2014 Moderator Election Q&A - Question Collection [closed]

Question

The purpose of this thread was to collect questions for the questionnaire. The questionnaire is now live, and you may find it here.

In connection with the moderator elections, we will be holding a Q&A with the candidates. This will be an opportunity for members of the community to pose questions to the candidates on the topic of moderation. Participation is completely voluntary.

Here's how it'll work:

• During the nomination phase, (so, until Monday, February 17th at 20:00:00Z UTC, or 3:00 pm EST on the same day, give or take time to arrive for closure), this question will be open to collect potential questions from the users of the site. Post answers to this question containing any questions you would like to ask the candidates. Please only post one question per answer.

• We, the Community Team, will be providing a small selection of generic questions. The first two will be guaranteed to be included, the latter ones are if the community doesn't supply enough questions. This will be done in a single post, unlike the prior instruction.

• This is a perfect opportunity to voice questions that are specific to your community and issues that you are running into at current.

• At the end of the phase, the Community Team will select up to 8 of the top voted questions submitted by the community provided in this thread, to use in addition to the aforementioned 2 guaranteed questions. We reserve some editorial control in the selection of the questions and may opt not to select a question that is tangential or irrelevant to moderation or the election. That said, if I have concerns about any questions in this fashion, I will be sure to point this out in comments before the decision making time.

• Once questions have been selected, a new question will be opened to host the actual questionnaire for the candidates, containing 10 questions in total.

• This is not the only option that users have for gathering information on candidates. As a community, you are still free to, for example, hold a live chat session with your candidates to ask further questions, or perhaps clarifications from what is provided in the Q&A.

If you have any questions or feedback about this new process, feel free to post as a comment here.

Answer 1

Ask Ubuntu currently has the lowest Percent Answered of any Stack Exchange site. What do you feel caused this, and what is your personal opinion on whether - and how - to change that?

Answer 2

What is, in your opinion as a potential future moderator, the biggest problem that Ask Ubuntu faces? If you were to get elected, what actions would you take towards resolving this issue?

Answer 3

Here is a set of general questions, gathered as very common questions asked every election. As mentioned in the instructions, the first two questions are guaranteed to show up in the Q&A, while the others are if there aren't enough questions (or, if you like one enough, you may split it off as a separate answer for review within the community's 8).

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

---

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

Answer 4

As a moderator, your votes become binding. Actions you used to take like flagging, closing, and deleting will take effect immediately without any input from any other users or moderators.

How will you adapt the way you currently flag and vote to deal with this change?

Answer 5

A new user has arrived and doesn't really understand the way the Stack Exchange system is supposed to work. They're complaining that people keep editing their posts and a roll back war has started on a question that they've asked. You need to step in and moderate the situation. What actions do you take?

Answer 6

While the moderator position you're nominating yourself for is a voluntary position, there is a minimum amount of time that you would need to be available in order to be an effective moderator. How much time do you currently spend using Ask Ubuntu and are there any known circumstances in which this will change in the future?

Answer 7

Getting a reputation on this website is based on your technical skills/knowledge. What proves us that you know how to handle people? How do you feel current moderators go about handling people?

Answer 8

A new user has joined the site and posted a question which is obviously off topic, you know the question needs closing - how do you approach this with the user? (Provide past examples if you've got any)

Answer 9

Evidence has been found that a high rep (> 3k) user has been sockpuppeting for a large percentage of their reputation.

• What do you do in response?

Answer 10

Since Moderators are the so to speak, the face of the community, how would you act when you find a problem you are not sure how to solve or deal with it?

Answer 11

A fellow moderator / a well know user / 'one of your peers' has done a blatantly obvious bad answer, one that could prove destructive, or may misguide others. You, as a moderator, must take action. You have tried commenting but they refuse to budge. What do you do now?

Answer 12

How important are new users to you as a moderator? Would you think that using a grooming/mentoring approach towards new users would increase their likeliness to stay and contribute to the site ?

Answer 13

^{Unfortunately I think it is too late to add this to the list of questions being submitted to the candidates for moderator, but here goes anyway.}

How would you help emphasize Ubuntu's GNU/Linux and Unix heritage? Canonical's branding and public relations seem to de-emphasize any link to GNU/Linux or Unix; and so does Ask Ubuntu. How would you help correct that?