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2019 Moderator Election

On Stack Exchange, we believe the core moderators should come from the community, and be elected by the community itself through popular vote. We hold regular elections to determine who these community moderators will be.

Community moderators are accorded the highest level of privilege in our community, and should themselves be exemplars of positive behavior and leaders within the community.

Our general criteria for moderators are as follows:

  • patient and fair
  • leads by example
  • shows respect for their fellow community members in their actions and words
  • open to some light but firm moderation to keep the community on track and resolve (hopefully) uncommon disputes and exceptions.

For the Stack Overflow election, an eligible candidate must have all of the following badges:

…and cannot have been suspended during the past year.

Due to the size of Stack Overflow (averaging nearly 2,000 flags per day!), moderation can be a significant responsibility—if you can't dedicate at least 30 minutes each day to help shoulder the load, please defer to those who can.

Every election has three phases:

  1. Nomination
  2. Primary
  3. Election

Please participate in the moderator elections by voting, and perhaps even by nominating yourself to be a community moderator!

Quick Links:

Nominations close in 13 hours.

11 Candidates

Hi! I'm Jason, known around these parts as Makoto. I'm a self-acknowledged Meta-hound and I consider myself to be an advocate for the ultimate objective of this site.

I would like to throw my hat into the ring of consideration for moderator. If the community will have me, I would be honored to take on the responsibility.

To me, a moderator should be capable of:

  • Handling flags
  • Dealing with tricky situations which arise on the main site, or Meta
  • Being an ambassador of the site and its goals
  • Keeping your cool when the rest of the site is spontaneously combusting

…and I feel that I can absolutely rise to those challenges.

While I believe that my reputation precedes me, I feel that my actions speak louder than the words I'd type here. Feel encouraged to peruse or question any of my moderator-like activity on the site, and I'll rise to address any concerns you have.

link | history
reviews | meta posts
  • I was hoping you would nominate yourself again! Although that only makes decisions even harder of course. Good luck! – Josh Caswell 2 days ago
  • Finally, someone who appreciates java and python ;) Really, though, you'll make a great moderator. Good luck, Makoto! – Supa Mega Ducky Momo da Waffle 2 days ago
  • Can you explain how you interpret the role of "ambassador of the site"? What does this mean to you in theory, and what would you do in practice? – Cody Gray♦ 2 days ago
  • Sure @CodyGray - to be an ambassador for the site, in my mind, is to represent its policies, opinion and stance on how we curate and celebrate content. In theory, this represents an open dialog between users who have experienced feedback they may not disagree with and the community who gave that feedback, which may need to be filtered or made less...confrontational. In practice, it may mean that I get shouted at because someone doesn't like the fact that they can't ask their question here, or that they think the site is "too mean" to beginners. – Makoto 2 days ago
  • @CodyGray: In the role of a moderator, one has the unique ability to convey more of an official message; to represent the policies of the collective and being able to absorb the blowback which may (or may not) happen. I doubt I'd be going on to social media to advocate for the site much, but I would do what I could in the capacity provided to me to ensure that the interactions had with me in those respects could be seen as positive. – Makoto 2 days ago
  • @CodyGray: The big thing I want to emphasize is that I feel that, as a moderator, one has the power to influence how the masses perceive the site. Putting a human face to the automaton would be how I would behave in the ambassador role. – Makoto 2 days ago
  • Is it a bad thing that I (for some reason) thought that you already were a mod? I'm mostly a silent member, but I've seen you involved all over the community in positive ways for years. You've got my vote – vbnet3d 2 days ago
  • This is a surprise and welcome nomination. You're a premium choice for moderator. – Yvette Colomb♦ 2 days ago

Stack Overflow exists so that we code-writers can easily find solutions to problems. Everything else is secondary. Moderation is not an end in itself.

We have moderation to keep solution-finding easy. Sometimes the best path to take is not clear, so we discuss on Meta. We can get a little caught up in that, but Meta also is not an end in itself.

Our mod team does a good job helping us to keep it easy. I'd like to join them in that effort.

What I can offer you as a moderator is a clear eye fixed on our goal, working hard to ensure the spirit of our guidelines manifests on the site.

Like Cody Gray before me, I admit I've felt discouraged, like I'm bailing out the Titanic with a thimble. I don't use the queues much: I don't see results in my tags, and it feels like wasted time.

But I do vote and edit a lot. I work hard so that answer-seekers in my little corner of tech (including myself!) have an easy time finding what they need. That's what we're all here for, ultimately.

As a moderator, I won't stop helping the useful stuff out-compete the not-useful stuff. I'll just be able to do it faster and more broadly.

link | history
reviews | meta posts
  • (I use a Mrs. Meyer's brand soapbox, if anyone was wondering.) – Josh Caswell Mar 8 at 4:56
  • Your profile seems to indicate that you don't like Stack overflow as much as you used to due to "expertise, communication, and professional standard not being valued". Do you have anything to say about that? – Supa Mega Ducky Momo da Waffle Mar 8 at 5:04
  • Yeah, I probably should (have) edit(ed) that a bit. Though in my defense my nomination went up before I was actually ready. – Josh Caswell Mar 8 at 5:11
  • You mention you focus on editing and voting, and that you'll do more of that as a moderator, rather than things like site cleanup (e.g. stuff that otherwise lands in the queues from flags). However, neither editing nor voting are things you can do more of as a moderator... there's already no limit to the number of edits you can make in a day, and mods don't get more up/down votes (AFAIK) than normal users. So how exactly will being a moderator help you to accomplish something you can't currently accomplish? – TylerH 2 days ago
  • Is there a reason you did not include the link to your Questionnaire answers? – PM 77-1 2 days ago
  • I have no room left, @PM77-1, and as there's a link to the question at the top of this page it didn't seem terribly important. – Josh Caswell 2 days ago
  • @TylerH "You mention you focus on editing and voting, and that you'll do more of that as a moderator, rather than things like site cleanup " Not quite what I meant; there's very limited space here. I think my reply to question 11 will answer your question. – Josh Caswell 2 days ago
  • Josh and I overlap in our areas of expertise on the site, so you can take what I say with a grain of salt, but my experience is that he'd make a great moderator. You can read many of his well-written posts on Meta going back over the last few years to see that he knows what the position involves, has put thought into difficult moderation-related issues, and is invested in the community. – Brad Larson♦ 2 days ago
  • IMO something which kills this site are revenge DVs. Low reputation users with no knowledge port the very low quality answers. When I DV and comment why - then I am "chased" on another questions and my correct answers are literally instantly DV-ted. Something has to be done with it as the quality of site is degrading – P__J__ yesterday

Hello, I'm Makyen.

I've been hooked on SO ever since I found a question I was interested in answering 4.5 years ago.

Helping the community is very fulfilling for me. I want to be your moderator to expand my contributions to the community by handling flags, managing burninations, intervening to guide users away from disruptive activity, deleting inappropriate content, etc.

Over the last couple of years, I've been focusing on user-level moderation:

  • Room owner of SOCVR (user-level moderation of SO content)
  • Room owner of Trogdor (burninations and the burnination process)
  • Room owner of Charcoal HQ (fight spam and rude/abusive posts on all of SE)
  • On SO:
    • 3,100+ Helpful flags (14 declined; 99.55% helpful)
    • 31,000+ Close-votes
    • 5,800+ Reviews
  • Overall on SE:
    • 10,279 Helpful flags (36 declined; 99.65% helpful). Mostly spam, R/A. Of these, 1,441 are autoflags.
    • 20,500+ SmokeDetector feedbacks (99.51% accurate). A feedback is a review task, with flagging the post, if appropriate.

Questionnaire

link | history
reviews | meta posts
  • I'm going to echo a sentiment Undo expressed on someone else's nomination earlier. I lead the Charcoal project, and Makyen is one of our strongest contributors - always around, willing to help, helping to improve things, good at listening and thinking before doing, extremely accurate... in short: elect Makyen. – ArtOfCode Mar 7 at 16:11
  • Makyen's tireless work with question and answer cleanup, not to mention his invaluable work on various user scripts, makes him an excellent choice for moderation duties. He also seems to have an inexorable ability to tackle every repeated behavioral/rules incident with the same calm, dispassionate manner... a quality most important in a moderator. – TylerH Mar 7 at 16:36
  • @Makyen Same question to you as to Machavity - you're currently a Room Owner in SOCVR - if elected, would you step down as RO or stay in your position? Likewise, would you behavior in posting/responding to *-pls requests change (and if so, how)? – TylerH Mar 7 at 16:59
  • @TylerH Being a moderator and a SOCVR RO does need to get worked out from a SOCVR policy POV (i.e. within the ROs and with the members). It's also, of course, a personal choice, if it's generally permitted in the room. From SE's POV there's no problem with having moderators as ROs. There are multiple examples of mods as ROs for other rooms and existing moderators have confirmed SOCVR having one is not a problem for SE. Personally, I'd want to try being both. Some compartmentalization would need to exist, as the two roles are different and some interactions could be seen as favoritism. – Makyen Mar 7 at 18:00
  • (cont) As to responding to *-pls requests, yes there would be a definite change, as there would be in my close-voting. With a binding close-vote, I'd mostly choose not to vote in cases that weren't obvious, thus leaving it up to the community. Posting *-pls requests: There would be a reduction, as most of mine result from content detected by one of the bots (SmokeDetector or FireAlarm). Those tend to be quite obviously off-topic. OTOH, there might also be some questions which I'd encounter as part of mod-work which I'd want to run by the room. SOCVR is a good source for second opinions. – Makyen Mar 7 at 18:01
  • Does this also mean that you'd be a high-throughput close-vote-wielding moderator? My impression was that The Powers That Be prefer if mods do exception handling, rather than cutting down the review queues. – Andras Deak Mar 7 at 18:38
  • Is there a conflict of interest in that a lot of flags generated from the SOCVR room are also handled by users in the room itself? – Travis J Mar 7 at 19:08
  • @AndrasDeak The short answer is: No, I plan to not be a "high-throughput close-vote-wielding moderator". As you've said, the primary purpose of moderators is to be exception handlers. Prior to being aware that there's a 1,100 character maximum to nominations, I had a paragraph addressing how I expect my close-voting to significantly change, if elected. Close-voting is one of the higher value moderation tasks that a regular user is permitted to do. Moderators have things they can do that are of significantly higher value. OTOH, that doesn't mean I won't close-vote at all. – Makyen Mar 7 at 19:13
  • @TravisJ For moderators, the routine method of handling conflicts of interest is to have another uninvolved moderator handle the flag(s). I don't see a reason why that routine methodology would either not be applied or not be effective when there's a conflict of interest. If something untoward was to happen, there are other ways for users to bring the inappropriate handling of a conflict of interest to the attention of a larger group of people: Meta and "contact us". Both moderators and SOCVR answer to Meta, and both groups certainly answer to SE. – Makyen Mar 7 at 19:25
  • Your flag and close stats are reflected in your voting stats as well, excellent! Someone that understands the value of voting when it comes to curating site content is always appreciated. – Martijn Pieters♦ Mar 7 at 19:29
  • A contrary view about close votes was expressed by Cody Gray under Makyen's answers in the Q&A section, and it is perhaps worth noting that the queue currently contains over 10k items. I don't see why a moderator shouldn't attend to the CV queue once other flags have been cleared and given the state of that queue it would imho be of considerable service to the community. I have seen mods clearing the LQP queue before the community has had a chance to clear it and don't see why the CV queue should be any different. – Stephen Kennedy Mar 7 at 21:59
  • @BaummitAugen Thanks. It's great to be joining you as a candidate. Best of luck in the election. I'm sure you'll be a great mod if you win. – Makyen Mar 7 at 23:30
  • I'll echo @ArtOfCode's sentiment in that I know Makyen as an extremely accurate, conscientous and regular contributor to charcoal and other projects. His assistance and expertise has helped further many worthwhile projects across the platform and is a continued asset to this community. – Magisch 2 days ago
  • My interactions with Makyen have been limited to chat (specifically SOCVR, Charcoal, and the Tavern), but I'll have to say that (unlike a few other users with top positions), they always pay attention to every detail and explain everything in detail to everyone. I've come across a lot of users who leave things to figure out to users they interact with. In my opinion, this is a very desirable trait, and I think they'd do a great job applying this when moderating. – gparyani 2 days ago
  • I've used Makyen Request Generator & other tools, that are invaluable moderation tools for us mere mortals to get a post closed, reopened after a while to inspect it, etc... And was always here to explain how it worked too. – Jean-François Fabre 2 days ago

My name is Sterling Archer, of the site for almost 8 years. I would like to be your moderator. I have an old system belief in SO that I would like to see again, where the quality of the site content is the most important issue.

I have always been a logical thinker when it comes to issues -- I am not perfect, but I always try to approach a situation with a level head. In the cases I cannot, deference is a good solution.

My reviews are up there but inconsistent, as most of my community work is done via chats or "on the question" activity (comments, edits, votes etc). It's not an issue to pick up the queue numbers and maintain.

Why me? While new members are very important to the site, I believe that there needs to be more effort to engage the old, established users. I use the 10k tools, I do my research, and I often comment to help failing questions to try and salvage effort. My flag success is just north of 96%.

Why not me? I may be a bit stubborn and defensive, but I will never lose my mind on somebody. Always a learning curve for anybody.

My Questionnaire

link | history
reviews | meta posts
  • Can you expand on how you plan on engaging the old, established users as a moderator? Specifically, how do you plan on doing that in ways you can't do it as a normal user? – TylerH Mar 6 at 16:48
  • "I may be a bit stubborn and defensive, but I will never lose my mind on somebody." I love this frankness and insight. It's important that we know ourselves, that's half the battle in doing anything well. – Yvette Colomb♦ Mar 6 at 16:50
  • You are a prominent room owner of the JS chatroom, which has had its ups and downs in terms of moderation. How do you think this would affect your work as a future moderator? – Andras Deak Mar 6 at 17:01
  • @AndrasDeak I've already mitigated myself from the JS room. I help where I can, but all my "meme antics" I simply took elsewhere. I always have the JS room open, but I really only engage when I can help somebody. – Sterling Archer Mar 6 at 17:07
  • Being a regular and room owner in one of the more controversial SO Chatrooms, (javascript chat) how did it become such a controversial room when partially under your leadership? In the past couple years the room needed SO admin intervention whilst under your leadership. – Loktar Mar 6 at 17:07
  • @TylerH good question. I believe it would help sort of like how a politician has the standing to be a voice of the people. I'm not saying moderators don't already do this, or that I'm the voice of the people (could you imagine?), however I would be more exposed to communication as a moderator (with tools, experiences, and public opinion). I'm not sure if that answers the question, I hope it does. – Sterling Archer Mar 6 at 17:09
  • @Loktar most, if not all of those situations I believed were caused, or unable to solve, due to the (admitted by SE) lack of tools for room owners to really "control" (we don't want to control people) situations. Of all the situations, the great many majority of them were caused by trolls (literally), problem users (who became literal trolls, stalking members off SO, etc). I think we have to give ourselves credit for attempting (for over a year) to be a smooth system, but at the end... tools. We couldn't help ourselves, and moderators had to come in. – Sterling Archer Mar 6 at 17:14
  • Most of the issues seemed to arise from room regulars, in fact the tweets linked which caused two major issues I can think of (one involving discussion of prostitutes) was said by a room regular of over 5 years and even had a room owner involved in the conversation. Would preferential treatment be an issue if you became a moderator? – Loktar Mar 6 at 17:16
  • I would be be hard pressed to say there wouldn't be a bias. It's just something experience would overcome. Of that particular situation I was not present, so it's tough for me to make the judgement call (as it would be as a moderator) but we've learned since then, if the room is off the handle, freeze it for a moment, read the context, and act justly I believe. Even if it's a friend. – Sterling Archer Mar 6 at 17:21
  • You did only do a handful of reviews in the last year. Given that review queues are one of the major things you'll have to handle as a mod, are you sure you would enjoy doing that in the long run? – BDL Mar 6 at 18:35
  • You have chosen to use a profile name and picture of a particular character in a TV series that isn't very politically correct. Do you intend to change that if you'd become a moderator? If not, would you consider changing it if a large number of users on Twitter acted outraged about it and put pressure on SE? – Erik A Mar 6 at 18:38
  • Do you want sarcastic Archer comments? Because becoming moderator is how you get sarcastic Archer comments. ;-) – E. Maggini Mar 6 at 18:38
  • @BDL yeah, I wasn't very active on SO last year for personal reasons, but there is no issue diving into the queue again for me. – Sterling Archer Mar 6 at 18:53
  • @ErikA interesting question, but ultimately I would hope nobody appropriates a TV show to my personality. I enjoy the show, but that doesn't mean I believe how he acts in a fictional world is proper in ours. :) – Sterling Archer Mar 6 at 18:54
  • @LucianoFCastelfranchi "and new users continued to leave at a high rate". Do you have a reference for that? I would guess it's the opposite: old users leaving at a high rate, being fed up with the increased push to be a helpdesk, to new users' delight. – Andras Deak Mar 6 at 22:16

Hi, I'm Baum and I would like to be your moderator.

I have been actively participating in curating the content of the site ever since I first accessed the review queues. My maturity and knowledge on the site has increased with my time here on site, as has the time I spend on moderating the site.

My goal is to continue the work that's been done by the current moderators, which is to build a library of high quality posts.

Why me?

  • I spend my time curating the new questions, by either editing and commenting, by finding suitable duplicates or by voting to close.
  • I use the 10k tools to find NAAs and incorrect new tags.
  • I have a flexible schedule and I'll be present whenever duty calls.
  • I have a calm mind and handle heated situations very well. When I receive feedback that I have made a mistake, I not only admit my mistake, but also make sure that I fix that before I get back to the task.
  • I have nearly 11k helpful flags (18 decl), 13k close votes and 5k delete votes. I'm also interested in chat moderation (I'm a RO of SOBotics).

Why not me?

  • I don't post frequently on meta, but I am planning to improve.

Thank you and may the best candidates win.

link | history
reviews | meta posts
  • My answers to your questions. – Baum mit Augen Mar 6 at 8:30
  • All of my interactions with Baum have been pleasant, with your great experience there is no doubt you would be a great mod, thanks for your nomination! – Petter Friberg Mar 6 at 8:36
  • @PetterFriberg Thank you very much for your support, I appreciate it! Your work greatly benefits moderation and helps making the site more welcoming – Baum mit Augen Mar 6 at 8:47
  • I'm so glad you're back! I'd love to have you on the team. My only regret about being elected, was not being elected with you. – Yvette Colomb♦ Mar 6 at 8:52
  • My favorite so far. – Vojtěch Dohnal Mar 6 at 9:00
  • @YvetteColomb Thank you! I'm very happy to have the support of a seasoned moderator like you. – Baum mit Augen Mar 6 at 9:00
  • I don't have anything apart from praises for Baum. I've worked with him quite closely as a co-Room Owner, and I can agree that he does have the patience to deal with heated matters. He does bring a lot of experience to the table. Good luck @BaummitAugen, may the tree with eyes never fall! :) – Bhargav Rao♦ Mar 6 at 10:08
  • There are no eyes and there is no tree, it's all a sharade!. Glad to see you're running, you'd make a great mod – Magisch Mar 6 at 10:32
  • Glad to see you did not give up. This time you'll make it. – Fantômas Mar 6 at 10:45
  • @BhargavRao I feel honored to have the support of another iconic moderator. I would love to join your team in the effort to make Stack Overflow a better place for everyone. Thank you! – Baum mit Augen Mar 6 at 11:01
  • Ich druecke dir die Daumen! ;) (translation "I press your Fingers!" - means "Good Luck!") – Fantômas Mar 6 at 11:51
  • For me, this is the best candidate by far. It is organized, active and it shows that it has a very good participation in the StackOverflow. I think without a doubt that it has experience and will be a "plus" for all users. You have my support. Best Regards. – Mikev Mar 6 at 14:51
  • I am excited to see someone from SOBotics running. That community has done so much for SO. You have my vote. – Chabo Mar 6 at 15:26
  • Really hope you make it this time, won't stop voting for you. – martinstoeckli Mar 6 at 15:44
  • WOAH, ~11000 helpful flags and 18 declined? That alone makes me want to vote for you. And all your other stats are incredible, as well. My vote is for you, Baum! – Supa Mega Ducky Momo da Waffle Mar 6 at 16:45

I am Arpit. I waited till I turn 30 before nominating as that is the age when you become more responsible, and I'll turn 30 in next 2 month. I have most of my badges for moderation and I am here since last 8 Years.

Why me?

  • I am here for more than 8 years I know what and what not of SO.
  • I visit site almost every working day (about 75% days of total days I have been active).
  • I am calm polite and unbiased
  • I am active in IST zone

And above all I love programming and problem solving.

My Answers to the Questions.

link | history
reviews | meta posts
  • Whoever told you that you'd magically become more responsible when you turn 30 lied to you. And don't put your hopes up for turning 42. It won't give you all the answers either. – Gordon Mar 6 at 7:02
  • So you're not responsible for another two months, right? Maybe the next election. – Andras Deak Mar 6 at 7:24
  • Can you edit your post and show some examples of how responsible you are? Also, what have to contribute to so before? – User2012384 Mar 6 at 7:24
  • in 7 years you have only raised 267 helpful flags so an average of 38 flags per year. Are you ready to turn this average per day? – Temani Afif Mar 6 at 7:57
  • Can you explain what responsibility means to you in the context of Stack Overflow? For example I think that voting is a much needed responsibility for SO contributors, yet you voted 4133 times, from which 4050 up. If you handle my flag on a dubious post how can I be sure you make a responsible call to the benefit of the content of the quality of the site while your voting seems to suggest hardly any low quality content exists? – rene Mar 6 at 8:01
  • In the time you’ve been here you only voted a little more than 4K times, and almost only voted things up, not down. Voting, both up and down, is a very important feature of the site because it helps curate our content. Can you tell us why you have voted so little and how you plan to use your votes if you were to become a moderator? – Martijn Pieters♦ Mar 6 at 8:18
  • MartijnPieters, rene Thank-you for bringing it up. I tend to vote of posts which I am closely involved with, and had checked in details. As for less number of down-votes I choose to not vote unless it's really necessary. – rptwsthi Mar 6 at 8:34
  • @rene I will handle that flag with the experience I have with SO and how and I give it a detailed check if don't have a needed information already. I can assure you that that you flag values and outcome of my handling will for the betterment of SO. – rptwsthi Mar 6 at 8:37
  • Reading your nomination I find that your grammar is not of the near-native level. Do you ever have trouble in grasping the intricate detail of a post, or perhaps even more important, the intricate detail of a comment and possible snags that might not be too obvious? – Luuklag Mar 6 at 9:14
  • I normally don't, but if I have then I simple leave it or sometimes request clarification if needed. – rptwsthi Mar 6 at 9:28
  • I choose to not vote unless it's really necessary That doesn't really answer the question. Downvotes are absolutely necessary to maintain the quality of this site. I am really concerned that you underestimate and misunderstand the position you have nominated yourself for. – DavidG Mar 6 at 9:59
  • Also why should "I am active in IST zone" be a reason to elect you? There's almost no role of a moderator which makes it timezone specific. – Bhargav Rao♦ Mar 6 at 10:16
  • Your downvotes and flags really low for a mod aspirant tbh. DVs on bad questions is essential and they were made free for a reason(Optimizing For Pearls, Not Sand). As David mentioned, you're underestimating the work and judgment expected of the mods. For eg: there were 16,000 flags in the last week alone. These flags range from petty comment wars to plagiarism to vandalism. In addition, you haven't yet used the 10k+, 20k+ tools (deleting, undeleting, protecting questions etc) – adiga Mar 6 at 12:49
  • i want to know why only 83 down votes while app 4050 upvotes ? down voting is also part of moderation, an effective way to discourage user to write bad posts – NullPoiиteя Mar 6 at 14:07
  • @BhargavRao In past elections there's been a lot of discussion about the need for more mods in more eastern time zones when existing mods are asleep/busy. Maybe that need was largely taken care of in the last election or two. – TylerH Mar 6 at 14:22

Hello I'm Jean-François Fabre, 47 y/o from France.

Since I joined in 2016, I'm doing my best to moderate the site given my 40k+ reputation (so max of 30 delete votes) and gold badges.

I've voted 10000+ times to close and 14000+ times to delete for a total of 37000+ votes.

I'm also 15th all-time reviewer in NAA queue, contributor at SOCVR (not only for the jokes), and avid reader / occasional answerer on meta (70+ answers).

How I'd see my moderator duties:

  • Fight spam & non-answers
  • block unclear/off-topic questions & useless duplicates
  • Counter rude & abusive comments, enforce mutual respect
  • Keep the site useable by minimizing noise
  • Fight voting fraud
  • Justify my actions when needed on meta

That, without losing touch of the reality of the main site: keep on asking & answering questions on my favourite Python & C tags

I answer your questions

link | history
reviews | meta posts
  • I've always supported your candidacy. Although you're relatively new, you have an impeccable record, are a great contributor on main and meta and always willing to learn. To top it off, you're just a really nice person. A breath of fresh air. I hope you join the mod team, if not in this election at some point, – Yvette Colomb♦ Mar 5 at 3:09
  • I agree with Yvette - you had my vote before the election even started. Not only does Jean-François have the qualities already mentioned, he's thick skinned and doesn't get offended easily. These, I believe, are good traits for a moderator to have. – Stephen Kennedy Mar 5 at 3:39
  • I am sure you gonna rock this time. You got a brilliant record. All the best !!! – DebanjanB Mar 5 at 6:34
  • For some reason I have this urge to support your candidacy – Jean-François Corbett Mar 5 at 7:34
  • You get my vote - I've had the pleasure of observing you on the C++ tag. Keen, sensible, and balanced. – Bathsheba Mar 5 at 8:01
  • thanks! fun fact is I'm not really following c++. I sometimes answer/comment/edit when someone throws in the c tag by mistake :) – Jean-François Fabre Mar 5 at 8:04
  • Just out of curiosity, what's "voting fraud"? Good luck with the candidacy btw :) – lelloman Mar 5 at 8:50
  • thanks! For example voting fraud consists in creating 2 accounts that can vote/accept answers from each other. Or tell all your uni buddies to vote for your answer. Or serial upvotes/downvotes... Votes that give ill-gotten privileges. – Jean-François Fabre Mar 5 at 8:53
  • Tiens je viens de voir que tu es français! An additional reason for you! Keep fighting the good fight :D – aloisdg Mar 5 at 9:30
  • You get my vote too 👍 – I don't know how you find all the time to contribute… Also very efficient in answering questions on SO. Very good, I recommend. – Laurent LAPORTE Mar 5 at 10:29
  • Hey Jean, I'm already a fan of your nomination. You mention that one of your objectives is to fight voting fraud. What is your view on users conducting their own tests and experiments to detect and flag voting fraud? In particular, how do you view flags that highlight potential voting fraud by users? Given the informational discrepancy between users and moderators (no PII for users), do you think users can even effectively help in detecting voting fraud? – Magisch Mar 5 at 10:57
  • By chance I came across this review of yours from 3 days ago. You approved an anon edit that attempted to change a slight technical inaccuracy into a huge technical inaccuracy and introduce a superfluous change to a dummy file name. Frankly I'm a bit concerned by this, because I imagine working the mod queue is quite similar to the non-mod review queues. Can you reassure me that you won't be doing any robo-like reviews as a moderator? With a binding vote and when taking decisive action the stakes would be much higher. – Andras Deak Mar 5 at 11:14
  • yes, moderators are human, so am I. And meta has a lot of "I'm sorry/I have fixed" stuff from moderators. Thanks for pointing out my mistakes. It was not a robo review. I made a mistake, that's it (paper bag on head). – Jean-François Fabre Mar 5 at 11:16
  • Magisch voting fraud is important and I know how you contribute to the site with your tools. Yes users contribute to moderate the site in general. If they have developped heuristic tools to detect fraud, that's even greater. Personally I'm not a SEDE specialist, not even close, so I'll focus on manual and simple automated stuff to moderate. – Jean-François Fabre Mar 5 at 11:20
  • I was asking more about your opinion of the whole endeavour. Do you think it's "in the purview" of users even to track this kind of stuff? I'm not asking as a hypothethical, I know even among network moderators opinions sharply split on that. – Magisch Mar 5 at 11:39

Hi, my name is coldspeed. I am a 24 y/o grad student at USC, and an incoming full timer at Google. I'd like to nominate myself for the position of moderator.

I would make a good moderator because

  • I care very much about the quality of content because I understand its importance. (over 4K edits, 12K up/downvotes, and 6K close votes)
  • I am a diligent flagger (over 2K helpful flags) and take plagiarism very seriously.
  • I am very responsive to feedback and criticism.
  • I visit Stack Overflow every day (visited 833 days, 234 consecutive)

I would not make a good moderator because

  • I have taken actions in the past that the community did not agree with.
  • I am younger than most of the other nominees, and admittedly not as experienced dealing with people and situations.

I've only been an active member for the last two years, and I understand I still have a long way to go before I can earn your vote of confidence. However, I do very much care for this site as it has done so much for my career thus far, and I hope to be able to give back just as much (if not more) as Stack Overflow has given to me.

Questionnaire

link | history
reviews | meta posts
  • Good to see you here. You would certainly make an awesome mod! – bro-grammer Mar 5 at 1:51
  • Good luck! You have my vote. As you said, you may lack some stuff, but definitely, cover it with effort and passion! – Netwave Mar 5 at 2:49
  • You're got candidate score 40/40, nice! – U9-Forward Mar 5 at 2:53
  • Thanks to everyone for the support! @U9-Forward while that is nice, candidate score is only a shortlisting criteria for eligibility, nothing more. :-) Reputation and badges are mostly only indication of participation. – coldspeed Mar 5 at 2:55
  • "younger" Exhibit A Exhibit B – Josh Caswell Mar 5 at 3:03
  • @JoshCaswell Ah, I did not intend to use my age as an excuse for inexperience or poor moderation. I just felt it was worth mentioning that the other candidates would possibly be more qualified solely based on their age, which (usually) correlates to a greater wealth of experience. :-) – coldspeed Mar 5 at 3:13
  • @JoshCaswell I can't seem to figure out how old was Ry- then – U9-Forward Mar 5 at 3:27
  • Looks like 15 based on the comments there? Not too sure. – Josh Caswell Mar 5 at 3:46
  • "I have taken actions in the past that the community did not agree with" That's not necessarily a bad thing to me. It means you are bringing a new perspective to the team! Good luck! – Nisarg Mar 5 at 4:30
  • Yup I've seen you around on this site too. But are you sure you'll have time when you take up your role at Google? They'll work you pretty hard in your formative years. – Bathsheba Mar 5 at 7:51
  • nice 40/40 You will be my choice I guess – Oussema Aroua Mar 5 at 8:54
  • @Bathsheba Yes, I've thought about this. I'll continue to do what I did when I was an intern there—chill out on Stack Overflow during work breaks :) P.S. Thank you for the support, kind people! – coldspeed Mar 5 at 9:04
  • @coldspeed: During your work breaks, you will not be chilling on Stack Overflow. Personally I'd withdraw if I were you and see how the land lies next year. That said, the great Jon Skeet works for Google. Perhaps I have it all wrong. Out of the current crop of candidates you have one of my votes. – Bathsheba Mar 5 at 9:09
  • @Bathsheba Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. OTOH, I've got a good 4-5 months before I start working (still wrapping up at uni), so I'd figured I would throw in my hat. – coldspeed Mar 5 at 9:19
  • @coldspeed +1 for perfect score, number of answers, questions and flags are also impressive. – Sangram S. Mar 5 at 9:43

Hello, my name is Travis, and I am running for moderator.

I would make a good moderator because I

  • am good with people
  • have real world experience with mediation
  • have a strong grasp of Stack Overflow's history and goals
  • want to help Stack Overflow remain successful

If I were a moderator I would be very accessible through Meta or chat, and be as transparent as possible. Cohesion is very important to me.

I am also readily available at most hours of the day, including hours which most users are away.

My answers to the questionnaire

link | history
reviews | meta posts
  • Your reviews page suggests that you haven't reviewed anything since mid December (2.5 months). Am I reading it correctly? And there were month-long hiatuses with only a few reviews before that. My impression is that working the mod queue is very much like performing reviews on main. How do you feel about that? – Andras Deak Mar 4 at 22:54
  • You would certainly make a good mod, there's no doubt. However, I'm really concerned about the sub optimal number of edits that you've made. Given that you're a user of nearly 7 years, are you sure that you've come across just 250~ posts that needed editing? – Bhargav Rao♦ Mar 4 at 23:00
  • In the questionnaire answers there are a lot of answers that can be translated as "it depends". Would like to see more concrete steps for variations of these scenarios. – Kevin Johnsrude Mar 4 at 23:01
  • @AndrasDeak - Aspects of working through the flag queue can be similar, although I think that depends on how you filter them. While it may be similar to go through the low quality reviews, I would assume custom flags and issues of that nature are far different than what normal community users see or work with. – Travis J Mar 4 at 23:05
  • @BhargavRao - I tend to edit posts where I feel the author made errors, however, I by and large work in comments with the author to encourage them to make the edit themselves. While I understand there are efforts to go through and correct grammar, speaking voice, proper puncuation, etc., I generally attempt to have the author include relevant by lacking information. As a result, my edit number is not large, but that does not mean I am not aware of what editing outlook is, or what edits are proper. – Travis J Mar 4 at 23:08
  • You've been around SO for quite a while, you frequent some of the most garbage filled tags on the network, and yet your voting score seems to indicate that you generally only visit high quality posts... Can you share with us the search filter you use to remove all of the garbage questions? or... do you just not act upon them? How can we trust that you'd actually take action on the things that need action? – Kevin B Mar 4 at 23:09
  • @KevinJohnsrude - That's fair, and if you would like, I would suggest perhaps looking through some of those exact situations I have addressed time and time again in the hundreds of posts I made on meta (mostly in the discussion tag). Each situation is different. Here is an example of a meta post I answered where there was a disagreement between a high rep user and a mod: meta.stackoverflow.com/a/308826/1026459. – Travis J Mar 4 at 23:11
  • @KevinB - I always action posts I visit when they warrant closure or deletion. Some of what I visit is just the stackoverflow.com page, which automatically filters out negatively voted posts ("downvoted posts drop off"). Here is another that I like: stackoverflow.com/… – Travis J Mar 4 at 23:12
  • After having seen you as both active and positive user on Stackoverflow and meta i believe you will be a good mod. And i don't think if a person has edited millions of post certainly be a good mod only on the ground of post edit Grammar donent make a person wise, wisdom is must – NullPoiиteя Mar 5 at 2:16
  • You're not giving up :-) last year you tried also – U9-Forward Mar 5 at 2:51
  • Looks like a pretty good choice for Moderator from my view. – Eric Wang Mar 5 at 10:26
  • Another good nom. – Will Mar 5 at 13:39
  • @NullPoiиteя I don't know what in tarnation that grammar platitude is about but for a site where part of a moderator's job is to edit poorly phrased posts, perfect grammar is imperative. I think Travis is a good candidate and I will be voting for him. – Kaiser Keister Mar 6 at 2:17
  • @Kaiser Almost none of what moderators do involve editing poorly phrased posts. Anyone who wants to edit can edit, without the need for moderator privileges. – Cody Gray♦ Mar 6 at 5:29
  • @KaiserKeister i have nothing against users who correct grammar, They are awesome, they make this website more usable, but as Cody Gray told "any user can edit post there is no need to be a mod for that", Peter Mortensen is a great example of that (however only in his case i would whole heartedly vote for him, if he contests in election) – NullPoiиteя Mar 6 at 14:20

I'm Zoe, and I'd like to be a future moderator here on SO.

I've been actively moderating for about a year (mainly related to bots, along with watching a couple tags, and participating in SOCVR and some other rooms), and a couple years with review queues and on-site moderation (mainly on the Android tag).

Why not me?

  • I only have 12k rep, so I haven't gotten access to, and gotten familiar with, the rest of the publicly available moderation tools
  • I'm not very active on meta - I do notice some of the featured posts, and I do participate, but I might not be as active as is expected.
  • I've only been around for about 3 years

Why me?

  • I'm efficient when it comes to moderating, and I'm usually able to tell whether a post is good or not in a couple seconds. And also accurate, with 99.23% approved flags network-wide (of 14k, 12k of which are on SO with ~100 SD autoflags)
  • I participate in a couple moderation-related chat rooms, so I have experience with different aspects of moderation
  • I enjoy reviewing stuff, keeping the site clean
  • I always try to follow pre-defined rules and guidelines

My answers are here

link | history
reviews | meta posts
  • Your rep is low and you haven't been on the site for long. I don't believe there is enough maturity in your membership to moderate. This is reflected in a feel I get for how you handle things and an observation that perhaps you enjoy drama. I could be dead wrong, but that's my observation. I'm referring to issues in chat and on main. fwiw I joined Stack Overflow in 2012 - this is a second account, the first was merged with this and my rep was much higher when I was elected. – Yvette Colomb♦ Mar 4 at 22:01
  • I guess I'm confused how being on the site for two years with over 600 answers doesn't qualify as "long" or maturity in their membership. – Trasiva Mar 4 at 22:12
  • 99.23% approved flags is quite impressive :)) – Nikolas Mar 4 at 22:14
  • This comment thread is meant for discussing the merits and fitness of the candidate. Please keep your arguments (for and against) focused on them, and them alone. I have cleaned up some of the comments, if you have something to say to debunk arguments against this candidate, feel free to share them. If you have concerns regarding the comments and/or behavior of users other than this candidate, please discuss them on Meta Stack Overflow. – Madara Uchiha♦ Mar 4 at 22:23
  • I've known Zoe for about a year now and not have not noticed any particular penchant for drama. On the contrary, I have seen her grow in maturity and confidence and pass 10k reputation after only 2 years of membership. She is incredibly dedicated, works hard, and has amassed an impressive number of flags with a high accuracy rate. Zoe has a good understanding of how SO works but it not too proud to ask for help when she's unsure. She brings a youthful energy to SO and I for one support and welcome her candidature. – Stephen Kennedy Mar 4 at 23:12
  • Long period doesn't mean expertise or mature. Rather attitude does, which I can find on his profile with over 99% approve rate and 12k reputation in 2 years. – Pei Mar 4 at 23:42
  • @YvetteColomb if account age (besides the yearling badge for participation) was a relevant factor, surely it would be part of the candidate score. Anyway, I would very much welcome hands on deck in the android tag, considering the massive mess it is. – Tim Castelijns Mar 4 at 23:56
  • @DavidG YvetteColomb comment says "haven't been on the site for long". That is surely what TimCastelijns means by "account age", not the age of the actual person behind it. – Adam Eberbach Mar 5 at 0:40
  • Winning or losing of the election is less important than strengthening the Community. So good luck from my side. I am with you. – Shree Mar 5 at 5:58
  • 8,351 down vs 1024 up ? Definitely not you. – Eric Wang Mar 5 at 5:59
  • @EricWang that's not a bad thing. She has 12k+ helpful flags. So, a lot of spams and NAAs to downvote. I'm surprised it isn't more. – adiga Mar 5 at 6:31
  • @adiga But why only down, no up ? The issue is the ratio, not the absolute number. That shows some part of one's personality. – Eric Wang Mar 5 at 6:37
  • @EricWang you can hold OP's feet to the fire saying 1000 upvotes are less for a moderator aspirant. But, you cannot complain about ratio when majority of those downvotes probably went towards those 12k+ flags of junk posts like spams and NAAs. Again, only Zoe can clarify these things for you rather than me speculating. – adiga Mar 5 at 7:14
  • Surprise, surprise, I didn't expect to see your nickname here. I have no idea what you did the last year so I cannot judge you properly. However you are one of three people on SO who converted me to an passive user. I am not sure if that qualifies you to be a moderator. – rekire Mar 5 at 7:22
  • Hey Zoe, Since I started my journey on StackOverflow, I have been helped by two of the most highly active users: You and halfer. I had no experience with using StackOverflow and you and halfer edited my posts and also helped me to encourage others to do better. Like @rekire, I was also immensely helped by you. If halfer would have been a candidate, I would surely have voted for him. But My vote is definitely for you! Good luck! Hope to see you as a moderator! – Gourav Mar 5 at 8:02

My name is Machavity and I'd like to be elected moderator.

I've been active in the moderation scene already

  • Room owner of SOCVR
  • Room owner of Trogdor (Burnination organization and discussion)
  • Over 15000 (7000+ visible) reviews
  • Over 3000 helpful flags
  • Over 37,000 close votes cast (I frequently use all my close votes)
  • Feedback contributor in Charcoal and SOBotics

SOCVR really has been an eye opener with moderator interaction and I've even had a few (like Bhargav Rao) encourage me to run. I enjoy helping the community by doing moderation and hope to improve upon that by becoming a moderator.

My moderator questionnaire answers

link | history
reviews | meta posts
  • While you are active moderating, you ask about 1 question per year and answer about a question per month. You remain highly active; why did you mostly stop interacting as a "regular" user of SO and instead spend time here using moderation tools? Second, what is your up/down voting philosophy on SO, and why? – Yakk - Adam Nevraumont Mar 4 at 20:28
  • I lead the Charcoal project and have worked with Machavity for a while. He's been a consistent, accurate, and long-term contributor. Those are many of the same qualities we need for moderators here. – Undo♦ Mar 4 at 20:48
  • You are active on Meta.SO and gave good input for some of my suggestions IIRC. Your candidate score is excellent and I agree with @els that a lot of recent participation is not necessary. Just asking, where is your candidate Q&A? – MEE the setup wizard Mar 4 at 20:51
  • "I frequently use all my close votes" doesn't imply they are used correctly. Just saying - this information might be used against you. I don't know you. – Nikolas Mar 4 at 20:51
  • Stack Overflow relies on the existence of users who find the editorial side of the site interesting. While it would be a problem if someone who almost never asks or answers wanted to be a moderator, that isn't the issue here. reputation >= 20k is an adequate filter. – John Coleman Mar 4 at 20:59
  • Recently this user has provided some good edits and input on posts of mine that were rather old, to the point that even I'd forgotten about them. You could call that a negative (because why bother with super old posts?), but frankly I've been impressed with their clear dedication to improving SO, and with how respectfully I was personally dealt with while being criticized. – T.E.D. Mar 4 at 21:02
  • @Yakk-AdamNevraumont Part of it was burnout in the main tag I know (PHP). While I answered a lot, finding good questions to answer in the tag became a lot of work. Many PHP questions get closed for being duplicates or just low quality. It makes for a needle-in-a-haystack approach. As for voting, I do try to upvote good questions that I recognize, but downvotes for quality are typically more common. I think good questions and answers should float to the top, as it were. – Machavity Mar 4 at 21:04
  • @Nikolas I offer it, not as a measure of correctness, but as a measure of my willingness to perform moderator duties. – Machavity Mar 4 at 21:10
  • You need to fix your current Haiku (7-7-6, currently), otherwise, I concur with Undo.. you have sound, thoughtful reactions. You'll make a terrific mod. – Lynn Crumbling Mar 4 at 21:14
  • @T.E.D. I have the opposite philosophy - improving "old" content (where the rep hunters seldom tread) is super important and a mark of someone who truly cares. In all of my interactions with Machavity, he is always respectful, insightful, and diligent. It is a wonder that he isn't already a moderator. He is a natural choice for me. – mickmackusa Mar 4 at 21:16
  • Machavity has been really helpful during the burninations. I am pretty sure that he'll do a great job as a moderator, and help achieve the goal of "all burns complete in 10yrs". :-) – Bhargav Rao♦ Mar 4 at 21:23
  • @LynnCrumbling Haikus don't necessarily need to have 5-7-5 syllables, plus the question is very lenient on what types of answers are acceptable. I think they've got the gist of the question just fine. – gparyani Mar 4 at 21:47
  • @BhargavRao Come on, that is a poor way to describe the goal. "Burn it all down. ETA: 10y." – Yakk - Adam Nevraumont Mar 4 at 21:47
  • Just to give a reference to what @gparyani mentioned: Does a Haiku needs to have exactly 17 syllables?, together with a very nice 5-8-5 Haiku by Buson. – Davy M Mar 4 at 22:11
  • How do you pronounce your name though? – Tas Mar 4 at 22:20

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