^^^ Yep. You're right.

@jmac Use your best judgement when it comes to editing. My takeaway from the most recent discussions is to keep editing, but try to include the asker and increase communication with that person. (This isn't targeted at you... just in general...)

@Chad On other sites I moderate on, mods are a majority of active commenters, closers, and editors. Being smaller communities, there are fewer flags and fewer issues, and it's possible for moderators to actively participate in each and every question. On those other sites, the flag queue is virtually empty most of the time and as a result most of my efforts go towards community building and outreach.

But on Workplace there are almost always double-digit flags when I show up, so most of my time on Workplace is spent examining flagged posts in detail to determine if action is needed, what action to take, whether the action would be too heavy or too light, etc. I will say that it helps to make a decision faster when there are multiple flags on a post. So I definitely encourage more flagging. Thanks for reminding everyone of the importance of flagging.

But there are two issues here. 1) This site's visits per day has grown tremendously to 10,596 views per day. That's a lot of traffic and a lot of content to wade through everyday, which is why moderation from the community is so important. Workplace moderators can't be everywhere all at once.

2) @jmac makes a great point about too strict moderation. There are Stack Exchange communities out there that are extremely hostile because those communities aren't unified. They grew, but they never gained community consensus. I've noticed people tend to be more accepting of the rules when they see that everyone (or most people anyway) are all on the same page. A unified community carries more weight than a few individuals.

As an aside, I dug this up from six months ago. This snapshot was taken on May 6th!

@jmort253 I Get it. Like I said more flags should be a cue for the mods to step in and say something. I also get that when I am the only flagger on an item you have to err to the side of letting it go alot. I think if more people flagged that it was a problem it would be easier for you guys to take action.

We already have a problem with people flagging questions that may not be the best but should be acceptable as opinion based. What we need is the mods riegning in a few people who are creating broken windows. Instead of fixing their problems tell him to fix it himself until he shows that he can play by the rules. It does not have to be you Jmort. But we need a mod to play enforcer.

I get it that it is not the style of any of our current mods to play enforcer... but with a soft skill site like this I think we really need one. I wish SE would let us elect a 4th

@jmort253 Ding! Ding! Ding!

@jmort253 Keep up the great work, jmort! You're doing a great job!

@Chad I think that @Joe Strazzere is going to make a great 4th moderator too; but all in good time.

@jmort253: 10.6K visits/day is really striking. Must be doing something right! Parabolic growth!

@JimG. that will not be where my vote goes...

@Chad: That's fine; but in general, aren't you excited about where Workplace.SE is heading? The stats speak for themselves!

@JimG. No the stats only tell one part of the story. The fact that we close questions that should be perfectly acceptable and let rants and discussion questions go is not good. If it was all about the stats Joel would not think our site was horrible since it is going to be making him a pile of money. He gets that there is a chance this site can severly tarnish the SE Brand.

@Chad: Umm... I agree with some of what you said. Joel's current opinion doesn't bother me because it will change.

@jmort253 I am using my best judgment, but the recent hubbub has definitely made me hold back from editing many posts. That means they get more answers, which makes them harder to edit, and often (unfortunately) means they get closed. Regardless of what I do individually, we as a community need to decide how we want to maintain site quality (as some users seem not content with current quality).

@Chad I think that the 'broken windows' are a far smaller problem than you seem to think. The astronomic increase of popularity is likely driven by Google and other searches, rather than from people browsing the front page. Broken windows are less likely to pop up in google (as some of our recent site evaluations have shown), and so I'd rather have some poor posts that we handle in a semi-timely fashion than an 'enforcer mod' personally.

@jmac: Right, and I refuse to let @Chad give others the impression that the moderators are anything other than spectacular (because they are).

hey hey guess who is back :P

hint: its me

@RhysW: Welcome back! Ready for the snow?