jun 15, 2022 at 13:24
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    \$\begingroup\$ My point is that if two guys were answering the same number of questions, the potential number of flags would be approximately shared amongst them whereas, if one guy answered all the questions that two chaps did then, that person would inevitably be penalized more based on the number of flags. That seems unfair; the same number of flags would have to be dealt with by mods so no difference in work load there. \$\endgroup\$
    – Andy aka
    Jun 15, 2022 at 13:53
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    \$\begingroup\$ I'm pointing this out through direct experience; I answer more questions than anyone else and, I've largely given up commenting on other answers or questions that I would like clarification (and I barely use chat at all) but, despite all of this I have received two suspensions in 2022 already. In other words (and ignoring the validity of the suspensions, which I also argue against), I am asking for this to be clarified because of my somewhat unique position. \$\endgroup\$
    – Andy aka
    Jun 15, 2022 at 13:59
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    \$\begingroup\$ If you wanna have your suspensions appealed, @Andyaka , please use the contact form and someone will review your case. This is not the proper venue for these discussions. \$\endgroup\$
    – JNat StaffMod
    Jun 15, 2022 at 16:17
  • \$\begingroup\$ In transferring my answer to a comment you have cut it short rendering it fairly useless JNAT. Also... I have tried the appeal route and find it to be ineffective no matter what I say. I no longer accept that the appeal route has any merit. You can delete this once you have fixed the 1st comment. And, you might as well delete your comment before this comment as it isn't relevant IMHO. \$\endgroup\$
    – Andy aka
    Jun 15, 2022 at 16:45
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    \$\begingroup\$ No user get's special treatment on this site, there is nothing to suggest that a moderator should do so. Moderators are here to make sure the site has good questions an answers and that users use language in their posts or comments that conforms to the CoC. Anybody can answer a question and there are plenty of users that can offer up good answers. Another thing mods want to prevent is driving new users away and being condescending which has been a common trend among high rep users (which is very confusing because the new/low rep users vote and give rep to high rep users). \$\endgroup\$
    – Voltage Spike Mod
    Jun 15, 2022 at 18:21
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    \$\begingroup\$ @VoltageSpike I am now at the point where I don't comment to help bad questions get fixed before they are closed. I think you know my reasons. So, what in your opinion is worse; downvotes and closure votes with no explanation to the OP as to why their question is derelict or, would you prefer a helpful comment that aids the OP fix their derelict question at the personal risk of that helper getting flagged and suspended? You may be inclined to think in the way of a mod but, I ask you to think in the way of how things are seen from new-users and old-users. \$\endgroup\$
    – Andy aka
    Jun 15, 2022 at 20:18
  • \$\begingroup\$ @VoltageSpike.... I am not asking that some users get special treatment but, I am suggesting that users who contribute more answers and comments are not penalized more often because of the amount of effort they put in. Having a system that suspends users based on a fixed number of flags is not as fair as having the "number" based on some form of activity value. I'm not just thinking of me; I'm thinking of what is better for the site. So, at the moment I offer now helpful advice to OPs raising poor questions to avoid this problem. \$\endgroup\$
    – Andy aka
    Jun 15, 2022 at 20:23
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    \$\begingroup\$ I prefer helpful comments that are not rude or unfriendly, its all in your tone. If you think you will be unfriendly then it's best not to say it. I see no reason why anyone would have to be rude to fix a question. Many of us don't have time to fix bad questions, the question system that monitors new questions does this to some extent. \$\endgroup\$
    – Voltage Spike Mod
    Jun 15, 2022 at 20:24
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    \$\begingroup\$ As to your other comment, the only thing that matters is the language communicated, doesn't matter who is saying it. If the flags build up on that user, then it's pretty obvious that they have a problem. And yes we do take the number of comments into consideration and we cut people slack, but we also take the attitude of the person into consideration \$\endgroup\$
    – Voltage Spike Mod
    Jun 15, 2022 at 20:26
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    \$\begingroup\$ My observation is that the number of flags that high rep users attract vary greatly - the ratio of rep to flags, or to conflicts has no obvious correlation. If you take say the top 10 or 20 or 30 or ... rep users then some have a significant number of flags and others have few or none. Note that I am not commenting on the merit or reasons for this disparity - just noting that it exists. \$\endgroup\$
    – Russell McMahon Mod
    Jun 17, 2022 at 11:18
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    \$\begingroup\$ @DavideAndrea You can't. See meta.stackexchange.com/questions/75382/…. People can only nominate themselves. Best you can do is contacting the person by commenting under some post he made, and suggest their self-nomination. But since the comment will be irrelevant to the post, it might be flagged. Or the person might be available in chat. Here is the official stance about contacting someone: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/57537/…. \$\endgroup\$
    – dim
    Jun 21, 2022 at 7:43
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    \$\begingroup\$ @DavideAndrea No problem. And I have good news for you: SamGibson is already a moderator since last year. There is a [♦Mod] mark next to his name, that's what it means. I agree he's doing a great job. \$\endgroup\$
    – dim
    Jun 22, 2022 at 7:04
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    \$\begingroup\$ I would think everyone who are both suitable and interested in becoming moderator here are already moderators. To increase the number of interested applicants, you might have to raise moderator wages. \$\endgroup\$
    – Lundin
    Jun 22, 2022 at 9:11

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