1. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

It is important to understand the issue before acting.

First, I would review the history of the arguments and flags to get an understanding of what the cause of the problem is. Is the user rude or abrasive, is there a cultural clash or language problem, or does the user hold an unpopular professional opinion that causes heated arguments within the community?

Next step would be reaching out the user. Does the user agree there is a problem? Would they accept (to) help in addressing the situation? Or are they just trolling or otherwise intentionally harming the community?

Based on the information gathered and discussion within the moderator team, the next step could ranging from coaching the user to improve their communication style, starting a meta discussion on how to address professional disagreement in constructive way or, when nothing else works, handing out warnings and eventually suspensions.

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

First of all, I think moderators should be very careful using their mod-powers on closing & deleting questions. Content moderation is first and foremost the responsibility of the members of our community. By taking over that role from the users, moderators run the risk of alienating the community.

If I disagree with an action taken by another moderator, I would discuss with the other moderator and try to understand the reasons for the action taken. When handled properly, a disagreement and subsequent exchange of views is an opportunity to learn for everybody.

Based on the exchange, either I understand the reasons behind their actions, or I don't. And either the other moderator will revert their action, or they will not. I will not be engaging in open/close wars with users nor moderators. Sometimes you have to agree to disagree.

3. Being a moderator means sometimes that for the good of the community you might have to do things with which you disagree. How would you deal with such scenarios? E.g.: closing questions you would like to keep open (or vice-versa), disagreeing with the outcome of a meta discussion and having to enforce the result.

As a moderator I will act in the interest of the community. Only if I strongly disagree with a community-enacted policy, I may recuse myself from enforcing it. Occasionally I have done so in the past when handling the close votes queue. But in general I agree with the policies, or at least understand and subscribe to the intentions behind them, so enforcing them will not be a problem.

4. The site participation has been declining for a while. Do you think this is a problem mods should be invested in solving? If yes, how?

Yes, this will become one of my primary focus areas should this community elect me as moderator.

I've been part of this site since before it was launched into beta. In the early years, I've spent countless hours in nurturing it. It hurts to see it decline.

After an initial period of about a year where we focused on defining the scope and building a culture and growing a healthy user-base, the focus slowly shifted from the users to the content. It seems that at some point along the line we chose to care more about the quality of the content than about those who provided that content. I now believe that was a mistake, and I believe that is where the participation started to decline.

I sometimes see established users looking for reasons to close, delete or to migrate content from new contributors. Content that with some love and time and effort could be turned into something of value and a basis for a new user's career on this site. It hurts me to see new users being turned away. If I would have been treated like that on my first days here, I would not be here right now.

I would like to see this community going back to helping each other to become better in writing good questions and good answers.

Don't get me wrong: I am all for setting high quality standards on the content, but we should be patient with those who come here as new, inexperienced users, looking to learn and to contribute.

A community that fails to attract new members, will eventually die.

5. What do you think a moderator does, and why do you think you can't do the same/enough with the 20k-rep moderation tools?

A moderator's primary tasks is to foster a healthy community. By healthy community, I mean a community of members that are respectful to each other, that help each other and that welcome new users into their community, so that the community can grow and remain healthy.

Most of the content moderation can be and should be done by users with sufficient reputation, and does not require mod powers. Moderators are there to handle the exceptions, to handle the flags, to handle site abuse, to guide the community, and to intervene when community members are in a disagreement that gets out of hand.

The diamond carries weight, moderators have to lead by example.

6. How would you deal with a highly regarded user that breaks the rules? E.g.: either network ones (see CoC, and being rude to other users) or community made ones (see for example not closing questions that the community agreed would be off-topic here)

Depends on the kind of rule breaking: anything abusive and harmful to the community is unacceptable. In coordination with other mods, I will talk to such a user and when no improvements in behaviour are made there will be consequences in terms of official warnings and (temporary) suspensions.

A highly regarded user not closing off-topic questions? I don't really see a problem there. We can't force people to click the close button. How would you even police that? I think it is perfectly reasonable for users to occasionally recuse themselves from enforcing a community policy that they can't agree with. Also, I sometimes don't know what to do with a question in the review queues, and then I leave it up to others. Am I punishable now?

A few months ago I answered a question from a new user that I thought was borderline on-topic. The question was (airline) business related and my answer focused purely on the aviation context. Despite the aviation focused answer, a moderator closed the question for being off-topic and I got told off for answering it. We lost that new user and my interest in contributing here received a dent. In the subsequent exchange between me and that moderator, I was told that my reaction to closing the question made him lose his joy in his moderator role. What started as an attempt to save a question from the bin and give new user a good experience on our site ended up in a bad experience for all involved. It shouldn't be that way.

Just to be very clear: I have no hard feelings to that moderator in any way. I know the job is hard as hell and you can't possibly do it right for everybody... Also, the same question looks different though a different set of eyes.

But unless users are actively encouraging questions that are blatantly off-topic, I will be careful with taking action against users that are not closing off-topic questions, and always assume good faith.

7. Why is Aviation StackExchange important to you?

I have participated in building this site since it was still in area 51. I was hoping for it to become a site where you could talk about aviation & aerospace engineering and where people would treat each other respectfully. The result did not disappoint.

I remember the excitement when answering the first ever question on aviation.stackexchange, and also the fear that the community would not being able to define the scope clear enough and that it all would degrade into an unpleasant mess. Luckily we made it into something good.

I've learned a lot here. About aviation, about other people, and about communicating in writing to a wide audience of various backgrounds. I am very grateful to some of the people that were here in those early days, that encouraged me to keep improving my answers, even if they were written poorly in the first attempt.

I enjoy being part of this site, especially when I see people helping each other finding answers or improving their writing style.

8. What one policy already enacted at Aviation StackExchange would you change if you had ultimate power?

I am actually not sure if it is an official policy, but I have seen that answers have been deleted because they are factually wrong. I think there is a better way of dealing with those answers.

I prefer us to keep those wrong answers, especially if a user clearly spent time and effort into crafting such an answer. Better to down-vote AND explain why the answer is wrong or write a correct answer to compete. If the owner of the wrong answer understands why their answer is wrong, they will delete or amend it themselves. If we delete such answers (because we claim to know better), that is a form of censorship and that gives me an uncomfortable feeling.

The exception may be when a wrong answer, when taken as advice, would result in large safety risks. In that case I would consider putting a big warning on top or delete the answer.

9. On Aviation.SE we have a history of being more liberal with comments than other stacks; in particular we tend to accept jokes in the comment section (if without harm to other users) to leave a valve open for those that would like to be a bit less uptight. Many users from other SEs will come and flag such comments. Will you uphold our "traditions" or will you delete such comments?

An occasional display of humour is good for the community; it allows people to show bit of their personality outside the strict Q&A format that we otherwise limit ourselves to. I will leave the occasional joke untouched.

But when one person's attempt at humour escalates in a contest of who can make the wittiest remark, the value gets lost. That quickly gets cheesy and distracts from the objective of this site. At some point I would start to delete those comments.

Humour that is harmful has no place here at all and will be handled accordingly.

10. What is your experience in the field of Aviation, and how do you think this might help you moderate this site?

I studied aerospace engineering and have been working in various engineering roles in Air Traffic Management for about 15 years now. I contribute to the development and international standardisation of new technologies, and this brings me into contact with people from all corners of the aviation industry, and of many nationalities. In such an environment, with its many cultural differences and language barriers, there is a constant need to make sure people understand each other.

I believe the professional experience I have will be of use as moderator.

1. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

Gentle guidance in comments, respecting the individual's expertise and background, would probably work best. This would be a case of "critique the behavior, not the person." If problematic behavior persists, I'd probably seek a collaborative approach from all the mods -- see who's had experience working with this sort of a situation before, and get as many inputs as possible to help craft the response that retains the user's valuable participation, while softening what's creating the arguments & flags.

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

When it's a single question that got closed, I'd probably be inclined to let the other mod's action stand. This is an internet forum, it isn't life & death. Pick what hills are worth dying on, and some just aren't. If there's a pattern where I'm typically thinking one thing & another mod is often thinking the opposite, then that's probably worth a conversation so that there is consistency among the mods... and if the general opinion is that "this" sort of question is something that the mods as a group prefer to see closed, then that's the norm, and it's probably okay, even if I might have gone the other way with it.

3. Being a moderator means sometimes that for the good of the community you might have to do things with which you disagree. How would you deal with such scenarios? E.g.: closing questions you would like to keep open (or vice-versa), disagreeing with the outcome of a meta discussion and having to enforce the result.

At the end of the day, the community gets the environment that it wants, and mods work for the community. If it's egregious enough, then you fall on your sword & step back as a mod. If it's not at that level, then you play by the rules that you're been asked to enforce.

4. The site participation has been declining for a while. Do you think this is a problem mods should be invested in solving? If yes, how?

I think that high quality questions and high level discussions are the keys to gaining and keeping new participants, so I prefer to see the low quality ("do my homework for me" with no effort by the OP, as an example) questions pruned away. To the extent that the mods can move things in that direction, I think that will benefit the community in the long term.

5. What do you think a moderator does, and why do you think you can't do the same/enough with the 20k-rep moderation tools?

There's a lot that can be done with the 20k+ moderation tools, and I've worked to use those beneficially. Some of what the mods can do beyond that, as I understand it, is to deal immediately with obviously problematic posts like spam. Also, mods will deal -- infrequently -- with issues involving individuals who are behaving in problematic ways... they have hammers that regular users don't have. Thankfully, those seem to be fairly rare events here.

6. How would you deal with a highly regarded user that breaks the rules? E.g.: either network ones (see CoC, and being rude to other users) or community made ones (see for example not closing questions that the community agreed would be off-topic here)

Nobody is "above the law," but those who've invested a lot here are probably most reachable with a gentle approach. If somebody is being rude to other users, showing them how their remarks come across may be enough to get them to adjust course... they have more to lose when the threat (even unstated) is potentially losing access to ASE.

If somebody (a 20k+ rep user, not a mod) is voting "incorrectly" to keep open or close questions, I'm not sure that that's worth addressing unless it's gross (i.e. voting to keep open obvious spam/vandalism/offensive posts). People who've earned their voting privileges are entitled to their opinions, and in reviewing vote histories, while I've certainly seen votes I've disagreed with, I don't recall ever seeing a pattern that led me to think that a particular user was problematic in that sort of way.

7. Why is Aviation StackExchange important to you?

Aviation has been my professional life, it's something that I enjoy sharing, and I've found that there can be great opportunities for learning here from those from other backgrounds. I think it's rewarding to be able to answer the good question from somebody new to the field, and I enjoy reading the answers from those who are doing likewise from their experiences.

8. What one policy already enacted at Aviation StackExchange would you change if you had ultimate power?

I don't know. I'd like to see a more direct approach to giving RC and drone questions to Drones.SE, although lately I think that's been going pretty well. The zero-effort homework questions is another pet peeve of mine, but again, I think the community is doing a pretty good job in discouraging those.

9. On Aviation.SE we have a history of being more liberal with comments than other stacks; in particular we tend to accept jokes in the comment section (if without harm to other users) to leave a valve open for those that would like to be a bit less uptight. Many users from other SEs will come and flag such comments. Will you uphold our "traditions" or will you delete such comments?

I think humor in the comments has immense positive value; I'd like to see such comments kept.

10. What is your experience in the field of Aviation, and how do you think this might help you moderate this site?

A little general aviation, several years military aviation, and presently actively flying as an airline pilot. Plus being blessed with a father and uncles who flew during World War II, and a family who happily puts up with trips to aviation museums to explore what's available in each. I think this gives me a strong appreciation for all that others with deep backgrounds in aviation can bring to the discussions, and a desire for their participation to be sought out and encouraged.

If our community believes that I can be helpful as a moderator, then I'll be pleased to serve as one. Thank you for reading!

1. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

Copied almost verbatim (the political activism angle doesn't really apply here so I took that out; I think some expression of coffee preference is allowed so long as it doesn't delve into extended discussion) from my Politics SE questionnaire less than a month ago:

I’d try to find what's causing so many comment flags. Are they rude, argumentative, or needlessly conversational? Determine if the user’s behavior needs some intervention, possibly by discussing with the mod team if it’s not obvious but there's a steady stream of flags. If necessary (based on whether I think the user’s behavior should change or not), contact the user to: discuss rudeness by referring to the Code of Conduct / explain that on SE comments are not meant for extended discussion.

When contacting I'd start with a light touch in which I ask for the user to change their behavior. If they continue at a level that’s disruptive then suspensions are the next step.

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

Copied verbatim from my Politics SE questionnaire less than a month ago:

It depends on how strongly I felt about it. If it’s a judgement call, then I’d leave it as is or I might edit the question to resolve the close issue (if applicable). The community may or may not decide to overrule the other mod’s decision. If I felt strongly about it, then I'd ping that mod in our own mod chat room and have a short discussion to see if either of us could be convinced by the other. If I still felt strongly against the other mod’s decision, which seems quite far-fetched to get so attached to a question, then I might raise the discussion with others in the mod team or start a discussion on meta. I don’t normally see that happen, but going to meta can be good situationally, e.g. when having some community consensus on an edge case would be helpful.

3. Being a moderator means sometimes that for the good of the community you might have to do things with which you disagree. How would you deal with such scenarios? E.g.: closing questions you would like to keep open (or vice-versa), disagreeing with the outcome of a meta discussion and having to enforce the result.

I don't hold very controversial opinions on moderation and I tend to accept guidance from the community. In the unlikely event that I feel I cannot in good conscience moderate the community wants me to even after raising my concerns to the community on meta then I would choose to resign.

4. The site participation has been declining for a while. Do you think this is a problem mods should be invested in solving? If yes, how?

No, I don't think this is necessarily a moderator's job. Moderators should make sure the site is a good place for the community to participate. Mods can go a step beyond that by spearheading initiatives to encourage participation. Beyond that, I think it's up to each user to decide how much they want to participate, it's not something that can or should be forced from a high position.

5. What do you think a moderator does, and why do you think you can't do the same/enough with the 20k-rep moderation tools?

Copied verbatim from my Coffee SE questionnaire (the not having a big community doesn't apply to the same extent here as it does on Coffee, but the answer still reflects my position):

Mostly I think it helps that actions are binding. This site doesn't have a big community that can take on simple moderation tasks like closing questions or creating tag synonyms. That's something where mods can step in. In addition to that, there are mod-only actions like migrating questions or deleting promotional content where the diamond really helps.

Of course there's also the classic of suspending users. Though that's something useful, it's an action we don't need to use much over here, luckily. :)

6. How would you deal with a highly regarded user that breaks the rules? E.g.: either network ones (see CoC, and being rude to other users) or community made ones (see for example not closing questions that the community agreed would be off-topic here)

Reach out to them to ascertain why they are behaving that way in an effort to get them to improve their behavior. If those efforts fail then suspensions are available should the behavior be severe enough to warrant a timeout from the site.

7. Why is Aviation StackExchange important to you?

I'm not interested in Aviation specifically. Nevertheless, I think this community deserves to have its flags processed in a timely manner and that's something I can do.

8. What one policy already enacted at Aviation StackExchange would you change if you had ultimate power?

I have no idea. If elected I'd mostly do the bare minimum by processing the flag queue. I'm not running on a platform advocating some change.

9. On Aviation.SE we have a history of being more liberal with comments than other stacks; in particular we tend to accept jokes in the comment section (if without harm to other users) to leave a valve open for those that would like to be a bit less uptight. Many users from other SEs will come and flag such comments. Will you uphold our "traditions" or will you delete such comments?

Sure, I'm all for keeping joke comments if that's what the community wants. :)

10. What is your experience in the field of Aviation, and how do you think this might help you moderate this site?

Like I said in the opening, my experience in aviation is very limited. I've only ever been a passenger on airplanes and I don't think that gives me any headstart when it comes to moderating here.

1. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

I would try to understand their pattern of raising flags, etc, and if help them put energy toward the direction the site is headed.

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

ideally, a chat can clarify it. If there's some deeper philosophizing, the pattern of closing can be discussed via meta questions. Perhaps first abstractly, as principles for the site, rather than anything pointed.

3. Being a moderator means sometimes that for the good of the community you might have to do things with which you disagree. How would you deal with such scenarios? E.g.: closing questions you would like to keep open (or vice-versa), disagreeing with the outcome of a meta discussion and having to enforce the result.

While I have time to contribute, I don't have time to 'wage wars'. I'll trend toward the general moderation policies of SE. The site will survive. We'll all survive.

4. The site participation has been declining for a while. Do you think this is a problem mods should be invested in solving? If yes, how?

I think we should look for trends and find ways to stimulate new visitors, seek some new anchor members that are invested in some topics, and cultivate the more-durable Q&A from these trends

5. What do you think a moderator does, and why do you think you can't do the same/enough with the 20k-rep moderation tools?

Well, I don't have 20k rep. As I said, I'm just here to help.

6. How would you deal with a highly regarded user that breaks the rules? E.g.: either network ones (see CoC, and being rude to other users) or community made ones (see for example not closing questions that the community agreed would be off-topic here)

I'd seek input from other mods that may have a form of relationship with that user already.

7. Why is Aviation StackExchange important to you?

I love tethered and non-powered aircraft, inflatables, and recently various species of drones. I'd like the site to be healthy with these topics.

8. What one policy already enacted at Aviation StackExchange would you change if you had ultimate power?

Sorry, I don't have one.

9. On Aviation.SE we have a history of being more liberal with comments than other stacks; in particular we tend to accept jokes in the comment section (if without harm to other users) to leave a valve open for those that would like to be a bit less uptight. Many users from other SEs will come and flag such comments. Will you uphold our "traditions" or will you delete such comments?

I think that character enriches the site. It matches top community, when done well.

10. What is your experience in the field of Aviation, and how do you think this might help you moderate this site?

I was involved in ballooning lots, as a kid. Recently I've been involved in consumer drone tech.

1. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

I think the best practise is intermittent behavioral problems is a one-on-one discussion. The person needs to know his/her input is greatly valued, but that others would need to be taken into consideration more. Also quick response to comment sections that are "on their way to a collision" often helps. An amicable participation may very well be enough to steer the conversation to a better direction.

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

I'm not entirely how this part of ASE works, but I assume mods have the possibility to discuss among themselves. This kind of policy alignments should be made behind the scenes and in a civilized manner.

3. Being a moderator means sometimes that for the good of the community you might have to do things with which you disagree. How would you deal with such scenarios? E.g.: closing questions you would like to keep open (or vice-versa), disagreeing with the outcome of a meta discussion and having to enforce the result.

I have no problem with yielding to the desicions of the majority. That being said, I will defend my position if there is, say indisputable evidence to back up my opinion.

4. The site participation has been declining for a while. Do you think this is a problem mods should be invested in solving? If yes, how?

Keeping the site active is mainly about the stream interesting questions and good answers. To keep this going, newcomers will need to feel welcome. If it is apparent that this is not the case, mod intervention might be in place. Other than that, normal participation in Q&A and comment activities is of cource a way to keep tgings rolling.

5. What do you think a moderator does, and why do you think you can't do the same/enough with the 20k-rep moderation tools?

I assume moderators have access to more specific data about user behaviour, and means to intervene quicker and without peer review if necessary. But this is guesswork, so... I gather mods are "the first line of defense" against trolls and other threats against the community.

6. How would you deal with a highly regarded user that breaks the rules? E.g.: either network ones (see CoC, and being rude to other users) or community made ones (see for example not closing questions that the community agreed would be off-topic here)

This depends totally on the act in question. The more disturbing the act is, the quicker and harsher the reaction. Collegial consultation would be necessary in any case, but for the sake of the argument, let's say there would be a racistic slur, I'd close the account immediately and hide the post, and the proceed with investigation with other mods. In less severe cases a 1on1 discussion would, again, be my first response.

7. Why is Aviation StackExchange important to you?

I love aviation. As may be gathered from some of my answers, I'm no longer fit to fly, this is where I live and breathe aviation. Also the overall community spirit is what I really appreciate here.

8. What one policy already enacted at Aviation StackExchange would you change if you had ultimate power?

Sorry, nothing to give here.

9. On Aviation.SE we have a history of being more liberal with comments than other stacks; in particular we tend to accept jokes in the comment section (if without harm to other users) to leave a valve open for those that would like to be a bit less uptight. Many users from other SEs will come and flag such comments. Will you uphold our "traditions" or will you delete such comments?

I will uphold the tradition, and explain it to ASE noobs if necessary. I'm quite a humorous person, I can't function in an uptight setting. I would not participate here as much if this traditiom was discarded.

10. What is your experience in the field of Aviation, and how do you think this might help you moderate this site?

I have experience flying smaller acft, and decades of knowledge on all things flying, civ and mil. By no means I know everything, but my personal interest and close contacts with aviation professionals of many sorts gives me a pretty good understanding of how things work "up in the air". My speciality, so to speak, is keeping sh_t real, as might be recognized from some of my answers. Aviation is the playground of great social status, exiting visions, and often stern personalities. Especially the young sometimes need to be reminded that aviation is just another hobby/occupation. Only difference is, that it's ridiculously expensive.

Acknowledging my limits and having a healthy amount of self appreciation gives me a good chance of succeeding in helping to keep this community on it's tracks.

(again, sorry for typos, on top of writing on a phone, I'm now also hungy)