@AliceD I have sometimes chastised David for his tone. Me! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
@AliceD The be nice policy isn't solely to blame. People react badly to criticism of any kind, unless it is wrapped in a cozy blanket topped with roses. It's hard to give feedback when feedback hurts.
What is the mod culture here like? I've been on sites and in situations where there is almost no communication between mods (i.e. they all just do what they can and don't waste time talking about it) and sites where decisions are made together. Can you say what a mod would be walking into if they volunteered here?
Both have their pros and cons, and I don't mean to sound like it's a judgement. On a slow site, discussion is fine because questions and comments aren't pouring in all the time. On a busy site, things need to get done. Just wondering.
@theforestecologist You definitely have my vote and more. You are already a great asset to this site.
@theforestecologist If I read the front page from "newest" as opposed to "active", it leaves me feeling pretty discouraged.
Yeah the new stuff is pretty bad -- it really is just a lot of bad question askers being upvoted and bad (sometimes wrong) answer givers being upvoted. Clearly a sense of expertise is gone here, and I do doubt that people consistently walk away receiving accurate info. STILL BETTER THAN YAHOO ANSWERS THOUGH
Again, that's why I'll encourage you to spend a bit more time here again. Like all things, the right "culture shift" has to occur. These things are (or at least can be) cyclic, so if enough folks downvote the slop, drop enough comments to improve posts, and close enough of the throw away questions, there could be an improvement.
The current candidates have a worse review record than me! At this rate I might just as well continue being a mod :P
Yes, the post quality has gone down and there is not enough user moderation. Sometimes I see about 50-60 question in the close queue and for some of them I'm forced to use the mod hammer.
I agree with @theforestecologist that good users should try to visit the site more often. It will help a bit in keeping the site's quality.
@terdon Yes. That I am! I get impatient when the normal users don't do their part of moderation efficiently! :-P
Also, with the little time I have, I cannot throw welcome banquets for new users with bad posts. I try my best to be polite but people always get offended. For example.
What we actually need is more active non-mod user moderation.
@anongoodnurse — Nice to be called the last of the mohecans. I've never been on chat, but am a little worried at the lack of experienced users putting their names forward. Is it possible to suggest someone like RemiD to consider standing? I'd stand myself, but I prefer to use the time I can contribute by writing answers on things that interest me. Also, I've rubbed so many people the wrong way that I'm hardly a model of tact and neutrality.
I think @BryanKrause @canadianer and @fileunderwater are good candidates for the mod post.
I was wondering what happens if we don't find a suitable candidate?
There are two scenarios: people choose the best amongst the available or not vote at all, considering the fact that they did not find anyone good enough.
In both cases the election doesn't fulfill the actual need.
@WYSIWYG Thanks for the confidence @WYSIWYG! I've nominated myself once before, but have less time to visit the site now. Kids + always too little time for work make my visits rather infrequent now.
@AliceD and @WYSIWYG I have really appreciated the work you have done for as moderators. It's really a pity that none of you want to continue. Also, with all the respect for the current candidates, I am a bit disappointed by the current list. Could you please tell how many hours per day you have dedicated this year as moderators?
@alec_djinn I dont think @AliceD is stepping down. For me it's not that I don't want to continue. I thought that I was not giving enough time and thought perhaps someone else may do this job better. We mods discussed this amongst ourselves.
I had not been participating in the site for a while. I'm a little active these days. I have realized that the real problem is not the mod-level moderation i.e. there are not many flags or disruptive users. The problem is insufficient user-level moderation and if some of the active users become mods then this process will get affected even more. As mods we cannot always use our votes even if we think a post is of low quality.
I still think that the problem is the low quality of the question. And it is somewhat rooted in the lack of more strict rules on how to pose a question. On StackOverflow, for example, you need to include a reproducible code, and you need to show that you have tried to solve the problem by yourself first. Instead, the majority of the questions on this site are just lazy and too broad. Very few users show they have put an effort doing some research.
Personally, when I read such kind of question, I lose the drive. I would like the site to enforce a more structured way of posing biological questions.
@alec_djinn Note that this site also requires you to show that you have tried to solve the problem first. We don't require a reproducible code example, for obvious reasons, but we do expect users to search and try to find an answer first.
It's just that people ignore those rules, not that the rules don't exist.
@terdon are not enforced. I would close way more questions. I don't want to sound critical, I love this community, I would like to help to make it better. Since I spend lots of time on StackOverflow as well, this is the main difference I have noticed. On StackOverflow, they are more strict with enforcing the rules. It's easier to get downvoted for sloppy questions.
@David I'm sure everyone is worried about the same thing.
@David Writing good answers is an incredibly valuable way to contribute to a site.
@alec_djinn "Rules" don't matter at all. What is effective is having enough engaged users to enforce the 'rules'.
Look at Medical Sciences for how well people stick to the rules. Then look at Skeptics. Skeptics is doing well with the same rules as MS. Yet MS has been dying a slow, painful death. (it's not there yet, but it's definitely agonal.) Users - numerous, engaged, and knowledgeable users - are key to a site's success.
@BryanKrause - I thought about you as a good potential mod, too. Any interest?
I think the newest mod at MS has done a good job of improving the quality of the not-closed questions there (by helping to close them quickly when they have only accumulated 1-2 close votes but would definitely end up closed eventually if there were more users).
The main limit there is still simply the lack of good questions overall, meaning most end up closed. I think it would be great if it became a place that medical students asked questions, but those are not the people that stumble across it unfortunately.
I'm considering nominating, though I'd have to stop arguing with @David in all the comment threads and I'm not sure I want to give that up ;)
@BryanKrause You can still argue as a mod. yes, you should take extra care to be polite and yes, you should not abuse the comments to have long back and forth exchanges (but you can always move to chat) but you can certainly still argue!
@terdon I know, I'm joking a bit. Mostly my reasons for not nominating would be similar to WYSIWYG's reasons for stepping down, including not being able to vote without being an arbiter
@BryanKrause I can't help for the time, but the voting isn't that much of an issue. Your votes don't change at all, you can still up and downvote as you normally would. What changes is that your vote for closing will be binding.
A common stance among mods is to only vote for the very clear cut cases, just as you described for MS.
Also, as a mod of three sites, two of which are quite big, I can confirm that it doesn't take that much time.
@BryanKrause @fileunderwater @Remi.b @canadianer) well one of us should certainly step forward :p. It sounds like we're all in the same boat regarding either our (in)ability to commit enough time and our worry that becoming a mod actually constricts our ability to be useful to some degree. But it does seem as though an experienced user such as one of us certainly should fill at least one of the new spots so they do not get filled with fairly inactive users...
@AliceD and others: perhaps it's time we really put the close hammer to use to see if we can turn around the quality of the site???
@canadianer miy thoughts exactly...but, perhaps that's what the handful of top users are essentially already doing to some degree...
@theforestecologist I'm not spending enough time, and that's the problem. One of the core issues is the close-vote list. It's often at >50 votes in my screen.
That means a couple of things. Most worryingly, it means that the community fails to close Qs by themselves (low mod participation from the ground troops). But also problematic is the fact that it means there are a lot of poor questions posted. A lot of those also get answers. Poor questions attract poor answers. At this stage, I have the overall impression the overall quality of our site is failing.
Now I must say that the #Qs in my field is dropping as well, and I often don't take the liberty to scan molecular Bio questions. Further, I'm lacking time, so perhaps I'm getting momentarily flashes and things are not so bad after all.
I'm also modding on Psych&Neurosci. Hard to say how much time I spend therefore, all in all, not enough. And that's why we need another mod, or two. But recruitment of a relatively newbie mod would be worse than having no replacement at all, at least imho.
In fact, I've been thinking at times that I should step down too, as I only can find the time to do the core stuff, namely settle arguments and handling flags. a good mod should have the time to regularly scan posts, and upvote where possible, downvote and most of all, comment - especially for newbies.
I can do that over at Psych&Neurosci, where the traffic is low, and the relative number of active hi-rep users is high. At Bio traffic is dense and quality is often questionable - we need more hands on overseers. And that's, imho, why we need another mod, or two. But, again, recruitment of a relatively newbie mod might be worse than having no replacement at all, at least imho.
@anongoodnurse Briefly, but decided not to. I already have 3 diamonds and haven't been very active here the past couple of years or so. I mean, I only posted 2 answers in 2017 and 6 in 2016. I don't really feel I'm anywhere near active enough to be a mod.
That's a grand total of 8 posts in the last 2 years... not very active at all.
@theforestecologist I use the hammer when a a clarification has been asked or an improvement has been suggested but the user has not responded for more than 2 days
@terdon There are a lot of questions on the close queue. The non-mod moderation is insufficient.
@WYSIWYG Yes. There is a tiny handful of active voters left. Compared to the old days
@terdon True, but I still feel responsible for our site. Who else will do it? The biggest problem is, imo, that when close-voters see that their votes don't end up in useful question closures, that they won't bother voting in the future
, with the sad consequence that there are no voters left on the longer run
@AliceD Not particularly. I can't even remember the last time I participated in a review queue. I've always come here primarily for the biology and moderation is a secondary consideration that I've rapidly lost interest in. But, if nobody else nominates themselves perhaps I'll change my tune.
@terdon I can still do this comfortably if the app allowed reviewing. I can then do the reviews while sitting in the tram instead of watching cooking videos. :P
I'll try to do better to participate in the review queue...I typically read the questions directly from the 'new' feed and vote to close from there rather than using the review queue, but that means I am missing a) questions that were not of interest to me and also didn't put up a red flag, and b) older questions that have active flags/votes
2019 Biology Moderator Election Chat
2019 Biology Moderator Election Chat