2019 Role-Playing Games Moderator Election Chat

doppelgreener

00:26

@PeterCooperJr. I find it's kind of a "whatever time you want to give it" situation. I check in on the site every day out of habit, but some days I'm doing only 5 minutes of actual diamond business, some days investigating things takes a bit more.

The moderation workload on this site is pretty light. There's been some tumultuous periods where we've had either a lot of trouble happening or some dedicated trolls, but the community's been pretty settled down for more than a year now.

Ben

Woo! An Election I'm actually excited about! Lol

6

doppelgreener

Hooray!!

Ben

Do we have a list of nominees at this point?

nitsua60

Right now the list is nominees = []

Ben

00:43

Nice haha.

nitsua60

00:55

In my case it was a few days before I nominated, even though I always intended to, because it took me a while to find a good chunk of time to really sit and work on the questionnaire. (And I wanted to nominate and post around the same time.)

Ben

01:36

Yeah, that's fair. It's good to take this sort of thing seriously, as it is a big community, and it does require dedication. Hence why I will not be nominating myself any time soon lol.

I'm just excited haha

linksassin

02:28

Is there a minimum expected time period to be on the site before nomination? I know the only actual limit is 300 rep but is it expected for users to be long term (>1 year) users or so?

Ben

@linksassin Good question. And potentially might be useful to know if that's rpg.se or just se in general?

V2Blast

06:38

For reference, past elections:
2012: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/election/1
2015: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/election/2
2017: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/election/3

kviiri

08:33

Glad to see we have nominees already

AntiDrondert

10:33

I didn't have any doubt @V2Blast is going to participate, I often see him reviewing and editing posts, especialy related to dnd-5e
You can count on my vote on the election phase

Rubiksmoose

@AntiDrondert They may or may not! Sometimes very active users especially will prefer not to run as a moderator. So we'll just have to see what they decide.

I'm very excited to see who steps up, honestly. We have a lot of good people around here.

oops! just had to refresh the page. Glad to see you're running @V2Blast!

V2Blast

10:49

@AntiDrondert @Rubiksmoose Thanks!

JohnP

14:16

Just tossed my hat in the ring. Good luck to everyone!

Rubiksmoose

woohoo! You too!

Akixkisu

14:44

@V2Blast @Rubiksmoose @JohnP @Sandra How are you going to make the moderation team more diverse, and what are your assumed shortcomings as a future moderator?

Rubiksmoose

14:55

@Akixkisu To answer the second part first, I think my biggest hurdle is going to be in not acting where I would have previously done as a normal user. I think this will be something that will have to be learned over time.

As far as diversity goes, I know what I bring, but I'm not sure that I know or can assume enough about the current mods to comfortably categorise what they do and what would make me different. I'm hoping to be very available and open which is something my schedule allows, but I'm not sure that qualifies as "diversity" per what you are asking about.

I am a moose though. Have we ever had a moose mod before?

2

vicky_molokh

@Rubiksmoose I've been on a Canadian-controlled forum before, so . . .

Rubiksmoose

@vicky_molokh Well I hope you have found a haven here, safe from syrup and goose mods.

Carcer

@Akixkisu what kind of diversity do you mean?

Akixkisu

@Carcer The state of that many different types of people are included in something who form a range of many different ideas or opinions about something based on a range encompassing different (worldviews or epistemic) standpoints.

Carcer

15:11

hm. Rubiks is right, does rather require knowing the background of the existing moderators to be able to give a meaningful answer.

JohnP

@Akixkisu My shortcomings are going to be in learning site policy. There will be times when I enforce what I think is site policy, only to be reversed because I didn't understand the policy correctly, or there was something else I was unaware of.

As far as diversity, it's not much different than a gaming group. Nobody thinks the same way, or has the same perceptions. Yet we manage to come together to make gaming groups, moderation is no different. We have to learn each others strengths and weaknesses, and work to make both better in a unified fashion.

Akixkisu

15:45

@Carcer I think you can give a meaningful answer about your perceptions which then can be evaluated as perceived.

Carcer

then the question you're really asking is what's your demographic/background. The candidate does not know whether or not that will meaningfully increase the diversity of the team

Akixkisu

16:19

@Carcer No, that is not what I'm asking. You can make assumptions about things you perceive and express them. If you decide not to make assumptions about people because you lack the information that enables you to (comfortably) categorise others (them), then that is a fair and reasonable expression which helps me understand you.

nitsua60

17:09

@Rubiksmoose To be clear, there's some variety of opinion around both this stack and the larger network as to how much a moderator, once elected, should or should not change their behavior. See this local meta and many of the linked referents for more discussion.

@JohnP I wouldn't be shy about mentioning one bit of publicly-knowable diversity on your side: you moderate an SE outside of RPGSE. I think we often get Network users coming by RPGSE and finding us strange in practices and culture, and significant experience on the Network while outside of RPGSE is nothing to sneeze at.

Rubiksmoose

@nitsua60 Hey look at that, I already had your answer upvoted.

Thank you for the pointer. I haven't read that through thoroughly in a long time. I might tweak my answer and thoughts a bit.

nitsua60

17:25

@Rubiksmoose That's from a time when meta was plenty busy!

JohnP

@nitsua60 I believe I mentioned that in the questionnaire, including guiding a site through a scope change, but for reference I moderate 3 beta sites. Fitness, Martial Arts, and Medical Sciences (Used to be Health). I just passed my 4 year anniv on MedSci.

Rubiksmoose

@nitsua60 In "the old days" huh? ;) I actually really like the idea of moderators not having to switch to a completely different mode when they get a diamond. But, like the dupehammer, the closure votes are definitely going to involve some degree of change in my habits no matter what.

(just thinking out loud)

JohnP

@Rubiksmoose A lot of moderators get more reluctant to VTC when they know it's binding. :)

(i.e. from when they were a user)

Rubiksmoose

absolutely! And, in my opinion, for good reason.

JohnP

It would be easier here, because of the traffic. I find myself having to be a little more active than I would like on Fitness and MedSci for 2 reasons - There is so much blatantly bad/off topic on MedSci, and neither of them have a lot of traffic, so there aren't a lot of active voters.

Rubiksmoose

17:40

That makes sense. I'll have to mull this over a bit. I don't think this will change much, but I think it will allow me to add some nuance in my answer where there was a hard edge before.

KorvinStarmast

18:39

@kviiri Hoping you'll run.

@Ben We could use someone in your time zone.

nitsua60

18:59

@JohnP Sorry--I haven't looked at the questionnaires yet. I was just chiming in on the bit of "diversity in mods" talk in this room.

Novak

@KorvinStarmast what are you waiting for?

3

@nitsua60 am I right that after this election we'll have five mods? Or is my math off/we're expecting another retirement?

Rubiksmoose

Does anyone have some votes to even out the questionnaire scores? I've used mine already. Just trying to keep things even.

KorvinStarmast

@Novak I ran in 2017. I see no reason to repeat that mistake. (I suspect that being suspended raises a flag for the SE PTB above site level, and I've already drawn Ericson's attention at another stack by calling them out for lack of professionalism). One of the issues that moved me to run then - how shabbily new users are treated SE wide - has been somewhat addressed on a system wide basis.

Novak

@KorvinStarmast ah, that's too bad, but understandable. I was around in 2017 but did not recall that element.

KorvinStarmast

@Novak The response to my appeal was met with (what I perceived as) a head in sand kind of answer. (It somewhat surprised me at the time but it also frustrated me). This is what I am referring to. (Thanks for your positive comment up there. :) )

nitsua60

19:08

@Novak Yes, right after the election it'd be mxy, greener, me, n00b1, and noob2.

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 Something something master of the five rings .. something ...

Novak

Thanks, @nitsua. I don't know what prompted the numerical change, but I think it is a good one. I don't imagine the moderators as being very often deadlocked (correct me if I'm wrong!) but 3 or 4 seem to me to be inherently better numbers than 4.

Gah. @nitsua60. Sorry.

Good grief, I cannot type today. 3 or 5 seem bettter....

Rubiksmoose

@Novak we do have an open Meta about the topic:

13

Q: What is the reason we are moving to having 5 diamond moderators?

I noticed a few days ago that our election was aiming to fill 2 moderator positions instead of just the one position that was vacated by SevenSidedDie (as I expected). Is there a reason behind that decision that the mod team would like to/is able to/is comfortable with sharing with the community ...

KorvinStarmast

@nitsua60 Legend of the Five Rings - sorry, memory fail

Novak

Yeah, I should follow meta more, but I can't seem to establish the habit in the way I have the main stack.

Rubiksmoose

19:12

But no concrete answer yet (and hopefully the asking isn't prying into something, which I'm more and more getting the impression that I may be)

KorvinStarmast

@Rubiksmoose But perhaps the real answer is "we don't even need a reason!" :)

Rubiksmoose

Maybe! I'd be cool with that.

KorvinStarmast

(I think I am quoating a movie line from Caddyshack there ...)

Rubiksmoose

well darn. I missed it if so.

It's been a while.

KorvinStarmast

I have this vague memory of Bill Murray saying that, but it might have been from Stripes or Ghostbusters ...

Novak

19:27

@KorvinStarmast having reviewed that thread (I believe I read the post at the time, but did not wind through the entire back-and-forth in the comments) I agree with your basic position and have for quite some time without bothering to articulate it. Part of that is not being a regular meta-reader. Part is that the conflation between "The moat is too deep and also it is made of burning pitch," and "But we can't get rid of the moat!!!" is unhelpful.

KorvinStarmast

@Novak Heh Heh, nice way to get me to grin. Thanks for that. If only the moat was filled with beer ....

Novak

Coffee, you heretic

KorvinStarmast

@Novak OK, I can live with a coffee filled moat.

nitsua60

@Novak There's a super-nice thing about moderating that I wish would be pushed out to users at some rep-level (10K? 20K?): a notification in the top-bar every time a new meta is posted. It's like your inbox notifications, but blue (rather than red).

35

Q: Allow me to get notifications for new Meta posts, like mods do

I'm currently helping out on a beta site. One of the most valuable things on new beta sites, especially private/early public betas, is Meta participation - see this mod newsletter: Treat Meta Questions Like Gold It’s not unusual for your meta site to receive significantly less traffic th...

feature-request global-inbox per-site-meta

JohnP

@KorvinStarmast I believe (But stand to be corrected), it's "within the past year". There is a very good moderator on another busy site that had some pretty serious moderation issues before he was elected.

nitsua60

19:30

I feel like it'd be good in terms of getting a larger sampling of opinions/eyeballs/votes on meta(s).

KorvinStarmast

@JohnP Thank you for that, John, but I am not interested enough to change my position. (I am also a mod at a forum so my volunteer time already has some demands on it).

Novak

@nitsua60 that would be a nice opt-in feature. I'd opt-in. At least then it would be conscious sloth on my part rather than subconscious sloth.

V2Blast

I think my main shortcoming is probably that I haven't played a wide variety of RPGs, only a few similar ones. But I don't anticipate this really affecting mod duties all that much in most cases, since most moderation tasks (e.g. closing off-topic questions, reopening questions once they're clarified) don't require that much system knowledge.
I do believe I come from a different background than most of the mod team, but that's not exactly what you're asking. I don't think I personally know the mod team well enough to speak confidently about whether I can bring a "diversity of perspective" t…

@nitsua60 Agreed. There's a little sidebar on the frontpage with questions featured on meta but I imagine most people miss it.

KorvinStarmast

@V2Blast I do not believe "diversity of perspective" is a tangible metric and Carcer made a decent point about that further up. Enthusiasm and a sincere desire to help would seem to me the best base line

3

V2Blast

@KorvinStarmast Agreed. I figured it was worth responding to the question anyway, to the extent I could.

JohnP

19:44

@V2Blast Same here.

Tiggerous

21:19

@KorvinStarmast Respect your reasons. You'd have had my support.

KorvinStarmast

21:36

@Tiggerous Thanks, we have lots of good folks to choose from, and I hope a few more volunteers toss their names into the hat. I, like all of us, can contribute by doing the usual "community mod" functions, and will continue to do so.

Akixkisu

@KorvinStarmast The focus on the tangibility of a metric is a notable thought-structure. Measuring results with one sub-set of merely tangible metrics is not a good enough strategy when I want to make an informed vote, but it is easy to see why people prefer it.

KorvinStarmast

@Akixkisu Carcer covered much of what I was thinking, and thanks to you for further clarifying the line of inquiry that interests you.

Ben

23:35

@KorvinStarmast BESW is in my timezone?

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2019 Role-Playing Games Moderator Ele…