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2019 Moderator Election

On Stack Exchange, we believe the core moderators should come from the community, and be elected by the community itself through popular vote. We hold regular elections to determine who these community moderators will be.

Community moderators are accorded the highest level of privilege on our community, and should themselves be exemplars of positive behavior and leaders within the community.

Our general criteria for moderators is as follows:

  • 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 (hopefully) uncommon disputes and exceptions

Every election has three phases:

  1. Nomination
  2. Primary
  3. Election

Please participate in the moderator elections by voting, and perhaps even by nominating yourself to be a community moderator!

This election ended Mar 12 at 20:00.

The results of this election can be viewed online via OpaVote. Anyone may download the election data. Voters have access to pre-built OpenSTV software to audit the results; all others may use this source distribution


15,257 voters were eligible, 3,607 visited the site during the election, 1,995 visited the election page, and 933 voted

4 Candidates

Hi, I'd like to serve as a janitor/moderator for Software Engineering!

I've been a very active user for a long time, most of that as a 20k user. As such, I already have access to a lot of community moderation tools and have a good understanding of the site's mechanisms. So far, my favourite “review queue” is the new questions page.

I just want this site to have a steady stream of wonderful questions for people to answer :)
By helping with a bit more active moderation, I hope this will free community moderation capacity to engage with questions more constructively, and that we can give more space to the many great questions we receive as well.

I previously engaged in community building efforts such as running the 2017 Question of the Week experiment.

→ my moderator questionnaire

link | history
reviews | meta posts
  • Can you give us a rough idea of what hours of the day you are active on the site? Round the clock coverage of the site is important, and I suspect your timezone gives you an advantage over the other candidates. Might seem like a detail, but since all four of you are great candidates it might matter in the end. – yannis Mar 4 at 9:38
  • @yannis I live in Germany but am a late riser, which still means I start my day a couple of hours before US based mods like Thomas Owens. My active hours (all times in UTC) are roughly 08:00–23:00 when I work from home, or 13:00–23:00 when I'm at the uni. During these times I can take simple actions immediately, but typically bookmark more complex posts for my evening. In practice this means there's like a 50% chance I would be able handle issues during some hours while no other mod (you excluded) would be available. – amon Mar 4 at 10:18

I've known both GlenH and Robert for a long time, both have a great deal invested in Software Engineering and should serve us well.

To fill out a third choice, (as no-one else has stepped forward at this time) I offer myself as moderator.

I am a

  • professor, teaching at universities in NYC.
  • core software engineer/architect/code reviewer and conduct training for thousands of developers.
  • co-organizer of the NYC Python and Learn Python NYC meetups and local tech conferences.
  • moderator on Stack Overflow.

I have signed on board 100% with the philosophy of building a library of quality Q&A. I want to give back to the community that helped me so much.

I believe we can raise the bar with reviews.

I am up on community management (see my profile).

I expect my actions to stand to scrutiny and treat all stakeholders fairly.

Availability

  • I'm constantly logged in and active most hours from 7 AM to 11 PM EST.
  • I'm circumspect, preferring to allow the systems to work.
  • I will work moderator queues as necessary.
link | history
reviews | meta posts
  • @1201ProgramAlarm I have responded. – Aaron Hall Mar 3 at 2:30
  • You will find that there's a significant difference in pace from moderating Stack Overflow to moderating Software Engineering. Right now, for example, there are 8 pending flags, none of them particularly urgent. This allows for a moderation style that is much more focused on Meta and on community building. Do you feel you are prepared for that? – yannis Mar 4 at 9:44
  • If elected, I'll be thoughtful, and try to provide continuity in strategy. – Aaron Hall Mar 4 at 12:06

I believe that I have a good set of qualifications to be a moderator on Software Engineering.

  • I am a moderator pro-tem on Engineering, so I am familiar with the tools and routine involved with successful moderating.
  • I have invested a significant amount of time in this site, and I want to see it continue to excel.
  • Currently, I have the most amount of close vote reviews and the second most reviews for the reopen, low quality post, and suggested edits queues.
  • My reputation puts me in the top 36 of all time users (aka. the front page).

While I had been more active in the past with posting Q&A, my circumstances changed and led to lower levels of participation. Part of that was due to taking time to help the Engineering Beta site find its way. This election presents an opportunity for me to come back to a site that I care about, and help maintain the site's high quality standards. I have invested my time here and I want to return to help.

My theory of moderation is to be fairly moderate. The community drives the decisions, and the moderators are there to help with clean-up. I have learned the power of the binding vote, and I use it judiciously.

link | history
reviews | meta posts

I would like to be a moderator on Software Engineering.

Qualifications:

  1. I have several years experience in the crucible of moderation, Stack Overflow.
  2. I am the top user by reputation on Software Engineering.
  3. I've cast 2,583 helpful moderator flags on Software Engineering. Of those, 1780 were on posts, and 1709 of those were marked Helpful, a ratio of 96%.
  4. I've been very active on meta, and was a key player during Software Engineering's scope change from the Not Programming Related days.

I have a selfish interest in moderating this site: I want a binding vote. I see too many poor questions languish on the front page of this site for hours because there aren't enough close voters to dispatch them quickly. If elected, I'll use my golden hammer judiciously, but firmly, to pull those weeds, while leaving the borderline questions for the community to decide.

link | history
reviews | meta posts
  • Robert has been around the SE network for so long he is virtually part of the furniture. Normally I would cringe if a mod candidate openly stated they wanted a binding vote, but in this case I would trust Robert's judiciousness completely - he's an excellent candidate and he understands the complexities of the role. – slugster Feb 25 at 22:17
  • I'm pleased to see this nomination. – StuperUser Feb 25 at 23:34
  • Good to see @RobertHarvey nominated! – Onorio Catenacci Feb 26 at 0:25
  • RH, any thoughts on curation? – radarbob Feb 26 at 2:26
  • @radarbob: Can you be more specific? – Robert Harvey♦ Feb 26 at 3:24
  • Poor question may be just the result of not that good mastery of English. Second, I think downvoting or voting for close without the need to leave a comment is a terrible feature of SO. – Pavel Voronin Feb 26 at 6:17
  • Wanting a binding vote is normally not the reason one should aim for being a mod, but robert in particular I'd completly trust exercising that authority with the due care and judiciousness. – Magisch Feb 26 at 7:57
  • Definitely this one. Robert knows the ins and outs of the site and has been a long time contributor. I'm sure he'll stick around and do a great job - he obviously has demonstrated he cares a lot about the site and network and has shown competence in cleaning up. – Benjamin Gruenbaum Feb 26 at 8:57
  • @PavelVoronin Poor mastery of the English language is not a reason to downvote or close-vote. It is a reason to edit. A poor question is one that doesn't show prior research. – S.L. Barth Feb 26 at 9:12
  • Whenever I see this Chinese character in a discussion/answer post I know it's a worthwhile read. Courteous and relevant, I've learn to trust the brand :-). You sir Harvey have my vote ! – Newtopian Feb 26 at 14:40
  • Is wanting a binding vote compatible with the code of conduct? After all what experienced developers see as pure garbage (questions that are literal homework assignments, or something that should've gone to the google search box) does mean ad views, and sometimes it seems SO has trouble deciding whether they want quality or income. – Kayaman Feb 26 at 19:52
  • @Kayaman: SE's position has always been steadfast: quality control and niceness are not incompatible. We don't sacrifice quality on the altar of niceness. They can take that position because you can close someone's question and still be nice about it. That some new users take that as an insult isn't really our problem. – Robert Harvey♦ Feb 26 at 20:20
  • Can't think of a better person, thank you @RobertHarvey! You have my vote. – Otávio Décio Feb 26 at 20:49
  • Wait what I thought you were already a mod – The Guy with The Hat Feb 27 at 0:22
  • +1 for the old-timers! – mlvljr Feb 27 at 12:13

This election is complete.