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There will be a chat session with the 2012 moderator candidates on Tuesday 02:00 UTC (Monday 9pm EST). The event will take place in the Scifi Town Hall chat room (not in the regular site room).

If you can't attend the event, you can ask questions here.

If you're a candidate, please visit this page after the chat session and answer questions that haven't been covered in the chat.

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Are there types of questions that are allowed now and you would like to disallow, or vice versa? (e.g. story identification, recommendations, …)

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    IIRC recommendations are not on topic. But currently, I would like to take a look at non-scifi questions that are asked of scifi shows. I think that, even though the source material is on-topic I still think all questions should be about scifi or fantasy.
    – OghmaOsiris
    Jan 31, 2012 at 3:17
  • I second that. However, I admit I've answered at least one 'recommended viewing order' type question.
    – HNL
    Jan 31, 2012 at 5:24
  • @HNL (not a candidate answer, just FYI): recommended order (viewing/reading order) questions are on topic. Asking for recommendations of other works ("I like the Harry Potter films. What other films would I like?") are (currently) off-topic. See the bullet-points at the top of the FAQ.
    – Tony Meyer
    Jan 31, 2012 at 8:23
  • This may or may not be the question, but I say that if anyone has such concerns, they should post a meta questions asking if something should be on/off topic. If the community votes for it, then let it be done.
    – PearsonArtPhoto
    Jan 31, 2012 at 13:46
  • I don't see any fundamental changes that I would recommend now, but as I mentioned in the Town Hall, I do feel that story identification questions require periodic review to ensure that the community still feels they are beneficial. I think they're both fun and great ways of introducing new members, but I also feel there is a significant potential for them to become uninteresting or even clutter up our site.
    – Beofett
    Jan 31, 2012 at 15:32
  • I would like to have more questions that aren't tied down to a specific work. Recommendations can work, but they require a lot of moderation. We shouldn't be too fast to close all transversal questions, they're not all list requests or covered by Wikipedia or TVTropes.
    – user56
    Jan 31, 2012 at 22:11
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What do you think of content quality on the site? Do we rock, do we suck, does it depend?

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    I'm a little worried about a few classes of questions which have recently come up, that are generally not answerable. The reasons for them not being answerable vary, but in general, they mix concepts that aren't meant to be mixed, to see what comes up. Like questions about Harry Potter and science, the "Is X a timelord", beaming vampires into a home, etc.
    – PearsonArtPhoto
    Jan 31, 2012 at 13:48
  • Asked in the Town Hall Chat
    – user56
    Jan 31, 2012 at 22:12
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The majority of nominees are in the US. If all three moderators end up being from the US, how will you handle this? e.g.

  • What will you do to keep the international nature of the site thriving?
  • Will having all moderators within (essentially) the same time zone cause issues?
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  • I think that this site has been awesome at being location neutral. I don't think there needs to be any special actions needed to keep our international users. As for the second question, I think the only draw back is that it would take at most 12 hours for a moderator to view any pending issues with the site, and for some people that's better than their job, lol.
    – OghmaOsiris
    Jan 31, 2012 at 3:20
  • I think it's good to have the moderators cover a few time zones. Minor bloopers are fine, but I think blatant abuse should not be up there for the whole world to see until the moderators wake up.
    – HNL
    Jan 31, 2012 at 5:30
  • I tend to check this site first thing in the morning, at lunch time, and a few times in the evening. There would be a gap, in particular at night time, but I think that's an acceptable problem.
    – PearsonArtPhoto
    Jan 31, 2012 at 13:44
  • Similar time zones doesn't necessarily indicate similar patterns of activity. Some of us could be rather nocturnal, and others more active during the day, in which case coverage would be pretty much around the clock. On the other hand, differing personal schedules could cause moderators from different time zones to have similar or overlapping schedules. Fortunately, I think we're all active enough that we don't have to worry too much about inadequate coverage. At worst, any major problem would be up for a few hours at most.
    – Beofett
    Jan 31, 2012 at 15:37
  • If all three moderators end up being from the US, it'll be somebody else's problem q:. (I'm in Europe, I check the site briefly in the morning most days and spend a few hours on and off in the evening; more variability on the week-end.) Seriously, it's exceedingly rare that an issue can't wait a few hours, plus most issues arise when the most users are active.
    – user56
    Jan 31, 2012 at 22:16
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    Regarding the “international nature” of the site: how is this a concern? We don't have a sign “non-American works not wanted here” or anything. We have a strong bias towards English language material, that's unavoidable on a site that's in English.
    – user56
    Jan 31, 2012 at 22:17
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How should we reach out to new users?

The first time I made a positive contribution to Wikipedia (years ago), within minutes a senior user left a comment on my user page welcoming me to the community and thanking me for my contribution. He also told me to contact him any time if I ever need help or clarifications. As a result, I felt like contributing more, and I avoided a number of newcomer gaffes.

Should we have something like that here? Sometimes, I notice that the first experience a newcomer has here is to have older users tell them that their question is off topic or poorly phrased. Some of them may only get around to reading the policies in detail after a few day of participation. So, shouldn't we help them avoid submitting poor questions/answers?

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  • Is this something you specifically want to ask potential moderators? Or something you would like everyone to address? If the latter, then it would better as a dedicated meta post.
    – Tony Meyer
    Jan 31, 2012 at 12:01
  • @TonyMeyer: Both. Let me just post this as a new question on meta. I posted it here because the topic came up during the town hall chat.
    – HNL
    Jan 31, 2012 at 13:10
  • I think we could emulate the example with Wikipedia, and post a comment on new users question welcoming them to the community. This should be done by all users who reach certain reputation requirements, and not just moderators, but I think it's a great idea.
    – PearsonArtPhoto
    Jan 31, 2012 at 13:49
  • A lot of users' first welcome is an upvote! The votes to close are more visible but rarer, and they are normally accompanied with a helpful comment and no ill will.
    – user56
    Jan 31, 2012 at 22:18

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