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First of all, allow me to be clear - Richard is an active and well-respected member of the community. His contributions and participation as a user are not in question. However, over the course of the last few weeks we have become convinced that he is not as well suited to being a moderator. I will do my best to explain how and why, although out of respect ...
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Moderators are elected to moderate the community, not to actively post.
It's not uncommon for a moderator's Q&A activity to go down and taper off entirely. As long as the moderators are monitoring the site and handling situations that pop up appropriately, they are doing the job they were elected to do.
The moderation team has the situation well in hand.
...
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Yes
Community Managers reach out to moderators when they have been inactive for more than six months. Moderators have the option to either resume moderating or let us know that they would like to step away from moderating responsibilities and we then notify the other moderators. In this particular instance I was pulled into something pressing before I had a ...
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Update as of October 31: I am resuming activity as a moderator
A month ago I announced on main meta that I was suspending my activity as a moderator in response to Stack Exchange summarily removing a moderator for alleged violations of the Code of Conduct. As I and others have pointed out, the allegations made by SE against this moderator are not supported ...
22
Thank you both
It's not easy moderating this site, but I'm glad that you've both done so to the best of your abilities.
It's a shame to see that your interest in this community seems to have dwindled, but I think we can all appreciate your candour in recognising that and stepping down.
All the best for your future endeavours!
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What do you love about the moderator job on Science Fiction & Fantasy?
I've always enjoyed the work of maintaining the site by reviewing posts, editing, voting to close/reopen, etc. because I like to see the site in a clean and orderly state. As a moderator I am even more effective at keeping the site clean and orderly, so that's my favorite part of the ...
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Yes; Moderators who know that they aren't active should effectively step or be asked to step down
The way I see it is simple, if you're not actively doing what you were placed there and voted in by the community for, then you either don't want to do it, or there's nothing for you to do there. Either way, there's no reason you should be there.
I understand ...
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I am informed such a breach of protocol is non-standard. I apologize for any inconvenience or disturbance this may have caused. It will not happen again.
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OK, since you want to toss this can around again, let's have a look at your claims:
In this previous meta discussion about the moderator team two
conclusions appear to have been made:
"Something should be done" - The majority of the community. "Nothing
should be done, we're fiiiine" - The moderator team.
Kevin's answer in the linked post ...
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When the current moderator team feels it's necessary, and time permits.
Given the holidays, it'd probably be best to not hold one any sooner than January; whether one is necessary then is a decision the current moderator team should make based on their availability and workload.
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First and foremost, thank you for sharing your thoughts on what is like to be a moderator even if it was not here. I remember in my early days on the site what a pleasure I had reading your answers (that is also when I learned what "irregular voting patterns" were) and interacting with you in chat (and still do). You clearly walk the talk in how you approach ...
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Some moderators should be involved in this discussion.
Right now, there are a lot of unknowns:
Whether Rand al'Thor and Null are overworked.
Whether the other moderators are actually inactive, or just not visibly active. We know that mod!Kevin is at least working the mod queues.
Whether any of the active moderators have attempted to reach any of the ...
15
Yes.
In the last couple of weeks, Stack Exchange staff reached out to two of our site's moderators who hadn't done anything on the site for a while. I don't know exactly what happened in those communications, since they were off-site and private between CMs and those individual moderators, but the end result is the removal of the two inactive moderators.
As ...
14
As this is not the current situation, I will answer this hypothetical situation - Moderator powers are unrelated to being suspended.
If said hypothetical moderator were to have taken actions worthy of being suspended, then I would imagine that their ability to moderate would be reviewed by the community management team and the remaining moderators at the ...
14
I think it's worth pointing out here that the most active moderator on this site by far... Isn't a person. It's a group!
Over the past year, only about 20% of moderation actions here have been performed by the elected moderators; the vast bulk of the work is being done by folks like you, the overall moderation cost of the system amortized across thousands ...
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The question wasn't put on hold by any admins (they're called moderators on Stack Exchange) — it was voted so by regular users.
How
The Stack Exchange Theory of Moderation is that the users moderate. The moderators (who can be appointed or elected) only are called upon for issues users can't handle.
Based on what I saw of your account, you're still ...
13
I'm back.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote up my thoughts on staying vs quitting, for all conflicted users including myself. Now, having thought through all the issues involved and discussed with my fellow mods, I've decided to resume moderating. Here's a few of the important thoughts which led me to this conclusion.
I'm NOT a representative (or even ...
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I know everyone likes to hate people who complain of unfair treatment, but in this case there really was unfair treatment.
The user created a plausibly valid tag (on another user's question).
By that time it was clear from all the released material that Kylo Ren is a major character. I shall avoid posting 3-page-long bullet list of why, to avoid spoiling ...
11
Moderators do not get paid, they are elected volunteer members of the community trusted with extra powers to help curate the site. I can’t speak for others clearly, and I am not a moderator myself, but people do it to help the site out, because they enjoy it and because they want the site to succeed.
The only people who get paid are Stack Exchange employees ...
10
Yes, that was inappropriate
From the Chat FAQ:
Do I have to be nice?
Yes. We expect community members to treat each other with respect … even when they don't deserve it.
And from Rule Number 1, the Be Nice Policy:
Rudeness and belittling language are not okay. Your tone should match the way you'd talk in person with someone you respect and ...
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I don’t think so.
In a Meta.se question about moderator elections, it’s explained how a site comes to have more moderators:
The community team periodically looks at the work load on graduated sites and will reach out to the moderation team if it looks like more help might be needed. Broadly, it's up to the moderation teams to indicate whether they need ...
10
Note that I've decided after being a moderator on this site for about 3 years, that I'm stepping down. It's been an exciting time, but I've got enough other commitments that it's time to let someone else manage this site.
Good luck to all the candidates!
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Null - What a great answer on what it's like to moderate at SFF! I somehow missed it when you originally wrote it - so even though it's been a while, I have a couple comments.
Mos Eisley. Sigh. Seeing as I was one of Mos Eisley's room owners, and I spent a lot of time chatting there, reading what you wrote about Mos was poignant. Coincidentally, just a few ...
8
I must say that I disagree with most of your "activity" points, for a couple of reasons.
I'm on record for many years as arguing against excessive moderator activity.
Binding votes are bad. Many reasons (rehashed on Meta before).
Nothing worse than expressing your point on Meta, only for a mod to come in, and destroy your argument not because you are ...
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No, moderators cannot create a full post on behalf of a user, even from a comment they posted. All we can do is what you already did, encourage them to post it as a full answer themselves.
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No.
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From the Moderator Agreement
I acknowledge and agree that I am an independent volunteer moderator for one or more sites operated by Stack Exchange, Inc. and I am not an employee, agent or representative of Stack Exchange, Inc., and I have no authority to bind Stack Exchange, Inc. in any manner and I am solely responsible for my statements and actions. I ...
6
Deletion of non-answers doesn't have to be done by moderators.
You have >10k rep, so you have access to the Low Quality Posts review queue, where users with sufficient reputation can vote to delete answers that have been flagged as "very low quality" or "not an answer", and you must have seen posts that have been deleted by three high-rep users rather than ...
6
I am concerned that "the title controversy" was mentioned here, albeit just in a comment.
This was NOT in ANY WAY the desired outcome, of my post questioning the moon landing title change, Should this be a clickbait site, or should we stand by SE standards of question quality?
At most, I hoped for clarified policies: a learning opportunity, not a blame-and-...
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