I'm Arsalan Adam Khatri, here are the answers to given questions:
- How would you improve the voting rate on the site? Since the famous meta post Are SharePoint.SE users lazy voters? was asked back in 2013 I have a feeling the community have improved. Or my questions and answers have increased in quality, drawing more community votes. Still, in comparison to other sites, we have a low voting/post ratio. How would you, once elected moderator, improve the voting rate on the site?
Agree to that, I'm also a lazy voter myself. I think the main reason for this is that SharePoint is very diverse in nature and although I'm working on SharePoint since 2010, there are many areas for me which are still untouched. And I think this effects voting, I can't vote on a question/answer that I don't understand.
Also on this community, mostly people are not concerned with voting, reputation etc. They usually get to this community to ask a problem they are having, once they have the answer to it, poof they are gone. So these are usually new users and I think somewhere on the Ask Question screen or right next to the tags in the question we should show a message which goes like if your problem is resolved from any of the answers, you should upvote or select it as an answer (we can revise the message if needed to be more effective). This can appear only to the questioner.
However I do redirect many users who ask anything from me regarding SharePoint to this community and do tell them all the rules about upvoting or selecting an answer to close the question. That I can do without being a moderator too :)
One more thing that bugs me is the questions which are open to discussion or are opinion based, these are the questions I like the most, but they tend to be closed because of their nature. SharePoint is different and yes opinion based questions should be allowed, I don't know how will I change this as a moderator. But definitely that area needs some working.
- 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?
Well if the user is giving valuable answers, he is an asset to the community and must be retained at all costs. Also if that's his nature, we can't change that either. So reviewing his flags unbiasly, giving him a proper comment to not get involved in such arguments should be the best bet. We can however ignore his behavior until it gets worse. And I will definitely hope it doesn't get to that point.
- How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?
This is my favorite question out of all, because many questions I think should not be closed; usually get closed. Most of which are based on opinion or discussion. As I said SharePoint is different and such questions should be allowed, obviously if they not completely go against the rules of community.
People can have difference of opinion and we should respect eachothers opinion but there is always a room for discussion. So I will discuss such questions with fellow moderators and if any rule can be applied where they can remain Open, we do apply that rule otherwise will go with the fellow moderators decision.
- In your opinion, what do moderators do?
Well I don't know what powers are given to moderators, but they review our flags, they settle any disputes, have authority to cancel or abandon someone's account (not sure) or give warnings etc.
So mainly they are responsible to keep the harmony on the community, they are usually involved where human behavior kicks in. Because SO is a strong platform and content integrity is mostly handled with AI or rest of the active members (where they flag, or review).
- 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?
Well that is a great responsibility. I have to think twice maybe thrice before posting anything as a comment, question or answer. That's why I have been on this community for such a long time before nominating myself as a moderator, I did nominate myself in the last election but I withdrew the nomination for the same reason, as I thought I was not ready for such a responsibility.
But now I think I have spent a lot of time learning from existing moderators on how to tackle different situations and need their support if I get elected. So how do I feel, nervous but very excited.
- In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?
With great responsibility comes great power. So although reaching to any specific number in terms of reputation was never my intention. I just wanted to help and get helped where needed, that's why I joined the community and yes I have learnt a lot on this community. And I can guarantee that becoming a moderator will not change that, I will definitely answer or ask questions which is the core of this community.
I would like to answer some other questions which are asked with other nominees:
WHY?
I definitely don't know, I was thinking since about 3 days why am I nominating myself as a moderator because I think I'm doing a good job without being one. But I saw other nominees and I felt like I should be nominating myself, not that other nominees don't deserve but if they do, I do too!
Again the reason to join this community is to help and get helped. Being a moderator will not change that, but definitely once I become I will share it with people around me, maybe post something on LinkedIn or Facebook, not to showoff but that will be out of excitement.
Moderators must carry great responsibilities in terms of their behavior, communication skills, and how smartly they handle conflicts or difference of opinion with good and polite language. Do you think you need any improvement in these points? Will you be able to do justice to the community? Do you have ability to be polite and calm nature when needed?
As I have already expressed, I feel being a moderator is a great responsibility and yes I will have to think many times before posting anything or making any decision.
But yes I have very polite and calm nature and I don't get burst out of anger or any other emotion. Being here for 5 years, I have never been into any argument and yes I think I will be able to do justice to the community.
Any other questions are welcome!