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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 just feel bad for causing this conflict, and think I could have handled this better. Sorry about that.
So a bit of background: Around 2014 I started getting ...
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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 protected/unprotected.
I doubt it would make a difference if I claim that I'm not a bot, so let me just point to the list of current Phys.SE moderators.
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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 all, but I know that your comments always stood out to me in the past 8 years as supportive, educational, and welcoming.
Thank you for helping to make this ...
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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 represented our site well and I have no doubt that your input has been instrumental in shaping us into a community that can be respected as a source of physics ...
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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 stands.
Take care, keep in touch, and best wishes on your road ahead.
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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 current amicable atmosphere.
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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 tries to fill your shoes.
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Posting on meta
If a post gets closed/migrated/deleted, write up a meta post for it.
Link to the post in question
Explain why the post is on topic for our site
Explain why you disagree with the comments supporting the closing, if any
Link to the meta post you just created in the comments on the post in question, if possible.
If the ensuing discussion ...
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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 lucky not to be banned for an extended period.
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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 support to this site for more years than you probably care to admit. I wish you the best on any new endeavors!
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A good moderator will be someone who does the behind-the-scenes tasks like editing, flagging, and leaving helpful comments, even when it gets in the way of answering.
A good moderator knows the community well enough to know who is knowledgeable and who isn't, and use the former people's comments (along with input from other moderators) to guide decisions. ...
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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 which?
answered Sep 30 '17 at 10:31
AccidentalFourierTransform
36.7k1 gold badge10 silver badges27 bronze badges
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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 course you have to do the right thing for yourself, though, and I hope your life away from the site, temporary or not, is everything you need it to be.
I'm going to ...
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Meta participation and flag counts are there for informational purposes.
Believe it or not, moderating a Q&A site on The Internet is not a particularly glamorous job. You don't get money for nothing, or chicks for free. You might get a branded Sharpie. You'll probably get insulted by folks who don't see 90% of what you do and think you're hanging ...
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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 answered. If someone wants to answer your question, they will do so on their own. -- link to transcript
The (currently) four stars on the message suggest that ...
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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 comment" feature. It has its uses, but it's not great for low-content answers from new users without the reputation to comment themselves. I like that the ...
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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 moderation activity is the All Actions tab on the Activity profile page, or at least a reasonably zoomed-out view of it. If you look at any given active moderator's All ...
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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?
However bear in mind that the physics site runs on good will. People donate their time and expertise for free in the belief that doing so makes the world a better ...
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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 other answers should be deleted. Of course that's not going to happen, so such questions in practice degenerate into What are examples of big Xs? For the latter,...
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Yes, moderators can edit comments after the usual 5 minute window has ended, even comments by other users.
In the present case, there is a pencil icon behind my comment, so I did edit something, I might have written possible duplicate first, I don't remember now, but I'm pretty sure I changed it to related within 5 minutes. Your reply comment is only 2 ...
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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 users that I think are perfectly qualified. I, for one, feel that there are a lot of users in, say, the 5k - 15k rep bracket, and with, say, about one to three ...
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The content of all Stack Exchange sites is licensed Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike. If the terms are met, then they are allowed to do this.
If the terms are not met, the centralized place for reporting violations of the license is on the mother meta thread for such things. And I see that the first answer there is this very site.
answered Aug 8 '13 at 2:49
dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
81.1k1 gold badge32 silver badges86 bronze badges
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Why so many moderators?
Normally, the first election on a site is for three moderators.
Elected moderators aren't replaced unless they don't want to be moderators anymore (or, rarely, violate the moderator agreement or just stop showing up for whatever reason). So subsequent elections need only add enough new moderators to handle increasing demand for ...
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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 elected moderators (distinguished by a ♦ after their username) who are there to deal with unusual or rapidly evolving cases.
answered Feb 17 '18 at 18:14
dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
81.1k1 gold badge32 silver badges86 bronze badges
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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 moderator, whether they have a diamond or not doesn't make any difference in our ability to carry out those duties. And if something is causing a problem, we have ways ...
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Here's why this wasn't an example of arbitrary moderation: there were four people who expressed opinions that the question was off topic, another who was ambivalent about it, and one who strongly stated a belief that the question was on topic. If your definition of "arbitrary moderation" includes a consensus decision by four well-established users, it's a ...
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As Mad Scientist said in a comment, you can pose questions to people in chat. However, be aware that not all candidates visit the chat room, and so it may be impossible to get their attention that way.
You can also leave a comment somewhere where it'll get the candidate's attention, asking them to join you in the chat room.
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I was in a similar position during the time of the Chemistry pro tem moderator appointments. I clearly stated my unease with not having more than an advanced high-school level understanding of Chemistry, and I was told (repeatedly) that it wouldn't matter much.
As far as my experience moderating Chem goes, not being familiar with the ins and outs of Chem ...
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