@curiousdannii, Do you intend to fill out the moderator questionnaire? I've been keeping an eye out for a post fro you.

@David I promise I will

@Caleb: re:>In other words there is time for you to earn that much in the next week before elections end. A couple good posts is all it takes.

Easier for some than others! You all have put the fear of God in me about posting a question - I'm gathering my courage...

Here is a DSE query that gives breaks down some statistics on meta users and their posts' receptions.

User Link                Reputation Questions QUpVotes QDownVotes QVoteRatio Answers AUpVotes ADownVotes AVoteRatio Accepted
------------------------ ---------- --------- -------- ---------- ---------- ------- -------- ---------- ---------- --------
curiousdannii            4841       21        95       13         6          101     437      49         8          8
Peter Turner             4478       47        180      59         3          124     388      107        3          2
Nathaniel                4171       14        95       3          24         58      351      9          35    …

My observations in no particular order:

@curiousdannii Leads the "virtual" meta rep charts and has the second highest post count, tempered by the fact that rep comes from votes spread across more posts making for a median approval ratio.

@PeterTurner has far and away the most actual posts, both question an answer, but also his posts are the most controversial leading to an answer vote ratio an order of magnitude below 2 other candidates.

@Nathaniel hasn't been at this a long as the other two chaps in his over all meta rep bracket, but the approval ratio on his posts is off the charts.

@Mr.Bultitude and @bruisedreed stack up very similarly here with less total participation that the first three but very good batting averages.

@KorvinStarmast is the other outlier with the lowest total participation to date but the second highest answer vote ratio. Clearly people like his answers (although they disagreed with one of this questions).

@Caleb the truth is always controversial and unpopular. But in all honest most of my downvotes haven't been on controversial opinions, but on new ideas I just throw out as non-obvious solutions to problems.

@PeterTurner I would agree with that if the object was truth. But since that's the one thing this site isn't geared up for I'm not quite sure how that bit applies.

That being said in your defense bringing new ideas up on meta to air them out is the right way to do that and there shouldn't be an expectation that all ideas are winners. As long as the response when the community shoots them down is to try to understand why and then shrug it off and go on enforcing what the community wants then it should be fine for a moderator to try on ideas.

That's the theory anyway. Your questionnaire responses leave some doubt about whether that's how you'd handle disagreeing with the community over how something should be handled.

@Caleb Which is probably why my questionnaire doesn't garner any upvotes. Hopefully the people voting in the general election will not necessarily be the same people who participate on meta

The top users under the catholicism who I know to be mostly Catholic have never been particularly active on Meta.

Given the stats you've shown, I don't know what could much induce them to participate. My only hope is that more than just meta participants vote in the general election.

I haven't bothered to remind anybody that in the first election, I came in very close to being elected with the same opinions that I still have.

With a very deep anchoring by you guys all being pro-tem mods

@Caleb I'd make some noise about quality over quantity, but that would be nonsense. As I mentioned in my little blurb, I won't post on meta unless something needs saying that hasn't been said. Most of the time, someone else has said what needs saying.

@LaurentR. Please ask away, from my denomination's point of view, "fear of God" is a good thing, and is indeed a gift of the Holy Spirit at confirmation. So ... You Are In Good Hands. :-)

@PeterTurner Why do the stats shown have anything to do with Catholicism? You seem to be conflating yourself as an individual with opinions, an approach to articulating them, etc. with that branch of Christianity as a whole — neglecting the that people might feel differently about the latter vs. the former.

@PeterTurner That isn't very accurate. If indeed you had the same opinions then it wasn't very apparent. For example I personally nominated you when we were looking for protems and practically begged you to accept.

Maybe you were excited and on your best behavior then, but you broke than trend and in the last couple years I could not say the same things about you I said in that nomination.

Which is sad because I would like the reasons I gave there to play out: do wo need diversity and we do need someone who who can disagree respectfully, but given your comments in this room, your questionnaire, today's meta post and other recent activity I'm going to say I'm disappointed but all the signs are pointing the other way.

@PeterTurner What you're not accounting for here is that the current mods may also have had the same opinions as you at the time, as well as the community at large. But views changed as the community tested what did and didn't work. There was (and is) a long period of trial and error, and I'm concerned that you don't seem aware of why site policies evolved, but only that they did, and seem to think that the site's evolution has only been for the worse.

@KorvinStarmast denomination? So you're not a Catholic?

@bruisedreed I suspect that was a nod to Laurent's background, not his own ;-) What kind of Protestant talks about the fear of God being a "gift at confirmation"?

@bruisedreed For the purposes of this site, Catholic is just another denomination. Yes, I am Roman Catholic. @Caleb you grokked my intent perfectly.

@KorvinStarmast hmm, well perhaps you can weigh on Peter's latest Meta from your perspective as a fellow Catholic

@Caleb As to the stats with people who do a lot of "catholicism" tags my own low participation I have explained. I've looked at some of the older meta posts and have not yet come to an opinion on what it means, if anything. @bruisedreed I'll take a look. As I've said, unless I think something needs to be said, I am unlikely to comment on meta. I also don't want to get into a denomination war type thing.

@Caleb What kind of Protestant talks about the fear of God being a "gift at confirmation"? A Lutheran who will be Catholic three years from now.

I'd prefer to not have any sort of denomination war. I just think we could improve the site by leaving the appropriateness of Catholic questions to Catholics.

Chesterton said there are four kinds of Catholic. The saint, the hypocrite, the brawler and the weak brother. I'd rather not be a brawler!

But I think it's better than being a weak brother or a hypocrite.

@Mr.Bultitude touché

@PeterTurner It might be useful to get some Catholics looking through questions, but not at the exclusion or disregard for the general guidelines. And to some extent we already have this as we actually have quite a number of active (more so than you in the last 6 months) users who are voting on posts and helping deal with the Catholic ones.

But advocating for better handling of Catholic question scope is different than advocating brute force and utter disregard for other issues on the same questions. Which is how you've been coming across so if you're serious about not wanting to be the brawler you might want to step back and re-consider your approach.

@bruisedreed Against my better judgment, I offered an answer. @PeterTurner I hope I have not missed your point.

@KorvinStarmast Can you tell me how you might be a better/different mod than @bruisedreed?

@bruisedreed Can you tell me how you might be a better/different mod than @KorvinStarmast?

I've narrowed down one of my votes between you two, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on a comparison of the both of you. Thanks.

@fredsbend It sounds like you have a vision of very different site moderation conventions... do any of the candidates match that vision?

@curiousdannii You mean regarding all my comments on your questionaire? No, I don't think so.

I just think that online communities tend toward destruction via legislation, and I believe this community is very close to or has already met the line where more rules are very likely to be beneficial.

As an example, I think Skeptics has this problem (combined with a community that won't comment or post on meta, only vote, leaving mods to all the rule keeping). SO is pretty bad, but a different kind of beast.

@fredsbend So the problem would be to introduce new rules (like my brainstormed idea of migrating all unscoped exegesis qns), rather than following the current ones?

I've heard similar comments about Physics and Programmers.

@curiousdannii I don't understand what you asking.

I think applying more rules at this time and into the foreseeable future is likely a bad idea for this site.

@fredsbend I'm trying to understand whether you think the current site conventions are already problematic, or whether it would only be their extension through new rules/policies that is problematic

@curiousdannii I think the site conventions are currently fine. I'm just trying to put up the roadblocks before we go too far.

@fredsbend That's fair, but it makes me rather confused to your response to my questionnaire, particular to question 6...

@curiousdannii I'm trying to not make this personal, but in my experience, you stand out as a person tending toward "pedantic" actions. I'm still trying to verbalize this concern as best as I can, but I do believe the phenomenon is common among all online communities, so this one is no exception to it's vulnerabilities.

Maybe the difference is that I strongly believe that meangingful changes to questions need input from the OP before we edit them.

You start question 6 with "I thought we were doing fine, but some things have come up during the election that makes me wonder". The idea is new to you.

@fredsbend To be fair it seems fairly new to you to - you haven't made a Meta discussion about it, and only raised the issue during the election

@curiousdannii I understand. A similar issue, but different too. I believe that ultimately all posts belong to the community. I probably am a bit more cheeky with my edits, if I think they'll keep a post from closure, but still provide meaningful answers for the OP.

@fredsbend Is the core problem you see with my response to question 6 that I think questions should be closed ASAP before the OP has a chance to improve them?

@curiousdannii New to verbalize. Certainly not new to thought. I've been thinking about it for at least 18 months, sealed the deal for me on this site when one of my answers was deleted that I do not think would have been if it were a year earlier.

@curiousdannii Yes, it's a big part. I'm thinking something bigger though. Instead of reaching for the protocol, we should be reaching to build and improve the content. Protocols are great, but they can also be a hindrance.

@curiousdannii I haven't bothered on this site because I was angry about the deletion. It was almost a rage quit.

Reminded me of the crap that happens on Skeptics. A very frustrating site.

Combined with a loss of interest in the site topic altogether, you can see why I just moved on instead.

@fredsbend The improvement to the question and the prevention of answers to off-topic questions should be parallel, not a sequence.

@curiousdannii I understand, but getting questions reopened is harder than getting them closed.

@fredsbend That's because fewer people are willing to edit their questions.

Fewer people are willing to vtr. They look at it with a lot more scrutiny.

When we don't close questions promptly then they often collect 2, 3 or even 4 answers, often from more new users. If the question is closed that upsets them a little. If the question is substantially edited and their answers are now NAA then that upsets them a lot. That's what we want to avoid by closing ASAP.

@fredsbend So the issue is people need more scrutiny when vtc and perhaps a little less when vtr? You could well be right.

Further, vtr's are pretty much only viewed in the review queue. When you see a post on the front page that you've already read and it says "On hold", I doubt you'll see it again unless it ends up in the reopen queue. Meanwhile, many users with the priv don't visit the queue too often.

@fredsbend I'm sorry to hear that. I don't remember the deletion, and probably couldn't see the post.

@curiousdannii I hardly remember myself. Just the confirmation of what I thought was happening.

@fredsbend Of course mods can make up for slack communities in issues like this. I'd find it very hard to believe that any question escapes the consideration of all of the mods

@curiousdannii But that heightens perception that mods are controlling everything, instead of the community. Getting the community to work toward reopens (or at least asking a different but on-topic question) is important.

@curiousdannii I think that actually largely depends on how vigilant Caleb and David are. At this time, I mostly just handle flags, and Mason and Wax haven't been very active.

gtg.

@fredsbend Thanks for the discussion, I think I understand your position better now

@fredsbend I agree, and it could be that we need some kind of campaign to get people using the reopen queue more. Or maybe a chat room where links can be posted of questions that need vtr consideration. Lots of possibilities

@El'endiaStarman I don't want to make any election promises, but I already try to see everything that happens on this site

I think a number of candidates do that already, actually. Which is great.

This is the kind of question which is currently considered on-topic here. If Nathaniel's proposal were adopted then it would probably not be allowed (it isn't really very trivial.)

Would it be better to just migrate all questions like this to BH.SE? I'm starting to lean towards yes.