Тyma Gaidash
I too have decided to throw my hat into the ring.
Even before I joined, I occasionally used the site to learn about more advanced math. This was for both curiosity and help with solving my own problems. Later, I joined in 2021 and was looking for help with a tricky trigonometric problem. As time went on, I learned a multitude of new analytic methods which in turn allowed me to answer others on the site helping them.
From then on, I have engaged more with the community and inner workings of the site. The people here are glad to share their expertise with one another and help out. Furthermore, I have noticed the value of the site as a general resource for people at any level of mathematics and hope to maintain it. However, the site is not perfect and there are still a few issues with quality management.
If I am elected, I will keep guiding the community as it has been throughout the years further promoting quality content while trying to improve low quality posts, dealing with spammers, and removing junk. However, I will mostly be a janitor and follow through on flags.
I have come here for over 800 days straight, and have over 1200 reviews/2000 close votes.
- 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?
Sometimes users get into disagreements and discuss them, but may escalate into arguments with name calling, accusations, etc, and many comment flags.
I can just delete such comments as it is uninvasive and gives others a reminder to remain civil. Sometimes, most comments are just from the argument. In this case comments are purged and constructive/helpful ones kept. I can leave a reminder to stay civil too.
Of course, if the behavior continues, I can discuss the reasons with them in a private room. Additionally, they may bring issues, like harassment, being valuable to prevent it next time. Finally, or if the comments were abusive beforehand, I would send warning message and then increasing suspensions so they cool down and reflect.
- How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc. a question that you feel shouldn’t have been?
Well intentioned people can disagree, even moderators, so private moderator communication is helpful. I will ping and ask why they did the action and politely say why I disagree. Hopefully, we can review our points and compromise a decision.
However, when we do not, additional members from the moderation team can go in and share their ideas about it. If me and the moderator with whom I disagree have strong contentions, then we would let the rest of moderation team decide. This is so that our potential biases do not interfere and a fair decision is made.
- If you had to change any of math.se's community-specific policies and precedents, what would you choose, and what would you hope to achieve by this change? Here, "community-specific" refers to practices only in place on math.se, not the network at large. Some examples would be how we define context, how we enforce against lack of context (both asking and answering), community norms around big-list and proof-verification, "hint" answers, etc. I propose this question because it shows the candidate's knowledge and opinion of local policy, and provides insight on what they hope to achieve using their influence as a moderator.
Including work in questions should be deemphasized and other context emphasized.
I have noticed many new users confused regarding including work/an attempt just stating “I tried _____ theorem, but I then I was stuck”. Later, when asked to show it, they are confused thinking they already did. Also, some just state it to keep their question open not knowing why it’s important. It is easily done and does not say what the asker already knows. Therefore, guidelines should further clarify writing out work.
If they still cannot or are unsure how to include work, then guidelines should focus on other context. For example, motivation for why it is interesting or why they want to solve it. Additionally, writing the question’s source could give the actual math problem the asker wants to solve.
- Math.SE seems to, in practice, fulfill dual purposes: to be a repository of mathematical knowledge in a Q&A format, and a place for people to get specialist, individual help with mathematics. Often these purposes align, but sometimes they clash. Which do you see as the primary purpose of MSE? What influence do you anticipate this might have on your actions as moderator? [ A similar version of this question was asked in the prior moderator election and led to responses that seemed informative to me.]
For me, the purpose is collaborating to create a learning resource from which people’s problems are solved. Especially, the site helps thousands/millions of people to learn without logging in. For example, visuals/detailed explanations help other more deeply understand theorems. This site is not just for expanding knowledge, but also to teach students that are stuck. Contributors give step-by-step solutions and various explanations than in class helping to clarify.
Specialist help adds to that collection as there are many users that can help answer thanks to the variety of users. Future readers access it too and learn advanced concepts. The variety of quality knowledge is a huge advantage of the site. As such, useful specialist knowledge does not clash with the site’s purpose.
However, there are highly individualized questions with little context only on their importance, only benefiting the asker. A lot have been asked many, many times. To prevent this, we must maintain high quality and help improve low quality questions. If not, they should be separated and users should keep themselves from answering, to promote site quality. More details are in question 6.
- What has your involvement in moderation issues looked like in the past? For example, have you helped maintain particular tags, been active in review queues, or provided help on meta? How do you see this changing as you step in to a more official role? (I asked this last election here.)
I enjoy review queues with over 1200 regular reviews and 2000 close votes. When possible, I comment about how to further develop the post and usually edit for formatting, clarity, and removing unnecessary/mean content with over 300 edits. I often flag low quality posts, spam, rude comments, and strange behavior like editing conflicts to clean up the site. I visit meta almost daily and contribute mostly via comments, some on questionable (and now deleted) posts with some questions/answers.
Next, I regularly visit the Math Mods’ Office sometimes leaving messages about problematic behavior. On top of that, I contribute to CURED pretty regularly, learning more about site standards and indicating rude edits, posting patterns, and other anomalies (most of which taken care of and thus helpful). To help site quality, I also close/delete from there questions.
Finally, about a month ago, I have used the contact feature to report a data explorer security exploit with issue fixed only about a day later. I would give more details, but the Stack Exchange team has decided to keep details mostly hidden.
- An effective question has always been: What is/are the most pressing issue(s) on Mathematics Stack Exchange and how will you address it/them as a moderator?
A recent one is handling old questions now not up to site standards. There are debates/various opinions in meta about whether to close or let them be with mixed results in review queues. I put forward that such questions should be mostly left alone unless made active as they now have more exposure. It is up to the community to moderate them, but time is better spent on newer, relevant questions and not purposely looking for them. Many were popular due to just giving a hard/“impressive” problem, but leave no deep understanding of the topic and contribute less to the site’s purpose as a learning resource, like in question 4. As a moderator team, we can add it into site practices and I can answer on meta about it. If needed, I can cast the last close vote too.
Next, even with Enforcement of Quality Standards (EoQS) and high reputation users suspended for its violation, they keep answering problem-only/duplicate questions with many upvoted/accepted. In turn they quickly gain reputation, regardless of question quality, and there is a failure to community moderate. I would continue clearing EoQS flags identifying problem-only questions, those really lacking context/details, and duplicates asked many times, answered by high reputation users warning or suspending them if the behavior persists. To prevent it, I would encourage more context partly by guiding questions. I can cast the fifth close vote or, if it is very low quality, a binding close vote and the fifth reopen vote after improvement. Thus, question quality goes up and EoQS violations go down. CURED is also useful for closing, reopening, or deleting (for those with an accepted answer preventing auto-deletion) combined with the diamond for more users to see them.
- What steps can be taken to improve the quality of new questions and encourage expert users to invest time in providing well-crafted answers on the site?
I think there is not a huge decline, but we can improve some. Question 3 addresses it by changing some guidelines for context on questions. In short, many new users are confused by “including work” on new questions and it should revised for clarity and other types of context should be emphasized. Additionally, answerers generally want to put in the amount of effort the asker has put in. Therefore, by increasing quality, answerers will be more motivated to increase their answer quality.
As for increasing answer quality, the first way is using CURED (a chatroom for closing/reopening, (un)deleting, and editing) is an asset for increasing answer quality. I can remind other users to participate in the room to edit answers in need of improvement and reopen/delete them if needed. Also, guidance for users on quality standards and site policy can be given here which will help others understand site curation. This will remove poorer answers while leaving higher quality ones.
- In your opinion, what do moderators do?
I believe that moderators deal with scenarios that could hurt the community and are reporters to Stack Exchange. They can intervene when the Code of Conduct is broken and during exceptional scenarios like suspicious voting and talk to, warn, or even suspend a user. I think in community emergencies or complex sock puppetry, they are responders by contacting Stack Exchange first.
Mostly, they maintain quality of and clean up the site. I will deal with many flags about problematic comments, posts, and users. This janitorial task is one of most crucial in my moderation where I can destroy spam. I have a few hours to can spend daily and think I will enjoy handling flags.
- 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 avoid situations, like very heated debates, ending in regret and angry comments that would prevent me from being a moderator. I try not to post what I do not want my name to be connected to and having a having a diamond will be a bigger responsibility. It would be similar to being accepted to a job; you need to use your position professionally. With a diamond, I will be more careful with what I say while still being patient and firm in tense situations.
- In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching enough reputation to access moderator tools or become a trusted user?
Binding close votes on very low quality questions save time for other users. Binding delete votes/spam flags are used for removing appalling posts, but sparingly as regular users cannot undo them.
I enjoy analyzing patterns of problematic usage, like very similar question styles indicating shared accounts or secretly done actions, like editing in revenge statements post-deletion and quickly deleted angry comments. Unfortunately, “access to moderator tools”, and logically privileges after it, have limitations and diamond powers have few to more deeply understand the problematic behaviors. Finally, users listen more to moderator, who has more authority, and remind others to be civil.
