2020 Moderator Election Q&A - Questionnaire

Question

In connection with the moderator elections, we are holding a Q&A thread for the candidates. Questions collected from an earlier thread have been compiled into this one, which shall now serve as the space for the candidates to provide their answers.

Due to the submission count, we have selected all provided questions as well as one of our back up questions for a total of 10 questions.

As a candidate, your job is simple - post an answer to this question, citing each of the questions and then post your answer to each question given in that same answer. For your convenience, I will include all of the questions in quote format with a break in between each, suitable for you to insert your answers. Just copy the whole thing after the first set of three dashes.

Please consider putting your name at the top of your post so that readers will know who you are before they finish reading everything you have written. You should also include a link to your answer on your nomination post.

Once all the answers have been compiled, this will serve as a transcript for voters to view the thoughts of their candidates, and will be appropriately linked in the Election page.

Good luck to all of the candidates!

Oh, and when you've completed your answer, please provide a link to it after this blurb here, before that set of three dashes. Please leave the list of links in the order of submission.

To save scrolling here are links to the submissions from each candidate (in order of submission):

• Glorfindel
• Eddie Kal
• Daniil
• AIQ

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1. A frequent user with a lot of questions sometimes posts multiple questions in a short amount of time. A few of their questions tend to be of low quality, gathering downvotes and close votes, but an occasional upvote keeps the asker from a question ban and the user has amassed quite a few reputation points from them already. They ignore the advice on how to improve their questions and their newer questions suffer from the same flaws as some of their old.
   This has been bothering a few venerable answerers of high reputation, and often leaves the front page in a low quality mess of questions with zero or negative score.
   Would you intervene? How would you handle this situation as a mod?

2. What is your view on editing a question to correct grammar and style issues? Do you think we should edit answers differently from the way we edit questions?

3. Here’s a question that I think is very relevant to a specific issue I think our site has: that of voting for good questions. We tend not to be very good at that. I know the system is geared towards answers being upvoted more than questions, but I still find it disheartening when I see a zero-score question that is something worth asking. So:
   What are your criteria for what makes a good question? That is to say, what kind of question would you upvote? Why?

4. Sometimes people post comments on ELL that seem like answers. How would you handle these comments?

5. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

6. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

7. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

8. What is your view of extended discussion in comments under a question? Do you have a different view of comment discussions under answers?

9. What do you think is the most important issue that the ELL community needs to work on, and what would you do as moderator to address it?

10. User participation is crucial to the success of an online community. As regards spurring greater participation from old and new users:

    • We often see backups in the review queues. This leads to delay in getting spam/abusive posts removed and other issues. What would you do as a moderator to address this issue and encourage people to get more actively involved in reviews?
    • The Stack Exchange community and the ELL site have recently lost some experienced members. As a moderator what do you think could be done to attract more users to the site or make it easier for old and new users alike to participate?

Answer 1

Here are my (Glorfindel's) answers to your questions. I've copied some of them from my earlier answers to election questionnaires across the network, since I don't feel like my position on those issues has changed.

1. A frequent user with a lot of questions sometimes posts multiple questions in a short amount of time. A few of their questions tend to be of low quality, gathering downvotes and close votes, but an occasional upvote keeps the asker from a question ban and the user has amassed quite a few reputation points from them already. They ignore the advice on how to improve their questions and their newer questions suffer from the same flaws as some of their old.
   This has been bothering a few venerable answerers of high reputation, and often leaves the front page in a low quality mess of questions with zero or negative score.
   Would you intervene? How would you handle this situation as a mod?

Yes, this looks like a situation where a moderator could help. Regular users can solve issues with problematic posts (by editing or closing); moderators can deal with problematic users. There is a standard moderator message for consistent low quality questions which might get the message across; if that doesn't help I might try having a chat with them, trying to help them (again) with improving their posts. If all else fails, a suspension could be in order.

2. What is your view on editing a question to correct grammar and style issues? Do you think we should edit answers differently from the way we edit questions?

As long as it makes the post clearer, I'm all for editing. You get imaginary bonus points if you do it in a polite way that teaches the author an aspect of English (through the edit summary or a comment). Of course, one needs to be careful not to correct the actual problem faced by the author of the question; example sentences usually need to be left intact, just like code in questions on Stack Overflow.

3. Here’s a question that I think is very relevant to a specific issue I think our site has: that of voting for good questions. We tend not to be very good at that. I know the system is geared towards answers being upvoted more than questions, but I still find it disheartening when I see a zero-score question that is something worth asking. So:
   What are your criteria for what makes a good question? That is to say, what kind of question would you upvote? Why?

That's a tough one. The tooltip on the upvote button says "This question shows research effort; it is useful and clear".

• For a typical ELL question, research effort means (IMHO) that sufficient context is available to get a feeling about the author's level of English.
• Usefulness can be very hard to judge; something which may be trivial for the majority of the answerers here (native speakers) may be a very good question for learning English. Or even more complicated: it might be trivial if your native language is Indo-European, but not if it's East Asian.
• If a question isn't clear enough, it needs to be closed. If it is clear enough, it can probably be edited to improve clarity.

Across the network, I tend to upvote all questions where I write an answer; if a question is good enough to answer, it's good enough to upvote (perhaps after an edit). If everybody would follow that principle, we'd have a lot less zero-score questions.

4. Sometimes people post comments on ELL that seem like answers. How would you handle these comments?

I'd ask them (by a comment) to post their comment as an answer instead. A moderator posting such a comment usually works; maybe it won't lead to an answer on that very question, but they won't do it again in the future. I could delete the comment if the valuable content in it is preserved in the form of another answer.

5. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

Being nice is very important to the success of Stack Exchange; more important than posting good answers (or questions, for that matter). I'd remind this user (in a polite but strict way) to change their behaviour or face the consequences in the form of a suspension. There are enough other users who can write those valuable answers instead.

6. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

I'd discuss this with them in a private chatroom. I might bring in a third (or fourth) moderator as well if I feel we need to make a tough decision, so that it can be a decision of a majority. There's no need doing this in public and risk harming the trust the community has in the moderator team.

7. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

No problem. I always try to Be Nice to all people, even if I think they have bad ideas or opinions which I can outright refute. Respect is the keyword for building a community where everybody is welcome. I have certainly made some mistakes in the past, but that only proves I'm human and not an AI.

8. What is your view of extended discussion in comments under a question? Do you have a different view of comment discussions under answers?

Moderators have a 'move comments to chat' button which is very useful in these cases. Comments have very specific purposes, having a few other comments is unavoidable on a scale like this (and sometimes a good joke can lighten the mood, especially in these time), but extended discussion simply works better in a chatroom.

9. What do you think is the most important issue that the ELL community needs to work on, and what would you do as moderator to address it?

To be honest: I don't know yet. I haven't been too involved on ELL Meta to know what the community's main problems are right now, but I'm confident I can read up and I'm flexible enough to set myself to resolving those problems if they're within my capability.

10. User participation is crucial to the success of an online community. As regards spurring greater participation from old and new users:

    • We often see backups in the review queues. This leads to delay in getting spam/abusive posts removed and other issues. What would you do as a moderator to address this issue and encourage people to get more actively involved in reviews?
    • The Stack Exchange community and the ELL site have recently lost some experienced members. As a moderator what do you think could be done to attract more users to the site or make it easier for old and new users alike to participate?

I've been quite active in the review queues across the network, and ♦ moderator reviews are binding. That will certainly help in reducing their size. When there are enough active ♦ moderators, once a post is flagged as spam or rude/abusive it's bound to get quick attention and they're able to get rid of it single-handledly. Automation may help here, and as an active contributor to the Smoke Detector project I can help it detect certain patterns if necessary.

As for participation, it has its ups and downs, and as long as we keep encouraging new users, some of them are bound to grow to experienced members and cornerstones of the community.

Answer 2

AIQ

1. A frequent user with a lot of questions sometimes posts multiple questions in a short amount of time. A few of their questions tend to be of low quality, gathering downvotes and close votes, but an occasional upvote keeps the asker from a question ban and the user has amassed quite a few reputation points from them already. They ignore the advice on how to improve their questions and their newer questions suffer from the same flaws as some of their old. This has been bothering a few venerable answerers of high reputation, and often leaves the front page in a low quality mess of questions with zero or negative score. Would you intervene? How would you handle this situation as a mod?

Yes, I would intervene. Well, they have ignored the advice, haven't they? My first attempt at correcting their behavior would be to send a message to them. I will explain to them that their questions are seen as low-quality by the community and that they need to carefully review each question before they post them. I would also urge them to edit their previous questions that were not well received.

If this user continued to post low-quality questions, I would open a private chat room with them and also request one or two other mods to be present. I would gently discuss the matter with them. I would first reassure them that their contribution to the site is appreciated. And then tell them exactly what they need to do to improve their posts (e.g., add research, always look up definitions first and add that to the question, be specific, or improve formatting). I would give them a few sample questions to follow/replicate. And then I would end the conversation with a warning.

If the low quality posts persist, I will suspend their account temporarily.

2. What is your view on editing a question to correct grammar and style issues? Do you think we should edit answers differently from the way we edit questions?

Style issues should be corrected. There are two reasons:

a. It allows others to easily read or understand the question.
b. It shows the OP how they should be formatting their questions.

Grammar issues in questions should not be corrected through editing. There are two reasons:

c. Editing grammar, punctuation, or spelling, might give the community a false sense of the OP's fluency in English.
d. The OP may not actually notice the correction of the grammatical issues or pay attention to the edit. Grammatical errors need to be pointed out in comments.

Yes, answers should be edited differently than questions. If answers have grammatical errors, incorrect punctuation, or typos, they should be corrected. Same applies to style and formatting.

3. Here’s a question that I think is very relevant to a specific issue I think our site has: that of voting for good questions. We tend not to be very good at that. I know the system is geared towards answers being upvoted more than questions, but I still find it disheartening when I see a zero-score question that is something worth asking. So: What are your criteria for what makes a good question? That is to say, what kind of question would you upvote? Why?

Ah, well, a good question (1) provides context, (2) shows "research effort", (3) is free of spelling errors and other t pos (liek this), and (4) states the question clearly. Questions that meet at least 3 of these are those I would upvote. I believe that we should not spoon-feed people. We should encourage them to solve their own problem first. And when they have tried, that is when we can best help them. Context is very important if we are to write good answers.

4. Sometimes people post comments on ELL that seem like answers. How would you handle these comments?

I would tell them to convert their comments into answers (as I have recently done on a comment posted on the furniture shop question). If they don't feel like doing that, I will wait to see if someone's actual answer covered that. If someone covered it, I will delete the comment. If not, I will use the community wiki to turn the comment into an answer.

5. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

I would be careful. I will try and see who it is that instigated the argument. Sometimes, it is not the most loud person in the room who is at fault. I would first move all comments into chat. If this user is truly the one causing problems and ruining the atmosphere, then I would bring them into a private chat and discuss the matter with them. If they continue to act this way, I will consult with the other mods and take a disciplinary action. I think the most important thing here is that we need to be respectful towards each other. Behind every account here is a real person. We should be nice.

6. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been? I don't think there would be a problem with this.

Well, I will talk to them privately in a chat room. We might have other mods there so we can have their inputs too.

7. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

I don't mind the diamond. It won't change how I act on a regular basis. I believe I have always carried myself in a respectful manner.

8. What is your view of extended discussion in comments under a question? Do you have a different view of comment discussions under answers?

Extended discussions should be moved to chat. Comments that are relevant and adds to the question/answer should be preserved.

9. What do you think is the most important issue that the ELL community needs to work on, and what would you do as moderator to address it?

Consistency. I have talked about this a few times in Meta. See I comment “What do you think and why?” . . . I think sometimes we are not consistent in enforcing some of the basic rules outlined in the help center. It can be confusing for a lot of people. Consider this example: I see a low quality question (let's assume it's asking "what is the difference between this and this?"). The question does not provide any "research effort" and the OP does not say what they think the answer is. I decide to close-vote it. But then I see a user with high reputation answer this question. There are users who want to help everyone, and so they answer even low-quality question. But we have to maintain some standard here, this isn't Quora.

10. User participation is crucial to the success of an online community. As regards spurring greater participation from old and new users: We often see backups in the review queues. This leads to delay in getting spam/abusive posts removed and other issues. What would you do as a moderator to address this issue and encourage people to get more actively involved in reviews? The Stack Exchange community and the ELL site have recently lost some experienced members. As a moderator what do you think could be done to attract more users to the site or make it easier for old and new users alike to participate?

I would encourage users to come into our chat room. I think that when people get to talk to each other they feel more involved. I was motivated to do some of these tasks when I started coming into the chat room. I felt that I was a part of the community. We can open a private chat for a group of expert reviewers and discuss how we can work through the review queue more efficiently. May be talk about food, sports, or something. Everyone will lend a hand when they feel they are a valued member of the community.

Answer 3

Eddie Kal

1. A frequent user with a lot of questions sometimes posts multiple questions in a short amount of time. A few of their questions tend to be of low quality, gathering downvotes and close votes, but an occasional upvote keeps the asker from a question ban and the user has amassed quite a few reputation points from them already. They ignore the advice on how to improve their questions and their newer questions suffer from the same flaws as some of their old.
   This has been bothering a few venerable answerers of high reputation, and often leaves the front page in a low quality mess of questions with zero or negative score.
   Would you intervene? How would you handle this situation as a mod?

Yes, I see this as an issue that puts moderation at its most useful. I don't think a lot of users insist on a "I do what I want as long as I can keep posting" mentality. They may appear stubborn and incorrigible, but all they need might just be a little persuasion, patient explanation, or a little talking-to. When I first started flagging problematic posts on ELL, I often did them incorrectly. Mod snailboat's dragged me into a chatroom and patiently explained things to me, which I found immediately helpful and encouraging, so I will carry it on. I plan to drag people into private chats too, if I feel it is effective and efficient.

I will try to start a channel of communication directly with them and see if that works. If not, I will use the moderator's binding closevote or delete power.

2. What is your view on editing a question to correct grammar and style issues? Do you think we should edit answers differently from the way we edit questions?

I myself have brought up issues closely related to this several times here on Meta.ELL. While I agree that some grammar edits may be piddling and unnecessary, I don't see in any way correct grammar/punctuation edits could possibly hurt, however trifling they might be. Mind you, I am not saying users are encouraged to nitpick every post, making askers, especially new users, uncomfortable. But when I see a typo or a misplaced punctuation mark, I make sure it stops with me and the post moves in the direction of getting clearer.

As I have discussed in a previous Meta post, I believe low-rep users who submit correct grammar edits for review should be encouraged. Askers are likely to welcome and learn from those edits. We have seen askers request such corrections in comments.

3. Here’s a question that I think is very relevant to a specific issue I think our site has: that of voting for good questions. We tend not to be very good at that. I know the system is geared towards answers being upvoted more than questions, but I still find it disheartening when I see a zero-score question that is something worth asking. So:
   What are your criteria for what makes a good question? That is to say, what kind of question would you upvote? Why?

As far as I see from ancient and recent posts, many SE sites unfortunately have changed over the years, to good questions' disadvantage. If we look at ELU and ELL's stone age questions, some of them are simple and uninteresting, devoid of any research effort, and mostly answerable by Googling. For this reason, good questions should be encouraged when they appear.

I upvote questions that are unique in their own right. They don't have to be about difficult grammar. They could be about something real simple, but if they show strong evidence that the asker has done their own Googling and/or dived into the ELL/ELU archive, they very likely will get my upvote.

4. Sometimes people post comments on ELL that seem like answers. How would you handle these comments?

On this I agree with existing mods especially Em. I will turn informative and educational comments into answers. But if the owner of the comment protests, which I have seen happen from a new yet very helpful user, I respect their will.

5. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

A talking-to, followed by more if the first one doesn't work, then followed by suspension. The environment has to be friendly if you really want everybody to feel respected, as opposed to skewed toward established users or the loudest ones. There is no other way. Be kind to people like you really mean it. Seriously. The community has to be friendly and welcoming, period.

6. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

Talk it over privately. Bring in a third party. I agree with Glorfindel thus far. But I am not averse to talking it out here on Meta. I am not a fan of conclaves and exclusivity. Sometimes transparency is the best policy. Any Meta user is just as much a member of the ELL community as a moderator. Haven't the recent events on Stack Exchange made you guys fed up with secrecy, closed doors, and stonewalling? If they have why would you still want your own clique?

7. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

Not good. I will need to learn to deal with that.

8. What is your view of extended discussion in comments under a question? Do you have a different view of comment discussions under answers?

I agree with the current SE policy that extended discussions are not encouraged and oftentimes should be moved to chat or deleted. But if there is grammatically helpful information in the comments I will try to preserve it either in the comments or in a converted answer.

9. What do you think is the most important issue that the ELL community needs to work on, and what would you do as moderator to address it?

Be nice. For real.

what would you do as moderator to address it?

Be nice.

10. User participation is crucial to the success of an online community. As regards spurring greater participation from old and new users:

    • We often see backups in the review queues. This leads to delay in getting spam/abusive posts removed and other issues. What would you do as a moderator to address this issue and encourage people to get more actively involved in reviews?
    • The Stack Exchange community and the ELL site have recently lost some experienced members. As a moderator what do you think could be done to attract more users to the site or make it easier for old and new users alike to participate?

These are my own questions, but I don't think I have very good answers to them. I think it is important to encourage reviewers and make it easier for people to participate in the review queues. Same goes for general participation.

Answer 4

Here are my (Daniil's) answers to your questions:

1. A frequent user with a lot of questions sometimes posts multiple questions in a short amount of time. A few of their questions tend to be of low quality, gathering downvotes and close votes, but an occasional upvote keeps the asker from a question ban and the user has amassed quite a few reputation points from them already. They ignore the advice on how to improve their questions and their newer questions suffer from the same flaws as some of their old. This has been bothering a few venerable answerers of high reputation, and often leaves the front page in a low quality mess of questions with zero or negative score. Would you intervene? How would you handle this situation as a mod?

First of all, I want to make the site a nice place for everyone, both new users and old. Users can make moderators aware of these low quality questions by means of flags. If there are repeated low quality posts, a chat with them could help the situation both explaining why these questions are low quality and what can be done to improve them. If there are repeated low quality questions after multiple warnings, a suspension may have to be given since Stack Exchange is supposed to be a source of high quality content.

2. What is your view on editing a question to correct grammar and style issues? Do you think we should edit answers differently from the way we edit questions?

I think in most ways, questions and answers should be edited in the same way. Grammar issues shouldn't be corrected in questions if the question is about that issue, the correct grammar version should be posted as an answer since that is what the question is about.

Questions should also be tagged with appropriate tags to be easily searchable for future users. Neither of these points means that users should go on a large editing spree of minor grammar edits and re-tagging. Mass editing fills the front page and doesn't give new questions the attention they deserve. If a user/users start mass editing and it goes through without review (2k+ rep), I would explain to them why it is a bad idea, if this behaviour continues an edit ban may have to be given.

3. Here’s a question that I think is very relevant to a specific issue I think our site has: that of voting for good questions. We tend not to be very good at that. I know the system is geared towards answers being upvoted more than questions, but I still find it disheartening when I see a zero-score question that is something worth asking. So: What are your criteria for what makes a good question? That is to say, what kind of question would you upvote? Why?

I would upvote a question that:

• is useful for future readers
• is clear and gives enough detail to answer quickly, this includes giving context
• uses appropriate grammar/spelling where necessary

So, in effect, if you can answer it, you should upvote it.

4. Sometimes people post comments on ELL that seem like answers. How would you handle these comments?

I would ask these users to convert their comment to an answer. Answers are much more searchable for future readers and can give a lot more information than a comment can. Of course, it is the commenters' choice if they want to convert their comment to an answer.

5. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

I would remind them to be nice and polite to other users and give them a warning that if this behaviour continues, they may have to be suspended. Good quality answers should not compromise being nice.

6. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?

I would discuss this privately in chat with them, after all, they may have closed it for a reason that I missed. If needed, more moderators can be brought in to make a decision as a mod team and a decision that is right for the community.

7. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

That's fine. I try to be polite and listen to people in a respectful manner even when I disagree with them.

8. What is your view of extended discussion in comments under a question? Do you have a different view of comment discussions under answers?

Comment discussions are fine if they help improve the question or ask for clarification. Answer comments are also fine if they help improve the answer or add more details to it. If these discussions get too lengthy or offtopic, they will need to be moved to chat.

9. What do you think is the most important issue that the ELL community needs to work on, and what would you do as moderator to address it?

Looking at meta and what I have seen on the site, the issue is low quality questions. To address this, I would encourage the authors of these low quality questions to put some more research effort into their work. The community can also be encouraged to vote for these questions if you see a low quality question do not be afraid to give it a -1. This way, the authors of these questions could realise they need to change their asking habits and even face an automatic question ban.

10. User participation is crucial to the success of an online community. As regards spurring > greater participation from old and new users:

    • We often see backups in the review queues. This leads to delay in getting spam/abusive posts removed and other issues. What would you do as a moderator to address this issue and encourage people to get more actively involved in reviews?
    • The Stack Exchange community and the ELL site have recently lost some experienced members. As a moderator what do you think could be done to attract more users to the site or make it easier for old and new users alike to participate?

As for the review queues, try and encourage users to review more while actively reviewing myself and handling spam/abusive posts quickly by deleting them as a moderator.

For user participation, encourage new users who have been posting high quality material in chat, say their work is appreciated and just motivate users to keep on going.