1. 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?

If the comments are actually constructive and just not being received well, then I'd use my judgement. That could involve comment cleanup, temporarily locking comments, or closure, etc.

If the flags are warranted and they haven't already been warned, I'd give a warning, being clear and specific about what is and isn't okay (what behaviour should change), point to the Code of Conduct, and exemplify an appropriate comment. If later needed, I'd escalate action. I'd consult more experienced mods if concerned that I would be out of step.

For example: "It's fine to be frustrated and to express frustration, but calling someone stupid or an idiot on this platform is not okay (read the code of conduct). There are also kinder and more constructive ways to give feedback. You could instead say "That's a really bad idea. {reason(s)}. You should read {educative resource}". Alternatively, you can disengage."

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc. a question that you feel shouldn’t have been?

If it seems like it was probably an unintentional mistake, I'd open a chatroom and ask them if it was intended or not.

Otherwise, I'd (probably) check mod-guidance texts to make sure I'm not missing something more obvious.

If that doesn't help (or if that mod likes teaching), I'd discuss it with them in a chat room. I'd presume that they have a good reason (and take it as a potential learning opportunity), but also explain my own reasoning. Ex. "I noticed that you {action}ed [this question]({link}). I'm confused because {reasons}. I think I would have done {action} instead. Could you help me understand why you did this?".

If I couldn't come to understand and support the action after that, I'd ask other mods for their thoughts, and submit to their consensus.

I'd potentially open discussion on meta if other mods agree that that would be useful.

3. [...] you will not be allowed to handle [most] pending AI flags by deleting the post, because the post doesn’t meet company-approved heuristics for deletion. [...] Why do you still want to become a moderator specifically under these conditions? How will you deal with the frustration [...]?

I'll continue to devote my energy to doing the R&D necessary to improve the pool of approved detection heuristics. I've been doing this in my spare time for over a year now. (I started even before the AI ban policy was put in place!)

I hope that by signing the mod agreement (esp. the privacy policy bits), the company can trust me with access to simple tools that would help me do that R&D much more efficiently. Frustratingly, I already have access to the info I need- just in an extremely difficult form to work with, and Slate said it would be difficult to give me a more workable form for legal/privacy reasons. I'm still discussing this with them).

Also- FYI- if you're concerned about me declining AIGC flags solely because they don't satisfy currently approved heuristics, you should know that over half of the 4,000 pending flags on AI-generated answer posts were raised by me- my flag reasons often referring to heuristics that are still pending approval. I.e. I dual-wield: I both flag AIGC using heuristics that I want to see approved, and contribute to the work that makes those flags processable by mods. Yes, I have the audacity to do that.

4. Given recent developments on the site [...] in the past year, [...] What motivates you to serve this community, when many users openly object to moderation and the company's decisions sometimes seem at odds with moderator and community consensus?

Stack Overflow's model, community, and content matter. I believe the same core reasons they've been valuable to the world since day one still hold and will continue to long-term. It is not a panacea, but it holds a very important place in the world. I'm part of it, and I want to develop and protect it.

Yes, many people find moderation unpalatable. But I hold an appreciation for the SO model (including voting, editing, duplicate-closure, etc.) as a pillar of SO's value. It took time, effort, and humility for that appreciation to develop in me. To all the folks who've given up on SO (many finding something more palatable in ChatGPT, which feeds on SO in its training data and web searches), I hope they can somehow come to a similar appreciation for SO. I hope that whenever the machine fails them, they consider coming here. And SO is made by people; I hope my story in finding a place here as a contributor can light some inspiration to another generation.

As for company woes, I'm also very frustrated with a lot of the decisions the company has made- those made before my arrival (essentially pre-2022), and those made while I've had front-row seats. But I'm not here because I love the company. I'm here because the model is here. The community is here. The content is here. Some community members have gone to greener pastures (everyone is entitled to their own decision-making of when/why to stay/leave, and I respect those who have left), but they also recognize that SO still (despite it all) holds the name recognition that makes many people come to it- recognition which many competing platforms don't have. The model, community, and content are movable and not wholly tied to the company. If a significant migration happens (probably very gradually), at some point, I will go with it. I am here to serve the knowledgebase and its community- not the company. Still, I hold vain hope for the company to try to have a better relationship with the community, and hold trust in Slate.

5. In what way [will] being a moderator make you more effective than what you could do with the access moderator tools, trusted user, and other privileges?

Note: I've already earned all those privileges (and a dup-hammer in my main tag) and have been trying to make good use of them for some time now.

Diamond-mod tools would let me more swiftly handle the bulk of what I'm already handling, which is in large part non-answers and comments that are no-longer needed, and would also let me help out with the mod flag queue.

I'm interested in the ability to search deleted posts, which would help in gathering accurate statistics for heuristics development (in detecting AI-generated content, to enforce the AI-ban policy), which I do in my spare time. Frustratingly, I know that even mod tools are (currently) insufficient for efficient AI-detection heuristic R&D (see Q#3).

6. This question was posed by me before Q#4 was suggested. I've answered this in Q#4.

7. Do you have any particular philosophies on moderation or curation that might set you apart from other candidates?

I have complaints :P

Mods have a lot on their plate that I think can and should be delegated to privileged community members. Ex. Comment mods is a good idea. I've also mulled on ways to share investigation load about AIGC flags to trusted community members, but nothing has crystalized yet.

Moderation should come to need to happen much less, because there's so much room for site onboarding and JIT guidance to be improved. For example, it's absolutely ridiculous the number of questions I see posted using answer posts every day. It's very costly: For non-mods to handle a single one, at least three people need to action it, and those people are statistically very rare (who have the review/del-vote privilege, and want to spend their time being an unpaid internet janitor). The community has already developed a set of pattern-matching rules to detect when an answer post is likely not actually an answer (Natty, Dharman's bot, and more). The company should implement a feature for the answer box to pop up a hint like "note that answer posts are for answering the question" when someone is drafting an answer post that matches one of those patterns.

I have more to say, but character limits are a thing.

Do these takes/ideas set me apart from other candidates? I have no idea. I'm sure they aren't new. But all of them require the company to actually care, and do something about it (sigh).

8. [...] Do you seek alignment in moderation with other moderators? If so, what will you propose to achieve alignment in moderation with other moderators?

Yes. I'll be joining a team and I'll try to hold myself to be a good team member. That includes seeking alignment and submitting to consensus.

I'm not afraid to ask for guidance when I unsure of what to do, and when someone informs me that something I'm doing is not appropriate, I seek to learn why and change course to a better way.

As for systematizing alignment, I don't have any proposals right now. As a non-mod, I don't have a good understanding of how the problem looks on their side of things. Trying to solve a problem one doesn't understand well is a recipe for a poor solution, and I don't want to enter a team as a new member and start telling people how to solve a problem that I have no experience with.

9. A frequent answerer flags for moderator attention because a curating user persistently closes questions (rightfully as duplicate/off-topic) then posts comments under the answerer's posts to remind them to close close-able questions instead of posting an answer. [...] How will you handle such a situation to best serve the platform and its users?

If these are single-vote ("hammered") dup-closures and I don't have subject-matter expertise in the topic, I'd first want to make sure these are really duplicates by consulting with the community / the subject-matter experts in that topic (likely via meta+chat). I'd want at least two people with subject-matter expertise to weigh in.

If there's community/expert-agreement that these are really duplicates, then I'd communicate to the unhappy duplicate-answer poster that answering duplicates is discouraged by official guidance and frowned upon by the community, and that unless they can give a good explanation as to why the questions are not duplicates, instead of answering them, they should be closing them, and seeking to improve the canonical Q&A post(s) (perhaps by writing an answer post there instead, and/or editing to improve the Q&A's searchability).

10. What personality traits and/or technical skills do you have that you think will be useful in your modship? How did you come to acquire them (if relevant)?

I have a high tolerance for mundane, rote work, and I'm able to find enjoyment and satisfaction in it. It's probably part nature (some brain wiring for particular intense interests), and part nurture (from a young age, I've been doing a lot of weekly venue setup and teardown at my church). You can probably expect me to help out especially with the more "boring" mod tasks things like comment flags.

I also really like patterns and looking for patterns (again, probably brain wiring). I enjoy querying SEDE and doing AI-detection heuristics R&D. As a programmer, I'm also comfortable writing tools to help me perform repetitive tasks. These have enabled and driven me to do R&D work for detecting AI-generated content on SO. Where relevant, you can expect me to try to weigh in in discussions in mod spaces (including discussions with the company) in a data-informed way.

1. 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?

This depends on the severity of the comments. If they are downright abusive, I would delete the comments temporarily suspend them and explain that their comments have crossed a line and need to stop. If they were overly argumentative but were not rude/condescending and did not consist of insults towards others, I would message them (private warning without a suspension) suggesting that they tone it down a little.

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc. a question that you feel shouldn’t have been?

I would reach out to the moderator who closed/deleted it and ask why. If they had a good reason that did not occur to me at the time I would either leave it or salvage it (edit to address the issues and undelete), otherwise I would discuss with other moderators before I unilaterally reverse their action.

3. At the time of writing this post, the flag queue consists of ~7000 “In need of moderator intervention flags”, the vast majority of which are about suspected AI-generated content. If you get elected, you will have to sign the Moderator Agreement, which includes the provisions resulting from the June 2023 strike. Per the Agreement, you will not be allowed to handle many, if not most, of those pending AI flags by deleting the post, because the post doesn’t meet company-approved heuristics for deletion. Even though progress has been made on this front, such artificial constraints on flag handling have caused previously active moderators to go on permanent strike and are an ongoing source of frustration for everyone involved. Why do you still want to become a moderator specifically under these conditions? How will you deal with the frustration — if any — of not being able to expediently deal with issues that the community cares about?

Because there is more to the mod flag queue than AI-related flags, that unfortunately seems to be drowned out by the high volume of AI-related flags. I would participate in solving the current problem of long response times to non-AI-related flags by focusing on those instead of the large volume of mostly non-actionable AI-flags.

4. Given recent developments on the site (and the network), especially in the past year, why do you want to run for moderator? What motivates you to serve this community, when many users openly object to moderation and the company's decisions sometimes seem at odds with moderator and community consensus?

By becoming a moderator, I am ultimately serving the community just as much as the company. The company makes money, but programmers get questions and answers. Moderators have the job of keeping the community safe and on-topic, which benefits the readers just as much as the company itself.

5. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective than what you could do with the access to moderator tools, trusted user, and other privileges?

Simply put, if I see spam, out it goes. Sometimes there are few active users on Charcoal, and at least on some sites it took up to an hour to finally get deleted. Additionally, there are a large volume of close flags/votes that age away, and downright off-topic questions that do not end up getting closed. Those reasons are discouraging when reviewing Triage or Close Votes, knowing that a large fraction of my reviews will not amount to anything. (less so for Low Quality Answers because those are 'powered' by VLQ/NAA flags that never age away) As a moderator, I could, of course, close the off-topic questions instantly, so I will be even more motivated to participate in curation knowing that all my actions count.

6. Modship has lost (more) charm recently: Users' perception of SO and site traffic continue to decline (in favour of ChatGPT); you have 4k+ AI-Generated Content (AIGC) flags waiting for you, for which the actioning rules are complicated and under slow development; many think mods are power-hungry elitists, now add "tech-luddite", and "SO should just embrace AIGC" to that; some SO/SE members are fed up with SO Inc. To some, you are an egotistical company lapdog. Despite the pain, perceptions, and work ahead of you, why do you think this place is still worth it? How does your perspective differ from the perspectives of all those people?

By becoming a moderator, if I do a good job I can show people that mods are in fact not necessarily 'power hungry elitists.' I find Stack Overflow worthwhile over ChatGPT because while ChatGPT can write simple programs or solve simple-to-intermediate level problems, many of the deeper technical challenges and niche questions still need real human expertise to get an adequate answer. If anything, ChatGPT might help keep many common beginner questions off the site by already having them answered, increasing the volume of the rarer, advanced questions, but that is just speculation. As such, the more help the site gets, the more it can compete with AI.

7. Do you have any particular philosophies on moderation or curation that might set you apart from other candidates?

I have a philosophy of 'How will doing X improve the site or the experience of the community?' The Theory of Moderation states that moderators should do as little as possible and not intervene unless warranted. This philosophy will filter out unwarranted actions that would result in unnecessary disputes.

8. With the increasing number of moderators, it is expected to introduce more discrepancies in moderation. For example, a helpful flag may be marked as declined/disputed by another moderator with a different point of view. Do you seek alignment in moderation with other moderators? If so, what will you propose to achieve alignment in moderation with other moderators?

If I find my actions do not align with the majority of the other moderators, I would try to open a discussion on how to handle that particular action. If the discussion boils down to 'I'm wrong,' I will make an effort to change my ways, but if it is a matter of style or opinion, I would do my way, but if I mark helpful a flag that another moderator might decline, I might notify the user via the helpful flag comment that although there flag was warranted, there might be an even better course of action to take instead.

9. A frequent answerer flags for moderator attention because a curating user persistently closes questions (rightfully as duplicate/off-topic) then posts comments under the answerer's posts to remind them to close close-able questions instead of posting an answer. You investigate and find: 1. The answerer (who has the privilege to flag/vote to close) has a history of frequently answering duplicate and off-topic questions which are later closed; 2. The curator has a history of frequently posting reminding comments under the answerer's posts; 3. There is definitive evidence that both parties are frustrated. How will you handle such a situation to best serve the platform and its users?

I would remind the closer that sometimes answers to duplicates have something new to add and it is not the end of the world if one is posted. I would also kindly remind the answer to search for duplicates before answering, and that very off-topic questions might be deleted so their effort answering them is wasted. All this does would be suggesting improvements to both parties' behaviors, as no 'hard' moderation such as deletion would be would be warranted.

10. What personality traits and/or technical skills do you have that you think will be useful in your modship? How did you come to acquire them (if relevant)?

A moderator needs to be able to take a logical an objective view to problems and not make impulsive decisions. Every action should have a purpose, and every action should be preceded by 'Will this really improve the quality of the site?' One needs a rational and frame of mind and an attention to detail to pick up the nuances of a circumstance. As programmers, we are already used to thinking logically with incredible attention to detail, (one tiny change can make major impacts on the behavior or your program). Additionally, we need to keep our cool (i.e., we need to be extra careful not to make impulsive actions especially irreversible ones such as destroying an account even if they did something that personally upset us) and use critical thinking (i.e., would closing and deleting a very popular yet technically off-topic question really improve the site?). I've been on the internet for a long time, and I have learned to not let hostile comments get to me.

1. 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?

That will depend quite a bit based on what exactly in the user's comments is triggering those arguments/flags. If the user is frequently argumentative or confrontational, I'd remind them that the Code of Conduct requires us to treat each other with kindness and respect.

I would also remind the user that if they believe there's a problem, it's more productive to hand it off to a Mod through a custom-Flag than to continue to escalate an argument. I might also provide some suggestions on how they could improve the wording of their comments.

If the language used or arguments are too severe, and the user can't improve their behavior after discussions/warnings, then I may have no choice to suspend, even if the user is a frequent, even quality, poster. It's more important to keep the site from becoming toxic.

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc. a question that you feel shouldn’t have been?

In my past, "userland" experience when this has happened, there have been a few different reasons. Sometimes I've seen a Mod close a question as "Unclear" when they didn't understand it because of a lack of subject-matter expertise. To someone familiar with the topic/tag, it was actually clear and answerable.

On the other hand, I've seen questions closed where I disagreed with the reason, only to find (after discussion) that I was missing some nuance of the Mod's reasoning, and I fully agreed when it was explained in more detail.

In both cases, communication has been the key to resolving this.

I may be a bit outside the box here, but one thing I might do differently from other Mods (if they are okay with it) is to leave a quick comment to the user letting them know we're reviewing their post and to check back later. I don't like situations where a user leaves the site upset about a closure that might get reversed. I've unfortunately seen it happen.

As a side-note here, for deleted posts, I'd also like to have a stock comment that reminds the user to Flag their post after editing to have it considered for undeletion. In my investigations with some Ask Ubuntu Mods, it seems that the process for undeletion might not be clear for new users, since they can't comment/reply once the post is deleted. I believe one of the AU mods may have started commenting like this in some cases.

3. At the time of writing this post, the flag queue consists of ~7000 “In need of moderator intervention flags”, the vast majority of which are about suspected AI-generated content. If you get elected, you will have to sign the Moderator Agreement, which includes the provisions resulting from the June 2023 strike. Per the Agreement, you will not be allowed to handle many, if not most, of those pending AI flags by deleting the post, because the post doesn’t meet company-approved heuristics for deletion. Even though progress has been made on this front, such artificial constraints on flag handling have caused previously active moderators to go on permanent strike and are an ongoing source of frustration for everyone involved. Why do you still want to become a moderator specifically under these conditions? How will you deal with the frustration — if any — of not being able to expediently deal with issues that the community cares about?

It can be frustrating, absolutely. My main avenue for dealing with it will be the same as it has been for a while — Continue to attempt to develop new heuristics and processes which will allow us to delete more AI content, more rapidly.

And when I need a breather, I've been told it can be therapeutic to be able to go handle a few "easy" NAA flags ;-)

4. Given recent developments on the site (and the network), especially in the past year, why do you want to run for moderator? What motivates you to serve this community, when many users openly object to moderation and the company's decisions sometimes seem at odds with moderator and community consensus?

I'm a strong believer in the value of the "Q&A" format of SO/SE — Good, firm moderation/curation is simply a requirement in order for this format to be maintained and useful. While I hope and want to welcome all users, we need to do so while simultaneously encouraging these users to work within the rules and format of the site.

5. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective than what you could do with the access to moderator tools, trusted user, and other privileges?

There was a recent time when I appreciated the ability to flag an answer as a user and still rely on a Moderator to validate the flag. However, I'm now confident enough in my ability to handle, at least, AI content that I believe that "double-validation" is slowing things down, simply based on the volume. For a while now, I've actually gated my new flags to keep around 300-350 pending. At this point I'm willing to step up and take action, when appropriate, on content without relying on additional validation. That said, I do expect to be asking the existing, experienced Mods for a lot of initial guidance. I'm certainly not so vain to think I have all the answers. This will be a learning experience, to be sure.

6. Modship has lost (more) charm recently: Users' perception of SO and site traffic continue to decline (in favour of ChatGPT); you have 4k+ AI-Generated Content (AIGC) flags waiting for you, for which the actioning rules are complicated and under slow development; many think mods are power-hungry elitists, now add "tech-luddite", and "SO should just embrace AIGC" to that; some SO/SE members are fed up with SO Inc. To some, you are an egotistical company lapdog. Despite the pain, perceptions, and work ahead of you, why do you think this place is still worth it? How does your perspective differ from the perspectives of all those people?

I'm reading (and answering) that mainly as, "Why do I think this place is still worth it when some believe that AI is better?"

Stack Overflow has several things that LLM's like ChatGPT just can't or don't provide. First, real answers here, especially great ones, provide human experience that an LLM can only "pretend" to have. Second, the voting system and commenting by other users allows good answers to rise to the top, as well as to often improve over time. When you ask an LLM, you don't know the quality of the answer until you try it (and sometimes not even then ...).

7. Do you have any particular philosophies on moderation or curation that might set you apart from other candidates?

At least two:

• First, with a nod-and-a-wink to Dalton's "Road House" Rule #3 (abridged, edited, and ... SFW):

  Be nice. I want you to be nice. I want you to remember that it's a job; it's nothing personal. I want you to be nice until it's time ... to not be nice. And then, downvote, flag, vote to close/delete, and move on ... but be nice.

• And related, I assume that everyone that is voting in this election wants the site to succeed and thrive. That's going to continue to require an influx of new users. New users make mistakes, sometimes bad ones. Being nice (a.k.a. showing kindness and respect) to these new users when they make these mistakes is the only way they may eventually become good (or hopefully great users). Being curt or blunt with these new users when they make mistakes will drive them away. I'd like for us to do our best to always choose "nice".

  However, we all make mistakes, and I'm certain that there will come a time and a situation when I am ... not nice. For that I offer my apology in advance.

8. With the increasing number of moderators, it is expected to introduce more discrepancies in moderation. For example, a helpful flag may be marked as declined/disputed by another moderator with a different point of view. Do you seek alignment in moderation with other moderators? If so, what will you propose to achieve alignment in moderation with other moderators?

I do seek alignment, and I have, even as a user. That's not to say that I haven't disagreed with a decision or policy here on Meta (and this question actually reminded me to go back and edit that post with the resolution). After @blackgreen and I disagreed here, we took it offline to the AI Heuristics Working Group to discuss further.

And yes, as a Moderator, I would certainly work with other Moderators in private Chat and Team to understand their view and seek alignment. I'm guessing there's a period after each election where new Moderators "mesh" with the rest of the team — I'm sure newly elected moderators gain new viewpoints they didn't have before, and perhaps even vice-versa from time-to-time.

9. A frequent answerer flags for moderator attention because a curating user persistently closes questions (rightfully as duplicate/off-topic) then posts comments under the answerer's posts to remind them to close close-able questions instead of posting an answer. You investigate and find: 1. The answerer (who has the privilege to flag/vote to close) has a history of frequently answering duplicate and off-topic questions which are later closed; 2. The curator has a history of frequently posting reminding comments under the answerer's posts; 3. There is definitive evidence that both parties are frustrated. How will you handle such a situation to best serve the platform and its users?

Among other things, if there is "definitive evidence that both parties are frustrated", then it's likely that they aren't "being nice." First, remind the users to be nice, especially if it has become "unfriendly or unkind."

Similar to the scenario in Q1, I would likely start by suggesting to the "curating user" that they can raise a Moderator-Intervention-Required flag in the future based on the repeated answers-on-duplicates. If the behavior hasn't changed based on the user's comments after a couple of tries, then it makes more sense to let a Mod review than to continue posting comments (along with the escalating frustration).

Of course, at the same time I would point out to the "frequent-answerer" that, given their recent answer history, they should start looking for potential duplicates before answering. Of course, this is the same information they received from the "curating user", but if the user disregards the "suggestion" in the future, then the next level of user-level action may need to be taken. (Edit: @Blackgreen has let me know in the comments that there is no "next-level" action available to moderators in this case.)

10. What personality traits and/or technical skills do you have that you think will be useful in your modship? How did you come to acquire them (if relevant)?

As you can hopefully see from many of the comments I've left, I do try to "be nice", as well as patient. Not that this patience isn't (and won't be) tested sometimes ... ;-)

1. 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?

They are by far not the only user producing valuable contributions, so there is no reason to grant them a special treatment. If they only recently started this kind of behavior, I would reach out to them via mod message and try to understand and resolve the issue. At best, we come to an agreement that their behavior is not acceptable and they should correct it. If there is some history and/or no evidence of betterment, a suspension is appropriate.

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc. a question that you feel shouldn’t have been?

They would have a reason to have done so, so I'd ping them to learn their thought process before reversing their decision (if it's not an obvious misclick). In case we disagree, I will discuss my view with them and try to find an agreement. However, if it stays at a disagreement, I'll just move on - it's not like I am or have to be always right.

3. At the time of writing this post, the flag queue consists of ~7000 “In need of moderator intervention flags”, the vast majority of which are about suspected AI-generated content. If you get elected, you will have to sign the Moderator Agreement, which includes the provisions resulting from the June 2023 strike. Per the Agreement, you will not be allowed to handle many, if not most, of those pending AI flags by deleting the post, because the post doesn’t meet company-approved heuristics for deletion. Even though progress has been made on this front, such artificial constraints on flag handling have caused previously active moderators to go on permanent strike and are an ongoing source of frustration for everyone involved. Why do you still want to become a moderator specifically under these conditions? How will you deal with the frustration — if any — of not being able to expediently deal with issues that the community cares about?

I have been part of the early community effort to find and delete ChatGPT posts when that tool was first released. I'm really frustrated by the company's decisions, and with the subsequent strike I took a break from the site for quite some time afterward. However, since last year the heuristics working group (where I also participated at the beginning) has made some progress defining heuristics which allow moderators to "safely" delete at least some AI content.

No, I want to become a moderator because there are so many other issues to deal with, and I am still somewhat optimistic that there will continue to be progress on the whole AI situation. Being publicly employed, I am also quite familiar with painfully inefficient processes that I have no influence on whatsoever. I voice my displeasure and try to work around those if I can, but if not I just accept them and can still be productive elsewhere.

4. Given recent developments on the site (and the network), especially in the past year, why do you want to run for moderator? What motivates you to serve this community, when many users openly object to moderation and the company's decisions sometimes seem at odds with moderator and community consensus?

(see question 6, the questions are quite similar and it was easier answering them together)

5. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective than what you could do with the access to moderator tools, trusted user, and other privileges?

I am quite effective already - I hang out in SOCVR, and I have the user scripts installed to quickly deal with spam and NAAs. My editing privilege even allows me to act unilaterally. That said, I highly value the democratic aspect of the site and the "checks" that come with it. Of course, with my time here I have learned to recognize content (spam, NAAs, comments, plagiarism, AI...) that simply does not belong on this site, and having a big hammer to just deal with it without having to waste the time of others comes quite handy. But this is a minor aspect.

My tasks as a moderator would actually be somewhat different. As stated in numerous places over the network, moderators are exception handlers, who act on flags and deal with content and behavior that is out of scope for standard user-level curation and moderation. I will certainly not interfere with the decisions of SMEs to close/delete posts, if there is no questionable behavior involved. Instead, I am interested in dealing with all those other issues that come with a diverse community of this size: Resolving arguments, stopping trolls, finding voting fraud, and all those things that need to be done in order to ensure that this site stays the productive place that it is. I'm aware that it is a somewhat thankless job, but so are many volunteer positions, and knowing that I have done something positive is quite fulfilling.

6. Modship has lost (more) charm recently: Users' perception of SO and site traffic continue to decline (in favour of ChatGPT); you have 4k+ AI-Generated Content (AIGC) flags waiting for you, for which the actioning rules are complicated and under slow development; many think mods are power-hungry elitists, now add "tech-luddite", and "SO should just embrace AIGC" to that; some SO/SE members are fed up with SO Inc. To some, you are an egotistical company lapdog. Despite the pain, perceptions, and work ahead of you, why do you think this place is still worth it? How does your perspective differ from the perspectives of all those people?

Let's answer the easy points first: For difficulties in handling AI-related flags, see my answer to question 3. Then, I don't care if someone thinks that I am some "elitist". Such sentiments have been around forever, though they feel more widely spread than in the past. I won't let myself be deterred by them.

I fully understand that many highly active contributors have left after what happened last year, and I have taken a long break myself. I have also adopted tools like Copilot in my development workflow, but it is just not the same: Sure, they save some typing and give me solutions for easy problems, but what about a weird error message or a new library that the tool has never seen in its training data? When using such tools everyday, one quickly learns their strengths and limits. They will probably improve over time, but I don't think that a resource such as Stack Overflow will become obsolete as soon as some people predict. Yes, the traffic will decrease, but high-quality answers which go beyond a copy&paste fix will always be of high value for me. One example to call out is the absolute gem of an x86 tag, where a particular highly active contributor answers questions with a level of detail and understanding that is absolutely impressing and has enlightened me uncountable times. Maybe I'm just part of an "old" generation of programmers who learned their profession before the availability of tools like ChatGPT or Copilot, but I will continue using Stack Overflow to learn new tools and understand them.

7. Do you have any particular philosophies on moderation or curation that might set you apart from other candidates?

I prefer preserving content. If old questions have useful non-duplicate answers and are remotely related to programming, close/merge/lock them, but let them be.

For moderation: Never jump to conclusions without hearing both sides. Many times there were well-written meta questions where someone complained about the behavior of a "certain" person, which all made sense and quickly collected upvotes - only for that other person jumping in with their side of things, leading to a completely different view to that situation.

8. With the increasing number of moderators, it is expected to introduce more discrepancies in moderation. For example, a helpful flag may be marked as declined/disputed by another moderator with a different point of view. Do you seek alignment in moderation with other moderators? If so, what will you propose to achieve alignment in moderation with other moderators?

I have raised a good number of flags in my tenure, follow meta discussions, and witnessed many of the current mods discuss issues in SOCVR. So it is rather the other way around: I do not really seek alignment, but have simply learned how the current team tends to approach issues, and follow that example. That said, I also know that there differing views in the mod team, and some mods handle certain issues more firmly than others. This means that by definition I cannot align with all mods - instead, I try to keep my actions consistent with what I have experienced over the years, which should lead to a large overlap. For corner cases where I don't know how the team handles them usually, I will ask for advice.

9. A frequent answerer flags for moderator attention because a curating user persistently closes questions (rightfully as duplicate/off-topic) then posts comments under the answerer's posts to remind them to close close-able questions instead of posting an answer. You investigate and find: 1. The answerer (who has the privilege to flag/vote to close) has a history of frequently answering duplicate and off-topic questions which are later closed; 2. The curator has a history of frequently posting reminding comments under the answerer's posts; 3. There is definitive evidence that both parties are frustrated. How will you handle such a situation to best serve the platform and its users?

The conflict between people answering every duplicate and curators trying to keep the dilution of content under control is by far not new. I'm quite convinced that this can only be peacefully resolved by introducing proper incentives (and better tooling) for duplicate closure. Unfortunately, it does not look like the company is planning any follow-up there.

I also come from a curator's and SO-is-not-a-help-desk perspective - however: For now, answering duplicates is not forbidden, though we heavily discourage it. If we wanted to change that, the avenue would be a suitable meta rule proposal, which would need significant buy-in. This means that I'm not going to suspend someone for writing "ok" answers to duplicates (I'm also not aware of any precedent for that).

Confronted with this concrete situation, I'd rather try a "soft power" approach at resolving it: Understand the motivations of the poster, and try to persuade them to act in a different way. However, this does not scale beyond select cases unfortunately, so the general answer is to tell the curator to stop leaving comments and instead downvote, hammer, and move on.

Of course: If one of the two resorts to name-calling or harassing, or abuses their gold badge privileges, we will have a stern talk.

10. What personality traits and/or technical skills do you have that you think will be useful in your modship? How did you come to acquire them (if relevant)?

First of all, I really like doing voluntary work, and committing myself long-term, no matter how stressful it may be at times. Then, I am a quite patient person and never lash out at anyone no matter how frustrated I am, and have no issue repeating myself many times when trying to get a point across - a very useful trait when dealing with a taxing coworker or working with my students ("I still don't understand what an if loop is", or "I did not do anything last week, because my hamster [...]").

For technical skills, I have experience with web development and a history of writing user scripts and styles, which can help improving the infamous UX of the mod tools. More universally, due to my profession as a cyber security researcher (and teacher) I come into contact with lots of different technologies. This general understanding is quite useful for curation outside my tags.

1. 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?

First of all, I think that users have to be treated equally regardless of their reputation or contributions. If the raised flags are valid and the user is clearly violating Code of Conduct, then such a situation would require intervention. First action would be issuing a warning, and then further escalation if necessary.

Having said that, there is a difference between obviously inappropriate behavior and a vested user having a hard time letting go in some discussion that went haywire. Additionally, there is a difference between well intended comments that are a bit rough on the edges, and being openly rude and insulting.

So, my actions would depend on the particular situation and if the user is having a history of similar behavior it could be prudent to check with other mods and collect additional insights.

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc. a question that you feel shouldn’t have been?

This site is run by community consensus and there will always be differences in opinions on some questions. Most of the time, having slightly different opinion on how some post is being handled does not mean it would require any action on my part. If I would really feel that post is not appropriately handled, then I would first consult with the involved mod and possibly other mods and eventually, if really necessary I would ask Meta for opinion and reach consensus.

During that process, either I would change my mind based on presented arguments, or I wouldn't, but if most of the people think differently, then I am more than happy to accept a majority vote.

3. At the time of writing this post, the flag queue consists of ~7000 “In need of moderator intervention flags”, the vast majority of which are about suspected AI-generated content. If you get elected, you will have to sign the Moderator Agreement, which includes the provisions resulting from the June 2023 strike. Per the Agreement, you will not be allowed to handle many, if not most, of those pending AI flags by deleting the post, because the post doesn’t meet company-approved heuristics for deletion. Even though progress has been made on this front, such artificial constraints on flag handling have caused previously active moderators to go on permanent strike and are an ongoing source of frustration for everyone involved. Why do you still want to become a moderator specifically under these conditions? How will you deal with the frustration — if any — of not being able to expediently deal with issues that the community cares about?

As I am already part of the Heuristics Working Group, I am well aware of current problems. While I am not exactly happy with the situation, I am encountering a number of users on a daily basis who are posting AI content that is actionable by currently approved heuristics. I am not flagging all of them as writing elaborate flags spanning multiple posts is more time consuming than being able to directly deal with such posts.

Even reducing the number of AI posts and cleaning some of the pending flags would be an improvement from the current situation. And hopefully with time we should be able to deal with more AI posts.

4. Given recent developments on the site (and the network), especially in the past year, why do you want to run for moderator? What motivates you to serve this community, when many users openly object to moderation and the company's decisions sometimes seem at odds with moderator and community consensus?

If we allow AI to overflow the site, it will inevitably lead to slow death, when the experts and curators start leaving this place.

I am here for my own selfish interests and I want to have those experts available in a single place to answer my hard questions when I have them.

I am also here for old users that want to protect the site quality and their own hard work. I am also here for new users that want answers from real experts and not AI. Users that post comments like "If I wanted an answer from AI, I would ask it myself".

By now, it's obvious that the company has its own goals that are not well aligned with the community interest and I am well prepared for the upcoming shoes (see: wait for other shoe to drop)

Maybe this is a war we cannot win, but I cannot stand still and do nothing. Even if we fail, at least I will know we did our best.

5. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective than what you could do with the access to moderator tools, trusted user, and other privileges?

The most significant impact would be in my ability to directly handle actionable AI posts I am encountering (besides the ones that others have flagged).

While AI has been my current focus of interest, I would also like to spend more time closing completely off topic questions (the ones that are asked on the wrong site) as close votes from regular users cast from the close vote review queue often age away in some tags that tend to attract more off topic questions. As a result such off topic posts stay open, which then invites people to ask more such questions because there are plenty of those that were neither downvoted nor closed sitting on the site.

It is also a far better use of everyone's time when mod single handedly deals with such posts, than having three people with limited number of close votes doing that. Regular users are more useful for curating and helping with questions that may require domain knowledge.

6. Modship has lost (more) charm recently: Users' perception of SO and site traffic continue to decline (in favour of ChatGPT); you have 4k+ AI-Generated Content (AIGC) flags waiting for you, for which the actioning rules are complicated and under slow development; many think mods are power-hungry elitists, now add "tech-luddite", and "SO should just embrace AIGC" to that; some SO/SE members are fed up with SO Inc. To some, you are an egotistical company lapdog. Despite the pain, perceptions, and work ahead of you, why do you think this place is still worth it? How does your perspective differ from the perspectives of all those people?

The reasons are basically the same as the ones I posted under point 4.

Besides that, I don't really care much about what others think of me :)

I am also fully aware that starting all over again is not an easy task. Realistically, moving to some other place would dissolve much of the community and expert users I am here for. So alternatives are more an entertaining idea, sort of an emotional safety net, than a viable solution at the time being.

7. Do you have any particular philosophies on moderation or curation that might set you apart from other candidates?

My starting position is "assume good intent". That allows me to avoid potential conflicts that may arise merely because of some benign misunderstanding. If the intent eventually proves to be bad, I can easily adapt my actions.

I also like to consider different perspectives when dealing with some problem or situation, including the position of other people involved. This allows me to more easily understand the particular problem and find the most agreeable solution.

I also have a pretty good inner AI detector, which allows me to easily spot AI posts, even those that are not very obvious.

8. With the increasing number of moderators, it is expected to introduce more discrepancies in moderation. For example, a helpful flag may be marked as declined/disputed by another moderator with a different point of view. Do you seek alignment in moderation with other moderators? If so, what will you propose to achieve alignment in moderation with other moderators?

It is expected that different people will have different opinions and some discrepancies in moderation are perfectly normal. I expect that most of the time I will be certain about my actions, if I am not sure how to deal with something there are always other moderators I can consult with. And of course, we are all human and can make mistakes. If something like that happens, I don't have any problems admitting such a mistake.

9. A frequent answerer flags for moderator attention because a curating user persistently closes questions (rightfully as duplicate/off-topic) then posts comments under the answerer's posts to remind them to close close-able questions instead of posting an answer. You investigate and find: 1. The answerer (who has the privilege to flag/vote to close) has a history of frequently answering duplicate and off-topic questions which are later closed; 2. The curator has a history of frequently posting reminding comments under the answerer's posts; 3. There is definitive evidence that both parties are frustrated. How will you handle such a situation to best serve the platform and its users?

Generally, it is not prohibited to answer duplicate questions and it is also not prohibited to post a comment under answer pointing out that closing the question rather than answering would be a more appropriate action. Especially, if the question is an obvious and easily found duplicate (not a good sign post), where the answer does not bring anything new.

But, if this situation develops into a friction between two users, then they would both have to be reminded that their actions are not appropriate. The user posting answers that answering literally anything is generating useless clutter, and the user commenting that not every situation needs to be handled through comment and that using a custom mod flag would be more appropriate if they encounter some persistent bad behavior from another user.

10. What personality traits and/or technical skills do you have that you think will be useful in your modship? How did you come to acquire them (if relevant)?

I'm not easily fazed.

1. 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?

An argumentative, rude, or abusive contributor can drive away dozens of good contributors. No level of contribution to this site is enough that the “be nice” policy shouldn’t apply. There are a range of options available to moderators. Warnings and suspensions need to be used appropriately depending on the severity and longevity of the situation.

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc. a question that you feel shouldn’t have been?

When it happens we talk about it. I make my opinion known, but I realize I can’t win all the battles.

3. At the time of writing this post, the flag queue consists of ~7000 “In need of moderator intervention flags”, the vast majority of which are about suspected AI-generated content. If you get elected, you will have to sign the Moderator Agreement, which includes the provisions resulting from the June 2023 strike. Per the Agreement, you will not be allowed to handle many, if not most, of those pending AI flags by deleting the post, because the post doesn’t meet company-approved heuristics for deletion. Even though progress has been made on this front, such artificial constraints on flag handling have caused previously active moderators to go on permanent strike and are an ongoing source of frustration for everyone involved. Why do you still want to become a moderator specifically under these conditions? How will you deal with the frustration — if any — of not being able to expediently deal with issues that the community cares about?

I joined the strike and I am satisfied with the outcome. Because I moderate on another site, I've already signed the moderator agreement and already know exactly what moderators can and cannot do regarding AI generated content. I can work within those guidelines. I’d join another strike if we get other anti-community moderation policies, but I hope it won’t come to that.

4. Given recent developments on the site (and the network), especially in the past year, why do you want to run for moderator? What motivates you to serve this community, when many users openly object to moderation and the company's decisions sometimes seem at odds with moderator and community consensus?

Stack Overflow still has the best question-and-answer sites.  Quora has even worse problems. Codidact doesn’t have the usage. I personally consult Stack Overflow daily in the course of doing my job. I am willing to work hard to preserve that.

5. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective than what you could do with the access to moderator tools, trusted user, and other privileges?

There are several things that a trusted user can’t do: handle flags, close questions single-handedly, move questions to most other stacks.  As a moderator, I would switch much of my SO time to flag handling.

6. Modship has lost (more) charm recently: Users' perception of SO and site traffic continue to decline (in favour of ChatGPT); you have 4k+ AI-Generated Content (AIGC) flags waiting for you, for which the actioning rules are complicated and under slow development; many think mods are power-hungry elitists, now add "tech-luddite", and "SO should just embrace AIGC" to that; some SO/SE members are fed up with SO Inc. To some, you are an egotistical company lapdog. Despite the pain, perceptions, and work ahead of you, why do you think this place is still worth it? How does your perspective differ from the perspectives of all those people?

Chat GPT writes answers that can’t be trusted.  Stack Overflow is an amazing resource because it is well-moderated.  Despite some negative perceptions of the site, moderating this site still needs to be done and I can help with that.

7. Do you have any particular philosophies on moderation or curation that might set you apart from other candidates?

My pet peeves about curation are:  1. The threshold for closing as a duplicate should be high.  I see many cases where a question is closed to a related problem that isn’t duplicate enough.  2.  The threshold for deletion should be high.  Question deletion should be reserved for spam, nonsense, and harmful material.  I don’t believe that “nth dupe” constitutes a harm.  I’ve seen a lot of content here deleted because it is “low quality pollution” that I would prefer to have remain.

8. With the increasing number of moderators, it is expected to introduce more discrepancies in moderation. For example, a helpful flag may be marked as declined/disputed by another moderator with a different point of view. Do you seek alignment in moderation with other moderators? If so, what will you propose to achieve alignment in moderation with other moderators?

Consistency in moderation is important.  Chat and meta are the channels where the other moderators and I will communicate and figure out how to moderate consistently.

9. A frequent answerer flags for moderator attention because a curating user persistently closes questions (rightfully as duplicate/off-topic) then posts comments under the answerer's posts to remind them to close close-able questions instead of posting an answer. You investigate and find: 1. The answerer (who has the privilege to flag/vote to close) has a history of frequently answering duplicate and off-topic questions which are later closed; 2. The curator has a history of frequently posting reminding comments under the answerer's posts; 3. There is definitive evidence that both parties are frustrated. How will you handle such a situation to best serve the platform and its users?

This is based on an actual situation that looks like it was handled appropriately to me.  Warning or suspending the commenter would be appropriate depending on the number of comments and their tone. Leaving many comments targeting a specific user is rude, maybe even harassment.  As much as we want users to curate instead of answering, there is no requirement that they do so.

10. What personality traits and/or technical skills do you have that you think will be useful in your modship? How did you come to acquire them (if relevant)?

I come to Stack Overflow with 10 years of moderation experience on Webmasters. That has taught me a lot about patience, collaboration, and communication.