@Shog9, it doesn't really bother me. My philosophy is that everyone deserves some criticism, and I incorporate what I receive into what I do. I try to step back and see the other side, and, after weighing it, it may affect my actions a little or a lot. That assumes it is reasonable, and demonstrates thought. Some, e.g. name calling and groundless accusations, which [name withheld] has leveled can't really be called criticism, but it gets inspected and sent to Null0.

@Eddie. it is interesting that you mention the Security SE site. Craig (the retiring moderator) mentions, in a comment to this Meta question, the predilection of the moderators there to unilaterally migrate off-topic questions. I have seen this happen in questions from there to SO, NE SF and SU. I think some people asking the questions would prefer that approach, but not the moderators of the other sites.

Assuming you're referring to either myself or Jordan - nice

The accusations aren't groundless at all

Here's my official criticism - 8 or 9 months ago you were answering basically every question, and as Eddie put it more eloquently than I did, your answers weren't of good quality. You were obviously going for quantity over quality, so I got bored and left.

Your high answer # is testament to that.

And regarding your statement of "I'm not sure why you would think that I think I know everything about the industry." - again, it's because you've provided nearly a thousand answers, but haven't asked one question, and have even stated in this chat that you don't feel the need to ask questions on NESE.

When I check back on this site in another 6 months and you've still not asked any questions (that are not obviously contrived) I'll be sure to put on my shocked face.

Best of luck to you in your moderator elections. If I was voting, you wouldn't get mine.

Also regarding "timeliness" of answers - again, this is a community-driven website, not a support center. We have no SLAs. There's absolutely zero reason why "timeliness" should even be a factor.

I'm kind of over this whole tit for tat thing, Ron. I feel like you're missing the point here. Yes, the point of voting on answers is because there should inherently be multiple answers, guess what, that isn't happening. New users aren't asking questions that fit our guidelines the first couple times around, that isn't happening (shocking!)

Both of those things are happening, and if you don't see that, or the fact that there's a chance you could be contributing to them, I don't know what to say anymore.

My personal bottom line if why I barely particpate anymore is primarily due to the fact of the shit question quality, and as I said previously, no one is encouraging new posters to re-word their question, or explaining what makes it a good one. Instead, people point to the rules and say "go there, and do that thing" - CLEARLY, that isn't helping. What's the old addage about teaching someone to fish, again?

To John's point about you not asking questions, I agree to an extent, I honestly understand how difficult it is to ask questions here sometimes. Mainly because, like you, I know how to do my research and figure it out. That being said, the jeopardy style quesitons/answers aren't only allowed, they're encouraged.

Ask things that are blatantly obvious to you, ask things about challenges at work that you solved, yet couldn't find much information on, take your pick. Again, it's about informing the community, even if you help one person, that's huge.

These are just observations and suggestions, if you want to get into the specifics, I'd love to discuss them. I get that no one wants to be moderator, and that you are trying to step up and do your part, but do the whole part. I'm not saying you're single handedly ruining NESE, by no means am I saying that, but we all agree, THIS IS A COMMUNITY. And now that you have put your hat in the ring for moderator, everything you say will be scrutinized - and you yourself said you were okay with that.

I need to state this again, and it's not just for you, it's for everyone. The above things are happening, I am not the only one who thinks this. Not only is that proven by this chat room, but by personal discussions with less vocally public members.

I am fine with being scrutinized and getting feedback, and that is the reason I am participating in this chat session. I can't change what I did 9 months ago when I was learning more about this site; all I can say is look at how I have been participating more recently, and I understand that not everyone likes that either. I have been participating, and I have been pointing questions to more appropriate sites.

If you don't think I am a good fit for a moderator, then vote for the other candidate; it won't hurt my feelings. There is no doubt that I am controversial for some people, and I accept that.

As I wrote before, I have long thought about contriving a question, but I want to make sure it is a quality question, which has not been asked before. I just really haven't had the time to do that.

I would also suggest that the complaint about crappy questions not receiving better guidance could also be remedied by other community members, including you. I agree that I could have done more for this, but at least I have tried to guide many off-topic questions to the correct SE site.