2014 Moderator Election

Jyrki's answers to your questions

Reporting for janitorial duty.

I have been at our site for three and a half years now and I'm totally addicted. Might as well try and give something back to the best math site I've ever seen.

The main reasons why I think I am a good choice are:

• Math/career experience. I have been exposed to diverse corners of math, educational systems on both sides of the Atlantic, 25 years of teaching at college/university level, as well as interfacing with programmers/telcomm engineers during my shortish industry stint.
• I like to think I'm moderate (don't we all?). I will occasionally get caught in a heated debate. But after the initial shockwave has passed I try to bury the hatchet and look for a compromise.

IMO my major shortcomings are:

• Lack of time elsewhere in the SE network. I have never participated in our network wide meta, and thus I only have second hand exposure to SE philosophy. The moderators are our main link to SE staff, so I will have a lot to learn there. I have never moderated a site before.
• I'm not sure about the level of my emotional intelligence - you be the judge.

If given a bigger broom to wield I will be more careful about how, when and where I sweep.

Ahaan's answers to your questions

Besides being a complete mathematics addict, I am also very adhered to Math.StackExchange. Here are some reasons I think I would be a good fit for the moderator position.

1. I have past experience, especially with being a mod on AoPS and Brilliant and have other leadership positions, all of which have been extremely enjoyable and successful.

2. My maturity and understanding for others exceeds my age, IMHO.

3. My love for the community and care for the site would not interfere with my position; I would not let the users control my actions and would keep my power under the backseat until the time comes that I must use it.

There are a copious number of reasons for which I want to be a moderator, but primarily, it is to give back. In my 18 months on Math.SE, I have encountered many people of several statures spending several hours of their time helping others and I, myself, have used that help, and have provided a lot of help. As an active question-asker and problem-solver, I take any misuse of the site very seriously and I want to help the community as much as possible. Now is my chance to serve back.

Good luck to all!

Ilmari's answers to your questions

I'm a 34-year-old PhD student in biomathematics at the University of Helsinki. I've been active on Math.SE, and the SE network in general, since 2011.

I have diverse interests, and I'm active on a lot of SE sites, including SO, Meta.SE, Crypto.SE, Physics, Academia and Math Educators (and, of course, Math.SE). Outside SE, I've been a Wikipedia admin since 2006 (although I haven't been active there for years), so I know a bit about what's involved in moderating a large volunteer-driven open content collaboration.

IMO, the job of a moderator is to keep the site running smoothly. That involves several things:

• On one hand, a moderator is a janitor — someone who makes sure the floors stay clean, someone you call in when the toilet is overflowing.

• The other part of a moderator's job is to moderate — to step in when tempers get too hot and ensure that, despite our differences and misunderstandings, we all mostly get along.

I've been told that I have an even temperament. I rarely get angry or upset, and I try to empathize with both sides in a dispute — a trait I hope to put to good use as a community moderator.

TODO: answer questions from the voters

I have been around here since 9 months ago, I have learned and know how the system here works. Although my contribution on Math SE is very small compared to the prominent users here, considering my age and the little time I've been here, I think it is not negligible. I have enough experience because I have participated in many similar sites like Math SE (you may refer to my profile page for the details).

I have learned so much from this site and I think it is about time for me to give back. While Mr. Martin Sleziak has said that I can still contribute to the growth of this community, in some ways and in my own schedule, even without my diamond, serving as a moderator will give me bigger chances to improve my contributions than as an ordinary user. I have good enough mathematics skills, I like to get along with the users here, and most importantly, I have a lot of time to serve this site.

I hope I am not making any immodest statements, excessively praising myself, nor showing narcissism on my part. Thank you and may God bless Mathematics StackExchange.

Addendum : Please take a look this one too. Thanks.

Daniel's answers to your questions

After a long deliberation, I have decided that I too am ready to take up some obligations to help keep maintaining and if possible increasing the quality of the site by becoming a moderator (if elected).

I am a relatively new user of this site, but since I've joined about one and a half years ago, I have been fairly active here - mostly answering questions and posting hopefully helpful comments, but I have also been moderately active in the review queues and done a bit of editing posts into better shape, and cast a couple of flags, so I am not completely without experience in the janitorial tasks. My meta experience is mostly reading, but occasionally I muster the energy to answer a question there too.

There are some things that make me think I would be a good moderator:

• I am old enough to be patient, so the risk of me losing my temper is small.
• I care enough about the site to invest a significant amount of time in it.

And others that make me doubt:

• I am a slow thinker and slow at coming to decisions.
• I lack skill at "putting myself in the other's shoes".
• I have no previous moderation experience.

It may be relevant (or not) that I'm not a professional mathematician.

dustin's answers to your questions

I have been a member here for 1.5 years but have only recently started to ask and answer questions on the site. However, I have been an active member on TeX stackechange for 1.9 years.

As a moderator, I would be fair and just. I come on the site to answer questions that interest me, learn, and ask questions; that is, I am not here to socialize. Due to the not socializing nature, I don't hold any favoritism towards any other member which in turn would allow me to be fair.

I currently hold a BS in Math and Finance (2011) and a MS in Mechanical Engineering (2014). I hope to be pursing a PhD in Electrical Engineering in the fall of 2015 or if I can't find a job I both enjoy and pays well, I would consider that too.

When I am not on the site, I go hiking in the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire during the winter months since the views are amazing and the trails aren't crowded. When I am not on the mountains, I will be in the gym or reading.

Arkamis's answers to your questions

I would like to nominate myself as a moderator candidate in these elections.

As a career researcher but non-academic, my background in mathematics involves a great deal of interfacing with non-mathematicians. To this end, I have a strong belief that quality of communication is as important as technical detail, both in providing answers and in asking questions. I believe that simply providing an answer is often insufficient, either because it goes beyond the user's comprehension, or because it fails to promote a context for further understanding. As a corollary, I also believe that blandly asking a question without communicating prior understanding or context is equally undesirable.

In over two years of participation on this site, I have grown to appreciate the concept of mathematics as community. I think that this is a strong community of learning, but also of sharing, and that quality of the community is strengthened by the ability to participate in both.

As a moderator, my emphasis would be on community building, by supporting members who add diversity and genuine interest, and by discouraging those users who seek to use the community only for their own sake.

Pedro's answers to your questions

I've been around this site for almost 3 years now. I've been in a math undergraduate program for that time, too. Being the most active user in the the (official?) chat room (with around 90 thousand messages so far) it is highly probable you'll find me there. I'd like to believe this is also accompanied by quality in my answers and posts.

I generally do some work related to changing titles, tags, adding TeX, and guiding the OP to either producing a better post or a solution to his/her problem. I comment quite a lot, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. I have had my quarrels with some users, and quarrel with some in chat, but this happens in a more facetious manner. I have probably been suspended from chat a few times.

Ideally, I would want MSE to make users understand there's a certain "quality of user" the community is expecting: show your work, explain your ideas, code your TeX, choose appropriate titles, engage in discussion in comments, welcome criticism, criticize.

Regarding closing issues, I usually close "closable" questions. This is sometimes seen as a bad thing, but personally, it's the best way for people to improve their post quality.

Jack's answers to your questions

I think to have all the traits to be a good moderator and I would like to improve my contribute to such a great community. I am quite proud for the creation of the bessel-functions tag and for many answers I gave, especially about harmonic number identities, special functions, sequence and series. I learned much on this site and I think it is time to bring my participation - that was quite massive, especially in the last six months, when I gained about 20k reputation points, to a new level, more useful for the whole community.

About closing question, I am more willing to improve the improvable. I am for closing questions that sound like "please do my homework", but to leave open interesting questions, even in the case that the OP shows little efforts.

I care much about the efficiency of MSE: it would be great to avoid duplicate questions and make every content easy to find. To be a moderator is just a way to achieve a more direct control on the overall quality of this huge resource.

I got a 32 in the recent Citizenship score query.

Shaun's answers to your questions.

Keen to award bounties, I care more about having an actual reputation than having a high rep count. I am in favour of quality over quantity, questions of value that demonstrate an eagerness to learn, and honest answers with depth & clarity.

See for yourself the effort I put into my questions and answers.

I am a Masters student in the UK looking to take my mathematics to Ph.D. level and beyond, and I care more about the subject than I care to admit.

In some respects, I'm already moderating the site more than most. Consider the following review, flag, and attendance figures:

• First Post: 1103.
• Low Quality Post: 1105.
• Late Answer: 33.
• Suggested Edit: 639.
• Visited: 407 days, 407 consecutive.
• Helpful Flags (Mathematics SE): 885.

If I become a moderator: I will endeavour to uphold the high standards MSE is already performing to, and then some; I will continue to encourage excellent posts all round; and I will exercise to the best of my ability a forgiving, fair, and firm approach to moderating.

Please vote for me :)

Thank you for your time.