Let's say you've just been elected as a new moderator, what initial approach would you take? Will you immediately go moderate the site? Will you start bookmarking important pages? Will you talk with the other moderators? ...?
@Moshe It really depends on the type of attack. If it was obviously a coordinated attack (especially if we could find posts elsewhere indicating that), I'd consider banning IPs, esp. if many are coming from the same IP or IP range
@Josh I would start out gradually, observing other mods and learning more about what should be done for various actions. I would, of course, bookmark important pages such as /review, /tools, etc, and visit them often.
@Moshe ah I see... in that case i pretty much second @RandolphPotter's statement that if there's enough evidence then I would opt for that... but probably talk to @Jeff and other mod's first
Alright, that brings us to the top of the hour, so let's let the candidates finish up answering, and then we can get a quick final thought from each candidate.
@TomWij There was some chatter of 4chan sending over users in the MSO chat, but it might have been a joke. We were discussing some of the degrading quality on SO.
Closing statements: thanks everybody for your support and thank you to everyone for the great questions and feedback. I believe we have a bunch of great candidates here, and wish everybody the best of luck in the election. :)
In final thoughts, I just want to say that I will continue doing what I already do. If I become a mod then I will have greater tools at my disposal... if not I'll just keep being @IvoFlipse slave and doing his bidding and maybe @Sathya's as well...
I'm not really nervous. I figure, if the community decides to elect me, that's great, and I'm happy to serve them. If they don't, then whoever wins will surely be great moderators, and I'll still be happy to give them a hand while doing all the stuff I usually do
Final thought: There are great candidates, not everyone will win this time but I'm pretty sure everyone will stay active. May the best ones win! And perhaps the others win another time... This was a very nice Town Hall Chat.
@RebeccaChernoff, make sure @Josh gets to post the answer with his transcript so I can give him a bounty for it. Assuming bounties work on meta, which I think they do :)
Right, sorry, probably rushed in here a little early before was ready to actually join in (was being harassed by my daughter), guess I'll quickly work through as many questions as I can...?
@DMA57361: I guess you could take your time, it took an hour for us so I guess it won't be a problem to wait an hour before posting up a summary for you.
For those still in the room, how do you feel about comment moderation? This would involve editing and deleting comments. (having to post this from my phone) -- or messing with people's post on chat (hi @Troggy)
@Troggy Haha! Well I think that comments should not be moderated... With the exception of abusive/harmful/spam comments. I think comments are a way of expressing opinion, where most answers clearly are not.
@RebeccaChernoff if the reason is clear, then I'll just vote immediately and deal with the question. Otherwise let the community have some input first (ie, a few votes).
@DMA57361: I think it might be handier to post the question and answer together in one message, making the question bold, so it's easier to follow your answers. Unless Josh does it for you.
@Troggy Leave it the way the owner intended it, there is no point editing someone's post three times to get an edit done. Let me quote the edit page: always respect the original author
@IvoFlipse Try and calm the comment "warriors" down at first. When the blaze continues at a disturbing/offensive rate, remove the violating comments and leave a comment why
I think moderators should have the ability to cast a normal, non binding vote like if they were a normal user (while of course retaining their ability to cast a binding vote where necessary).
This can be used in "grey areas" where a moderator can choose to give his or her opinion but not make a ...
@IvoFlipse As for a more general response about the comments, I would take @BloodPhilia approach to either calm one or both. Depends on the situation...
I would rather the mods let the community handle it initially. If they need to then step in with the hard vote. If you;re not sure enough to cast a binding vote then best to leave it. IMHO
@random Moderators should have the binding vote. Moderators are supposed to direct the community in what's acceptable or not. A binding vote generally does have the authoritative vote
@BloodPhilia that's why I say when in doubt, don't do anything. Whether a mod or not.
Sometimes the community can't help but let too much fluff in. Mods help with that if they see the tone go in the wrong direction without a serious course correction. That diamond really is imposing, but helpful
@Sathya Yeah, but there are those situations where following the guidelines for closing results in very subjective opinions on whether it should be closed, so you can't direct based on that subjective opinion because you aren't 100% sure either.
@MichaelMrozek if someone's a valuable asset in terms of content we want to keep them, ideally, but at the same time if they aggravate and drive off other users this does more damage (in terms of reputation, etc) than the positives they bring. Initially, we should attempt to quell the bad behaviour, while being clear that they are an asset (the old bad news sandwich manoeuvre), if that fails then escalation with support of the wider moderation team is probably required
@IvoFlipse Yes, but moderators should not make decisions based on subjective things for the community, but instead let the community discuss/decide it.
Representing someone doesn;t always mean you know what they want though. Plus I aggree that certain questions are obvious but there will be ones that are unobvious too.
@studiohack my take is that suspensions are for when users intentionally break or subvert the rules, or refuse to learn them, and need a reminder that they don't have free reign of the site
@Troggy Depends in which way it is humorous and how much. If they aren't making fun of someone it should be fine, as long as they aren't too funny. There are situations where you would have to stay serious. There is no point in an answer getting upvoted because of a lot of funny comments...
@TomWij find and use the communication channels between moderators (new and old) - the worse thing for the site is a moderator team that doesn't work together (or even worse is if they work against one another)
@IvoFlipse I've had a reasonable level of communication with moderators via chat and meta, and have a (hopefully) quite good idea of how they operate, but this is a slight concern - but refer to my previous answer about communication, anything that I lack clear understanding of I'll defer to other moderators for advice
@random If both tags suck, both need to be removed. But, if there's no obvious path on what to change them to (or maybe just delete) it's time to ask meta.SU and see what the community thinks - a moderator isn't meant to be an expert in every topic the site covers, and a more expert user could have the right answer.
@RebeccaChernoff It'll be my primary action when I'm on the site; my answering has become slower as of late (except a little resurgence after the holiday period :) and most of my time is spent "browsing" the site - commenting, flagging, chat - so this'll become "moderating" instead.
@MichaelMrozek I said in my nomination text "they [moderators] are a representative for the site and have a responsibility to be an ideal citizen", and the diamond is part of that, and I think I can live up to this responsibility.
@TomWij Start cleaning up ASAP. If it's very severe, send messages to other moderators and/or even the team for assistance.
right... up to 16:00, hopefully haven't missed much... on to the post-event extras ;P
@RebeccaChernoff Good luck to all the candidates, and I'm sure we'll come out the other side of the election with a stronger moderation team, and I'll be here to help whether I'm part of it or not.
@Troggy from what I know comment moderation doesn't have the same sort of audit trail available to users as other forms, and therefore editing should be used sparingly. comment deletion is less rare for the removal of "belongs on" and other unnecessary bits like that.
@studiohack Suspensions. suspensions IMO should be done as a last-ditch attempt. Ofcourse, if the user makes no attempt to change their ways, what must be done, must be done
@Moshe if it's been an organised group "attack", then yes, suspending or removing the accounts from the site would form part of the clean up efforts
@IvoFlipse drop in a comment warning people; a "behave yourselves" note from a moderator may calm things down - if not, the conversation should be removed if it's off-topic (with another warning left behind)
right, I'm done
if I've missed any questions someone left me know :)
Alright, that brings us to the top of the hour, so let's let the candidates finish up answering, and then we can get a quick final thought from each candidate.
