Andrew Strong (andrew.46)
- What timezone are you in and when will you be most active? The moderators we have now cover quite a broad range of times throughout the day, but there are a handful of times when there are no moderators around (Friday evening, PST, for example).
I live in Australia so I will tend to be most active when my northern hemisphere colleagues are fast asleep :). So I am more than happy to fill the other 12 hours!
- As the site gains more and more moderators, it will become increasingly important for the existing moderators to think and act alike so that we the laymen can can know what to expect, regardless of which moderator is acting. Describe your relationship with the present moderators and why you would expect them (and not just us) to trust you as a moderator as well.
At the moment I do not yet have a close relationship with the existing moderators but I would expect that to change with consistent effort on my part even if I am not elected as moderator. Trust would have to be won and built up with time.
- How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable questions/answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags in comments and chat?
I think that participation, especially of a positive nature, should be encouraged at all times. If a user is veering towards a more negative participation in AskUbuntu there is a good case for close monitoring for a period and if a pattern of negativity is developing a friendly chat would be in order. Emphasis in this chat would be participation in a positive way.
- How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?
In this case I would hope that I had built up enough of a relationship with this moderator such that we could discuss the closure/deletion between us and come to a resolution that left both of us satisified that the right thing was done.
- The existing moderator team doesn't always agree in private (the joke is if you ask 10 people the same question, you'll get 15 answers). What will you do if the majority of moderators are opposed to your point of view?
If the majority of moderators were opposed to my point of view I would concede the point and spend some time reconsidering my own views.
- What do you think about setting up something like the Stack Overflow Close Vote Reviewers chat room (SOCVR)? Aside from a recent surge in first posts, our close vote review queue has always been rather large. Every year or so, we see posts to clean it up: 1 2 3. This has been suggested before, and IIRC, there is such a room, but inactive (and lacking publicity). While having a room by itself is not the issue, the queue size is. It's been agreed repeatedly over the years that it's a problem and something needs to be done about it. Thoughts?
This sounds like an excellent idea and I would be keen to be involved, either as a moderator if successful or as an ordinary user working through the review queues :).
- How would you deal with a feud between two users? Consider a case where two users have it in for each other and tend to downvote and/or negatively comment on each other's posts.
My own vision of AskUbuntu is that users would cooperate and work together to produce a great site with interesting questions and insightful answers. Feuding between users as described dilutes such a vision and is quite counterproductive for all involved. As moderator I would be more than happy to be a mediator by working individually and together with the 2 parties to set both back on a productive path.
- How do you deal with established users who have gained reputation, badges and privileges by illicit means? This might seem silly but it has real world applications. Things like this, where >1k rep users do something really quite wrong, happen a couple of times a year. Dealing with it smoothly is important to the continued success of the site. Example scenario.
My own view is that this sort of behaviour should not be part of AskUbuntu and I am more than happy to be part of a moderator team that is prepared to monitor for such activity and act smoothly but firmly if it is found.
- How would you encourage users to improve their answer quality? For instance, someone who consistently copies another user's comments into an answer, more or less verbatim, without verifying that the information they're supplying is correct.
I have noticed that bounties seem to encourage great answers and once my own reputation bulks up a bit more I would be keen to start promoting great answers by giving out bonuses to carefully selected questions, in a conscious imitation of Jorge :).
As moderator I would also expect that I would need to spend some time carefully monitoring posts and answers to ensure that sloppiness in answering does not cheapen the value of AskUbuntu.
- In your opinion, what do moderators do?
I believe that in a perfect world the moderator would not have to do all that much :). Certainly the 'official' requirements are here:
Moderators:
- are patient and fair
- lead by example
- show respect for their fellow community members in their actions and words are open to some light but firm moderation to keep the community on track and resolve (hopefully) uncommon disputes and exceptions
and I would have no problem following these points as I already follow them in my life away from Ubuntu...