> 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? - My general solution to this is grab that user into a private chat and discuss how we can amend their behavior in such a way that it becomes constructive. If this is not an option or the behavior continues after a chat then a moderator message becomes the appropriate recourse. > 2\. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been? - I'd broach the subject with the moderator in question and we'd have a chat about it. If we remained in disagreement after a chat we'd either bring a third moderator in or take it to meta for the community to discuss. > 3\. When you see a question or answer with major issues, e.g. argumentative or poorly-written, what tool do you reach for first and why? - The first thing I do is close the question. This is the immediate, stop the bleeding tool. If things are getting argumentative then a short lock is the next tool out of the bag to stop edit wars or comment arguments. Generally a comment indicating why a question was closed or locked and what needs to change for the closure/lock to come off will accompany any action. > 4\. Bearing in mind that this site is about Christianity, but [*not* a Christian site](http://meta.christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/193/brothers-we-are-not-christians), how do you intend to remain as objective and non-biased as possible when evaluating the contributions of users? - Unless I'm answering a question, my beliefs and opinions take a backseat to site policies. This is something I believe I've managed to do fairly well over the past almost 2 years and will continue to do in the future. > 5\. One of the hardest issues we've dealt with over the past two years is how to deal with the following two related issues: > > - Minority Christian groups that are regarded as heretical by mainstream groups. > - Individuals who claim to be the only person who believes the way they do and insist on being able to post their opinions wherever they please on this site. > > Our scope has mandated that we include anyone (or group) who self identify as Christian. > > - How will you as a moderator assist in making minority groups feel welcome? > - How will you handle individuals who do not have an identifiable group or doctrine? - This is something that I believe in fiercely. Our mandate to serve and protect groups that claim to be Christian no matter how heretical I and other find them is something I take very seriously. Part of this is trying to get contributors from groups that are large, but poorly represented here to provide quality content. I'm not above getting down on my knees and begging. - I've fought for fairly low baselines for what it takes to be considered a "group" and what we consider "established." This is because I believe that we've got to protect the rights of even the smallest groups here. That said, we've got to have standards. This is no the place to proselytize nor is it the place to develop new theology. > 6\. What, if any, role do you think moderators can/should have in developing replacement moderators and developing a strong community that reduces the need for moderator action? - I think that we should always be seeking to bring along and train new users, and to help established users understand how to use the privileges they've earned. Activity in chat, writing good advice, and policy posts on meta, and making sure users are voting to close and flagging properly are big parts of this. Generally this community *should* be able to police itself, and as we grow that will be more and more the case. > 7\. As a moderator on Christiantiy.SE, which how would you prioritize the following, realizing that they are not mutually exclusive, but at times certain points can be, depending on the situation: > > - Demonstrating a Christian attitude and Christian behavior > - Guiding new users into understanding the site guidelines > - Addressing unacceptable behavior > - Enforcing site guidelines, even the ones you disagree with. > - Ensuring all answers come from a Christian perspective > - Addressing heretical or grossly incorrect answers > > For a concrete example: in the event of a conflict between these items, which "wins"? Say we have a new user that is repeatedly posting questions that fail to meet basic site rules, and ignores the community's attempts to explain the rules. > > What wins? > > - The Christian behavior: Kindness, gentleness, desire to see this person get saved? > - Enforcing the guidelines and suspending/censoring the user? > - Ensuring that the answers are from a Christian perspective, and deleting the ones that are not? - Wow, that's a long question. Ok here's how I go: 1 . Demonstrating a Christian attitude. This site is heavily indexed by Google. It's an excellent opportunity for us to minister in sort of a quiet way. If we can show that even in our diversity the common link between all of us is the love of Christ then we've performed our mission. One of the most excellent parts of this site is that we've managed to have contentious doctrinal discourse in a way that is highly constructive and getting more so. 2. Unacceptable behavior - This can make the site miserable fast, must be dealt with ASAP. 3. Enforcing Site guidelines - We're a community of rules and my mandate is to enforce them. 4. Guide new users - Our userbase rotates pretty regularly, some folks come and some stay, but for the most part we're a revolving door. We've got to train our new users in such a way that they want to stick around and keep hanging out here. 5. Ensuring all answers come from a Christian perspective - This isn't quite the case, but answers that are belittling of Christianity or groups within it, or answers that aren't reflective of Christian traditions should be removed. An answer's perspective is fairly low priority because as moderators we're not supposed to be making determinations on factuality, but I'm definitely OK with policing it when it's either not-Christian or not reflective of any known tradition. 1000. This will probably show as 6, but I wrote 1000, this doesn't even rate, it's not a moderator's job to ensure answers are accurate. As far as picking which of the 3 things you listed wins. The fact is that Christian kindness is important expected because of the type of community we are and want to continue to be. But ultimately the site guidelines are it. That's where our mandate comes from, that's what we're here to enforce. > 8\. What are the top two or three challenges facing the site as it moves forward, and what do you plan to do to address them? (If applicable: what have you already done about them?) - There are several issues gong forward that will need continued attention and support. Here are the ones I see: 1. The truth question dilemma: We've had an ongoing debate over how to deal with so called "truth questions." While I support the ban on them, I'm still in pursuit of better verbiage and a good way to moderate them. I started a meta post about that this last night and will continue to help refine this policy going forward. 2. How to attract quality contributors from small, but influential minority groups: I won't lie, I'm still waiting for the first member of the Jehovah's Witnesses to show up here with something other than plagiarized content. I've basically begged a couple of the ones that have copy/pasted huge portions of their publications to contribute quality answers, but so far we've not been able to attract any. 3. How to deal with people who claim they are the only ones who believe what they believe. We've have a few of these over the past two years and they are always a tough case. Learning the right thing to say and how to help them properly will be something we work out over the coming months and years, largely by experience and through trial and error. > 9\. Why do you want to be a moderator? It is time consuming, frustrating, and not very rewarding. What is your motivation to take this thankless job? - In a lot of ways the reasons why I want to be a moderator are the same reasons why I'm here at all. I enjoy the high signal to noise ratio of Stack Exchange communities, I learn a lot when I read the questions and answers and I enjoy the game in action aspect of stack exchange. The truth is that somehow, as hard and frustrating as being a moderator sometimes is, I enjoy moderating this site. > 10\. How would you handle a non-minor disagreement (not something that can be ignored as "personal preference," "could go either way," etc) with the action or inaction of another moderator? - Generally if I disagree with something a moderator has done, I'm going to let them know. We have a chat room for backroom discussion, it doesn't need to be aired out in public chat or on meta, generally this kind of thing can be settled either one on one or with mediation from another moderator. This is why a site has multiple moderators (and one of this reasons that I believe this site functions better with more than 3 or 4 mods). Generally the current mod staff has been on the same page wrt major decisions, but when we haven't we've been able to civilly resolve our differences. With a new moderator staff this might change, but there really aren't too many things I can see myself getting bent out of shape with site policy wise. Please let me know if you have any further questions or if I can clarify anything. I'll be checking back on this through the end of the election and I'll be in either the Upper Room or the election chat throughout the rest of the election.