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The purpose of this thread was to collect questions for the questionnaire. The questionnaire is now live, and you may find it here.

DBA is scheduled for an election next week, October 12, 2020. 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.

Here's how it'll work:

  • Until the nomination phase, (so, until October 12, 2020 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 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. We reserve some editorial control in the selection of the questions and may opt not to select a question that is tangential or irrelevant to moderation or the election.

  • 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.

8 Answers 8

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It's a classic, up to the point I have no idea who asked it first (perhaps I should write a cross-site SEDE query to figure out):

In your opinion, what is the biggest problem/challenge Database Administrators is currently facing? How would you propose to solve it?

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Here is a set of general questions, gathered as very common questions asked every election. As mentioned in the instructions, the first two questions are guaranteed to show up in the Q&A, while the others are if there aren't enough questions (or, if you like one enough, you may split it off as a separate answer for review within the community's 8).

  • 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?
  • How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?
  • In your opinion, what do moderators do?
  • 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?
  • 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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Would you be proud to tell people in other places that you're a moderator here? Ex: on your linkedin profile, or at conferences?

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What is your favorite StackExchange experience or question/answer? What gave you the best engagement/entertainment? What specifically about this made it so memorable?

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What are some of the things Stack Exchange (and DBA.se in particular) has done well to promote diversity among askers, answerers, and moderators? What are areas they/we have done poorly?

For example, many women feel they must obscure their female identify (through pseudonyms, avatars, etc) to be welcome on the site. Similar could be said for other minorities and underrepresented groups.

As a moderator, how will you contribute to promoting a more welcoming environment that allows individuals to feel that their whole person is a part of the Stack Exchange community?

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What in your opinion would make you less likely to participate in the site, knowing that you were elected by your peers as moderator?

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  • idk if this is worded well. I think my concept is clear, but the words may be lacking. I'm open to suggestions and edits.
    – jcolebrand Mod
    Commented Oct 8, 2020 at 0:45
  • I think I concur that this isn't worded great. I'm not sure what you actually mean? Maybe some added detail in comments would clarify and pave the way for suggested edits.
    – AMtwo
    Commented Oct 11, 2020 at 11:39
  • What I mean is that on most SE sites, people as a rule tend to become either super-frequent site users and edit a lot of stuff, or their participation falls off
    – jcolebrand Mod
    Commented Oct 11, 2020 at 18:12
  • Ah. I think swapping the middle of the question to say "...would make some users less likely to participate while others become frequent users of the site..." Would convey that better.
    – AMtwo
    Commented Oct 11, 2020 at 22:59
  • Currently, you use "you" in a spot to refer to "someone" and in others to refer to the literal "you, the moderator reading this" and that's what's confusing me
    – AMtwo
    Commented Oct 11, 2020 at 23:01
  • My understanding of what the question is trying to explore is, moderatorship will likely make you more attached (at the very least, make you feel more attached) to the site, because as a role it requires that you be more invested in it, and as a sign of trust by those who elected you it binds you to the community a little (more). And so the question then becomes, how much harder, if at all, it will be to discourage you from participating in the site after you become a moderator. Is that close?
    – Andriy M
    Commented Oct 13, 2020 at 0:43
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  • Do you believe in oppressing people for their use of CAPITAL LETTERS?
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  • the moderators certainly do. BANNED.
    – jcolebrand Mod
    Commented Oct 8, 2020 at 0:42
  • I mean .. the moderators have banned themselves?
    – jcolebrand Mod
    Commented Oct 8, 2020 at 0:42
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  • What reason do you attribute to the continued used of MySQL? And how can this site be better utilized by those in the profession to resolve this problem?

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