2015 Moderator Election

I'll throw my hat into the ring. I know the U.S. CDT has good coverage already, and even more so with Mark Henderson moving this way, but if the need is there, I'm happy to serve.

Why should you elect me? I wish I had a great political answer with suave and gusto. Honestly, I'm just pretty laid back and have been around SF long enough to know what flies and what doesn't. I have no real agenda or platform other than to follow A Theory of Moderation and to be respectful during moderation. I'm very busy at my job these days, but this is one of the few sites I still try to visit on a daily basis. If that concerns you that I wouldn't be here 8 hours a day, then I may not be the person for the job.

I think Server Fault is a great resource for server admins. It's easy to get around on, it's simple in its overall mission, and it is free. It has a lot of crap as well, but it's expected with a mass audience.

I enjoy the friends I've found here on SF, and while there's always room for improvement and I can "long for the good old days of SF" the site is still one of the best around considering its scope.

My Motivation

I feel that in any field community involvement makes everyone better. Communities allow us to learn from one another, to make use of resources we might not otherwise have had, and to build pride in your work. As a rule technologists tend towards anti-social making community involvement all the more important.

All too often new professionals are thrust into the role with no real training and, at best, a large amount of zeal. Providing this as an open forum, and encouraging a community that people want to join, supports professional growth in ways never before attainable.

About My Contribution

I have long been an active member of the StackExchange network joining ServerFault during public beta. I want this to be a site where I could proudly display my name to my peers. I see this site as a professional endeavour, and as such, I want the professionalism to be evident. I try to keep the standards high by way of editing and flagging. The best examples of that work is the fact that I was the seventh user to earn the Deputy badge, for submitting helpful tags, and am easily on the first page of editors.

I'm not sure why I'm running again

Rep is the first and only thing most voters look at and I don't have the rep of the other serious candidates.

Scott, EEAA, HBruijn, TheCleaner, Falcon, and womble, would all be good mods and so would a few more who I'm not as familiar with.

I don't think SE likes me (based on comments during the election/Noob dramas and that they never sent me a T-shirt after the last election!)

Involvement counts for something

I'm the most active voter on SF (and for all of SE) and open/close reviewer. I read a lot of the Qs and As and know what's a good fit.

I'm active on meta.SF and meta.SE, so I'm aware of many of the questions and concerns people have about SF and SE sites in general.

What I would do (maybe differently)

One idea I got from the dramas was that the only hope for handling "bad" content on SF is to have more people involved. Mods can't do it all.

So I would try to encourage more people to participate. More voting and reviewing will help deal with good/bad content.

I don't know exactly how I'd do this, I have some meta posts in mind, some ideas for canned comments, but that's all I've got so far.

I believe a better title for a Moderator is actually as a Facilitator. First and foremost this is a community driven site and moderation actions should be weighed based on that community. As part of that belief I've participated in what review queues I'm able to access and flagging posts I felt needed attention.

In the world of gaming I've been a volunteer Moderator and Game Operator. I understand that in this position you can't please everyone, but you can be fair. I pledge that if elected I will follow the guidance of the community while respecting the rules of the site to evenly and effectively apply the powers bestowed upon Moderators.

ServerFault is your site and it's your content and often represents a source of pride and accomplishment. Your Moderator should understand that simple premise and you should vote accordingly.

Nominating myself for the second year in a row. I feel that I've grown considerably since my last campaign, and with luck, I'll only receive a dozen or so "Why should we pick you?" comments and questions.

I've spent a fair amount of time on Server Fault. I've answered a lot of questions, helped a lot of people, and pissed off a number of people after providing well-needed dope slaps for doing things they shouldn't or trying to fix issues in ways that would do nothing but make things worse in the future.

In my time at Server Fault, I've gone from "Really Excited, Reputation-hungry n00b" to "Disenfranchised BOFH (get off my lawn, kthx)" to currently "I'm trying my best to improve this place".

SF is for professionals. Above all, I strive to live up to that standard, and to encourage professional questions, answers, and comments from others. I don't care if you're a beginner. We all started somewhere. As long as you've:

1. Done your due diligence (we're not here to do your job for you)
2. Are accepting of answers you might not want to hear

...your question (as long as it's on topic) is welcome. For situations where correction or guidance is needed, it will be given in a gentle, respectful manner.

This is the modus operandi by which I would discharge my responsibilities if elected as a moderator.

For those of you who don't know me, I'm BigHomie. I'd make a good moderator because

• I have skills at resolving disputes

• I can recognize when a question's quality can be improved to fit the standards of the site

• I care about the future of SF

You may have noticed my rep is pretty low compared to some of the heavy hitters here. Note though that the nowadays we rarely collect upvotes on questions and answers as before.

You may have also noticed that my activity on SF and SE in general has dwindled this year. Because of life circumstances I have less time to spend on SE in general this year, however that's coming to and end in a couple of months, and even now I still pop in to view the queues and answer questions or comment on answers.

I don't really have a platform, but I will say I know the children are our future, we need to teach them well and help them lead the way.

I also have zero tolerance for trolls.

I believe in comments being left when downvoting, unless the reason is blatantly obvious.

I'd like to nominate myself for one of the available moderator posts. I've been around this community since 2012, and I've found it very helpful throughout my career. I've used this community to find people to hire and solutions to many of my professional quandaries.

I have seen many changes in the site in the past year. The close vote queue growth persists as one of these; another is a gradual shift toward automation-related questions and the need to keep the thrust of the site current as system administrators more frequently develop software.

I've continued to participate in reviewing and answer questions; I've written 574 answers, including the canonical DDoS response I am under DDoS. What can I do?.

If given a shiny diamond, I promise to be involved in the encouragement of positive contributions to our community, particularly by ensuring the front page reflects the types of questions that exemplify our topic.

I don't think the role of moderators has changed much since last year and neither have I so I won't reiterate much of what I had to say in the 2014 elections:

The active members of the community are the ones who decide on the scope of the site and are the principle arbiters of whether any topic, question or answer is suitable or not.

The moderator role I would want is one that supports our idea's for a community of professionals, by both encouraging newcomers but also generous application of the LART when needed as well. Excesses are typically glaringly obvious and moderator intervention is much quicker than 5 community votes.

The moderator role only works when it is respected by the community. I would like to think I have an established track record of useful comments, edits and answers that sets a good example. As a moderator I expect I'll be doing much of what I was already doing anyway and I honestly don't plan to do all that much more actually...

I've been a user on SF for a long time (since the beta), and I've been active as a "community moderator" since I got the appropriate rep-privs. I've got a couple of hundred actioned flags to my name, nearly 500 edits, over 3,500 votes, and I'll probably break 1,000 reviews today (I'm at 987 as I write this). I typically either hit my review limit or there aren't enough items to review each day -- I'm pretty diligent in exercising the privileges I already have, and I intend to continue to do that with the expanded privileges granted to me as an elected moderator.

One thing I'd specifically like to focus on as a moderator is encouraging a professional level of interaction between everyone on the site. Questions which wouldn't pass muster if a colleague asked them should be quickly fixed or nuked, while answers and comments which you'd be embarrassed to present to your boss should receive a similar treatment.