meshcollider
I have recently completed a PhD in Mathematics specialising in cryptography, and love contributing to this site. As there hasn't been many nominations for this election, I thought I would volunteer as a candidate too. I am professional, patient, and always willing to help, and would be extremely happy to provide more service to this community. I am also in a different timezone (New Zealand time) which is helpful.
I realise my reputation is fairly low - I have only recently become active on Crypto.SE. However, I have been a moderator of another SE site (Bitcoin.SE) for over four years now, so I have a lot of moderation experience and am familiar with the protocols, tools, and rules. I am also in #6 place this year in terms of reputation on Crypto.SE. Reputation alone does not define a good moderator!
My interests cryptographically lie primarily in public key cryptography --- more specifically, post-quantum cryptography, elliptic curves, isogenies, and zero knowledge proofs.
I hope that my experience as a moderator and academic will allow you to look past my low reputation and consider me as a viable candidate! Thank you for your consideration.
Questionnaire
- 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 approach them in a private chat to let them know that their behaviour wasn't acceptable. A positive community is more important than a single good source of information, though, so if they refused to tone it down and continued to be inflammatory at an unacceptable level, they would have to be disciplined.
- How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc. a question that you feel shouldn’t have been?
If I considered it a real issue, I would discuss it with the moderator privately, but otherwise I would respect their decision.
- Say a question post includes multiple questions, almost all of which are duplicates of other questions already asked on the site. What action would you take?
I would close it with "Needs more focus" and link the duplicates in comments, along with some friendly advice to the user so they can improve their questions in future.
- The site usually struggles to get to the required 5 votes to close a question, and we haven't had that threshold lowered to 3. Would you close questions yourself when the votes reach 3?
If I happen to see a question that is obviously in need of closure but hasn't reached the threshold, I usually just close it. If it was a borderline case (for example, maybe it had an upvote and wasn't obviously off-topic), I would leave it.
- How would the fact that a question is about cryptocurrency influence your decision about whether to close it as off-topic or not?
It would not influence my decision - this is an independent site and all decisions about closure should be made against the "on-topic" definition for this site alone.
- What has your involvement in moderation in the past been? For example, have you helped maintain particular tags, been active in review queues, or provided help on meta? How do you see this changing as you step into a more official role?
As mentioned, I have had over four years experience as a moderator of Bitcoin.SE so I know the process and tools well. I am very willing to help out the current moderators here too.
- It is usually left up to the user base to decide if a question is on topic or not. In which cases do you think it is prudent to close the question yourself? In which cases would you try and salvage the question?
If there are enough details in the question to salvage it, then I would do so. Formatting and language issues shouldn't prevent a good question being answered. However, if a question is clearly a homework question I would tend to close it myself when I saw it, to avoid someone answering it without realising that we discourage doing so here - this is simply an effort to help with academic integrity.
- In your opinion, what do moderators do?
Deal with things that need more urgent attention such as spammers and scammers misusing the site, which shouldn't need to wait for the required community votes. Also a janitorial service, cleaning up tags and improving questions here and there just as privileged non-moderators would do. Occasionally stepping in to deal with disputes or users that are being difficult/inflammatory. Finally, simply being active role-models and helping out wherever we can.
- 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?
Perfectly acceptable to me - I already have a diamond and always try to be professional, helpful, and kind.
- In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?
More ability to start doing things now, rather than waiting until my reputation is high enough. It certainly can take time to build up reputation, and I'm working on it, but I am very happy to help out more without waiting if the community votes for me.
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posted Apr 4, 2022 at 18:59
candidate score 7/40
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reputation 1k
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moderation badges: 1/8
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editing badges: 2/6
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participation badges: 3/6