Return to Answer

Well frankly, I'm addicted to this site :P I do have a pretty full schedule between work and school, but right now, it's pretty much just part of my day that I'll check out PPCG from my phone during any spare moments. So I'm available to talk to pretty much whenever I'm awake. Generally, I will be most active for moderating tasks around 0-5 UTC. This chart shows when I'm most active in chat (all times in UTC)

I have very strong opinions on this matter. I've written a lengthy meta post on exactly this issue before. But, I'll summarize my thoughts from that post here.

1. fairly easy to fix. If the post is off-topic, I would close it and leave a comment welcoming them to the site and explaining why their post is off-topic. And if the challenge just has some problems that can be fixed, I would comment on it, explaining what is wrong with the challenge, why the community dislikes certain things in challenges, and asking them to edit it.

2. is IMO a bigger issue. I strongly believe that all users should be welcomed to the site unless they repeatedly show hostility or a lack of willingness to comply with the community's rules. The OP in this case has done nothing wrong. They are simply misguided. And the number one rule across SE sites is be nice, and the user is clearly violating this rule. My response varies depending on exactly how rude the comment is.

To the moderator team: I would bring this up in the private chat room as soon as possible. The goal is to come to a clear consensus on the right steps forward before taking any steps to undo the action. Since ideally the moderator should come across as unified in their actions, I would tend to default towards not overruling the action. But if it becomes clear that most of the moderators agree that the action was incorrect, we can discuss steps to fix it moving forward.

6. Somebody posts a solution, which seems to be valid at first sight. However, you analyze it further, and find out it's invalid. Nobody else has already commented or flagged about it. What do you do?

The first escalation is to message the user. I have never been a mod before, so I don't exactly know what features are available, but I'm pretty sure there is a feature for private messaging. Or private chat rooms. I would explain to the user that we want them around, and their input is valuable, but that their current behavior is disrupting the site. I would ask them to stop, and monitor whether it improves in the future.

The second escalation is a suspension. Assuming the user had not been suspended before, a week-long suspension would be fitting. It's unfortunate if it haves to come to that, but like I said, I believe that a peaceful site is far more valuable than any one user's contributions. If the disruptive behavior continues after the suspension ends, the cycle will have to continue: PM's asking the user to stop and warning that a suspension is imminent, and another suspension with a greater length.

9. To an otherwise hard challenge, someone posts a very trivial, built-in solution, either in a practical language specialised for those kinds of tasks or in a golfing language. A new-ish user submits another answer, which they worked hard for. As it usually happens on any internet community, the trivial answer receives a lot of good feedback (in the form of upvotes), while the other submissions don't receive much attention. Then the new user leaves a comment under the other user's answer, politely complaining about the voting culture. How would you act in this situation as a moderator? What would you do to stop  / discourage this phenomenon? What would you do to stimulate healthy voting and encourage non-trivial solutions? I know you cannot enforce this by any means, but how would you use your influence as a moderator in this situation?

In a perfect world, I would not have to do much. The community would be able to handle issues as they arise, and mods would not be needed. But we don't live in a perfect world. So as a moderator, I would be able to jump in in situations that the community can't handle. I would channel my obsessive review checking into flag-handling, and help the community take care of issues faster. And I would be more effective at moderating chat, since there are certain priveleges granted to mods that are not granted to room owners.

Well frankly, I'm addicted to this site :P I do have a pretty full schedule between work and school, but right now, it's pretty much just part of my day that I'll check out PPCG from my phone during any spare moments. So I'm available to talk to pretty much whenever I'm awake. Generally, I will be most active in moderating tasks around 0-5 UTC. This chart shows when I'm most active in chat (all times in UTC)

I have very strong opinions on this matter. I've written a lengthy meta post on exactly this issue before. But, I'll summarize my thoughts on that post here.

1. fairly easy to fix. If the post is off-topic, I would close it and leave a comment welcoming them to the site and explaining why their post is off-topic. And if the challenge just has some problems that can be fixed, I would comment on it, explaining what is wrong with the challenge, why the community dislikes certain things in challenges and asking them to edit it.

2. is IMO a bigger issue. I strongly believe that all users should be welcomed to the site unless they repeatedly show hostility or a lack of willingness to comply with the community's rules. The OP, in this case, has done nothing wrong. They are simply misguided. And the number one rule across SE sites is be nice, and the user is clearly violating this rule. My response varies depending on exactly how rude the comment is.

To the moderator team: I would bring this up in the private chat room as soon as possible. The goal is to come to a clear consensus on the right steps forward before taking any steps to undo the action. Since ideally, the moderator should come across as unified in their actions, I would tend to default towards not overruling the action. But if it becomes clear that most of the moderators agree that the action was incorrect, we can discuss steps to fix it moving forward.

6. Somebody posts a solution, which seems to be valid at first sight. However, you analyze it further and find out it's invalid. Nobody else has already commented or flagged about it. What do you do?

The first escalation is to message the user. I have never been a mod before, so I don't exactly know what features are available, but I'm pretty sure there is a feature for private messaging. Or private chat rooms. I would explain to the user that we want them around, and their input is valuable, but that their current behavior is disrupting the site. I would ask them to stop and monitor whether it improves in the future.

The second escalation is a suspension. Assuming the user had not been suspended before, a week-long suspension would be fitting. It's unfortunate if it has to come to that, but like I said, I believe that a peaceful site is far more valuable than any one user's contributions. If the disruptive behavior continues after the suspension ends, the cycle will have to continue: PM's asking the user to stop and warning that a suspension is imminent, and another suspension with a greater length.

9. To an otherwise hard challenge, someone posts a very trivial, built-in solution, either in a practical language specialized for those kinds of tasks or in a golfing language. A new-ish user submits another answer, which they worked hard for. As it usually happens in any internet community, the trivial answer receives a lot of good feedback (in the form of upvotes), while the other submissions don't receive much attention. Then the new user leaves a comment under the other user's answer, politely complaining about the voting culture. How would you act in this situation as a moderator? What would you do to stop/discourage this phenomenon? What would you do to stimulate healthy voting and encourage non-trivial solutions? I know you cannot enforce this by any means, but how would you use your influence as a moderator in this situation?

In a perfect world, I would not have to do much. The community would be able to handle issues as they arise, and mods would not be needed. But we don't live in a perfect world. So as a moderator, I would be able to jump in in situations that the community can't handle. I would channel my obsessive review checking into flag-handling and help the community take care of issues faster. And I would be more effective at moderating chat since there are certain privileges granted to mods that are not granted to room owners.

I'm DJMcMayhem. My nomination

As a mod, my actions would not be that different. I would comment, let them know the post is invalid, and give them some

As a mod, my actions would not be that different. I would comment, let them know the post is invalid, and give them some time to fix it. I would also save a link to the post, and make a note of it, so that I can delete it later if they don't fix it in a certain amount of time.