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The purpose of this thread was to collect questions for the questionnaire. The questionnaire is now live, and you may find it here.


Stack Overflow is scheduled for an election next week, 2021-10-11. In connection with that, we will be holding a Q&A with the candidates. This will be an opportunity for members of the community to pose questions to the candidates on the topic of moderation. Participation is completely voluntary.

Here’s how it’ll work:

  • Until the nomination phase, (so, until 2021-10-11 at 20:00:00Z UTC, or 4:00 pm EDT on the same day, give or take time to arrive for closure), this question will be open to collect potential questions from the users of the site. Post answers to this question containing any questions you would like to ask the candidates. Please only post one question per answer.

  • If your question contains a link, please use the syntax of [text](link), as that will make it easier for transcribing for the finished questionnaire.

  • This is a perfect opportunity to voice questions that are specific to your community and issues that you are running into currently.

  • We, the Community Team, will be providing a small selection of generic questions. The following two questions are guaranteed to be included:

    • How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?
    • How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc. a question that you feel shouldn’t have been?
  • The community team may also include the following three questions if the community doesn’t supply enough questions.

    • In your opinion, what do moderators do?
    • A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?
    • In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?
  • At the start of the nomination phase, the Community Team will select up to 8 of the top voted questions submitted by the community provided in this thread, to use in addition to the aforementioned 2 guaranteed questions. We reserve some editorial control in the selection of the questions and may opt not to select a question that is tangential or irrelevant to moderation or the election. We exclude any suggested questions that are negatively scored.

    • We will post the final questionnaire on the Election page. Candidates will have the option to fill out the questionnaire, and their answers will appear beneath their intro statements.
    • This is not the only option that users have for gathering information on candidates. As a community, you are still free to, for example, hold a live chat session with your candidates to ask further questions, or perhaps clarifications from what is provided in the Q&A.

If you have any questions or feedback about this process, feel free to post as a comment here.

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  • 39
    All the best to the future candidates. Oct 4 at 20:11
  • 4
    @Catija I think bad_coder's now-deleted question was not ill-intentioned and it was a valid question. I for one would like to know whether a mod candidate would think it is OK to share something similar as long as it is legal. I don't have anything against the mod in question. I actually voted for him and have nothing but respect for his contributions to SO. Maybe the question wasn't formulated in the best way possible but deleting it with that comment was a very bad response.
    – ayhan
    Oct 4 at 21:17
  • 9
    @ayhan Choosing to link a question like that to a specific person's action crosses over into harassment, whether intentional or not. The correct behavior was to flag the content or reach out to us, not to bring it to light in a very public way. If someone wants to rephrase the question in a way that's fair to both moderators and users (bad_coders wasn't), that's fine but that specific answer has a score of -14 and would be unlikely to recover, so I'm not going to undelete it.
    – Catija StaffMod
    Oct 4 at 21:21

17 Answers 17

75

A question is asked in a fairly active tag about which you have no firsthand knowledge. A gold badge holder marks it duplicate and another comes along behind them and reopens it and answers it. The first user raises a moderator flag, complaining that the new answer is similar to (or the same as) those found in the duplicate. They want the question closed again. In the meantime, both people have rallied their friends/fellow users and have closed and reopened the question twice more, prompting more flags in both directions. How would you handle this?

8
  • 2
    Don't you think we'll get a lot of almost identical responses from this?
    – Scratte
    Oct 5 at 0:28
  • 33
    @Scratte Maybe, but this is a very real thing mods have to deal with. At the bare minimum, mod candidates should think about this before nominating
    – Machavity Mod
    Oct 5 at 0:30
  • I imagine that any new moderator would confer with other moderators before making a call. Especially if there's a subject matter expect among the current ones. But maybe that's just me thinking too much ;)
    – Scratte
    Oct 5 at 0:32
  • 3
    @Scratte What if there's no subject matter expert mod?
    – Machavity Mod
    Oct 5 at 0:37
  • 4
    @Machavity do you suggest that mods are not omniscient? :) Choose wisely! Oct 5 at 0:40
  • C'mon :) Then you figure it out which state the post should be in together, because you guys/girls are not stupid. Or you find experts that are not already involved to help you out. I'm sure a subtle inquiry in a chat room has been used for this purpose before ;)
    – Scratte
    Oct 5 at 0:44
  • 30
    This work is NOT based on true story. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. No dogs were harmed during the production of this episode. A cat threw up and somebody shot a duck, but that's it. -:)
    – Amit Joshi
    Oct 5 at 6:36
  • 10
    @AmitJoshi And it definitely wasn't the regex or R tag.
    – Trilarion
    Oct 6 at 13:29
50

In the face of a lot of the things that have transpired since the last two times we've had a moderator election (from about 2019 on), why specifically do you want this role?

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  • 19
    I'd add a bit of context to this question as to what things have transpired and how they're significant. This way, users will know what things you're referring to, and users who weren't around at the time of or weren't paying attention to those events won't be unable to answer this question.
    – gparyani
    Oct 4 at 22:04
  • 12
    @gparyani: You see it every year - people who throw their ring into the hat, more predicated with winning the popularity contest and earning the diamond (along with other badges). They don't really explain why they suddenly popped up on the radar. They don't really stick around after it's all said and done. But hey - if a candidate wasn't around during the fallout or anything like that, then a studious one would look at this question, and instead of saying "I wasn't here, idk", they'd take that as an opportunity to figure it out.
    – Makoto
    Oct 4 at 23:26
  • 7
    @gparyani: What I would want in a moderator is someone who can explain why they're even doing this in the first place, especially in the face of what has transpired since the last time we did this. Suss out the people who are just here for the power or the glory and get someone who actually wants the role, that's what I say.
    – Makoto
    Oct 4 at 23:27
  • 4
    The events of 2019 onwards are mainly why I ceased all operation on main and participation on meta - it was like screaming into a hurricane, we were fighting a losing battle. Thankfully it looks like we've rounded the corner and the company seems to be making genuine good faith attempts to regain lost trust. But the fallout has been brutal, we sustained irreversible damage during that time and lost too many good people. Just thinking about it depresses me, so the idea that there are people running in the election who are clueless about what happened actually makes me a bit envious.
    – cs95
    Oct 8 at 9:32
47

How would you deal with a situation when a fellow moderator had made a mistake, which led to the affected user asking a meta question, but the moderator is persisting that they were right in the face of the contradictory evidence?

40

During the election phase, moderator candidates will each have a Candidate Score posted which is intended to correlate in some way with an expectation of their ability to fill the role.

Do you feel that your score is an adequate metric for measuring your potential moderation abilities, or if it is not, can you explain what it doesn't measure that adds to what's already measured or mitigates any perceived shortcoming?

1
  • 8
    I like this one a lot; I appreciate how it uses the candidate score as a discussion point rather than taking it at face-value without input from the candidate themselves.
    – zcoop98
    Oct 8 at 16:06
31

Some actions (moderator messages, including suspension) are anonymous, so users cannot get back at the moderator who sent the warning/sanction.

Some others leave "breadcrumbs" (a few examples: deleting a NAA post, deleting a duplicate answer with a comment, nuking a potential spam post without applying the spam penalty, commenting to defuse a toxic comment thread instead of sending private messages...).

Those actions can lead to users getting back at you personally with revenge downvotes for instance. If you process a lot of flags, you're not going to be able to make a relation with the serial downvoting.

How would you handle such attacks if you'd decide to handle it? Would you rather not delete a post by fear of revenge / meta post that you'd possibly have to answer to (and possibly get a lot of downvotes, because, hey, this is meta) ?

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  • 9
    This isn't specific to mods only. I constantly get revenge downvotes and I have no idea why. Sometimes it's enough to just edit a post. If I understand correctly, there's nothing mods can do about it as they don't see who cast the vote, right? What would an answer to such question reveal about the candidate?
    – Dharman
    Oct 6 at 20:39
  • 8
    What would an answer to such question reveal about the candidate? maybe it's a trap question? :) Oct 6 at 20:54
  • 3
    This is another of those questions where I appreciate what it's getting at, but I'd expect there to be a social desirability bias—e.g., regardless of how motivated a would-be moderator might be to avoid becoming the target of revenge voting, the obvious/"right" answer is clearly to say that you'll perform your duties without any concern over your reputation. Oct 6 at 22:56
  • 6
    @JeremyCaney You are over simplifying. This is not just yes/no question. Candidates can make nice writeup around this and it can reveal plenty. Oct 7 at 13:21
  • 2
    that's exactly the point Oct 7 at 15:23
  • @Dharman - you've had revenge downvotes for editing a post!? I've made 5,086 revisions but never once had that happen.
    – dbc
    Oct 11 at 20:15
  • @dbc I had worse responses for just editing posts. Maybe you never noticed this? It's not possible to accurately draw conclusions about voting patterns.
    – Dharman
    Oct 11 at 20:22
28

The Low Quality Answers and Late Answers review queues include guidance that one of the actions to complete the review is to:

Delete answers that do not address the question at all, are link-only, or are incomprehensible.

Many users recommend deletion from within these queues for answers that are technically incorrect or contain code without an explanation. General consensus is that this is not appropriate (Example #1, Example #2). Occasionally, moderators override these users by dismissing the review task or deleting and undeleting the answer to clear any delete votes.

Do you think this use of the review system is a problem? In what situations do you think this misuse of the review queue requires moderator intervention, and would you provide additional education or penalties for such users?

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  • 4
    I would ask the opposite question: Do you think this interpretation of the help center by the moderators to be a problem?
    – Braiam
    Oct 5 at 19:52
  • 6
    I think that would probably be covered by "Do you think this use of the review system is a problem?" Oct 5 at 19:53
  • 4
    I'm happy to see this question get some attention. As a frequent reviewer of Low Quality Posts, Late Answers, and now First Answers, this disagreement (or, charitably, misunderstanding) of the rules is pretty rampant. It can also lead to some pretty frustrating audits where "Looks OK" is marked incorrect for legitimate code-only answers—which, of course, only acts to reinforce the confusion. Oct 6 at 22:41
  • @JeremyCaney I think such posts make very reasonable audits because post that received that much of negative feedback from multiple reviewers just can't "Look OK", even if its deletion wasn't in line with some formal rules / traditions. This is especially so for LA/FA queues where reviewers have multiple "non-delete" ways to successfully pass such audits - votes / comments / edits
    – gnat
    Oct 8 at 6:02
  • @gnat: I regularly "audit" my own LQA reviews. Some reviewers will consistently vote to delete any answer that prominently features a link or is a code-only answer—even if those posts are acceptable. Usually, those posts will end up with the required two votes to pass. But, sometimes, by chance, you get just the right combination of reviewers so that they're deleted. (Example 1, Example 2.) Is this common? Fortunately not! But it certainly does happen. Oct 8 at 8:07
  • @gnat: I do take your point about LA/FA giving reviewers every opportunity to pass an audit. Even if I don't immediately recognize one, I usually pass these by attempting to add or upvote a comment. (I rarely downvote answers.) There have certainly been exceptions, however, where I've fallen for the occasional false positive. Fortunately, I've now passed enough other audits that I haven't had my review privileges suspended. But new reviewers don't have that buffer, and those false positives will certainly influence how they review when their suspension is over. But maybe a corner case? Oct 8 at 8:38
20

Rumor has it that moderators get informed early on and in private about upcoming changes in functionality.

On such occasion a change is proposed you wholeheartedly hate. I mean, seriously, you can't stand it. But, you see the benefit the feature will have for the community and you feel it will be welcomed / received well when publicly announced.

What will your initial internal response be and how will you proceed once the feature goes live / gets Meta attention / you're faced with it for real?

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  • 37
    Fun fact: most of the mods found out about Collectives when Meta did
    – Machavity Mod
    Oct 4 at 20:52
  • 12
    If I can understand why the community might find this change helpful then why would I hate it? Am I no longer part of community when I become a mod?
    – Dharman
    Oct 4 at 21:20
  • 4
    @Dharman the point of the question is if the moderator I'm going to vote for is capable of putting their own preferences aside in favor of the broader community. On meta that balance is easily kept in check. When only 25 get into some group think the community might be negatively impacted by that.
    – rene
    Oct 4 at 21:26
  • 3
    This is a hard question. It's difficult to think about and it's hard to answer. I think it will root out major differences in how the candidates think.
    – Scratte
    Oct 5 at 0:25
  • 3
    This mod sure didn't hear even a peep. And it's not just Collections. It's also all sorts of other game changing features or unannounced derivative side features that fundamentally change the way users interact with the site. In fact, only once, on the Moderator Teams channel, have I actually been informed beforehand of any significant change. I think it is just part of the culture since it's been going on so long.
    – ouflak
    Oct 5 at 8:37
  • 1
    This is extremely tricky question on one hand, it is extremely simple on the other ;P Oct 5 at 11:00
  • 1
    @rene: I appreciate the type of biases that you're trying to reveal here, but I'm skeptical such a direct question will expose much. My suspicion is that most people know what the "right" answer is—after all, who wants to vote for someone who is going to put their own opinions above those of the people voting for them? I wonder if there's a way to complicate the answer so the "right" answer is less clear. E.g., where you know it will be popular, but fear it will have negative long-term effects that won't be obvious to the meta community. Oct 6 at 22:48
  • 1
    I don’t think the answers may be as cut and dry as you are suggesting @jeremycaney, effectively… yes the community may want x or y, but the company is capable of getting that information themselves. If they’re asking you personally for an opinion, it’s yours to provide regardless of what the community thinks.
    – Kevin B
    Oct 7 at 7:14
20

A user has replied to an increasingly heated comment chain and used an ambiguous yet colloquial word that can be gender neutral to many people, but carries an implicit male context by itself ("dude", "guys", etc.). This comment draws a few red flags, including a custom moderator flag that accuses the person of violating the pronoun code of conduct. There's nothing else flag-worthy about the comment. How would you handle this?

-- Originally proposed for the previous election by @Machavity

0
15

Stack Overflow generates a lot of content and with it a lot of flags. Machavity ♦ recently congratulated Bhargav Rao ♦ on handling 500,000 flags. In 2011, Jeff Atwood wrote an MSO post about a 'standard of duty' for SO mods. At the time, the average number of flags per day was 890. It's three times as much now, with the election page mentioning 2,700 daily flags.

Do those numbers scare you? Are you worried there will always be flags with no end in sight?

Please answer this question by reflecting on Stack Overflow's sheer size and the flag queue / moderation tasks that come with it. Answering the two questions above is fine, but you're invited to make it your own. :)

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  • 4
    Of course, it's scary, but isn't that why we have elections in the first place? To relieve the workload of the current moderators?
    – Dharman
    Oct 6 at 19:31
  • 4
    @Dharman yes, but it's still interesting to see how prospective mods think about it. Does it motivate them? Maybe they like that the queue is always full so they can do some tasks when they have some leftover time.
    – JJJ
    Oct 6 at 19:36
  • Maybe nothing scares them. They just really need a nice big red button that says "Nuke" ;)
    – Scratte
    Oct 6 at 19:53
  • 9
    there will always be flags with no end in sight as long as there are users on the site Oct 6 at 20:28
  • 5
    @Jean-FrançoisFabre I don't know about that. We haven't had a flag on Coffee for a week now and we have at least 2 users who visit the site every day. But I agree that's probably the other extreme of the site activity spectrum. ;)
    – JJJ
    Oct 6 at 20:37
  • 1
    True, there are probably very few flags on such hobbyist sites. The atmosphere is also much more relaxed because people don't have their studies/degree/job at stake when asking a question. On retrocomputing it's probably the same thing. I'm not a mod there but I can tell with the size of the queues. Oct 6 at 21:00
13

Given that not everyone holds Meta discussions in the same regard, what do you base your moderation policy on when handling flags where the accused behavior isn't spelled out explicitly in the site rules?

And what if a flagger links to a Meta discussion in their flag where you don't agree with the outcome of that discussion?

Or, in short: how do you view the "unwritten" rules that are determined on Meta, and how do those influence your behavior, if at all?

6
  • If this can be made clearer and/or more succinct, feel free to edit.
    – CodeCaster
    Oct 8 at 14:29
  • 6
    "Given that the majority of users doesn't visit Meta or (silently) disagrees with what's discussed (t)here" That's the case? Oct 8 at 14:30
  • 5
    @Jeanne yes, it is. The majority of Stack Overflow users 1. Don't visit meta, 2. Don't care about it or 3. Disagree with it (explicitly by voting, or implicitly by discussing this elsewhere). There are "or"s there.
    – CodeCaster
    Oct 8 at 14:33
  • @JeanneDark I think that is the case too - we are a tiny percentage of users (not as tiny as certain people think, though), after all. A very active and dedicated one, but still tiny (I am not sure if that is for good or for worse). Oct 8 at 14:37
  • 3
  • @gnat thanks for those interesting stats, never saw those. I don't value the particular statistic you quoted that much, because I suspect a lot of users to occasionally click titles under "Featured on Meta" or "Hot Meta Posts", and I can't know their intentions, so I've removed those assumptions from my post.
    – CodeCaster
    Oct 8 at 15:32
10

As a site moderator, you will also be granted moderator privileges on our chat site. Sometimes, tense situations such as disagreements/fights among users as well as negative attitudes can occur there, and may not be able to be handled by room owners.

Do you use chat, and if not, why not? If so, how would you handle such tense situations, and in what cases would you use your chat moderation tools?

8

A user makes a meta post involving a moderation action you have taken questioning if it was necessary/correct. The user may or may not know you personally took the action and the topic itself may be as big as suspending a user, or as small as a declined flag.

As a moderator, what are your initial thoughts and response towards this meta post?

8

(This is a proposed substitute for the default question about users who tend to generate arguments from comments - this is expanded to cover other places where users can be argumentative, such as posts and chat messages, and provide more context.)

Occasionally, there are users on the site who've contributed great content and are clearly experts in their field, but tend to be argumentative and intolerant with other users, and routinely upset other members of the community.

How would you handle such users, who are of high value to the site's library of questions and answers but potentially damaging to the community?

4
  • 16
    This is, essentially, the same as the first default question, if I'm understanding correctly. Can you explain how it's different (other than the words chosen)?
    – Catija StaffMod
    Oct 6 at 13:13
  • @Catija The default question specifically asks about it in regards to comments, while this question asks about it in general (posts, chat messages, etc.). I might add that this question showed up in addition to the default question in the first Drones election
    – gparyani
    Oct 6 at 16:54
  • 7
    A large part of my problem with this question is that it's too general. It effectively puts respondents in a position where they either need to make up specifics, where they need to respond generically, or where they can basically just copy & paste what they wrote as an answer to the first default question. Perhaps we should reword the first default question to be a little more general, or give two separate cases as part of the same question. Having two questions which are so similar can be confusing, unless it's clear what the differentiator is between them, which isn't really clear here.
    – Makyen Mod
    Oct 6 at 17:19
  • 2
    @Makyen I'm OK with substituting - so only one of the two is asked - I just need to know which to use. :)
    – Catija StaffMod
    Oct 6 at 17:33
-10

A user posts good quality questions, but there are some obvious spam posts in between them. You suspect the account is compromised by a spammer that posts spam while the actual user posts good questions. What do you do?

0
-11

Not all questions and answers are well received. That can happen for several reasons. Sometimes our not well-received question or answer can help us learn something, but at other times, downvotes don't intrinsically mean that the content of a post is wrong; they become the majority opinion.

What is your most recent meta post (question or answer) that wasn't well received, if any, and do you think you learned from it, or do you still hold your statements? Knowing that candidates must have the convention badge, something that suggests participation in the meta site.

2
  • 16
    All my meta posts were well-received, it's just that some of them have more downvotes than upvotes :) I don't think we will learn a lot about the candidate from such a question.
    – Dharman
    Oct 7 at 14:25
  • By not well-received I mean more downvotes than upvotes(like this answer), not an open ended concept, but I understand, some questions here will let we learn more about the candidate
    – iunfixit
    Oct 7 at 14:46
-16

Per the reinstatement process for previous moderators, members of the current moderator team are consulted when a previous moderator requests to be reinstated to their previous position, and a single member objecting to reinstatement with substantive arguments is usually enough for staff to decline the request.

Say that a moderator who served a while ago leaves the team on good terms (i.e. resigns or gets removed for inactivity). The former moderator had been elected into their position by a wide margin, were well-liked by the community, and retained a good rapport with the community after leaving their position. However, you strongly disagree with significant parts of their moderation style and the way they handle certain things.

In what cases would you block the reinstatement of a prior moderator? In the situation above, would you allow the request to proceed on account of their significant community support, or would you block the request based on the parts of their moderation style you disagree with?

7
  • 3
    Note: in no way does this refer to any particular incident in the past. Also, note that reinstatement requests are only put up for mod team review after the SE team has reviewed them and decided they have no objections against it.
    – gparyani
    Oct 6 at 20:33
  • 9
    i mean... this is like asking "If you come across a question that someone thought was off topic, what would you do?" it depends on the situation at hand that is far more complex than the hypothetical you outlined.
    – Kevin B
    Oct 6 at 20:38
  • I think it would be very difficult to answer this question without doing it with a past example in mind, even if the question (and answer) doesn't mention one. I think it'd be better if the question more clearly pointed to, for example, whether you'd stand in the way of reinstatement due to your own opinion over the "will" of the voters.
    – Kevin B
    Oct 6 at 21:13
  • 2
    @KevinB The first part of the last paragraph just asks generally, "in what cases would you block the reinstatement of a prior moderator?".
    – gparyani
    Oct 6 at 21:16
  • 1
    Right, that's.. sortof the issue, like, if I were to specify what would cause me to block reinstatement in the face of community support, that'd effectively be outing the specific cases that have happened that for me would be a red line. it'd be very difficult not to make it about past occurrences, or at the very least, include them. I can point to two specific cases where in both i disagree with their moderation style, but the answer to the question would vary based on two unrelated factors that anyone who's been here for a while would know who I'm referring to.
    – Kevin B
    Oct 6 at 22:00
  • 5
    I think the only acceptable answer to this question would be "It depends on the circumstances." There are so many possible situations where a moderator might be asked to make a decision about a reinstatement that it would be hard to imagine them all. Is it just a small vocal part of the community supporting the mod asking to be reinstated? Is there another part of the community that vehemently disagrees with their reinstatement? What are the impacts of their disagreeable "moderating style"? Are they disrupting the mod team? This question isn't answerable in a meaningful way without specifics.
    – ColleenV
    Oct 7 at 14:34
  • 1
    Put another way, there's a possibility answers to this question could effectively become a referendum on past mods. one says X action would be a red line... and there was a past mod that did X, so now a vote for that candidate is a vote against that past mod.
    – Kevin B
    Oct 7 at 17:29
-34

Do you believe Prosus is correct in packaging and selling Stack Overflow users as the product here?

  • If yes, why?

  • If no, what will you do to protect user privacy in the face of an increasingly loose policy on protecting it.

24
  • 2
    Interesting question ... and I hope you're going to answer it ;)
    – rene
    Oct 5 at 19:23
  • 16
    Citation for them doing this?
    – Nick
    Oct 5 at 19:23
  • 6
    @Nick: We've always been the product. Jobs, Teams, adverts - Stack Overflow's value is not just in its name, but in the people who actually use it all the time.
    – Makoto
    Oct 5 at 19:25
  • 30
    More to the point of this one...this isn't something moderators can deal with. The best they could do is throw their shiny diamond into the trash, but that's...not what a moderator deals with on a day to day basis.
    – Makoto
    Oct 5 at 19:26
  • 4
    @Makoto Oh sure, but... Prosus doesn't change that, so I fail to see why they're relevant, least of all for how moderators act (edit: at least we agree on that)
    – Nick
    Oct 5 at 19:27
  • 3
    I mean, even regular users can talk to CM's regularly, if they know where to look
    – Kevin B
    Oct 5 at 19:38
  • 1
    @Scratte I'm guessing Kevin meant regular users who care enough to know. The discussion is about policy and changes after all. You don't expect users who don't know meta even exists to (care enough to) be involved in that.
    – 41686d6564
    Oct 5 at 19:48
  • 2
    I'm saying several CM's do communicate with users outside of big Q/A's that appear on meta, particularly in chat. This was particularly as a response to Scratte, but i'm honestly not quite sure how these last 5 comments relate to the answer we're commenting on. TLDR you don't need to be a moderator to be able to routinely interact with staff.
    – Kevin B
    Oct 5 at 19:53
  • 5
    @KevinB Considering that I hang out in one of the rooms Scratte does, I'm sure they're aware that CMs are accessible in general. But I think the point is still valid - identifying and finding a mod or staff member is something that the average user doesn't know how to go about doing. :)
    – Catija StaffMod
    Oct 5 at 20:36
  • 8
    I think that part of the issue I have with this question is that it seems to hinge on Prosus - but I don't think that anything has really changed since the acquisition on this front. The decisions on packaging and selling were made by Stack Overflow, not by Prosus. So, you could certainly ask this question but I'm not sure why Prosus comes into it.
    – Catija StaffMod
    Oct 5 at 20:51
  • 2
    Would YOU, as a new moderator, stand up for the community when it came to issues with privacy that you disagree with? This is surely going to be an issue we face in the near future.
    – Travis J
    Oct 5 at 20:51
  • 2
    @Catija - That isn't really the case. It used to be that Stack Overflow would collect certain information in certain circumstances which was as directly identifiable as a result of responding to abuse. Now, that information is being collected wholesale on every user all the time. There has been a huge departure from the sort of beneficial dictator aspect to just straight not caring. It is written all over the updated privacy policy, as well as within the way that Prosus as a group operates. Why is it relevant that it's Prosus? Because it is now their legal team calling the shots.
    – Travis J
    Oct 5 at 20:55
  • 7
    You're raising a heck of a lot of valuable viewpoints for someone who isn't interested anymore ...
    – rene
    Oct 5 at 21:03
  • 14
    I don't see how a question asking prospective mods to opine on SE's business decisions will help us gauge how well they will moderate the site.
    – gparyani
    Oct 6 at 7:43
  • 10
    This question presupposes that Prosus is bad for privacy. Can we get a clarification on why that is? I'm not aware of specific problems that stem from Prosus or what the objections towards privacy are. So, perhaps this is a good information to add for those such as me who've missed it.
    – VLAZ
    Oct 6 at 8:59

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