@RebeccaChernoff My interest in being a moderator is in helping steer the site as it continues to grow, and in helping to encourage that growth. While I have some ability to do that as a regular user, I think that moderators are better equipped to get consensus and bring about change and new ideas. I want to take on this responsibility because I believe that this is a great site, and I believe that I can help make it even better.

@RebeccaChernoff I don't think the number of upvotes or answers is relevant. If the question is clearly off-topic, it should be closed. If the community seemed to support changing the rules to allow that type of question, I would start a discussion on meta for people to voice their opinions. If the discussion led to a change in the rules, the question could then be reopened.

@RebeccaChernoff As moderators I feel we need to be brave enough to change things even if they do cause repercussions. I would like to make a clear process for people to propose changes to our rules, have discussion around it, and then come to a decision.

@RebeccaChernoff I envision something like what we did for game-rec, but I think it needs to work more like these elections. We should have an initial phase where everyone just throws out ideas. The mods should then decide which ideas are viable (preventing the problem we had during game-rec), and then we should have voting on the ideas, without adding new ones. I'd much rather we make a decision and then change it later then waffle back and forth and let the debate damage the community.

@RebeccaChernoff I think the recent spurts of edits stem from people trying to make the site better, and I applaud that. But in order to grow, we do need to make sure that the site always remains friendly to new users, who don't tend to care about massive tag edits. So I think we should try to throttle mass edits to make sure that people who might not be familiar with the other lists for questions can still successfully use the site.

@RebeccaChernoff I'm a college student, so in addition to having lots of free time, I've also got a lot of downtime, just waiting between classes and such, which is time I can devote to moderating. I wouldn't be surprised if I already spend 1-2 hours on Gaming.stackexchange each day, and that amount will only go up if I'm elected moderator. I'm not terribly involved in other parts of the SE network, so there's no issue of overlap there.

@RebeccaChernoff Gaming's biggest problem is that it isn't as widely known as it deserves to be. I want to work with Brett and Grace to keep finding new ways to bring new people to the site. The more gamers we have, the better we can be about providing high quality answers for all games.

@RebeccaChernoff I agree that the discussion should be had off-site as much as possible. I'd use e-mail or other discussion formats to talk with the user and try to help them understand the negative impact that their arguments have on the site and its users. Ultimately, if the user continued their behavior, I would take appropriate action, regardless of what valuable content they might be providing.

@RebeccaChernoff I am currently playing a lot of Spiral Knights, which is a free-to-play MMO. The game's got a couple of things going for it - firstly, it's totally free, and if you want to play for free, you are inherently limited to only playing small amounts each day. I like the fact of the in-built limitation the game places on me because of that. Additionally, my experience with the game's community is incredibly favorable, and I've yet to meet someone in the game who isn't kind and courteous to

@RebeccaChernoff other players, and the sense of community that engenders is a highly positive aspect of the game's experience. Also, I play League of Legends, and Dwarf Fortress, but because of the competition and complexity respectively, I can only play those for small sittings as well.

@RebeccaChernoff Grace Note. Just kidding. Ivo. He has done so much to help promote this site with the blog, and he obviously knows how to be a great moderator based on his record at other sites.

@RebeccaChernoff I hope I'll continue to respond to questions and votes as I've always had. Voting shouldn't depend on whether you need one or five people. If you cast a close vote, cast it because you think the question needs to be closed, not because it "might" need closure, and leave it up to another 4 people to determine if you're right. The fifth vote should be treated just the same as the first, to moderator and high-rep users alike.

@RebeccaChernoff If I disagreed completely, I would clear the flag. If I was unsure, I'd ask for help from other moderators, or from other community members in the chat channel. I wouldn't act until I felt like I had a good understanding of the situation.

@RebeccaChernoff I've tried to start discussions on meta or on chat when I felt like there was something about the site that could be improved. Not all of my ideas have been implemented, but I think I've shown the qualities of a good moderator in being willing to live with a decision even if I don't agree with it.

@RebeccaChernoff A while back, I realized that of Gaming's terraria questions, half referenced the official Terraria wiki, and half referenced a wikia wiki dedicated to the game. In the hopes of greater consistency, I went through each question and changed the links to point to the official wiki. I was questioned as to the 'why', and I responded in this meta discussion with my reasoning.

@RebeccaChernoff I'd try to avoid using my binding vote until the community had already acted on the question, unless I felt very strongly that something needed to be done and that the community had failed to act appropriately.

@RebeccaChernoff I'm dabbling in all sorts of games right now. Terraria, LA Noire, Desktop Dungeons, with some occasional Torchlight and Civ 5. But I'll be all about Diablo 3 as soon as it is available.

@RebeccaChernoff One of the important things to remember at Gaming is to trust the community. Not every member will have played every game, and often times questions of accuracy are impossible to determine for outsiders to the game. If ever I'm unsure about a flag, it becomes an issue of trusting the site's users. There are enough around that if a question should be closed, it will be.

@RebeccaChernoff If the site's users disagree with me, or repeatedly flag something as wrong (for whatever reason), I'd like to think that the collective of active flaggers tend to be right, and will act on the flags accordingly, even if that means admitting I'm wrong.

@RebeccaChernoff I would totally vote for Mana. He's active, friendly, and often in the chat, making him the perfect go-to guy for anyone with a question.

@RebeccaChernoff I'll admit that I don't have as much time to devote as some of the other candidates. My job doesn't always leave time for browsing the site, and at home I'm a father of three. But I check the site regularly, and I think I will have enough time to do my job as a moderator, and also to contribute new ideas as they pop into my head.

@RebeccaChernoff With all due respect to our other moderators, I feel like Grace Note was really running the show here. While I expect that to continue to some degree, I think the most important thing we need from a moderator is someone that can articulate the reasons behind decisions and work with people to come to consensus the way that Grace has, and I would like to believe that I can do that.

@RebeccaChernoff While it would obviously have to be handled on a case to case basis, I would start by trying to talk to the user in question. Text is an inelegant medium at best, losing many nuances of communication we have in verbal context. If the issue is one born of ignorance, it is hopefully easy to resolve that way. Attitude is a different issue. Ideally, we'd want to keep as many high-content users as possible, but in the end we must place the good of the site first, and lead through example.

@RebeccaChernoff I think it's an issue of publicity and user base. I think everyone who knows gaming has heard about GameFAQs. It'd be awesome if we could drum up enough visitors and users so that everyone thinks Gaming.Stackexchange.com! (A close 2nd: Having to get such publicity with such a long URL)

@RebeccaChernoff My policy has always been to not go "fishing for edits". That is to say, don't dive into month old questions for the singular purpose of editing them (unless the correct answer has actually changed, due to patch, etc.). A much better plan is to only actively edit questions on either the frontpage (so the 'active' list) or the new question page so that we are sending good questions into the bowels of the site's archives, and preempt the issue of editing older questions in the first pla

ce.

@RebeccaChernoff I would find something to do with identify-this-game questions. While I think they're valid questions, the scope is so narrow so as to be almost totally unhelpful to any user other than the direct asker. They're neat little trips down memory lane for some of us, but they're not conducive to the SE Q&A type format.

@RebeccaChernoff There has to be something said of examples. Often, when a user gets a question of theirs closed, they will attempt to defend their question with examples of other, similar questions elsewhere on the site. For this reason, even highly voted, mostly off-topic questions need to be closed or migrated, for the simple fact that if they are off-topic, they will probably generate other off-topic questions, especially if they are high-visibility in the first place.

@RebeccaChernoff I am looking for something tangible to show for my efforts on gaming. because I'm the highest rep user on the site (currently), I can do almost all of what moderators can do, so, in my mind, being elected moderator means the community sees my efforts as a good effort - in my mind, it would be the very definition of "leading by example".

@RebeccaChernoff While working in the lab and going to school, there are all sorts of free bits of time I can spend moderating the site. While I can't make a definite commitment of X hours/week, I'd like to think that all things equal, being around more frequently is better.

@RebeccaChernoff League of Legends at the moment, possibly Dota 2 in a while. I mentioned in my blurb that it's pretty much impossible to know all the games, but that doesn't mean you can't improve the content in those other...less interesting :P...posts.

@RebeccaChernoff Like many of the others, I would probably shut down the identify-this-game questions. While I was initially an ardent supporter, I've come to realize that pretty much all of Atwood's complaints about them are true.

@RebeccaChernoff I'm pretty liberal on this. So many sites with user-generated content are a huge mess. I think it is really important that our questions and answers have appropriate capitalization, punctuation, spelling and grammar (and, of course, a coherent line of thought). For language-obsessives like me, it's a breath of fresh air. I suspect many others who don't worry so much about grammar will still get more subconscious happy feelings from pristine, readable questions and answers.

@RebeccaChernoff This also can have the effect of cycling up some of the older questions, possibly giving them the visibility to be answered, where they would otherwise be lost and forgotten. So, I am in favor of relatively small edits, because they really add up and do add value to our site. That said, I think it's good to space them out to avoid flooding the front page or pushing the new questions down too fast.

@RebeccaChernoff I would say the biggest problem is attracting new users (and converting occasional users into obsessive core users like us). This two-step conversion will help solve a lot of the other issues mentioned, like question diversity. Gaming is pretty big, compared to the other SE2.0 sites, but we're still quite small compared to the original trilogy, and compared to some of the popular gaming sites.

@RebeccaChernoff I want to continue improving the site, and I think mod tools would definitely make that easier. Being a mod also means that you're trusted to deal with problems. Right now, I have to seek out problems to fix (which I would still do), but as a mod, I suspect more of those problems would be brought to my attention, through the tools and the community.

@RebeccaChernoff If the question obviously belongs on another site, I would migrate. If a reasonable re-wording would make it kosher, I would suggest that in a comment (and edit it myself if the original poster doesn't). If it's somewhat unclear whether it's on-topic or not, I might start a meta discussion to decide if that category of question is appropriate. Once a decision was made on meta, I would follow through, either closing the question or leaving it be. So, TL;DR, it depends on the situation.

@RebeccaChernoff This is a difficult situation. Ultimately, generating good content does not excuse bad behavior. If that person is allowed to continue, it sends the message to everyone else that you can reach a specially-privileged status, where there are no consequences for negative actions. The problem will only spread from there.

@RebeccaChernoff The first step is obviously to explain to the user exactly what behavior is problematic and why. Then I would explain what the consequences of continued misbehavior would be. I think a 3-strikes rule is reasonable. If the user refuses to control him/herself, then it's time to consider issuing a suspension.

@RebeccaChernoff Mana. He's always around and always improving the site. He's also very personable and helpful, and a lot of fun (which is think is actually hugely important and underrated quality for a mod to have)

@RebeccaChernoff I would talk to the flagger, if possible, and with other mods, or possibly other users (for example, if it pertained to a game I'm not familiar with). Could be that I'm missing something that will become clear in the discussion. If I still disagree, I'd dismiss it. If I still was on the fence, I might leave it to other mods.

@RebeccaChernoff This is my original proposal for deciding difficult site policies, which was used to put the Great Game-Rec Debate to a final vote. As I mentioned in my nomination, if I had it to do over, I would have probably done it a little differently.

@RebeccaChernoff However, my main goal with that post was to provide a viable option to move forward with, and to stimulate some conversation about other possible solutions. It didn't end up stimulating as much conversation as I would have liked, but I think it did help push us in the direction of actually trying to resolve the problem, rather than re-hashing it for the umpteenth time.

@RebeccaChernoff I don't cast a close vote unless I feel the post is definitely unsalvageable and should be closed, so I don't think my behavior would change in that regard. As mentioned earlier, closed questions can always be re-opened if there's a legitimate reason for it.

@RebeccaChernoff I don't have other moderation duties, so that's not a concern. I have a full-time job, but that doesn't stop me from being in chat and checking the site a few dozen times throughout the work day. I also have a toddler, but I usually log in again after his (relatively early) bedtime. I will almost certainly not be able to be as active as someone still in school, but I think I can still devote a considerable amount of time.

(whew!)

@RebeccaChernoff It seems to be growing fairly well (though I don't have metrics), but I'd think we should work on getting and retaining users that stumble onto the site.

@RebeccaChernoff While fun, I'm not sure how well it helps us to phrase some choice questions in an asinine manner. I don't think it helps us terribly from an SEO perspective, but it might be made up for in sheer curiosity. Obviously this would be unpopular, but you said no repercussions :P

@RebeccaChernoff I'd be fine with such a user so long as they are not antagonistic towards others. While irritating to moderate, if the content they provide is of good quality, that should trump all.

@RebeccaChernoff If such a question can be moved to another site (possibly introducing mono-stackexchange users to other sites), do so. If it's borderline but garners significant support, then it's fine by me.

Not directly answering any question I see but...

Tags like balance, game-mechanics, do not work on this site. Many times they seem redundant or argumentative, and most importantly, they cannot stand alone. If a question is tagged 'balance', how useful is it?