2020 Cryptography Moderator Election Chat

Cesar M

20:09

Welcome all! This room is intended as a place to converse with candidates, discuss moderator traits, etc. For general discussion related to Cryptography, go here: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/784/the-side-channel

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

mentallurg

20:39

do you know, how many moderators will be elected?

@CesarM: Could you answer?

Cesar M

20:58

@mentallurg Yup! It's on the election page: crypto.stackexchange.com/election/4 (1 spot available), so just 1 person.

mentallurg

@CesarM: Why not 2?

SEJPM

@mentallurg we - the current mods - only requested one spot

mentallurg

@SEJPM: Why?

why not 2?

SEJPM

@mentallurg We think we can already handle the current load quite well even with two but the extra redundancy and unevenness of 3 mods overall would be better

we don't think we generate enough load to warrant 4 mods

and 3 is SE's default

mentallurg

@SEJPM: then why not 3?

SEJPM

21:03

@mentallurg oooh, note that the newly elected mod will join the current team, not replace it

mods are elected "for life", i.e. until they step down or get removed by SE

mentallurg

@SEJPM: May I ask you, how much time on average weekly you spend on the Crypto SE?

SEJPM

@mentallurg as much as I did before I became a mod

I mostly have it open in the background

the mod stuff takes ~1/2h per day I'd guess

sometimes less

sometimes more

answering questions takes more time usually ;)

mentallurg

@SEJPM: Ist it sufficient? (I have no idea, am just wondering)

SEJPM

oh yeah, I could probably mod this site essentially on my own (and I almost did shortly before the second election in 2018), but my life circumstances may change soon, I may become unavailable or perhaps become more occuppied otherwise

and having backup for such cases is a good idea

w/o Maarten, I'd probably have to spend 1.5 as much time on mod stuff

mentallurg

If the load for 3 would too low, it's a matter of proper agreement / organizing :)

SEJPM

21:08

(as there would less need for me to hesitate in making decisions)

mentallurg

I don know - like one week you are the "prim mod", next 2 weeks smb 2 others, then you again

SEJPM

@mentallurg meh, being more flexible than that is better

you see a flag / situation that needs handling and have an idea how to resolve it? handle it

If it's much less clear consult with the other mod(s)

mentallurg

sure, you could agree that with 2 others mod as yoiu wish

SEJPM

If there's no time to handle it in a clear and calm way, leave it to the others for now and / or come back to it later

mentallurg

But for the community it could be nice / comfortable feeling to know that there are sufficient mods who can resolve any issues at any time

SEJPM

21:12

oh yeah

which was one reason why Ella stepped up back in the day, as she is in a US timezone as opposed to Maarten and me in a european

mentallurg

hm I can't understand that

I would rather understand if smb from from the same timezone would step down

but why from different?

SEJPM

there's no point in someone stepping down if you want to reduce latency as it would take resources away

Ella stepped down for other reasons

mentallurg

what were the reasons?

anything private?

SEJPM

@mentallurg I don't want to rehash them here, but they are (roughly) documented in The Side Channel if you really want to know

mentallurg

21:49

@SEJPM: Hm it was like reference to reference to reference ... :)
My understanding: She followed Squeamish who quit because of recent changes of SE: relicensing, fired Monica, changed values (increased role of VC, advertising, reduced role of community)

mentallurg

22:01

@kelalaka: What you think of having 3 mods instead of 2 or 1?