2012 Moderator Election

$man Jeffrey Taylor

Jeffrey Taylor(1) ---------------BSD General Mods Application

Name

Jeffrey Taylor

Synopsis

Jeffrey Taylor [-a active] [-p patient] [-e experienced] [-k knowledgeable]

Description

Jeffrey Taylor has been working in the IT field for the past 7 years as both a Systems Administrator, Systems Analyst and junior developer. His development experience should not be held against him. He is currently working as a Senior Systems Administrator for a large federal agency. Managing over 180 systems and a team of 11.

The options are as follows:

-a Been around for nearly a year. Has constant online access and ridiculous amounts of downtime - at the tax-payers expense.

-p In his younger days, perhaps less so. However, working for the federal government has taught him to hurry up and wait.

-e Having worked in the industry for over 7 years and freelancing for 10 years, he's seen a lot of crazy stuff. Capable of managing large, mission critical teams and agile teams; he's seen it all.

-k With experience managing virtually every OS and working in several fields - including infrastructure, private and public sector - he's dabbled in a little of everything while remaining active in several online technical communities.

History

Jeffrey Taylor attended Carleton University as a Computer Sciences major while freelancing as a Systems Administrator to pay the bills. Upon graduation he realized he was no developer and continued his Systems Administration career.

Authors

Jeffrey Taylor < jefe78@gmail.com>

BSD ----------------------January 15, 2012 ------------------BSD

I like this community (both SE in general and SF specifically) and would like to help out more.

Moderation

I am a moderator on Bicycles.SE

I was a pro-tem moderator there starting in September 2010, and was elected by the community in September 2011.

I've seen what happens when bad questions are allowed to stick around, so I'm inclined to handle them quickly. I'm patient, fair, open to criticism and have gently nudged many people into the SE Q&A style. Sometimes aspects can be frustrating, but I believe I usually handle that well. Whenever possible, I think it's best for the community to handle issues, especially on a site like SF with a population of users that actively vote to close questions. Moderators should be dealing with flags and acting on posts that multiple users agree need to be dealt with, not patrolling the site looking for the problematic content.

Other experience

I've been a sysadmin for well over a decade. Primarily Unix/Linux, but a bit of Windows (and recently some VMware). Databases, too. Primarily servers, but have done desktop support type stuff as well.

I've been involved with online/electronic communities since dial-up modem BBSes in the early 90s. I ran my own BBS, and assisted with running one or two others. I've been a newsgroup moderator, and mailing list moderator. I helped start and run a linux users group and a system administrators group.

Basically, I'm even-tempered, generally experienced with online communities and specifically experienced with how Stack Exchange sites should work.

Time availability

Able to check on site regularly M–F 16:00–0:30 UTC. With a bit of 01:30–06:00 UTC time that might be on a mobile device. Weekends and holidays sporadic during a roughly 18:00–08:00 UTC window.

Chat

I'm available in The Comms Room quite often during the those "primary" hours. I'm often in the Teacher's Lounge, so SE staff and other site mods know me.

Introduction

Greetings, Earthlings. I'd like to nominate myself for the 2012 Community Moderator election just so we can have two "Eriks" in the field. :) Unlike pauska, I'm from Minnesota (a.k.a. New Norway).

My Experience

I've worked in IT for nearly 13 years now - for some of that time, I was in corporate IT, then worked on the systems administration team of a local university, and now am working IT for a medical technology startup. My strengths lie primarily in the areas of linux administration, virtualization, and data storage, though I can speak with a fair degree of authority and confidence on a majority of questions that hit the site. Except iis. I hate IIS, and refuse to help those who choose to use that abomination. ;)

Serverfault Activity and Involvement

I have been quite active on Serverfault for a hair over 2 years now, and for most of that time have been quite active, both in answering questions, editing/improving others posts, as well as throwing my hat into the ring from time to time over on MSF. Due to a job change in early November '11, my participation has waned a bit, but now the post-new-job overload period is subsiding, so (as my reputation graph indicates) my activity has been increasing. I have also been quite active in chat, though not as much recently, also due to the job change. Participation there is a priority of mine, and I intend to poke my head in the room more often going forward.

When writing answers, commenting, or otherwise interacting with others on SF, I do my darnedest to be patient and not come off as a BOFH, but I fear (like most of us), that tendency slips out more often than I'd like, especially if I've missed my morning coffee. I find that I have much more patience with new users that "mess up" and need redirection than I do with those users who have been around the SF block enough to know better.

I live in US/Central, and tend to be most active during business hours on weekdays and weekend evenings. In UTC, that would be 15:00-23:30 during the week, and 01:00-05:00 weekends.

On Moderation

I've been around the community for long enough that I have a good sense on what's good (yay!), what's bad (but could be salvaged with some gentle guidance), and what's bad (burninate, plz). I will try and rely on the community at large to do their own moderation. I have seen (and been quite frustrated by) overly-zealous use of the mod hammer at times, and I will reserve its use for all but the most dire of circumstances.

I would be a good moderator because I am dedicated, even-tempered, and active in the community (answering and asking questions, participating in meta, and chat). I hope my reputation precedes this nomination; I'm a terrible salesman and pride myself on my past works, their quality and lasting testament to the effort of my contributions.

I was disappointed when we recently lost one of the site's favorite moderators. The biggest loss on that occasion was a moderator who was finely attune to the community, who participated in the three "spaces", unabashedly spoke his mind, and donated immense time to build our knowledge base and keep it clean. I can only hope that I might fill some of the void he left in our moderator team.

Hi! I'm Bart and would like to be considered for one of the moderator positions.

About me

I've been an SF member (serverfaultee?) for over a year now. During this year I've answered quite a few questions, but that's not the important part. A lot of my time was spent on reviewing, approving, voting and improving. I got a few notable badges in doing so:

• Strunk & White
• Electorate
• Reviewer
• Convention
• Outspoken

I tend to fix a lot (have a peek at the top editors) of markup errors and fix technical mistakes when the questions/answers are within my field of knowledge. While reviewing questions (/review gogo!) I edit to improve and upvote what is already great.

I try to engage people to edit their answers or questions to provide better content by asking them to include more details or write something themselves, rather then linking to an external site (Ew, Linkrot!). I'm a patient person and fought my way through numerous indecipherable questions to improve them.

I already use the mod tools that I have (650 Flag Weight). Instead of raising flags (and adding to the pile) I would like to resolve them. I know being a moderator would mean getting a deciding vote, this would probably make me more hesitant in voting towards closing or reopening, the community has great tools to do this.

My help would only be needed when the community isn't capable of achieving something they want or when a quick response is needed. Applying presure where needed and staying away from the "harder" mod-tools if they are not needed is what I want to do. I'm also a chat-regular during the office hours in UTC+1 in case people would need me.

In the end, what I would like to do is help build a great community and the best online resource available.

TLDR;

I like ServerFault. I want to be a mod because I think I would be good at it. Vote for me.

Why hello there. I'm Erik from Norway. I'm a viking.

I'm the one who spur up the discussion about inactive mods, so I feel obliged to run for election. I can name a few who deserve/will do the job better, but I don't think I would be the worst choice either :-)

Whilst the blood might be cold because of the environment I live in, I can also be a bit hot-tempered at some points, especially when it's evident that people asks questions without using 1 calorie to investigate on their own.

Other than that I think I'm a generally nice guy, who spend a lot of time on this site. I try to contribute at all aspects of the SF community, as in flagging, commenting, answering, upvoting, downvoting, linking funny pictures in the chat, debating on meta etc.

If I would get elected, then I'll still do the same as before, but also keep a desktop notification up about flags. Mods should not stop participating at the site and "snipe from the shadows" :-)

My timezone is the same as splattne (+1 GMT).

So here I nominate myself as a moderator. But I have to stress that I'm not known for being

• patient and fair
• leads by example
• shows respect for their fellow community members in their actions and words
• open to some light but firm moderation to keep the community on track and resolve (hopefully) uncommon disputes and exceptions

On the other hand I managed to get a reputation of almost 10k in a few month and a flag weight of 649. On top of that I was working here 185 days in a row. And you can find me around the clock when I have the time.

You probably know me from many postings in the "Vote for close" chat.

That's all for now. Oh, did I say that I'm not good in promoting myself?!

$ whoami

I've been a member or ServerFault for two and a half years. I am commonly referred to as a Systems Engineer and have been working in IT for a scant 6 years. I have actively participated on a number of popular IT forums.

What I do on ServerFault now

I actively contribute to provide answers to questions where I can, however I believe that there are many people who are more qualified and talented than I am who can do a better job of clarifying a topic. As such, my reputation has not reached very lofty heights.

Lately, my focus has shifted to that of helping to curate ServerFault's culture and aiding in the honing of our purpose. That includes:

• Flagging old questions for closure that do not currently represent what ServerFault's stated goals are. Old questions that are poorly aligned with current goals confuse new users and encourage more poorly targeted questions to be asked.
• Searching through tags for ones that are poor, too meta or nebulous. Proposing the killing off of those tags, the creation of synonyms or the clarification of existing ones.
• Editing posts for clarity, spelling, grammar and etc. to show ServerFault in a better light and encourage new and old users towards a higher level of contributions.
• Commenting on questions and answers where the author needs some clarification on ServerFault's aim or how they could make their contribution better.

My Goals for Modship

To continue in my habits of curator-ship, but utilize the moderator tools to expedite the process (and not completely annoy existing moderators with my flurry of flags).

Also, there is something to be said for the weight of culture that a site's moderator exerts through no deliberate action of his own. Often, moderators are looked to as ambassadors of the site to newcomers. A moderator's actions are often taken as being greater signs of an overall site's culture than even frequent contributors. I would like to perform as a sanctioned force for encouragement and quality.

OK, we're understaffed on mods so I'll throw my hat into the ring.

I'm pretty much on the site during US/Eastern--US/Central business hours, and occasionally during off hours and weekends if I'm stuck working (or really bored). Most of the regulars in The Comms Room are used to seeing me around and know me pretty well, so this is really aimed more at the folks who don't come into chat often but are still invested in the site -- I'm sure there are a lot of you.

---

About Me

For those that don't know me I'm a crotchety BOFHly-type, but with a soft spot for "junior admins" and users that pay their bills on time.
For those who are actually making an effort I have a (nearly) infinite well of patience. Conversely for those who come to the site going "I can has teh c0dez?" and expecting us as a community to divine their intent I have a dead fish wrapped in the sports page.

As I mentioned I spend most of my on-line time in chat (idling or chatting depending on workload), and I prowl the new questions and a select few tags to answer questions when I can. I also participate in the edit/answer/close/delete brigades that we recently started up to help clean up the site and improve our question-to-answer ratio.

I am somewhat active on Meta, though not nearly as active as I should be.
Similarly I do some light flagging when I see stuff that needs moving/mod-hammering.

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About Moderation

I believe in a very hands-off style of moderation - It's my view that the community should police itself and enforce its own standards (and that we generally do a good job of this).
Accordingly acquiring a little blue diamond will probably substantially reduce my close-voting: since moderator close votes are instant-action I would prefer to see an emerging community consensus before lowering a mod hammer in all but the most obvious cases.

Hi...

I'd like to nominate myself for the position of moderator. I am an experienced, accomplished,talented, and highly professional computer person.

Over the past year, I have been very active in SF and have worked for higher reputation levels in order to work in the support of SF site.

As you will see in my statistics, I have a high flag weight and rank with a high level of participation. I have edited and reviewed a significant number of postings and have provided changes where they improve understanding.

Overview

Hi. I'm Mark and I like technology.

I get paid to administer about 50 Windows servers and a dozen CentOS and OS X servers, so I have a good handle on the bulk of questions that are asked.

I'm active on meta and in chat.

Sometimes, I curse. Sorry about that. If elected, I'll cut down on it. That's a real promise, not a campaign promise. The fact that I would be representing all of Stack Exchange isn't lost on me.

Also, if elected, I promise free candy bars and popsicles for everyone. (Not really).

I work in a relaxed Higher-ED environment, which makes me available from about 1300-2200 UTC during the work day, as well as the time I spend on SF at home, which is sporadic from 2300-0300 usually.

Availability and activity are not, and will not be an issue for me.

In the last year, I've gained over 11k reputation and I've been a member of the community for 2 years and 6 months as of right now. I know the community. I love the community. Trust me with moderating it.

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A Brief Tech History

I've been in IT for about 8 years in a mixed environment. I deal mostly with Windows, but I also manage OS X, and Linux boxes as well. I also manage over 500 wireless access points and 4 controllers. If you have a question about Cisco lightweight APs and WLCs, I'm your guy!

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A Brief Server Fault History

I've been an active member of Server Fault for 2.5 years. I joined Super User when it was still in private beta. I'm a 10k+ user on both sites, though I'm not active there anymore. I have a lot of badges. I was the first to get reviewer and I'm one of only four people that have it.

I've answered almost 600 questions and have 5 tag-specific badges.

I participate in all facets of the site, and have a thorough understanding of how it works, except markdown in chat. No one knows how that works. I think it changes every time you log in.

I ran in the last election and I don't really have any more expectation of getting elected this time around, but I think it's better if there's a wide range of people running, and I'm certainly active enough on ServerFault to qualify.

What's active enough? As many people know, I vote a lot. For those that don't know, I'm at 11,000+ votes on Qs and As, more than twice as many as anyone else on SF and in the top 7 or 8 over all SE sites. As part of voting so much, I read most of the questions that are asked, and for the questions that I think I can judge what a good answer is, I read all the answers. I also Vote to Close a lot, and post dubious questions to the VtC Chat for others to look at.

I'm active in meta.SF and a bit (when I dare) on meta.SO. If I can trust the results of the SE Data explorer, I've asked 22 questions on meta.SF (highest is 24) I'm fairly active in Chat, although I'm in a time zone that misses some of the action. I don't participate in very many other SE sites, Cooking is about the only one I've got significant rep on, but I read photography, bicycles, and christianity (beta). I follow the SE blog, but not the podcast.

I'm going to have to come back later and fill in a bit more about how I'd moderate, but for now I'd just say that I have a good sense of what the ServerFault community approves of and doesn't, and as a moderator I'd be aiming to quickly cull the posts that really don't fit, and to encourage people to make their posts more appropriate if it's possible.

I believe I'll make a great addition to the community moderator team, and as far as my current privileges allow I already do a great deal of moderation work and housekeeping of the content on Server Fault.

Whenever I have gained new privileges on the site I have always used them to the best of my ability and used them extensively. I have improved countless questions by either re-formatting or re-wording to make them more understandable, and I am one of the top editors of all time. My name is also on the vote to close list of many awful questions, and also many migrations which saw the original poster get a better answer than they would have here.

I've got many of the badges that would suggest I have good moderator capabilities - many of the editing related badges, along with the Deputy badge. I have been flagging posts and making the moderator's lives a misery waaaaaay before the site rewarded you for flagging, and I believe I have the second highest flag weight of any user at 725, so I certainly have a good idea of what's a good fit and what isn't.

You'll often find me in the chat room, and from experience I've always found it a big advantage when something requires urgent attention on the site that you can go into chat and ping one of the moderators. I also keep up to speed on Meta Server Fault, and throw in my opinion too when I think it's needed.

I'm Iain, I would like to put myself forward for the post of moderator.

I already spend a fair amount of time 'moderating' by using the 10k and review tools.

I consider myself to be level headed and to have some common sense.

I have time to to spend a few minutes here and there throughout my day to help sweep up the trash.

I think that my participation and actions throughout the different aspects of Server Fault show that I would be a capable moderator. I am active on meta and chat

I've 750 flag weight, I'm an active editor, and I like to vote.

I have some badges too and I'm particularly pleased with this one

If elected moderator I will continue to do what I have always done, use the tools available to me to me for the benefit of the community.