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update Our first four moderators have been appointed (in alphabetical order):

Congratulations! Please respect their judgement but also don't hesitate to post praise and reprimand at meta!

In the spirit of these guidelines, please nominate one user per post. Please take a look at math.SE's election for inspiration. You may nominate yourself or someone else, in the latter case you should make it CW so the nominee can edit in what the nomination should include:

  • a link to the parent-site profile (#[username](http://https://physics.stackexchange.com/users/number)
  • a statement like "I accept the nomination" edited in by the nominee if not self-nominating
  • an estimate of presence times
  • the standing on the level of questions issue the nominee will defend with their power (e.g. immediate closing)
  • an introduction to the nominee is appreciated as well

Members who have declined moderator nomination:

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    $\begingroup$ I've given my two nominations... hopefully others will free to give theirs too, as a wider selection can only help. We need a small handful anyway, I believe. $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 15 '10 at 14:52
  • $\begingroup$ Are we going to set a deadline for this election? A StackExchange moderator makes the final decision I guess, so we need to attract one of them here. $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 16 '10 at 16:44
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    $\begingroup$ @Noldorin Robert Cartaino will just come and select people he thinks will be a good mods, based on the feedback here (it is not an election). After beta ends, there will be real moderator election, purely community driven. $\endgroup$ – user68 Nov 16 '10 at 17:14
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    $\begingroup$ @mbq: Ah fair enough. And I mean election in the loose sense. It's really a "preliminary election", in that it gives an indication, not a result. $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 16 '10 at 17:46
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    $\begingroup$ By the way, the real moderator election will probably follow the procedure described here : blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/12/… $\endgroup$ – Frédéric Grosshans Dec 3 '10 at 10:23
  • $\begingroup$ Why only Noldorin becomes a mod? (Congrats @Noldorin BTW.) How about David and Cedric? $\endgroup$ – kennytm Dec 6 '10 at 7:50
  • $\begingroup$ @KennyTM: my guess is the SE team doesn't want the users with the most answers to spent too much time on housekeeping. Although I wouldn't say Noldorin didn't provide valuable answers as well. But maybe it's also for technical reasons... ultimately we'll probably get an explanation by Robert Cartaino. $\endgroup$ – Tobias Kienzler Dec 6 '10 at 9:16
  • $\begingroup$ @Tobias: When you and mbq could be chosen also. Anyway, my point is having 1 mod is not enough. $\endgroup$ – kennytm Dec 6 '10 at 11:36
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    $\begingroup$ @KennyTM: that is true, we should definitely have more mods, it would be asking to much from Noldorin to moderate all alone $\endgroup$ – Tobias Kienzler Dec 6 '10 at 12:58
  • $\begingroup$ @KennyTM: Cheers. As I understand, Robert is in the process of giving moderator privileges to others too at the moment. Perhaps I was first simply because I replied to the email? In any case, David and Cedric are very deserving of the privilege, and I'm sure will be getting their diamonds soon. :) $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Dec 6 '10 at 21:22
  • $\begingroup$ I sent Robert an email asking about the status of moderator appointments, so hopefully we will have some word on what's going on soon. $\endgroup$ – David Z Dec 13 '10 at 17:11
  • $\begingroup$ Update: Robert emailed me back to say he's been busy for a couple weeks, but he's back on track to be appointing additional pro tem moderators quite soon. $\endgroup$ – David Z Dec 14 '10 at 1:49
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    $\begingroup$ @david that's good to hear! and I see you, Cedric and mbq have now been made ♦ mods together with noldorin, so congratulations everyone! $\endgroup$ – Tobias Kienzler Dec 14 '10 at 7:53
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    $\begingroup$ @our new mods: ♦ Moderator dashboard - help us to help you! @ meta.SO $\endgroup$ – Tobias Kienzler Dec 14 '10 at 8:19
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I'd also like to nominate

David Zaslavsky

for the post.

Like Cedric, he has been actively contributing to this site from the beginning at a high quality. As a graduate student of physics, he represents precisely the sort of student we want to attract here (undergraduates being equally welcome I'd say). He's also shown a good attitude in response to questions and generally within the community, I'd like to think.

(edit by David) Sure, I'll accept the nomination. I really want to see this site succeed, and being a moderator during the beta would allow me to help that process along.

About me: As mentioned above, I'm a graduate student in physics, specifically in my third year of the PhD program at Penn State University. I'm doing research in high-energy particle phenomenology (the BFKL kernel, if anyone cares about the specifics). I've been a member of Physics Forums for about a year and a half, which has certainly influenced my idea of how this site could work. I also have a website which nobody looks at ;-) where I occasionally post some physics-related musings. I also have a hobby interest in computer programming, and to that end I've been a semi-active participant in Stack Overflow and the other original trilogy sites, so I have some idea of how the system works.

I tend to be awake at strange hours, usually after noon until some time in the wee hours of the morning local time. That puts me online from about 4:00 PM to 6:00 AM GMT, on average.

Regarding the issue of the question level: I would like to see this site develop into a place where research-level questions are welcome, and can hopefully have a decent chance of getting answered. But I'm not in favor of categorically excluding all questions below the graduate level, because I think if we try to do that, the site will fail. There are many questions about physics at the undergrad level that I would like to see this site address.

As stated in my answer to one of the "level questions," my preferred technique for controlling the level of the site is making sure that there are enough people asking the kinds of questions we want, rather than closing large numbers of questions.

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  • $\begingroup$ @Tobias: Actually they have enough reputation they don't need that in order to edit, but I've done it anyway. :) $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 15 '10 at 13:05
  • $\begingroup$ @David: Let me know if you accept the nomination. If so, you can edit this post freely. :) (otherwise I'll take it down.) $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 15 '10 at 19:55
  • $\begingroup$ @Noldorin: sure, accepted. I edited in my information. Thanks for the nomination. $\endgroup$ – David Z Nov 15 '10 at 23:12
  • $\begingroup$ @David: No problem. Cheers for adding all the info. Oh, and I looked at your website at least! The server is currently down though I'm afraid... $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 15 '10 at 23:25
  • $\begingroup$ @Noldorin: (*sigh*) not again... one of these days I need to overhaul that server but I never seem to have the time. Anyway thanks for letting me know, I'll try restarting it or something. $\endgroup$ – David Z Nov 15 '10 at 23:28
  • $\begingroup$ Yeah, must have just gone down in the last few days, since I viewed your site not long ago. (Guess you're running your own server, which may explain down-time.) $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 15 '10 at 23:32
  • $\begingroup$ @Noldorin: I actually have a VPS with Slicehost, so I'm not physically running my own server, but I do manage the software on it. Every once in a while my web app seems to lose its database connection and causes the error you saw. Unfortunately with all the obligations of grad school I haven't had time to try to figure out why it does that... it's been more efficient to just restart it every once in a while. $\endgroup$ – David Z Nov 16 '10 at 1:48
  • $\begingroup$ Ah, fair enough. Nonetheless, your host should really be more reliable than that - or at least look after things when they do go down... $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 16 '10 at 16:24
  • $\begingroup$ Well, it really is my fault. It's my job, not the host's job, to keep my web app and servers running (that's the whole point of a VPS). Their role is just to manage the hardware and virtualization tech, and they do a great job at that. But you're right, the site should be more reliable. I'll work on that. $\endgroup$ – David Z Nov 16 '10 at 23:01
  • $\begingroup$ Oh, fair enough. I'm not very familiar with VPSs since I've only ever been able to afford a shared host! I suppose their more limited, but at least require less maintainance. :) $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 16 '10 at 23:02
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I would gladly nominate

Cedric H.

as a beta moderator.

In my experience Cedric has contributed a lot to Physics SE so far, with a steady good quality of answers (and questions). He has also been quite active on meta of course, which is definitely helpful. Importantly (as I hope others agree), he represents a level balance of views with all the debates/arguments going on about this site and certain questions.

About me: I am an Engineering student (specialized in Physics / Engineering Physics) from Brussels, Belgium. I am now starting a graduate program on Accelerator Physics and I am starting a PhD at CERN in the field of Accelerator Physics.

I already spent some time of Physics SE and I would appreciate to continue this experience as a moderator.

Regarding the level of questions discussion I think I am in the "intermediate case": I hope the level will soon be higher than it is now, but I don't think we should restrict question to be at a pure "research-level" (see the discussion on meta).

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I'd like to nominate myself,

mbq

I am a creative mixture of a physicist, computer scientist and molecular biologist. In the field of physics I'm mainly messing with CFD, currently quantum turbulence, but also with geophysics and molecular dynamics. I work for ICM, a hybrid of HPC centre and all-computational-sciences institute.

Probably my biggest advantage and disadvantage is that I'm a veteran moderator of CV; I know how things work but I don't want to steal anyone's chance for a moderating adventure.

I'm a compulsory editor (beware, redundant spaces) and retagger, yet I think closing should be done by community and it is better to let things evolve and converge organically rather then make flame discussions about forcing some overcomplex policy.

I live in the CET zone, yet as most academics I work/sleep in random hours.

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    $\begingroup$ I don't know who donwvoted you, but you got my support. I like the attitude of leaving closing to the community unless intervention is necessary. $\endgroup$ – Tobias Kienzler Nov 18 '10 at 10:47
  • $\begingroup$ As you said, you have appropriately re-tagged most of my questions too. :) Hence, i upvote. $\endgroup$ – Robin Maben Nov 28 '10 at 21:25
  • $\begingroup$ I'd probably be up-voting this, if it weren't for the self-nomination. Something about self-nominations really turns me off! $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 30 '10 at 0:35
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    $\begingroup$ @Noldorin Too bad official moderator election process is going into self-nominations only. $\endgroup$ – user68 Nov 30 '10 at 9:10
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    $\begingroup$ Too bad indeed. It's a silly idea. $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 30 '10 at 11:13
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    $\begingroup$ Having worked with @mbq on CrossValidated, I second his nomination; he was critical in getting that site off the ground, all the way down to creating the site logo. $\endgroup$ – Shane Dec 2 '10 at 0:08
  • $\begingroup$ @Noldorin I was going to nominate mbq, too, and I'm not against self-nomination $\endgroup$ – Tobias Kienzler Dec 6 '10 at 9:12
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I would be very pleased to vote for

Noldorin

as a beta moderator.

From what I saw since the private beta, Noldorin does have a useful knowledge of physics for this community. I think as a moderator he would be helpful as he can help make this SE site a very good high level physics site, with a good balance between the proverbial "research-level" and more basic aspects of physics.

As I say in the comments, I am grateful to receive this nomination, and will accept for the reason that I want to see this website and community develop and mature into something praiseworthy.

A bit about myself: I'm currently an undergraduate (3rd year) student of (theoretical) physics in London, England. My knowledge is certainly no higher than intermediate in terms of the scope of users here (ranging from pre-college to research), though I am quite interested in a few fields in particular. I would like to think I represent well an questioning undergraduate type, and could thus be of general help here.

My goal is to help get this site up to a solid undergraduate to graduate level at its core, and build a strong user base of skilled and active physicists/students. Both answering questions and communicating a "vision" for the site are important over the near future.

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    $\begingroup$ +1 I definitely second this. In my experience Noldorin has been one of those most concerned with ensuring that the site has a bright future. $\endgroup$ – David Z Nov 15 '10 at 23:13
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for the nomination (and support). I'd be glad to accept the nomination, simply because as David says, I'd quite like to see this site become a valuable resource and community. (Since it's only for the period of the beta, I do not see any big preoccupations getting in the way.) While my knowledge is only undergraduate level, I guess it's at least representing a major user group here! $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 15 '10 at 23:27
  • $\begingroup$ @Cedric: As soon as you make this post community wiki, I'd be glad to add a little info about myself. $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 15 '10 at 23:29
  • $\begingroup$ @Noldorin: Done :p $\endgroup$ – Cedric H. Nov 15 '10 at 23:30
  • $\begingroup$ Wow. That was speedy. Cheers :P $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 15 '10 at 23:30
  • $\begingroup$ Done. Oh, and I should also state I'm considering changing my user name. If this nomination materialises, it might be a nice thing to use my real name (Alex R). $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 15 '10 at 23:45
  • $\begingroup$ Aw, I was getting attached to "Noldorin" ;-) $\endgroup$ – David Z Nov 15 '10 at 23:59
  • $\begingroup$ Haha. I can keep it if you like. ;) Does it make me mysterious!? $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 16 '10 at 0:22
  • $\begingroup$ It sounds vaguely Tolkien-esque to me. Not a bad association to have, in my opinion. But it's your display name, go ahead and change if you want. $\endgroup$ – David Z Nov 16 '10 at 1:50
  • $\begingroup$ @Noldorin: I think it's okay to keep your username if you're used to it anyway, I mean there's even waffles... But as David states, that's your choice $\endgroup$ – Tobias Kienzler Nov 16 '10 at 9:44
  • $\begingroup$ @David: More than vaguely Tolkien-esque - it's straight from Tolkien. ;) If you're happy with it, then that's cool. I just thought it may be convention for moderators to use their real names, but evidently not all as Tobias says. :) $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 16 '10 at 16:21
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    $\begingroup$ Ah, how silly of me not to have remembered that ;-) It's been years since I read any of Tolkien's work. But anyway: I certainly don't think there is anything wrong with using an alias, whether you're a moderator or not. $\endgroup$ – David Z Nov 16 '10 at 23:03
  • $\begingroup$ @Noldorin: haha, I was also wondering about your nick. I am glad (future) moderators are acquainted with Tolkien :-) $\endgroup$ – Marek Nov 18 '10 at 11:06
  • $\begingroup$ Apparently, @Noldorin has been nominated as moderator. ( see physics.stackexchange.com/users/13/noldorin ) Congratulation. $\endgroup$ – Frédéric Grosshans Dec 7 '10 at 10:11
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    $\begingroup$ @Frederic: Indeed I have been accepted. Thank you. Others are to come soon I believe... $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Dec 7 '10 at 15:33
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update: Due to other duties I must for now decline the nomination lacking the time for regular visits. I will still try my best at supporting the community by voting etc when I have the time, but it may be irregular from now on.

I would propose

Tobias Kienzler

(declined)

He has done a lot of work to push this place through Area51 and has an impressive Meta.SO record (one should recall that moderatorship is mainly administrative work).

About me: I started writing my PhD-thesis this year, the subject is Metamaterials based on colloidal particles. Before that I wrote my Diplom thesis on the Renormalization flow equation of the three-dimensional Wess-Zumino model (-> Supersymmetry).1

Like Cedric and David I support the intermediate level, that is, we should encourage research related questions but not just close everything else as "too basic".

I'm usually actively here on workdays around 8-9 am GMT but also pass by every few hours (say, during European daylight) on an irregular basis, so flags would get attention then, too.

1) in case you ever need to do a dimensional reduction of a model with Majorana fermions from 3+1 to 3+0, use the Weyl basis, it'll save you some work!

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  • $\begingroup$ Yeah, Tobias didn't cross my mind first since he's only just started becoming active on the main site, but he has played a very important role in getting this site started (and posting a fair amount on meta) - so I would be happy with this nomination too. $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 16 '10 at 1:42
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    $\begingroup$ That's actually a good point. I'd support Tobias as a moderator if he is willing to take the position. (Although I feel a little weird upvoting all the moderator nominations (except my own of course).) $\endgroup$ – David Z Nov 16 '10 at 1:58
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    $\begingroup$ Tobias is a good person to represent graduate-level physicists, I must say. :) $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 16 '10 at 16:27
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    $\begingroup$ Sorry to hear you're declining. Maybe you can get active again by the time the site graduates from beta... $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 18 '10 at 23:29
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I'll nominate KennyTM, if he's interested in the position. He's been fairly active, more so than his current site reputation would suggest, in comments and making minor edits to posts on the main site. Also he is a well-established SO user so he's certainly familiar with the system and the use of the 10k tools.

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    $\begingroup$ please turn you nomination CW so KennyTM can edit in his acceptance (if he wants) $\endgroup$ – Tobias Kienzler Nov 16 '10 at 14:53
  • $\begingroup$ While I agree Kenny has been active and helped admin this site, I'm worried that as a non-scientist, it may not be the best choice (he does however seem to know advanced maths)... Still, a moderator doesn't necessarily have to be someone with a good skill-level in physics I guess, so it's still viable. $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 16 '10 at 16:20
  • $\begingroup$ @Tobias: oops, thanks for reminding me $\endgroup$ – David Z Nov 17 '10 at 18:18
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I nominate

Marek.

Thank you. I accept the nomination.

Something about my studies:

I am a theoretical physics grad student (I hope it's the correct term, but I am not really sure anymore; if so, please let me know and I'll fix it) working on my diploma thesis of gradient Gibbs states (paper by my advisor, prof. Kotecký). My main interest lies in statistical physics but I am very open to all areas of modern theoretical physics and even more generally to any kind of physics (although my knowledge of other areas obviously ranges from rudimentary to non-existent).

I have also great interest in pure mathematics. For one thing I enjoy reading about all of modern stuff like algebraic geometry, Langlands program, category theory, algebraic topology and K-theory to name a few (unfortunately my knowledge often doesn't extend beyond knowing the name of the subject...). For another (and one I actually know something more about), I am interested in group theory and representation theory and also in probability theory and stochastic processes.

Something about me and this site:

Well, it should be pretty obvious that I love this site. I try to provide answer anytime the topic sounds like it might be within my reach. Not sure whether this is an entirely correct approach because sometimes I necessarily give just a sketchy and basic answers. But I believe the voting system should take care of that (i.e. be sure to down-vote my bad answers ;-) ). I am also trying to sort tags out from to time and most recently am trying to come up with some graphics and posters (not sure how it will turn out though; I am a physicist in the end).

As for my attitude, in general I am trying to be friendly and helpful, but people probably already noticed that I do get carried away sometimes. Even to the point of being suspended by Noldorin yesterday (I think it's honest to let you know about this; no point in having a moderator you don't know anything about). But fortunately we were able to sort it out in the end and I think it helped me improve as a person and I'll try not make the sort of mistakes I made in the past. If I am elected a moderator I promise to have unbiased and purely rational attitude.

Relating to the above, if I am elected a moderator, I would actually try to moderate as little as possible, letting community sort most of the stuff. I would only take care of really extreme cases of spamming and trolling (which fortunately haven't occurred yet). I am not really sure what the job is about yet but I'd try to be as helpful to the community as possible.

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  • $\begingroup$ Since I nominated I can't vote... is there a way around this? thoughts? $\endgroup$ – Sean Tilson Dec 14 '10 at 5:22
  • $\begingroup$ Well, I guess I could vote in your stead, as I am not the original author. But I am quite reluctant (for similar reasons as Noldorin is reluctant to self-nominations). $\endgroup$ – Marek Dec 14 '10 at 7:48
  • $\begingroup$ well, they aren't really elections yet. I mean someone from SE will pick them, so perhaps one vote here or there won't matter too much. (can you tell I am american?) $\endgroup$ – Sean Tilson Dec 14 '10 at 16:14
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I nominate

Sklivvz

If he's interested in accepting position. His reputation and answers,(among others of course) are what keep me coming back to the site everyday to learn, to be awe-inspired. :)

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  • $\begingroup$ I can see why you've nominated him; Sklivvz has indeed been quite helpful in answering many conceptual questions. However, he would appear to be a purely amateur physicist. I am not sure how this affects people, in view of the direction of this site. $\endgroup$ – Noldorin Nov 30 '10 at 0:34
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    $\begingroup$ I'll take a good moderator who knows and enforces the site rules fairly any day. $\endgroup$ – Pete Dec 9 '10 at 15:00

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