1. 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?

I would seek conversation with this user and try to steer him or her in a different direction.

However, if the situation does not improve, there is a clear limit: A variety of valuable answers does not outweigh inappropriate or harmful behavior in the long run.

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc. a question that you feel shouldn’t have been?

He will certainly have had his reasons for doing so. If I still disagree, I'm sure it can be discussed. However, if it is clear to me that it is a gross misjudgment, I would reopen the question again, and then you can ask the other mod the same question.

3. How have you first come in contact with Blender and how long ago? Are you currently still actively using it professionally or for hobbies?

My first contact with Blender was somewhere in 2001. After that I used other 3D software because it was too tedious for me at that time. In general I started with 3D Studio R4. A lot has changed since then.

Since the beginning of this year, I've been learning Blender. Things are going well for me. In the meantime, I use Blender mainly because version 3.2 finally makes it possible to work in a usable procedural way. It allows me to do various tasks based on FOSS that I used to do laboriously with Houdini and 3ds Max.

So I use Blender, along with a variety of other multimedia tools, both professionally and personally.

4. Chat is not a central part of this community, and engaging in conversations there is not required nor mandatory. It is however a good way to interact with more regular visitors and socialize a bit beyond the more cold and distant everyday Q&A, since Stack Exchange is often accused of being cold and impersonal. Do you think reviving our chat rooms is a valid goal, or is it just a distraction from our main focus? Do you think it will bring users closer together a encourage users to stick around more? Do you have any ideas or suggestions to engage user in chat or encourage posting more often?

Basically, I think that a certain amount of contact opportunities is essential to keep a platform like Stack Exchange interesting for returning users in the long run and to motivate them to interact here on a regular basis.

If the platform continues to rely only on the established Q&A concept, it will always remain largely impersonal. After all, we are all human beings, and we need communication that goes beyond the comment function.

However, I don't think that "reviving" the old chat rooms is very helpful! They are technologically outdated, confusing, and uncomfortable for most users to use.

The solution would be a modern (and also optimized for smartphones!) communication option that is more integrated into the platform and also allows direct messaging.

Another idea that wouldn't work well with the classic Stack Exchange format, but would fit well with Blender, as it's all about creativity in many cases:
Events, contests, exams, and special badges for answers to curated questions! This brings public attention, invites participation and is a reason to come here again and again, even if there are no open questions of your own.

...Only here some may disagree and I can't answer how it could be implemented technically.

5. A user is unhappy about a moderation decision. They post a complaint as a question in Blender's Stack Exchange accusing you personally of treating them unfairly. How do you react?

I would respond with an explanation of what my decision was based on and close/delete the question as "not suitable for this platform". However, if the user continued to break the rules vehemently, I would seek advice from more experienced moderators (I do not yet know the options available to a moderator here).

6. What experience do you have, that would help you be a good moderator?

I was/am active for 20 years as an admin of various private and professional web projects and due to this experience the following principles apply to me:

1. I am human, you are human

2. Stay friendly and respect your counterpart

3. Think carefully about what you say/write in public

4. Strive to follow rules, but also break them if they contradict point 1 or point 2

7. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

In short: steering content in the right direction. However, I am not an entertainer or a clown.

8. 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?

My feelings do not play a role here and it would not be helpful or meaningful to try to put them into words here.

Ultimately, it is just a diamond shape that will not trigger any feelings in me, but at most in the user when his question/answer has been edited.

9. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

It doesn't make any difference to me anymore. It was a fun game for a while, but by now I've already reached my personal goal of 20k rep.

If, contrary to expectations, I were to be elected as moderator, I would simply try to continue as I have done in the past.

Thanks for reading,
Stephan

1. 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?

I assume the usefulness of such answers would be evident in the user score. I don't know if there's much to do except clean up after things have cooled down. I've seen a few people come and go and come again, and it usually gets better, not worse.

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc. a question that you feel shouldn’t have been?

I would have to talk to them about it privately, or at least in the mod chat.

3. How have you first come in contact with Blender and how long ago? Are you currently still actively using it professionally or for hobbies?

I've been using it for just a few years. I've made some money with it and plan to keep doing so, but I wouldn't call myself a professional. I have another day job.

4. Chat is not a central part of this community, and engaging in conversations there is not required nor mandatory. It is however a good way to interact with more regular visitors and socialize a bit beyond the more cold and distant everyday Q&A, since Stack Exchange is often accused of being cold and impersonal. Do you think reviving our chat rooms is a valid goal, or is it just a distraction from our main focus? Do you think it will bring users closer together a encourage users to stick around more? Do you have any ideas or suggestions to engage user in chat or encourage posting more often?

I've been thinking about a new user chat room to direct questioners who don't have a focused question or are asking about where to start, etc.

5. A user is unhappy about a moderation decision. They post a complaint as a question in Blender's Stack Exchange accusing you personally of treating them unfairly. How do you react?

I move it to meta, lol

6. What experience do you have, that would help you be a good moderator?

I mean... for work I'm occasionally in a leadership position over 1-3 people. Otherwise I have a lot of autonomy and have to navigate a lot of situations. I'm flexible and level-headed, I guess.

7. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

They are custodians of the site, working to continually improve the quality of information available to users.

8. 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?

I'm pretty clean.

9. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

Eh, you know I don't have a great answer here. I don't think that the powers will be necessary a lot of the time, but will be handy to have in the worst situations. I'm lurking a lot during free moments and I refresh the active questions queue. Sometimes there's a post that obviously and clearly needs removed, like I'm not an easily offended person but I know it when I see it.

1. 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?

Unless obviously not, I would start out with the assumption that the comments had the best of intentions, and, at least at first, try to establish what they were. If they turned out to be well-meaning, and within the scope of the site, I might suggest other ways of achieving them. (There might, for example, be language difficulties.) If not, I would warn that the comments were not compatible with the aims of BSE, and discuss any action with other moderators.

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc. a question that you feel shouldn’t have been?

Make a fully-explained vote/move to reopen, on behalf of the questioner. A discussion, if necessary, would be very unlikely to result in an impasse. If it did, I would defer to the original decision. If I still felt some more general principle had been broken, I would open that for discussion more abstractly, in chat, or maybe on Meta.

3. How have you first come in contact with Blender and how long ago? Are you currently still actively using it professionally or for hobbies?

I started using Blender quite recently, five or six years ago, around 2.78. My previous experience was in proprietary 3D packages.. 3DS Max, XSI, Modo. Currently using Blender in private projects only, and teaching others.

4. Chat is not a central part of this community, and engaging in conversations there is not required nor mandatory. It is however a good way to interact with more regular visitors and socialize a bit beyond the more cold and distant everyday Q&A, since Stack Exchange is often accused of being cold and impersonal. Do you think reviving our chat rooms is a valid goal, or is it just a distraction from our main focus? Do you think it will bring users closer together a encourage users to stick around more? Do you have any ideas or suggestions to engage user in chat or encourage posting more often?

So long as the chat is kept distinct from the core archive of questions and answers, and doesn't clutter it, I most certainly think it should be made much, much easier. It would really help new users, prevent unintended offence, improve the sense of community, generate new ideas. A one-click link from any question page, which could generate a room (with a better interface than the current one,) with all page-participants notified , would be great.

5. A user is unhappy about a moderation decision. They post a complaint as a question in Blender's Stack Exchange accusing you personally of treating them unfairly. How do you react?

Whether they thought they were or not, they would not be 'accusing me personally'. They would be criticizing me in my role as a moderator... i.e. of not doing that job fairly, or well. And they might be right. I'd try to make sure they were reassured their case was heard, not just by me, but by others, by moving it to Meta, perhaps quoting their specific complaint in a more general context, always asking them whether they felt fairly represented.

6. What experience do you have, that would help you be a good moderator?

I've worked a lot of my life on commercial film-sets and in per-shoot post-production, where you must cooperate with folks, many of whom you've never met before, establishing professional boundaries, at short notice. Everybody in that environment appreciates that the key to that cooperation is to keep their eye on the ball. Get the film in the can / pixels on the screen. Here, the objective is to keep the site as a whole in good order, and wherever possible make it more attractive, and useful.

7. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

I'm imagining the bulk of the job, at least for a beginner, is janitorial, keeping BSE within the SE philosophy, intervening as little as is necessary to keep pages salient, economical, decent, and good-humoured . But I would hope for opportunities for change.. encouraging chat, as discussed above, would be just one example.

8. 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?

Anything produced In my role as moderator, fine. Frankly, though, I would prefer everything else be judged completely on its own merits (or lack of them :) ).

9. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

The differences would be mechanical (privileges,) and other member's expectations of what I should be doing. Not 'more' effective, but eventually, I hope, effective at something slightly other than what I do at the moment.