-7

Since we have a candidate that snuck in last minute and was able to post their application without any way to comment or ask for clarification, I am using this means to ask things I find odd:

There are a lot of parts where @WBT compares themselves directly to me. And that is fine. Some of it is choice, like a good election should be. It's not much of a democratic process if you can vote for one and only one candidate.

That is what those questions are meant for. Give the voters material so they can find out who is aligned with their interests for this site and who they want to vote for.

But some of it is either unfounded claim, or simply untrue. And just because it was conveniently late in the election to dodge any questions on the election post, is no reason not to have those claims questioned:

Here's your opportunity to vote for someone who has never been suspended/banned for a violation of the network-wide Code of Conduct

That is interesting. Given that you have been suspended, on the same site site as me, around the same time as me, on the same general topic as me. To quote your own post:

Update 3: As some readers may have discerned from my 1 rep, I was suspended specifically for calling out this issue

Source

Also you claimed:

Here is also your opportunity to vote for a mod that has enough technical background to dive into, diagnose, and advocate more specifically & effectively for fixes to user experience & interface bugs in the platform.

Given that you have no linked accounts in any technical or UI/UX SEs I wonder where that claim comes from? Maybe you can back that up by anything? I do indeed have that background (as you can see when clicking my network profile) but even I would not make that claim because expertise in UI/UX or software development in general does not really help that much in diving into and diagnosing bugs of somebody else's closed source software. Do you have any inside sources to SE software?

And finally, I think it's only fair to answer the same question I was asked: "If someone specifically requests their pronoun to be "he", and a user continues to use "they", what would you do?

7
  • 5
    Both you and your contributions are pretty well known and respected on this site. No real need for this post In my opinion. You should be campaigning hard, kissing all the babies, shaking hands with lepers, promising pie in the sky etc,.... and ignoring anything negative........ normal stuff ;)
    – Kilisi Mod
    Nov 9, 2022 at 8:33
  • I question why SE staff agreed that a site with fewer than 6 questions a day needed a fifth moderator. Why an election with just two candidates is allowed to proceed when clearly the response by users who care about electing a new moderator is lacklustred to say the least. And lastly, how many users will cast a vote for anyone after reading a bitter and public response to WBT's criticisms/accusations/lies.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Nov 10, 2022 at 7:32
  • 1
    @Mari-LouA Mods are volunteers. How many are needed for a site depends less on how many questions it gets a day (the community moderates questions more than mods do) and more on how much mod intervention is required and how many demands the existing mod team have on their time. Having enough moderators so that someone can go on vacation or step back for a bit if they're feeling burnt out is important.
    – ColleenV
    Nov 10, 2022 at 13:56
  • @ColleenV There are fewer than 4 questions posted a day. Activity on meta is low. I don't see any trolling. Maybe there are sock puppets, and suspended users trying to circumvent suspensions. Is that a recurring problem on TWP? Maybe it is, I don't know. But there are already four mods. If one or more mod is basically inactive they should resign, there's no shame in saying their heart isn't in it any longer or they have too much going on in Real Life that way the community chooses two new active moderators.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Nov 10, 2022 at 15:40
  • 2
    @Mari-LouA When a site has an effective mod team, the community has no idea what their work load is like because things get handled before they are enough of a problem to be noticed. The mods are volunteers and as a result the time that they can spend on the site in any given week varies widely. Should I have resigned when my father got deathly ill and I just couldn't deal with yet another vulgar response to a mod message? It's better to have enough mods to pick up the slack if someone needs time off. Bringing a mod up to speed before they're desperately needed is a good idea regardless.
    – ColleenV
    Nov 10, 2022 at 15:50
  • ELL had a couple of really "difficult" users, one sticks out, and also a much higher question ratio than TWP. Since the "difficult" user left Stack Exchange in a huff, ELL seems a lot calmer. I lost count of the number of times that particular user was suspended. A decidedly horrible horrible person. A bully and a sexist to boot.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Nov 10, 2022 at 17:17
  • 2
    @Mari-LouA Yep. It's just better for everyone to have "extra" mods than to not have enough. The staff doesn't have the bandwidth to step in if something comes up, and they don't always have the context to handle some situations effectively.
    – ColleenV
    Nov 10, 2022 at 19:20

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4

I've argued before in other elections that locking discussion of the nominations when voting starts is counterproductive. Folks should be able to work to earn someone's vote right up until the final minutes of voting. There should be time after nominations have closed for the community to interact with the candidates and ask questions.

I don't think it is fair that nvoigt had no opportunity to respond to the assertions made about them in WBT's questionnaire, so I've bumped the Don't lock or hide election comments after the nomination phase feature request on Meta.

That said, I think this post is not constructive and it's actually made me change my vote. Having been a moderator, I can tell you right now that you are going to have a tough time if you feel like you have to respond to every perceived criticism or inaccuracy. Being a moderator isn't hard in terms of handling flags or other routine stuff. It's hard because you're going to get unfairly criticized and some people are going to not be kind when you make a mistake. You're going to have to suck it up for the good of the site. For people who get personally invested in what they're doing, it can be emotionally difficult even if they're moderating the best community on the network.

Moderators should work to prevent drama, not stir it up. You can't respond to stuff like you would if you didn't have a diamond. I'm trying to keep my criticism from being too harsh here because I've been on the receiving end and I know it's not fun, but being both a mod and a very active user of the site comes with some challenges. You will not be able to make posts or comments like this discussion as a moderator. (Well, you'll be able to, but you shouldn't because people will rightfully perceive it a bullying.)

18
  • I don't see a written, factual falsehood in a moderator application as an "inaccurracy" that I "perceive". If you are looking for a moderator that rather looks away when shady things happen, because speaking up might look bad, you are right, then you don't want to vote for me.
    – nvoigt Mod
    Nov 9, 2022 at 14:51
  • 4
    @nvoigt OK, so softening my criticism made it unclear. Your behavior suggests you aren't suited for moderating. A diamond is a big stick. A moderator's purpose is not to correct what people post. It's to keep the site running smoothly. In your questionnaire you say you value the light touch of the current mod team, but your actions suggest that's not the sort of moderator you could tolerate being. I've voted for mods because I admired their passion and how much they cared about the site. It was a mistake. They could not keep their passion from undermining their judgement.
    – ColleenV
    Nov 9, 2022 at 15:05
  • 3
    @nvoigt I know it doesn't seem like it, but the only reason I am writing up this criticism publicly is because I am sincerely trying to help you. You could be a great mod, but not if stuff like this is going to get up your nose every time. It won't be a happy experience for you or anyone else. If your response to criticism is to immediately reject it without any introspection, that doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in me that you would be a good custodian of the power the community would give you.
    – ColleenV
    Nov 9, 2022 at 15:13
  • "You are a jerk, why did you close my question, you suck", that is opinionated criticism. In that case probably against the CoC, but an opinion and criticism none the less. A straight up lie however is not an opinon or "criticism". I also have to wonder what you think I would do as a moderator. I wrote a meta post. Something literally anybody with 5 rep can do. I did not edit any post. I did not flag anything. I did not request a moderator to step in to do it for me. What makes you think that I would do as a moderator, that I did not even request from moderators now?
    – nvoigt Mod
    Nov 9, 2022 at 15:51
  • 4
    Worded very well as usual ColleenV. Agreed that it's annoying how we have limited interaction options in this phase of the election. But that doesn't mean we should be using meta to call out specific candidates. A call-out of this nature is really a fair bit beyond the pale and I might normally remove it were it not for this providing insight into the candidates. As ColleenV mentioned this is the kind of thing you just have to take on the chin as a moderator. While this hasn't swayed my vote, it did give me pause which is a bit unfortunate.
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Nov 9, 2022 at 19:56
  • 3
    @nvoigt Users don't know you as a person. They can only guess from your posts. I know you care about this site and have only good intentions. As a moderator though you have to keep in mind that you are in a position of power relative to the people you're interacting with and that your effectiveness depends on the community (esp. the newbies) seeing you as fair and impartial. That you can't see the problem with the way you handled this discussion is what gives me pause. What assurance is there that you won't repeat this sort of thing after you're elected?
    – ColleenV
    Nov 10, 2022 at 13:34
  • The way I have handled this is what I perceived as "the lesser of a few evils". It is in no way good and I never claimed it is. I would have preferred this to be a comment on the nomination post. But I have a moderator and a former moderator telling me that "lying on a job application" is something I should shut up about and cover up. "Not make a drama". On "The Workplace" nonetheless. I would love to hear your constructive way to point out a lie on an application. Is your answer seriously "let people lie"? So if you offer up a better way I could have done that, I'm very open to suggestions.
    – nvoigt Mod
    Nov 10, 2022 at 14:11
  • For example, I wondered if flagging it would have been the better solution. Would it? What would have happened then?
    – nvoigt Mod
    Nov 10, 2022 at 14:20
  • 3
    @nvoigt You should have made it less of a personal attack. The problem from the site's perspective is that the community didn't get an opportunity to vet the candidate. I would have offered a place for the community to ask questions because the comments were locked and then posted a question about how they reconcile their statement that they weren't suspended with posts indicating they had been. Example: Mod Election 2021 Open Discussion. Even if you are justifiably righteously angry, you have to be able to set that aside.
    – ColleenV
    Nov 10, 2022 at 15:18
  • 3
    @nvoigt Also, neither of us told you to "shut up" about it or cover it up. It's that kind of rhetoric that is the problem. If I wasn't trying to help you, I would have just downvoted this discussion without comment and I wouldn't be taking time away from work to discuss it with you. I am honestly on your side here, but I worry that you are going to have a bad experience as a mod if you can't let go of some of your emotion and address issues like this with a little more detachment.
    – ColleenV
    Nov 10, 2022 at 15:31
  • 3
    I just thought the post was unecessary, not that anything should be kept quiet. Thats up to you. Rising to bait never reflects well on anyone whether justified or not. Perhaps the election chatroom would have been a better venue for it?
    – Kilisi Mod
    Nov 11, 2022 at 10:39
  • 4
    Sure, but thats how it works. We all have to do our thing within the parameters of the site at the time we do it. If I rose to all the inane and unfair bait dangled at me over the years I'd be past the moon by now ;)
    – Kilisi Mod
    Nov 11, 2022 at 11:38
  • 2
    @Kilisi I hear you :) Some of us just have a harder time resisting. I have been working on it for years and still have a hard time not going hammer and tongs after someone if they manage to push the right buttons.
    – ColleenV
    Nov 11, 2022 at 11:42
  • 1
    @Kilisi Well my goal is to not have buttons at all, but sometimes my aspirations exceed my ability :)
    – ColleenV
    Nov 11, 2022 at 13:02
  • 1
    @ColleenV A person's reach should always exceed their grasp. :)
    – Lilienthal Mod
    Nov 11, 2022 at 13:28

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .