2021 Moderator Election

nomination began
Mar 29, 2021 at 20:00
election began
Apr 5, 2021 at 20:00
election ended
Apr 13, 2021 at 20:00
candidates
9
positions
3

On Stack Exchange, we believe the core moderators should come from the community, and be elected by the community itself through popular vote. We hold regular elections to determine who these community moderators will be.

Community moderators are accorded the highest level of privilege on our community, and should themselves be exemplars of positive behavior and leaders within the community.

Our general criteria for moderators is as follows:

  • patient and fair
  • leads by example
  • shows respect for their fellow community members in their actions and words
  • open to some light but firm moderation to keep the community on track and resolve (hopefully) uncommon disputes and exceptions

Every election has three phases:

  1. Nomination
  2. Primary
  3. Election

Please participate in the moderator elections by voting, and perhaps even by nominating yourself to be a community moderator!

Pedro Tamaroff

I have been a moderator on the sister site math.SE since 2014 (and participated there since 2012). I've been participating less intensively in MO around 2018.

In math.SE I have about 7 years of experience as a moderator, dealing both with "site maintenance" and with mediating conflicts between users, welcoming new users to the site, and also helping regular users maintain a civil and productive environment in it. I believe the SE network provides invaluable content for both professional and non-professional users, and I am proud to volunteer to make sure the site is kept running smoothly.

Naturally, MO provides us with a more professional atmosphere, so I hope that a moderatorship here may be closer to what I envisioned when I joined the mod team in math.SE: a community that regulates itself and only needs moderators to intervene in serious/outstanding situations.

I joined math.SE when I was starting my undergraduate studies and continued to participate until today, when I will be soon graduating as a PhD. I'd be more than glad to continue my duties here, where I hope to participate actively in this new stage of my career and improve the user experience.

Liviu Nicolaescu

I have enjoyed and benefitted quite a bit over the years from the contributions to this site and I appreciate that MO is one of the few "clean'' corners of the Internet. I really want it to continue to serve its role and keep the debates academic. It is not in my nature to volunteer for such a public role, and I am not sure I might be the best qualified, but I am sure want to do whatever is in my power to maintain this as a clean and enriching oasis of mathematics. So here I am, throwing my hat in the ring. Stay safe everyone.

Asaf Karagila

I've been a member of this site since the last week of my B.Sc. nearly 11 years ago; I have a permanent job now, in part because of my activity on MathOverflow. In this long decade I spent time observing, voicing my opinion, and learning a whole lot of math while asking and answering.

MathOverflow, in my view, is a mixture of a "traditional Q&A" (like most other sites on the SE network) and a math department, where you can knock on the door of your colleague and ask a random question in their field of expertise. This means that the culture here is a bit more delicate and there's a balance to maintain between "too simple question" and "naive research-level question".

For the last two and a half years I've been a moderator on Math.SE, so I am very familiar with the software, the role of moderators in a community, and with the Community Managers at SE. If elected I will serve as a liaison between the moderating teams on both sites, a role that was vacant since Mariano stepped down from his dual role a couple of years ago.

I've been working with the moderators in the past on several occasions, and I am eager to be able and do even more as part of the team.

Daniel Loughran

I started using mathoverflow over 10 years ago as a PhD student and have found it an incredibly valuable resource. I would love to give something back to this great community that has really helped me to grow as a mathematician.

As a moderator I will uphold the principles of mathoverflow and will act fairly in disputes for both new members and old. In particular, I feel that new users who are unfamiliar with the customs of the community are often marginalised, and I would like to help make such users feel more welcome.

Carl-Fredrik Nyberg Brodda

I do not consider myself to be the most qualified candidate to be a moderator, but I care deeply for the MathOverflow community, and I would certainly not wish for the community to not be given a sufficiently reasonable selection of candidates to choose from.

Over the last three years that I -- a PhD student -- have been a member here, I have become very attached to the very unique community that exists here. As a moderator, I would operate with a light touch to ensure that the spirit of "asking a department colleague a question in the tea room (while thousands are listening in)" can remain, and that new users feel welcome in participating to the extent they are able. I have learned more than I can imagine from participating here, and I wish the same for anyone who participates here, especially junior researchers.

Tim Campion

Who am I? I am currently a 6th year math PhD student at the University of Notre Dame. In the fall, I will start a postdoc at Johns Hopkins University.

Why would I like to be a moderator? I have been on MO since it was a few months old, at a time when I was unsure whether academic mathematics lay in my future. I have grown up mathematically with MO. I would view serving as a moderator as a way to give back to a community from which I have gained a great deal.

How would I approach moderation?

  • I would have much to learn from the current moderation team, who do a fantastic job. I would strive to uphold the existing standards of fairness and good communication.

  • Regarding issues of inclusion and diversity on MO, one measure I advocate is to reach out more formally to newcomers and to underrepresented groups to ask them about their experiences with MO, perhaps through some form of survey.

  • I also advocate creating some more formal position for liaising with Stack Exchange about changes to the software platform as they come down the pipeline.

See my answers to the candidate questions for more information.

Stefan Kohl

MathOverflow is a quite unique place for mathematical discourse among colleagues worldwide where one can ask questions without bothering anyone in person, and where one can be sure that one's question will be seen by experts on the right topic within just hours.

Over the years, I benefitted a lot from this site, both as an asker and as an answerer of questions -- and at least just as much as a reader of other people's interesting questions and answers.

It is my desire to give something back to this site and its community besides contributing questions and answers, and to help it remain such a unique place as it is now.

From the beginning on, I felt welcome on this site -- and I want every other mathematician here feel the same. -- No matter whether they are contributors since many years or whether they are just asking their first question here, and no matter where they come from or who they are.

These will be my main goals as a moderator. -- See my answers to the candidate questions for more information.

Alec Rhea

I began using mathoverflow in earnest back in 2018, and it has been an essential part of my research process and overall mathematical life since then. I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude towards this site and the participants here, and this is the main driving force behind me nominating myself as a moderator.

It strikes me as an immense responsibility to be elected as a handler for something as exceptional and delicate as the community here at MO; a task very easily screwed up, and very hard to get perfectly right. I believe that, with the help of the other excellent moderators already on site and whatever new moderators are elected, I am up to the task.

For a detailed discussion of my positions on the moderating issues the community deemed critical, including potential issues I see with my candidacy, please see my answers to the community questions here: https://meta.mathoverflow.net/a/4958/92164.

If anyone has any additional questions please feel free to post them in the comments below. May the best potential moderators win!

mick

Hi all.
I think I might be a good candidate.
I might not be the best mathematician but I have alot of experience with questions.
Im very good at understanding what people " actually " meant to say and how to help them make their questions better and clearer.
I have 12000+ rep at mathstackexchange mainly earned by questions.
Most moderators are people who answer alot.
That is good but maybe there should be some moderators for questions , beginners and diplomacy.
I think we need to be more openminded and friendly to new people.
I think we should motivate our decisions more to help people.
Imo too many posts are closed without adding comments or advice.
I would be the ideal person to help them improve their questions and " build bridges".
Im am a respectfull polite and patience person and only not when i see others being impolite.
Im a popular moderator in nonmath groups if that might be worth something.

This election is over.