2012 Moderator Election

I ran for moderator last year and finished respectably. I'm still willing and interested in such a role.

Since then not much has changed. I have gained more experience with the 10K tools and Stack Overflow in general - I've raised a lot more helpful flags since the last election. In doing so I've witnessed some of the rarer incidents as well as the more common ones. My answering is more focused on unanswered questions in "niche" tags (e.g. swig). My views haven't changed enormously, so you might be interested in my nomination for the previous election. The key bits:

1. Time: I read Stack Overflow habitually in otherwise idle time - it filled a newsgroup sized hole in my online habits.
2. Objectivity: In my view all of my actions to date have been objective and fair. I'm able to recognise the danger signs of losing objectivity in a situation and step back to avoid escalating a situation into a conflict.

I feel like I've seen how things work, I offer time but the tools will make my time into actions rather than just adding to somebody's list. In return I'll try to be fair and accountable.

Why I would be a good moderator

• I have experience moderating: I've moderated other web sites before and I'm a college and high school teacher.

  While none of the above is comparable to moderating a SE site, there are a few things you learn what will come in handy:

  • Being patient when somebody can't see the error of his ways.

  • Dealing appropriately with major infractions.

  • Learning how to approach people committing minor infractions.

  • Analyzing reactions to your own moderation.

• I'm very active on Meta, SO and SU, so I have a solid understanding on how a moderator should operate.

• I'm very interested in SO itself. My rep on Meta is higher than my rep on SO, and I have tag badges for support and discussion.

• I have a lot of spare time that I spend on the SE network anyway.

• I enjoy reading posts on SO more than writing them (I'm only a hobby coder), so I'd spend all my time on SO moderating.

Why I want to be a moderator

I enjoy being a part of Stack Exchange, and I want to help make it better by being a human exception handler.

Teaching isn't just my day-time job, it's my vocation. And a very important part of teaching is moderation.

I'm Adrian, a Computer Science student from Germany who is using Stack Overflow for over two years now. I spend quite some time per day here answering questions, editing posts (mostly to improve formatting/spelling), voting, commenting (often both pointing out issues and making useful suggestions regarding the posted code) and if necessary flagging.

What would make me a good moderator?

• I'm familiar with handling troublemakers in a good/fair way and moderating communities. Being IRCOp and Support Manager in a large IRC network for over 5 years now should make me somewhat experienced in this area.
• I'm patient even with people who tend to be annoying/complicated.
• I would keep doing what I'm already doing - i.e. answering, voting etc. - but do the moderator-specific tasks on top, i.e. I'd spend more time on SO than I already do.
• I think I'm quite good at determining people's intentions - i.e. if someone is obviously trolling or maybe just new/inexperienced and can be easily guided in the right direction.
• Nice/friendly but still being able to do what's necessary.
• Lots of spare time available.

I'm going to nominate myself again. Stack Overflow is my home, I spend a lot of time and effort here, and I would be honored to be part of the moderator crew.

To keep it short, the things that make me ideal for the Mod position are:

• I'm a nice guy, I edit posts as much as I vote to close and I still take the time to edit posts of the new users
• I've been around SO awhile (well over 3 years), I know most (but probably not all) the tricks. I'm also on SO for a large portion of the day
• I'm active on Meta (I think this is just as important as having the mandatory badges)
• I can handle the pressure, in times gone by I've moderated tougher crowds than SO
• I love to do my bit to keep SO clean and tidy, as evident from my badge and flag stats, and I won't accept any crap from incorrigible or intransigent users (let's face it - most of the time they are intentionally trying to game the system)

The tags I'm active in are inconsequential - a diamond mod has to be prepared to do work in any particular tag. I'm conveniently located in New Zealand, which is GMT+12 (I'm on SO while Jon Skeet sleeps!).

Actions speak louder than words. You may look at my profile for the former in detail, but at least a few of the latter are necessary, so here's why I would be a good moderator:

I have lots of time to moderate.

I've visited Stack Overflow for 404 days out of less than 425 that I've been registered, with 270 of those days being consecutive. During the average of 3 hours daily I spend on Stack Overflow, I actively answer questions and seek out terrible questions to close and non-answers to delete, spam to clean up and misguided Facebook users to redirect.

I make the right decisions.

The only "proof" of this is 1234 helpful flags, 20 declined, all but one of which were long in the past. But I've never closed anything unfairly and I've never downvoted for any of the wrong reasons.

I always prefer to clean up than erase.

There's no feeling better than a huge edit!

Whatever the outcome, I can still help without being a moderator.

Anybody with more than 20,000 reputation gets access to a wide range of moderator tools, which I've used. Lots. But I'd like to make a bigger impact. Please consider me, and thank you Stack Overflow.

I have been active on the site for a couple of years, and have found it to be an indispensable resource. I believe one of the primary reasons for that is due to the way the site is moderated. That starts, of course, with the users voting (up/down/close/open/delete/undelete), but also includes users flagging - which leads to Community Mods needing to handle those flags.

As someone who has earned all of the moderation/flagging-related badges, I've always taken the reputation-based tools seriously in the protection of Stack Overflow's value to the programmer community.

I have been active on Meta for quite a few months in trying to hone the skills I apply there, and hopefully the mods who have handled the roughly 1800 flags I have sent agree that I'm doing OK. I was one of the very few to have earned Marshal while it was still based on flag weight.

My hope as a moderator would be to simply continue Stack Overflow's high quality by spending some of my time each day handling those thorny little posts that need that special attention. Other than that, I would of course continue to be active in the C#-related tags, as always!

My name is Moshe, and I'm a college student and long time Stack Overflow user.

I've been an SO member for two and a half years. In that time, I've asked over 400 questions, provided over 500 answers, flagged many posts, and made numerous edits. I've got all the relevant badges except for Sportsmanship and Pundit.

I'm primarily active in the iPhone related tags, so I helped field an influx of low quality questions as that subject rose in popularity among the throngs of developers on the internet. (I'm further qualified to help moderate because I keep a regular blog, so I flex my writing muscle regularly. It helped with edits.)

I hang out on Meta (in the Tavern mostly), Ask Different, and occasionally lurk on Super User, Judaism, and a few others. I often find myself directed to other StackExchange sites via Google.

In school, I regularly promote StackExchange. At the end of my first semester, last fall, I ran a StackExchange sponsored reading day in my English class. I've shared Stack Overflow as a resource for programming questions to many classmates and professors.

I'm enthusiastic about the StackExchange community and I'd love to help moderate.

Over the last couple of years, I've spent the majority of my time on Stack Overflow performing moderation-related tasks. I've cast a massive number of flags, and lost count of the number of voting rings, sock puppet accounts, and spammers I've helped shut down. I've also made over 2000 edits, so I do try to salvage content when I can.

In terms of questions and answers, I am currently the top all-time user in the iphone and ios tags. Among the current moderators, only one has significant Mac or iOS experience, so I would be able to supplement their areas of expertise. However, that does not mean I'd be incapable of helping outside of these topics, as most issues that moderators are presented with require little domain expertise to handle.

I have a solid relationship with the current moderators, as can be seen in the comments from the last election, and have no doubt that I'd be able to work well with them to keep the site clean while it grows.

Finally, I've always made a point to be polite and professional in my interactions here, and would continue to maintain a cool head if elected.

I'm Sathya. Having seen as to how the then and current moderators have guided the community, I'm confident that I will be a good addition to the Moderation team.

Some reasons on why I should be voted:

Dedication: I've been an active member since the past 3 years, clocking in over 900 days of visits.

Community building: I'm quite active on Meta Stack Overflow, Super User and Super User Meta. I visit /review on a regular basis, often drop a comment explaining what a member can do to improve his experience here.

Prior Experience in Moderation: I've been a Moderator on Super User since the past year and I know and understand very well what it takes to be a Moderator.

Badges: Badges on Stack Exchange are often an award for good behaviour, some of the noteworthy badges that I've earned include: Copy Editor, Electorate, Fanatic, Reviewer, Convention, Necromancer, Yearling(x3), Marshal

Miscellaneous: Amongst other things, I'm always available on Chat. Also, I'm about halfway across the world from the US, in India so there's another set of eyes from a different timezone.

Thanks for taking the time in reading this!

I could tell you that I've been working to clean up questions for a long time, but one look at my editing history would tell you that.

I could tell you that I've been active on Meta for a very long time, but my meta activity would tell you that.

I could even tell you that I exhibit the traits discussed in A Theory of Moderation, but that might be considered bragging. So instead, I'll point you to one such example.

There isn't much else to say: If you're interested in seeing what a candidate does, then I invite you to do just that. Candidates can say a lot in their nomination speeches, but in the end, it all comes down to what they do.