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56 votes
Accepted

Why are all questions I visit from other sites protected by Qmechanic?

HNQs with $\geq 3$ answer are often protected by a moderator to prevent "thanks!", "me too!", or spam answers by new users. Questions can be flagged to let moderators know that they should be ...
Qmechanic's user avatar
  • 213k
50 votes

Update on the Manish situation

Oh, wow, I hadn't realized this was going on :) I first just wish to apologise to the community, both Chem.SE and Physics.SE, for my lack of activity. I'll shortly explain what happened, but I also ...
Manishearth's user avatar
  • 19.1k
32 votes

Stepping down and taking a break

It's hard to imagine the site without crossing paths with you frequently. I took a look at some of the stats, and you've posted almost 17,000 comments on the main site -- I can't say I've read them ...
tpg2114's user avatar
  • 16.7k
31 votes

Resigning as a moderator

I've been a contributor here for the past seven and a half years and in all that time, David Z, you have been a staple and pillar of the community. Your cool and collected moderating style has always ...
Jim's user avatar
  • 24.6k
29 votes

Stepping down and taking a break

It's been a privilege to learn from you, dmckee --- both in physics and in community building. I offered a few years ago to buy you a beer if we ever found ourselves in the same town, and that offer ...
rob's user avatar
  • 94.2k
25 votes

Resigning as a moderator

A huge loss for the site, not only in terms of (outstanding) moderating expertise but also in terms of institutional memory. Thank you for your years of kindness and for nurturing the site to its ...
ZeroTheHero's user avatar
  • 47.8k
21 votes

Stepping down and taking a break

This will leave a huge hole to fill considering not only your competence and your institutional memory but also your kind and soft-touch approach to moderating. An example to be followed by whomever ...
ZeroTheHero's user avatar
  • 47.8k
19 votes

Why are all questions I visit from other sites protected by Qmechanic?

10k users can see the statistics of all protected questions here. Here are some screenshots for the rest of users: Let's play a game: some of these users are human, and the rest are AI's. Which is ...
AccidentalFourierTransform's user avatar
18 votes

Resigning as a moderator

David Z, I've not been participating much on Physics Stack Exchange much for years now, so I was most disheartened to come back exactly one day after you retired! You have been an amazing and vital ...
Terry Bollinger's user avatar
16 votes

Bad behaviour from mod

The offensive comment from Fawad has been deleted, but as a room owner I can see it and I can confirm that Fawad told ACuriousMind to shut the fuck up. I think Fawad should consider himself very ...
John Rennie's user avatar
15 votes

Stepping down and taking a break

I'm so sorry to see you go dmckee! You've been one of the pillars of our community and of the moderation team since the very beginning, and it's not going to feel the same without you around. Of ...
David Z's user avatar
  • 77.3k
14 votes

Are you interested in becoming a moderator?

I might be interested, but I'm generally not a confrontational kind of guy and getting angry messages from disgruntled users isn't my idea of a good time. My concerns are heightened in that my ...
Michael Seifert's user avatar
12 votes

Who has the power to delete comments?

The diamond moderators can delete comments. Comments which meet certain criteria may disappear after flagging by certain non-moderator users without further intervention; I don't know where those ...
rob's user avatar
  • 94.2k
12 votes

How is a moderator's job?

It's not anywhere near a full-time job. We only receive about a dozen flags for moderator attention daily. Most of them require very little of our time. A lot of our activity on the site is organic- ...
Chris's user avatar
  • 17.3k
11 votes
Accepted

Why was this flag rejected?

Oh, hi, that was me. Basically DavidZ has described my reasoning, but I can elaborate a little more specifically about what I had in mind in this case. I'm not a super-big fan of the "convert to ...
rob's user avatar
  • 94.2k
11 votes

Bad behaviour from mod

For the record: I asked you to not ping users in chat who hadn't shown any indication of being interested in being pinged by you: Please do not ping random users in an attempt to get a question ...
ACuriousMind's user avatar
  • 129k
11 votes

Why was this question considered "big list?"

A question of the form What is the biggest X? presumably means that an answerer should only answer if they are 100% sure that they know the unique answer (which btw may change in the future), and all ...
Qmechanic's user avatar
  • 213k
11 votes

Are you interested in becoming a moderator?

I would be interested, but to be quite honest if my name were on the ballot I would not vote for myself :D Mainly because I am not active on Meta. I do check the main site every day, but I rarely if ...
SuperCiocia's user avatar
  • 25.3k
11 votes

How is a moderator's job?

Everyone who is a moderator on the Stack Exchange network is completely voluntary and there is no pay. You may see employees with moderation privileges, but being an employee is not the same as being ...
Henry WH Hack v3.0's user avatar
10 votes

Update on the Manish situation

I'll post this as an answer since it seems there's disagreements and it's important to get a feeling for folks' responses to this. For one, I find that a particularly useful tool for gauging ...
Emilio Pisanty's user avatar
10 votes

Can we report moderators for abuse of power?

See the question on the SE meta: What recourse do I have if I believe a moderator has abused their privileges? Alternatively for a specific issue see: How do I dispute a moderator's action? ...
John Rennie's user avatar
10 votes
Accepted

Should I flag non-CW resource recommendation posts for moderator attention?

Yes, please flag such posts - there's no guarantee that moderators don't miss these posts otherwise. In general, please also don't worry about overwhelming us with flags: If you feel something ...
ACuriousMind's user avatar
  • 129k
10 votes
Accepted

One of moderators keeps deleting one last single comment with the crucial piece of information, that clearly explains, why the given answer is wrong

Several moderators deleted your comments on ProfRob's answer because you left 17 of them without anyone else commenting in between. Comments are not for extended conversations, even if only with ...
ACuriousMind's user avatar
  • 129k
9 votes

2019 Community Moderator Election

Your Phys.SE community needs you.
9 votes

2019 Community Moderator Election

I suspect there may be a lot of people self-selecting themselves out of running because they think that they don't quite have enough experience with the community moderation ─ in a large cohort of ...
9 votes

Update on the Manish situation

Just a quick note about the moderator perspective on this: as far as the duties of moderation are concerned, it doesn't really matter to us. After all, if someone is not regularly acting as a ...
David Z's user avatar
  • 77.3k
9 votes
Accepted

Role of moderators in reviewing flags

Reviewing and (possibly) re-opening questions is part of the normal operation of the site—it is the purview of normal users with at least 3000 reputation. It does not call for the intervention of ...
dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten's user avatar
8 votes
Accepted

What does the little rhombus $\blacklozenge$ behind the username mean?

Your second guess is closest. The diamond $\blacklozenge$ behind the username signifies moderators or SE team members. The Phys.SE moderators are listed here.
Qmechanic's user avatar
  • 213k
8 votes

Should an inactive moderator step down?

This is just my opinion, not an official response: yes, I do think that a moderator who can't or doesn't want to participate in the site anymore should step down. To be clear, I mean this in the ...
David Z's user avatar
  • 77.3k

Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible