Who decided on the moderators for this forum and what are their goals?

Question

As per the title. It appears the moderators of this forum are detached from the reality of the nature of the questions being brought, the kinds of people discovering this outpost and the very reality of graphic design as practices, pursuit and profession.

You might well have ideals for what this forum is, but they may very well be in direct conflict with the public perception of the title and subsequent implications of its existence and technology.

What are you trying to make? Who decided you're qualified to do that? Have you dealt with humans before?

EDIT: Upon a very vague look around, it is clear Stack Exchange Graphic Design has failed to grab even a tenth of a percent of the graphic designers in the world. The answer to the question of "why is that so" is probably very similar to the answer to "how can Stack Exchange Graphic Design be more accepting of new users that are designers, new to design or simply curious about it".

In other words, "how can Stack Exchange Graphic Design be less like StackOverflow?"

Answer 1

Summary: Most things in the community are regulated by members, via discussions on Meta and using their own powers, but moderators step in when there's a more serious issue. Moderators are appointed by Stack Exchange employees until the site is big enough to elect their own.

Details:

The moderators of this site were appointed by the Stack Exchange employees, after carefully looking at active members of the site who seemed to have a level head, among other traits. For a complete list of such traits, see the Stack Exchange Blog article. I'll give a few tidbits that it mentions, but read the entire thing if you are interested in really learning how this goes.

About a week into the public beta, we will seek out members who are deeply engaged in the community’s development; members who:

• Have a reasonably high reputation score to indicate active, consistent participation.
• Show an interest in their meta’s community-building activities.
• Lead by example, showing patience and respect for their fellow community members in everything they write.
• Exhibit those intangible traits discussed in A Theory of Moderation.

A Moderator is the site’s representative to the Network.

• On a local level, they make sure their members have the means to work through local issues where they can.
• They elicit help from us, and their moderator peers on the same site and within the network, as necessary.
• If there’s a feature request for a specific site, it’s up to that community to vet the idea in their own meta. If the idea has merit, the Moderator would bring it to the Stack Exchange team.

If you have an issue, the best thing is to bring it up on the meta site, and ask specific questions. If you do, then the community forms a consensus, which the moderators will help to enforce. If you have a problem with a specific moderator, and have otherwise tried to resolve it, then feel free to contact Stack Exchange directly using the link below. Warning, they will want you to try and resolve most issues via Meta.

Eventually, moderators will be elected, when this site "graduates" from beta. This is expected to happen sometime relatively soon.

Answer 2

Stackexhange sites are frequently misunderstood at first. It happens a lot.

Fairly conmonly people think stackexhanges as forums. Even most questions reflect this. The idea that building a database of good questions and answers is a bit unnatural. This is why many occupations are not represented and cartered for. Especially areas where information scarcity is the key to profitability.

It is quite natural to get agravated when there is mismatch between what you think how things should be and how they are.

Then there is the possibility that the goals of the graphics design exhange mismatch with yours. Thats fine, it happens. Some other resource night be better for you. Ultimately choosing something that makes you happy is recommended.

PS I dont like the word professional. Its far too easy to get that title and it can exclude true masters just because they have chosen a different profession.

Answer 3

This whole site is community moderated. So, to answer your question, everyone is a moderator. We work together to establish a productive question and answer site. In order to do that, we must enforce rules established by the community in order to maintain a respectable level of quality.

I'm one of the pro tempore moderators that Pearson mentioned. For more information about their specific duties, check out this section of the help center. If you have an issue with any action I've taken, bring it up on meta and I'll be more than happy to discuss it with you.

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..."Who decided on the moderators and what are their goals?" seems to have been misinterpreted, wholesale. The second part of the question - What are the goals of those that started and initially appointed moderators? If those goals have flex built in, and take consideration of the differences between those that design vs those that develop, then there's at least some room to consider what the possibilities are for adaptation to the realities of graphic design as hobby & profession.

I cannot speak on behalf of the goals of those that appointed me, started it, host it, or develop it. Nor was I even around when the first moderators were chosen for this site. I'm the newest moderator here, Pearson is the only remaining "first round draft picks". I fit none of those categories, but I can tell identify who they are.

Who appointed me?

I was chosen by the Stack Exchange community managers team. I don't know the specific details of the decision, but I can tell you it was Abby that made the announcement. She contacted me privately asking if I was interested and I accepted.

Who started this site?

You could say that Jeff and Joel started this site seeing as they're the co-founders of Stack Exchange, but that wouldn't be accurate. They merely provided the tools and the venue. This site was proposed as a potential site for Stack Exchange by existing users on other sites. The proposal required a group of interested individuals to come up with example questions and agree to commit their participation to the site. The list of 37 people that actively participated in the private beta can be found here, but those individuals don't have any special privileges.

Who hosts it?

Stack Exchange

Who develops it?

You can find the developers for Stack Exchange here

Is any of this relevant?

Not particularly. The founders and developers for the most part maintain a hands-off approach to our community. Internal periodical reviews are done by the community managers (employees of Stack Exchange) to make sure our site is doing alright. We are limited only by the technical aspects of the Stack Exchange platform.

So, who runs this community? The community runs this community. I cannot stress that enough. We aren't required to abide by any mystical "goals" of Stack Exchange. We are able to decide as a community what sort of questions should be on-topic at our site and which should not be. The scope of our site is not set in stone and is open to discussion and modification.

There are many aspects of our site that are against the rules at other Stack Exchange sites. I can give you a specific example: we allow software-recommendations. That is explicitly off-topic at Stack Overflow (and it's even one of the pre-cooked off topic close reasons).

If there's something specific that you think should be changed, bring it up. I will not dismiss anyone's opinion just because they are new to the site. All the same, I won't ignore the opinions of users that have been participating on the site for three years.

The goal of this community is to produce a high quality question and answer site. In order to maintain the level of quality that we expect, we cannot give carte blanche and allow any and all questions that are remotely related to graphic design. Our democratically chosen scope is focused on questions that are not too subjective or opinionated. Yes, that can be difficult when dealing with a subject like graphic design, but I feel we've done an alright job so far. If that restriction is too limiting for you, I suggest moving elsewhere.

Answer 4

A) Stack Exchange sites are not "forums". To this end, they are not places for debates, rants, personal diatribes, or arguments about an answer. If you disagree with an answer, provide your own answer.

B) Stack Exchange sites are community driven and while moderators have more editing power than community members, moderators are not the "judge" of most things. The community is. You may want to familiarize yourself with the FAQ a bit.

C) You've been here 5 days and simply complain about everything. Frankly, you should actually get to know the community a bit before just ranting. If you don't like the way people here assist others, then supply your own answers and stop worrying so much about what other people do. Honestly, your'e coming across as a child throwing a tantrum. That is not to say you are --- but that's the impression I'm getting.

Answer 5

My Good Sir,

As per your question the community selected the moderators. The community votes up or down. The community closes or reopens. You're welcome to join the community and discuss the way things are done by using https://graphicdesign.meta.stackexchange.com/ (where this was migrated to) which has many existing questions about what we, as a community, want in questions and what we do not want.

Answer 6

There are a few full-access moderators; you will recognise them by the little diamond next to their name. But for the most part, the forum is moderated by its users. As you gain reputation, you can vote for closing, reopening, low quality, first posts etc etc.

I can assure you that there is often disagreement from people wether a post should be altered in some way. Personally, I tend to err on the side of caution.

I have not been here very long, and are still working out what "my" rationale and where I would like to draw lines, as per my personal opinion (that I feel I can stand for).

Answer 7

Well the mods are decided by the community. We have what is called an "election" in stages:

• First stage of the election is called the Nomination where people can cast their vote on why the would make a good mod.
• Second stage is called the primary where we up or downvote for the mod.
• Third is called the election where we vote on the top to deside who is a mod.

Example from AskUbuntu:

To vote in an election requires a certain amount of rep. If this site is in beta at the birth of the site Stack nominates, after some discussion, on who the mods are going to be.

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Now to answer the other issues here:

You may not understand but Stack is a professional board, not a forum where anything goes. We request people to post educated, quality, and effort questions. Just because the site says Graphic Design doesn't mean we allow anything under the moon that may be design related and the community has a right to vote on the quality of the questions they like. We require a structure. That said everything is done as a community in regards to voting to close, editing, etc. etc. Our qualifications that decide what we can do are by the amount of rep we have because at certain rep levels unlocks certain rights.

Answer 8

I have to point out something you're missing @Confused, and I have to say @Yisela you used an incorrect phrase. Questions are no longer closed. They are put on hold to be improved if possible through communication between the OP and community members/mods.

It would be very interesting to see stats on how many questions have been put on hold, edited and reopened. Not to mention all the posts that were edited through communication that would have otherwise been closed.

Finally, if you were a higher rep member you would see all the spam, flags and subsequent editing that everyone happily deals with daily. Who do you think built this site up to the quality of content you can now enjoy? Who continues its upkeep? If you knew how much these people do, you'd have no basis for argument.