2013 Moderator Election

Greetings true believers, I wanted to be an austere super awesome user on the site; one who is too cool for moderatorship.

I would treat each post with an objective test for worthiness.

1. Questions (and answers) must have a firm doctrinal basis
2. Questions must apply to situations in which two or more persons are affected.
3. Answers must come from within the doctrinal framework of the question.

I would like to see us require a doctrinal framework to be tagged on every single question. I wouldn't ban biblical-basis but I would like to see it 99% of the time tied to protestantism or thereabouts. See, I think I've been the most consistent Catholic on the site (I'm user #4 and the first to get a silver badge) and I've answered broad questions using resources from my Church and not just my opinions, but my answers don't get the recognition of a from-the-heart biblical answer. I want fix that and open the site up to more piercing questions that help us find out what we really want to know.

Well, all the cool kids are doing it, so I may as well nominate myself here as well.

I know I've been less visible than the other mods during the extended beta, but I've definitely been keeping an eye on the community. I've been active since day 1, and since being chosen by the beta community as a pro-tem moderator, I've tried to be a moderate moderator, as it were, preferring to let community members make their own decisions where possible. In particular, I like to avoid unilaterally closing posts just because I don't think they're a good fit for the site.

I have, however, taken part quite actively in what I see as the two main functions of a moderator on a site like this: welcoming newbies and showing them the ropes, and protecting the community, dealing with people who make it clear that they don't feel like following our standards of respectful behavior.

Together, we (the moderators and the entire community in general) have taken what could have been a real mess of a site and turned it into something surprisingly civil and useful. So, if you like what we've done, vote for me and I'll keep on doing it as best I can.

First off, I just want to say that it's been a pleasure and a great experience to moderate this site for the past 22 months (and some).

In that time, I've handled hundreds of flags, deleted nearly a thousand comments, closed or deleted many questions, all to keep this site at least reasonably decent. I've also encouraged many users, a few times I've made an effort to help one user or another understand just how this site works, always in the hope that we would have yet one more good quality regular contributor.

Yes, with every passing day, the amount of bad content on this site grows, but so does the good content, and further more, so has the community. I am very pleased to see the community growing larger, more interesting, and more capable of running this site themselves, just as it should be. It's been a pleasure to work with Richard, Mason Wheeler, wax eagle, and Caleb in service of the community.

In fact, that's why I want to continue being a moderator. I love serving others. This site has become a great place, and I'd love to continue to help make it even better. I have gladly served this community for almost two years, and I'd love to serve for several more years.

We are all thankful for the hard work that C.SE founders put into building it. I believe that moderator practices can make this not only a better "C" site but also a "SE" site.

Here is my platform:

"[W]e do not ask a man to accept all the creeds, any more than we ask him to accept all the Christians. We ask him to accept Christ, and the facts about Christ and the words of Christ. You will find the battle is half won when you have endorsed the man's objections, and possibly added a great many more to the charges which he has against ourselves." -- Henry Drummond

In the past month, this site bullied-into-quitting a person who had observations about evangelism practice on the ground in the Third World that was no more Trollish against the faith than words by Benedict XVI. My moderation strategy would err against using moderation to enforce orthodoxy.

"draw[] from standard sources of theology ...Scripture, Tradition, or Reason." -- Affable Geek [who does NOT endorse me]

This was his idea of acceptable sources for Answers. As moderator, I wouldn't allow Personal Opinion but I would not demand "Identifiable Group" for Answers, or Questions that can be answered from above list.

Hi.

First I'd like to humbly thank both this community and the SE community team for the privilege of serving this community and helping it grow over the past two years.

The first moments of this community's life made me question whether this site would succeed at all. As time went on, and as the community began to form it became obvious that this would indeed work.

This site is by no means perfect, it has major flaws in both scope and quality. However, the thing that has been most encouraging to me is that through the leadership of both the members of this community and the moderators that were appointed to steward it, things have continued to improve, almost every day.

My vision for the future, whether you choose to elect me to continue my post as moderator or not is to continue assisting that improvement. I don't post much on the main site (though I've been better about that lately), but I am very active on meta and in chat helping users learn how to use the site in the best way possible. I'd also like to get our blog back up and running, that it's fallen off is at least partly my fault and I'd like to rectify this.

I'd love to continue to serve you as moderator.

I have 4 kids. One of them is about a month old. I'm underslept and notably loony as of late. I have no time. I only occasionally enjoy poking around C.SE. And I really don't want to be responsible for the big questions like, Is this a real question? Or, Is this answer just spammy nonsense? Or, What is the maximum number of slices a single toaster can toast simultaneously before things get ridiculous?

But, I'm also Catholic. So, I don't want to artificially contracept God's plan for me to moderate if He so chooses :)

Also, I wouldn't mind having a little diamond by my name.

If elected, I will not step on your house ... Probably.

I am willing to serve as a moderator, if the community agrees.

We have come a long way in the past couple of years, and a critical part of that was developing a firm sense of what this site ought to be like, in terms of tone and content. I feel that I understand that sense pretty well, and I hope that my past contributions and interactions show that. I haven't been the most active in all site tasks, but I have done a bit of everything.

I see moderation as a combination of (1) slog-work, and (2) setting the tone. I would aim to be even-handed and friendly, especially regarding new users whose expectations and background might create some friction. Although I am a lily-livered bleeding-heart liberal egghead communist, like any true liberal I try to be almost sickeningly tolerant of those who disagree with me.

I would like to continue the privilege serving beyond pro tempore. My track record speaks for itself — I have been involved through all the ups and downs since private beta and understand the ramifications of moderator actions and various guidelines on site quality. While I have strong personal convictions, I have not and will not make these the basis for moderation or allow content to be censored based on doctrine. My knowledge and interest is broader than just my own tradition and I want to foster a constructive cross-tradition environment — only doing housekeeping based on quality and relevance to question scope.

I regularly participate on meta: raising awareness of issues and listening for community consensus. I’ve always garnered support before acting. My opinions are generally well received; yet even where I deviate from public opinion my mod-actions support the users not my own whims. I also comment prolifically explaining my actions and educating new users.

In addition to extensive participation across the SE network, my real life roles as pastor, EMT and programmer contribute to my experience in working with others, resolving disputes and listening while leading.

I have been on C.SE since it was in private beta (even have the Precognitive badge from being involved on Area51).

From both my answers, my questions, and my comments, I've tried to maintain a polite demeanor whenever possible.

I am on the site [nearly] every day, and always do my best to work towards improving questions/answers if they need it via comments, edits, etc.

Before we left beta, I was involved in the day-to-day moderation of the site, as I had a high-rep in the beta site.

I will make a good moderator because I have a passion for helping people, even when I don't agree with them.

I've been a StackExchange user for a couple of years now and understand how to help people ask and answer questions in a way that is useful today and relevant for users to come. I understand that being patient and respectful while supporting a position is far more important than "being right".

Topics on Christianity have potential to elicit strong emotions that can distract from the substantive support of the arguments being made. These distractions make it more difficult for people to use and enjoy the site. As a moderator, I will help people to ask and answer in a way that reduces these distractions and keeps this a pleasant place to seek and learn.

Please take a look at my SE profile.