Welcome all! This room is intended as a place to converse with candidates, discuss moderator traits, etc. For general discussion related to Roleplaying Games, go here: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/11/rpg-general-chat
If you have questions about the election process itself, please ask your question on the RPG Meta Site. Remember, folks stepping up to lead this community are committing a significant amount of their time, please keep all discourse civil and constructive.
Elections are generally held because of three reasons.
One is that the flag load of the site has become too large for the current team to reasonably handle, either because short-handed or because of time issues (though actually fixing the latter isn't always successful, wahaha). We check in with moderators on a yearly basis for this to confirm what they feel about needing a new election or not.
@GraceNote well, in this case a... I'd guess minority, but a substantial one, feels very poorly-served by one moderator in particular, so the opportunity to make the case for a replacement is extremely welcome.
Two is that one or more moderators wish to step down, so elections for one or more slots (not necessarily identical in count) are held in order to replace them. In this case, C. Ross has informed us that he wished to step down as a moderator due to not having the time to do this community justice.
Three is that a moderator has vanished without a trace or has otherwise become unreachable. So in the same vein as two, just less coordination and more worry generated.
@GraceNote I note that it says there are 2 moderator positions available, where we previously had 3; are we reducing the number of moderators? or is one of the moderators not being required to secure re-election?
@waxeagle I haven't commented on your nomination, because you do address it a bit already, but the comment I left on @JoshuaAslanSmith's nomination may also be worth considering for you as well
by the way, which are the moderation, editing, and participation badges?
@KRyan I don't have enough characters left in my post to talk about current moderation. I'll answer as part of the townhall if it comes up (post a Q on the townhall post).
@waxeagle @KRyan yeah I had a word doc up, that I typed up all nice, paragraphs expanding for each of the bullet points, but the character limit is very short so that nobody drowns out anyone else with their real-estate
flamming isnt the only pre-req for comment deletion, just the most immediate
generally though if nothing in the comments is helping a Q or A than it has no reason to live, and if it is servicing to improve either, than it should be incorporated and once done so, deleted
@JoshuaAslanSmith I do not agree in the slightest, I have to go to the main chat page, to the chat-creation page, fill it out, enter that chat room, get the link, and then type up a comment
it's also just not something anyone can or should do; I am more than active enough, have most of the relevant badges, and so on, but I'm not sure I represent a broad enough slice of the site, and I don't agree with some fairly major site moderation philosophies (such as the stance on comments, discussed above)
I assure you, I am fully not qualified to moderate this site, but I am interested in seeing it remain functional, friendly, and above everything else, provide answers to specific RPG gaming questions.
beyond him having a lot of family related time commitment, I think he prefers to be a helpful academic/professor type vs. beign involved in the administration of the site beyond what his rep grants him already
I will vote for any moderator who campaigns with the intent to put a giant note in the Ask Question help, "TRY TALKING TO YOUR PLAYERS." if any social-strife keywords are detected.
@thedarkwanderer my worry is that, even if I did win, I would be (unintentionally!) biased, or almost as bad, perceived as such. It's important that all users feel that all moderators have their best interests at heart. This is very, very important to me on a personal level, and I would not want to cause, even accidentally, anyone to feel the site itself was antagonistic towards them.
@JoshuaAslanSmith Yeah, you've got the general gist of it. My personal life means I can't promise to consistently dedicate the time/energy it'd take, but beyond that I don't think I'd handle it well. I'd turn curmudgeonly.
I've thought about it carefully, and was very tempted for a while.
@MadMAxJr its perennial because the core fallacies behind it are epidemic to the type of people/cultural expectations of a lot of D&D style games which are also the most popular
@Besw I could see what you mean in that last bit, let me say that I fully appreciate all your non-mod activity on the site, you are a wise sage and shall remain so in our chat rooms
I have moderated in other realms online. I'm not fit for the job. I'll try to do the right thing, and make one subset happy, and anger five more in the process. Best I could do is promise to make everyone equally unhappy.
hah, I mean the community as a whole, if it really wanted to, could push to move those out of scope, generally most of those fall out of scope anyway because of phrasing and opinion seeking or craft me X nature
I just realized that if they gave me the character limit I totally wouldve want off on a spiel about Athenian democracy so its probably for the best I didnt have the character count to make a speech
4 years too late, but honestly the trends should in some degree drive it, im not the biggest fan of 5e personally, but I think its workable and Ive certainly benefited repwise from 5e
I find the opposite problem now at my gameshop where everyone I know longs for the optimization and balance of 4e, but I find 5e is super easy to get newbs into quickly
alright heading to a movie night (wont be lurking here for a few hours) just @ me if you guys have any specific questions regarding my views on policy or overall approach.
To bring the conversation back around: A good quality in a moderator will be to view every question purely on its structural and content merits, regardless of its tags.
It can be hard to evaluate quality in subjects we're unfamiliar with--I often avoid voting on World of Darkness questions because I can't tell what's reasonable and what's not.
A good moderator will need to learn to cut through that--and when looking at a moderation team it's useful to have folks with a wide variety of system experience so they can tag each other in.
So, when choosing who to vote for, one of my secondary concerns will be looking at the tags of existing mods and of nominees. If all other considerations are equal, I'll go for the nominee with the most tags the other moderators don't have.
Of course, qualities like equanimity are more important.
Anyway, approaching end of day here. I look forward to nominee responses to topics that pop up. I hope this ends up being practical policy/future discussion and not moderator thunderdome.
And it'd be nice to get a spread of time zone activity if possible--for example, right now Brian handles stuff during Asia/Pacific daylight hours and then hands it off to Mxy when he goes to bed.
Yes, well. One thing that any nominee should consider is that becoming a moderator makes everything you say get heard by the citizenry in a GREAT BOOMING VOICE FROM ON HIGH, in addition to taping a big "KICK ME" sign on your back.
When a moderator makes a suggestion, or performs an edit, or simply makes a remark in chat, it gets noticed--for good or ill--more than it would without the diamond.
The problem with that isn't the witchhunt aspect, its that you might actually have witches. I mean, right now we almost never have legitimate moderation problems, but anomynity would make it much easier for those problems to occur.
I would really like to see @doppelgreener or @SevenSidedDie nominate themselves for the election. They both are well-rounded, level-headed, and diplomatic.
I'm not going to speak for or against any particular citizen as a nominee--I think it'd be more divisive than helpful--but those are qualities which I'd like to see in nominees.
I'm trying to be careful not to say anything positive or negative and specific citizens in this context. I'll talk about the qualities a moderator should have, but it'd be divisive to talk about how any particular folk meet or don't meet them.
@harlandski My personal life circumstances make it impossible for me to commit the regular time and energy I would feel moderation requires. This would make me bitter and frustrated.