2018 Moderator Election

Greeting everybody, I am DarkCygnus (or Mike outside the digital world) and I would like to serve you as a Moderator on this site.

I recently joined this wonderful Community, but I quickly became engaged and participative on it. I have been actively editing, commenting, and answering posts with the purpose of helping others and improving the site. I intend to keep doing this, and now would like to increase my possibilities to assist The Workplace by serving as your Moderator.

Despite my recent joining to this Community, I have been around in the SE network for around 4 years now (here, SO, Meta SE, Board & Card Games), where I have had quite some time to read, ask, and learn about the system. I am a good observer, which is perhaps one of the reasons I am a quick learner.

I think that The Workplace is a great community that is helping many people out there face real life situations, and I am positive that we can continue growing and improving ourselves and the Community.

I would love to be your Moderator so we can together strive for an even greater and wiser Community.

My answers to the questionnaire here

I would like to serve the community as a moderator for the Workplace.

I haven't been a moderator on the stack as of yet, but I have been on here for awhile and have a great deal of experience working with all kinds of different people and situations. Being a moderator is primarily about dealing with people in a calm, polite, and fair manner, and in this I have a ton of experience.

A little about me: I am in my forties, a father of 2, and I have a lot of different work experience. I have been a waiter, box packer, dishwasher, grocery bagger, US military service member, salesman, and currently a senior software engineer.

During my introduction phase at TWP, many of our more experienced users helped me. They showed patience, calmness, and the genuine willingness to make me a better community member, and for this I am very grateful.

Why would I want to serve as a moderator? Simple really, I would like to give back to the community, and continue in the tradition of our great mods by moderating with a very light touch, and by always being nice.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

I'm a firm believer that the best way to moderate is with a light hand wherever possible. I believe that if you are seeing moderators all the time (aside from the diamond next their name) then something isn't right. It's either a community issue or the mod is being heavy handed.

I've been a member of this community for a while. I know when to ask for help, apply the rules fairly and evenly, regardless of someone's history (positive or negative), when moderating a question. That's very important to me. Right is right. Everyone deserves to treated well. Bias will torpedo any community.

I'm a mature adult and I can put whatever time is needed into it.

If you have any questions for me, ask away!

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I have moderator experience on a bunch of gaming boards dating back to about 1999 (everquest actually), so this wouldn't be my first gig.

I would like to be a moderator to give back to the community for helping me navigate the workplace for 5 years.

I am a regular contributor for about 3 years on the main site and meta. I have contributed the most number of questions to the 2018 moderator questionnaire, which shows my awareness of the community's issues.

I care about making this site useful to more people, such as non-IT workers and non-native English speakers. I try to help out by editing the questions as much as my non-native English skills allow. It is most satisfying when my edits lead to getting better answers.

About me: I am 32 years old, working primarily as a software engineer for 10 years in India, though I have worn many hats, such as management, customer support, training and personal assistant. I also volunteer for a small animal care charity and as a part-time teacher to underprivileged children.

This being an international site, my background in Eastern culture and operating from UTC+0530 timezone is an added benefit.

My answers to the moderator questionnaire here: https://workplace.meta.stackexchange.com/a/5209/3192

Thanks for your time. Please do vote for me!

I joined here after a bad time in 2 toxic jobs meant I lost my confidence in the world of work. I started answering, and as users seemed to appreciate my input I felt better. As I get warm fuzzies from helping people that felt good too.

Why run for moderator? Partly to give back to the community that helped me but also selfishly, I want to keep feeling those warm fuzzies and this is a way to do both.

Unlike stacks like SciFi users come here because they've got a real problem and I know just how much problems with work can affect you. So when I see a poorly written question my instinct isn't to vote to close and move on but "how can I help this person?"

Not all users are familiar with the SE way or have English as their first language. Many are stressed. So I give the benefit of the doubt in how the questions are written, preferring to try an edit myself rather than leave them wondering what went wrong. Almost every dev I know uses SO heavily, but most wouldn't ask a question as they fear a hostile response. I don't want this stack to get a similar reputation.

I believe we can be a great resource for getting help with workplace problems and I think I can help with that.