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The purpose of this thread was to collect questions for the questionnaire. The questionnaire is now live, and you may find it here.

Code Golf is scheduled for an election next week, September 14th 2020. In connection with that, we will be holding a Q&A with the candidates. This will be an opportunity for members of the community to pose questions to the candidates on the topic of moderation. Participation is completely voluntary.

Here's how it'll work:

  • Until the nomination phase, (so, until September 14th 2020 at 20:00:00Z UTC, or 4:00 pm EDT on the same day, give or take time to arrive for closure), this question will be open to collect potential questions from the users of the site. Post answers to this question containing any questions you would like to ask the candidates. Please only post one question per answer.

  • We, the Community Team, will be providing a small selection of generic questions. The first two will be guaranteed to be included, the latter ones are if the community doesn't supply enough questions. This will be done in a single post, unlike the prior instruction.

  • If your question contains a link, please use the syntax of [text](link), as that will make it easier for transcribing for the finished questionnaire.

  • This is a perfect opportunity to voice questions that are specific to your community and issues that you are running into currently.

  • At the start of the nomination phase, the Community Team will select up to 8 of the top voted questions submitted by the community provided in this thread, to use in addition to the aforementioned 2 guaranteed questions. We reserve some editorial control in the selection of the questions and may opt not to select a question that is tangential or irrelevant to moderation or the election.

  • Once questions have been selected, a new question will be opened to host the actual questionnaire for the candidates, typically containing 10 questions in total.

  • This is not the only option that users have for gathering information on candidates. As a community, you are still free to, for example, hold a live chat session with your candidates to ask further questions, or perhaps clarifications from what is provided in the Q&A.

If you have any questions or feedback about this process, feel free to post as a comment here.

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    \$\begingroup\$ This was the last check in on whether we want new moderators, and it seemed as though we resoundingly rejected the idea of replacing the lost moderators. I'm not saying we shouldn't elect new mods, but maybe a second interest check would've been a good idea before moving ahead with an election. \$\endgroup\$
    – caird coinheringaahin g Mod
    Commented Sep 7, 2020 at 19:43
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    \$\begingroup\$ Admittedly, checking in before scheduling the election would've been ideal. This year, however, has been particularly weird for everyone, and it proved a bit hard to coordinate with the one moderator on the site on how to proceed since then. That (the inability to coordinate and the fact that there's a single mod), in addition to the fact that the site currently has around 100 unhandled flags, and the rollout plan for the new mod agreement just all coalesced now, though, and made this election something we can't postpone any more. \$\endgroup\$
    – JNat StaffMod
    Commented Sep 8, 2020 at 13:19
  • \$\begingroup\$ @JNat The screen shots on the page you linked to look very dated. Are you sure the text still reflects reality on SE as of 2020? \$\endgroup\$
    – Adám
    Commented Sep 8, 2020 at 14:41
  • \$\begingroup\$ What screenshots, @Adám? \$\endgroup\$
    – JNat StaffMod
    Commented Sep 8, 2020 at 14:49
  • \$\begingroup\$ @JNat Sorry, the link from here to here. \$\endgroup\$
    – Adám
    Commented Sep 8, 2020 at 15:51
  • \$\begingroup\$ Ah. The interface is indeed outdated as shown there, but the rest of the contents on the post should still be the currently upheld ones, yes, @Adám — does that answer your question? \$\endgroup\$
    – JNat StaffMod
    Commented Sep 8, 2020 at 16:16
  • \$\begingroup\$ @JNat It does. Thanks. \$\endgroup\$
    – Adám
    Commented Sep 8, 2020 at 16:30
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    \$\begingroup\$ @JNat Are there circumstances under which an election would not happen or not go through? I'm concerned that if no reasonable candidates decide to run, we'd still have to vote someone in. \$\endgroup\$
    – xnor
    Commented Sep 9, 2020 at 0:07
  • \$\begingroup\$ Clearly troll-ish or joke candidates' nominations are usually withdrawn before we get to a voting stage, and if there are not enough candidates, the election doesn't go through. Other than that... the election will go through, @xnor. We don't have that many requirements for sites on the network to keep going, other than that there are users willing to step up to moderate the site and make sure it is free from spam, etc. — and, well, you can always nominate if you're worried the other candidates aren't what the site needs, right? :) \$\endgroup\$
    – JNat StaffMod
    Commented Sep 9, 2020 at 8:52

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Moderators must sign an agreement whose terms include:

i. I will abide by the current Code of Conduct (which is a part of this agreement), and enforce it to the best of my ability.
...
iv. I will abide by all other officially announced moderator and user policies made available to me.
v. I will accept additional guidance given by members of the Stack Exchange, Inc. Community Team and Senior Leadership Team, whether in response to questions, concerns or discussions regarding existing network-wide policies.

How would you respond if a policy or company directive (current or future) seems to conflict with your beliefs and ideals?

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Here is a set of general questions, gathered as very common questions asked every election. As mentioned in the instructions, the first two questions are guaranteed to show up in the Q&A, while the others are if there aren't enough questions (or, if you like one enough, you may split it off as a separate answer for review within the community's 8).

  • 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?
  • How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?
  • In your opinion, what do moderators do?
  • 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?
  • In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?
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A good deal of pending flags are on answers a few years old which have been flagged as invalid based on meta consensus on golf submissions, which sometimes postdates those answers. How would you handle these?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Maybe it's worth mentioning that the consensuses (generally) came after the invalid answers were posted? Especially for answers that became invalid through the new consensuses \$\endgroup\$
    – caird coinheringaahin g Mod
    Commented Sep 13, 2020 at 22:13
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A new user has put a brilliant solution to a challenge in the comments section of the question. Other users point this out in the comments, and even try to guide the user to posting an actual answer, but the user seems to have disappeared. Flags start coming in that the comment should be converted to an answer. What do you do?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ When I was a new user, I was forced to put my answers in the answers rather than the comments... \$\endgroup\$
    – the default.
    Commented Sep 11, 2020 at 18:29
  • \$\begingroup\$ @thedefault, After you disappeared from a site, possibly never to return? \$\endgroup\$
    – ouflak
    Commented Sep 12, 2020 at 7:09

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