What do you see as being GD.SE's unique position or role in the design world? How do you intend to strengthen that? Or to put it another way, how would/do you 'sell' this site to designers who've never heard of it? What do you see as our USP (Unique Selling Proposition) or key strength?
Our unique position in the design world is the objective Q&A format. There are many great graphic design forums out there, but not all questions lend themselves to the forum format. The capacity to provide answers without the unnecessary discussion fluff that is often found on forums is what I like best about the Stack Exchange format.
Our key strength is definitely our user base. We have a strong group of experienced designers that often thanklessly share their wisdom with others.
If something or someone infuriates you, and there seems to be a boiling flamewar underway, what tactics would you try?
Neutralize the situation (locking a post to prevent further comments if necessary), send out mod messages if appropriate, and discuss anything notable with the rest of the mod team to notify them of "problem areas" and see what we can do to prevent further outbursts.
Moderating can sometimes require quite a bit of your time. This might mean you won't be able to, for example, write as many answers as before. How do you feel about it?
I don't see this as an issue for me, I'm capable of balancing my time spent moderating vs as a community member. Many of the moderation duties (review queue, editing, etc) are already part of being a community member anyway.
How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?
I'd try and use the chat mechanism to discuss the problems that I think should be addressed. Arguments in comment threads tend to go on endlessly without resolve; my advice is always to clearly and concisely state your objection or disagreement to something then ignore the temptation to engage in back-and-forth discussion.
How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?
If it's something I feel strongly about, then I'd talk to the other mod and discuss why I disagree. Consistency from the mod team is important, it's better to try and come to an agreement before stepping on each other. If we can't come to an agreement, then it's probably an issue that should be brought up in meta.
Moderator votes are binding, so if elected your open, close, and deletion votes will be final regardless of how many existing votes there are. How will that affect your decision making process when casting your votes?
For duplicate questions, I always do a thorough check to make sure the asker will get their answer from the older question. For the rest (unclear, opinionated, too broad, off-topic), I have no issue with a binding close vote if it's an obvious decision, especially if there is an existing meta discussion to refer to.
For questions that I'm "on the fence" about is when it gets tricky. What I try to take into account is that we're a relatively low traffic community, so a binding close vote has much more influence than it would on a site like Stack Overflow. So for these cases, I'm more likely to abstain from casting my vote to let the community to decide. If 3 or 4 others have already voted (and I agree), then I don't mind adding my vote.
We've got a few "wedge issues" - mostly over types of "love it or hate it" content (for example, font identification, critiques, upcmoing designs, how-tos, etc.). What's your plan for these types of question where there's some genuine disagreement and where some people are very positive and others are more negative?
If there's a disagreement, I'd refer to the meta post dictating the community consensus and encourage others to voice their opinion. Our policies should not be written in stone, and if someone disagrees with how we handle certain questions then they should let their voice be heard.
There are certainly some questions that we allow that I don't think are a great fit for our community, but I don't let that get in the way of what has been decided as on-topic for our 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?
This is not an issue for me at all. I'm happy to represent the site in a professional and appropriate matter, with small bits of humor added in here and there to keep things on the bright side.
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 have the patience and am willing to devote the time to serve as a guide to anyone unfamiliar with the site. I'm very familiar with the inner workings of Stack Exchange; if someone needs help with the site then the first person they might look to is a moderator. If I don't already know the answer to a question regarding Stack Exchange platform functionality, I'll be happy to hunt down the answer.
In your opinion, what do moderators do?
Moderators act as a liaison between the community and the Stack Exchange team. If something needs immediate attention, moderators should know how to handle the situation and reach out to an SE employee for assistance if appropriate. They encourage discussion, promote growth, and extinguish fires. And of course, they do everything wrong by nature! ;)
