Yikes, I totally didn't see this, my questions should have gone there instead of this chat. Woops.

Either way, to respond to @RonMaupin. What has come of those suggestions on Meta? Even the one that everyone agreed on (more votes) hasn't seem to take effect, I am still seeing so few upvotes on questions and answers. Case in point: I recently edited-to-bump a Q&A I spent a tun of time answering and it gathered zero additional votes for the question or the answer.

As for hostility, it has absolutely happened.

Take a look at the crypto stack exchange. They are the community I compare this one to when I say that things could be much better. Look at all the quality answers, look at how helpful the members are to each other. Their community is thriving as a result of it.

There are PLENTY of questions on that site that could be interpreted as off-topic, but the regulars there continually give questioners the benefit of the doubt and answer the root questions that are completely on-topic. The knowledge repository over there is tremendous.

When it comes to votes, you simply can't force people to vote. There is no requirement that anyone vote. Having looked at the badges awarded for votes, I didn't see your name on any of them. It's fine to say that we need more voting, but you have made no real suggestions on how to make that happen. I, and I assume many people in the community are willing to listen to real suggestions on how to make it happen. SE offers the badges as an incentive.

I think your reading of hostility into what you have linked is overboard. Both Ricky and Ron explained that the question sounds like homework. Ricky explained why, and he even said that he thinks it deserves an answer, but he wasn't personally interested in investing any time to answer it. I really do not read any hostility into the comments.

I wasn't trying to "force" people to vote, I was testing to see if (what I thought) was a quality answer would gather any more votes after that thread. But listen, I don't want to get into a discussion about that thread or test because then it sounds like I'm pissed I didn't get enough votes. Which isn't the case at all.

Right, well, it is also further worrisome, Ron, that you can not interpret any potential hostility from that back and forth. You seem to only see things one way, Ron, and I'm afraid I don't see that as a terribly great trait for a moderator. Not a good reflection of I would strive to understand the other position from your Questionnaire answer.

I can't speak to the members of the crypto community, but the members of this community have, by consensus, decided on certain standards and rules, and it is not up to the moderators to override the community's wishes. I have actually written something in Meta about answering homework questions which have shown real effort to solve, but the community has maintained that those questions are off-topic.

That doesn't mean that the community can't change its mind in the future. The moderators should not dictate what is, or is not, on-topic, and they certainly can't force people to vote (I wasn't implying that you should or should not get more votes).

I had never seen that exchange of comments before, and I was reading it as an outsider. You may consider it a hostile exchange, but I doubt either Ricky of Ron had any hostile intent, and I simply cannot see anything overtly hostile in the exchange.

I was, as an outsider, looking at it from both sides. I would suggest that you reread the exchange from an impersonal point of view. You have your own opinion of it, and we, apparently, disagree about the tone of the exchange, but I did look at it impartially, and it seemed, if anything, I could see it as apathetic rather than hostile. I'm not sure what you want the moderators to do about someone else expressing an opinion to you which you don't like. Again, I'm open to suggestions.

Network Engineering is a community moderated site, not a dictatorship of moderators. If you want some real changes, you need to gather a community consensus, and you must realize that may not happen. If I become a moderator, I'm not going to thwart the community. If the community decides on something, I will work to help the community achieve that. Meta is there to air your grievances, but that doesn't mean that all, or even any, will be resolved in your favor.

@R

@RonMaupin Quite honestly I have to agree with @Eddie here, and while I don't agree with @sdaffa23fdsf delivery, I 100% empathize with the frustration. Obviously no one disagrees with the fact that there are rules here, and that they need to be abided by, but they are DEFINITELY not black and white.

I feel like the community should come first, previous moderators in many cases give newer poster's the benefit of the doubt and suggest a way to reword their question to fit into our rules/guidelines, something I have not seen from you often.

Obviously in a perfect world people are going to get on the site, read the rules, and then post their perfectly worded and clear cut question. This is never going to happen in the majority, we need to be there to help introduce new members into the community and our way of doing things.

I have a feeling the "hostility" that @sdaffa23fdsf is referring to is the fact that, a new user asks a question, and that question is immediately marked closed for whatever reason. That negative response is now the only experience they've had on this site, why would they want to stay?

My suggestion is not to mark the question off topic or closed for whatever right off the bat (which again, happens often), make a suggestion, give the OP time to respond, and do it again if they continue to show effort, if they don't - then close it. The membership participation as of late is abyssmal as compared to when I joined, and it seemed even more robust prior to that.

Not only that, answer quality isn't nearly as detailed as it should be, now we can't control all users, but from moderator's I expect quality answers with sources when necessary (i.e. Mike Pennington).

Also too, as a prospective moderator, how can you expect the community to have a chance to participate when you jump on and answer questions almost immediately? Yes, there is a reason multiple answers can be posted and voted on, but again that's not happening.

And lastly, I truly do understand that getting people to participate in growing the community, not only in size but in maturity is difficult (participating in Meta, etc.), but let's face facts, moderators are the faces/leaders of this community, how can someone who wants to become a moderator only sit there and say "make a suggestion" without doing so himself, lead by example.

There are a good number of contributors here, and I'd wager that a good number of them probably don't even bother participating because there's no point if a couple of folks are the only ones obsessively answering any and all incoming questions.

@JordanHead and @JohnJensen, I', confused. I thought the point of this site was for people to ask questions and get answers. Are you suggesting that people who see a question and can answer it, should not answer it. If I were to ask a question, I would certainly want someone to answer it as soon as possible.

In addition to asking questions and getting answers, the point of the site is for community participation. It's not community participation if the same 2 people are answering all incoming questions.

@JordanHead, I really don't understand about comparing what moderators have done in the past to what I have done isn't a fair comparison. How have I not given anyone a chance to modify a question? I have had no power to close a question, so I have not been able to not give anyone a chance to change the question. SE does have the hold period to allow this, and the wording when that happens says that if the question can be modified to fit, the reopen process automatically starts.

Griping about questions being immediately closed makes it look like I have been doing that, but I have had no power to do that. That is something you may want to take up with the current moderators.

I also really wonder about painting me with the brush of giving answers without sources. One of the things @Eddie complained about on Meta was the fact that people were quoting the sources in an answer. I have been pretty diligent about doing that.

I believe I have never kept anyone from participating. Looking at the list of questions out there right now, I see about a half-dozen people have answered questions. I don't think I have answered today, and only two yesterday. There have been many more questions in the last two days than that. I also take the time to vote on others' answers.

I don't know what suggestion that I have made and just sat there on it without doing it myself. I am open to you pointing this out to me.

No one's saying you're actively "keeping people from participating" - but numbers don't lie. You have nearly double the # of answers submitted than the next-highest person's answer count. When an answer to a question has been provided and is correct (and will be accepted if you're lucky) then what's the point to provide a more in-depth answer that's not going to be any more or less correct than the one already provided?

It's a deterrent for people that want to take their time and provide good, solid, well-written and well-thought-out answers to questions.

The point to doing that is that this is meant as an archive. You are making it sound like I answer every question, and that is far from the truth. In the last 1 yr. 9 mo., how many thousand questions have there been I have answered less than 1000, and many of them hours after they were asked. If I happen to be looking at the site, and I can answer a question, I think I should. Based on history, I doubt that I will have nearly the same time to answer as many questions if I am a moderator.

you've answered nearly 12% of the 7003 questions that exist

that's a large number

or rather than say "large" i'll say "non trivial"

I'm not sure why my answers do not provide good, solid, well-written and well-thought-out answers to questions. I'm certainly open to anyone answering questions, and I don't prevent anyone from doing so, that would be up to anyone who doesn't answer a question. There are multiple people who answer questions today, and I think it would be good if others do too, but I don't see the point of someone who needs an aswer to wait a couple of weeks.

Well, from my POV, I stopped participating on NESE because you actually were jumping on every question, and this was probably 8 or 9 months ago. Stuff has probably changed since then, but the damage has already been done. In my eyes, this site went from "community that has potential to bring a lot of industry experts together for the community, and it's not reddit" to "that site that ron maupin probably spends too much time on"

like i said, it got boring

I'm not saying your answers aren't good or well thought out.

I volunteered to run for moderator because we need moderators. There were not enough volunteers to hold an election until I volunteered. I have been very open about myself and I have filled out the questionnaire, and I have participated in this chat, and NE in general. I really haven't seen anyone else step up to volunteer for any of this. If you don't think I am qualified, or you don't like me for whatever reason, then don't vote for me; it won't hurt my feelings.

I am saying that someone that wants to take their time to craft a really strong response (think 5 why's, RCA's, etc) to a question will lose to someone that wants to string together a paragraph or two and provide a link to a Cisco doc.

Here's a question for you - why haven't you asked any questions here

You've answered almost 900, but asked exactly zero

That may be true in some circumstances, but I have seen it work the other way, too. It really depends on what the OP is looking for. I still there is value in creating a better answer (build a better mousetrap) for the archive. I haven't had a need to ask a question for which I couldn't find the answer. I have thought of making up some sort of question and asking it, but I really haven't had the time to think too deeply about it, and I may still do that in the future.

Okay - but to your point, it's an archive right? If your question doesn't break the rules and isn't something that's really basic, why not ask it here first? Even if you have to answer your own question later, that's still good from an archival perspective right?

I started participating in order to help others, and I have done that by answering questions. I really don't think there hasn't been an opportunity for anyone else to answer even more questions than I have. I'm not sure what you are asking of me, unless I should ignore unanswered questions which I can answer. I encourage anyone who can answer a question to do so.

Based on the numbers, I only answer about 10 questions a week, and I know that there are many more questions than that.

I don't have a dog in this fight anymore - like I said, I've all but stopped participating here, so no one is really getting a vote from me. But I'm here because basically a key factor in me stopping is wanting to run for moderator of the site. But if I were still participating - yes, you should ignore unanswered questions, because there are other people that want to participate.

And sure, if you want to average them out over the span of your time here, it would be 10 answers a week - but I wouldn't have stopped coming here if you were only doing 10 a week

And you should ask more questions. The site benefits by both asking and answering questions.

It sets off alarms in my brain if someone has that many answers but zero questions, plus an actual comment of "I haven't had a need to ask a question". It's like you're half committed.

Plus it might imply as though you think you're above asking questions

and no one is above asking questions.

I'm not saying I'm above answering questions, and I will if I ever have the need, but any question I may ask right now would be contrived. I'm sorry if you quit participating because of me, but I really think you could still have participated answered questions. I think it is important to the people asking the questions to get timely answers. I looked, and in the past week, I did answer 10 questions out of the over 100 which were asked.

Again, not talking about this past week - talking about 8 or 9 months ago

Gonna go eat some dinner, may be back later.

Also it's not good when you say "any question I ask may be contrived" - do you really believe you know everything there is to know about this industry?

*would be contrived

I'm not sure why you would think that I think I know everything about the industry. I absolutely don't, but I really don't have any questions right now. Usually, I can get an answer to any questions I come up with faster in a search than it would take for me to ask a question here. I have also built a library of reference documents and links for when I forget something. I just haven't had any real questions recently.

@RonMaupin I honestly don't have a problem with how many answers you provide. I think you have boat loads of knowledge, and it honestly impresses me quite often how wide your knowledge pool goes -- I say that completely honestly, please take it as a compliment.

But I do have a problem with answers that are not thorough. I'll be honest, I was thinking of you (among others) when I wrote this post (which I was supposed to make its own question, but haven't yet, my bad!).

The thing is, when a new user asks a question, we have only one chance to make a first impression. They ask, and the answers they get in the first hour or two after their question are the answers they will use to determine the quality of answers on NESE. We have only one opportunity to impress them, and make them want to come back.

A lot of your answers are mostly quoting Cisco documents, a lot of the times the Cisco documents are what come up first when Searching for the answer them selves, but the thing about Cisco documents is not everyone gets them.... same with the RFCs, they aren't written to the average reader, they are written to engineers from engineers, and often require an engineering degree to make sense of. Often people are looking for a simple reword, think ELI5.

But it also goes a step further, you as the individual with the highest reputation, and the individual who answers the most questions, and quite possibly as the next moderator, are setting the tone for the rest of the answers in NESE. If your less thorough answer makes it to a question first, and the new user marks it answered and moves on, there is very little incentive for others to try with a more thorough approach -- and worse, the OP will typically never see it.

So what ends up happening is someone who wants to contribute shows up, sees a bunch of less thorough answers with the green check marks, and thinks that is the 'bar' for all answers.

Case in point, take a look at pretty much anything posted by Thomas Pornin or Tom Leek, those guys (among others) have really raised the bar for answers in the Crypto and Security stack exchanges with the quality of answers they put together. It is truly impressive.

I really don't see what you see. When I quote a source, I do take the time to explain it. For instance, this is my most recent answer, and I quoted the reference and explained it. This is what the OP wanted. "...they are written to engineers from engineers." That is exactly what NE claims to be for in the first line from the Tour: "Network Engineering Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for network engineers."

Not always, Ron. Nor am I saying you never do it. This is mostly quoting a Cisco doc, the OP even said it really wasn't what he was looking for. Are you saying he isn't the type of person you want asking questions because he wasn't able to extract every piece of knowledge from Cisco documents? Goodness, I've been in the industry nearly 10 years and I STILL have a hard time understanding some of the Cisco docs.

By the way, I don't think I have the highest reputation, and I have received many compliments from the people asking the question for presenting a very good answer. If I had received different feedback, I certainly would have been answering differently. I'm not particularly looking for up votes or checkmarks, I'm really just trying to answer someone's question so that the person can get a problems solved and make the network work.

But the point is, every answer to every question is probably in some Cisco or Juniper or RFC document somewhere. What is the point of this site if it isn't to re-explain some of those same concepts in an easier to understand way? What is the point of ANY knowledge compendium webpage? They are all a re-statement of something else already written about somewhere else.

I think that link you have shows I explained each of the actual questions in the original question. It's not just a quote from a Cisco document. The quote is rather large, but explaining it without the supporting documentation is what other people gripe about. I explained it, and I included supporting documentation.

Looks like you're only 100 rep short of the highest rep, I think that is close enough where my point still applies.

I haven't really cared much about getting more reputation, although I must admit it does feel good when you get an accepted answer because it shows that you did help someone, and that is why I have been participating here. I really haven't compared what I have with anyone else, and I honestly thought there were several other who had a few thousand points more that me. I guess I haven't looked closely, recently.

Right, the reputation doesn't matter, pretend I didn't say it. Instead pretend I said "...you as an individual with a lot of visibility..."

Honestly, I really didn't intend to run for moderator, and I volunteered for this because we needed someone to step up in order for the election to happen. I also thought it should be someone who actively participates. I would have had no problem not running if we had others who ran, but we needed someone, and I waited until the last minute, hoping that others would also run. That doesn't mean that I will not try to be the best moderator that I can be.

well, handling criticism calmly has been a good start :)

@Eddie, by the way, thank you for the compliment. I really don't think that way because there are a lot of more knowledgeable network engineers in my company (we have hundreds of network engineers). I will admit that I often learn things from other people's answers here. It's mostly on questions I never thought to ask, so I never asked here, or researched on my own. I even learn things when I research before answering questions.