Who should our moderators be?

Question

It's time to think about who the mods should be, and one way to do that is "nominate" candidates for the role of moderator pro tempore. These nominations won't lead to elections, since this is a beta site. Instead, the Stack Exchange team will take these recommendations into consideration as they select these provisional moderators, and when we graduate, we'll have an actual election.

If you want to nominate someone, please check first for other answers nominating the same person, and upvote that instead of posting your own answer. Nominations should have the name of the nominee and a brief explanation of why you think they'd make a good mod

To disagree with a nomination, downvote, and ideally comment on why you disagree. Do not edit the answer. Note that agreeing with one nomination does not mean disagreeing with all of the others – "X is better" isn't a reason for Y to not be a mod. We have three slots, after all.

If you've been nominated and for any reason you can't or don't want to be a moderator, do it anyway please edit the post to say that. You don't have to be specific as to why, but for this pseudo-nomination we need to make sure we only think about people who could actually do what's needed. Likewise, if you are able and willing to, please edit the answer to reflect that, and maybe even add a short "campaign speech".

If you are interested in becoming a moderator and feel that you could do it, nominate yourself! Self nominations are encouraged.

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Here is an example nomination entry. You can copy-and-paste from the format below:

##[username](<main profile link>) ([meta](<meta profile link>))

Notes:

<why you feel nominee would be a useful addition to the pro tem choices>

Please ensure that your nomination is community wiki. This allows anyone, even those without full editing privileges, to edit freely.

To be edited in by the nominee:

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> **Nomination accepted/rejected**

I am name/age/location/fun fact (all optional). I live in location, so
I am generally active on this site from <time> to <time>. Some other 
things you may want to know about me are ...

etc.

Answer 1

Joonas Ilmavirta (meta)

I feel that Joonas would make a good pro tem moderator on Latin.SE for the following reasons:

• He's been consistently active here, as shown by his regular posting, his voting, and his efforts in the review queues.
• He's familiar with and dedicated to moderation: he has numerous Steward and Reviewer badges on other SE sites, with lots of helpful flags spread across them.
• He's involved in meta, with several posts here, and more on other SE sites.
• I've found him knowledgeable, friendly, and helpful.

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Nomination accepted.

Latin is not what I do for a living, but I am qualified to teach it at high school level. For me this site is an opportunity for keeping my old skills in shape, learning more and hopefully also helping others. Given my enthusiasm to use, promote and learn Latin, I doubt my interest in this site could fade any time soon.

I regard moderators more as janitors than leaders. I believe that moderators should mostly act as members of community, moderating the site as any other user and only using their superpowers when needed. I am ready for such janitorial work, and I am also capable of communicating in Latin.

A researcher's life can be hectic, and I can't promise any fixed hours of activity even when I am close my usual time zone. I hope my connections to other SE sites and other Finnish Latinists can be of use.

I am available for this position, but I do not demand it; I'm happy either way, as long as the site keeps producing quality content and everyone feels welcome.

Answer 2

There are quite a few good users here worthy of becoming pro temp moderator, so I hope this nomination does not feel like a slight toward anyone else, but I would like to nominate Cerberus.

Cerberus (meta)

• Cerberus is a seasoned user with 40k+ reputation on the English stack, while maintaining a high reputation here as well. I think it's fair to say that he has a good idea how SE works.

• He has a Masters degree in Classics (pending thesis), which means he knows how to research questions. This will come in handy when—si di immortales volunt—we get tougher and tougher questions.

• He can compose in Latin, which may have utility if we get an influx of non-English-speaking students of Latin.

• His questions are exempla for everyone, as they're thought-out and well-researched before asking.

• He's very active in the comments, which sometimes is even more important than answers (not that he's not active in answers, too, though!).

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Nomination accepted but precedence given to those more fitting

This would be a great honour. And I'd be happy to spend a bit of time and energy to keep the website running smoothly and doing whatever the consensus wanted done. But there can be only three moderators, and I'm not especially suited to be a bureaucrat: I'm more of a common-sense dog. Moderation may involve scary rules and regulations! So I'll gladly endorse Weimer, Nathaniel, and Joonas. However, this is likely to remain a small site, with little bureaucracy and few bothersome visitors, so I'm more than willing to moderate if some of the others should have a change of heart or find that they lack the time.

I live in Amsterdam, and I can be found here at random hours ignoring my allotted time zone. I have all but an MA in classics ("working on" thesis) and a few more things.

I can be found in chat, which I think is a really nice place to found a community and discuss what we want to do or be. So far, the people on our site are cooler than anywhere else!

Answer 3

C. M. Weimer (meta)

I think he would be a good moderator for three big reasons, which cover all of the smaller ones:

• He's always polite and helpful, which is a good trait because mods have to regularly deal with [censored]s and new people, who both benefit from someone who keeps a clear head and knows what to do to help.

• He's been the highest-rep user since Day 1, which means that the community loves him and he contributes helpful content.

• He is an expert in the language, which is useful if/when we get people who only have Latin as a common language and we need someone who understands it fluently on the moderation team.

• He's active on Meta, more for answers than questions though.

• He's active on the main site, contributing answers to tough questions

• He's active in chat (whenever chat is active)

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I am unsure of future time commitments.

Answer 4

Nathaniel (meta)

Nathaniel has been active, knowledgeable and kind. Activity on meta and experience with other SE sites, including meta and moderation work, suggest that Nathaniel could make a good moderator for us.

(I didn't want to copy what you wrote about me verbatim, even if it describes you more than me.)

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Nomination accepted.

Be forewarned, if it's not obvious already, I'm no Latin expert. However, I really want to see this site succeed, so that in a few years we are the place to come for serious Latin questions.

I'm relatively new to Stack Exchange, but I love the Q&A format and its emphasis on bringing visibility and stability to high-quality content. It's simply the best platform I've found for sharing information (sorry Wikipedia).

I'm perfectly happy doing the menial work of moderation, as I've shown here and on other sites. That said, I strongly believe that the vast majority of moderation should be done by the community: flags, close votes, and review queues are excellent tools and need to be utilized. For moderators, a light-handed approach is therefore best.

I look forward to being a part of this site's success, whether I'm a moderator or not. Thanks for considering me!

^{My availability drops off between 2 and 11 GMT.}