text:
Do/should we allow Emojis here?
I've come across this post, which reads:

What the possible codes?? Using Adobe flash CS6 AS 3.0 for tracing Game.. A-Z  , 1-100 & shapes.. By levels.. For kids. Hand game. Please help me...  I really need your help please..

Regardless of the overall quality of this post, since Emojis have been integrated in Unicode, allowing them to be typed anywhere, should we allow them in the posts? Can they add value to posts or are they generally more a distraction and/or show a lack of ability to write proper questions/answers? Are they too chatty/forum-y?
Do we have a policy about this? Should we have one?

Embrace the emoji!

I don't think there's anything wrong with them when used sparingly, in essentially the same way we'd use old-fashioned ASCII smilies like ":)" and the like.
I don't think it's appropriate to replace every word that could be replaced with an emoji with one, nor do I think it's appropriate to "spam" them in use them excessively in a row, or after every sentence, et cetera.

To me they generally read the same as fluff text, I would treat them accordingly.

Emojis are fine; they add some body language into our communications and sometimes (infrequently) that's really important. They also let us use symbols, and I've used those before  to what I feel is positive effect in punctuating a post. (Tangentially I've also been using the link emoji to make it clear where I'm linking to something until our links get revised .)
The real problem there is, like Pikalek points out , that text is fluff . Stack Exchange likes a high signal:noise ratio, and that applies to individual posts as well. All the formalities you might find at the start or end of a post (“Hi”, “thanks in advance”, “please help”, etc) are noise; remove them from the post with prejudice. Posts should be as close to 100% signal as possible, and it's almost always completely possible.
Would you rather read:

Hi everyone! I'm new here, still figuring this site out. Anyway so my question is, how do I foo a sprocket? I'm having trouble. The documentation isn't any help! Please help me with this!!!
Thanks in advance. Cheers, Doppelgreener.
Edit: I get this error when I try to foo the sprocket: (...)

Or this?:

How do I foo a sprocket? I'm having trouble and the documentation isn't any help.
I get this error when I try to foo the sprocket: (...)

The first is a problem whether or not it's also littered with emojis; those just make it even worse. Having to read posts like the former over and over (along with bad spelling/grammar) is what drove me to be a prolific editor.
TLDR: Emojis aren't a problem here; fluff is; exterminate it so thoroughly it'd make Arnold Schwarzenegger impressed.

In sparing use, emojis are OK. However, they should not be spammed or use inappropriately, unlike fluff, which should be banished.


text:
Is posting multiple answers deprecated?
I came across this new question  and decided to answer it. I had two ways to solve OP's problem so I decided to post two separate answers. I was then met by the dialog:

Are you sure you want to add another answer?
You could use the edit link to refine and improve your existing answer, instead.

And this got me thinking; is it better to have one long answer presenting different solutions than providing multiple answers, one for each solution? I would argue that several answers is better since one of the solutions might be correct and the others not, and if you have one long answer it's difficult to know which solution was correct.
Should we prefer one answer presenting several solutions or one answer for each solution?

Yep, multiple answers is fine. I'm up to three here: https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/83027/unity-new-ui-dynamically-change-the-functions-called-by-gui-elements. Sometimes there are lots of valid ways to accomplish the same thing.

That's up to you. I don't think we need to set any kind of official policy about it, particularly since there haven't been any discernible trouble with the status quo.
I think that warning prompt about adding multiple answers exists as a way of reminding users, subtly, that this isn't a discussion forum, and that multiple "answers" are not successive responses to the discussion.
Personally, I'd probably post multiple answers if I were offering up legitimately different solutions and wanted to cover each of them in some significant depth. The only time I can remember really doing this is on meta, usually to seed a discussion. Generally on the main site when I'm mentioning multiple different approaches it's at a high level, a list of possible options that are supportive of the primary answer and not independent answers on their own.

If one solution is correct and the other solutions are not correct, this probably means that the question is not precise enough.
The check-mark to accept the answer says:

[...] because it solved your problem or was the most helpful in finding your solution.

And the upvote text says:

This answer is useful.

We see that the concept of "correct answer" is in fact "useful answer".

I think that posting different answers with solutions using different approaches is ok, as long as the solution is well expanded (you have a chunky post).
If the description for each solution is short, I guess it would be better to post a single answer than many short ones.
I think the dialog is there to inform new users of the possibility to edit their previous post, a kind of training feature.
If you know what you're doing, go ahead, either create multiple posts, or a single one, based on what you feel is right.

The only drawback of creating multiple answer posts is that some users might frown upon the attempt to reap more rep. Two answer posts means twice the amount of upvotes possible. I don't think it's really an issue here, though.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

sort: votes


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Is asking for ideas/suggestions off topic?
I've got an interesting question on game development that would be sure to stir up some discussion. Though the question is more on the lines of "what are some ideas on making a game of this genre".
It seems very broad, even for me. I wonder if this SE is the best to ask a question like that?

This isn't a discussion site, it's a Q&A site. There are other sites better suited for discussion. http://reddit.com/r/gamedev or http://gamedev.net

It seems very broad...

Broad questions get closed since there's no concrete answer.
You could try asking in the chatroom.

I'd add that there is a section titled Where can I ask subjective, discussion, and other questions not fit for this site? on the What topics can I ask about here? help page which suggests other alternatives.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


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What is so special about unity-networking that it deserves its own tag?
There is the unity-networking tag.
Is it so special that it needs its own tag?
The excerpt reads:

Unity 5.1 introduced a new framework to handle client+server networking, also known as UNet.

And the description is a quote:

Unity 5.1 has a new and improved Networking system with more flexibility and power than the networking system provided in earlier versions of Unity. It has a lower level NetworkTransport class which is a thin layer above basic sockets and then higher level components which add more useful multiplayer features.

Could questions tagged as such be re-tagged [unity, networking] instead, while keeping the same effect?
We've merged and blacklisted unity-related tags in the past.

There is also the unet tag, which seems to be about exactly the same thing, so the answers here should apply to that tag as well. And we should make one a synonym of the other if it's decided to keep it as a separate tag.

I can see value in having a tag set aside for the particular networking library/API used in Unity, which I think is what the unity-networking tag is intended to do, judging from its tag description:

Unity 5.1 introduced a new framework to handle client+server
  networking, also known as UNet.

There are ways to do networking in Unity without using Unity's built-in Unity Networking, such as hand-rolling code or using third-party libraries like photon (which itself has a tag) — so it makes sense to be able to tag each of these use cases differently.
Similarly, I expect it would be possible for someone to be an expert in using Unity's networking API without being an expert in networking generally, and vice versa: an expert in networking may not be an expert in the Unity Networking API (or other APIs with their own tags like Photon...)
So tagging a question unity-networking/unet (I think these should be synonyms) says more than "this question is about networking a Unity game," it says "this question is about using this specific networking API"
This is analogous to tagging a question about using Unreal's node graph-based scripting system with unreal, blueprints, rather than the more generic term for that technology, graphs, to say "I need help with this particular tool, not just this class of problem"
If we find the Unity-Networking tag is being used too broadly to refer to networking scenarios not involving Unity's specific API, renaming the tag to something narrower (eg. making it a synonym of unet) may help reduce this temptation.

Are you suggesting we keep unet and make unity-networking a synonym of it?

I do think they should be synonyms. Which one becomes the canonical term depends on whether we're finding unity-networking is attracting excessive mis-tagging. I haven't investigated yet whether this is a major problem.

I agree with your unity, networking tag solution.


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Should [formula] be a synonym of [mathematics]?
Bringing this here, since I don't have permissions to suggest synonyms.
The formula tag currently has only 34 questions, and no tag info. The current explanation for mathematics includes "formulae."

Mathematics questions deal with the arithmetic, geometry, calculus, formulae and other calculations used in the development of a game.

Yes, I think formula should be made a synonym of mathematics.
The rationale behind it is that if you ask for a formula, you're facing the XY problem.
A formula implies a "single of code", which is IMHO very generic. An algorithm or some mathematics is generally what one should ask about. Good if the answers suggest a single-line formula.

I was at first thinking formula as a synonym of algorithm but algorithm is based on many steps, and figuring a mathematic formula would be a singular step or not even involved in an algorithm.

@Chris I think the concept of "algorithm" is a subset of the field of the "mathematics", but I think in our context we can have them separate :P

For this I don't have permissions to even suggest the synonym.

@Chris You can ping Josh about it in chat about it.

This has been done.


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Should we blacklist [experience]?
I'm guessing the experience tag was once meant for what is now user-experience, based on this question User-Experience tag.
Now the few questions that use it, are using it as meta. Typically, balancing experience, or formula for calculating experience. Which are covered by the balance, formula, or algorithm tags.

Yes, experience should be blacklisted. The name is not specific enough about how it should be used, and even if it were to be used for "experience points", it would be too specific and could be covered by the other tags you mentioned, or by game-design if appropriate.

I don't have permission to set this in motion. Is there a way to formally request this other than a question like this?

@Chris Blacklisting a tag is done manually, this means that we have to go through all the questions one by one and remove the tag manually. Then we add the tag to the list of blacklisted tags. What you lack is the ability to edit without your edits going through the review queue, but you have all the permissions :) You could start editing the tags out, and putting a link to this question in the edit description. Other users will approve them.

I shall continue to +2 my way up the chart!

@Chris There you go ;)

Yes. It's too ambiguous a tag name, since it could be about three different things at least, and should be replaced with more specifically meaningful tags:

user experience (covered by user-experience)
experience points (could/should be covered by a tag like experience-points or something)
personal experience (shouldn't have a tag)

user-experience is in and good. But I think that experience points is too specific, and personal experience is going to lead to opinion based questions and answers.

@Chris Oh right. I should clarify I'm by no means suggesting that "personal experience" should be a tag, it'd be rubbish. Just that [experience] doesn't suggest it's not about that thing.


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What is wrong with my question and how can I improve it?
This question, this is about recommendation so it should be closed but here's the thing, downloading parts of the game as the user unlocks level is an important feature that no one talks about. Is it impossible? if so yes then my question is stupid and should be closed, otherwise someone should give an answer, google it for a month and you won't find a tutorial on how it's done.
I asked a similar question of software recommendation.SE and got no answer so I had to come here, I know that it would be closed, but regardless someone has to have an answer.

The reason your question is off-topic here is twofold:
First, as it's worded now, you are literally asking us which technology (which engine) to use in the body of the question. This is explicitly considered off-topic here. The title of the question is asking for a list of resources (engines), which is also explicitly off-topic.
The task you appear to be trying to accomplish is extremely broad, and fundamentally not any different than downloading any other kind of asset from the internet and doing something with it. There's lots of tutorials available for, for example, connecting to some CDN or web server endpoint via HTTP and bringing down a file.
The other part of your task, loading that level you've downloaded, is also very basic and thus, as specified, very broad. How do you load any of the current levels you have, for example? It should be fundamentally no different provided you've done the first part (downloading the file to the correct location) correctly.
So, the best way to improve your question and make it on-topic is for you to rewrite it to point out that what you're trying to do is implement this feature, and then describe what you have tried already and where you are stuck. Include things like:

where you are hosting the levels to be downloaded (some CDN like CloudFront? your own FTP server?)
how do you want to download the levels (HTTP, perhaps)?
how do you currently load levels from the disk in your game?
what language and engine are you using?


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Is it a good idea to add tags for engines with low popularity?
Whilst it would make people more aware of the game engine, would it really be of much use to do this? It could be considered as extra clutter, for example, if I added a tag referring to an engine that only I knew about, would anyone really care, let alone know the answer to any questions on that tag?

Tags are about categorization of on-topic subject domains for searching and filtering. They are not about advertising or otherwise "making people aware" of products, and so should not be added for that purpose.
If an individual question is really about some engine (and isn't just a more general problem that happens to be done with or in that engine), it's certainly appropriate to add the tag to that one question. Unless the engine in question is a private, proprietary product, which case it's pointless.
It would not be appropriate to go back through the question history and retroactively apply that tag to anything that looks remotely relevant.

When I add a tag that does not exist, I generally tag another question, just to make it so that there is not only one question with that tag, to prevent the tag from being removed by the system.

That's fair, in general, although I'm not personally convinced the engine-specific tags are really that great and need proliferation.

Yeah, if the questions are generic and not specific to the engine, in theory, there is not need to tag them. Same with the language tags, but we're kind of stuck with it.


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Whither the Update tag?
I noticed today we have a tag for update with no usage guidance yet.
It's not very popular (only 64 questions), and seems to be used for a mix of topics:

How to use the game update loop pattern

Changing the current state of an entity in the middle of an update step or wait for the end?
How do I pass my objects to the update method?
Is it safe to base a combo system in frames instead of time?

How to modify a particular piece of data over time / over a network

How to correctly update sprite rect
MMO Player Position Update
Data overwritten in MapSubresource() method

How to use the MonoBehaviour message called "Update" in Unity

Update function only running once
base.Update() makes coroutine stop
2D Game has very bad lag because of one script?

How to deploy game software updates to players, or modify games on distribution platforms

Game launcher / updater download delta diff
Unity, Steam and updaters!
Declaring another alpha or beta testing after a game app for Android (APK file) is uploaded and already published in Google Play Store

It doesn't look like the current version of this tag is clearly identifying a particular topic or area of expertise.
Should we delete it outright, modify it to focus on one specific topic, or cleave it into distinct topic tags?

I think update is not clear enough and should be deleted.
However, while doing so, the questions tagged with update regarding the topic game update loop pattern could be tagged with game-loop instead, while those with the topic deploy game software updates to players could be retagged with deployment. I feel the other two topics you've covered are using update as a meta tag.

I agree with this, except that I think questions about "deploying game software updates" could be better served by the "deployment" tag. I'd rather not see "software-engineering" turn into (more of) a catch-all.

@JoshPetrie Good catch, I did not know we had a deployment tag. Updated the answer accordingly.

Finally got around to removing all of the [tag:update] tags. :) Found a few more candidates for tag cleanup in the process, but that can be a problem for another day... ;)

@DMGregory Great job! Make sure to update the blacklisted tag list.

I think the update loop and deploying game updates uses of the tag both identify a specific problem domain in which someone could develop particular expertise.
The update loop questions can use the existing tag game-loop.
Deploying game updates would need a new tag, something like software-updates to distinguish the subject from runtime updates of in-game data.

I think the "modify a piece of data" use of the tag is purely meta and should be removed. I don't think someone can be an expert in "modifying data" alone.
I think tagging a question "Update" because it entails a method named Update() is pure noise, and the tag should be replaced with game-loop if the question is really about simulating behaviour over time via updates, or simply deleted otherwise.


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Is [mathematics] a meta tag?
This is possibly in direct conflict of a previous question of mine: Should [formula] be a synonym of [mathematics]?
After looking around I found several tags that could be synonyms for mathematics.

formula
probability
linear-algebra "... branch of mathematics ..."
quaternion "Mathematical constructions..."
vector "A mathematical concept..."
geometry "A branch of mathematics..."

There's others, basically a search for questions with mathematics and then you can see other tags used with it.
This suggests to me that mathematics is really a meta tag and should possibly be removed as such.  It's probably being used because someone coming here with a question may not know the precise field or term in mathematics for what they're looking for.
But there are the first two, formula and probability that seem too specific and should be synonyms for mathematics or perhaps a similar tag.
How should we organize these tags?

"But there are the first two, formula and probability that seem too specific and should be synonyms for mathematics or perhaps a similar tag."
I make no argument with regard to the formula tag, but I recommend keeping probability as its own standalone tag. Probability is a very distinct area of expertise, with lots of counter-intuitive quirks and potential gotchas that are easy for non-specialists to fall into, so it requires particular styles of approach.
Game probability in particular encompasses specialized topics like loot drop systems, pseudorandom number generation methods, shuffling mechanics like Tetris piece selection algorithms, and mixed strategy equilibria in game theory - so even on a game-, not math-focused exchange, I think this category is meaty enough to stand on its own.

I can see an argument for considering math to be meta, but I think even with its breadth it's still specific enough to say something useful about the question's content.
Speaking for myself, I have it set as one of my favourite tags. I'm a math geek so I like checking out questions that demand some calculating, graphing, derivation, or a little light proving. I find the mathematics tag is currently effective at highlighting these questions, and correctly signals when my expertise might be relevant.
And, as you say, folks coming here with math questions are often doing so because they lack the terminology to define what they need in more specific terms like linear-algebra, so having a mathematics tag helps the folks who do know this terminology find the questions they might be able to help with or improve. Without the mathematics tag, I don't think the users asking these questions would find more specific terms to use - we'd just get more sparsely tagged questions that are harder to filter by expertise.

Formula, probability, linear-algebra, quaternion, vector, & geometry are all specific types of or applications of math, but do not exhaust all math topics. I certainly think it's redundant to add the mathematics tag to any question that has the aforementioned. But given that there are other math heavy questions that may be asked that do not fall specifically under the purview of the aforementioned, I think it's good (necessary & sufficient perhaps?) to keep mathematics to collect / filter them.


text:
Made a mistake with the replication tag
I was following up on an earlier thread, removing & replacing the update tag on questions, when I came across a question about "updating" positions of players to one another in an MMO.
"That's replication" I thought, so I tried replacing it with a replication tag, discovering to my surprise that we didn't already have one, so a new tag was created.
After giving the new tag a quick description:

Replication is the process of synchronizing game state across multiple
  devices, so actions that one player takes in a multiplayer game are
  accurately presented to all other players. Replication includes
  strategies to minimize and hide communication latency and resolve
  outcomes where multiple players interact, such as shooting or
  attempting to move into the same location.

...I found the synchronization tag, which covers the same topic:

A process of maintaining similar game state across players and/or
  servers, thus giving all players same info about current sutuation on
  playfield.

I'm not able to turn my accidentally-created replication into a synonym of synchronization since I don't have any rep with that tag.
What's the recommended solution for me to fix my redundant tag? Should I just wait for it to age out of the system with 0 posts, or mark its description to point users at the correct synchronization tag instead, or something else?

From what I understand, tags with 0 question and that don't have synonym will be deleted after one day.
I guess asking your question here can be interpreted as "should we make it as a synonym?". I'd say "yes", if a mod spots this question before the tag dies on its own, it could make sense to add a synonym to make the first tag easier to spot.
I don't think modifying the description of synchronization is the right thing to do; a tag should stand on its own. The tag synonym infrastructure is there for that reason.


text:
Is there a place for asking for general debugging help?
I have code that I would like help with, but I don't really know what's wrong with it.
I can't post it in the regular forums for StackOverflow or Game Development because I can't ask a specific question, and so it definitely won't be received well.
Is there a place where I can ask broad questions like "What's wrong with this part of my code?"
If not, I think that there should be a place where users can post troublesome snippets, and other users, motivated by points (like a "bounty"), could improve code for better readability, efficiency, or just help the user fix their code.

You could try GDNet.

You could try and get 20 rep (total) and try the chat.

Possible duplicate of Where can I ask open-ended questions instead?

I think the focus on debugging questions specifically makes this question worth keeping open on its own, but maybe the title should be edited to clarify the distinction.

First off, this meta post discussing 'debug my code' criteria covers why these types of questions are frequently considered off-topic &/or of low value. Basically, this is the system doing what it was meant to do. While there is almost certainly value to you in having your code debugged, the value to others is not very high relative to the other sorts of questions that are on-topic & favorably received.
Also, as pointed out by others, feedback on a specific working piece of code with regards to best practices, performance & correctness is very on-topic for Code Review. If that's what you want, that's where to post.
Beyond that, if you want a specific answer, ask a specific question. At a minimum, identify the expected behavior & the observed behavior for your code.
You wouldn't take the response "you didn't code it right" to be a very useful answer - it might be technically correct, but it doesn't show much effort & it doesn't contribute much to fixing the problem. The same is true of "what's wrong with my code?" - it's a question, but without some additional work, it's not a particularly useful question, either to those who might answer it or to those searching for answers. If you can't at least identify the expected & observed behavior, we really don't have much to go on.
Better yet, try to provide a minimal, complete, and verifiable example (MCVE) of your problem. It's a good skill to cultivate & sometimes the very process of making a MCVE will result in identifying and correcting the problem yourself.

By "what's wrong with my code," I meant the overall question. Even with details about what it does and is supposed to do, people still don't like to see a post like that (at least in my experience of what I have seen, maybe it has changed). I think my code meets those criteria though, because it's barely over 100 lines long, and there are no runtime/compiletime errors or warnings, it is readable. You are probably right, but I'm still sort of hesitant because if it isn't well received, you lose privileges on the site.

True - I've edited my answer to include why that is the case.

There's a gray-area allowance (from my personal opinion and observation of others on this site) if the problem is a common problem or common mistake in game dev contexts even if not quite game development specific.
Otherwise the question needs to be specific to game development.
Example:

My path finding is taking too long, here's my code

sometimes accepted question because speed is a common path finding
problem in video games that many visitors will benefit from. And different game genres hit different path-finding issues (eg: timed obstructions, 2D/3D, etc) so there's room for more than one of those questions.

Null reference exception (that happens to be) in my custom level loader

this is more a generic coding error and answers will not be useful to anybody else so less likely to be accepted.

Null reference exception when playing a sound in publicly available Engine XYZ

likely to be accepted if this is a common issue inside a commonly used game engine because many visitors will benefit.

Alternative sites are

Code Review
Computer Graphics (unless it's specific to a particular game engine)
Stack Overflow (generic programming questions)
Super User (computer issues. eg: I can't get my VR Headset to work on this computer)
List of all Technology-related Stack Exchange sites

What's wrong with my code is probably Code Review, but it might be better off to carefully describe the problem you are having with the code. SO is likely better for such things, however.

Quoting Code Review's help (emphasis added): "Code Review is for open-ended questions about code that already works correctly (to the best of your knowledge). Questions seeking help about debugging or understanding code are off-topic for Code Review, and may be on-topic for Stack Overflow"


text:
2017 Moderator Election Q&A - Question Collection
Game Development Stack Exchange is scheduled for an election next week, October 23rd.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.

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

Here's how it'll work:

Until the nomination phase, (so, until Monday, October 23rd 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.
We, the Community Team, will be providing a small selection of generic questions. The first two will be guaranteed to be included, the latter ones are if the community doesn't supply enough questions. This will be done in a single post, unlike the prior instruction.
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 at currently.
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.
Once questions have been selected, a new question will be opened to host the actual questionnaire for the candidates, typically containing 10 questions in total.
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.

Game design questions are generally underserved by our site, often because many really interesting game design questions are open-ended. What (if anything) do you feel you should or could do to change this, as a moderator?

A huge percentage of questions get closed (roughly every 8th or 5000 out of the current 40,000 questions not counting the deleted ones), a big chunk of these ask for software, book or technology recommendations. What would you do to solve this issue?

There's a perception among developers that StackExchange is elitist / unwelcoming, or that established/high-rep users are on a "power trip" and out to bully new users.
See for example these pieces on frustrations with StackOverflow:

John Slegers on "The Decline of StackOverflow"
Jason Sachs on the "Soup Nazi" effect
Jonah Bishop - "StackOverflow hates new users"
Michael T. Richter on "creeping authoritarianism"

While SO gets the most focus due to its higher volume, we can see the same sentiments in our own users here on GDSE. Just this morning, a user commented:

You know what. Stack exchange sucks. No one here is willing to help.
  It’s always just: “no you can’t ask your question like that!” This is a
  question which can be answered with one answer...But then again no one’s
  here to actually help.

(edited for spelling)
As a mod, how would you guide the community to provide a more welcoming first impression or onboarding experience for new users?

Moderators have a rare ability to make unilateral changes to the site, bypassing checks that often require larger community consensus. What do you feel is the area most in need of that kind of unilateral intervention today, and how would you address it?

Some community members have felt a change in the chat culture on the site. What are your thoughts on the current state of the site's chat room?

I'll confess I haven't been active enough in chat to observe this directly. Can you describe some of the changes these community members report?

So chat has been quite quiet lately, or quieter than before, with much fewer active users in the room. I've personally witnessed some record breaking 3 users online moments (on a weekend, sure, but that's still very different from before).

Aren't you afraid that you will burn out solving mundane issues that you could ignore before?

With great powers come great responsibilities and influence. As a newly elected moderator, what behaviour(s) that you had as a non-moderator will you change, if any, whether it is about voting, interactions with other users, interventions on meta, etc.?

Why do you want to be a moderator?

What professional or hobby experience do you have that you think you'll be bringing to the role of moderating this community? This might include soft skills dealing with people, or professional experience having developed games.

This one was inspired by Chris McFarland's question but attempts to get a bit further reaching.

What games have you worked on?


text:
How to handle an edit war properly?
I'll start by saying that I probably should've asked this question earlier, and that due to that I did not most likely handle the situation very well.
There's an edit war going on here. The OP is reverting an edit, that simply removed a few fluff-words and added paragraph breaks to the question body, plus improved the title.
It makes zero sense to me the revert the edit, and hence OP's removal of the said edit has been rolled back three times as of writing this post, two times by me. I see no point in devaluing the question by dumping all the content into one single paragraph, and that's why I've felt the need to revert those edits.
There's also an comment added to the question by a reverter before me explaining to OP why reverting a question-improving edit is not deemed as an okay thing to do.
What would be the proper course of actions for me to take in a situation like this? Is there anything that can be done?

From what I remember of a chat with Josh, if the OP wants to have a less than optimal quality question, that's up to them: if they don't get it, downvote the question for poor quality and forget about it. If the OP is messing with inappropriate tags, that's another story, and should be flagged for a moderator so that they can handle the situation.

That's my takeaway after getting into a few of these fights too. Now I try editing/reverting once, leaving a comment or edit description explaining my action, and if they choose not to heed it, then it's not our job to make their question better. ;) If it languishes without answers / attracting downvotes, they can deal with that, and they have the advice they need waiting for them if they choose to take it.

In general, getting into a fight isn't productive.
If you see an edit war going on, the right thing to do is generally to disengage. Flag a moderator or raise the issue on meta if you think that the challenged edits are important enough. If the lack of the edits makes, in your eyes, the question worthy of a down vote or a close vote, then do so and move on.

Coming from the worldbuilding stack, I've been judge to these things over there too - from both perspectives.
To give a simple answer:
Edits are meant to improve a question. This most often means formatting the text or fixing orthographic & grammatical mistakes. Thus generally okay and desirable from the point of views of the site and the author are:

fixing the wrong spelling of words
replacing complex words with simpler words (to some extent)
structuring a block of text into paragraphs
indenting code so it is displayed with the code formatting
indenting quotes so they are displayed as such
fixing links to other sites (and optionally quoting their contents if necessary for the question)
correctly linking images or even uploading them to imgur and linking to the original source

The above things strive to improve readability of the question. They also aim to improve consistency between questions on the stack and making sure that questions are still viable even if e.g. a link goes down.

The edits that seem to have triggered your war at first appear to be about improving the wording in the question, yet looking closer at them they also remove whole parts of sentences.
While this might be helping the question you now also start changing it - no matter if intently or inadvertently. At this point the OP steps in and tells you that your changes do modify the question into something they did not originally ask.
Now you start to insist on your changes making the question better and clearer. The OP insists on them making it worse. Looking at the revision history, this has continued for 6 revisions of back and forth. While your changes might be for the better of the question the OP clearly tells you that they do not with you to change it in revision 8:

Rollback to Revision 2 - Stop reverting edits. They are not approriate edits. No means no.

At this point it is time to take a step back. No matter your intentions, the OP does not wish for your help. Even if they would like your help, the back and forth degraded this attempt into, as you called it already, a war, a show of strength & determination.
It is not your question. It is their question. And if they wanted to or not, they started getting protective - again this is a sign for you to step down.

How can you go on?:

Stop fighting. The rolling back and forth of edits is indirect, there is no proper channel for any of you both to communicate your intents - thus it is happening in the first place
Now you can either continue your quest to improve the question or accept it and move on. If you choose the latter then you can stop reading here, otherwise:
Get on even ground: The OP has less than 200 rep, you have more than 3.5k rep. This means you have different privileges and powers on this site. Thus the OP might even feel oppressed by you.

start a chat between you and the OP, discuss your intentions there and find out why they won't see it the way you do. Discussion opens doors. Action closes them.
flag the question for Mod Attention to get a third party involved. Mods exist to moderate the community, they are here to reconcile between warring parties - always for the best of the site though, not necessarily for the best of you or the OP.

Well, that ended up less simple than I intended. It's also by no means an absolute guide but more of a list of things to think about.

It may be their question but it's very important that everybody understand that that doesn't mean they get to be the final authority on everything. SE is a collaboratively-edited community, and if that fact is off-putting to a user, a user should ask their question elsewhere.

I agree with the advice to step back, but I see the scope of valid edits as much broader than what's suggested here. On the Gamedev SE, we get a lot of questions that are downright confused, and talk around the issue a lot instead of describing it in a way that will be meaningful to other devs, or use minimal/broken English that demands a lot of interpretation. In those cases I sometimes edit an almost complete re-write of the question, preserving the topic and relevant details, but often removing whole sections that turn out to be distracting from the real issue.

@DMGregory that's why I've added the preamble. I see what you say and understand these things to be different here from where I usually fare. Yet I think my experience from the other world can still help, so I tried to keep it general and stay on the safe side. Thank you for this addition !

@JoshPetrie and that's why you eventually should flag such cases for mod attention. I tried to emphasize on this a bit with the for the best of the site part. But is somewhat drowned out by everything else..

(I don't disagree with anything your saying and think your answer is great, I just wanted to emphasis that point because I see it misunderstood so often by people rolling back good-faith edits.)


text:
Standing moderators, could you tell us a bit more about the circumstances of the election?
When the moderator election was announced with 2 slots, that was surprising enough it prompted some remarks in chat. I agree it's interesting since moderation teams this size have often only grown one at a time (I think), and when RPG.SE decided to grow from a moderator team of 2 to 4 (not counting one third/fifth moderator absent due to life circumstances) they decided on that to help avoid burnout, support unpredictable life circumstances, etc.
So to the elected moderators: Could you tell us more about the circumstances on your end that prompted the election and request for 2 extra moderators? Is there stuff in particular you need assistance with? Is there more volume than you can keep track of, or something like that?
I'm not sure I'll run myself — I haven't been very active on mainsite for years — but this information might be useful to those considering running, and to those of us who will be voting for the potential new moderators.

There are two main reasons:

Mainly, we'd like to bolster the ranks. Real-life circumstances ebb and flow and always impact one's ability to focus on the site. Right now we're in a phase where the vast majority of the moderation workload is falling on a very small percentage of the moderators. The workload of this site is relatively small, so this isn't problematic, but we'd like to have more moderators available just in case.
Secondarily, we want to head off having a "moderation monoculture," caused by having a lack of new ideas and perspectives in the team.

While wanting to avoid "+1" - I agree with this as well.


text:
2017 Community Moderator Election
The 2017 Community Moderator Election is now underway!
Community moderator elections have three phases:

Nomination phase
Primary phase
Election phase

Most elections take between two and three weeks, but this depends on how many candidates there are.
Please visit the official election page at
https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/election
for more detail, and to participate!
If you have general questions about the election process, or questions for moderator candidates, feel free to ask them here on meta -- just make sure your questions are tagged election.

Additionally, you can ask questions of the candidates in this chat room, and nominees/potential nominees themselves can ask questions of our existing moderation stuff in this chat room if they'd like a peek behind the scenes before committing.


text:
2017 Moderator Election Q&A - Questionnaire
In connection with the moderator elections, we are holding a Q&A thread for the candidates. Questions collected from an earlier thread have been compiled into this one, which shall now serve as the space for the candidates to provide their answers.
Normally I'm supposed to have provided a pair of default questions but I apparently forgot to do exactly such when I posted the question collection. I also ended up merging two questions submitted (as one was influenced by the other), and didn't want to cut out the other questions voted on, so I've gone and selected all of the submitted questions from the community, plus our two default questions at the end, for a total of 11 questions.
As a candidate, your job is simple - post an answer to this question, citing each of the questions and then post your answer to each question given in that same answer. For your convenience, I will include all of the questions in quote format with a break in between each, suitable for you to insert your answers. Just copy the whole thing after the first set of three dashes.Please consider putting your name at the top of your post so that readers will know who you are before they finish reading everything you have written, and also including a link to your answer on your nomination post.
Once all the answers have been compiled, this will serve as a transcript for voters to view the thoughts of their candidates, and will be appropriately linked in the Election page.
Good luck to all of the candidates!
Oh, and when you've completed your answer, please provide a link to it after this blurb here, before that set of three dashes. Please leave the list of links in the order of submission.
To save scrolling here are links to the submissions from each candidate (in order of submission):

Bálint
Chris McFarland
Douglas Gregory
Ethan Larson (Almo)
Alexandre Vaillancourt

Game design questions are generally underserved by our site, often because many really interesting game design questions are open-ended. What (if anything) do you feel you should or could do to change this, as a moderator?
There's a perception among developers that StackExchange is elitist / unwelcoming, or that established/high-rep users are on a "power trip" and out to bully new users: 1 2 3 4. While SO gets the most focus due to its higher volume, we can see the same sentiments in our own users here on GDSE. Over the weekend, a user commented "You know what. Stack exchange sucks. No one here is willing to help. It’s always just: “no you can’t ask your question like that!” This is a question which can be answered with one answer...But then again no one’s here to actually help." As a mod, how would you guide the community to provide a more welcoming first impression or onboarding experience for new users?
Aren't you afraid that you will burn out solving mundane issues that you could ignore before?
Why do you want to be a moderator?
Some community members have felt a change in the chat culture on the site. What are your thoughts on the current state of the site's chat room?
Moderators have a rare ability to make unilateral changes to the site, bypassing checks that often require larger community consensus. What do you feel is the area most in need of that kind of unilateral intervention today, and how would you address it?
A huge percentage of questions get closed (roughly every 8th or 5000 out of the current 40,000 questions not counting the deleted ones), a big chunk of these ask for software, book or technology recommendations. What would you do to solve this issue?
What professional or hobby experience do you have that you think you'll be bringing to the role of moderating this community? This might include soft skills dealing with people, or professional experience having developed games (and if you have the latter, what games have you worked on, if you are willing/able to disclose?)
With great powers come great responsibilities and influence. As a newly elected moderator, what behaviour(s) that you had as a non-moderator will you change, if any, whether it is about voting, interactions with other users, interventions on meta, etc.?
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?

FYI, your template (still) has a typo - there's a missing space after 'just copy the whole thing after the first set of three dashes'. I'd recommend fixing your template ;)

Ah, sorry my question ended up being so bulky in this format. I'm happy to precis it down if that would help it fit the format better.

@DMGregory the answers are going to get bulky, you can't do much about it. That's why you include the link to them in the main post.

Douglas Gregory (DMGregory)
Nomination

Game design questions are generally underserved by our site, often because many really interesting game design questions are open-ended. What (if anything) do you feel you should or could do to change this, as a moderator?

As a game designer myself, I have a lot of experience helping fellow devs understand that design isn't just making stuff up or deciding by fiat, but about problem solving within constraints. That puts it right in SE's wheelhouse of promoting answers that correctly solve defined problems.
In the past I've had good results here with light edits to tweak a questionable design question into an answerable scope, and/or a comment explaining why I think the question fits here. Other times I've provided an example answer to demonstrate how evidence and references can be applied to the design topic at hand. Sometimes all it takes is a vote of confidence from a trusted user to encourage others to see the question in a productive light.
Some examples where these methods helped in turning multi-close-voted questions around to receive multiple answers, upvotes, and Accepts:

How can I make my color mixing game more difficult?
Dungeons in a 3D space game
How to handle loss aversion in probability-based games
(Just today) Why do new videogame sequels usually become bigger?

I think we can make this more systematic too. In this Meta Discussion, I proposed a four criteria we can use to evaluate and guide improvement of game design questions - now part of the game-design tag guidance. I'd like to lead by example in applying this model (or future community improvements on it) until constructive guidance for design questions is as much a part of our shared lexicon as "comments are not for extended discussion" ;)

There's a perception among developers that StackExchange is elitist / unwelcoming, or that established/high-rep users are on a "power trip" and out to bully new users...As a mod, how would you guide the community to provide a more welcoming first impression or onboarding experience for new users?

I think a big part of this has to do with questions 1 & 7. For many users, their first experience with the site is having their earnest, vital question shut down before anyone could answer it.
I don't think the community is wrong to do this - we get a lot of low-quality questions, and lowering our standards or opening the flood gates isn't a solution either.
But in the same vein as above, I think many of these questions can be rehabilitated with a modest investment on our parts. Especially if, through leading by example, we build a cultural norm around first attempting to improve questions before closing/downvoting, sharing the workload across the community.
Second, I think tone is a huge part of the equation - especially on the Internet where it's easy to read malice or aggression into innocent text. We've all been doing this long enough that the usual phrases like "Asking for technology recommendations is not on-topic for this site" just roll off the keyboard, but to a new user this can look like a very curt and gate-keeperly dismissal. Including in our routine a bit more explanation of why, or guidance to help the user to their next step, can radically change the emotional vibe of the interaction.
Even the automatic "Possible duplicate of..." comment can be edited if we catch it fast enough, and expanded to frame it as guiding the user toward immediate/already-vetted help for their problem - so that it doesn't read solely as chiding them for not searching first. I've been trying to do this recently and it's often better received than a bare duplicate flag.

Aren't you afraid that you will burn out solving mundane issues that you could ignore before?

Yes, definitely! But I think by adding more moderators through this election, we'll be able to share the growing load of the site more evenly, and there will be more flexibility for the team to adapt as individual mods' availability and focus naturally vary over time. We're all here for each other so no one person needs to push beyond what they can sustain.

Why do you want to be a moderator?

I've learned a ton from participating in this community, and I want to give back, to help it thrive and offer the kinds of learning opportunities to other game creators that I've been so luck to enjoy here.

Some community members have felt a change in the chat culture on the site. What are your thoughts on the current state of the site's chat room?

I'll confess, I haven't been as active in chat here as I feel I should be as a potential mod, and so I'm making a point to visit and participate there more frequently. So far, I don't think I have enough experience to answer this question well.

Moderators have a rare ability to make unilateral changes to the site, bypassing checks that often require larger community consensus. What do you feel is the area most in need of that kind of unilateral intervention today, and how would you address it?

Honestly, things seem to hum along pretty decently for the most part, thanks to the dedicated efforts of our existing mods and community members. I can't think of a major glaring issue that demands unilateral action that isn't already being handled reasonably.
I'd just like to help spread the maintenance load - particularly with regard to moderating comments and pruning outdated / off-topic discussion, since the non-mod tools are somewhat more limited in maintaining quality in this area.
I might like to use those powers for a bit of tag cleanup too. Right now, although I have a lot of rep, it's clustered in a small fraction of our tags, so there are lots of topics where I currently can't even propose synonyms. Not a dire problem for the site, but something I think I could better help with as a mod, so I'm not stuck waiting for the right question to come along before I can make an obvious improvement. ;)

A huge percentage of questions get closed (roughly every 8th or 5000 out of the current 40,000 questions not counting the deleted ones), a big chunk of these ask for software, book or technology recommendations. What would you do to solve this issue?

Recapping the theme from questions 1 & 2, I think there's a lot of opportunity to proactively improve questions & find the on-topic nugget buried inside, and promote this as a community value we can all help realize, so fewer questions need to be closed in the first place, or are abandoned in that state.
Questions which are fundamentally off-topic like technology/book recommendations are a different matter though. I think we exclude these for good reason - our site's format simply isn't the best way to handle this type of question.
I think Bálint's suggestion to improve the question guidance presented immediately beside the question authoring field is a vital step here, and I'd love to collaborate on proposed content. :)
I think there's a deeper issue though, that users tend to ask these broad/suggestion-polling questions when they're uncertain of themselves. Often it seems like they lack confidence in a topic to form their actual question, so they ask for "general guides" hoping what they need will turn up in there somewhere.
I think this is another area where cultivating community norms around supporting new users as discussed in 2 could be beneficial. When a user expects to be welcomed and guided, it's easier for them to open up and describe what they're doing, with less apprehension that they'll be pounced on for going about it the "wrong" way.

What professional or hobby experience do you have that you think you'll be bringing to the role of moderating this community? This might include soft skills dealing with people, or professional experience having developed games (and if you have the latter, what games have you worked on, if you are willing/able to disclose?)

I've been designing games professionally for ten years, specializing in systems design, user interface, economy balancing, and design communication, in both indie and AAA contexts. Along the way I've gotten to explore a wide array of development problem spaces, including localization, motion controls, multi-touch/multi-user interfaces, custom controller hardware, working within existing & controlled brands, and developing/pitching original game IPs.
I also have teaching experience in game mechanics and balancing through Sheridan's bachelor of game design program, and algorithm design & analysis as a TA with Stanford online.
I plan to continue applying this background in communication and teaching to cultivating a productive learning environment for all our users here.
My commercial game titles include:

Flip's Twisted World (2010, Wii, indie, 3rd-person action-puzzler)
Splinter Cell Blacklist (2013, Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Wii U, 3rd-person stealth-action)
Starlink: Battle for Atlas (2018, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, toys-to-life 3rd-person open world spaceship-flying/building action-adventure)

My non-commercial titles include:

Installation games for Toronto's Nuit Blanche festival

Go Poser Go (2014 - play pictionary with your silhouette while the crowd guesses on their phones)
Pixelate (2015 - visitors get digitized into 4 eras of videogame history, from 8-bit platformer to modern day)

Game jam creations (I'm an avid jammer!)

Glimpse (2014 - exploratory puzzle game where the world can change when you blink)
Quarky (2016 - board game using red/blue eyeglasses and pieces, so two different boards exist in superposition)
Last One Standing (2016 - 6-player free-for-all domino domination)

With great powers come great responsibilities and influence. As a newly elected moderator, what behaviour(s) that you had as a non-moderator will you change, if any, whether it is about voting, interactions with other users, interventions on meta, etc.?

I have a habit of being stubborn, and arguing a point longer than I should, something I've already been working to curb. I'd need to be extra-vigilant, recognizing that each message I post reflects not only on myself as a user, but on the site and its moderation community. I'd also need to act with awareness that the power imbalance between a mod and a regular or new user colours how all my interactions are perceived, however well-meaning they may be. I'd need to practice restraint, recognizing that an (in my opinion) imperfect question/answer/comment is very often better than an alienated community member.
Also, as I understand it, a mod's close vote closes the question instantly. To date, I've been relatively loose with close votes in situations I saw as borderline but wasn't clear how to fix - on the logic that others have a chance to disagree or make changes without the closure taking effect. I'd need to be much more judicious with closing, and only close a question when I'm certain that it's off-topic or causing harm in some way.

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'd want to discuss this with the user, in chat or a private channel if they'd prefer, to try to guide them to a more harmonious relationship with the community.
I've had a number of these problems myself as I've been gradually learning more about the site, and I benefited greatly from mods and fellow users taking the time to explain why we do things a certain way on StackExchange, and showing examples of how to use the site more productively. I'd try to give this user those kinds of learning opportunities.
In the event of misunderstandings or differences of opinion about site conventions/norms & best practices, a meta thread explaining the concept can be effective for showcasing productive behaviours without calling anyone out explicitly, developing consensus as a check on my own bias, and also as a resource for all users' future reference. These threads by Josh Petrie and MAnd for example helped clear up misconceptions I'd held.
If problems persist, I'd discuss with the other mods what types of measures are best to dissuade the user from antagonizing the community.
If absolutely necessary, I'd rather suspend or ban a productive but inflammatory community member, rather than have them continue to upset or alienate our community here. Good answers are comparatively easy to come by, but a friendly collaborative community takes years to cultivate.

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

I'm still pretty junior in my understanding of StackExchange conventions, so my first guess would be that there's something I don't know or have overlooked about the situation.
I'd try to reach out and discuss the issue with the other mod in another channel, like chat, or a private message if they prefer / if it pertains to sensitive information. I'd ask questions to understand the choice to close/delete, and if I still feel it should have been done differently, present my thoughts on why.
If we're ultimately unable to come to a consensus to reverse the decision, or the other mod is not available or interested in discussing it, I'd typically let the existing decision stand. It's easy to post a new question or answer, so no permanent damage is done even if I disagree with it. Escalating to the other mods, or causing a scene or edit/modding war would likely be more disruptive to the community.
I think further escalation to other mods would only be required if it became a persistent issue - like targeted blocking against a particular user / topic not in violation of the rules. For everyday differences of opinion, I think the site format gives us a lot of room to live and let live.

Where do you draw the line between questions that are worth rehabilitating -- like the examples you gave -- and questions that will simply never be on topic (to give an extreme example, "how do I make money off the stock market")? Obviously, there's a gigantic grey area; for you, personally, what makes a question on the acceptable side of that?

@QPaysTaxes Great question! For me, it's about trying to find a core question that has an SE-length answer our user base could assess as "correct." That doesn't mean it needs to be completely unique/objective - our voting system helps pool different evaluations into an overall consensus - but there should be some criteria we can use to decide whether an answer gets an upvote, beyond personal opinion/style or popularity. Questions that can be answered with evidence, or especially in the game design case, a specific desired outcome that allows us to ask "does this answer achieve that outcome?"

One more, based on your answers to 9, 10, and 11, and I'm intentionally phrasing it a bit aggressively -- have you done much research into what, exactly, mods can/should do? There are a whole bunch of resources that would definitely be worth looking into. As a quick summary, (1) votes and flags are binding; flag something as spam and it instapoofs; CV something and it instacloses. (2) You're not only representing the community, but defining it; if you say something is off-topic, until someone contests it on Meta, it is. (3) Mods can PM a user directly, without chat; it's a magic mod ability.

By all means, be as aggressive as you feel appropriate. :) I want to be a mod only if the community thinks I'd be a good mod, so I want to be up-front an honest about my limitations so you can make that evaluation. My research has come mainly in the form of consulting with current mods in chat, reading & participating in meta threads about community norms and moderation guidance, and reviewing the help sections for clarifications.

You're not a Mod yet!?  What is this madness!!!

@Evorlor This is the first election we've had since I discovered the site. Also, to be frank, I wouldn't have been a good fit for the role in my past. I've had a lot of learning to do, both about the site, and about how to manage conflict. I think I'm ready to take on more responsibility now - we'll see what the community says. :)

Well, from the answers you've written up to now, your comments on questions and your effort of fixing them, even if you hadn't put your nomination in, and even if you do not win, in my heart, you're the mod we never had.

Awwwww, thank you for the vote of confidence! :D

Alexandre Vaillancourt
Nomination

Game design questions are generally underserved by our site, often because many really interesting game design questions are open-ended. What (if anything) do you feel you should or could do to change this, as a moderator?

That’s a tricky one.
I think there is some room for lowball, relatively generic questions about game design. After all, the site is about game development, so why ban them?
The main issue I see related to this type of question is threefold:
First: This type of question tend to hit the Hot Network Questions list, and since they’re “easy to answer by anyone”, we get a load of users answering the question.
Second: some users seem too happy to have finally found a question they can answer that they don’t take the time to read answers that have already been posted, answers which contain the exact same details that they’re about to write. We then end up having some good quality answers, and some answers that could be seen as repeated content.
Third: Rep is hard to get. Below a certain threshold, I think users feel they can’t downvote because it would cost them precious rep (that’s perfectly understandable, I’ve been there too). Thus users are shy and don’t downvote questions that should be downvoted for not being useful (that’s what the little down arrow says). Downvotes send a message to users, but it’s sometimes not that clear (Why is my answer not useful?).
What could/should I do as a mod about this? Nothing drastic. The way I see the issue, I think a downvote, accompanied with a friendly message should help with this kind of situation. I see it a bit like leading by example: use the features of the site and encourage others to do it, and refine the message sent by the downvote by letting the user know why they received a downvote.
Although the questions hitting the HNQ list make me sigh once in a while, I think having questions from GD.SE there is beneficial to the community as it gives us visibility. And I don’t think a mod has any right to delete answers only because the content has been covered by other answers. Downvotes are for that.

There's a perception among developers that StackExchange is elitist / unwelcoming, or that established/high-rep users are on a "power trip" and out to bully new users: 1 2 3 4. While SO gets the most focus due to its higher volume, we can see the same sentiments in our own users here on GDSE. Over the weekend, a user commented "You know what. Stack exchange sucks. No one here is willing to help. It’s always just: “no you can’t ask your question like that!” This is a question which can be answered with one answer...But then again no one’s here to actually help." As a mod, how would you guide the community to provide a more welcoming first impression or onboarding experience for new users?

I haven’t witnessed a lot of the issues described above on GD.SE. But yes, it can be harsh for new users.
Below each question, there is an option to cast a close vote. With 5 votes, the question gets closed, and a message box is added below the question. This is standard.
I think the issue is that some users don’t read. They don’t read the message in the box, or they don’t read the help center. This is also standard, unfortunately.
The message boxes have been added so that the users voting to close the question don’t have to type the same thing every time they cast a vote, or close the question. This has unfortunately the side effect of cutting the “human”/”direct” relationship between the new user and the community members (or the mod) who closed the question.
That would be adding work for the community and the mods, but I think leaving a kind comment to the new user telling them why their question has been closed, suggesting alternatives and telling them a bit more why questions such as theirs don’t fit on the site can actually bring more light on how this site works. That would at least open the door to a dialogue.
I have had many occurrences of users thanking me for having given them a pointer like this.
In parallel, we could post more Meta questions like this or this, and feature them once in a while when there is nothing else important going on. I think this could help the community be more welcoming.

Aren't you afraid that you will burn out solving mundane issues that you could ignore before?

I’m in the top 1 of three review queues, and top 3 of the three others, and in the top 2 for edits (Josh is far ahead).
I don’t think so. I might end up spending more time solving mundane issues, and less time on the review queues.

Why do you want to be a moderator?

As described in my nomination text:
As a mod, I'd like also to:

work "in the shadows" to help have a nice site for current users;
help guide the community to offer an even more welcoming site for future users;
close questions that should be closed earlier;
handle spam and other flags faster (right now, I generate work for the mods; I could handle flags instead of creating some :P).

Some community members have felt a change in the chat culture on the site. What are your thoughts on the current state of the site's chat room?

Although the chat is much more quiet than it was before the culture change, I think the change was a good thing. It is now more in line with the rest of the site.
I also feel that we’re slowly re-building a momentum with new regulars. Some users there are really smart and knowledgeable and are very good at helping other users that have questions.

Moderators have a rare ability to make unilateral changes to the site, bypassing checks that often require larger community consensus. What do you feel is the area most in need of that kind of unilateral intervention today, and how would you address it?

Right now, I don’t see that kind of need. Maybe that’s just because I’m used to bring issues to Meta when I see something.
I know there are things that could be done to improve the site, but that would require the involvement of the community.
For instance, we could try to improve unclear questions by editing the question’s text with what has been discussed in the comments, and then delete the comments as they would add noise. Deleting comments can only be done by a mod.
We could also try to encourage users to post answers as answers instead of doing so in the comments of the question. Like my previous suggestion, someone could write the answer then flag the comment for a mod to delete it. (A mod could do all of this alone, and end up accused of being on a power trip.:P)
Without a momentum coming from at least an active part of the community, these changes of philosophy could be hard to obtain.

A huge percentage of questions get closed (roughly every 8th or 5000 out of the current 40,000 questions not counting the deleted ones), a big chunk of these ask for software, book or technology recommendations. What would you do to solve this issue?

I’m not sure there is much to be done.
Some users don’t read the rules before posting, some read them but don’t understand them, some read them and don’t think they apply to them, some read them and forget them. That’s standard, and that does not happen only here.
From what I understand of the way the site is engineered, allowing users to post off-topic/too broad questions is kind of a feature: remove the fences from the top of the cliff and allow the user to fall, i.e. allow users to post (they don’t even need an account!). If the post is not right (they have fallen off the cliff), there is going to be a safety net to catch them: the question is going to be fixed by the community (either edited to fit in, or simply closed).
I think it’s one of the strengths of StackExchange sites in general.

What professional or hobby experience do you have that you think you'll be bringing to the role of moderating this community? This might include soft skills dealing with people, or professional experience having developed games (and if you have the latter, what games have you worked on, if you are willing/able to disclose?)

Experience that would help me be a good mod (mainly training my leadership and my patience):

I have been a Boys-and-Girls-Scout Chief for 4 years. During that time, I’ve been leading a pack of young teenagers.
I have a 1 year old baby. Doing things takes waayyy much longer than what they used to.
I’m occupying a leading role where I currently work; among other things, I’ve lead the team to better management practices and improved processes.
In the past, I had to work with hard-to-work-with colleagues.

Experience related to software and games:

My day job is about programming 3d realtime simulations in c++, and everything related to that (architecture, optimization, etc). I admit that I still have a lot to learn, but I would say that I know a lot too! (Fortunately, I love to learn and improve my skills.)
I’ve been have been developing games for a couple of years in the past.
-- a couple of Flash games (platformers)
-- I’ve been the main/lead programmer on 2-3 Nintendo DS titles (targeted at little girls: Horses and Air Attendant themed games).
I have a bachelor’s degree in game creation. (And a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science/Software engineering, and all the classes required for a Master’s degree in Computer Science.)

With great powers come great responsibilities and influence. As a newly elected moderator, what behaviour(s) that you had as a non-moderator will you change, if any, whether it is about voting, interactions with other users, interventions on meta, etc.?

I think the only thing that will change is the way I vote to close. Since moderator’s votes are binding, aside from the obvious questions that require to be closed, I’ll let the community use their privilege.
I’ll keep on trying to be kinder to users, and keep on being active on meta :)

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 don’t think it’s because someone contributes well and a lot that it places them above the basic rules of the site.
After giving them a couple of warning shots, I think that the normal course of action would be to suspend them. This is unfortunate, but I don’t see why we’d make special exceptions to the rules for them.
It’s sad to say, but that kind of user is “replaceable”. It can take time to happen, but users with great skills come by once in a while and give great contributions to the site.

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

When guiding the community, the moderators team should be seen as such: a team. They should show unity to the community, at least when it is about the direction of the site.
If there is such a discrepancy between two or more moderators, they should talk together first and arrive to a consensus. If the consensus is that the question should be reopened, or undeleted, the mod who performed the first action on the question should be the one who re-opens it. Otherwise, I feel that this would be interpreted as everyone having their own agenda, and it’s generally not good when guiding a community.
With a team of six moderators, this kind of situation will happen more often than with only four. The consensus could still be that it should be closed, and that’s fine, as long as it does not create an internal war, in such case the community will suffer.

WRT your answer for #11: How do you feel about one mod asking on Meta and another mod answering, for times where there are disagreements?

@QPaysTaxes That's an interesting angle! When brought to Meta, it's up to the community to judge. Mods, being part of the community, can state their opinion, whether they are alike or not. If my opinion ends up being different than another mod's on Meta, I'll follow what the community feels about the matter, based on the votes on the posts. There is no point in going against what the community feels/wants.

Chris McFarland
Nomination

Game design questions are generally underserved by our site, often because many really interesting game design questions are open-ended. What (if anything) do you feel you should or could do to change this, as a moderator?

My answer to common, broad game design questions is generally: prototype it and test it out. Actions speak louder than words, so code it, make it happen, and test. Everyone has ideas, but coding and testing holds the answers. Asking people for opinions before you've created a prototype isn't very constructive; questions like this should be closed.
If, however, the question poses a particular single design aspect that could be explored by analyzing how other games have implemented a similar design before, letting the question stay open would attract answers to gain knowledge and insight for all.
Allowing moderators (or as an option for user flags?) to mark such a question as, "This is a Game Design question. When answering, please cite how existing games have implemented such a design", would let concrete answers to be posted, thus avoiding a collection of open-ended opinions. This way, users can share proven methods for how other games have implemented such a design. It's no longer an opinion piece, but stating facts instead.
However, such a question would not have any true "correct" answer, and would probably need to be closed automatically after a week or so, or turned into a Community post. Still, I think there is merit in allowing the community to give concrete design examples to an open-ended question.

There's a perception among developers that StackExchange is elitist / unwelcoming, or that established/high-rep users are on a "power trip" and out to bully new users: 1 2 3 4. While SO gets the most focus due to its higher volume, we can see the same sentiments in our own users here on GDSE. Over the weekend, a user commented "You know what. Stack exchange sucks. No one here is willing to help. It’s always just: “no you can’t ask your question like that!” This is a question which can be answered with one answer...But then again no one’s here to actually help." As a mod, how would you guide the community to provide a more welcoming first impression or onboarding experience for new users?

As a mod, I would take a look at the new-user flow, the UX experience for how things are laid out when someone clicks the "Ask Question" link, and see if any improvements could be made.
Still, when participating in any online community, it is worthwhile to look at the types of questions being posted before you ask your own. However, not everyone reads everything, and if you break a rule, the rule must get enforced.
Perhaps allowing certain questions to stay open for a short time (24 or 48 hours?) would feel less harsh than closing immediately (even if the question still gets pruned later on). This way, the user gets some sort of answer (rather than reading through the comments), while also learning that they should ask a better-suited question next time.
I'd suggest offering moderators (or even changing the automatic flag/close system) with a close option, "This question is too broad and will be closed in 48 hours".

Aren't you afraid that you will burn out solving mundane issues that you could ignore before?

You can burn out on anything in life. Too many games to play, too many lines of code to write, too many moderation issues to resolve. But since moderation is a community-driven effort, knowing that the onus doesn't fall onto to just one person should help alleviate that burnout when it comes. Sometimes people need to take a break, and that's okay. So no, I am not afraid; I expect it to happen at some point. But burnout doesn't mean you leave it forever, you take a break and come back once refreshed.

Why do you want to be a moderator?

I want to become a moderator because this sounds like a great opportunity to be more active with the site and community, and to help things foster and grow.

Some community members have felt a change in the chat culture on the site. What are your thoughts on the current state of the site's chat room?

Personal attacks are never welcome. And when it comes to crude humour and swearing, different people have different lines. As soon as someone stops being polite, the ice can potentially become thin.
I've had a lot of laughs in the chat GDSE chat room over the years, but I've also seen a lot of drama. I've also seen some non-GDSE mods come in out of the blue and be less than friendly on the odd occasion, so if I were to become a mod, I would like to think I could remain calm, patient, and polite, to try and set a good example while figuring out how best to handle each situation as needed.
On the whole, the GDSE chat room is still a nice place to discuss game development, but I would say the crude humour has taken a back seat this year.

Moderators have a rare ability to make unilateral changes to the site, bypassing checks that often require larger community consensus. What do you feel is the area most in need of that kind of unilateral intervention today, and how would you address it?

Sometimes I feel the UI suggestions posted on GDSE Meta sit for too long going without acknowledgement or progress. It took about three years for GDSE's chat room link colour to get changed, yeah? If anything, if mods had the power to edit CSS styles to act on suggestions promptly, I believe it would be well-received.

A huge percentage of questions get closed (roughly every 8th or 5000 out of the current 40,000 questions not counting the deleted ones), a big chunk of these ask for software, book or technology recommendations. What would you do to solve this issue?

I would take a look at the UX flow when asking a question to try and make it clearer that software, book, and technology recommendations are not a good question for GDSE.

What professional or hobby experience do you have that you think you'll be bringing to the role of moderating this community? This might include soft skills dealing with people, or professional experience having developed games (and if you have the latter, what games have you worked on, if you are willing/able to disclose?)

Having launched Tallowmere in 2015, I have answered many forum posts and emails concerning my game in the past two years, and the practice of listening to people, responding, and taking action where needed has helped me grow.
In previous jobs, I've interacted with customers face-to-face in retail, as well as performed customer support roles for online businesses.
I hope my experience will prove useful from a moderation perspective.

With great powers come great responsibilities and influence. As a newly elected moderator, what behaviour(s) that you had as a non-moderator will you change, if any, whether it is about voting, interactions with other users, interventions on meta, etc.?

If elected moderator, I imagine I will:

aim to be even more polite in the chat room,
work through the review queue more often,
be more active on meta, and
retain the same voting habits.

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 likely warn the user of the repeated unwanted behaviour (citing the amount of flags against them), with suggestions on how to improve. If the negative comments continued (and if the mod tools allow it), I would prevent the user from posting comments for a time. After the time lapsed and the user could comment again but kept repeating their negative behaviour, a longer ban from commenting would be needed, and perhaps a permanent comment ban if their behaviour did not stop.

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

If there is an internal mod discussion system, I would raise the issue there. If not, then posting on Meta would likely be the next step. In any case, talking things through is excellent.

Bálint
Nomination

Game design questions are generally underserved by our site, often because many really interesting game design questions are open-ended. What (if anything) do you feel you should or could do to change this, as a moderator?

We have a couple of game design questions in the chat every month. The first thing I would do is to encourage the askers there to post their questions on the main site too. The second would be to ask a couple of high quality questions in this topic.

There's a perception among developers that StackExchange is elitist / unwelcoming, or that established/high-rep users are on a "power trip" and out to bully new users: 1 2 3 4. While SO gets the most focus due to its higher volume, we can see the same sentiments in our own users here on GDSE. Over the weekend, a user commented "You know what. Stack exchange sucks. No one here is willing to help. It’s always just: “no you can’t ask your question like that!” This is a question which can be answered with one answer...But then again no one’s here to actually help." As a mod, how would you guide the community to provide a more welcoming first impression or onboarding experience for new users?

If I get elected, I'll focus on salvaging the usable parts of questions instead of closing them. A lot of questions can reworded to fit with the theme of the site.
That said, a lot of questions are off-topic and there's no reason to encourage users to ask similar ones. We still have problems (although rarely) with people referencing older (now off-topic) questions as a reason to why theirs shouldn't be closed.

Aren't you afraid that you will burn out solving mundane issues that you could ignore before?

I'm not afraid, the reason this election is happening is to make the life of the moderators a bit easier. I'm okay with doing a bit more work if one of the other moderators has to take a break, and I'm sure they'd so the same.

Why do you want to be a moderator?

This site helped me a lot in the last few years and I really enjoy hanging out in the chat room. I know this is cliché, but I want to return the favor.

Some community members have felt a change in the chat culture on the site. What are your thoughts on the current state of the site's chat room?

As a frequent visitor of the chat room, I had the chance to experience the change. It was especially prominent during the summer (see here for instance). It seems to get better right now though.

Moderators have a rare ability to make unilateral changes to the site, bypassing checks that often require larger community consensus. What do you feel is the area most in need of that kind of unilateral intervention today, and how would you address it?

The area that needs the most focus in my opinion is the law side of the site. Most questions in this topic have a very low quality. What I'd do against this problem is to select or create some quality questions and use those to close the newer questions in this topic as duplicates (if one of the quality questions answers the new question).

A huge percentage of questions get closed (roughly every 8th or 5000 out of the current 40,000 questions not counting the deleted ones), a big chunk of these ask for software, book or technology recommendations. What would you do to solve this issue?

The biggest reason behind this is the fact, that new users don't read the help center. Instead of giving them a link to it, I'd suggest putting the main rules next to the textarea you use to write your question (ask question -> yellow area). The content of this is borderline useless at this point of time. It is customizable, some other sites (most notably programming puzzles and code golf, which needs this because it isn't a Q&A site) have different rules there.

What professional or hobby experience do you have that you think you'll be bringing to the role of moderating this community? This might include soft skills dealing with people, or professional experience having developed games (and if you have the latter, what games have you worked on, if you are willing/able to disclose?)

I'm a hobby game developer, but I was hired to code chunks of medium budget games and plugins for server software multiple times before (excuse me for not saying the name of the games I've worked on, but I'm not a lawyer and I don't want to break an NDA accidentally).
I lead small and medium sized groups before and the feedback was usually good.

With great powers come great responsibilities and influence. As a newly elected moderator, what behaviour(s) that you had as a non-moderator will you change, if any, whether it is about voting, interactions with other users, interventions on meta, etc.?

I wouldn't change much in my personality or behaviours. I'm always polite and respectful when I'm speaking to someone else.
Something I'd change in how I operate on the site would be to visit the review queue once in a while. I tend to forget about it.

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?

It's always important to speak to the user in question first. Maybe he didn't even notice his own bad behavour because of cultural differences. If they don't change the way they communicate with others, then suspending the user is the way to go. If they continue with the bad behaviour even after the suspension, then banning the user is the only solution. I think it's more important to have a good atmosphere than to have good answers, because new users will come after the ban, but the user in question probably won't stay on the site forever, even if we don't ban them.

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

As I stated in the answer to the 10th question, discussing our own arguments first is important. I know the current moderators well enough, so that I know they won't just close something without having a reason for it.

Ethan Larson (Almo)
Nomination

Game design questions are generally underserved by our site, often because many really interesting game design questions are open-ended. What (if anything) do you feel you should or could do to change this, as a moderator?

The best thing to do is comment on new questions to help the authors narrow them to fit the Q&A format better. A game design question that focuses on a certain problem well enough can work. As a moderator, my comment will carry some extra weight in guiding the community toward what we think is acceptable with regard to these questions.

There's a perception among developers that StackExchange is elitist / unwelcoming, or that established/high-rep users are on a "power trip" and out to bully new users: 1 2 3 4. While SO gets the most focus due to its higher volume, we can see the same sentiments in our own users here on GDSE. Over the weekend, a user commented "You know what. Stack exchange sucks. No one here is willing to help. It’s always just: “no you can’t ask your question like that!” This is a question which can be answered with one answer...But then again no one’s here to actually help." As a mod, how would you guide the community to provide a more welcoming first impression or onboarding experience for new users?

In a similar way to Question 1 above, I would be commenting on these questions in a way that guides the new user and displays proper attitude to existing users. It's true we can be unwelcoming; this is because of years of dealing with poorly-asked questions from new users. We have to remember that they don't know what we've been through. The trick is to remain welcoming while not compromising the goal of creating a database of Q&A that is helpful to future visitors, not just the askers themselves.

Aren't you afraid that you will burn out solving mundane issues that you could ignore before?

This doesn't worry me because I like helping make GDSE a better place, even if it is through performing mundane tasks.

Why do you want to be a moderator?

As a game designer, I have a very strong interest in creating sets of rules and guidelines for governing interactions between people. It's the main function I performed while running my corporation and alliance in EVE-Online, which is still going after more than 10 years.

Some community members have felt a change in the chat culture on the site. What are your thoughts on the current state of the site's chat room?

I regret the loss of some great contributors due to a recent tightening of the regulation of the chatroom. However, it is my opinion that we do need to keep it safe for work. I have that window open all day while I'm working, and it embarrasses me if coworkers see unpleasant stuff there. At the moment, it seems to be going smoothly, and I would work to keep the moderation there even-handed.

Moderators have a rare ability to make unilateral changes to the site, bypassing checks that often require larger community consensus. What do you feel is the area most in need of that kind of unilateral intervention today, and how would you address it?

I would like to help clean up some of the tags that need attention.

A huge percentage of questions get closed (roughly every 8th or 5000 out of the current 40,000 questions not counting the deleted ones), a big chunk of these ask for software, book or technology recommendations. What would you do to solve this issue?

Honestly, I don't think there's much moderators can do about it. Many of these questions are asked by brand new accounts who have not read the Help Center. People don't read text; it's a challenge for the site designers to get the rules about these questions in front of new users.

What professional or hobby experience do you have that you think you'll be bringing to the role of moderating this community? This might include soft skills dealing with people, or professional experience having developed games (and if you have the latter, what games have you worked on, if you are willing/able to disclose?)

Over 10 years of running a corporation and alliance in EVE-Online. I've been a lead programmer for 1.5 years at work. I have designed and programmed 3 complete mobile games: Crystal Shuffle, LowDown: A Social Experiment and Cognizer. I wrote and designed 4 Mac shareware applications in the late 90s. I designed and published a Flash game in 2009, Clixxor. I have worked on many games in the industry: My Word Coach DS, Splinter Cell PSP, Tiny Brains, Pro Feel Golf, Knightfall: Rivals, as well as around of 15 Shockwave and Javascript games in the early 2000s (to name a few... there are many more things I've worked on, some of which were never published). I have completed 3 boardgame designs, with one published; these are well-received by players of all kinds, and range from very complex to very simple.

With great powers come great responsibilities and influence. As a newly elected moderator, what behaviour(s) that you had as a non-moderator will you change, if any, whether it is about voting, interactions with other users, interventions on meta, etc.?

I will stop using sarcasm in comments on questions. I didn't do it super-often, but I realize that it wouldn't be acceptable as a moderator.

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'm not sure what tools exist for this. But if possible, I would first warn that user that their behavior is not acceptable for our community. If it continued, I would implement a comment suspension for a week or so to let them know I'm serious. Further transgressions would be met with longer suspensions.

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

I would talk to them directly and discuss their reasons for closing it, and then try to come to an agreement about it. I would not engage in a close/open/close war with them.