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Cryptography is scheduled for an election next week, January 29th. In connection with that, we will be holding a Q&A with the candidates, as we did last election. 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.

Unlike last time, we're hosting the question collection a week in advance, so that not only can folks start prepping questions in advance, but also potential candidates can think about nominating themselves and seeing the questions they'll have an opening to answer.

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

Here's how it'll work:

  • Until the nomination phase, (so, until Monday, January 29th at 20:00:00Z UTC, or 3:00 pm EST 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.

  • Feel free to take questions from last time's if you believe it will be useful to ask again.

  • 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 at 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.

  • 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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    $\begingroup$ Will we be getting a fourth mod or is one of our current ones stepping down and we're voting for a replacement and if so, who? (I ask this because different questions need to be asked depending on the scenario) $\endgroup$
    – SEJPM
    Commented Jan 22, 2018 at 21:12
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    $\begingroup$ @sejpm As far as I know, only one. I decided to take the fat pension they were offering and retire to Aruba. There I will mine monero and zcash and live the rest of my life out on the beach. $\endgroup$
    – mikeazo Mod
    Commented Jan 23, 2018 at 0:52

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What do you think Crypto.SE's biggest challenge is? (E.g. question/answer quality/quantity, too many/few closures, too many/few questions of a certain type, bad tools/guidance, …) What do you think should be done about this (not necessarily as a moderator, it's ok if this requires the whole community or Stack Exchange staff)?

(shamelessly stolen from Gilles from the last election)

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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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Votes of moderators are definitive. If a moderators votes to close a question he doesn't need to ask anyone and none has to agree before the question is closed.

With this in mind, will you change your voting activity (= vote more / less / equally often) if you'd be elected?

(shamelessly stolen from myself from the last election)

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As a mod, you will have to sometimes shield the community from so-called "toxic" behaviour. For example you may have to deal with users who are desperately in need of an answer to a heavily off-topic question, or you need to deal with a user who got very upset and resorts to inappropriate language. This can psychologically and emotionally be very exhausting and tends to require a lot of patience while kindly trying to put such users on the right track.

Are you aware of this and do feel ready to serve the community as a mod nevertheless?

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Do you think you have any negative relationships / had any negative evenets with the existing mod team that may negatively impact future cooperation?

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Why does the porridge bird lay his egg in the air?

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    $\begingroup$ I'm not sure this type of question is relevant to an individual's capability as a mod. Can you explain it further? $\endgroup$
    – Rory Alsop
    Commented Jan 23, 2018 at 8:55
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    $\begingroup$ @RoryAlsop Uh, Clem $\endgroup$
    – e-sushi Mod
    Commented Jan 25, 2018 at 6:33
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    $\begingroup$ are you looking for a crypto mod or a cryptic mod? $\endgroup$
    – Journeyman Geek
    Commented Jan 25, 2018 at 10:08
  • $\begingroup$ @JourneymanGeek That's actually a good question: "will you be a crypto mod or a cryptic mod" :P $\endgroup$
    – Maarten Bodewes Mod
    Commented Jan 27, 2018 at 1:56
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    $\begingroup$ +1, This Question will show how candidates deal with seemingly nonsensical questions which they will encounter a lot when they are actually a mod. $\endgroup$
    – SEJPM
    Commented Jan 29, 2018 at 7:55
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What time zone do you live in?

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  • $\begingroup$ Doesn't matter if we have mods that never sleep. $\endgroup$
    – Maarten Bodewes Mod
    Commented Jan 27, 2018 at 1:57
  • $\begingroup$ @MaartenBodewes Ya I'm not sure e-sushi sleeps, or there are multiple people operating their account $\endgroup$
    – Q-Club
    Commented Jan 27, 2018 at 8:29
  • $\begingroup$ 2:21.41 PST is @e-sushi awake? $\endgroup$
    – Q-Club
    Commented Jan 27, 2018 at 10:23
  • $\begingroup$ @Q-Club You been thinking about me? ;) $\endgroup$
    – e-sushi Mod
    Commented Jan 27, 2018 at 13:12
  • $\begingroup$ @e-sushi All day every day! $\endgroup$
    – Q-Club
    Commented Jan 27, 2018 at 21:45
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    $\begingroup$ A bit late now, but I think a better question would be "At which (UTC) time are you usually online (and can moderate)?", which can strongly differ for users inside of the same time zone. $\endgroup$
    – Paŭlo Ebermann
    Commented Feb 3, 2018 at 22:48

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