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In connection with the moderator elections, 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.

This is an alternative form of the Town Hall Chat system we've done in previous elections, we're trying some new things to test out how a different approach works.

This was the thread to collect questions The questionnaire can be found here.

Here's how it'll work.

  • During the nomination phase, (so, until May 20th 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.
  • This is a perfect opportunity to voice questions that are specific to your community and issues that you are running into at current.
  • At the end of the 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. That said, if I have concerns about any questions in this fashion, I will be sure to point this out in comments before the decision making time.
  • Once questions have been selected, a new question will be opened to host the actual questionnaire for the candidates, 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 new process, feel free to post as a comment here.

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    "Please only post one question per answer." for some reason I find that amusing :)
    – Jack Douglas Mod
    Commented May 14, 2013 at 14:04
  • @JackDouglas me too. wait for flags as "not an answer"
    – JNK Mod
    Commented May 14, 2013 at 14:06
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    There really needs to be a big bold banner on the election page that points to this meta question, can that be arranged?
    – Jack Douglas Mod
    Commented May 15, 2013 at 6:32
  • @Jack No, I can't arrange for a giant bold banner (in part because we're still trial running this whole process). At most, I can include it in the set of links at the bottom that point to the other things like the election statistics and the chat room (and, in fact, when the questionnaire itself opens, it is planned to post a link to that in that section).
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Commented May 15, 2013 at 13:21
  • OK, no worries, I've edited the top comment on each candidate. Hope that's OK.
    – Jack Douglas Mod
    Commented May 15, 2013 at 15:29

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  • What do you think is the biggest benefit of dba.se to the world of database professionals, and how can will you help make the site an even more valuable resource when elected?
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  • What do you feel about content that includes vital info in a link to an external site? eg Gist or SQLFiddle? Should we treat either or both as 'permanent', or insist that a question or answer should be useful whether or not they disappear?
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  • We currently have three moderators who are actively communicating with each other about issues. After the election we will presumably have four. That means that we might get deadlock on a decision. How do you feel we should constructively resolve a situation like that?
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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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