1. 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 first try and figure out what aspect of the user's behavior is causing the issues. Once that's identified and I feel the user needs to adjust how they interact with the site, I'd reach out to the user and do my best to convince them to change the problematic aspects of their behavior. If that fails, I would escalate by issuing suspensions as appropriate.

High reputation users are very visible, and their behavior reflects upon the site as a whole. As such, my inclination is to hold them to a high standard. On the other hand, the entire purpose of the site is to generate high quality content which I don't want to lose. I will do my best to get the best of both worlds - work with such users to keep them active and at the same time getting them to improve their interactions with other users.

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

I would reach out to the mod and ask for their reasoning, and provide my own reasoning for why I disagree with their handling of the question. I expect that in the vast majority of such cases we'll eventually come to an agreement as to what the final state of the question should be. If we can't come to an agreement, I would let it go because I don't think it's worthwhile spending multiple moderators' time on a single question.

3. Too often, comparing the metrics on the competing moderator candidate cards offers very little differentiation and total candidate reputation is a suboptimal/obtuse metric to break ties. Do you have any particular philosophies on moderation/curation that will set you apart from the other candidates? Please be compelling with your unique stance(s) so that voters are less likely to fallback to sorting candidates by reputation.

• Speak softly and carry a big stick. I would try to be persuasive and convince users in a cordial manner, while making it clear that repeated infractions will not be tolerated.

• I'm always willing to be convinced that a position I hold is incorrect. I respond well to feedback and criticism, and will happily change my behavior when I'm convinced that I was wrong.

• I'm willing to put in work on a consistent basis over long periods of time, and I don't let the seemingly endless amount of work put me off.

4. As a regular user, your close and delete votes are usually peer reviewed, and become effective only when enough other users agree with you. This ensures more fairness and reduces the chance of making mistakes. As a moderator, your close and delete votes are now immediately binding, but your perception of what is close- and delete-worthy likely is the same as before. If you are elected, will your voting patterns change in consideration of this, and why?

No, for questions that I feel should clearly be in a different state, having a binding vote is not going to affect my decision to take an action.

I do expect that the amount of time I spend evaluating whether questions should be closed/reopened/etc will change. The primary reason is that the time I'm active on the site will be spent engaging in activities that non-diamond users cannot perform, leaving less time for curation activities. It's also likely that I will start skipping borderline questions and questions which take longer than average to evaluate, as there will be other activities that need more attention.

5. Sometimes users with high reputation on Stack Overflow grow accustomed to their everyday privileges and lose perspective of the site experience for less-privileged users. This may present as being insensitive to the struggles / pain points of less veteran users. Are you active on other Stack Exchange sites as a relatively low-reputation user? If so, how would that activity color the way that you will treat users/content if elected as a moderator on Stack Overflow?

I participate on a few other SE sites, and was a low-rep user on SO less than 3 years ago. More than lack of privileges, the hardest part for me as a new user on the site was understanding the complex and often opaque culture/rules of the site. I strongly believe that many new users are put off by the seemingly arbitrary applications of rules, not because they disagree with the rules per se, but simply because they are unaware of what those rules are and why they exist. While it's not scalable to do this for every user, when possible I would try and educate users by pointing them to the relevant help-pages and meta discussions.

As for content, the reputation of the user posting the content doesn't matter at all, and I would still treat content the same way regardless of the OP's reputation.

6. As a regular Stack Overflow user who is running for moderator, you probably do your fair share of moderation work on the website. What is one issue that you encounter frequently that you think needs more moderator attention but, for whatever reason, doesn't and how will you approach this issue when you become a moderator?

There's no particular issue that stands out for me as needing more moderator attention than others. From what the current moderator team has indicated publicly, the biggest issue that could do with more moderator attention is plagiarism flags, which can be extremely difficult, tedious, and time consuming to handle. I would happily lend a hand in that regard as a member of the mod team.

7. Stack Overflow moderation is a nontrivial time investment due to its scale. Do you think cleaning up Stack Overflow is an appealing way to spend your free time? If so, why? If not, what makes you want to be a moderator anyway?

I get a lot of satisfaction from doing stuff that helps other people. Curation on SO falls very much in this category, probably more so than any other activity I engage in in my spare time. So I have to say, yes, I do find cleaning up the site to be an appealing way to spend my free time.

8. What is the non-diamond moderation activity you think matters the most? Would you still engage in it the same if you are elected or do you expect your priorities to shift?

I don't think any particular activity matters more than others, they're all important to some extent. I personally spend the majority of my time dealing with spam and abuse in the Charcoal project. While I intend to continue participating actively in the project, I only have a finite amount of time to spend each day on the site, and as I mentioned in my answer to Q4 my priorities will shift towards engaging in whatever activities are most needed from a moderator.

9. On Stack Overflow, you're going to get a decent number of users who believe that their rights are being violated by a moderation act. This could vary from a downvote to having their content or even account deleted. In light of a lot of the perceptions around communication online - mostly in the United States and the notion of free speech - how would you go about handling, guiding, educating or correcting a user who has this conception? Do you believe that they have a valid point, or do you believe otherwise?

The right to free speech is important, but a Q&A website is not a platform that guarantees this right. I would try my best to convey this to users who disagree, and point out that the site has its own criteria for what forms of expression are allowed, and in which contexts. If the user cannot be persuaded and persists in behavior that is not conducive to the functioning of the site, I would escalate the issue with warnings and suspensions as appropriate.

10. Given that not everyone holds Meta discussions in the same regard, what do you base your moderation policy on when handling flags where the accused behavior isn't spelled out explicitly in the site rules? And what if a flagger links to a Meta discussion in their flag where you don't agree with the outcome of that discussion? Or, in short: how do you view the "unwritten" rules that are determined on Meta, and how do those influence your behavior, if at all?

I will try my best to follow the site policies outlined on Meta as I interpret them. Of course, users will often disagree with a Meta consensus, or have different interpretations than mine of what the consensus is. My response to such users would be to direct them to Meta to clarify/change the extant policy.

In cases where I personally disagree with the current policy, of which there are a handful, I would defer to Meta and follow the guidance/policy/rules there. I am a strong believer in following the community consensus and I would try to do what I can to influence the community via Meta discussions, but I am loathe to go against Meta policy on the grounds that I disagree with it.

1. 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 make sure the flags are even warranted, first. Assuming they are, then writing great content is never going to be an excuse for violating the Code of Conduct. I prefer the site to be, and feel like, a safe, civil and respectful environment over any number of great answers. I would proceed with a stern warning, and, if they insist, then a suspension to give them time to cool off.

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

If I'm positive that the action is an oversight, I'd fix it first, then inform the other mod in chat. Otherwise, I'd assume they acted for a good reason and I'd try to see it. If needed, I would ping them in chat and try to iron it out. If there's a fundamental disagreement, and the issue is severe enough, I might involve other mods in order to come to a shared resolution.

3. Too often, comparing the metrics on the competing moderator candidate cards offers very little differentiation and total candidate reputation is a suboptimal/obtuse metric to break ties. Do you have any particular philosophies on moderation/curation that will set you apart from the other candidates? Please be compelling with your unique stance(s) so that voters are less likely to fallback to sorting candidates by reputation.

The OP has a right to improve their closed question. Closure of off-topic questions should happen ASAP, however I almost never vote to delete before a 10k user could, or just leave things to the Roomba script, precisely because the OP should have time to learn and improve. Consequently, I also monitor posts that I think have chance to get better, either in the reopen queue (with filters) or by following posts.

I also fight, whenever I see it, petty abuse like deleting and reposting closed questions, spite close votes, etc.

I put great importance on orderliness and discoverability of content, which is why I delete many low quality duplicates and spend significant time putting old questions and answers in shape.

Beside the above, I have proposed a new model for the candidate score.

4. As a regular user, your close and delete votes are usually peer reviewed, and become effective only when enough other users agree with you. This ensures more fairness and reduces the chance of making mistakes. As a moderator, your close and delete votes are now immediately binding, but your perception of what is close- and delete-worthy likely is the same as before. If you are elected, will your voting patterns change in consideration of this, and why?

I'd prioritize handling flags. However, I do not think that moderators should eschew organic voting as a principle. Especially close votes are needed more than ever, and, in principle I would keep casting them just as before. Again, I'd be mostly busy with flags, but I surely would not abstain from voting just by virtue of being a moderator.

For deletions, I'm already somewhat conservative but I'd expect to raise my bar just a little more. Obviously this is because deleted posts, especially questions, are visible to a significantly smaller pool of users, and can be undeleted only by moderators; it'd be more burdensome for everyone, and less fair a process to correct mistakes there.

5. Sometimes users with high reputation on Stack Overflow grow accustomed to their everyday privileges and lose perspective of the site experience for less-privileged users. This may present as being insensitive to the struggles / pain points of less veteran users. Are you active on other Stack Exchange sites as a relatively low-reputation user? If so, how would that activity color the way that you will treat users/content if elected as a moderator on Stack Overflow?

I got above 3k rep only in April 2021. Yet I think the only privilege that isn't immediately attainable and the lack of which causes intense frustration is commenting. And that's still not a valid reason for posting non-answers. That aside, 1) topicality of content is orthogonal to reputation, 2) fixing new user onboarding needs the company's commitment.

6. As a regular Stack Overflow user who is running for moderator, you probably do your fair share of moderation work on the website. What is one issue that you encounter frequently that you think needs more moderator attention but, for whatever reason, doesn't and how will you approach this issue when you become a moderator?

Wrong close reasons: they make it a lot harder for the OP to fix their post. As a regular user, it's usually not worth it to address this, except with a comment perhaps. The overhead is simply unmanageable. As a moderator, fixing a wrong close reason is matter of seconds.

7. Stack Overflow moderation is a nontrivial time investment due to its scale. Do you think cleaning up Stack Overflow is an appealing way to spend your free time? If so, why? If not, what makes you want to be a moderator anyway?

No, it's not appealing, but I would feel accomplished knowing that my efforts, thankless as they may be, will have an impact on people who, like me, work hard to search and learn, and deserve the best Stack Overflow they can get.

8. What is the non-diamond moderation activity you think matters the most? Would you still engage in it the same if you are elected or do you expect your priorities to shift?

Removing spam and red-flag abuse ASAP, which I'd (obviously) keep doing. Then closing, (especially duplicates). A large amount of off-topic and duplicated content makes it harder for everybody to find what they need, be it users in search of a solution or curators in search of a canonical. And deleting non-answers which clutter threads up, mislead or waste everybody's time. I'd strive to keep doing this along with handling flags.

9. On Stack Overflow, you're going to get a decent number of users who believe that their rights are being violated by a moderation act. This could vary from a downvote to having their content or even account deleted. In light of a lot of the perceptions around communication online - mostly in the United States and the notion of free speech - how would you go about handling, guiding, educating or correcting a user who has this conception? Do you believe that they have a valid point, or do you believe otherwise?

Free speech is the right to express your views, which isn't the same as foisting those views onto others. I would educate these users that having their content curated and moderated isn't stripping them of free speech, but is in fact a necessary part of managing a safe and clean crowd-sourced resource like this.

10. Given that not everyone holds Meta discussions in the same regard, what do you base your moderation policy on when handling flags where the accused behavior isn't spelled out explicitly in the site rules? And what if a flagger links to a Meta discussion in their flag where you don't agree with the outcome of that discussion? Or, in short: how do you view the "unwritten" rules that are determined on Meta, and how do those influence your behavior, if at all?

I would uphold community policies regardless of my personal stance if they were formed through sufficient community participation. If a flagger links to a Meta Q&A that has low views, low scores or controversial answers, I would not uphold those policies and resolve the issue based on my own judgement. In case the user feels strongly, I would encourage them to go to Meta again and seek stronger consensus.

1. 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?

Copying my answer from last year: All users should be treated on a level playing field, and good content does not excuse bad conduct. I would begin treating this user the same way as anyone, hoping that the same comments I would make to anyone would provide a learning experience for them. If they care enough for the community to contribute valuable answers, I'd hope that'd be enough of a nudge. If the conduct escalated to a disruptive level that was causing harm to the community, I'd likely seek a second opinion from another moderator to ensure I wasn't acting in a biased manner, see how situations like this have been handled in the past, and escalate the responses.

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

Copying my answer from last year: I'd inquire about their reasoning, in the hopes of understanding something about the site that would improve my own response. If I disagreed I would respectfully share my reasons with that other mod in the hope they would consider them as well, but not demand any action or get in open/close wars. I'm sure many actions taken are judgement calls and I'm not going to pretend my judgement is better.

3. Too often, comparing the metrics on the competing moderator candidate cards offers very little differentiation and total candidate reputation is a suboptimal/obtuse metric to break ties. Do you have any particular philosophies on moderation/curation that will set you apart from the other candidates? Please be compelling with your unique stance(s) so that voters are less likely to fallback to sorting candidates by reputation.

I don't consider myself competitive on metrics. Rather, I have spent decades volunteering in administrative capacities in online services that I use because I love the community and want to help it out. I'm often very happy behind the scenes, letting others provide a more public face while knocking out the grunt work. In a fine restaurant, I'm the dishwasher.

The nomination criteria states the qualities a mod should have: 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 uncommon disputes and exceptions. I believe I have those qualities.

I'm older, seasoned, have a thick skin, and have experience in conflict resolution in both the real world and online community for at least three decades. I have been in helper/moderator positions in CompuServe chat/fora since the early 1990's, and have been an administrator on games in the MU* genre since the early 2000's. In the real world I have 20 years of experience in the military, leading and managing people with diverse backgrounds. In these decades, I have often been called on to mediate conflict and present an unbiased approach, listening carefully to both sides and taking the time to investigate the facts.

4. As a regular user, your close and delete votes are usually peer reviewed, and become effective only when enough other users agree with you. This ensures more fairness and reduces the chance of making mistakes. As a moderator, your close and delete votes are now immediately binding, but your perception of what is close- and delete-worthy likely is the same as before. If you are elected, will your voting patterns change in consideration of this, and why?

I doubt my patterns would change. I'm generally biased toward preserving content, and when in doubt, I leave things alone. There's far more closable and deletable content than the current curators can handle, however, so saving time or thought a borderline question makes that time/thought available for more obvious choices.

As my intro indicates, I like to participate in burninations, where, frankly, there isn't much peer review once something is on the close queue, so I consider those close votes generally guaranteed to be agreed with by at least someone.

5. Sometimes users with high reputation on Stack Overflow grow accustomed to their everyday privileges and lose perspective of the site experience for less-privileged users. This may present as being insensitive to the struggles / pain points of less veteran users. Are you active on other Stack Exchange sites as a relatively low-reputation user? If so, how would that activity color the way that you will treat users/content if elected as a moderator on Stack Overflow?

Hey, here's a place where I have an advantage as a relatively low rep user who has spent many years with even lower rep.

I do frequently visit other sites and have some small activity there.

As my programming expertise is in a tag with much lower volume, I often encounter new users as evidenced by my Unsung Hero badge. I hope my interactions with them aren't insensitive.

6. As a regular Stack Overflow user who is running for moderator, you probably do your fair share of moderation work on the website. What is one issue that you encounter frequently that you think needs more moderator attention but, for whatever reason, doesn't and how will you approach this issue when you become a moderator?

The backlog of tag maintenance such as community-approved burnination requests, is very large. Only recently has activity begun to pick up in that but with only one moderator tending to the queue it's still not as efficient as it could be with, say, another torch-bearer.

7. Stack Overflow moderation is a nontrivial time investment due to its scale. Do you think cleaning up Stack Overflow is an appealing way to spend your free time? If so, why? If not, what makes you want to be a moderator anyway?

I don't think anyone really likes "cleaning up" Stack Overflow or finds it appealing. If they do, I question their sanity.

However, anyone who spends a lot of time somewhere doesn't want to put up with garbage. Someone has to wash the dishes and do the laundry and clean up the accidents the dogs leave in the yard so they don't step in them.

Plus, the team of curators who helps with this task are a great community to be part of.

8. What is the non-diamond moderation activity you think matters the most? Would you still engage in it the same if you are elected or do you expect your priorities to shift?

Working on the close vote queue. Too often, close votes age out in less-frequented tags.

If elected I'd probably still close as part of burninations but would likely shift my priorities to handling flags because we keep hearing that's the biggest need, and the reason we keep adding moderators.

9. On Stack Overflow, you're going to get a decent number of users who believe that their rights are being violated by a moderation act. This could vary from a downvote to having their content or even account deleted. In light of a lot of the perceptions around communication online - mostly in the United States and the notion of free speech - how would you go about handling, guiding, educating or correcting a user who has this conception? Do you believe that they have a valid point, or do you believe otherwise?

As I'm in the US and active on social media, I'm familiar with this attitude, and my standing response is that your use of the site is subject to following the Terms and Conditions, which the site owners are free to impose. You are welcome to leave the site if you disagree with them, and to exercise your free speech rights elsewhere.

Whether I agree with the SE/SO Code of Conduct or think the user has a point is irrelevant: the rules are clearly stated and should be followed. There are polite ways to lead up to this, of course, and one should assume good faith and offer guidance first, warnings second, and only escalate if needed.

10. Given that not everyone holds Meta discussions in the same regard, what do you base your moderation policy on when handling flags where the accused behavior isn't spelled out explicitly in the site rules? And what if a flagger links to a Meta discussion in their flag where you don't agree with the outcome of that discussion? Or, in short: how do you view the "unwritten" rules that are determined on Meta, and how do those influence your behavior, if at all?

A new user, or even long time user who doesn't frequent Meta, should not be expected to know all the unwritten rules. On the one hand, the content should be dealt with according to how the community has clearly decided (even if I disagree). On the other hand, educating the user about the policy should be done as helpfully as possible.

1. 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 can’t think of a case where a user’s past contributions (like answers) would impact the way I handle a situation. Regardless of if the user continues to participate (or be welcome) in our community has no impact on the ongoing value of their answers. Some assumptions based on my interpretation of this question:

1. it’s an ongoing issue: “tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments” means to me that the user has a general pattern of this behaviour and
2. the flags (complaints) against this user are legitimate given that a mod needs to “deal with [this] user.”

Given these assumptions, we’re probably at the point of reaching out with a mod message to outline the issue and optimally provide some tailored advice on what specifically needs to be changed. The specifics of the comment content and past user behaviour like prior suspensions, mod messages, etc. would determine if a suspension of some duration would be issued.

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

In the majority of cases, I would ask for a second opinion from either the site moderation team in general or from that specific moderator to try to understand why they took the action they took. Then I would take action based on the consensus, either leaving the post as is or reversing the prior action.

In the case that I believe they made a mistake i.e. I can understand the reasoning why they took the action they took I would reverse the decision. I think, in most cases, I would also notify that moderator that I reversed their action and indicate why I did so.

3. Too often, comparing the metrics on the competing moderator candidate cards offers very little differentiation and total candidate reputation is a suboptimal/obtuse metric to break ties. Do you have any particular philosophies on moderation/curation that will set you apart from the other candidates? Please be compelling with your unique stance(s) so that voters are less likely to fallback to sorting candidates by reputation.

My general philosophy is that moderators are primarily supposed to handle what non-moderators cannot. I believe that moderators should enable the community to speak for itself. This, in general, means: focusing more on handling flags, looking into and addressing users' behaviour, looking into suspicious voting patterns, looking into suspicious accounts, etc.

This doesn't mean that I would never take these non-mod actions, but it would mean focusing less on the content aspects of the site where regular users are generally able to do much of the work.

In terms of my outlook, I find that I tend to give the benefit of the doubt more often than not. I would always prefer to salvage and educate where possible, but do not believe in endless chances. I have also a consistent pattern of asking for help when I am unsure and taking the advice I receive.

4. As a regular user, your close and delete votes are usually peer reviewed, and become effective only when enough other users agree with you. This ensures more fairness and reduces the chance of making mistakes. As a moderator, your close and delete votes are now immediately binding, but your perception of what is close- and delete-worthy likely is the same as before. If you are elected, will your voting patterns change in consideration of this, and why?

I believe, in most cases, that mods are supposed to enable the community to act, not act for the community. I think my voting patterns are likely to change in that I will be spending less time looking at the most recently active questions and spend more time on content that has been brought to moderator attention for whatever reason. However, we have a lot of questions every day, some posts just have way too few eyes or have been around for years, handling things like this benefits the community and saves votes for the posts that are still being actively interacted with.

Requiring multiple users to agree before the vote takes effect isn’t the only mechanism for oversight for either vote type and obtaining a diamond does not exclude the user from their actions being evaluated. I have certainly flagged a post/pinged a current moderator when I thought they made a mistake in handling something (and would definitely continue to encourage that behaviour as moderators are humans and mistakes are a given).

I'm also aware that moderator actions are highly visible to both CMs and other moderators. I trust that if I was handling something inappropriately that one of those individuals (or the community) would help me by bringing it to my attention as well as provide guidance on how to act in future.

5. Sometimes users with high reputation on Stack Overflow grow accustomed to their everyday privileges and lose perspective of the site experience for less-privileged users. This may present as being insensitive to the struggles / pain points of less veteran users. Are you active on other Stack Exchange sites as a relatively low-reputation user? If so, how would that activity color the way that you will treat users/content if elected as a moderator on Stack Overflow?

I am a user on a number of other Stack Exchange sites, though primarily as an occasional visitor and/or mostly just a viewer of interesting topics. However, I have enough reputation to obtain an Association Bonus with every new site, so I get to skip a lot of the pain points like not being able to comment or flag etc.

In general, though, I find that I'm already highly considerate of reputation thresholds and other nuances of how the site works. I have found that keeping these privilege levels in mind has greatly helped me to understand why users are doing things like: posting a comment in the answer field, posting a "thank you" answer, recommending deletion on a post in review queue that could be salvaged by editing (but the suggested edit queue is full and the user cannot unilaterally make the edit themselves). These are things that need to be handled differently, however, I try to tailor my guidance to be something that is specific and actionable that the user can actually do at their reputation level, rather than just providing the "correct" action (which the user cannot perform).

6. As a regular Stack Overflow user who is running for moderator, you probably do your fair share of moderation work on the website. What is one issue that you encounter frequently that you think needs more moderator attention but, for whatever reason, doesn't and how will you approach this issue when you become a moderator?

Everything? I really wish that weren't my actual answer, but I think that just about every aspect of the site could benefit from more moderator attention (both privileged users and diamond moderators).

As a more specific answer, I think that review queues could definitely use both better on-boarding (something that the company would have to address) and more oversight (something a moderator could help address). I find that quite a lot of users are intentionally or unintentionally contributing a significant number of poor reviews. I would really like to be able to help educate these users on how to review more in line with our community standards and reduce the number of mishandled posts from within review queue.

7. Stack Overflow moderation is a nontrivial time investment due to its scale. Do you think cleaning up Stack Overflow is an appealing way to spend your free time? If so, why? If not, what makes you want to be a moderator anyway?

For the most part, I think my answer is: "Yes, I find cleaning up Stack Overflow to be an appealing way to spend my free time". I've definitely spent a good amount of time so far doing exactly that. I admit that there are certainly times when it feels like a thankless task, or overwhelming, or frustrating, however, I find that, more often than not, I am deeply satisfied in handling situations and making the site a better place for others. I have enjoyed the people (the community) and the conversations and support I've received from others. If I can help to make our community a better place, then I am happy with what I've accomplished.

8. What is the non-diamond moderation activity you think matters the most? Would you still engage in it the same if you are elected or do you expect your priorities to shift?

The next most important "moderation activity" is flagging posts. It's the primary mechanism for bringing posts (or comments) to the attention of users or moderators who can handle them. Of course the diamond will affect the way I engage with the site as a whole, I will be handling flags more than casting them and my time will inevitably go to handling things the community cannot handle on its own.

9. On Stack Overflow, you're going to get a decent number of users who believe that their rights are being violated by a moderation act. This could vary from a downvote to having their content or even account deleted. In light of a lot of the perceptions around communication online - mostly in the United States and the notion of free speech - how would you go about handling, guiding, educating or correcting a user who has this conception? Do you believe that they have a valid point, or do you believe otherwise?

I think the best part about freedom of speech is that people are allowed to be wrong. This site has rules and I would enforce them to the best of my abilities. I am more than happy to spend as much time as needed with users who are willing (and able) to learn and engage in a productive manner; in these cases, I would outline the rights they do (and do not) have with regard to our community and try to clarify their misunderstandings.

However, I also acknowledge that some people are unwilling (or unable) to listen or engage in a productive way; in these cases, I would stop engaging with the user. If the user continues to hold their incorrect stance, even in light of evidence counter to their beliefs, then it is time to move on. Moving on might mean a brief vacation (suspension) for the user (assuming they were being destructive or otherwise abusive to the system) or letting them spin their wheels on Meta (assuming they are not being destructive or otherwise abusive).

10. Given that not everyone holds Meta discussions in the same regard, what do you base your moderation policy on when handling flags where the accused behavior isn't spelled out explicitly in the site rules? And what if a flagger links to a Meta discussion in their flag where you don't agree with the outcome of that discussion? Or, in short: how do you view the "unwritten" rules that are determined on Meta, and how do those influence your behavior, if at all?

In the simplest case, I would rely on my overall understanding of the site (and its community) combined with my own judgement. At the end of the day, diamond moderators are given fairly wide discretion to use their judgement when handling flags and this would ultimately be what I would rely on in the absence of any other guidance.

Assuming the user linked to a Meta post is has a clear consensus on Meta one way or another, I would handle the flag in line with the community consensus.

The "in short" is that Meta is the primary place for the community to establish how we want the site to function and I feel it is the role of a moderator (to the best of their abilities) to assist in making the site function the way the community expects. Also, a caveat that I feel is rather important is that official policy, and/or private moderator guidance, would trump Meta's consensus and I would indicate that where possible in my handling of the flag.

Outside of Stack Overflow, I have 15 years experience doing moderation in W3C fora: from the old days in W3C bugzilla issues and mailing-list discussions and IRC and now on into the current W3C Matrix workspace and in various W3C GitHub issue trackers — as well as in WHATWG issue trackers and in the MDN issue tracker.

Answers

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

Privately share the Disruptive Behavior guidance, and tactfully remind: if anyone comments in a way that disrupts other users’ experience of the site, the moderators team has both the ability and the will to suspend them — no matter how valuably they’re otherwise contributing.

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

Privately communicate with them to try to understand why we didn’t see it the same way, and try to find if we can reach some agreement about how to handle similar cases in the future — but if we can’t, just let it go. I’m not a person who feels like they have win every argument.

3. … Do you have any particular philosophies on moderation/curation that will set you apart from the other candidates?

Tact is what I guess I have to offer most of all. I believe very strongly in always trying to:

• communicate tactfully and show people real respect, even in highly-charged situations
• make effort to genuinely understand people, and try to see where they’re coming from
• work toward real, lasting resolutions to problem situations so they don’t happen again
• de-escalate tension rather than let it escalate further and cause even more disruption

4. … As a moderator, your close and delete votes are now immediately binding, but your perception of what is close- and delete-worthy likely is the same as before. … will your voting patterns change in consideration of this, and why?

Already I try to be very careful with all votes — I only vote to close or delete if I really believe something should be closed or deleted. Given that, I guess my voting patterns likely wouldn’t change. But not yet having been an SO moderator, I can’t say so with absolute certainty now.

5. … Are you active on other Stack Exchange sites as a relatively low-reputation user? If so, how would that activity color the way that you will treat users/content if elected as a moderator on Stack Overflow?

I’ve contributed at much lower levels of activity at Super User, at Ask Different, at Software Engineering, and at Server Fault. But I honestly can’t think of any added way my activity at those would color how I’d treat SO users. Maybe it’d help remind me: someone with relatively low activity/rep at SO may actually have massive activity/rep at other SE sites — which I guess may make me careful to communicate in way that shows respect for their overall experience.

6. … What is one issue that you encounter frequently that you think needs more moderator attention but, for whatever reason, doesn't and how will you approach this issue when you become a moderator?

Abusive and disruptive comments — and if/how it might be possible to better handle users who post them — is something I’ve already spent a lot of time thinking and wondering about.

I have a mechanism to send me notifications within seconds after a comment gets posted that Heat Detector catches. Some of the hits are false positives. And many are in a gray area. But some, every day, are clear Code of Conduct violations — sometimes extremely so.

And since we all know that in every online community there are always some users who get way out of line, it’s not surprising to me that we get those kinds of comments being posted to SO.

But what has been a bit surprising to me is to see, in spite of some users’ comments being what seem like extreme CoC violations (e.g., comments that are outright abusive to other users) — and in spite of me (and I can imagine, others too) having flagged the comments — when I check their user profiles later, I notice they’ve not been suspended. So, some notes:

• If I were to join the moderators team, one thing I’d much look forward to is, learning from the team about the criteria and processes they apply when deciding together whether to suspend a user. Because I’d guess there’s a lot more to it than we can see from outside.

• My experience with abusive/disruptive users in other communities inclines me to act very quickly to block such users from having further opportunity to abuse and disrupt. But maybe I’d need to end up adjusting a bit to align better with the existing SO moderator-team norms.

7. … Do you think cleaning up Stack Overflow is an appealing way to spend your free time? If so, why?…

This one’s not hypothetical for me, because I already do spend time every day helping with cleanup at SO. It appeals to me because, for the development work I do, MDN and Stack Overflow are by far the two my important resources I have found for helping me do that work.

• Every day, along with monitoring a long list of web-platform tags, I also actively look for and read high-quality Q&As in the c++, java, python, bash tags — because I program in those languages, and I’m always looking to learn something. And every day, from Q&As in those tags, I do learn something new — and I upvote accordingly.

• And the above is all on top of typical use of SO that we all pretty much share: that is, the case that when I have a specific (and sometimes, critical) programming problem I’m trying to solve, I have searched for — and almost always managed to find — a solution to the problem, in the Stack Overflow knowledge base.

Given all that, the time I put into helping maintain and improve the Stack Overflow knowledge base is essentially enlightened self-interest.

8. What is the non-diamond moderation activity you think matters the most? Would you still engage in it the same if you are elected or do you expect your priorities to shift?

Flagging. For example, the available spam-flagging mechanism is both highly important and highly effective at getting spam deleted — usually within just minutes after it’s posted. But:

• I think other flagging is very important too. So much so that I’ll say: if you’re reading this and trying to decide on whether to vote for a particular candidate, one criterion I’d strongly suggest is to look carefully at how many helpful flags the candidate has.

• If you don’t do much flagging yourself, I guess my 8k worth of helpful flags might seem like a lot. But to me it seems like a pretty modest amount — because there are some other SO users with literally tens of thousands of helpful flags.

I think the number of helpful flags somebody has may be one way to estimate how much time they’d likely be able to spend on tasks as part of the moderators team. So:

• If you want to optimize for giving your vote to someone who’s able to put more time into doing the work, using the helpful-flags count may be a way to do that.

• In practice for me, 50 minutes a day max is about how much time I could afford for moderation tasks at SO — that is, in total both for any tasks I’d perform as part of the moderators team, in addition to the moderation tasks I’m already doing.

• To me, 50 minutes a day seems like not quite enough, and I imagine other candidates can maybe make more time than that. So if you think we should try to have our moderators be people able to put in the most time, then I’m not the best candidate for you to choose.

All that said, I guess the time I currently spend on flagging now is time I wouldn’t need to spend on it any longer — since as part of the moderators team I could instead take actions directly. So I suppose that’d net me some additional time (within my 50-minute budget) that I could shift into helping on the tasks that only the moderators team can do.

9. … you're going to get a decent number of users who believe that their rights are being violated … In light of a lot of the perceptions around communication online … how would you go about handling … a user who has this conception? Do you believe that they have a valid point…?

I strongly believe the SO community has a right to expect their elected representatives on the moderators team will take action to ensure abusive users aren’t allowed to disrupt the experience of SO for others.

So as far as handling a user who says their rights are being violated, the pattern I can imagine following is to point out:

• understanding that they might feel they’re being arbitrarily silenced
• the SO model is based on granting privileges — including the privilege to post
• we’re all contractually bound by the SO terms of service — and a user’s privileges, even after being granted, can be revoked if the user violates the ToS or CoC
• any personal rights they feel they have must be considered not in the absolute, but evaluated along with the impact of their actions on others
• to prevent descent into utter chaos, any viable online community needs to task somebody with authority/ability to make discretionary calls on CoC violations
• at SO, the moderators team are the people tasked with making those discretionary calls, and their decisions are not arbitrary or personal but are instead based on the CoC — and made by taking all users into consideration

10. … what do you base your moderation policy on when handling flags where the accused behavior isn't spelled out explicitly in the site rules? And what if a flagger links to a Meta discussion in their flag where you don't agree with the outcome of that discussion? Or, in short: how do you view the "unwritten" rules that are determined on Meta, and how do those influence your behavior, if at all?

As far as participation in Meta:

• It’s one thing I’ve been unable to budget much time for. I have posted some to Meta, but my most recent post, Which sites are currently linked to most often in Stack Overflow?, is just a self-answered canonical unrelated to site rules.
• My Meta experience is mostly just at times when someone in SOCVR gives me a heads-up that a user opened a Meta question about something which I was among of the people who voted to close — and even in those cases, I mostly leave it up to others to respond.

So I think I lack enough experience with Meta to answer this question well. And so if you’re reading this and you feel that active involvement at Meta is something to optimize for in the moderators team, then I’m not the best candidate for you to choose.

And given all that, I think my moderation policy for cases like the question describes would be: ask for guidance from others on the moderators team, and learn from that.

1. 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?

Answers and comments are two different animals. Reminding a user that they're valuable but also need to follow rules usually does the trick.

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

Mod Chat. In Music, I've asked other Mods about their thought process. Usually they're pretty rational. If I have a discussion point that might lead to a different insight, I'm not afraid to mention it.

3. Too often, comparing the metrics on the competing moderator candidate cards offers very little differentiation and total candidate reputation is a suboptimal/obtuse metric to break ties. Do you have any particular philosophies on moderation/curation that will set you apart from the other candidates? Please be compelling with your unique stance(s) so that voters are less likely to fallback to sorting candidates by reputation.

Keep it civil. Play by the rules. It's not rocket science, it's keeping an open mind and being judicial in how you moderate. Don't take anything personally. People have bad days. Just explain the rules, adhere to them and everything runs smoothly.

4. As a regular user, your close and delete votes are usually peer reviewed, and become effective only when enough other users agree with you. This ensures more fairness and reduces the chance of making mistakes. As a moderator, your close and delete votes are now immediately binding, but your perception of what is close- and delete-worthy likely is the same as before. If you are elected, will your voting patterns change in consideration of this, and why?

Anything that is a final decision has to be made with a lot of thought. Again, adhere to the rules (and the spirit) of the stack and you're fine. If you're on the fence, Mod Chat.

5. Sometimes users with high reputation on Stack Overflow grow accustomed to their everyday privileges and lose perspective of the site experience for less-privileged users. This may present as being insensitive to the struggles / pain points of less veteran users. Are you active on other Stack Exchange sites as a relatively low-reputation user? If so, how would that activity color the way that you will treat users/content if elected as a moderator on Stack Overflow?

I'm on several stacks where I'm a low-level user. I don't think it really changes perspective of how you use it or what it was like "coming up through the ranks". Rules, knowledge, fairness, balance. And remember what your first thoughts were when you first joined SE.

6. As a regular Stack Overflow user who is running for moderator, you probably do your fair share of moderation work on the website. What is one issue that you encounter frequently that you think needs more moderator attention but, for whatever reason, doesn't and how will you approach this issue when you become a moderator?

I don't know that I can point to one issue. I think the site is run well. It just needs to be maintained so it continues to run well.

7. Stack Overflow moderation is a nontrivial time investment due to its scale. Do you think cleaning up Stack Overflow is an appealing way to spend your free time? If so, why? If not, what makes you want to be a moderator anyway?

Everyone struggled at some point. I was thrust into the coding environment when my company's entire Development group got canned, and my boss said, "We're promoting you." I owe SE my life. :-) I want to help others, because I've been there.

8. What is the non-diamond moderation activity you think matters the most? Would you still engage in it the same if you are elected or do you expect your priorities to shift?

Edits, probably. You need to be able to find answers, and making sure the spelling is correct and the answers are up to date are paramount.

9. On Stack Overflow, you're going to get a decent number of users who believe that their rights are being violated by a moderation act. This could vary from a downvote to having their content or even account deleted. In light of a lot of the perceptions around communication online - mostly in the United States and the notion of free speech - how would you go about handling, guiding, educating or correcting a user who has this conception? Do you believe that they have a valid point, or do you believe otherwise?

I think it's important to listen, but it's also important the the user listens as well. Calmly explaining that what they wrote violates a rule, and pointing to the rule, is usually pretty effective. You can even agree that the rule is stupid, but it's there and must be adhered to.

10. Given that not everyone holds Meta discussions in the same regard, what do you base your moderation policy on when handling flags where the accused behavior isn't spelled out explicitly in the site rules? And what if a flagger links to a Meta discussion in their flag where you don't agree with the outcome of that discussion? Or, in short: how do you view the "unwritten" rules that are determined on Meta, and how do those influence your behavior, if at all?

Meta is weird, in the sense that if 100 people agree with something, it's still just 100 people out of the millions who use the site. So I don't hold Meta as the defining stance. I'll read the discussion and if I lean more to one side than the other I'll just say that this is how I interpret the unwritten rule. Sometimes I'll put it in Mod Chat and see what other people think, weigh their responses and see which way I lean after that.