Super User is scheduled for an election next week, March 13th. In connection with that, 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:









11 Answers 11


A pretty important part of moderation is engaging the community. How have you engaged the community so far, and what do you intend to do as a moderator to build on that?

  • Nobody's perfect. What is one mistake you made and what did you do when you noticed it?

A user has a long history of posting borderline (and sometimes not-borderline) abusive comments, and they just started up again. They've been given short suspensions a couple times, but it didn't get the point across. They're now due for a year-long suspension, according to the standard progression.

They're also a prolific contributor to the site, with vast expertise in $Technology. Do you consider this in how you handle the case? How?


What one flaw of the current moderator team set do you think needs addressing?

  • 1
    Doesn't this presuppose the existence of a flaw? And are you sure it would be helpful to have candidates bashing the existing tem (as I fear would be likely with this question)? – terdon Mar 10 '17 at 12:20
  • I think it's a great question. Especially coming from another moderator. – Der Hochstapler Mar 10 '17 at 13:59
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    In a sense, one of the good things about having new mods is a fresh set of eyes. If someone can constructively go "Hey, we can do this better" and they're right, they'll likely be a better fit as a mod. – Journeyman Geek Mar 13 '17 at 14:59
  • As @JourneymanGeek said, being able to constructively go about this is a sure sign of a more mature moderator. – studiohack Mar 15 '17 at 13:30



  • In your opinion, what do moderators do?

What is your philosophy on moderation in Chat?


There are subjects that are within the purview of the site but considered a "gray area". Examples might include such things as circumventing user agreements, which some people consider to potentially involve unethical behavior.

They are a gray area because they are not officially prohibited, like piracy, but are generally deemed off-topic due only to precedent. Specific issues of this nature are periodically raised on Meta to poll member input on whether they should be on topic. This question is not about your opinion for or against such topics. Here is the question:

Should the decision as to acceptability of any and all gray area subjects be a matter of community consensus, or should at least certain cases be based on foundational principles and not subject to community preference? And why?


Across the network several teams are working on, or have already deployed, automated tools (bots if you like) to assist in flagging posts for SPAM, Not an answer or plagiarism.

  • Can you elaborate on how you expect these tools/bots influence your moderation?
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    Practically as a mod, it simply means I see less spam since the darned thing nukes it all before I get to it. – Journeyman Geek Mar 6 '17 at 23:28

Beyond answering questions and participating in community moderation functions, some members take an active role being supportive to new users. This can include such actions as suggesting helpful resources, explaining site nuances, helping to polish their posts through advice or edits, providing words of encouragement, providing friendly input when comment threads become unfriendly, etc.

Any member can be supportive, but for a moderator, is it a fundamental responsibility?

  • How do you feel the current moderator team is doing, and how do you view your style of moderation compared to the current team?

There are currently 110,000 unanswered questions, which is around 1/3 of the total number of questions. Do you consider this to be a problem and do you have any ideas on how to go about organizing this work? E.g. would you organize 'cleanup' events on Meta to encourage users to look at the Unanswered queue?

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