2016 Moderator Election

I've been using Emacs for over 10 years now and have been "living in Emacs" for at least the the last 5. I use it in my work (software development using C, C++, and Python), e-mail, writing (AUCTeX), general note-taking (Org), et cetera.

If there's anything I learned in this time, it is how to ask Emacs.

I've been excited to witness the creation of Emacs SE back in 2014 and have been trying to give back by answering questions here. My current standing (top 1% this quarter and #15 out of 6000 users overall) gives you an idea of how much I enjoy using unanswered questions as an excuse to do the research and learn something new. :-)

I want Emacs and this community to thrive and I'd be happy to contribute to it as a moderator -- if the community would have me.

I am obsessed with Emacs, I use it for just about everything everyday and want to help other people interested in the editor find their way around the initial confusion in order to experience the eventual power.

Since day one of the Emacs SE site I have answered a lot of questions here for primarily two reasons:

1. I want this site to thrive and I want Emacs to thrive.
2. I enjoy it.

I've answered 136 questions.

I've asked 2.

I try to stay fairly active in reviewing posts, and I tend to lean more towards a "Looks Ok", "Leave Open" style of moderation. I would prefer to start a discussion about a post before voting to close it, or editing it on behalf of the poster.

I am here to help others. If being a moderator gives me a better platform to do so, I'd like to be there.

I learnt Emacs with version 19.29 was the latest and greatest and one of these days I'll learn those features introduced by 19.30. (Just kidding, I've become quite reliant on some new features and I'm even starting to use ELPA.)

I've been participating on Emacs Stack Exchange since the private beta and I'm happy with how it's turning out. I'm a bit of a meta junkie. I've also been participating moderation activities open to everyone (with sufficient reputation) such as review queues, edits and comments. I'm even in chat. All of that won't change whether I'm a moderator or not.

I'm currently a moderator on two Stack Exchange sites and a former moderator on two others. I'm willing to lend my experience to this site. However, I do encourage new people to participates — it is not my objective to moderate all the sites. I'm putting myself forward because as I write, there are only 3 candidates, and it takes at least 4 to have an election.

I've been an Emacs user for almost two years. I've been truly impressed by my new-found ability to turn text-editing ideas into reality. Emacs.SE is a wonderful, welcoming community, and I would like to help it however I can.

I'll be honest. Here are a few reasons I may not serve as a good moderator:

• I use Emacs as a text editor.

  I do not use Emacs to read mail, view documents, surf the web, or organize my life. I do not disagree with those who do, I simply haven't had the time to explore those realms of Emacs. As such, I am not useful when it comes to many popular topics on Emacs.SE.

• I am a student.

  This point may not seem like a very big deal. Basically, this means that my contributions to this community come in concentrated chunks. On test days, I focus on the tests. I contribute far more during the summer and on holidays. During crunch time, I may disappear for weeks on end.

It is my most sincere hope that the ones best suited for this position will win. I am nominating myself (a bit late, I fear) with the goal of inspiring other, hopefully better, candidates to nominate themselves as well.

I am new to Emacs. I have been an Emacs user probably for as long as I have been a participant on Emacs SE. However, I am heavily invested in Emacs, and dedicated to becoming better at using it each day, and helping others to do the same.

In recent months, I have become more and more active in this community, and find it to be the most helpful, welcoming, and healthy of all the SEs that I participate in (not to say that the others are unwelcoming, unhelpful, or unhealthy - but participants in this site will understand what I mean, I am sure).

I am proud to be a part of this community, and though I am certainly not the most qualified, I would be honored to play a small part in keeping Emacs Stack Exchange great!

I'm currently an appointed moderator and want to see this site thrive. I'm willing to continue to mod if it will help.

Why me

• Experience. I've been doing it for a year+, and nothing has blown up.
• Contributor. I answer a lot of questions (200-ish), but I also ask a lot of them (75-ish). I think one of our biggest challenges is getting enough interesting questions posted to keep people engaged. I'm not going to pretend that I posted my questions out of pure public-spiritedness, but I do think that good questions are as much a public good as are good answers.

Why not me

• You'd like new faces. Totally reasonable, and there are several good candidates from which to choose.
• I do downvote on occasion. You might not consider that reasonable behavior for a moderator. I try to do it sparingly, but when I do, it's either because of abrasive tone or lack of reasonable research effort.
• I'm not a copy-editor. Although I do clean up posts, I don't think it's the moderator's job to micro-manage or otherwise copy-edit them.