2017 Moderator Election Q&A - Question Collection

Question

Game Development Stack Exchange is scheduled for an election next week, October 23rd.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.

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, October 23rd 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.

• 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.

• 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.

Answer 1

Game design questions are generally underserved by our site, often because many really interesting game design questions are open-ended. What (if anything) do you feel you should or could do to change this, as a moderator?

Answer 2

A huge percentage of questions get closed (roughly every 8th or 5000 out of the current 40,000 questions not counting the deleted ones), a big chunk of these ask for software, book or technology recommendations. What would you do to solve this issue?

Answer 3

There's a perception among developers that StackExchange is elitist / unwelcoming, or that established/high-rep users are on a "power trip" and out to bully new users.

See for example these pieces on frustrations with StackOverflow:

• John Slegers on "The Decline of StackOverflow"

• Jason Sachs on the "Soup Nazi" effect

• Jonah Bishop - "StackOverflow hates new users"

• Michael T. Richter on "creeping authoritarianism"

While SO gets the most focus due to its higher volume, we can see the same sentiments in our own users here on GDSE. Just this morning, a user commented:

You know what. Stack exchange sucks. No one here is willing to help. It’s always just: “no you can’t ask your question like that!” This is a question which can be answered with one answer...But then again no one’s here to actually help.

(edited for spelling)

As a mod, how would you guide the community to provide a more welcoming first impression or onboarding experience for new users?

Answer 4

Moderators have a rare ability to make unilateral changes to the site, bypassing checks that often require larger community consensus. What do you feel is the area most in need of that kind of unilateral intervention today, and how would you address it?

Answer 5

Some community members have felt a change in the chat culture on the site. What are your thoughts on the current state of the site's chat room?

Answer 6

Aren't you afraid that you will burn out solving mundane issues that you could ignore before?

Answer 7

With great powers come great responsibilities and influence. As a newly elected moderator, what behaviour(s) that you had as a non-moderator will you change, if any, whether it is about voting, interactions with other users, interventions on meta, etc.?

Answer 8

Why do you want to be a moderator?

Answer 9

What professional or hobby experience do you have that you think you'll be bringing to the role of moderating this community? This might include soft skills dealing with people, or professional experience having developed games.

Answer 10

What games have you worked on?