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In connection with the moderator elections, we are holding a Q&A thread for the candidates. Questions collected from an earlier thread have been compiled into this one, which shall now serve as the space for the candidates to provide their answers.

Due to the submission count, we have selected all provided questions as well as our back up questions for a total of 7 questions.

As a candidate, your job is simple - post an answer to this question, citing each of the questions and then post your answer to each question given in that same answer. For your convenience, I will include all of the questions in quote format with a break in between each, suitable for you to insert your answers. Just copy the whole thing after the first set of three dashes.Please consider putting your name at the top of your post so that readers will know who you are before they finish reading everything you have written, and also including a link to your answer on your nomination post.

Once all the answers have been compiled, this will serve as a transcript for voters to view the thoughts of their candidates, and will be appropriately linked in the Election page.

Good luck to all of the candidates!

Oh, and when you've completed your answer, please provide a link to it after this blurb here, before that set of three dashes. Please leave the list of links in the order of submission.

To save scrolling here are links to the submissions from each candidate (in order of submission):

  1. What do you think this site's biggest challenge is? (E.g. post quality or quantity, too many/few closures, bad tools/guidance, etc.) What do you think should be done about it (by anybody: moderators, users in general, Stack Exchange staff, ...)?

  2. The creation of this site was controversial: Why do we need a separate site for Emacs? Isn't creating an Emacs site against the usual Stack Exchange policies? Watch out Emacs, you'll need to prove yourself. One week in, the site's worth was still considered dubious. And then we went public, and we met the criteria for dropping the beta label after about one year. In a few days we'll reach our fourth anniversary. What do you think Emacs Stack Exchange brings to the Emacs community, and to Stack Exchange?

  3. 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?

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

  5. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

  6. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

  7. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

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Questionnaire - Answers - candidate: manandearth

  1. What do you think this site's biggest challenge is? (E.g. post quality or quantity, too many/few closures, bad tools/guidance, etc.) What do you think should be done about it (by anybody: moderators, users in general, Stack Exchange staff, ...)?

The interesting challenge that I see for the site, from my daily searches, Is unanswered questions, or questions that have insufficient answers, as well as answers that could be more complete if linked to similar ones, or joined somehow. Many questions go without a good solution because they treat in some obscure feature or some not so popular package. This is due to the nature of Emacs and its diverse uses.

Moderators, reviewers, users can help by cleaning up and help maintaining as they go along picking information and posting. The tools are in place, what's required is more participation.

  1. The creation of this site was controversial: Why do we need a separate site for Emacs? Isn't creating an Emacs site against the usual Stack Exchange policies? Watch out Emacs, you'll need to prove yourself. One week in, the site's worth was still considered dubious. And then we went public, and we met the criteria for dropping the beta label after about one year. In a few days we'll reach our fourth anniversary. What do you think Emacs Stack Exchange brings to the Emacs community, and to Stack Exchange?

For the Emacs community: the site is easily accessible for new Emacs users that are familiar with the SE format, and for members that interact with other SE sites in their work/projects.

To Stack Exchange it brings a reliable place for questions about features, packages, not only about code (StackExchange emacs tag) and a bit too obscure and can get lost in SE Superuser or SE Unix&Linux.

Furthemore the joint work on the site creates a fantastic tagged data base of Emacs Q&A.

  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 should be looked in on a case to case basis. I will be interested to see such a case, to understand why is it flagged, and in case that the flags are not justified, remove them and find out the cause.

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

I'd communicate with the moderator to understand and try to resolve it between us. due to my lack of experience I am willing to learn more form the moderators, but I will surely do what I can within my authority in case of injustice.

  1. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

A moderator helps improving the site by removing inappropriate content, resolving conflicts, helping the order and functionality with useful intervention, so that queries will lead to right answers and healthy debate.

  1. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

I am fairly new in the game. I understand the implications. I will have to be more careful before I downvote next, and I will have to do proper research before jumping to ask or answer. But I will not punish others for not doing the same...

  1. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

As a moderator I will get to look at a questions and answers beyond my scope, this can bring new challenges that will help me learn more about Emacs, and in turn be more helpful with that knowledge.

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1.What do you think this site's biggest challenge is? (E.g. post quality or quantity, too many/few closures, bad tools/guidance, etc.) What do you think should be done about it (by anybody: moderators, users in general, Stack Exchange staff, ...)?

Some questions lack sufficient answers, and there are plenty of questions that boil down to someone having a problem with their init file. The former problem could be somewhat reduced by reminding people to answer their own questions should they find answers.

2.The creation of this site was controversial: Why do we need a separate site for Emacs? Isn't creating an Emacs site against the usual Stack Exchange policies? Watch out Emacs, you'll need to prove yourself. One week in, the site's worth was still considered dubious. And then we went public, and we met the criteria for dropping the beta label after about one year. In a few days we'll reach our fourth anniversary. What do you think Emacs Stack Exchange brings to the Emacs community, and to Stack Exchange?

I think there should be more Stack Exchange sites, and that Stack Overflow should be split into multiple Stack Exchange sites, because it's too large to even answer questions there, as people fight to be the first one to give an answer (often of poor quality). I don't think there's any topic that's too specific for a Stack Exchange site.

3.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 kind of problem should be handled on a case by case basis, and getting in touch with a person that's causing trouble would be my first step to resolve the issue.

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

I'd consider discussing it with other moderators, but I assume in most cases that moderator had their own reason to make such a choice.

5.In your opinion, what do moderators do?

They handle cases where things go out of hand, and decide what to do with flagged content.

6.A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

I don't think it changes much, as I'm trying to give quality answers to questions and be patient.

7.In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

Getting to that point on such a small Stack Exchange would take excruciatingly long time, so I think it will make it easier for me to contribute.

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