In connection with the moderator elections, we are holding a Q&A thread for the candidates. Questions collected from an earlier thread have been compiled into this one, which shall now serve as the space for the candidates to provide their answers.
Due to the submission count, we have selected all provided questions as well as our back up questions for a total of 10 questions.
As a candidate, your job is simple - post an answer to this question, citing each of the questions and then post your answer to each question given in that same answer. For your convenience, I will include all of the questions in quote format with a break in between each, suitable for you to insert your answers. Just copy the whole thing after the first set of three dashes. Please consider putting your name at the top of your post so that readers will know who you are before they finish reading everything you have written, and also including a link to your answer on your nomination post.
Once all the answers have been compiled, this will serve as a transcript for voters to view the thoughts of their candidates, and will be appropriately linked in the Election page.
Good luck to all of the candidates!
Oh, and when you've completed your answer, please provide a link to it after this blurb here, before that set of three dashes. Please leave the list of links in the order of submission.
To save scrolling here are links to the submissions from each candidate (in order of submission):
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?
How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc. a question that you feel shouldn't have been?
As Parenting has a fairly small community of regular answerers, it is common for moderators to answer questions that they then have to moderate. How would you address moderating a question you answered?
In particular, you may want to consider other answers that are clearly not answers; other answers that are aggreesive or rude; comments on your own answer; comments on the question; and edits to other answers, in answering this question.If someone answers an off-topic question before you see it, would you still close the question?
how do you envision good or even acceptable answers? Should specific claims (e.g. every child needs their mother at home) be backed up? How would you handle opinion only as an answer?
Parenting is way less objective than other topics. Different users follow different parenting styles and have different sets of values. Disagreements have the potential for flaring up, especially if they are based on cultural or philosophical differences.
How would you deal with such a conflict? How do you ensure your own objectivity?Parenting brings, among other things, a lot of questions that come near to being medical questions. While some are clearly off-topic (this one, for example), many others are on the border - whether asking for symptoms of an illness their child may have, for help getting medical attention, asking whether it is safe to do something, or asking whether they should vaccinate their child1.
How would you address moderating questions that are potentially medical in nature? Would you wait for community action (such as close votes) prior to acting? Do you prefer to leave questions open if it is questionable? What do you consider the definition of a medical question that is off topic, versus a question that relates to a health issue but is on topic?
While answering this, keep in mind that Parenting rarely attracts five close votes to a question within a 24 hour period except in the most extreme of circumstances, so some action will certainly be necessary (or a choice not to act) from the moderation team.
1 The questions selected above are nearly all of an age where these questions were treated differently than they are now, so take care not to assume these should be considered on-topic today; they are simply examples of questions a reasonable person might disagree on.We have a problem here, occasionally, when a new user will ask a question that doesn't quite fit our format, and thus gets put on hold very quickly. This often leads to the new user feeling unfairly targeted and leaving the stack soon after. As a mod, what would you do to help improve these new users' questions while still encouraging them to stay on the site?
Leadership in any realm stands on the fine line between humility and assertiveness. As we are all fallible there is a high chance that you will make a wrong decision when dealing with a patron of the site. In the realization of making an incorrect decision, how would you, as a moderator, approach that individual to correct the situation?
A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?