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What do you look for in a moderator?
As our site finally reaches graduation, we are getting the opportunity to elect moderators. In the election we will be voting for who should lead us. It is important for the candidates (or those considering candidacy) to know what the community wants. It is also valuable to be reminded of what a good moderator is. What do you look for in a moderator?
Note: These are the qualities that stack exchange looks for, and general information about the post of moderator.

I'm tempted too answer this with only a link... http://blender.stackexchange.com/users/12/iklsr

Committed
I would want all moderators to spend time on the site regularly, and actively participating in site activities, answering, moderating, reviewing and mentoring above and beyond the norm. This would show that the moderator was interested and active in the determining of the site's present and future atmosphere and quality.
I would also note that they need to be able to offer this dedication in the future as well as present. Upcoming commitments such as a job or college/school should be carefully considered.
Professional
I would expect a moderator to be a professional, someone who promotes high quality on the site, and who contributes high quality material. They should always have the site's quality in their mind. A moderator is supposed to be a leader, and they should set a good standard.
Responsible
Moderators have a lot of power, so they need to be responsible in the using of that power. No favoritism, targeted chat bans, etc. This is really a critical point, a moderator who abuses authority is worse than useless, no matter if all the other criteria are fulfilled. The abuse of power damages users trust of the moderator, and moderators in general, while also potentially delivering undeserved punishment and making users decide it isn't worth contributing.
Friendly
It is easy for a mod with a lot of responsibilities and a busy schedule to become aloof and hard to reach. This is not good, as moderators really should be able to be consulted on important site questions (especially on meta). If the moderator is not friendly and interested in the users as well as the site, then the users will be less likely to ask.
Communicative
Moderators need to communicate to the users what is going on in the stratosphere, as it ultimately affects them as well. Letting them know why they take specific actions can help as well. I think a moderator should be prepared to answer questions about their actions and have reasons for them, and that anything major should be communicated to the users without needing to be asked.
These are basic qualities, @X-27's answer shows good ways to quantify these qualities.

Activity
If a user is not active, he can not fulfill his duties as a moderator.
Helpful Flags
A user should be able to identify when a post is bad. Having lots of disputed flags would be a good indicator that he is a bad judge of quality.
High Votes
A moderator should not only smash down the ban hammer whenever someone makes a mistake, but also encourage good users by voting on their posts.
Many Reviews
Having many reviews shows that you are willing to help monitor and improve the site. If you do not review posts normally, how could anyone expect you to do that and much more as a moderator?
Good Standing
Any prospective moderator should have a good standing with the community.
If a moderator never answers or asks any questions, never comments on posts, and never visits the site's chat rooms, there will be a void between the users and the moderators. It will be much harder for them to keep the site's quality where it should be, without discouraging users away from the site.

http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/moderator

A moderators job is to help keep the site civil and dignified.
A moderators job is not "teacher" of the site's content.  The moderator is a teacher of the site's code of conduct.
If the moderators do their work properly, content-teachers who contribute to the site will want to stay because people who visit the site are behaving well, otherwise, those people will leave so they can avoid all the trouble that happens when a site is overrun with malicious and snarky comments.
Nobody wants to work in a hostile environment; a moderators job is to make sure the site does not become like that.
A moderator is a person who should mediate conflicts, not escalate them.
The history of our civilization shows us that conflict and war have always been with us.  Moderators should be able help to make sure this site is not contributing to this problem.  What happens here will certainly spread into all of our personal lives,  this is true for both the good and the bad.

--- From the wiki ---
As a moderator, your actions now represent the community, so you will be held to a higher standard of behavior. You are an ambassador of trust, with the same sorts of rights that the official development team and community coordinators have.
Your goal is to guide the community with gentle — but firm — intervention. Respect your fellow community members at all times; demonstrate fairness and impartiality in your actions.
Whenever possible, try to leave frequent comments on posts where you’ve taken (or considered taking) a moderator action, explaining the reasoning. This is important so that community members can learn the norms of the community and the moderation policies.
Keep the site reasonably on topic by closing, migrating, or removing blatantly off-topic questions.
Regularly check for flagged posts, and decide if further action is warranted.
In the case of serious disputes, communicate directly with users via email to help mediate and resolve those disputes.

Role Model - Always
Moderators set the tone and expectation for a community. A moderator who is rude, incomprehensible, unruly or unintelligent can lower expectations and confuse new users. This applies to all circumstances, chat, meta, main, comments and even other network sites. The moderator should be someone who is looked up to. Look to community managers for example. Every time one posts on meta, or makes a statement, it clears up confusion and calms irritate users. There thoughts are usually both correct and final; and they communicate them in a way that everyone understands without fail. Wow, I wish I could be like that.... every time I read there work, I think about how I could communicate better. Those types are who our moderators should be.
Dedicated -  now and in the future
Maintaining a site takes work, and these individuals need to be prepared to do it. That is pretty obvious. But, as we have learnt the hard way, they need to be prepared to do it in the long run as well. Two of our moderators have stopped contributing; one of them  was replaced. Many of our original candidates who were not elected have left the site as well (Maybe as moderators they would have stayed, but chances are they would have left). Candidates should be able to contribute to the site for some time to come. Future candidates: Please consider your future before running! Do you expect to go collage, get a job or have a family. How will this change your schedule?
If things change suddenly, you should also be prepared to cede you post. There isn't shame in resigning in order to pursue life, or be there for the people and tasks that mean the most to you.
Available - (esp. on chat)
Being able to reach people of authority informally can be helpful to many users. Sometimes using the formal channels of discussion can be intimidating or a tad unnecessary. In other cases it can set larger wheels in motion or create controversy, when an informal discussion can resolve the issue or dissuade unnecessary action. Its also nice to be able to chat to the boss!
Experienced & Valued Contributor
Moderators, armed with super powered close and open votes, as well as swaying opinions, have to understand site policy. One of the best ways to know what is current is to be actively involved in the site, answering and asking, to see when rules should be bent, and when not.
A contributor's post's "Value" is easily quantified here on stack exchange with reputation. So can experience. Moderators should have a fair amount of it. That is simple.
There is however an important aspect to observe here: Current value. Old posts, that are early to the site, can sometimes belie actual skill. The simplest and most basic answers on sites such as stack overflow can have some of the most votes. Be sure the investigate the users profile, and see where their reputation comes from. In the brand new (and quite nice) profiles, under the activity tab, there is a graph of the reputation that user has earned. Frequent plateaus reveal periodic absences and a steady decline in gain shows decreasing interest. They should also be present in the top few rows of the week, month and quarter tabs. This also applies for the edits and  voters tab.
Active Cleanup - Review Queues, Tag Wikis, Flags and Edits
A moderator should be constantly using their power to clean up the site that is there first an primary purpose. Their contributions in this area can be measured through badges, and review queue stats. They should have a considerable number of edits and help full flags (visible in the activity tab of the profile)
Meta master - On Meta.SE!
Its obvious a moderator should be active on local meta, but also on Meta.SE as well. The major policies of stack exchange are determined there, and moderators should be actively trying to help the network as well as their site. Furthermore, many improvements to local sites can and are gained through Meta.SE as network wide changes.
Above and beyond
There are boxes of service for moderators to check. There are many that are optional, and some that aren't on the list. Moderators should check all of these. Nobody requires a moderator to advocate for our community or spread the word, but they still should go that extra mile, or at the very least, convince others to do so.
Notes:
A diamond isn't a verified seal of a quality contributor. Moderators usually lose their diamonds for fairly major offensives or gross negligence. I've seen moderators trashing valid area 51 proposals (Down votes on highly voted example questions, etc) that might steal traffic and a bit of scope for there sites. I've seen moderators only check the bare boxes of there posts instead of handing it off to far more dedicated and worthy individuals. Many of these folks are still moderators. Use the criteria in this post, other posts and stackexchange blogs/official statements as a guide, before blindly voting for someone just because they are moderator on another site. Moderators are hard to replace, so choose wisely.
Chat is more important then you think! You may think its a waste of time, or just a social party, and to some extent it is. It is also the highly influential power user hangout, and can influence meta greatly (More then you would think: imagine meta posts to be press releases, while chat is the board room. That can often be the case [Okay literal folks, this is a bit exaggerated.]) It is also responsible for anomalies on the main site. Chat posts can determine the fate of a question, or influence a decision. Moderators should be active and aware of what happens in chat.
Moderators - Figureheads of Policy
Moderators are the figurehead of our site, to other sites and new users. Vote for who you think best represents the positive attributes of our site, and will work to keep them that way.

Long-winded, but excellent points!

My requirements for moderators are very simple.

Moderators aren't leaders, they are protectors of community agreed scope, sanity and netiquette. In their choices they should be an example of the spirit of B.se. and should be seen to participate with the QA like everyone else.
Impartial, open to reason, and willing to concede for the greater good of information flow when the scope is being stretched.
Subscribe to the bf-committers mailing list and routinely read through the bug reports for awareness. Should be familiar with the bug reporting process. (If they've never done a bug report, how could I possibly feel confident they have the right mindset to be a moderator?)

As a community we govern ourselves through popular vote and counter challenges to that vote, moderator votes help swing the ballot faster.
Moderation shouldn't be a second fulltime-job either. We should have enough moderators in overlapping timezones to react to unwanted or disputed content.

The last paragraph especially is good, this isn't a one man (or woman) show, it is a team effort.

This was interseting... that highlight on bf-committers was a bit odd, and I don't think it would sway my vote, however, when we ask the moderators questions (stage two of actual election), do add a question about activity on bf committers/ other development.

@zeffii, moderators aren't always leaders, but sometimes on meta and such they have to guide people in disagreement, or in tough situations make calls. The need to a have a few leadership qualities to guide people.

We can of course have alternative opinions about what makes a good moderator, only votes will show our collective choice, and only time will show if that choice was good or not.


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Python API Code - Where Should it Go?
When people are asking questions about their python code, IF the question is ambiguous and understandable to other users who do python, but don't use the Python API, do you think those questions are better off in StackOverflow, or do you think it is better to keep those questions in an environment where the API is fully understood by the community?

Your question is a little ambiguous. What type of code/ questions are you talking about?

I think the general sentiment (and my opinion) it that all coding questions should be related to blender.
If you have a python question that does not have anything to do with blender, such as this one, then it would be better suited to SO (and probably would get closed as off topic on BSE).
The other case, is questions that do in fact have a direct connection to blender. Such questions have a huge diversity, and as so it is hard to name a few good examples.
As a base line if you have a question about blender's API, BSE is probably a good place for your question.

The avid contributors here on b.se are quite able to distinguish between the three scenarios:

bpy oriented
borderline bpy / python
straight up python

I think we condone borderline questions because more often than not we understand the problem better than they know how to ask the question. It's little effort to help as far as possible with the bpy stuff, and beyond that point link to the relative python docs. We're not here to teach python, but we can give them enough information to spark a train of thought (and if nothing sparks, no amount of matches will help....they need to think harder and show more effort)
For straight up python questions, these have a lifespan of maybe a day and are rarely tolerated, they don't get much attention. (like someone asking for a NLP algorithm, or how to delete a Pickle file). If the usage of Blender is incidental to the question, I'll cast a close vote and expect others to see the question for what it is. (But always, always leave some useful comment about where to get help ..because if I do know..why not extend that courtesy anyway).
As for bpy specific stuff, often the people who have internalized Blender and Python don't need help, or rarely. It's a fairly consistent API. These bpy questions often come from people who are not in that group: Either new to Blender or new to Python (or worse, both!) and therefore have a weaker grasp of the whole system. Those questions are hard, do we tell them to go off learn Blender better.. or learn Python better?...

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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The anatomy of Questions without accepted Answers
I'd like to compile a list of reasons why questions go unanswered on bse or don't have accepted answers. With the intent to categorize them, and do rudimentary analyses on the 500 questions that have evaded us.

Question does have answers, but user hasn't accepted:

User hasn't returned
User has not logged in using same account to accept
User doesn't consider answer sufficient
User has answered own question somewhere in the 'thread', and not posted detailed answer to accept.
User has stated that it is solved, but omits the resolution method from comments or edits to own question.

Question has gone unanswered:

has comments requesting clarification, still unclear
comments have clarified the question but still unanswered
Question answered (and confirmed) in comments but not added as an answer
Question clear, how to answer isn't.

too big?
expertise needed?
theoretical?
no off-the-shelf solution exists
no convenient custom solution exists

This may be a foolish task, but classification can spread some light on the make-up of our dreaded 'unanswered list'.
I'm sure I've missed a few subtle scenarios, please feel free to suggest

There's also the occasional "question answered in comments but not with an answer" scenario. Often the answering comment is a half request for clarification/wild guess, or is a link to an answer on a rather different question.

indeed added, any more?

This correlates with http://meta.blender.stackexchange.com/q/691/12

yep, an extra metric to help judge the 'missed impact' of an unanswered question. nice.

I believe that, even if the OP hasn't marked an answer as accepted, the question will still be considered answered if it has an answer with an upvote.

PGmath, yes! maybe I should make the distinction, i'm really talking about questions without accepted answers.

@PGmath you are right, i forgot : http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/271395/answered-questions-showing-up-in-unanswered-tab-why  this changes my own post a little

One possible solution for many of these stray threads which have not been accepted is for the Stack Exchange network to start automatically marking answers as correct(and also possibly requiring moderator consensus) when they have reached a certain amount of up-votes.  10+ positive votes often indicates a solid answer and now people who never come back are not leaving loose ends behind.

Excellent post. You should post it on Meta SE

I know for one that a lot of questions I've seen don't have an answer. lets link a few.
http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/26962/clay-like-physics-in-bge
http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/29113/directional-gravity-for-irregular-shapes
and pretty much any question asked by @gandalf3. frustrating, but worth noting.

This post would be very useful on Meta SE

It would be nice if we could convert some comments into answers if they answered the question. I don't think there's a lot of incentive to answer a question the OP is no longer struggling with. Here's a good example - a question by a new user that was solved within 15 minutes because a comment got them to think differently about the problem and as a result they understood what to do differently. Should I now answer the question that was already addressed sufficiently?

@Mentalist yeah, answer and it will likely get up-votes. Sometimes the OP doesn't return to accept the answer, goods question deserve decent answers.

I think you missed "User actually figured out question on his/her own, but gave shoddy answers or asked questions in answers and therefore cannot answer own question." Lack of motivation may also be another cause, as well as spelling issues (which StackExchange seems to be very good at avoiding.) God I hate spelling issues and grammar problems, they really do make questions a pain to understand.
Oh, and in case you were wondering... This question was unanswered. The question about unanswered questions went unanswered.

my post is marked as discussion :) we can freely ponder these things. If you can reword your proposed missed reason, i will add it.

Ah, okay. The first one used to be my bane: I was like "Okay, now how do I shoot the bullet without something getting sent flying?" and I had asked a followup question about how do I get the bullet object to move after it was created, and it turned out that it was just disconnected, but I'd been giving out ghastly, incoplete, "your'e on to something" answers that I couldn't actually answer my own question, which I kinda see as a problem.

if added a generic version of the scenario you painted, last item in the first set. the "can't explain how i fixed it" kind of questions could be removed if the question has very few views after a set amount of time.

No, I really did solve it on my own. But because I'd been giving the "onto something" answers, I couldn't even answer it. That's a problem.

Upvoted for: "The question about unanswered questions went unanswered." :-p

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


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2015 Community Moderator Election
The 2015 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://blender.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.


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2015 Experimental Moderator Election Q&A - Question Collection
In connection with the experimental moderator elections, 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:

During the nomination phase, (so, until Monday, June 8th 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.
This is a perfect opportunity to voice questions that are specific to your community and issues that you are running into at current.
At the end of the phase, the Community Team will select up to 8 of the top voted questions submitted by the community provided in this thread, to use in addition to the aforementioned 2 guaranteed questions. We reserve some editorial control in the selection of the questions and may opt not to select a question that is tangential or irrelevant to moderation or the election. That said, if I have concerns about any questions in this fashion, I will be sure to point this out in comments before the decision making time.
Once questions have been selected, a new question will be opened to host the actual questionnaire for the candidates, 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 new process, feel free to post as a comment here.

A most interesting system. I hope the community will be active.

This sounds like a great idea :)  I assume candidates can't suggest questions?

@gandalf3 Candidates are fine to submit questions.

@David in moderator elections, you can rest assured :)

Here is a set of general questions, gathered as very common questions asked every election. As mentioned in the instructions, the first two questions are guaranteed to show up in the Q&A, while the others are if there aren't enough questions (or, if you like one enough, you may split it off as a separate answer for review within the community's 8).

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?

In your opinion, what do moderators do?
A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?
In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

Following directions, working together and abiding by site policy are all important.

Please only post one question per answer.

quoted from here
How well do you follow directions?

How much time can you currently commit, and are there other things that may come up in future that will limit your availability? (i.e. intensive college or other studies, heavy workload)
This is important as the whole point of being a moderator is to care for and direct the site.

+1 for the questions pertaining to stress management; super important, super rare.

@HomegrownTomato Well they didn't follow their own instructions . . . so yeah. I guess I need to split this answer up?

What important contributions or actions have you not been able to do that moderator-ship will allow you to perform? (besides banning trouble users)

How is this different from the final question here?

How would you treat duplicate answers or answers in comments then posted as an answer later by a different user?
This happens fairly frequently if there is a question that is somewhat vague, someone will post a potential answer in the comments, and then will have to leave. Several hours later, the OP will respond, and someone else will add the answer. How would you handle this situation?


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Should questions about 'customized' Blender 'mods' be considered off topic?
There are some customized Blender distributions.

https://blendersensei.com
http://www.microvellum.com/products/fluid-designer

And a question about one of them here:
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/31917/blender-sensei-format-select-deselect
Should these be considered off topic?

I'd say it depends on if there are users here who can/will answer. Not sure if there are or not

Anyone can make a branch of Blender and make arbitrary changes, I think there is some limit to what blender.stackexchange should handle. However we could treat this the same way as we do very old blender versions. "It's not off topic, but YMMV getting help."

I guess maybe the best strategy for the time being is wait to see what happens (do such questions get answers, and are more such questions asked), then decided based on that.

When I just saw the title in the side bar, I though mods.

I'm thinking that questions about mods like fluid designer should be highly discouraged. If you look at the interface of fluid designer, it's a ton different than stock Blender. Most of the things that someone would conventionally use Fluid Designer for, don't really use much of Blenders original UI.
Something more like the Sensei format should be allowed with the understanding that a question might not get answered if it has something to do with the added features.
The reason why I make a distinction between Fluid Designer and Sensei format here, is because Fluid designer has much more changes to the internal code, while sensei format is basically just an addon with a custom theme.
Also, what do people think about the support for the Fracture Modifier? My personal standing on this is that it should be supported. Mainly because the developers are still aiming to get it into master, weather that happens or not, and because I'm biased and I like the tool.
It's still a lot like Fluid Designer in the fact that it's a major addon. You can use all the normal features of Blender in those builds, but when you come to the real reason of using it, it's quite different than Blender.

I think we should (at this point) be open to questions about these modified versions of blender.
There is nothing to be gained as of now to setting a hard and fast rule banning all questions that are not about the "stock" version of blender. We just do not have enough time or data about those questions on this site.
Like gandalf said, if it turns out that the community here does not answer them, or there is not enough activity to warrant them being on this site; then we can come back and make those type of questions off topic.

yeah people will get the message if zero/few microvellum questions get answered by us, i'd expect them to have a reasonable support mechanism anyway since it is a paid product.


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My question "The Blender add-on Render:POVray has a warning that 'this script is RC/... what does this mean?" was closed as off topic... Why?
I have admittedly revised the question, several times, in order to comply with the requirements of "non meta" blender stack-exchange.  At first I had a request for opinion, I removed.  Then I was accused of not trying to look up the information: I did; however I admit I was thinking Warning!  Not informational, which it turned out to be.  And yet, there is one particular individual who has insisted that this question is off topic and was able to raise support and get the question closed as off topic.  I accept that the question was asked and answered, for which I'm grateful; but, why the close because of off topic?
Link to question: Add-on has a warning that "this script is RC". What does this mean?
So, wanting to be a good participant in StackExchange, I have been trying to find out how this is off topic.  If such a simple and not so obvious answer to someone new is a forbidden question, what do the guidelines mean?
I read if you need a .blend file to answer the question, the question is off topic; But, I see people request blend files, and give them, even tutorials to answer questions all the time.
 (so far I don't have an issue with this, and a blanket statement that it's off topic, and should be somewhere else is understandable but....)
However confusing that is, this is about how the ruling on my question was decided, and why it is off topic, or possibly on topic; and the reference to the violations are about the "HELP" comment #9 Support Requests on this page: What questions should be definitely off-topic? are only used to give an example of how confusing this can be and how it is possible that people with a vendetta (unknown reasons on my part).  In my case, the answer is obvious once one knows the answer.  But, with is listed as a Warning, without knowing the answer, the answer is not so obvious.

The reason is that It's debatable whether or not "meaning of the term 'RC'" is a blender question. To be honest, we haven't had many questions like yours, so it's a bit unclear where it falls in terms of on-topicness..

I'm sorry you had so unpleasant an experience for your first question.
Part of the confusion stems from the fact that AFAIK we haven't really had many questions like yours, i.e. questions about terminology and acronyms appearing in blender, but not directly specifically about or related to blender.
On the one hand, the question is clearly about a blender addon, and there's nothing off-topic about that.
On the other hand, the answer is not specific to or especially related to blender at all.
So it seems to me a matter of whether or not the question is considered off-topic, or if the question's answers are considered off-topic.
This is a tricky question, as closing questions based on the answer doesn't seem at all fair to the asker, who obviously doesn't know what the answer is before asking. However, just allowing any question if the OP doesn't know the answer doesn't seem like a reasonable policy either ;)
In line with the philosophy of "tag the question not the answers"
I don't see much of an issue with allowing these in our scope:

The Blender Stack Exchange site is for people who use Blender to create 3D graphics, animations, or games.

But It'd be nice to hear what other users think too.

Regarding use of blends in answers, we've revisited this topic several times. It still seems like a rather fuzzy issue to me, but thats a whole other discussion ;)
Also see Regarding questions and answers as tutorials.

In a lot of cases we refer questions about specific add-ons to the website , repository, or thread / group set up by its creator(s). Who else better to answer a question by a user of one's add-on than them. Especially new add-ons should come with a reasonable amount of documentation and explanations for any language used on the User Interface. It's in the author's interest to handle questions that arise and update any docs.
Please don't see a question being closed (or attempted closed) as a  personal insult, or that we consider it useless. Sometimes you'll get a chain of votes by people who take a more literal approach to the question and see the Answer as being sufficiently detached from the Blender program to deem the Question that spawned it off topic. Often the votes will act as a speed dial to get you to take the critique on board and change the question to make it more general and useful to a broader public.
I agree with both sides here, the question was off topic to begin with, and a short answer in the comments would have sufficed. Even with the question closed it will now show up in the searches and have an answer.

OK, add ons aren't specifically 'about' Blender, I get that. I'm more interested in getting the powers that be to change the revision info, add "this code is RC to that!".  I can see that doing this not the big battle..  I just like to fix problems permanently, so no one else has it.  I'm satisfied now that a direct query on the questionable info gets an answer., Not a fix though. I'm trying to understand how best I can help, and learn something along the way. BTW, are you "the" Zeffii of RaQ fame I know from the past? Is the question off topic in Meta?  Thank you all, I have my answers.

In the past that addon used to say' warning this is a beta release', then it progressed onto 'warning this is a RC' . Ultimately it is up to the people involved with the addon (..not us, here) to change the text on their addon. In my response i've already suggested a way to contact them, it's out of our hands. Though I agree that 'RC' is a little vague for most people.  Nope I don't recall any affiliation with RaQ.

Again, I learned something I didn't know; it was intrinsically obvious to me that the developers are responsible for the behavior of the addon; I wasn't aware that once it had been accepted as an addon in Blender's release programs, the developer was responsible for the way it appears in Blender.  But, now, reflecting on this from a programming side, and being new to python, but not programming, I do now recall that the bl_info block in the code does list the information that shows up in Blender's addons. Thankfully, one is only a noob for a while, and many thanks to patient people like you!

Re: RaQ is was more a security program related to the Linux used in the RaQ. The Zeffii to which I refer was a superior programmer, as I recall. XD  It's just such an unusual name (to me) I'm surprised to find more than one. :-)

Unequivocally, I have reached consensus with the community.  The problem was more about the perspective of the OA (me) due to being new to stackexchange.  I framed a question which appeared completely on topic to me; but, in fact was completely related to the developers of the addon entirely.  Newcomer perspective is an ongoing issue and an old issue in Meta. Here, in Meta, the community attempts to resolve these issues. Newcomer's lack of perspective often present new, but non-unique classes of, problems, meta exists as venue for consensus, clarification and with hope, resolution.

To conclude, it is amazing how much text that short question has spawned in comments and answers. We could have mentioned that the warning is added by the author in the bl_info dict, that's definitely pure blender/addon development.

I have only recently become aware of that fact, and didn't know it at the time I posed the question.  The information would have pointed me to where the responsibility lay for the phrase, thus off topic in blender.stackexchange.  From a meta perspective, I think there exist exceptions to every rule, except the rule of exceptions.  So, questions about the use of add ons being acceptable seems ambiguous, how implemented in Blender, even more so. Is it intuitive to know how Blender implemented the add on? Invariably questions as exceptions will occur; a good moderator is the answer to exceptions.

In the scope of this question, what exactly does it mean to "close" a question.  What changes occur because a question is closed?  IOW my question has been closed, what does that mean?  What happens now? I did search for an answer to this in meta, and perhaps my phrasing or the search engine was weak, but I found nothing.

Marking a question as closed has the effect of showing that no other  interaction with that question is considered necessary. You now know what RC stands for and that it has no special meaning within Blender -- for that reason (you may, or may not agree... ) we pull the plug. I modified the one existing answer to give it at least a Blender context.

But we do see some merit in keeping it around so it wasn't Deleted. Closing questions is better for the Question/Answer ratio, when the question is tiptoeing on no-man's land. (We are now at 1.3 A per Q....SE network like to see 2.5A per Q)


text:
If I have multiple answers to a question, how should I post them?
While I was answering this question (How to distribute objects in a circular pattern on a surface (Radial Array, Polar Array)), I noticed that I had several ways to answer this question I posted one of the methods I would use, but since I have several, should I post them at all, post them as a separate answer, or post them in the same answer, or something completely different?

I say, if the multiple solutions are really different (i.e. not just variations of the same basic idea), then go ahead and post multiple answers.  SE gives the option of doing so, so I say use it!  There's no law of SE that says "you must always choose the option that gets you the least reputation".

Do want you have time for.
The one reason I don't like to see tonnes of solutions in 1 answer is because it makes it hard to see which of the answers is voted for more often. ie, which is proving to be most useful.
Lumping them together has that problem, but people also don't like to see multiple answer by one person - and I think wrongly justify their averse reaction to multi answers as an attempt by the answerer to 'milk the cash cow' for points.
However, for this question about the circular array, it has been asked in so many forms already, and his been given unique (but similar) answers in most cases. I propose that we do a canonical answer instead because it's a very basic and useful question with some convoluted responses in other threads.

Yeah, if it wasn't for the rep, I would think it would be to just answer multiple times.

On your last point, do you mean a wiki similar to the gpu setup one found here: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/7485/enabling-gpu-rendering-for-cycles?

So in general, you would just say keep it all in one answer unless it becomes fairly large and it's hard to find the part that is needed?

We don't need to give full blown answers either, in general people are quite happy with the minimal answer if it lets them piece together the rest themselves they get a sense of accomplishment too (and neural training to solve own problems). I like to keep that in mind, sometimes we do a disservice by being too complete in our answers. Some topics pop up so often that a dedicated wiki page / or community answer is useful. I will add my answer to that question as the other answers in the past have bothered me a lot.


text:
Pause, resume and rewind GIF animations
Sometimes a GIF animation posted to illustrate an answer is too long. It would be convenient to pause, resume and rewind the animation. In other words, to have playback functionality for GIF animations. Is it possible?

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is not about Blender.SE or Stack Exchange, but rather the .GIF codec and filetype

The question is about how to use Blender SE conveniently. If a GIF animation posted in an answer is too long, it's not easy to follow the animation and to understand the answer.

I agree with @NoviceInDisguise sadly, I don't have enough rep to vote to close this (probably a good thing), but if I did, I would. You can argue that it's about using it conveniently, but that's not what meta is about (at least by my understanding). Meta isn't about how to use the site well or effectively, it's about how the site runs. Should "topic a" be off topic, should "topic b" be edited in this situation. I'm still learning, so if I'm wrong, please tell me, but from what I've seen here, I'm not.

I'm voting to close this aswell, pausing, rewinding a gif is specific to your browser and only in second thought a problem with SE - they don't offer a custom player for .gif, which would probably be overengeneering. (Add a feature-request tag if you feel like you want SE to make its own .gif player)

You suggested to close the question but you didn't suggest where to post it otherwise. So your suggestions?

Please read What is "meta"? How does it work?. A quote from there: Meta is for... asking questions about how the websites work...

I'm voting to reopen this question, we are using more and more gifs here (or maybe it's only me) and sometimes answers are cluttered with them. Gif player could significantly reduce downloaded data and user have control over the gif itself. We are writing answers along gifs so sometimes user won't play it. Also this method is widely used on sites such as Facebook or 9GAG. I've found something like this: http://rubentd.com/gifplayer/ as an example. I don't know if this is only BSE thing to use heavy gifs in answers but probably whole SE could benefit from it.

I am of the opinion that GIFs should be as short as possible (I love that they cannot be longer than 2MB).
Long Gifs are hard to follow and sometimes it is confusing to understand what is the starting point or the end.
I prefer a structure like this for answers:

Step 1 (text explaining step 1)
Gif that reinforces what you just read.
Step 2 (more text)
Gif to illustrate

And so on...
Not all steps require a gif, so mixing stills and gifs might be more effective than a very long video that has to be watched several times before it makes any sense.
Additionally, long gifs can become a form of bragging as well: " Let me show you how fast I can do this!", instead of a proper educational tool.

Save the GIF to your local hard drive and open it in GIMP.
Then Filters -> Animation -> Playback...

That's more of a work around than anything else. I have to say, this feels a bit off topic to me since you made this question with the answer in mind, but that's just me.

If you have a better solution, just post it here.

Firefox browser has plugin for that like Toggle Animation Gif. Once installed it allows to pause or rewind the GIF animation.
Some programs for recording .gifs have option to include time elapsed which helps distinguish is it beginning of the animation or the end. E.g. Licecap tool has Elapsed time option available when you start recording.
Speaking about Blender, ScreenCast Keys addon has the Time option which will also show time elapsed from the beginning of the animation. It is not documented in the wiki, you can see it here.
I wouldn't agree with .gif player is being necessary, my opinion is that it's something user should decide according to their software, etc.
Lastly - if the gif is too long make sure to shorten it somehow. Include some of the instructions into image, include 2 gifs (although not the best solution), etc. It all depends on answer of course but generally if it requires that many gifs maybe you can demonstrate necessary information from other answers as there are plenty already.

I don't know about this plugin for Firefox but other methods doesn't make site lighter. I'm speaking here from pure technical view. Imagine question with 5 answers, every one has ~2MB gif in it. This is pretty heavy site to load. From gifplayer site: "The advantage of using this plugin is that you can load a lighter static version of the animated gif, and then load the actual animated gif, when the user wants to see it in motion. Improving the initial load time of your page." And lastly, user can't decide about it based on their software as for browser gif is just another image.

@LukeD "pretty heavy site to load" I can't agree. Nowadays sites especially with media rarely use less than 5 mb for loading up and 10 mb now really isn't that much. Methods with elapsed time won't make amount of mbs to load less, and they weren't intended to mean that. Every answer with one gif isn't really comfortable, I agree, and even less comfortable when 2 or more gifs. As I said important thing to do here is to base answer on links to other ones, to images instead of gif if amount of gifs starts to exceed 1 or if 1 is very big. User can decide at least to install the plugin.

Where did you get that 5-10MB? I'm web developer and 10MB is really an overkill for user experience and even for basic SEO. Also you can't tell users to install plugin which is what I've found available only for one browser (not even top used). And yes, gifplayer (please check it) which I've cited load less data. A lot less if you don't want to play gif. If there is a method to make site faster, and easier to use why don't use it? When big players like Facebook are starting to use such method it probably mean that they research about this a lot, and it's beneficial.

"Where did you get" - from browser stats in Developer Tools. Yotube main page gets 3mb, yahoo mail 6mb, BSE main page 1mb. Player maybe could help (won't it download anything for its working? ah, whatever) but work for loading less gifs is fighting for those several mbs some gifs provide (hint - some images as well), so instead of 4-5 mb it will be 2. Great but it will be useful maybe for those who browse from mobile devices (not recommended anyway if loading media). My main point is one should not record answers in 5-10 mbs videos impossible to show, gif is NOT designed for that. That's all

Did you read my first comment? I've told you about 5 different answers every one with gif. Not 5 gifs in one answer. Now think about long gif, if you will use instead images to illustrate steps it would take even more data and could be less intuitive. Now read this: https://www.keycdn.com/support/the-growth-of-web-page-size/ as you clearly have no idea whats going on in web development lately. There are so many initiatives out there to reduce pages size that I can't even count half of them. From 4MB > 2MB there is 100% reduced size. gifplayer is loading 12kb and you can pause gif.

Check even this article from 2015, it's still pretty accurate: https://www.sitepoint.com/average-page-weight-increased-another-16-2015/ Especially paragraph "Why should I bother? Few others do".

Of course I have no idea what's going on in web dev now and I'm not going to. I just see that Internet quickly becomes into a crap of memory leaks in browsers and overheated cpu. Less size? Great if possible and really justified. I was for several times trying to tell that I don't want answers to have many gifs as I see many of them included where it is absolutely not that necessary and that is my point. I think we will agree to disagree as this is going to nowhere.

Link in the message for "Toggle Animation Gif", I have found another plugin Toggle Animated Gif but it seems quite limited in functionalities (it is more a switch on animated git).

For Chrome, there is this extension: GIF Scrubber.


text:
2015 Experimental 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. Due to the lack of submission count, we have selected all provided questions as well as our back up questions for a total of 9 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. Oh, and 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.
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!

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?
Following directions, working together and abiding by site policy are all important. How well do you follow directions?
What important contributions or actions have you not been able to do that moderator-ship will allow you to perform? (besides banning trouble users)
How much time can you currently commit, and are there other things that may come up in future that will limit your availability (i.e. intensive college or other studies, heavy workload)? This is important as the whole point of being a moderator is to care for and direct the site.
How would you treat duplicate answers or answers in comments then posted as an answer later by a different user? This happens fairly frequently if there is a question that is somewhat vague, someone will post a potential answer in the comments, and then will have to leave. Several hours later, the OP will respond, and someone else will add the answer. How would you handle this situation?
In your opinion, what do moderators do?
A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?
In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?

A candidate's thoughts on this new process: 1 Keep the question list shorter. 2 Do not ask duplicate questions (#4 and #9 are about the same) 3 Specify whether or not the question are to remain in the order posted.

@David Why shouldn't they remain in the order posted? I'd be surprised if it mattered, but there isn't really a reason to change the order (that I can see)? On another note, each of these answers ends up looking like a massive wall of text imo. Is there any way to make them more reader-friendly? e.g. if there were a way to define collapsible boxes in markdown, each question could have it's own box. Collapsible boxes would be very useful as a formatting tool for long answers elsewhere too.. ;)

@gandalf We do not currently have the means to split it any better than the block quote method we currently have here, where each question is a block quote. That said we have some brainstorming going on about improving this kind of system in the long run (by, ultimately, probably designing something that isn't just using Meta), so I'll add that note about formatting to the list of ideas.

@David Thanks for the feedback. 1) Noted. 2) For some reason when I was setting this up, I parsed 4 and 9 as being opposites rather than the same. Sorry about that. 3) I designed the formatting here for the candidate convenience in terms of they just get a giant form and spaces to put their answers without any need of self-formatting - this makes it simpler to just leave the questions in order, but it's not required. Some people do actually shuffle them.

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?

If the flags have merit, then after acting on the specific comment flag, I would contact that user. In only extreme cases, and after multiple contacts with the user, I would put a time out on him.

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

I would first talk with the mod that I disagreed with. I have no doubt that among the three mods we would be able to come to an agreement, even if it is not what I think may be best. (there are many examples where I have done just that, such as a discussion about the 3d-view synonym)

Following directions, working together and abiding by site policy are all important. How well do you follow directions?

I follow directions quite well, and will be able to work together with the other mods (no matter who gets elected). SE has well documented features and clear polices in place, reading and understand what is expected to be done will be no problem.

What important contributions or actions have you not been able to do that moderator-ship will allow you to perform? (besides banning trouble users)

Tags.
I do a lot of work with tags, there are a lot of features about the tag system that are locked to only mods (such as this one).
Deleting bad posts.
For non mods it takes 3 votes to delete a post. There have been times when I find post and then put the link in the chat and ask for delete votes.
Question migration.
There has been many questions I CVed with a reason such as "This question is off topic because it belongs on _______.stackexchange.com" Mods can move questions to any SE site, there is no mechanisms to move questions for non-mods.

How much time can you currently commit, and are there other things that may come up in future that will limit your availability (i.e. intensive college or other studies, heavy workload)? This is important as the whole point of being a moderator is to care for and direct the site.

I agree that being active is very important. First as to will I be here: a definite yes. I have only missed one day on this site (camping) since March 24, 2014 (over 250 consecutive). I have made time for this site, and I will continue to be here, no matter what happens. How much time per day: Look at my activity I'm here a lot, minimum 2+ hours.

How would you treat duplicate answers or answers in comments then posted as an answer later by a different user? This happens fairly frequently if there is a question that is somewhat vague, someone will post a potential answer in the comments, and then will have to leave. Several hours later, the OP will respond, and someone else will add the answer. How would you handle this situation?

Answers in comments is a topic that has been well covered on meta. The issue is rather clear cut. There is nothing wrong with answering a question with an "answer" from the comments. Further the OC (original commenter) may not want to post an answer (I have done that).
What I do is to ping the OC and ask them to add an answer; if they do not respond then I will sometimes add the answer.

In your opinion, what do moderators do?

Moderators on SE or here to handle the exceptions in a well working system. Like any program, there will be exceptions, and errors. Mods are here to act mainly on those cases, the cases that the SE system can not handle.

A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

I try to watch everything I do so that no matter what (whether posts, comments, chat, or meta), people can not see it in a bad light. However, there are a few of my first answers that I want to rewrite. Nothing "bad" just not very good answers. (please do not go look before I fix them :)

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

See my answer to question #4.

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?

The specifics would depend on the exact nature of the flags/arguments.. But say for example the cause of the friction appears to originate as some kind of deliberate provocation in the answers, then my first step would be to contact the user and ask why they are doing this.
Depending on their reasons, I might explain that their contributions to the site are appreciated, but this behavior isn't acceptable on blender.stackexchange.
If the behavior persists, I'd probably consult another moderator and suggest a time out.
Of course, this is assuming a lot about the situation. In a real situation I'd want to know a lot more about what is going on before taking such drastic action as a ban.

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

I would contact the moderator in chat and ask why they took the action they did.
After listening to their reasoning, if I'm not satisfied, I would explain why I think their action was unjustified.
If they still disagree, then I would consult another moderator and see if we can come to an agreement between the three of us.

Following directions, working together and abiding by site policy are all important. How well do you follow directions?

I feel I'm good at following directions. But really, the people giving the directions are much more qualified to answer that ;)

What important contributions or actions have you not been able to do that moderator-ship will allow you to perform? (besides banning trouble users)

I see uses for "special" moderator-only tools quite often. For example I regularly see new users without the "comment anywhere"
privilege writing their comments in answers. These usually get downvoted, which can be discouraging for new users writing what would otherwise be a perfectly good comment.
As a moderator I'd be able to convert these as soon as I see them.

How much time can you currently commit, and are there other things that may come up in future that will limit your availability (i.e. intensive college or other studies, heavy workload)? This is important as the whole point of being a moderator is to care for and direct the site.

Currently I'm a little busier than normal, but I'll be around keeping an eye on reviews, flags, and question activity. A ping in the chat should reach me at almost any time.
If any unforeseen schedule problems crop up, I'll still try to keep an eye on reviews and flags at least.

How would you treat duplicate answers or answers in comments then posted as an answer later by a different user? This happens fairly frequently if there is a question that is somewhat vague, someone will post a potential answer in the comments, and then will have to leave. Several hours later, the OP will respond, and someone else will add the answer. How would you handle this situation?

I would leave duplicate answers alone unless the duplicate is essentially a verbatim copy of the first answer, or very low quality, in which case it will be treated as such.
As noted in a discussion about this very thing on meta, knowing the answer is only half of answering. You also must communicate it, and sometimes having different explanations from different people can throw a fresh light on an answer.
Regarding the exact scenario you describe,
I'd leave a comment on the answer explaining that another user had already recommended this in a comment and
suggest that in the future the answerer check to see if they would like to answer first.
I'd also encourage the original commenter add another answer to explain the answer in their own way.

In your opinion, what do moderators do?

I agree with SE's theory of moderation after seeing it applied in practice on this site. There is little I can say that hasn't already been said there, but to briefly describe my own words:
On SE there is little difference between moderators and high-rep users who actively participate in moderator activities such as reviewing and closing questions.
The purpose of a moderator is to handle (hopefully uncommon) situations which cannot be handled by such users, though there is no reason a user who is a moderator can't also be one of those users at the same time.

A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

I've always tried to comment and write in what I think is a "moderator-like" fashion, but now more than ever I will try to set a good example and explain my actions.
If anything the diamond will encourage me in this regard, as I too will be able to see what my words look like next to a ♦.

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

I really feel like the answer to this is the same as the fourth question.. But in the spirit of duplicate questions, not duplicate answers, I'll try to come up with another answer..
One action which I thought seemed overly difficult to do as a high-rep user is suggesting tag synonyms, though because of the broad effect this action can have (I imagine that moderators merge tags directly and don't go through the suggestion process?) I'd likely ask at least another moderator first.
Being able to see flags again and go straight to spots which need attention will obviously help a lot.

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 message the user advising them to desist or try to find why the source of the problem (one case I remember was someone was getting aggravated about their answers being edited after). If they persist or refuse to acknowledge this warning, a reasoned number of days or so in the penalty box should suffice. If the user does persist, it would be handled accordingly with longer suspensions and could eventually result in a ban. As valuable as your answers are, if you are constantly hostile and disrespectful to the community we would rather not have you.

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

I would speak to that moderator and ask why, if their reasoning isn't solid enough  I will ask another mod's opinion, if I'm still not satisfied. General consensus from user's in chat and or eventually raise it on meta for the community. Either way, I will not directly try to force what I think is right on someone else and the majority is usually always right. Anyone who has ever raised an issue with me knows that I don't shrug it off, I immediately assume I was wrong and look at it from that viewpoint before going back to my original reasoning then making a decision because we all make mistakes.

Following directions, working together and abiding by site policy are all important. How well do you follow directions?

As a moderator, I would say to the point, I follow the necessary steps in any case, leaving comments after editing, downvoting, rejecting edits etc. I know the people and I know exactly what my job requires.

What important contributions or actions have you not been able to do that moderator-ship will allow you to perform? (besides banning trouble users)

I'm already a moderator

How much time can you currently commit, and are there other things that may come up in future that will limit your availability (i.e. intensive college or other studies, heavy workload)? This is important as the whole point of being a moderator is to care for and direct the site.

I spend upwards of 6+ hours daily on the site and can usually be summoned via a ping in chat or a response on a post within the hour. Since launch, I have not missed a single day, currently at 749 consecutive days as of writing.

How would you treat duplicate answers or answers in comments then posted as an answer later by a different user? This happens fairly frequently if there is a question that is somewhat vague, someone will post a potential answer in the comments, and then will have to leave. Several hours later, the OP will respond, and someone else will add the answer. How would you handle this situation?

I see this all the time, answers posted in comments. Some users often don't want to write a fully fledged answer but I encourage them anyway to do so and the majority of the time this goes through, if not I will add it myself or if I'm short on time, ask another user.

In your opinion, what do moderators do?

Moderators from my experience are basically flag handlers and issue resolvers, someone at the helm to have an unbiased overview. Someone who is fair and strict in decision making, when a moderator stamps a question as a duplicate or off-topic this shouldn't be questioned as they should know the exact scope of their site.

A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

I've always taken care to be as straight forward as possible and polite to users, since I've been a moderator, I've never had anyone retaliate or call me out on any of my posts.

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

I'm already a moderator

:-) is a proper smiley face.

A statement about how you've always been a moderator, or a hypothetical scenario about what would happen if you lost your post is much more effective and informative then a smile.

@GiantCowFilms Ah, good point but I have a shiny diamond. 2 + 2 = 5? I'll update it, thanks.

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?

First I would contact them, and explain what the issue is. If they didn't change their behavior, or started an antagonistic argument about their conduct rather than a discussion, then extreme measures might become necessary.

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

I would first try to ping them in chat, or contact them in a similar way, and ask them why they did it. Quite likely I am not seeing it the same way, and they may be able to satisfactorily explain their actions.

Following directions, working together and abiding by site policy are all important. How well do you follow directions?

Generally fairly well . . . I can work with other people and follow guidelines, but sometimes I can forget specific instructions. A reminder is all that is necessary.

What important contributions or actions have you not been able to do that moderator-ship will allow you to perform? (besides banning trouble users)

I will be able to help mold the site, and take some of the workload off of our current only active moderator. Specific things I personally could do would be listed in this question.

How much time can you currently commit, and are there other things that may come up in future that will limit your availability (i.e. intensive college or other studies, heavy workload)? This is important as the whole point of being a moderator is to care for and direct the site.

A large amount. I am homeschooled, so currently i am very free. I may become more restricted later in the year studying for tests though.

How would you treat duplicate answers or answers in comments then posted as an answer later by a different user? This happens fairly frequently if there is a question that is somewhat vague, someone will post a potential answer in the comments, and then will have to leave. Several hours later, the OP will respond, and someone else will add the answer. How would you handle this situation?

I would comment on the answer notifying them that we try to, as a common courtesy, give someone who answers in the comments like that at least 12 hours to respond and post an answer.

In your opinion, what do moderators do?

They kind of fill in the cracks, continue where the average user leaves off. A moderator needs to be able to help settle disputes, enforce site policy, and make decisions with decisiveness and authority, while not being afraid to be taken to task if someone disagrees with them.

A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

It is a big responsibility. I have always been dedicated to trying to contribute valuable and professional content, and I don't think I have anything to be ashamed of.

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

This is a good question, especially as 10k is not too far in the future for me. I think it is more what the site needs, rather than what I can do per se. The site needs dedicated professional moderators, and I think I could be one.

I did not read your when I wrote mine, yet some of our answers are very similar. PS this is a reminder about following directions (your name at the top)

Ooops . . . and I just needed a reminder :P


text:
Editing posts that require a .blend file?
I was just reading through this question about .blend file hosting, and the general consensus seems to be that it would be helpful and necessary, to have built in .blend file hosting.
The problem with this, is that it still requires downloading a file to fully understand the question, and therefore, limits the usefulness of it, and it's answer, to anyone who's looking through for their own projects.
I'm thinking that it might be a good idea, for experienced users to edit these questions, to get rid of the need for a .blend file. Adding relevant images and text, to show what a newer user has trouble understanding.
What could also help with this, is to have a separate review queue for questions that have a .blend file attached.
Those are my thoughts, what do you guys think?

We will still need file support from stack exchange, since sometimes blends are nessary/beneficial. I think it might be a tad early to make this push. There are also litterally thousands of blends on this site, so I wouldn't be to hasty.

Your second paragraph is excellent. I agree with part of what you said. I do not think we are in need of another review queue. However I whole hearty agree that in some cases a blend file does not make a good question. This is something I have been saying all along, we should not put such a weight on "the file."

@GiantCowFilms Yes, there are a lot, but when we see a post like the one David linked to, if we have extra time, shouldn't we be looking into editing it to get rid of the need for a .blend file, or if the question is too situation based, close it? I understand that it is quite unpractical to completely get rid of .blend files from every post, but we could at least try to take care of newer questions. I just think a .blend file should really just be a backup instead of a primary choice for explaining a problem. Something that heavily requires a .blend file, is much more suited to a forum.

The difference whether to include an image or a blend file in a question or answer is really not about downloading the file from an external source. Both images and blend files are external downloads. The difference is that the image download is automatically performed by the software, and the user must deliberately download the ~.blend file. In some of the questions I've seen, it would take multiple images to show the information needed to form an answer, while the same information could be gained from a single ~blend file.


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Is it okay to ask questions about Blender related tasks?
I asked myself if Blender SE is meant to answer questions that don't ask for help with the software but around the software. A specifc question would be

Is there a central place to host plugins I have developed?

As this doesn't really ask for help inside Blender itself but rather about interacting with it's community I wondered if such questions are allowed here. I personally believe that this does fit our scope because it helps people who use Blender to create 3D graphics, animations, or games.
I want to stress that I think about questions where people search for ways to get in touch with the Blender community, not where the question is how to achieve X on some site Y - for example BlenderNation.
I want to point out that e.g. this question is well received and not about Blender's inside at all - contrary to what is pointed out in this meta post see #8.
So, are we allowed to post questions about getting in touch with the Blender community?

A question such as your example would be closed as off topic.
BSE is for blender, and problems around blender. A broad question simply asking about a hosting location falls too far away from blender and the scope of this site.
In a very broad general statement I would say that questions about "getting in touch with the Blender community" are off topic.

The BSE community has compiled a list of Blender resources / links, if someone asks about the blender community or ecosystem we'll probably close the question as off topic and point them to that: Resources for Blender
There's never a need for us to be impolite about closing a question, sufficient information can be exchanged even with the question closed. In the end usually even if the question is outside of out scope there is some answer or hints of where to look for information.


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My Issue with Reputation
Reputation: the lifeblood of the community.
Except it really isn't. I had to struggle to get to where I am reputation-wise. I couldn't answer questions for the longest time, even my own. And when I did do so, both the answer and the question got downvoted into oblivion. I'm frustrated by how new user-UNfriendly this site seems. I want discussion!
Commenting on questions, even if it's just to clarify: 50 reputation. Not an easy task if you are bad at writing answers, look at things very differently, or need more information and are new on the site. I can understand the requirement for the religion sites and Puzzling, but things like Blender and Worldbuilding? I don't care if it costs me, but 50 reputation is too high for some folks.
Even if it takes 50 rep to comment on another person's answer, it shouldn't take 50 rep just to ask the author "well what do you mean when you say that x is y-ing z?" or "Could you clarify that for me please?"
And before you edit this, please keep in mind that I do have Asperger's Syndrome and thus look at everything in a very different way. I'm okay if you downvote this a little, just... don't bash me on it, okay?

Regarding comments, I too always thought 50 rep seemed rather high.. For any users reading this who really really want to comment and can't, it's okay to leave an answer and make a note that it's intended as a comment, one of our mods can convert it. But spamming such answers will likely be frowned upon.

Except nobody even seems to care. I've literally had to add 'this is just my thought process, please don't ban me' to many of my answers to stay safe.

@Nefer007 you'd need to do a string of stupid antisocial things to warrant a ban. We do care about visitors, and new users, we care about this site enough to continually make decisions that may seem mean but are really only an ongoing effort to streamline the information here. Almost all questions get edited, it's the way things work here, and the reason is to make the content easier to read by reducing verbosity, spelling mistakes, and improve structure and formatting and fixing tags.

Also saying "please don't ban me" is not likely to have any affect on whether or not you are banned (and you are not likely to be banned, as zeffi said).

The rep system favors skilled users, which is exactly the point. Reputation next to your post, is like having a PHD co-author your article. It adds credibility, and you have to know what you're doing in order to earn that respect. As far as privileges go, I think the 50 rep limit (which I do think is tad high) is implemented to make sure people who have no idea what they are doing don't keep adding their two cents worth into the discussion. I earned my first 50 rep in a few days (its a bit longer but I didn't visit the site for a week), experts are not chased away.

The first few privileges (such as the 50 rep for comments) are mainly to prevent spammers and bots.

While the reputation system may seam unfair to you now, I hope to help you see that it is actually a well balanced privileges system.
First off nearly anyone with at least 1 rep can ask or answer any question. (So I don't see how you "couldn't answer questions for the longest time.")
It is not hard to gain 5 up votes on a few answers, to get to the comment privilege (anyone can comment on their own posts).
If SE did not have the barrier for the comments then we would have all kinds of spam trouble with the comments. (As it is now comments do not go through any review process, low quality or spammy looking question and answers do.)
Don't take it personal, but if you are having trouble gaining rep and are question the system, there probably is a reason your posts are not being up voted.
Take your mushroom question, the way you first posted it, it would be likely to get down votes; because of the title and the first sentence.
Looking through your answers, I see that you have only received one DV on all your answers (remember one UV equals out 5 DVs).
See gaining rep does more then let you do more on the site, it is a measure of how much the BSE community trusts you, and of what quality the posts you write are.

The issue was that I was so bad at answering questions. Originally, I was posting incomplete answers/guidelines that somehow prevented me from answering any other questions, including my own questions that I myself posted... which is a problem and should, in fact, be allowed if you actually did solve your own problem on your own. You shouldn't have to wait for a stroke of luck or some project to be able to answer your own question. That I see as a problem.

I cannot agree with this answer. The reputation is definitely not a "well balanced" system. It has many flaws, including high-rep users abusing the system because they do not know about the subject.

@Joehot200 what you describe is not a flaw in the rep system (voting on popularity), it is in fact a flaw in how people vote.

@David Taking StackOverflow as an example - So it isn't a flaw in the rep system that people who got a lot of rep from python are then able to upvote/downvote/modify java questions? I even once had two unrelated questions closed as duplicates of each other by a high-rep abuser. Despite the issue not being so prominent on blender (since it is about a single piece of software), it is still an issue that should be thought about and fixed. People upvote/downvote questions/answers that do not deserve that upvote/downvote because the voter doesn't know what the subject is about.

if you  think it is a problem worth mentioning, ask a question on the SE meta.

Those of us who have been around for a while, or have plenty of Blender experience, are tooled up to answer questions fast and effectively. It is  by no means easy for a newcomer to compose an acceptable response at the same speed. Feel less bad about that! :)
This reputation threshold is by design. Only people (such as yourself) who for some reason feel an affinity to this 'cause' will stick around and gradually gather reputation. Without that rep barrier you have no idea how much spam we'd get, it would be fun for no-one.
It may seem less easy now to ask novel questions, since we've been around for 2 years, and have amassed 11.000 questions. Questions are frequently marked as duplicates, not because the question was asked exactly that way before, but because the answer of another question also answers that new question. This is to some extent because new people are less intimate with the search feature, partially because the search isn't very fuzzy yet. (ie requires you to spell stuff correctly, and has only limited contextual understanding)
But if you look at the questions that get upvotes, look at the top 20 questions and you might see a pattern. If you want to game BSE ask modular questions, spread them out, make sure the question can be answered (shows clarity and thoughtful composition) and doesn't require a tonne of work to answer, provide .blends or screenshots.
Every day we get around 20 questions, a rough estimate is that 15 of those  are unique/novel to some extent, we are not at 'peak' question yet :)

Expertly answered.

Indeed :) Small addition along the lines of duplicates: duplicate questions aren't bad, having your question closed as a duplicate doesn't mean you did something wrong and are being punished. One of the advantages of closing duplicates is that content about a given question is all redirected into one place, where it can all be found by other people without searching through piles of separate questions.

Duplicates which by their title alone aren't obvious duplicates are great and indeed help site users to get 'redirected into one place'.  I find a lot of original questions don't have perfect titles to begin with, and we should and (do!) edit titles whenever we think "this question is more general than the person asking it realizes, let's give this question the right keywords that it deserves".

Some questions are "cash cows" and generate an unexpected amount of points, but for the rest, for anyone with a lot of reputation points, I think we can all agree that it was a lot of work, time and effort to get them, point by point..day by day. braincell by braincell.

Then why haven't we developed folders? By making folders, we can organize the duplicates!

This is what tags are for. I'm not convinced it would be practical to group duplicate questions or if that would make searching any easier, it still takes experience to know off the top of your head that the question already has an answer somewhere.. this comes back to the weak contextual search of BSE.

@zeffii, sorry. I got carried away.

@Nefer007, tags work nicely as folders. And adding a tag which belongs on a post where it does not already exist, is a valuable edit.

BTW, duplicate answers shouldn't really close a question.

Personally, this is something that I felt like I struggled with when I was new, but I didn't have it as bad as you. Think about it like writing a paper for school: it's about professionalism, and respect.
Now I think you realize that, but your profesh is a bit lacking. (mine is too. :-) take a look at my first question
Projectiles in the BGE
Using verbal quirks and similes make a question very interesting to read, but sometimes they make it hard to understand at the same time.
Now lets annalize some parts of your question Trying to restrict movement of player without causing it to fly off the screen.

I'm trying to restrict the player's movement so that someone can't just barrel through the level.

^^That one made me laugh, and it explained your problem well: Good

So I'm making a three-dimensional danmakufu game in Blender

This one not so much. You started with "So" which indicates a conversational tone, great for chat, but for questions it detracts from the quick-informational asking feel. Too boot, not everyone knows what a danmakufu game is.

AND STOP POSTING ANSWERS IN THE COMMENTS

putting stuff like this in the middle of a question breaks the flow of information.
Over all, I think people need to stop DVing you, and suggest edits, or help in another constructive way. The only thing for you to do though, is maybe cut back on the conversationallism until you're a more solid member of the Blender Stack Exchange community.

They never downvoted me unless I asked a question that I solved on my own, and then they blasted it. Also, danmakufu was the game engine.

With respect to the comment in another answer about more experienced users being able to answer more quickly, even if someone else has provided an answer to a question before you were able to, if you have a good answer, post it anyway. You never know when another user will find your answer more useful than the answer of a member with more reputation, and vote up you answer instead of the other. In some ways, the experience of a power Blender user can be a hindrance in forming good answers useful to novice users, either because they have become fixed in their workflows, or because some of the steps are so ingrained in their work habits that they get ignored when forming their answer, while less experienced users are sometimes more careful to include all the steps when composing their answer. Also, adding a tag to a question counts as an edit.
One way of gaming the system is suggested in another answer, but there are other ways to game the system, too. For example, having a suggested edit to another post (either question or answer) accepted gains two points of reputation, though the edit has to be more than a certain number of characters until one reaches a certain reputation. A suggested edit expanding BSE to the full form Blender.stackexchange might be useful, as new users on the site might find the acronym unfamiliar and hindering their understanding. On the other hand, correcting to to too won't work by itself to gain reputation, as the number of characters is too short. Reviewing old posts, you'll notice some with awkwardly worded titles, or common misspellings, such as using one of there, they're, or their where one of the other two is intended. A side benefit of such reviews is that you become more acquainted with the content of older questions, and will soon start to identify yourself when a post is a duplicate, or is answered by a different question which is not a duplicate.
Also, if one is a known member with sufficient reputation on another stackexchange site, joining a different stackexchange site under the same login, generally results in a grant of 100 reputation points on the new site upon joining. Finally, when you attains the reputation that earns the reputation of voting questions or answers down, use the privilege  sparingly, as downvotes cost you a couple of reputation points every time they are cast.

Yes multiple different answer to a given problem are always welcome. I would not recommend "gaming the system" or posting about ways to do so. Edits are not "gaming the system" SE gives rep to new users that make a post better, it helps them learn what to do, and what is not a good edit. Last you only get the association bonus if you have 200+ rep on any of your sites.

@David, "gaming the system" was not my invention; I got that from the post of another member. I don't think any of the methods either he or I gave are actually gaming the system.

they quite probably are not. So why use the term?

@David, it's not a particularly adult answer to say "because he did" but in this case it's the best available choice.

If someone is struggling to formulate a well received question, they should look at the style and content of those questions that have done well. consider which qualities it makes sense to emulate. The phrase 'gaming the system' was not chosen to illicit misuse, or abuse, but rather to emphasize the importance of how we perceive questions as an audience. The list of high scoring questions is public record and can be studied. In the end questions which zero real applicable content won't get much attention, it still comes down to substance dressed in presentation.


text:
Who won the election?
The election recently ended, and there is lovely file of the results, but it looks like this when displayed in the browser.
4 3
1 1 2 3 0
1 1 2 3 0
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0
"iKlsR"
"gandalf3"
"David"
"NoviceInDisguise"
"Blender Stack Exchange Moderator Election 2015"

That is obviously not the most useful information, unless you know what it means, unfortunately I do not, so my question is, How can these results be read in a remotely useful form?

I guess the votes were still being tallied, the results can now be viewed here.
For more detail about the exact algorithm used, see wikipedia. For an explanation of the file format used to store the votes, see this answer.

your first sentence answers my original question (pre-edit)


text:
2015 Community Moderator Election Results
Blender's first moderator election has come to a close, the votes have been tallied, and the 3 new moderators are:

They've replaced the pro-tempore crew — please thank both teams for volunteering, and share your assistance and advice with the new crew as they learn the ropes!
For details on how the voting played out, you can download the election results here, or view a summary report online.

Congrats to the new moderators.

Thanks to all the pro-tem mods who helped get this site to where it is today!


text:
How do we enhance the SE spell check dictionary?
Ever notice how some common Blender words that we use on a regular basis, e.g. viewport, SHFT, CTRL, and wireframe, always throw a spelling exception? Is there any way to get these, and other common Blender terms added to the Blender.stackexchange spell check dictionary? And if there is a way to do this, what other words should be added?

Spellchecking is handled by the browser, the site has no control over this. (Even the browser likely uses external libraries and dictionaries from other packages)

As gandalf3 said in the comments, the site has no control over the spell checking, that is handled completely by the browsers.
However you can add the trouble words to your own browser's dictionary.
You can just right-click the word and select Add to dictionary.
Instructions for Chrome and Firefox, (if you need instructions for a different browser try this link)
Words such as: shader, compositing, outliner and viewport are already in my browsers dictionary.


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New Contest Idea
We have already had some community building activities on the Meta, such as the themed rendering contests, marked with the contest tag. I recently had an idea to expand on those contests. My new idea would be quite simple, and wouldn't take nearly as much time or effort as creating an entire render. It would be a simple contest, basically you would write a question, and make it as funny as you can, whether the question is blatantly off topic, written by someone who knows way too much or way too little about blender. Any method could be used to make the question enjoyable funny to other users. THE QUESTIONS SHOULD NEVER BE POSTED ON THE MAIN SITE OR IN ANY PLACE OTHER THAN THE DEDICATED CONTEST POST UNLESS THEY ARE REAL, SERIOUS QUESTIONS. (that is to avoid heavy resistance by the M.O.D-Team)
Instead, you would take a screenshot of your question and post it in the contest post, or you could simply copy the markdown form the "ask a question" page and paste it into the "add an answer" page on the contest post.
Winners would be picked by whoever has the most up Votes within a week, (Or any other reasonable time span)
In case your wondering what gave me this idea, it was this highly off-topic question that Gandalf3 was able to find and save
If this idea gets enough support from the community, I'd be happy to create the contest post. DO NOT post funny responses here - We need community approval first
To the M.O.D.-Team, it would not just be a post to collect spam.

how bout whoever gets most DV's?

It could either be whoever gets the most Dvs also gets a prize for the worst one, or DVs are simply not counted (just like in the other contests)

it would be more accurate if you're trying to write a bad question..,. jus sayiin'

I personally like the idea of lower score wins, and if your post sounds like a real question it gets upvoted, but the more spammy, hilarious or off-topic your question is the more DVs you get- it would be more realistic indeed, but other users might not want a lot of heavily down voted answers on their meta account. Also, if it was most down votes wins, the lowest score you could ever get is 10, (I think that posts with a score of less than 10 automatically get deleted) - that might be wrong though.

It would probably be simplest to just do it by UV's. If you like the question, and this it's funny, then you upvote, if you hate the question, you downvote. If it's okay, you leave it be.

Why not reward the winner with something like 20 rep? Nothing huge, but nothing extremely small either.

@TARDISMaker I would not mind rewarding users with rep, but there is no system in place to do this (aside form upvoting two of their answers).

I don't think votes change rep in meta, I think that's only in the actual site.

exactly, which is why getting Upvoted/Downvoted on your entries would not effect your rep, and then only way to reward them with the current rep system is someone upvoting their posts on the main site, which could be called voter fraud, so for now we'd have to settle for no direct reward.

If it's not broken, I would try beating it back into shape with a hammer.

would you try to forge the blade or the spoon back into shape with your lightning shooting ban hammer?

@iKlsR I mean't not broken off entirely, should have been more specific....


text:
Can we make a change to improve the tour?
I just reviewed the "Tour", and I'd like to suggest that the tour be modified by adding a section that strongly suggests to users seeking help solving issues related to a particular blender file, that they include with their questions relevant information, including version of Blender, screenshots, showing the problem, and ~.blend files, and more importantly providing new users with instructions detailing how to post the screenshot and the blend file.

Yes, as a matter of fact we (David, iKlsR, and I) were just planning to start on things like this (also the FAQ, custom close reasons, etc.) with a big meta post for people to suggest ideas and help write sections :)


text:
A Question about the "Blender resources" question
Should there be in that list of resources a heading for forums and similar groups? I don't want to add one without some discussion about it first.

Sounds good to me

It is a community wiki, as such please add any info and resources you find that fit in to the categories that are already there (and there is no need to ask first to do so).
However if you want to add a new category (such as reference images), or restructure the answers that are there (say merge blogs and community sites which I think would be a good idea), please ask on the meta first.
To answer you question.
Yes a general blender sites answer is a good idea.
It could contain blogs, tutorial sites, forum(s), etc.
Thank you for making the Resources for Blender list better.

Well, after gandalf3's comment, I kind of jumped right in, after which Gandalf3 did a masterful job of organizing the original question, at least in my view..

@brasshat I saw, and you did a good job.

I'm not so sure about good; I was aiming for "reasonably tolerable".

@brasshat lol, it was much better then that.