2020 Moderator Election Q&A - Questionnaire

Question

In connection with the moderator elections, we are holding a Q&A thread for the candidates. Questions collected from an earlier thread have been compiled into this one, which shall now serve as the space for the candidates to provide their answers.

Due to the submission count, we have selected all provided questions as well as our back up questions for a total of 8 questions.

As a candidate, your job is simple - post an answer to this question, citing each of the questions and then post your answer to each question given in that same answer. For your convenience, I will include all of the questions in quote format with a break in between each, suitable for you to insert your answers. Just copy the whole thing after the first set of three dashes.Please consider putting your name at the top of your post so that readers will know who you are before they finish reading everything you have written, and also including a link to your answer on your nomination post.

Once all the answers have been compiled, this will serve as a transcript for voters to view the thoughts of their candidates, and will be appropriately linked in the Election page.

Good luck to all of the candidates!

Oh, and when you've completed your answer, please provide a link to it after this blurb here, before that set of three dashes. Please leave the list of links in the order of submission.

To save scrolling here are links to the submissions from each candidate (in order of submission):

• Zanna's answers
• Kulfy's answers
• Akiva's answers
• Tejas Lotlikar's answers
• Ravexina's Answers
• political science's Answers
• Ashu's answers
• ThunderBird's answers

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1. 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?

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

3. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

4. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

5. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

6. This question would be mostly valid for people who are very active in the review queues. Before the diamond, reviews would require several people's votes before the system decides on the outcome. With the diamond, your vote will be the definitive one. Would that spook you into skipping reviews? In summary, how would the diamond affect your activities in the review queue?

7. What activity most occupies the time you spend in AskUbuntu? I mean, what would you say you most do here.

8. How much time will you have to moderate Ask Ubuntu every day? What is your timezone?

Answer 1

Zanna's Answers

1. 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?

I think this is a really difficult situation, but it would mainly depend on my relationship with that user. I usually manage to have positive relationships with people I can respect, and that makes it a lot easier to resolve issues without acrimony. I guess would try to help that user find ways to avoid getting into arguments and let them know that, much as their work is valued and appreciated, it doesn't give them a pass to treat other people badly.

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

I would go over the circumstances again, since when I think other people have made a mistake it's usually me. If I was still confused, I'd just ask them about it so they can point out what I've missed. If it turns out that the closure/deletion was really wrong, it could easily be fixed. It's not uncommon for questions closed by mods to get reopened by the community here especially after the OP edits, and also not that rare to find an answer deleted by a mod some time in the past that deserves salvaging and flagging for undeletion.

3. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

I think that moderators are the people accountable to the community for the feel of the site and its smooth-running. These things depend on so much more than mod efforts of course, but only mods are available to others for the purpose of seeking recourse to keep things running nicely. Mods fix the things only mods can fix, represent community issues to the higher powers where necessary, and help out with whatever needs their help.

4. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

I already feel that my reputation adds some excess weight to my actions, so I have generally tried not to come across as overly authoritative in my posts and comments, though I have probably not always succeeded in that. I always admire those mods who manage to have a light touch in everything they do. Since I tend to say what I feel, I would have to attend to that diamond heaviness and try to speak accordingly.

5. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

Well, I think that the main benefit is in the perception of accountability, in that people would see me as being there to help them and that would enable me to be more helpful. But mods do have some extra useful powers for fixing stuff. For example, I would especially like to be able to go directly from a post getting incorrect close votes to the review queue where I can vote to leave it open, and edit duplicate question banners to add or remove targets. I would also like to tell those people who always click No Action Needed in First Posts and Late Answers reviews to please only review if they really have time and inclination to do it properly.

6. This question would be mostly valid for people who are very active in the review queues. Before the diamond, reviews would require several people's votes before the system decides on the outcome. With the diamond, your vote will be the definitive one. Would that spook you into skipping reviews? In summary, how would the diamond affect your activities in the review queue?

Thanks for this question as it's something I've thought about a lot. Since being a moderator wouldn't automatically make my opinion more correct than before, I would certainly have to change my way of working to avoid hammering everything. But I do think it is OK for mods to cast the 5th close or reopen vote or the 3rd delete vote where they would have cast a vote as a normal user, as well close/delete things that very obviously should be closed or deleted. Also, mods have more powers to break things but, fortunately, more powers to fix them if things go wrong :) Rather than being "spooked" (I already hit the skip button more often than any other), I think I would just take it a little slower and more carefully.

7. What activity most occupies the time you spend in Ask Ubuntu? I mean, what would you say you most do here?

The short answer is that my main activity is editing :)

For a long answer, I'll try to give a loose description of my usual workflow on the site. I'll start out in The Downboat (a chatroom dedicated to moderation issues) and catch up on the discussions and actions needed there. I'll also be looking at the main chat to see if anyone is chatting, but that is unusual these days :( At some point I will probably move on to looking at the review queues. I start with Reopen if there is anything there as I feel reopening is a bit more time-critical than other actions. Then I'll try to look at the other queues. I might check the First Posts review history to see if those reviews are being done properly. Also, I'm usually involved in some editing or other janitorial projects, for example I am currently trying to remove the images tag from all the posts that have it, which means carefully fixing everything else about the question and its answers too. I'm also trying to to help fix posts with code fence issues. I always look at meta to see if there are any new questions. In the course of all this, I do a lot of editing and voting, occasional commenting, and from time to time I even write posts!

8. How much time will you have to moderate Ask Ubuntu every day? What is your timezone?

I think the time I spend actually doing stuff on Ask Ubuntu in an intentional manner averages out at about 30 minutes per day, although I spend somewhat more time than that logged in and in chat, intermittently at the keyboard, peeking in to see what's happening and casting a vote here and there.

My time zone is UTC + five-and-a-half.

Answer 2

Kulfy's answers

1. 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?

If we consider Code of Conduct, there should be no exception. Answers would help the site to have valuable stuffs while the Code of Conduct helps the community to grow and flourish. If I get to handle such situation, I will first of all discuss the situations with the user and try to convince them to not to generate/engage in arguments. I'll let them know that I appreciate their contributions but at the same time, its important to adhere to the rules and code of conduct of the site. People may not remember them by their answers but they would definitely remember them with by their generosity.

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

First of all, I'll give a second thought and will try to imagine the circumstances and thought process while reading the post. If I still feel the same way, I'll drop in moderators only chatroom and ping the other moderator. In that room, we can have other moderators' views too. After all, it's about the community.

3. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

Moderators are human exception handlers. Their main work is behind the scenes which hardly anyone notices. Moderators' work is thankless job. Sometimes they may not get acknowledged of doing what makes site cleaner, safer and welcoming. Their main task is to handle flags, especially red flags and keep an eye on the working of community and take appropriate action if something fishy is going on. At the end of the day, moderators are accountable for the community.

4. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

I've been always very cautious about my posts and words I wrote. I know that as I get higher reputation, the weightage of my words would change. Keeping that in my mind, I audit my previous posts and comments on a monthly basis. After the diamond, some may perceive whatever I say as a rule, therefore, I have to become more cautious.

5. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

I recently got 10k reputation points which, honestly, gives a very good feeling since I can now see deleted posts, access 10k tools and have more insights than the past. After becoming a moderator, I'll get more tools to get more insights which would be helpful. For example, I'll be able to keep an eye on users who games the system by upvoting themselves from different accounts which is not detected by the system, delete spam only accounts, etc.

6. This question would be mostly valid for people who are very active in the review queues. Before the diamond, reviews would require several people's votes before the system decides on the outcome. With the diamond, your vote will be the definitive one. Would that spook you into skipping reviews? In summary, how would the diamond affect your activities in the review queue?

Review Queues are like the heart of any site on Stack Exchange Network. We can't ignore its importance. They are helpful for bumping ignored posts or posts with very critical issues. My most of the time on Ask Ubuntu goes in review queues. With the diamond, my vote would be binding. That said, I'll become more cautious of my vote since it would decide the fate of the post. I'm not going to skip reviews for sure since I'm habitual of it. Generally, I exhaust my review quota everyday but after the diamond I may not be able to exhaust the quota since I have to handle some other stuffs as well. I will surely vote on off-topic, non-answers and other evil things.

7. What activity most occupies the time you spend in AskUbuntu? I mean, what would you say you most do here.

I'm a regular at the Downboat where I interact with Natty, call for actions on posts or contribute with my actions wherever needed. Most of my time here goes in review queues. I always prioritize reopen votes queue and suggested edits queue, since they both are very crucial and opens the room for improvements. But that doesn't mean I ignore other review queues.

Once I exhaust my review quota, I use 10k tools to check recent activities and the posts which are about to get threshold votes to get closed, reopened or deleted. This way I tackle the issue of aging away of votes which is a common thing on sites across the Stack Exchange Network.

Currently, I'm trying to minimise abandoned questions on the site using a query.

8. How much time will you have to moderate Ask Ubuntu every day? What is your timezone?

Since I gained sufficient reputation to do more and more stuffs, I started engaging more on the site, particularly in editing, reviewing and finding gems. In the past, on an average I had about 2 hours a day to see what's going on here and do my job wherever applicable. I generally devote this time in chunks, which I believe increases efficiency. I'll keep my average and would try to increase that.

My timezone is UTC+5:30 and I don't observe daylight saving time. 😉

Answer 3

Ravexina's Answers

1. 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?

I think the best way to get around this situation is to let the user know how much we as a community appreciate his/her work. To make the user feel as important as he/she is. To make sure that the user knows people are watching his/her actions and many users might be effected by those actions. Sometimes some knowledgeable people only want some kind of recognition. I think if we give them that we're good to go. If nothing goes well, sometimes reminding the user of rules and regulations as friendly as possible might also be helpful.

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

I would do the exact same thing that I already do. Look around to see that if it was really a wrong decision in my opinion or it is me getting a wrong idea. If still I think that the decision is not justified to me I would comment on the post or ask for more explanation adding my opinion on the situation. That's what I already do. We are a community. It definitely would be helpful to see other peoples perspective. I think it would rarely happen but if I really think that the decision was made wrongfully I would ask other mods opinion on it and not going to do something by my own to reflect my own opinion.

3. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

The ideal moderator does as little as possible [1]. We're a community. most of the job is getting done by everyone. There are many great people flagging, reviewing, editing, casting votes on questions and answers to keep things clean and running. Mods are there for when something goes bad and needs special permission to handle or an immediate action. Say locking a question to make things cool down to deleting a spam while checking flagged posts or even directly communicate with a user to resolve any problem.

4. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

With recognition comes responsibility... For me it's somehow like the reputation we received from other users. However this time it's the trust they put on us. Yes that diamond might indicate the "special" powers a user has. But more than of that it somehow indicates that people can trust this user. And obviously that puts special pressure on how someone thinks, acts or reacts to a situation.

5. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

I've learned a lot from this community. It was my duty to try and give back as much as it was possible for me and I did what I could and I'm still doing that. I'm happy with what I have already done This is just another opportunity to do something good in other areas.

6. This question would be mostly valid for people who are very active in the review queues. Before the diamond, reviews would require several people's votes before the system decides on the outcome. With the diamond, your vote will be the definitive one. Would that spook you into skipping reviews? In summary, how would the diamond affect your activities in the review queue?

This time, with power comes responsibility... With that diamond I won't be spooked. It actually becomes my duty to carefully keep my eyes on the queue even if I don't in a normal day. To think twice before deciding and clicking on something. to comment and explain why I choose to do that action. At the end it's always a good idea to wait for a little bit and see what other users or mods think of a post. To take into account that how many users believes that a post should be closed/deleted. that's the way I ask for help when I'm unsure. By looking around and understanding how other people think.

7. What activity most occupies the time you spend in Ask Ubuntu? I mean, what would you say you most do here?

In general a combination of anything a user can do. In the past my main activity was answering questions that were interesting to me and sometimes editing posts, casting votes and flagging posts. These days I'm mostly watching what's happening. commenting on some posts, checking General room which no one ever (well most of the times) is there.

8. How much time will you have to moderate Ask Ubuntu every day? What is your timezone?

I'm almost always around... checking the site many times in 24 hours of a day. If elected I would put specific times dedicated to do what is my duty as a community elected mod.

Time zone: UTC+4:30

Answer 4

1. 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?

It depends on each situation. Healthy debates and arguments are always welcome. But if the discussion is going in a different direction, I will engage with the user to stay focused and productive.

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

I will first understand the entire situation and then reach out to the moderator and then have a very healthy discussion in a respectful manner to reach some consensus.

3. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

Moderators keep the site clean. They edit, modify the comments, questions and answers so that it makes some good sense to everybody. This way the site is more useful to everybody and attract more views. End of the day, stackoverflow or anything within that like askubuntu is to help the users for their Ubuntu Linux problems. Moderators job is to make this site more effective.

4. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

“With power comes responsibilities” I would make sure I am not appearing to be commanding to anybody. I want to easy, approachable and helpful to the users.

5. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

I am here to help as a moderator. Let’s say there is a duplicate question banners, I will go thru the various similar questions to fix this. Having good reputation helps as a moderator as your reputation has already earned some amount of trust. End of the day it will be better to be moderator if one understands the overall context/background of the subject being discussed.

6. This question would be mostly valid for people who are very active in the review queues. Before the diamond, reviews would require several people's votes before the system decides on the outcome. With the diamond, your vote will be the definitive one. Would that spook you into skipping reviews? In summary, how would the diamond affect your activities in the review queue?

Sorry, I don’t have much idea about this due to lack of experience. But this is something that I will definitely develop.

7. What activity most occupies the time you spend in AskUbuntu? I mean, what would you say you most do here.

I generally answer the questions or ask the questions mostly. I also help in terms of duplicate questions and making the questions and answers better.

8. How much time will you have to moderate Ask Ubuntu every day? What is your timezone?

Around 30-45 minutes everyday and more time on the weekend. I am in Central time zone in USA.

Answer 5

Tejas's answer

1. 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?

We are here to help a community of people. I would first warn the user by commenting on his/her reply to request to correct the behavior else, I will report such users after verifying the flags.

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

I will first understand my actions as of what I would have done of tables were flipped, If I am not convinced, I will take the suggestions of other moderators and depending on the consensus, I will make a decision.

3. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

I think moderators are the people who are responsible for ensuring that the community is healthy. They handle flags and perform appropriate actions depending on the behavior of the users

4. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

I think that the community will respect the answers which have a diamond attached. It also increases the responsibility to make sure and audit them to make sure that they are correct and accurate.

5. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

I would make sure that people who always click No Action Needed in First Posts and Late Answers to finish reviewing faster and abuse the system to sure they do their due diligence. Also, being a moderator makes me liable for any actions I performing the site which includes reporting, flagging, or upvoting.

6. This question would be mostly valid for people who are very active in the review queues. Before the diamond, reviews would require several people's votes before the system decides on the outcome. With the diamond, your vote will be the definitive one. Would that spook you into skipping reviews? In summary, how would the diamond affect your activities in the review queue?

Review queues are very important as it helps us to keep the community free from unwanted posts. I spend most of my time on Review queues. It is said that with great power comes great responsibility. Also, mods have greater authority. I will try to make avoid skipping posts and pay full attention to them.

7. What activity most occupies the time you spend in AskUbuntu? I mean, what would you say you most do here.

I spend most of my time reviewing First Posts and Late Answers and editing posts, sometimes, I spend on replicating other users problems and finding the solution

8. How much time will you have to moderate Ask Ubuntu every day? What is your timezone?

I can spend 3-4 hours daily moderating. On weekends it will somewhat extra. My timezone is UTC + 5:30

Answer 6

1. 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?

I will try to discuss with this user in a friendly manner and remind them about the Code of Conduct. I will find a way to help them not generate arguments/flags from comments.

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

I will find out their reason(s) for doing so and if I'm not convinced by that I will take it to meta discussions and invite other moderators for us to try discussing the issue well. All in all, I personally think it's a rare situation I can face.

3. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

Moderators carryout all moderation tasks... I mean including those that only users with their privileges can do. This does not keep out the smooth running and functioning of the whole AskUbuntu community and helping out where and when they're needed.

4. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers, and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

If a diamond is attached to ThunderBird, I'll naturally feel good... But it will also remind me that I'm a moderator in this community and often have to fulfill my duties in a friendly and approachable way as much as I can.

5. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

Well, simply reaching 10k or 20k rep, I haven't experienced that. So I have very little to say, but I believe being a moderator gives more insight and tools in the community thereby making one be able to carry out extra moderation tasks that even the 10k rep or 20k rep doesn't permit.

6. This question would be mostly valid for people who are very active in the review queues. Before the diamond, reviews would require several people's votes before the system decides on the outcome. With the diamond, your vote will be the definitive one. Would that spook you into skipping reviews? In summary, how would the diamond affect your activities in the review queue?

Reviews are an important part of a system or community. That's why I've always been keen when reviewing. Nevertheless, the diamond will make me more cautious when reviewing.

7. What activity most occupies the time you spend in AskUbuntu? I mean, what would you say you most do here.

Of recent, I've been coming to AskUbuntu to review First Posts and Late Answers, though I rarely post an answer where I consider needed. So it's the reviews that mostly occupy my time on AskUbuntu.

8. How much time will you have to moderate Ask Ubuntu every day? What is your timezone?

I could spend any time from 2 to 4 hours every day in moderating AskUbuntu.
My timezone: GMT+1.

Answer 7

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?

I will patiently explain them the process of how do you decide what is the use of a new born baby.Meaning no one knows when a baby is born what is he going to become in future. Questions by users are similar.The question may sound meaningless to some one but on the other hand it could be meaning full to some one else.If I know the answer I will write an answer to original question.Otherwise I will politely explain the person not to disrespect the people who ask question as making this site valuable for every one is our duty as moderators.

How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

I will up vote for re opening the question and write my suggestions in comments.

In your opinion, what do moderators do?

Moderators keep the forum spam free also at the same time if there is some duplicate question or possibly a duplicate one then they explain user how it is duplicate and if the user thinks it is not duplicate then opening the question which could have been down voted to be closed is also duty of moderator.

A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

I feel excited to have that attached to my profile.

In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

Actually I like to learn new things. When we deal with a lot of user queries which are more of support request then in that process. Many a times we encounter some very knowledgeable posts or questions. So those things some times give valuable insight to how system is functioning from inside.Hence it is actually exciting to be a moderator.To have the reputation of 10K or 20K I need to have that much level of knowledge and by moderating problems I will come across the posts and read them this will give more insight to user problems.

This question would be mostly valid for people who are very active in the review queues. Before the diamond, reviews would require several people's votes before the system decides on the outcome. With the diamond, your vote will be the definitive one. Would that spook you into skipping reviews? In summary, how would the diamond affect your activities in the review queue?

I will show the diamond to my friends so they also get excited and I can brag a little bit about myself by more number of diamonds.So more diamonds means more I can brag.

What activity most occupies the time you spend in AskUbuntu? I mean, what would you say you most do here.

I usually when get in some problem which I am not able to solve myself then only I come here. Mostly asking question.But if I am aware of a solution then I do post it as an example read my answer to my question I had posted the question ubuntu stuck on boot in after upgrade to 19.10 from 19.04 in vmware [end kernel panic not syncing:VFS:unable to mount root fs on block (0,0)] asking help but I kept on struggling and found some steps then when I solved the problem I did post the answer which might have helped people in similar situation. I do have less post count but if I have some knowledge which I can share, then I do share.

How much time will you have to moderate Ask Ubuntu every day? What is your timezone?

I can contribute 6 hours to moderate.I am in UTC +5:30 Time Zone. Asia/Kolkata.

Answer 8

User produces good answers, but argues a lot in comments.

Cool

Mod deletes something good.

Restore it

What do moderators do?

Keeps things on topic.

Are you scared about all the stupid things you said in the past?

Meh. C'est la vis.

What power does the Diamond give you?

With great power, comes great responsibility.

Are you scared of review queues?

Nope.

What do you do here most?

Ask questions.

Timezone and hours

Pacific Time, and an hour + whatever is needed.

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Re: Comments ( Insight on why I am short and sweet )

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The answers come across as surprisingly dismissive and does not provide much insight into the moderator candidate. – JayDin Jun 16 at 23:18

True, I dismiss the emotive wording of the questions, because it is wrong to operate by emotions. My answers reflect the Stack-Exchange design philosophy: Get information immediately.

Thank you for your criticism.

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+1 For dealing wit tl;dr - Call me lazy, but this is the first answer-list I've completed, therefore it does give me maybe a bit more insight into personality compared to others – Breaker222 Jun 17 at 1:09

Not lazy; just value your time.

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@JayDin In a way, they do. This would be a non-nonsense mod, but perhaps also a non-consensus one ;-). – Peter - Reinstate Monica Jun 17 at 6:30

Good insight. Re: Consensus. Important unless it is abused. How?

• It ruined Wikipedia. My question on Meta reflects this.

I prefer people honestly voicing their concerns without repercussions, and then bearing the responsibility of making a decision.

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@Peter-ReinstateMonica - it's easy to be a no-nonsense mod and very hard to be consensus mod. That said, tbh, I did find the answerers funny :) – JayDin Jun 17 at 6:40

Re: Hard to be consensus mod -- It just depends who you are dealing with. If the person is:

• Reasonable, pursue consensus.
• Unreasonable, pursue honesty.

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Guys, you don't recognize a genius when you read it. – Alberto Salvia Novella Jun 17 at 19:17

Thanks, and God bless.