As is the tradition, I made a very rich supper last night, served it with plenty of alcohol, and slept like the dead until late this morning. Misidentifying shapes is the least of my problems.,
On the bright side? Leftover chocolate-dipped strawberries
We're just here to get to know the candidates and ask questions regarding the candidates views on moderation that may help in voting.
A few notes about the format:
The format is open, feel free to ask your question(s) unprompted, however please be mindful of whether or not candidates have answered the previous questions so that they don't get behind and start missing questions. Other than that, feel free to jump in.
Candidates, please use the reply feature so that questions and their answers are linked together. (Hover your mouse over the left of the message, click the down arrow, click reply)
When a question is asked, I'll star it - please star it yourself also to help! Please save stars for the questions so that candidates can refer to the star list to make sure they haven't missed a question.
We will be creating a digest version of the town hall chat after it is completed. This digest will take the form of a question on meta, containing all the questions asked as well as their answers for easier reading.
There's a system message up on the site, so we may get some stragglers joining us.
The candidates I see here are: drum roll @rumtscho
New users often are not accustomed to the Stack Exchange system, and sometimes struggle to present themselves properly, either in the way they use the site or their attitude. How willing are you to work with "problematic" users, and at what point do you decide that someone isn't worth the effort?
How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?
Cooking gets many variations on the same food safety questions - "How long can I do <this suspected unsafe thing>" Attempts to generalize them have been largely unsuccessful, what do you think, if anything, should be done? Are they ok as is, or should it be a addressed and how?
@TimStone I think it is important for the whole community to welcome and guide new users, and have already helped with that, by leaving encouraging and explaining comments when editing or voting to close new users' questions. I am certainly willing to do that - and more - in the future, and will do my best to accomodate and teach new users. Of course, it they don't pay attention to my efforts, or disregard it, I will at some point just apply the needed measures.
@GraceNote I would talk with him about the situation, starting in comments for specific cases, and then in chat for a general discussion.
If needed, I will try to get support from other moderators, or cite sources like existing meta questions or blog posts which outline the policy relevant in their case.
@hobodave A moderator is needed to make the site better for the community. He or she should carefully remove unwanted content such as spam, edit for clarity, retag, etc., so the knowledge the community produces is available to the members without being outgrown by "weeds"
@rumtscho Followup to the question asked by @hobodave. All of the actions you mention (spam, edit, retag) are available without being a moderator; spam of course slightly less so. What are the important jobs of a moderator, that you can't do now without being a moderator?
How would you handle the following situation? You have closed a question you considered off-topic. Without prior discussion another moderator reopens the same question because they feel it is valid.
@rfusca I agree that this is starting to be a problem. The recent attempt by @derobert to create a canonical answer seems to be received well, we had a meta discussion mentioning a user printing it for offline reference. I think that other formats are possible, maybe food-related posts in a future blog. If this doesn't help, the question should be put for community discussion on meta, it isn't something a single moderator can solve
@TimStone I am willing to help new users, as I am already doing on Drupal Answers. I think it's not worth helping somebody, if that user doesn't listen to who is trying to help, but I cannot say that until I didn't try, and try again.
@derobert I think that the current moderation is already going well, I was in fact surprised that we have an election. But of course, as the site grows, there will be more moderation to be done, especially on a site where reputation accumulates slowly, so that we don't have many high-rep users yet and the moderators have to handle things like closing offtopic questions. With a fourth moderator, we could do some backlog items like retagging of old questions and deleting old closed q-s, when needed
@derobert There are some situations where quick action is needed, but a moderator is not available to help and a 10k user does not have the tools to solve. For example, a comment war between users can't be resolved by non-moderators, I would be happy to be able to help in such a case.
@GraceNote If the flags on comments are right, I will handle the comment being flagged; if the flags are not correct, I will ignore them. If the user generates comments that are off-topic, they can be removed.
Except for such very specific cases, I don't think there are too many tasks I can't do as a 10k user, but of course, having the diamond may be enough to make new users see my suggestions with more respect and so prevent problems - for example, if I ask somebody new to stop an unwanted behaviour, they may be more likely to do so if they see I am a moderator, especially if they don't know the reputation system of the SE network.
@rfusca So far, I have not seen those questions as a danger. They tend to be repetitive, but there is nothing that can be done for that; they cannot be considered off-topic. Repetitive questions are something I have already seen in Stack Overflow (e.g. questions about doing something with a regular expression) and Drupal Answers; as long as the user makes a specific case, that is generally fine.
@kiamlaluno Followup for @kiamlaluno: For the hypothetical, assuming the flags are valid, what other actions will you take if the flag-able comments continue after you've deleted the first (send, third, ...) batch? Do you believe additional actions should be taken?
@Shog9 As was mentioned, something similar already happened on our site. In such a double-problematic case, I may take the easy way (offtopic for being a recipe request) to quickly squash the question, then start a discussion (probably both on meta and chat) about how to handle new questions which are in accordance with our guidelines, but illegal. My own opinion is found in a comment in the linked meta discussion about the opium butter.
@Shog9 I would close it as not constructive; it asks for a favorite tea, and everybody has a favorite tea. The answers would be equally valid, and the question is subjective.
@derobert I would comment about him using the flags inappropriately, but I don't think there is something more that should be done. Accounts are suspended for voting irregularity, but not for generating unhelpful flags. If something should be done, that is avoiding that a user that generates too much unhelpful flags can flag something in the short period, similarly to what done with rejected suggested edits.
@kiamlaluno My apologies, I must not have written clearly enough… Assuming the user (from @GraceNote's original question) continues to leave comments that are flagged by other community members...?
@derobert So far, I don't see anything that needs additional moderation. I don't have complete access to the review page, and I cannot see flags generated from other users, as I am not a 10k user; those would help me in understanding where it is necessary more moderation.
@derobert Oh… I misunderstood the question, from @GraceNote. I think that if a user keeps writing comments that are flagged as offensive, then something needs to be done. If the flag is about off-topic comments, then it is something "less important," in some way. What should be done is something that needs to be decided together the other moderators; it's not something that can be decide unilaterally.
@derobert For sure offensive behaviors that could keep away the other users are something that require attention.
@rumtscho You are a regular in the SA chat room. In there we talk about a lot of stuff, even personal stuff. How can you reassure us that a personal conflict with a user, won't affect your moderation? Also, do you think you can notice it yourself if you're being subjective with a specific user? If you notice it, what would you do? The second part is also for @kiamlaluno.
@hobodave I would leave it open. It is like when you edit a post, and somebody else reverts the edit. If would do something, it is asking why the other moderator thinks the question is on-topic, just to avoid the same situation. If more questions of the same type are asked, then I could open a question on meta to see what the other users' opinions are.
@Mien Yes, I can notice if I am being subjective with a user; in that case, I would let another moderator handle what done from that user. Even in the case I have the feedback from other users who think like me, I would let another moderator handles the user. If there would be a flag about an answer from that user for not being an answer, and I think it is not an answer, I would flag it for that reason.
@Mien I agree that I have come to consider many of the chat regulars as friends. I hope that I can stay impartial (you probably have noticed in chat that I am mindful of my own behaviour and notice my own biases), and the transparent StackExchange system really helps. We have some hard rules, and I can go by these, even if it means I have to take action against a friend. If there is an especially problematic case,
I could always ask a fellow moderator, who is not emotionally involved in the situation, for support. Besides, the way SE works, I couldn't hide questionable behaviour, so even if I should be tempted to do that, I know there is no sense in doing it. Lastly, moderators are not almighty, other moderators and SE employees can revert a moderator's actions. Which means that even if the worst happens and I turn renegade, the site won't suffer.
How would you handle the following situation? You have closed a question you considered off-topic. Without prior discussion another moderator reopens the same question because they feel it is valid.
@hobodave When there is a difference in the opinion of two moderators, I expect that the question will be somewhere in a grey area. I won't be happy about the lack of communication, but will not let that change my future handling of the situation. I will bring up the case for discussion, either in the moderator chat (if it looked like a clear-cut offtopic to me), or with the broader community (chat, meta) if it is indeed unclear how much offtopic it is.
@derobert I think a moderator should use the chat, especially if somebody called him for asking something about questions to ask, or an opinion about a question. Lately, my time on chat is reduced, and I gave the priority to the chat for moderators (as I am a moderator on Drupal Answers).
@derobert Moderators are here for the community, so they should use all available channels to get information on what the community wants. As such, chat can be a great place to communicate with the more regular users. While I don't expect the moderators to be present in chat all the time, especially in a room which generates immense amounts of offtopic content such as the frying pan, I think that they should at least use chat for special cases,
@hobodave The best way to solve conflicts is communication, with the least amount of judgment possible. I would talk with them about it, and if that doesn't solve, involve other mods and in the worst case the SE team.
@rfusca The moderators are just as much members of the community as other members. They don't have to do anything more special for community aspects than other frequent users, but it is nice if they do it out of their own accord.
@RebeccaChernoff Thank you for all your time, and organizing this. Whomever you choose to vote, vote; the community participation in these cases is very important.
@RebeccaChernoff I think we have a great community, and I would like to help it more by being a moderator. I hope my answers showed it. In any case, thank you everybody for being here and following the event. And good luck @kiamlaluno.
