I'm Djsmiley2k and this is what I've said
- A pretty important part of moderation is engaging the community. How have you engaged the community so far, and what do you intend to do as a moderator to build on that?
You might look at my meta account and say "But he's done nothing!" and I couldn't argue much on this point - I've generally stayed away from meta mainly because I enjoy looking into the technical issues, while all my 'soft' interaction happens on a more instant gratification basis via chat. I'm on chat a lot, as much as possible basically and I enjoy both being a part of and helping expand that community.
- Nobody's perfect. What is one mistake you made and what did you do when you noticed it?
Posting an answer too quickly only to realise later (possibly after notification) that it's really NAA. Generally then I'll delete the answer if it's of no use to anyone, or adapt it to of least be of use to future visitors where appropriate.
- A user has a long history of posting borderline (and sometimes not-borderline) abusive comments, and they just started up again. They've been given short suspensions a couple times, but it didn't get the point across. They're now due for a year-long suspension, according to the standard progression. They're also a prolific contributor to the site, with vast expertise in $Technology. Do you consider this in how you handle the case? How?
It'd depend on the type of abuse. If it's directed at a specific person with no reason behind it (such as a prior disagreement) then I'd immediately and without question put forth the action to ban. No one should suffer at the hands of another even if the other is an expert in their field. However, as with most difficult decisions the waters are normally more murky. I'd likely speak to the user in question, and other mods, losing someone good is painful, but losing innocent users is worse.
- How do you feel the current moderator team is doing, and how do you view your style of moderation compared to the current team? What one flaw of the current moderator team set do you think needs addressing?
I think they do an excellent job currently, however sometimes in chat when they aren't active (due to timezones I guess) we may end up with a mod who doesn't necessarily understand the community so well, and may end up making decisions that are then reversed once the team are active again.
- How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?
I'd speak to the mod in question, and if we couldn't convince each other one way or the other I'd steam the rest of the teams input.
- What is your philosophy on moderation in Chat?
A light gentle touch is best - see my answer to Q1. While remembering that chat is generally less visible than the main site over time, so it may not be worth drawing attention to something on the same level you would for the main site.
- There are subjects that are within the purview of the site but considered a "gray area". Examples might include such things as circumventing user agreements, which some people consider to potentially involve unethical behavior. They are a gray area because they are not officially prohibited, like piracy, but are generally deemed off-topic due only to precedent. Specific issues of this nature are periodically raised on Meta to poll member input on whether they should be on topic. This question is not about your opinion for or against such topics. Here is the question: Should the decision as to acceptability of any and all gray area subjects be a matter of community consensus, or should at least certain cases be based on foundational principles and not subject to community preference? And why?
If we ignore the communities wishes, the community will ignore us (i.e) move away from the site. And the community is what makes the site. So of course we need to judge what the community feels best, and follow that the best we can.
- Beyond answering questions and participating in community moderation functions, some members take an active role being supportive to new users. This can include such actions as suggesting helpful resources, explaining site nuances, helping to polish their posts through advice or edits, providing words of encouragement, providing friendly input when comment threads become unfriendly, etc. Any member can be supportive, but for a moderator, is it a fundamental responsibility?
I don't feel its part of a mods responsibility other than maybe explaining clear when action is taken, exactly why it has been and how the user can avoid this in the future. However I plan to try and help still where I can, via reviews etc.
- There are currently 110,000 unanswered questions, which is around 1/3 of the total number of questions. Do you consider this to be a problem and do you have any ideas on how to go about organizing this work? E.g. would you organize 'cleanup' events on Meta to encourage users to look at the Unanswered queue?
So 2/3rd's are answered and from what I've seen people want to answer where possible so I can't help but feel that at least some portion of these questions maybe unanswerable. This could be due to them being too specific, just plain outdated or lacking in vital information that was never provided. Simply trying to get people to answer them doesn't seem to work so maybe more work on categorising them and cleaning up where possible is the solution.
- Across the network several teams are working on, or have already deployed, automated tools (bots if you like) to assist in flagging posts for SPAM, Not an answer or plagiarism. Can you elaborate on how you expect these tools/bots influence your moderation?
Smokey is awesome and a great tool, and would be helpful in identifying problem users, but the process still requires a human touch to decide sometimes, what is the best course of action. I'd try and use all tools to help me understand and hopefully stop problems before they escalate any further.