2016 Ask Ubuntu Moderator Election

Seth

2:39 PM

first?

James

2:54 PM

second

jokerdino

third

Grace Note

3:12 PM

Welcome all! This room is intended as a place to converse with candidates, discuss moderator traits, etc. For general discussion related to Ask Ubuntu, go here: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/201/ask-ubuntu-general-room

7

If you have questions about the election process itself, please ask your question on the Ask Ubuntu 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.

6

Zacharee1

4:00 PM

@Seth Hi Who

Videonauth

sixt :)

Grace Note

room topic changed to 2016 Ask Ubuntu Moderator Election: Open Discussion for askubuntu.com/election/5 (no tags)

jokerdino

@GraceNote what's the character limit for nomination essays?

Is it 1200 or more than that?

Grace Note

2000 I think?

Videonauth

well then i would only to drop out 200 cahracters :) im at 2223 now

prepared it yesterday not knowing it would have a limit

jokerdino

4:06 PM

Grace Note

1200 it is, then

jokerdino

Does that still hold?

from meta.stackexchange.com/questions/131055/…

Grace Note

Well, according to that post, it provides a char count while composing a nomination

user139252

So, how do we nominate?

Seth

I thought it was 1200 and then they raised it to 2000. But maybe I'm forgetting.

@TheBrownOne Opens in 3 hours :)

jokerdino

4:07 PM

@TheBrownOne you hug a cute kitty.

user139252

@jokerdino I will not be nominating anyone, then. Cats are the devil.

jokerdino

@Richard I had a lot more in my nomination before - the 1200-character limit is a pain! To answer your question though: I'm fairly new, with less than 2 years' experience of the site (although I've been lurking since 2012), and don't have much rep compared to some of the other candidates. There's a lot of good mod material on this page, and my chances probably aren't too high... – Rand al'Thor♦ ↵ Jan 23 at 17:39

Videonauth

awwww

pouts

Seth

@TheBrownOne you can only nominate yourself anyway :P

jokerdino

Why is there no permalink on comments?

user139252

4:08 PM

@Seth Oh. So, it's really more of an application?

jokerdino

@Seth it remains 1200 as of Jan. Maybe something happened in these 6 months

Seth

@TheBrownOne I guess you could look at it that way.

jokerdino

@TheBrownOne self-nomicon.

anonymous2

6:30 PM

Where are the nominations?

Videonauth

They are not open yet, but here is the page link askubuntu.com/election/5?tab=nomination

anonymous2

Okay, thanks!

Is it correct that the minimum reputation to vote is 150?

Seth

@anonymous2 That is correct.

muru

7:39 PM

Two positions available? Anybody retiring? I thought the review queues were now under control.

Seth

Nope, nobody retiring.

anonymous2

How many mods are there total?

Seth

askubuntu.com/users?tab=moderators

10 currently.

anonymous2

So are two of them being replaced, or do they add some every year, or what?

muru

Looks like they're adding two this year.

Which is kinda surprising. Even with 4-5 mods not visibly active at any given time, I haven't had much delay in having flags handled and such.

anonymous2

7:44 PM

Me neither. But of course, I'm just a nobody...

Seth

@anonymous2 the site grows, or people get busy with other projects and do a bit less here, so we add more as needed.

Occasionally someone retires but afaik that isn't happening this time.

anonymous2

Are the mods able to retire partway through the year, or do they sign in on a contract or something?

muru

No, they can retire whenever they want

It's purely voluntary

And if a retirement makes the team too small, sometimes an election is held, or a previous election's runners-up are called up (if that happened recently enough)

Seth

> Average flag handling time: 9 hours, 30 minutes.

Not exactly fast :p

anonymous2

Wow, you keep close track!

I'll admit, though that could be improved.

Seth

7:48 PM

~~the system does it for us~~ yes we do ;)

anonymous2

Is there somewhere I can find the basic responsibilities of the mods? I find the criteria, but do you have to visit the site or handle flags a minimum number of times?

Seth

@anonymous2 hmm, let me try to remember if there is such a page..

There aren't any visit or x flags handled requirements though.

muru

@anonymous2 The FAQ covers it pretty well:

124

Q: Moderator Cheat Sheet

As an alternative to the other FAQ format being fleshed out here on Meta Stack Exchange, I'd like to propose something far more terse that covers the bare essential mechanics of being a moderator. Feel free to add more questions, but keep them short: this isn't the place to get into complex mod...

anonymous2

Neat! Thanks!

@muru, have you ever been a mod? I can't find it amongst your dozens of badges.

muru

@anonymous2 not here on AU, but I am a mod pro tempore at Vi and Vim.

anonymous2

7:58 PM

One minute left...

30 seconds...

Seth

and we're off!

anonymous2

Are the nominations going to appear at the bottom of askubuntu.com/election/5?tab=nomination?

user68186

Just saw the election notice and came to see the action.

Nathan Osman

No action yet, but it won't be long.

JonasCz

@anonymous2 Yes - there's one already

user68186

8:10 PM

I don't have any experience with moderating anything. Should I nominate myself?

muru

In case anybody feels like checking their candidate score:

5

23

Q: What would my Election Candidate score be?

How can I find out what my election candidate score is? For example, on Ask Ubuntu I'd like to see exactly what score I'd have out of 40. A SEDE query would work but I'd like one nicely presented - an equivalent of flair would be really nice!

support election candidate-score

@user68186 do you have experience with the review queues?

user68186

not really. I do review edits and such in AU.

OK I will go and clear some of the review queues...

Seth

8:28 PM

Man, @muru is more on top of the links and stuff than I am. Nice job!

muru

@Seth finding questions is my speciality, after all. :D

Seth

:D

anonymous2

Are you planning on running, @muru?

You don't have to answer, I was just curious.

muru

Yet to decide. I'll see who else runs, and if I like two really well, then I won't.

user68186

Still clearing review queues....

OK now I have a little more experience with review queues...:D

If @muru is running I will need to clear a lot more of those review queues to compete...

muru

8:52 PM

@user68186 don't worry too much. It's just good to have some idea of what goes on.

user68186

@muru I am not a serious contender. I just want to see if there are enough people with experience.

muru

Why not? Have a go. IIRC @Seth wasn't a 14k user when he became mod.

It's more the willingness to take on the responsibility and an understanding of the site culture than anything else.

4

user68186

I have seen my votes turned down by mods. I have some doubts about my judgement.

Seth

@muru this. Very much this.

I had just cracked 10k like the week before when I was elected.

user68186

May be when I get to 10k I will feel confident enough

muru

8:58 PM

That's all right. There's an entire chatroom for mods to sound things out with other mods.

Just discuss things you aren't confident about.

user68186

That's reassuring.

Seth

@user68186 You aren't expected to walk in all knowing, there are always things to learn and ask. Like muru said, it is mostly about willingness to take on responsibility, and know site culture.

(chat really helps with the site culture thing btw)

user139252

Do I know about site culture?

user139252

We all talk about dogs and how great the Windows operating system is, right?

Seth

lol

muru

9:02 PM

I thought it was cats. :(

user139252

Oh darn, I was wrong!

user139252

Alright, I'll stop taking this room off topic :P

user68186

The other thing is the time commitment. I have a day job that has nothing to do with Ubuntu. I like to help others and I think I can be of help here.

I have been answering questions in here for some years now. I'd like to think I get the vibe of the site culture.

user139252

My day-job kinda has to do with Ubuntu. We use Ubuntu on the computers here :P

user68186

@TheBrownOne I did upgrade (if you want to call it that) a laptop from Windows 7 to 10 this weekend. On the bright side the Grub and Ubuntu partitions survived the process. Miracles!!!

user68186

9:23 PM

Thanks for the encouragement @muru! I think I will wait this one out. Bye

Videonauth

9:50 PM

finally i found a way to shorten my nomination post

user139252

By trashing it and not submitting one?

Videonauth

you wish eh? :) no just submitted

hugs

Jeremy31

So we can only nominate ourselves and not someone else?

Seth

@Jeremy31 that is correct. Although you can encourage them to nominate :)

SQuirel

Hi

Jeremy31

9:55 PM

@Seth thanks, Have to see if I can find Fabby

Seth

@Jeremy31 well seeing as he posted this that might be hard..

64

Q: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Well... There is a time to come and a time to go and the time to go has come. ;-) So I've landed a new job and my time is being taken up for more then 100% (>8 hours/day) during the first week on the job and will keep on going to be taken up for that amount of time in the foreseeable future, s...

discussion

Videonauth

@Seth Thanks Seth, i was just looking for that one to give an answer too

Jeremy31

@Seth that eliminates the one I could think of that might accept. I know chili555 has turned down ubuntuforums

SQuirel

This place is quiet :(

Videonauth

10:15 PM

@SQuirel maybe because we all are running as well our daily tasks on the site itself :) or are in an other chat room maybe

Jeremy31

11:23 PM

It seems the nomination page is down

Videonauth

indeed

Seth

looking into it

Jeremy31

@Videonauth good reputation for the short time you have been here

Videonauth

thank you :) i try my best

Seth

thinking of running yourself Jeremy?

I wonder if it is even possible to moderate both Ask Ubuntu and the forums at once xD

Jeremy31

11:37 PM

@Seth I think that would be more than I could take

Seth

I'm curious: How much moderation burden does the forums generate? I would guess, since you guys are less strict about things than we are here (being a Q/A site and not a forum) it would be less.. But you are also bigger than we are (I think).

Jeremy31

And posting at linuxmint and and other sites

I think we have more spam issues but other than that it is fairly quiet

Seth

@Jeremy31 that must be nice lol

@Jeremy31 That's great! Ask Ubuntu generates enough moderation burden, due to the strict Q/A, it is really hard to balance both moderation and question answering.

Jeremy31

@Seth I was added recently as a moderator there and I try not to moderate a thread I am involved with, using the report post option there

Videonauth

@Jeremy31 Thats a good way to handle it, appreciate that

Seth

11:48 PM

@Jeremy31 yep! We do the same here whenever possible.

Jeremy31

That option gives the other staff a chance to view and voice there opinions on what should be done, or if nothing should be done. The toughest part is beating howefield to banning the spammers

Transcript for

2016 Ask Ubuntu Moderator Election