2013 Moderator Election

Hi all,

I've been a member of this site pretty much from its post-beta inception and forward. Prior to that, I was a moderater on one of the predecessor photography sites (now since closed down). Needless to say, I'm keenly interested in the life of this community and as a result I've been active in the review process (I lead in a couple of categories and are amongst the leaders in others), editing, answering, providing comments, etc. I try to participate where I feel I have something strong to offer and, except for the odd vacation where I didn't have Internet access, I'm on the site many times a day.

So, I'm interested in helping with the moderation of the site because I do feel that I can contribute more to this community now. Moderation, to me, means a light hand that doesn't attempt to run the community, but instead attempts to respond to it. I've been around and active to understand, I think, what that implies and it's something our moderators have been quite good at.

We have a great community and I desire to continue helping it stay that way.

Hi, I'm Mike, a hobbyist photographer who joined Stack Overflow 4 years ago and have been active here since July 2011, visiting the site daily. I ran for moderator in the last election and would like to run again. I spend a lot of time in housekeeping activities: keeping the review queue empty, editing questions and answers, retagging, flagging posts, creating and editing tag wiki pages.

I've made an effort of late to vote more, and comment wherever I can to help users clarify and improve their questions and answers rather than simply downvoting and voting to close. We need to maintain quality, but I like to be tolerant and let new users develop their questions to fit our format.

I'm a big believer in the Stack Exchange concept and would like to do more to help out.

While I am still fairly new to Photography on Stack Exchange, I am a regular contributor to both this and other sites on the StackExchange network. I have years of background in general A/V and photography at a mix of high level amateur and part time professional levels. I am by no means the most knowledgeable person on the site, but I'm here to offer what I do know and to learn from those who know more.

As for why I would be a good moderator, I have extensive experience working with large groups through working with the leadership of multiple online communities in the past, including several larger ones with hundreds of members. I understand the need to let the community be the community and only step in when required. I am an experienced member of SE that knows the concept of the site and I have the patience to help newcomers become valuable members of the community.

I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt and seeking to help them fit better. When conflicts do arise, I believe in understanding where all parties are coming from to try to resolve the issue fairly. I enjoy and participate regularly in review tasks on all SE sites where I have review privileges.