- How do you balance being welcoming to new users bringing "easy" questions with maintaining a repository of research-level questions that appeal to more established members of the site?
In my opinion, Chemistry.SE has grown up enough to allow for a relatively effortless resolution of this problem. If the question posted by a new user is an "easy" one, there is a high chance it's been answered before, so it's handled as a duplicate, also pointing user to the topic resolving their issue. If it's a new "easy" one and hasn't been covered before, then it deserves to be processed as any other question, disregarding how basic, boring, easy or tedious it is — as long as the question complies with the rules. Everyone is welcome to comment and to answer such questions.
As for advanced users, I tend to believe that not all of the "easy" questions are the white noise for them and sometimes "veterans" may find these questions interesting. If not, pro-users usually have an established system of filtering the questions they are not interested in or may find boring. The quality of the titles is kept pretty high, so often one can say what the question is about at the first glance without opening it. Besides, advanced users usually use sorting mechanisms: advanced search, favorite tags, RSS etc.
- Right now, what do you think is/are the biggest challenge(s) the site faces? Do you have any (brief) ideas as to how they might be addressed?
Chemistry.SE maintains high quality level of posts (to the point some answers are nominated for publishing in a reputable journal) and demands a quality input from the users too. This is often a challenge for the new users which claim that the learning curve is too steep, there are too many rules to follow and that MathJax/English/punctuation/life/… is hard. The challenge for the site at this point is not to loose all new users because of this. I faced a situation when a user denies to use MathJax because of its complexity, but the person is also an experienced chemist. My take on this is to try to assist new user in taking that bar (by editing their posts/supplying useful links), speaking in pole vaulting terms.
- As a moderator you're expected to mediate during (heated) arguments. Have you ever been in such an argument with another user and how was it eventually handled? Alternatively: How would you handle the situation if you would find yourself in an argument with another user?
Yes, I was engaged in a couple of heated situations. There was one battle on the battlefield of edit wars and extended polemics whether the answer can be considered as such or not (it was a one-liner which was also wrong, in my opinion). I find heated arguments counterproductive as they cause "thermal throttling" and I'd try my best to evade such discussion at the beginning attempting to steer the course towards consensus.
At first, I'd try to reason logically, supply evidence or involve a similar precedent. Stop&think, if opponent does the same (maybe it's me being a nonsense). If I feel there is a brick wall, the opponent is trolling or starts to abuse language, I'd rather bail as it makes little sense to continue at this point (flagging along the way, if necessary). In the end, it's the community-driven site and involving collective conscious in the conflict between two individuals might be useful.
- What is one area in which you would like to see some improvement from (or bring some improvement to!) the current moderator team?
As much as I hate flattering, I must admit I learned too much from the mod team (jonsca: importance of voting/closing; Loong: importance of standards and organized thinking; Martin: importance of impartiality, tips on advanced formatting (MathJax/$\mathrm{\LaTeX}$); orthocresol: effective work with bibliography, drawing adequate organic molecules) to issue any complains whatsoever.
On a nitpicking side, I see users often adopting the opinion of another user with the diamond-attached nickname rather blindly. From my observation, a mod may sometimes just comment (not even vote to close) that the question is somewhat unclear, and that comment gets +10 upvotes, the question gets -5 downvotes and eventually gets closed by other users, not even the mod himself. Unfortunately, people are sometimes too lazy to think for themselves and adopt the opinion of the higher-ranked individual. I realize it's a mind game at this point, and I can only suggest to try fore-think the consequences of such comments considering how the audience might react.
- We have had several attempts at defining how much effort is required to avoid a homework closure. However we have yet not had any edits to the homework FAQ post in that direction. Questions which are not a blatant copy-paste of textbooks still get closed as homework (examples: 1, 2, 3), and are sometimes reopened (example). This situation causes confusion to both close voters and askers alike: what exact criterion to use when close voting a question? Do you see this situation as a problem, and if so, how do you intend to tackle this situation as a moderator?
Indeed, it's hard to find a more controversial topic than homework policy. I'm afraid I cannot share more sophisticated wisdom in addition to what's already been discussed. Judging whether the question is a homework-type may seem subjective (and it is in many cases). My criteria for closing as HW are mainly the following:
- Lack of demonstrated research (information is free and readily available, but OP didn't bother to find or to read on the topic).
- Questioner needs just a pass; doesn't participate in discussion, doesn't react to the tips and suggestions and keeps on demanding for an answer. A good indication of that is also a number of copy-pasted queries on multiple Q&A sites (yes, I do check that too with all suspicious questions, plus search-by-image if there are photos attached).
- A poorly formatted question asking for urgent help with smartphone screenshots or just a dark photo with a lot of noise. In 99.99% it's a student taking an exam (e.g. I guess the reason for closing is obvious).
I personally don't see this as a major issue. I know some users claim that I'm known for disagreeing with too many close-votes, some claim that I purposely try to close random questions as my name pops up first in the list of close-voters. I'm not in position to judge myself, so I just follow the criteria I established above for myself and it worked OK so far. I think I also tend to skip questions quite often if I don't fully understand what it's about or the question is far beyond my field of research, hoping others with more expertise may serve better judgement.
- 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?
First, I'd check whether those arguments/flags are actually relevant. Second, if the discussion is expanding, it should be brought to a chat room. Flags should be reviewed, and if those are not helpful, contact user and explain what's wrong with their flagging. A user productively posting relevant answers is a valuable site member, however it isn't a reason to issue a free ticket for offending others and expanding polemics.
- How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?
Given I'm a mod, I assume another mod has equal rights and comparable competence as I do, so this decision should be respectfully reviewed and not criticized. If I really like the question, I'd reach out to the person and try to understand the reason for closing. Once the situation is cleaned up, I'd probably suggest to improve the question (collectively, ideally) and, once it suffice the site policy, cast a vote to reopen it.
- Someone flags a well-established user's comment as being rude. What are your criteria for evaluating whether to delete the comment or preserve it?
If the comment is indeed rude, then it should be handled as such. If the situation repeats, then the user should be informed why this is not an adequate behavior.
However, I often see experienced users trying to deliver a tip or give a clue in a somewhat sarcastic manner or via a metaphor. Personally, I don't see this as being rude, rather being creative and memorable. It also depends on the cultural background, so it's hard to formulate a list of criteria here, and I believe each case should be reviewed separately.
