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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.

Stack Overflow is scheduled for an election next week, 2025-05-27. 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 2025-05-27 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.

  • 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.

  • We, the Community Team, will be providing a small selection of generic questions. The following two questions are guaranteed to be included:

    • 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?

  • The community team may also include the following three questions if the community doesn’t supply enough questions.

    • 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 enough reputation to access moderator tools or become a trusted user?

  • 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. We exclude any suggested questions that are negatively scored.

    • We will post the final questionnaire on the Election page. Candidates will have the option to fill out the questionnaire, and their answers will appear beneath their intro statements.
    • 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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50
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Given many moderators and curators left the site in recent times because they disagree with the direction things are going on the site/network, why do you want to be a moderator? What motivates you to keep cleaning up garbage, when many previous "janitors" felt it's not worth it anymore?

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    Just to play a bit of devil's advocate, the strikes and outrages definitely took their toll, and a few mods have quit because of them. I would say more departures of late have been more in the "I no longer have time" category. SE actions might play an underlying role there, but I think they just made some folks realize they just can't invest time anymore. Commented May 22, 2025 at 12:30
  • @cottontail It was noted by starball in the comments that my answer is similar to yours. starball suggested to merge the two answers. What are your thoughts? If you agree, would you be interested in merging my answer into yours? Then perhaps if you could ping me, I will delete my answer, and we will keep your (merged) answer? Thank you! Commented May 23, 2025 at 18:11
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    @TimurShtatland even though both questions are asking the same thing, they are framed in different context which make them different imo. If we merge them, the new question would be entirely different from mine and yours. Commented May 26, 2025 at 18:46
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Community moderators operate under shared principles; however, they are ultimately individual participants.

A consensus may form within the team about how to handle discretionary matters not covered by established policies—for example, how to handle a specific kind of flag, or how long of a suspension to issue for some kind of inappropriate behavior.

Would you consider this consensus to be binding and, in case you weren’t already doing things that way, adjust accordingly?

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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?

(Copied from this post by Ryan M, originally from 2022 suggested moderator questions.)

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    this is similar in a lot of ways to 433927. just a different angle I guess? (I do like this angle). anyone in favour of somehow merging them? I feel like it would be a bit wasteful to ask both and use two slots. Commented May 23, 2025 at 2:59
  • @starball Thank you! I agree. Could you please merge my answer into yours? Then please ping me, and I will delete my answer. Will this work? Commented May 23, 2025 at 17:27
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    433927 isn't mine. I'm interested in a merge somehow, but I also think merging could be touchy. a lot of people have voted on that one and I don't know how they'd feel about such a merge. you could comment on it and ask cottontail what they think though. Commented May 23, 2025 at 17:46
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Stack Overflow sometimes asks moderators to offer feedback on things that they are planning (features, network software changes, etc). This feedback can sometimes alter what Staff does. What do you think about moderators being the "bleeding edge" of feedback, and are you willing to participate?

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The mod team is completely split over a controversial issue. They are cordial with each other, but they disagree over what they should do, and it looks like they'll have to agree to disagree (which wouldn't work out great).

How do you handle this?

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    The candidate who answers this with, "I'd code up a script that monitors for any actions taken by any other moderators of the type that I fundamentally disagree with, watch the log, and periodically go review to see what needs to be reverted" would probably have my vote. Although they may also be the most dangerous candidate. :-D Commented May 21, 2025 at 23:52
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Do you have any particular philosophies on moderation or curation that might set you apart from other candidates?

(Copied from this post by D.W., originally from 2024 suggested moderator questions.)

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As an elected moderator, you can have an outsized impact on the community as a thought leader aside from the typical clean-up/moderation tasks. A diamond next to your name can lend weight or a sense of validity to your ideas, stances, and reactions. Do you plan to be a thought leader? If so, how would you seek to use your influence?

Additional Context:
Being a moderator means more than just getting expanded powers to do things like cast binding votes, delete comments, and issue suspensions. It also means that people tend to look to you as a thought leader. People may vote for you based on what they already know about how and what you think (and I suppose asking this question just reinforces that), but you'll also gain leverage with a diamond—like being a weak magnet, subtly aligning iron filings around you. Is there anything in particular you'd want to do with that expanded influence?

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  • I've been mulling why I don't like the term "thought leader". I think it kinda misses something important. You have opinions, and so do I. The largest difference in being a mod is you can go places where that opinion is heard more readily by Staff. If I were to refine your question, I would ask this more in terms of the willingness to engage with Staff to express and/or amplify ideas (either your own or those of the community). Commented May 22, 2025 at 12:23
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    @Machavity I think your question is good for that- bringing concerns to staff. versus this question which is about influence on community. Commented May 22, 2025 at 16:11
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    As someone who has been bringing concerns to staff internally for many years, as well as being a "thought leader" for the broader community (contra Machavity, I really like the term "thought leader"—it sounds a lot better than "loudmouth on Meta"), I can say definitively that the latter has a much wider and more durable impact. While both are important for moderators to do, starball's proposed question is excellent, and I think it really deserves to be asked of prospective candidates. Commented May 23, 2025 at 0:26
  • @CodyGray I'm pretty sure I stole the term from Catija, though I don't think I'm using it in same way she was. Commented May 23, 2025 at 4:42
  • @CodyGray I needed to read your comment to really understand this question. It now makes total sense. Perhaps consider editing your comment into the question body to clarify the question for readers like me. It's an excellent question! Commented May 23, 2025 at 17:43
  • Well, @Timur, I already rewrote starball's proposed question pretty extensively, so if it's not clear what is being asked, that's probably my fault, rather than starball's. I don't know what part of my comment was illuminating for you. It doesn't seem like it belongs in the question itself. Are you thinking of drawing a distinction between public actions vs. those behind closed doors when talking to staff? Or was it just the "loudmouth on Meta" phrase that resonated with you? Commented May 24, 2025 at 8:32
  • @CodyGray I suggest to keep the actual question brief, as it is now. But add to the "Additional context" section something like this: 'As someone who has been bringing concerns to staff internally for many years, as well as being a "thought leader" for the broader community (contra Machavity, I really like the term "thought leader"—it sounds a lot better than "loudmouth on Meta"), I can say definitively that the latter has a much wider and more durable impact.' This part resonated the most with me. It is too important to be hidden in the comments, IMO. Thank you! Commented May 24, 2025 at 15:58
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    Like Timur, I also needed the whole Comments exchange and especially Cody's first Comment to (hopefully) understand the question and what was meant with "thought leader" in this Answer (Rev_3). Commented May 24, 2025 at 21:28
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While moderators no longer have a huge backlog of flags related to AI generated posts, plenty of AI generated content is still being posted and flagged on daily basis.

What is your stance on AI generated and assisted content and are you willing to handle such flags?

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Suppose the company tells moderators to handle certain flags/problems in a way you don't agree with. What do you do in that case? Will you simply follow the new guidelines that you don't agree with, ignore the new guidelines, reach out to "higher-ups" to convince them to change their policy, strike, quit or something else?

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The raison d'etre of Stack Overflow is being shaped, less by social trends, and more by rapid technological evolution.

Human/Traditional engagement has dropped, but that can be seen as a potential opportunity.

While opinions may vary, it's plausible to imagine a future where humanity either moves away from organically generated knowledge, or conversely, returns to valuing it as the preferred source of truth.

In the face of this uncertainty, how will you direct your efforts to best support this community and uphold the ideal of freely accessible knowledge?

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    I personally find it difficult to follow the train of thought in this question. I feel like there's a lot of ideas, logic, and assumptions between the lines that aren't being spelled out. Commented May 26, 2025 at 23:50
  • Stack Overflow is not the same beast from just 3 years ago. How does its uncertain future affect the way that you intend to moderate? Commented May 27, 2025 at 3:48
  • what do you mean by "moderate"? do you just mean usage of mod tools? or do you mean more broadly speaking how one would use the position of being a moderator? also, if you're going to leave the question so open, I'd like to see some prompting for what the candidate thinks the community/site needs. Commented May 27, 2025 at 4:16
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    Why so many words just to ask the candidate about their position on AI? Commented May 27, 2025 at 8:56

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