I apologise in advance for such a long read, I wrote this in word and then imported it and noticed just how much I wrote. Thanks.
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?
It would vary depending on the nature of the comments that the individual was leaving on the site but for a typical example of a user just engaging into unnecessary arguments then I would contact them using the private message system which I believe moderators have access to, I would ask the user to stop using the comment system in such a way.
If I believed the user was being engaging in anti-social behavior such as being abusive to other members then I would first issue a warning after I had deleted the comment, If problems would still arise after issuing a warning then I would proceed to temporary suspending the account.. Which I believe is used for severe cases and at last resort. With this said I would hope there is some guidelines for such issues for moderators to follow.
How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc
a question that you feel shouldn't have been?
It would depend on the nature that the question was closed, If I believed the question was not duplicate then I would edit the question and make it clearer what the person is asking so it’s more obvious that the question is not duplicate, if another moderator thought the question was off topic but I believed it was on topic then I would want to speak to the other moderator so I could establish if we stopped allowing this topic or if it was a mistake by the moderator to close/delete.
In your opinion, what do moderators do?
I believe the job of the moderators is to ensure that everyone players nice in the community to ensure that everyone’s experience is not dampened by anti-social behavior, furthermore I believe that the moderator is the sites last line of defense against spam, and questions/answers that are not fitting per the FAQ requirements – Should users with high enough rep are not around then the moderators can take over this task without the requirement for votes. I also believe that the moderators are there for clarifying issues asked on the Meta to give users answers that questions are not fit on the main site, i.e. help on using the site and querying information provided by the FAQ.
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 believe that moderators represent the site, in this case Pro Webmasters. I feel that the comments, questions and answers that I make will always represent Pro Webmasters in a professional manner and this will come naturally for me as I have been doing already. I do however believe I will be more self-aware of my actions.
In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more
effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?
I believe that our site lacks members in the 10k and 20K reputation so I believe there is a greater need for moderators on Pro Webmasters but to answer this question was asked I would perform tasks that the 10k, 20k mark would normally do but also do other jobs such as cleansing abusive comments, spam and just general tidy up on questions which are not being flagged by the community.
In the couple of years I (paulmorriss) have been active on this site
it seems to me we have a large number of questions, but no so many
answers or answerers. My question is - how would you make sure that
new and old questions get more and higher quality answers?
I often revisit unanswered questions on the site and try to answer them myself; I hate unanswered questions as I love things being kept tidy and neat, even in the virtual world. I believe that the site is currently running at about 6% that is unanswered which is a good figure but I would love to be able to motivate others to get this down to a mere 1%. Other than answering unanswered questions myself, if I didn’t know the answer to an unanswered then I would look why the question was unanswered, it could be a simple case that it’s not suitable for the site per FAQ, or the question is not very obvious then I would edit and bump it by doing so.
How can you ensure that you have enough time to dedicate to your
moderation duties?
I am lucky enough to work from home and time is not an issue, I experience lots of downtime during my working hours and if I don’t then there’s always the night, I enjoy Pro Webmasters therefor a lot of time goes into it, nothing will change regardless if I’m made a moderator or not.
What's your opinion on the where to draw the line between questions
that belong to this site and the others that are closely related -
serverfault.com, stackoverflow.com and wordpress.stackexchange.com?
I’d try and establish which I believed topic it was more heavily directed at but with this said it’s unlikely that a question would be fit for both serverfault and wordpress at the same time since the person posting is more than likely asking several questions at once so it could be unsuitable for both as it would not agree with their FAQ and rules so I would close the question as its unlikely to be accepted on either. If I thought it could be but unsure then I would talk to with the moderator team and learn from this situation.
If one of team members of Stack Exchange responsible for future
developments to SE sites was to approach you and pop the question:
"What would you change, or add to better the Stack Exchange Network?"
What would be your response?
1. Custom Field on Vote Closing
I would like closing questions with a custom field that allows you to enter the close reason, when final votes are in this message is displayed when the question is closed, this would give more indication to users why.
2. How to Get Question Reopened.
I would like to see a standard message displayed when questions are closed on unconstructive such as Please edit your question and address these issues, then submit a reopen request.
3. Klout
I would love Stack Exchange be integrated into the Klout engine, I see Stack more than just a Q&A site, I see stack as a Q&A social platform and believe it would be absolutely fantastic to be able to view and increase klouts scores based on Stack Usage.
4. Self-Answering Questions
I would love to see Self answering questions improved, I would think it would be a better direction to allow people to post guides in a blog system that allows upvoting based on the guide and those that are awesome get featured on the main site.
5. Chat
I'm sure this issue gets raised a lot in regardless of the chat engine, while I'm not a Facebook fan I do believe the chat system is more forthcoming. I'd love to see Stack introduce such a system that allows chat initializations to be easier.
6. Moderators Blog
I like the newsletter we receive but I'd love to get email that directs to a guide or blog post of some sort, maybe like a moderators monthly blog entry, something to read that is not found on the site as a Q&A. The news letters are great but as a heavy user its often posts you already seen.
7. Badges
The badges are a nice touch but I believe they could be further improved by Alerting users when they receive such a badge, after all they worked for it. Similar to online gaming games that reward achievements I would introduce a dialog box that popups. I know its only virtual incentives but many people get motivated by virtual reward schemes, maybe add some fun ones.
