I do have some questions though that I would like to propose to the candidates:

1. As a moderator, what are some things on the site that you would improve?

2. How would you encourage more high quality questions and answers?

so isnt it like.. now?

chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/info/1646/…

should tell you it starts in 2 hours (:

ok, because the link say now

Event Time is onsdag 26. oktober 2011, kl. 18:00:00 UTC time

it's 16:10 UTC, not 18:10...

where i am its 18:10

and if i click timeanddate.com/worldclock/…

it say 18

not sure what went wrong there :-)

ah duh i think i looked the wrong place

i thought that app converted it to my local time zone hehe

well back in 2h

@KitMenke Since I'm idle anyway, I thought I'd add my response a little early:

1. I would look to improve the acknowledgement of our experts, as they're our biggest asset. Such as looking to expand the newsletter to include 'Top users this week'

2. Editing is key: Editing a post has an immediate impact, but it also shows the user how they can improve future questions.

Flagging is also a big part of the quality push; acting firmly in response to those who would use our site for nothing but cheap self-promotion is very important, I feel. But even the most abusive user may be turned towards more constructive contributions.

The biggest challenge is to get people to vote. I think that is even harder than getting answers, and is the key to a successful site because it filters the answers.

That's true. But getting people to vote is quite a big challenge. I'm not sure how we could encourage it from a moderator perspective, short of e-mailing all the users individually and asking real nice. :/

I think we are in agreement ;-). Or failing that, getting questioners to accept answers. I have seen many detailed and authoratative answers where the questioner comments "thanks for fantastic answer - solved my problem". But the answer is still not accepted, and not a single upvote.

pfffft, head start? (;

We'll get started in about 10 minutes

Sorry, we'll be quiet.

@RebeccaChernoff Ok, we'll pretend we're not here ;)

lol

Clearly we have nothing better to do with ourselves; that's why we're good moderator candidates. :)

If only.

Good afternoon!

@LoriG Shh! We're not here yet. ;)

@StuartPegg :)

lol

Hello! (:

Hello :)

Hi.

you can be here now q:

:)

Welcome to the SharePoint SE Town Hall Chat

We're just here to get to know the candidates and ask questions regarding the candidates views on moderation that may help in voting.

A few notes about the format:

aloha

The format is open, feel free to ask your question(s) unprompted, however please be mindful of whether or not candidates have answered the previous questions so that they don't get behind and start missing questions. Other than that, feel free to jump in.

Candidates, please use the reply feature so that questions and their answers are linked together. (Hover your mouse over the left of the message, click the down arrow, click reply)

When a question is asked, I'll star it - please star it yourself also to help! Please save stars for the questions so that candidates can refer to the star list to make sure they haven't missed a question.

We will be creating a digest version of the town hall chat after it is completed. This digest will take the form of a question on meta, containing all the questions asked as well as their answers for easier reading.

There's a system message up on the site (though I got it up a bit late, my bad), so we may get some stragglers joining us.

The candidates I see here are: @SPDoctor, @AndersRask, @LoriG, and @StuartPegg.

in fact not much other than candidates here :-O

With that, I think I've got all my initial messages, so I open the floor to y'all. Who has a question to start us off? (:

Oh, actually, @KitMenke added a couple questions earlier since he can't make it. You'll see those starred in the sidebar, so feel free to reply to them and answer! (:

I've starred Kit's two at the top, and responded already. :)

@AndersRask Can I just say: Kudos to the current moderators - Anders, Alex and Kit! They have done a great job over the last year or so.

thanx bill

regarding #2: I think i'm already doing that :-) I brought a package of SWAG to the SharePoint Conference in Anaheim (SP.SE t-shirts and stickers) that i gave (with appropriate sales speech) to interested and especially to the expert already gathered

@KitMenke 1. I would like to address the unanswered questions. One of the things I try to do on a daily basis is review the unanswered questions, some of which have very good answers but they have not been upvoted and the person who asks the question has not accepted an answer. I think encouraging people to use that section and ensure that questions do get answered would help encourage more people to use the forum in general.

the same to SPSUK where I am speaking: im bringing SWAG and preaching the good message: come join us at SP.SE :-)

yeah @lori along the same lines: i set of say ½ an hour to just improve the quality of the tagging. Earlier today i attacked all posts tagged with both 2007 and 2010 and read them through and tagged them more appropriately. The data quality is important for people that come here through search engines to seek answers among the existing content

@KitMenke 2. Encouraging better questions is really done by editing them, and leaving comments. Probably the same with answers, it only takes a couple of minutes to comment "can you expound on this" and allow the person to answer. I have to admit when I started out on this forum at the beginning I had no idea what I was doing. As I've progressed I've tried to make my answers more clear and give better instructions.

In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching higher rep privilege levels?

@AndersRask Great! And thanks for the swag at spc11. I think we need to get the experts and MVPs involved - it is worth their while if it takes people to their blogs. Also get questions on StackOverflow migrated - make SO users aware of the site.

@RebeccaChernoff well there are much more to mod'ing than editing as a 10k user. For example you get all the mod tools to look for suspicious voting patterns

@RebeccaChernoff One of the things I see time and time again is an answer that should be a comment. Currently I flag these and wait for the flag to be dealt with, rather than directly dealing with the issue.

@AndersRask Totally agree with this. Many excellent answers get no upvotes and are not accepted. Really dragged us back when we were trying to get out of beta.

i think @fabian did a good job of describing the differences between a 10K user and a diamond mod here meta.sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/462/…

@RebeccaChernoff I've never been a moderator, and honestly this is one of the first forums I've ever participated in on any kind of regular basis, but it is a site that I find very valuable and want to help grow. It has challenged me to learn more so that I can answer questions as well allowed me to see the types of issues people are having so that I can try to be proactive in preventing them.

@SPDoctor yes but as i said back then, you should never just blindly upvote to make it accepted answer. Only upvote quality answers

@RebeccaChernoff a question for you: how did we come to the number of moderators (3)?

@RebeccaChernoff We also don't have as large a community of high-rep users as other SE sites, which means the Close votes aren't as frequently used to close questions. With the moderator's close ability I could more effectively deal with questions and answers that need closing.

@AndersRask I was wondering that - I thought it must be a StackExchange hard limit!

eh, we just find it's a good number. we happily add more if there's a demand/need for it.

so rolled a dice, huh? ;-)

you almost answered the next question already: since we have so many interested in being moderators, would it make sense to raise the limit?

@AndersRask As long as it wasn't a d20...

@AndersRask no.

@StuartPegg i guess thats some insider role playing slang? :-)

we go off what the community needs, not how many people raise their hand (:

@AndersRask Sorry, geek refrence. Mispent youth :)

Actually what I can say from my own experience as an ordinary SharePoint StackExchange user: this little rhomb next to user nickname gives to moderators not only some hidden abilities, but also some kind of reputation. So the comments and reproofs about quality of questions or other things are then much more convincing :)

Since we have all three current mods nominated, and happy to continue, wouldn't it make sense to add one or two more mods?

Hello to all, btw:)

@omlin Hi :)

hi @omlin, welcome :-)

@omlin if you think the current mods do it for the fame and glory you are sadly mistaken :-)

@omlin Also it is a good ice-breaking chat-up line in a bar.

@omlin i started this baby up from day 1 (or maybe day 2) so I do mod duty to make sure it stays the way i like it: high quality answers and questions

@LoriG actually im still a bit mad at you

@LoriG for beating me with 1 in user id :-)

@AndersRask I didn't do it :)

@AndersRask nono, maybe I need to rephrase. I meant that moderator status just brings reproofs to notice :)

Can you explain (or link if you can easily find it) an example that demonstrates a valuable contribution to the site that shows your leadership / how you would handle something as a moderator?

i can give an example: using the "suspicious vote pattern" i tracked down 4 sockpuppet voters so far. By going into the logs i cross referenced ip log entries and brought forward persons who fabricated questions with one user and answered them with another.

@RebeccaChernoff Here's one example of being firm but fair: meta.sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/135/… , and one for an original take on an old problem: meta.sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/331/…

Oh and I still hold the highest flag weight on the site. :) sharepoint.stackexchange.com/badges/65/deputy

@RebeccaChernoff in general im not sure about the "leadership" thing. Moderators got special powers, but they should be used discreetly not as a hammer

being a leader on the site doesn't mean only in the mod tools.

@AndersRask Leadership doesn't have to be standing at the front shouting; it can be simply saying "I think this is a good direction, everyone agree?"

I think the important thing is to be polite and diplomatic. And explain things clearly. I often go over my posts numerous times before publishing.

@RebeccaChernoff The only current examples that I have are encouraging others to answer, and pointing out questions to people that I know who might be able to answer specific questions. But handling issues will arise. I haven't had any encounters, but like to think that I can be polite and fair if there is an issue that needs to be addressed.

these are all good qualities (:

I'm just gonna keep asking questions if nobody else will. q:

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?

@RebeccaChernoff i would probably start by annotating the user, so get the other mods in the loop

@RebeccaChernoff I would open a chat room with them, and talk them through the fact that they were a valuable asset, but that there were areas to improve. I would also try to find out what was causing them to start these arguments, and try to find a way to alleviate this.

@RebeccaChernoff Provide encouraging comments for the non-offensive answers. Ask them to edit the problematic ones.

luckily we still havent had to use suspension, people tend to behave nicely :-)

i agree with @StuartPegg that an eye-to-eye confrontation in a chat room would also be effective

Ohoh, sorry, trying to get children asleep :( About leadership (hope better late than never): 1. I'm posting comprehensive answers with screenshots, code samples, and I'm trying always to check the code really works on my local testing environment. 2. I always advertise good questions and answers (not only mine) in twitter. 3. I prefer to comment partially correct answers rather than post a new answer - I believe that all that makes me a bit odd and maybe for some people, I'm becoming a leader )

@StuartPegg unfortunately it isnt always easy to get hold of them

@RebeccaChernoff This should be handled one-on-one if possible, I like the chat idea that @stua

@AndersRask Fair enough, but it's at least worth a try. Or perhaps an e-mail conversation?

Sorry, still adjusting to a new computer :)

emailing users should only be used as a very extreme last resort.

@StuartPegg we do have mod tools to contact users, but they are only ment to be used for serious issues, so it would depend on the severity

@RebeccaChernoff Ok, fair enough.

That was supposed to say I like the chat idea that @StuartPegg mentioned. You'd have to ensure that you addressed the content, though, not the person.

I have a question, if everyone's answered?

go for it

@SPDoctor mentioned earlier the importance of encouraging upvotes. Personally I have very few ideas on how to go about this, what are your thoughts? How would you go about this?

@StuartPegg How about if mods were allowed to accept an answer? Sometimes it is obvious from the comments, if not from the answer itself, that this is the best (or only) answer, but the questioner moves on.

it is hard, because you need to be very careful not to "just upvote", so some carrot method like "a t-shirt to the guy with the most upvotes" is definately not a good idea

@SPDoctor that's not going to happen.

sorry q:

@SPDoctor ehhh no!!

@AndersRask I agree the quality of upvotes is important too.

thats how MSDN forums do it

@SPDoctor it is MSDN practice, and I don't think it is a good one :(

and it sux!

@AndersRask totally agree)

that

actually the MSFT mods are paid to close answers

oops)

so they blatantly close them just to get their paycheck

@StuartPegg I'm not sure either. Personally I tend to upvote answers much more often than questions. It is much easier to look at an answer and say "Good answer" than it is sometimes to say "good question" because what people need to know varies so widely. I'm also frugal with upvotes. I know this and it is a limitation that I have. I have no strong ideas on how to encourage it other than to let people know that they should.

The MSDN method is often misused to improve answered rates, rather get questions answered.

that's partially why I'm here and not on MSDN

@LoriG what? you are not in it for the badges? :-)

I often see accepted answers on MSDNs, and when I scroll the page down, there are 3-4 messages from author of original answer: "this doesn't help!" "hey, anybody?" "help me please!" :)

@AndersRask Yes, but a good question to me, is vastly different from a good question for you, because we have such different aspects to our knowledge (dev/admin)

i'm an architect but i will let that pass ;-)

@AndersRask badges? we don't need no stinkin' badges (sorry)

@AndersRask :)

Pesonally my only thoughts are similar to @LoriG's. Leading by example is an important aspect with upvoting.

no i get what you mean but thats the beauty of this site: we got IW questions, ITpro questions, Dev questions, end user questions

@StuartPegg I don't have an answer for upvotes either other than reminding people to do it. Any kind of rep carrot would make people go crazy. BTW, the quality bar for an upvote is much lower - you are just saying that the answer is "useful".

I think it would be a good idea to have moderators which are competent in different directions inside SharePoint

@omlin I agree!

@RebeccaChernoff Ok, I was only asking the question ;-) I know its been asked before.

@omlin Good point. So, follow-up question: How would you categorise yourself as a SharePoint person?

It would produce a permanent flow of upvotes on all kinds of questions, because it believed that moderators are active:)

I'm a developer through and through. :)

I

@StuartPegg I'm a developer, not a secret:)

I'm a developer gone solution architect (shhh!)

@AndersRask Traitor! ;)

hey, thats where the money are! :-D

I'm an admin and also do a lot with no-code/end user solutions.

nah, its tons of fun

i get to design all our big solutions from scratch

a few minutes left, any last minute questions?

next question?:)

so i think i span most of the product: in my daily work i go from IW with end user meetings, to architecting topology, doing real dev work and sales

I'm all questioned out, myself.

I have one, should be kind of quick answers.

I am either a developer or a software architect depending on who is paying.

What kind of time commitment do you plan to make for moderating the site?

I wanted to ask @StuartPegg about chatting with people who need personal attention. How do you get them to chat?

It depends on workload. Some days a couple of hours, other days nothing.

Currently I set aside a 30 minute block of time at the beginning and end of each day to answer questions and come back to it repeatedly during the day for similar things. I've not been a moderator, but I'm sure if needed I could commit more time as needed.

I'm on the site a total of between 0.5 to 2 hours each working day, before work, at lunch, and after work. Usually checking for flaggable posts. :)

@omlin I'll steal this one q: Mods have a feature where they can invite someone to chat by generating an inbox notification. Obviously can't force them to join chat, but it at least guarantees an inbox notification is created even if the user has never been to chat.

@LoriG, 1-2 hours a day, but not all days

@RebeccaChernoff I knew that, honest. :)

@RebeccaChernoff oops, haven't known this:)

Shall we finish with final thoughts from the candidates then? (:

As of now Im popping by on/off 10-15 times a day to check flags etc and answering the odd question, in the evening i get time to go through the new questions more thorougly. but as @SPDoctor say, it depends on workload

@RebeccaChernoff questions were quite interesting. Don't you have another couple of them? :)

oh I could go on and on, but it's been an hour, so I'll let everyone off the hook. (:

well, I have had a bunch of fun as mod and I hope people have enough faith in me that they want me to continue. If not it has been a blast as long as it lasted :-)

Thanks for arranging this! I have enjoyed watching the site grow, and hope to continue to see it grow, whether as a moderator or as a participant.

@RebeccaChernoff I know that whomever gets voted in as the new set of moderators that we'll be in safe hands, but I hope I'll be one of those few responsible for guiding and caretaking the site in its new incarnation. :)

ok everyone

Good luck everybody.

Thanks to all for participating and best of luck to all the candidates!

A digest will be posted to meta in a day or so

yep GL