2013 Moderator Election

Why I Want to Moderate

I've been a member for over three years - actively for the past two - and have benefited from the way this site is operated so much that I feel inspired to assist in its moderation. As a user with over 9000 helpful flags (and about 90 declined) I think it's about time I switch from giving the moderators more work to do, and instead start helping them do it!

Why Moderators?

Moderators are here to make those 'judgment calls' for which automated or purely community-based systems are not up to the task; to be the 'janitors', as the blog post says. I feel this is very important, and would take it very seriously. I always look over my flag summary to see if I've had any flags declined, which has been a steadily-decreasing occurrence the more involved and experienced I become with how the community wants the site to operate. This helps hone my skills.

What Else Do I Do?

I also like to edit posts to improve them, and use all the review queues frequently, to help improve quality and participation. I vote and comment a lot, with an aim toward helping people improve the site with their content.

Why I would be a good moderator

• I spend several hours on SO daily. Dedicating 30 minutes and more a day is easily possible. My 850 answers vs 12 questions show that I am aggressively proactive towards solution development, and understand that well formed questions with high quality answers are the driving force behind this site's success.
• Since I hit 10k about 3 months ago, I've made good use of the tools given to me and raised a 1000+ helpful flags.
• My meta participation is a bit low, but I'm working on improving that.
• I'm very even headed. If anyone ever drops by the Android chat room, or goes over its transcripts, they will find that in my role as room owner I am always fair in my decisions and don't pick fights with anyone at all.
• I'm patient and willing to help. In many cases I go to great lengths to help out people, explaining over a few comments or on chat how to solve the problem.
• My timezone allows me to be active when USA mods aren't which can be very helpful right now.
• android could use some major cleanup right now, and I can do that with mod tools. It has recently crossed three hundred thousand questions, making it one of the biggest.

tl;dr: A vote for me is a vote for consistency.

Why do I want the job?
Actually, there are no benefits to being a mod, so I don't want the job, going by the usual definition of "want." But I love the community here, I believe in the platform, I want to give back and I can handle the duties.

Philosophy on moderation
The current moderators are, on the whole, doing a great job. My goal would be to act like they already do, and just lighten the load. We don't need to make any major changes to mod behavior on this site.

Personality
My actions speak for themselves. If I've ever treated anyone improperly on SO/SE, please give a description and link in the comments here. I promise to look at all reports and will do my best to respond.

Endorsements
I've "already been endorsed by pretty much every active SO moderator".

Other

• My activity is already mostly janitorial; you wouldn't be losing a great answerer if you elected me.
• I'm great with English.
• Over 35k rep on Meta (where my name is Popular Demand).

Greetings! I’m Ryan O’Hara, and I would like to nominate myself. Again.

Why would I make a good moderator, you ask? Well, I like to improve things! My revision history might be relevant. I would love to help more things — say, arguments, spam… tags… (Not that I would stop fixing it'ss. I will never stop.)

That’s more or less it — improving Stack Overflow is what moderatorship is all about. I like to think I still do that without the diamond, but it certainly helps — and to help, I’m glad.

As usual, statistics instead of words can be found on the elections.SE page, so check that out! And yes, I have been away for a stretch; I promise that I’m back now and forever.¹

¹ Well, actually, I’ve still been visiting every day — can’t help it. This is a good thing, right?

After much thought I've decided to throw my hat into the ring of this year's Stack Overflow elections.

Why should you vote for me?

I believe that being a moderator already gives me an insight into what the job entails, what I can bring - firmness, fairness and above all a willingness to change my mind when necessary, and a deep understanding of what makes Stack Overflow in work.

As Stack Overflow matures it needs steady guidance to keep it on track and to keep the signal to noise ratio high. Popular yet off topic/not constructive questions contribute to the noise and we shouldn't be afraid to encourage people to post them elsewhere.

I'm in the UK so I'm around for the early part of the UTC day.

Now to address the issue of my existing multiple diamonds on other sites.

As a mod I'm not expected to be on site 24/7 moderating Stack Overflow. There are other mods around who I'm sharing the load with. Yes, I need to do my share, but with 16 others the (heavy) load should be manageable. Also the moderating load on DIY and Web Apps is usually quite low and even Programmers doesn't generate that much work.

I would like to toss my name in the growing list of nominees mainly because I love StackOverflow and want to make it a better place.

My name is bluefeet. You may be asking yourself, "Really, why bluefeet?" Well there are two possible reasons...I like to run or, I might be part Smurf!

All joking aside, I would really like to be the next moderator for StackOverflow.

Key Points:

• I have been a longtime member of the SO community over 2.5 years and am slowly approaching 500 consecutive days. (I was even active on my wedding day.)
• I am very active in the SQL tags, especially pivot.
• I like finding old posts to edit or flag.
• I spend WAY too much time on StackOverflow and I would like to spend it being a mod cleaning out the flag queue.
• I do not like link only answers, at least provide some context.
• When I am not on SO, I spend time on DBA.SE and chat in the Heap.
• If I am part Smurf...it would be Smurfette.

If you’re looking for someone who simply enjoys the site to feed my hungry brain, that would be me. I am addicted to this site.

Pertinent points:

• I'd like to see more people appreciate the "Wiki" part of the Stack Overflow vision.
• I strongly dislike link only answers and astroturfing.
• I like complete, minimal examples a lot (it practically guarantees an upvote from me).
• Downvotes where there isn't an appropriate comment already are usually followed up with constructive criticism in a comment.
• I like SPAG (spelling, punctuation and grammar), but I'm not perfect. I read ELU when I'm not sure. (It's all be asked already though).
• I've done a lot of reviews outside of /review. Particularly "late answers to old questions" 10K tool.
• I was above 3K when the "flag for closure" option was added. Besides the "helpful flags" count I try to flag cases I spot where flags are clearly wrong.
• These days my answers tend to be posted later, in niche tags, but with more depth.
• I'm pretty good at avoiding the ad hominem and taking a step back when comments turn nasty.

This is the third time I've run for moderator. Each time I've finished respectably in the final vote. Read those if you're interested - my views haven't changed dramatically since I wrote them.

The folks in the PHP chat think I'd make a good mod, so here's my nomination, elect me, maybe.

Why me?

I visit StackOverflow daily and am part of the cv-ring; pruning the PHP tag of dupes and low quality stuff. I have helped to close more than 3200 questions. Becoming a moderator would allow me to extend my daily routine to handling flags. So I can better support you, the mods and StackOverflow as a whole in keeping the PHP tag tidy.

I am aware that being a mod would extend my duties beyond the PHP tag. I understand the Theory of Moderation and that being a mod is not about closing as much as possible. As a mod, I will simply keep closevoting as I do now (unless it's a really obvious case) and focus on helping my fellow mods with the flags.

Trivia

I have 2500+ answers, am the #88 All Time user, Top 3 Answerer in the PHP tag, author of the invaluable PHP Operator Reference and own Electorate, Copy Editor and Marshal badges.

Primary Goal: Keep Stack Overflow clean.

Secondary Goal: Achieve my primary goal. Seriously. That's a lot of work.

Tertiary Goal: Get rid of the overabundance of useless tag synonyms.

Long ago, I began the journey on Stack Overflow to reach 3,000 reputation. Not because I wanted the reputation, but because the thought of being able to help out with voting to close poor questions intrigued me. I had never before heard of this community moderation before. After that, I leveled off for a while before beginning my quest for 10,000 reputation to further expand my ability to help on the site. Now, I steadily float towards the 20,000 mark.

I've often told people that I don't participate very much on Stack Overflow; at least not in the ordinary sense. I spend more of my time cleaning up posts, keeping an eye out for treacherous edits in the suggested edits queue, and organizing tags. I'm a reviewer at heart and function far better when analyzing situations.

Aside from this, I also spend an extraordinary amount of time on Meta. I won't attempt to summarize my participation there since there really is no good way to summarize it.

My name is not JNK, and I'd like to be one of your next moderators.

JNK Fast Fact Sheet™

• Already a moderator on DBA.SE

  • Familiarity with all the tools!
  • Deep understanding of the SE philosophy
  • I already have a key to the moderator washroom so we save some money on making a new copy!

• Long-time member of the SO community

  • Nearly 3 years now!
  • Active in the SQL-related tags

• Flag-closing enthusiast

  • DBA gets a small volume of flags but I close a lot of them!

• Other Miscellaneous

  • I stay on top of meta, even if I don't post as much as I used to
  • I listen to the podcast and read most of the blog posts to know what's happening in the network
  • I don't think modding on two sites will be an issue since the time demands on DBA are fairly low.
  • 4 out of 5 homicidal AI systems agree, JNK is the artificial lifeform's clear choice!
  • If elected I plan to focus primarily on the flag queue!