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Chemistry StackExchange has been in public beta for a week now, and soon it will be time for us to get our first crop of moderators, as explained in the “Moderator Pro Tempore” blog post:

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.

Each beta site has three moderators on a temporary, short-term appointment. Moderators Pro Tem focus and expedite the essential needs of each new site, both in terms of regular moderator activies and as a liaison of the growing community with the Stack Exchange team. By the end of Beta, the community will be better suited to hold their own elections.

The moderators pro tempore will ultimately be selected by Stack Exchange Although during beta moderators will, the purpose of this post is to seek out and propose candidates:

  • Each nomination should be posted as an answer and it should include (at minimum) a link to the user's main and meta profile so we can check out their activity.
  • Self nominations are encouraged, step up if you feel you can help.
  • If you are nominated by someone else you should edit the answer and let us know if you accept or decline (explanation optional). If a nominee declines we will not delete the answer, as to not have someone else nominate them again.
  • The nominations are not binding to Stack Exchange or the nominees.
  • Before nominating someone or accept / decline a nomination, you should read A Theory of Moderation thoroughly to find out what's generally expected from moderators.

If you would like to learn more about the role, please drop into our chat room[1] where you can ask about the role from other moderators (they appear with a blue name in the chat room). Another chatroom called The Assembly was created specifically for users and moderators to discuss moderation activities, moderators from all over the network are there to answer your questions.

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  • $\begingroup$ I know this was closed long ago, but it has invalid links for A Theory of Moderation and had been used as a template for questions on several other sites, where those errors were carried on though (until they were corrected) so it might be worth fixing them here too. $\endgroup$
    – Mark Booth
    Jan 13, 2016 at 2:00

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I'll demonstrate that self-nomination is encouraged if you feel you can contribute to moderation by nominating myself. I am:

My vision of a pro tem moderator is pretty common:

  1. help the community define its own standards (what's on topic, what's “too easy” or “too homeworky/not enough effort shown”, etc.)
  2. act as a link with the SE team, getting feedback or action from them when needed (features needed, site evaluations feedback, site promotion ideas, etc.)
  3. perform everyday moderation duties (cleanups, edits, flag arbitration, etc.)
  4. encourage the community to take part in moderation! a lots of things like leaving a nice comment on new users's posts can be distributed work…

Though as anyone, my time is not infinite, I will continue to roam these seas and will formally resign if I were not to have time anymore (which would probably trigger another mod being nominated). This post being already long, I stop here and encourage you to ask questions in comments or in the chatroom.

PS: The green dragon is a Mahjong tile, not a hint that I speak Chinese :)

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Link to main profile, Link to meta profile,

enter link description here Network-wide flair

Ignore the Tim, that's just since the flair shows my MSO username.

Alright, after thinking about this I decide to nominate myself as well. Sounds like an awesome way for me to help the community.

Alright, one rather large issue here is that I'm not an expert in Chemistry. I usually know what's being talked about, but not enough to be able to answer most questions. My knowledge in chemistry is a mix of high-school/first year's level chem and stuff I've read up on the internet--this leads to me asking lots of questions here, and providing few answers.

That being said, I don't think it will be too detrimental to my modship (if I indeed am elected). As I mentioned, I can understand what's going on, so I can still gauge the quality of a post and if it requires any intervention. Also, from what I've seen on Physics.SE, usually the mods don't need to know what a post is exactly about to take action (usually it's obvious).

I am an active participant on MSO (profile), which means that I do have a good understanding of how SE sites operate and the general feelings of the SE community. I think I do, anyway.

I also am active on Physics.SE (profile). Well, I was active, recently there aren't many questions within my capabilities--and I was sort of busy with the site migrations.

I sort of tend towards meta-ness a bit too much. This is probably because I'm eager to contribute, but I lack expertise. Looking at it, I'm Physics.SE's top meta participant, and also for chem.SE. I don't know if this is a bad thing-- on one side, meta is murder :( . On the other side, we do need active meta participation to build a shiny new site.

So, what do I plan to do if I get handed the diamond? Well, whatever the community expects me to do, I guess ;-). Handling flags, closing questions (rather necessary at this stage since not all our CVers are active enough), generally making comments asking for post improvement seem to be the stuff that we're all expected to do.

Additionally, I'll continue to be active in site-building activities in meta.

If you have any questions for me, feel free to ask them in the comments. Long, drawn out discussions go to chat, of course!

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  • $\begingroup$ My understanding is that being a mod has nothing (or very little) to do with the material at hand. Flags can be rejected for a reason that is something like "moderators are not responsible for removing incorrect answers" Don't worry about the expertise so much. Much more important is moderating (if you get the diamond). $\endgroup$
    – soandos
    May 16, 2012 at 5:56
  • $\begingroup$ @soandos: Yeah, I know about the "Flags not for wrong stuff" (written a few MSO posts on that). Just that usually mods know the subject matter well, and I wanted to put everything up front.. You seem to know about moderating, any reason for not nominating yourself? (As you can see, we need candidates) $\endgroup$
    – ManishEarth
    May 16, 2012 at 5:59
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I'm not sure if it's too late, but I'd like to throw my hat into the ring.

  • I have the experience (20K user on Stack Exchange, multiple Copy Editor badges (SO and SU), Marshal on SO and Programmers, moderator pro tempore of Healthcare IT from 12/11 - 5/12, I have a good idea of the on-topic questions on related sites, and where things "go").
    I don't have as much experience on the site as some of the other candidates, I only started posting/answering questions about halfway through, but I intend on asking/answering many more as we go -- I'm trying to review, most of my chemistry notes are still written on stone tablets, er, paper.

    profile for jonsca on Stack Exchange, a network of free, community-driven Q&A sites http://stackexchange.com/users/flair/325297.png profile for jonsca at Chemistry, Q&A for scientists, academics, teachers and students

  • I have the passion - I enjoy the subject immensely, though I hold degrees in the life sciences, I have been on the site each day, I have voted carefully and accurately

  • I have the vision - while HIT failed, we did bring up the overall views of the site to a respectable level, and we kept the content quality up while being as inclusive as possible with content. While I'm not as inclusive on SO, I believe it is essential to bolster a new site until it has firm footing. I am active on Cognitive Sciences and Biology, two sites that were created much like this one and are forging ahead in the science area, so I would share my thoughts and experiences from there, here.

All of these candidates are top-notch, but I believe that I bring a unique blend of experience that will help this site grow through beta and eventually thrive.

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  • $\begingroup$ We haven't heard the fat lady sing yet (GraceNote, Shog9 & others from SE team, I don't mean you), so it's not too late… and it is welcome! $\endgroup$
    – F'x
    May 20, 2012 at 22:14
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I’d like to nominate Richard Terrett (meta).

He's a regular on Physics and TeX.SE, and has demonstrated his commitment to our Chemistry community by both high-quality answers and questions, and participating in the site's meta life (on meta, on chat, in comments). He is open-minded, curious and conscientious, qualities that I consider crucial as a moderator on a SE site, especially on a scientific topic.

Richard has accepted the nomination.

Hi, this is Richard. I'm a grad student in chemistry, specifically computational chemistry. I've looked forward to the possibility of chem.SE (far more so that any other SE site) for a long time now and will stick with the beta to the end (and hopefully beyond). I write (IMHO) fairly detailed, passionate and comprehensively referenced answers. I visit chem.SE multiple times daily and am possibly uniquely situated in the GMT+10 timezone. As a mod, I would be happy to deal with flags, assist in dispute resolution where applicable and bring my often seemingly contrarian point of view to meta discussions on scope and such. :D I would also be interested in suggesting possible aesthetics for the site if/when it graduates.

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  • $\begingroup$ I accept this nomination, though I am not able to edit this answer. $\endgroup$
    – Richard Terrett
    May 16, 2012 at 11:11
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I'm nominating Nick T (meta).

He's pretty active on Gaming (10k+ there). His posts here are awesome, and he's active on this meta as well.

I've only interacted with him a few times, but he seems to know his way around our engine and our policies.

From the nominee:

While there aren't as many questions here as I would like (:P), I would still like to take a heavier involvement in the development of the website to clean it up and make it as attractive and shiny as possible.

As mentioned, I have had a fair bit of activity network-wide, starting in SO for a while, then EE.SE, and currently Gaming. I've had a recent lack of answers as I think Skeptics scared me off from writing any answers without a half-dozen journal articles I can point to. Nevertheless, I am fairly familiar with site management, having worked heavily with mods at EE.SE and Gaming to try to fix tags (always fun), figure out 'what is a dupe', and so on.

I'm starting a PhD program in a few months, not sure what that means for my time, but hopefully I will have helped this site lift off by then :D.

Cheers,
Nick

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  • $\begingroup$ mod nominated a not mod to be a mod. wow - many many modulations, er, congratulations... $\endgroup$
    – user3459110
    Apr 28, 2014 at 9:21

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