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I am using this Hinduism SE Site for almost 1 year now. And from my experience of 1-year, I found that this site (which I know is still in beta) really needs set of ACTIVE Moderators.

Out of 4 Designated moderators, I experienced that, only Keshav Srinivasan is really active as far as site participation.

Here is the LAST SEEN Status of 2 of the moderator (except Keshav and Mr.Alien) as of this writing.

  1. cheenbabes : Last seen Jun 4 '15 at 15:29
  2. senshin : Last seen May 26 '15 at 12:26

As we can see, 2 moderators visited the site almost half-year back. I am not alone who thinks the same way about the moderation, as this question also mentions the need of more ACTIVE Moderators.

I feel that to grow this Site, we need more ACTIVE Moderators to promote/drive growth of the site, along with, of course, more active participation from community itself (its not about moderators but community).

Hence, I suggest we should consider an option of changing the existing moderators who DO NOT ACTIVELY participate.

Why not give a chance to some other really ACTIVE members from community such as moonstar2001 , iammilind, Sai (who also fits in moderator criterion)?

Of course, these are my observation as a User of this site, and I know there are many other ACTIVE and well deserving candidates in our community for Moderator role who will add more value to this site.

Let the community decide if we want to stay with those non-active moderators or give a chance to more deserving and ACTIVE Members a chance.

UPDATE-1: I found this comment from Keshav Srinivasn on another meta post.

moderators are usually not removed except for exceedingly long absences; here's what someone on the SE team told me when I became a moderator:"if you disappear for months at a time we'll email you and if you disappear for a looong time - 6 months, usually - we'll de-mod you.

LINK

According to this statement , those 2 should have been REMOVED.

UPDATE-2: As per the latest input from Keshav, the change to be applicable "by the end of the week"

UPDATE-3 : Ankit Sharma is our new Moderator. Check the announcement here.

All the best to Ankit in his new role on Hinduism.SE!!

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    All I can say for now is stay tuned. Changes are underway.
    – Keshav Srinivasan Mod
    Commented Jan 26, 2016 at 14:53
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    I will stay tuned, but I guess its better if we can let the community know what is IN PROGRESS.
    – AADHinduism
    Commented Jan 26, 2016 at 14:54
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    Out of respect for those concerned, I don't want to comment more at the moment. But the community will know more soon.
    – Keshav Srinivasan Mod
    Commented Jan 26, 2016 at 14:56
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    @Vishu I support neither nominations for different reasons. User Krishna is somewhat fanatical, and not knowledgeable is many areas. Swamiji is a sanyasi and it is non-sanyasis' dharma to support a renunciate's pursuit of the truth; not to saddle them with worldly duties. We must be grateful for the time he spends on this site, shares his knowledge for our benefit and patiently gives some of the best answers. Unless swamiji is okay with the responsibility; then I welcome it because he is one of the best choices.
    – user1195
    Commented Jan 28, 2016 at 10:40
  • Thank you for the vote of confidence, but I am not the best person for this job.
    – user1195
    Commented Jan 28, 2016 at 10:41
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    @moonstar2001 : I suggested to just take a look at them. now I did'nt know that swamiji is a sanyasi
    – Vishu
    Commented Jan 28, 2016 at 12:12
  • @Vishu I know. Just gave some inputs from my side. All the best.
    – user1195
    Commented Jan 28, 2016 at 12:14
  • @moonstar2001 : Thank you! can you take look at these questions (hinduism.stackexchange.com/questions/10246/…) and this (hinduism.stackexchange.com/questions/10242/…) please
    – Vishu
    Commented Jan 28, 2016 at 12:17
  • @KeshavSrinivasan Do we have a time line by when are we expecting the "secret" changes that you mentioned? Saying "soon" is way too generic and way too inconclusive and as good as ditching the Answer IMHO. Sorry...
    – AADHinduism
    Commented Jan 29, 2016 at 14:59
  • I suggest to consider @surya too. Though Surya is devotee of Vishnu, he is neutral and i think he is quite knowledgeable.
    – The Destroyer Mod
    Commented Jan 31, 2016 at 16:49
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    Not sure why people think am inactive because just recently I have my personal stuff to be sorted out and hence couldn't look out much after this site but those who are unaware of, I was the only one handling the site for initial 4-5 months... Though I don't check the site regularly, am in constant touch with @KeshavSrinivasan in our mod chatrooms to sort out the stuff here.
    – Mr. Alien Mod
    Commented Jan 31, 2016 at 17:59
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    Also, you are sharing last seen for the meta sites and not the main site :)
    – Mr. Alien Mod
    Commented Feb 1, 2016 at 4:32
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    @Mr.Alien as a Active user I ask Questions, as a Active user I raise FLAGS. Also, I raise issues related to Site itself regarding flagging issue such as this : meta.hinduism.stackexchange.com/questions/390/… and moderators issue as in this post. Please let me know what else as a USER I need to do to help site. Yes, Last seen was supposed to be for META Site as this is the site where Moderators should be visiting to check status of the Site. Isn't it?
    – AADHinduism
    Commented Feb 1, 2016 at 6:42
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    Related Where are our two pro tem mods?
    – Bhargav Rao
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 10:28
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    Newly related: Should we change at least one of our current moderators?. Apparently the last change of moderation hasn't helped much. We need entirely different direction for this site's moderation.
    – iammilind
    Commented Dec 16, 2016 at 5:28

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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I agree that Cheenbabes and Senshin are not doing any moderation on this site these days.

As per my observation, the only problem I can see is:

  • Not many active users to answer the questions.

Since, this is a Religion related site, many people/users taking it personally because they aren't able to bring this site out of Beta. and they are looking out for problematic things. Hence, they started with Moderation. But to make it clear, I don't think there is anything wrong going on with the Moderation. The moderation is completely under control by Keshav and Mr.Alien.

We should look out for the main problem which is "Not many active users".

BTW, if needed for a mod, I am ready to hop in. and also I have some users in my mind who I think can do good moderation but they must not be aggresive as they are visible currently.

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    I completely agree with you, i think high rep user also have responsibility for the site if they want to make it into graduation.
    – Ankit Sharma
    Commented Feb 5, 2016 at 10:58
  • @AADTechnical I can't see how being AGGRESIVENESS will help this site.. please explain. TBH, as the absent mods, the present two MODS are also super polite. If you have problem with their being super polite and not aggressive, lets discuss on a new meta question. Also explain how a mod should be in your opinion.
    – Mr_Green
    Commented Feb 8, 2016 at 11:24
  • no need for me to define AGGRESSIVENESS and how GOOD/BAD it is for site..don't want to indulge into too much of MODERATOR topic now...I guess I played my role as neutral observer/user of the site. if community is happy with what we have as our moderators then, lets move on...at least I will try now to focus on main site for some interesting Q and A!
    – AADHinduism
    Commented Feb 8, 2016 at 11:29
  • @AADTechnical yes I believe the same. We need more ACTIVE users but not ACTIVE mods(well, let them decide if needed). IMO, this is not the place where we need to concentrate. We need to look for more active users instead.
    – Mr_Green
    Commented Feb 8, 2016 at 11:36
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Let's talk about moderation on Hinduism.SE.

I have seen several questions from day one till date. Insulting moderators and asking for their replacement with efficient ones. I honestly don't mind as this is an issue. If moderators are not active for beta sites, its a bad thing for the community.

But let me point out that moderators are not the only people who need to look after the site, active users have equal responsibilities. As the other user answered - iammilind that having inactive moderators is Shame so I shared his activity log where the activities log back to November and October.

So why people expect moderators to step up every single time? We have many high reputation users now who has a lot of privilege to carry clean up activities on the site like editing questions, editing answers, closing and reopening questions, deleting and undeleting answers.

Moderators job here is to make sure nothing goes wrong. Handle posts, look after users who are not misusing reputation system and so on. Why StackExchange grants you permission for the above listed activities if moderator is the only person who has to work every time?

Let me tell you that moderators are not paid by StackExchange, they are just another user with special privileges. They have a day job like other users have, they have their personal commitments just like you have so I don't see what's wrong here.

The funny part is, the user who is questioning has an activity of revising post once in January, November and July compared to mine where am having 384 number of just revision activities, so I think we should be checking out activity logs first before blaming other users here. Instead of helping out each other we start a blame game on meta every time, nothing but typical fellow Indians.

P.S Even am Indian so nothing to rage on the sentence above. Still if you think that moderators should be replaced, than please post your replies in the comments section of this answer and I will step down if most of them wants me to.

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    Original question is mainly against other 2 moderators, who apparently attained Moksha from SE for a while! There is nothing personal against anyone. By "Indianizing" the issue, you are proving that this website is mainly for "Hindu"s (an identity given by foreigners). If you pinpoint me for inactivity, it's valid. But as a user I am less responsible to do such activities than a voted moderator. Stepping down is your choice, but there can be other users, who would be interested to do moderator job without complaining of payment. With new moderators, may be this site will get new direction.
    – iammilind
    Commented Feb 1, 2016 at 5:48
  • @iammilind Site won't get new direction, 3 people cannot lead thousands of users on this site, few people have to stepup which you are not willing to do. Also, I am not being personal here, am talking on behalf of other 3 moderators as well. Also, I have never mentioned that I need payment for the work I do, all I said was that users can do the same what moderator does, so complaining about moderators makes no sense to me.
    – Mr. Alien Mod
    Commented Feb 1, 2016 at 6:08
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    I do agree active mods are necessary but active non-mod users are necessary too, way more the even mod as per my opinion. Movies.se got their graduation with one mod ( 2 got some personal reason to quit and SE hold the re-electiion till graduation) and site worked with single mod for atleast half year or maybe more. So i think till SE take some step, we should also help handling stuff with moderators as its a community's site.
    – Ankit Sharma
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 7:42
  • @AnkitSharma I kind of experienced that this SE Site do have active users...and quite a few of them. I don't have EXACT numbers but usually when I post question, I do get considerable Answers/comments thus indicating interest in the site/topic. Lets hope that This site Graduate to the next level and we have ELECTED moderators soon!!
    – AADHinduism
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 8:49
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    Agree with @iammilind The major concern is about 2 moderators. ALSO as a USER of this site, we are far less responsible to do site cleaning activities than moderators. So asking USERS to be more Active & then blaming them for not being active is too insensitive, IMHO...Sorry. It is unfair to ask WHAT IS YOUR Contribution to site as a User? as you did earlier..Mr Alien. Having said that, this post is not against you Mr Alien not against Keshav. I know you have came forward when I raised issue for flagging few days back. That shows your commitment to site. The real objection is about other 2 mod
    – AADHinduism
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 9:00
  • @AADTechnical its not only about question and answer but also about review bar and meta too. And this site surely bit lack in review cleaning, there is always many pending reviews in review bar and meta participation of common user is also bit low. I do agree "WHAT IS YOUR Contribution" is bit rude but "It's a real SHAME" doesn't sound much good either. So a good point has been raised , so better to blame each other, we can co-operate and work together for the common good of site.
    – Ankit Sharma
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 9:46
  • And we doesn't know the clear reason of other two moderators' disappearance also, sometime moderator quits and even inform to SE team but SE team doesn't disclose them. So we can't blame those two without knowing details which we might not get.
    – Ankit Sharma
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 9:48
  • @AnkitSharma Yes, agree that users in general needs to be more involved for REVIEW and META. Just for record, I did NOT used SHAME remark :)
    – AADHinduism
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 10:09
  • @AADTechnical yeah i can see that, just wanted to clear the air.
    – Ankit Sharma
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 10:10
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    The answer makes me sad. Instead of addressing the issue at hand and assuring the concerned normal users, the answer resorts to personal attacks about the other users. Was it really required?
    – Bhargav Rao
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 11:34
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    @AnkitSharma Yep I know about Keshav's comment. I did feel a bit sad because I know Mr.Alien from StackOverflow. He's a really good guy and hence I felt a bit surprised reading this post. Anyway, let's wait for the said changes.
    – Bhargav Rao
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 11:43
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    yes, bringing the citizenship and clubbing the nature/behaviour to specific country was totally uncalled for, IMHO. at the same time SHAME remark earlier was also uncalled for.
    – AADHinduism
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 11:47
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    @Mr.Alien You shouldn't. As you might already know that this kind of things do happens sometime, intentionally or unintentionally. Its just a single instance and you shouldn't carried away with it on sake of all the work you have done for this site.
    – Ankit Sharma
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 16:49
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    @Mr.Alien I agree with everyone else, you absolutely should NOT step down. The site needs you too much! Your contributions have been invaluable.
    – Keshav Srinivasan Mod
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 20:09
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    @​​Mr.Alien I've seen you on other sites. If you step down, it'll be a loss for Hinduism.SE. You and @Keshav can help "nurture" the new mods (if there are going to be any)
    – Bhargav Rao
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 20:48
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I stumbled upon this question. Yes, I had the same feeling about the first 2 inactive moderators "cheenbabes" and "senshin". It's a real SHAME when the site has to deal with such moderators, who don't look at it for months! There should be a rule that if a moderator doesn't perform duty for more than X days, then automatically should be dropped and replaced with all due respect.

Regarding 3 names suggested, here are my personal views:

  1. moonstar2001: It will be good to have her as a moderator being a woman and good in English. But then she has to have more open view about "Hinduism" to avoid being in dispute with other community members. For example, from this question, it's evident that, she has certain criteria of questions, which may be disliked by others.

  2. Sai: A good fit for moderation being quite experienced and old member of this community. Hope that, it will not reduce the amount of his answers & answer-like comments which I find interesting. May be he has to forego his current "soft stance", as our typical impression of a moderator is like, "Parashuram with Axe". :-)

  3. iammilind: Good to see my name and not sure if I should say more about myself! I can utilize somewhat decorated SO experience of (limited) moderation, if given a chance. For my own reasons, I have stopped contributing to this website in Q&A as a user, which further gives an extra plus point of being a neutral moderator.

There can be other good moderators as well.

Sometimes I used to wonder, why don't we name this site as "Sanatan Dharma"? Word "Sanatan" doesn't get limited to just country borders. It constitutes multiple ways of thinking and discussing. "Hinduism" is indeed a better word, only if we want to be in the well of Indian subcontinent.

If we want to allow this site to grow (instead of people moving to Quora, which is quite disorganized but open), then with whichever new moderators, we should allow broader thinking. Let's not limit ourselves to dry scriptures. The people who created these scriptures, didn't refer any scriptures back then. They just allowed their mind to flow through and make mistakes. It's probable that, what we read today is merely a distorted form of what they actually thought.

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    Sanatana dharma would be a good and appropriate title. I agree with you. but most people(considering new users who don't know what the word means) would'nt recognize what the site is about if named like that. I think atleast for now and untill the site gains popularity and crosses beta phase "Hinduism" would be apt title.
    – Vishu
    Commented Jan 28, 2016 at 7:54
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    Let's not limit ourselves to dry scriptures. So basically what you are looking for is like an open forum where people will post their personal views and future visitors will have no idea what to refer? Sorry but am strongly against that, especially when it comes to religious things where especially Hinduism has tons of beliefs.
    – Mr. Alien Mod
    Commented Feb 1, 2016 at 4:08
  • @Mr.Alien, Recently upvoted your old question when you were in agreement of "not citing sources" Lets stop asking for “Sources” everytime! Even the answer accepted by you also suggests that scripture references should be considered normal (may not be mandatory). A verse from scripture can be (mis)interpreted in multiple ways by various experts (e.g. bhagavad-gita.us/bhagavad-gita-2-2/), let alone the SE users. Let the verses go away. When the future visitors don't see an answer without source, they will understand it to be personal opinion.
    – iammilind
    Commented Feb 1, 2016 at 5:34
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    @iammilind I agree, people should not be too much concerned about scriptures as if it is taken for granted that whatever is written is absolutely true. The Vedas, Brahma Sutras, Bhagavad Gita are no doubt the ultimate scriptures but puranas are something which shouldn't be taken too much seriously. Every purana has a lot of interpolations and has incorrect information even if it is not an interpolation.
    – Pinakin
    Commented Feb 1, 2016 at 10:11
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    SHAME sounds like a rude comment to old moderators, to which we doesn't even know that exact reason. We don't know what happened behind the curtains, maybe they declared their absence to high up people/ maybe not but we can't shame them for that.
    – Ankit Sharma
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 11:44
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    the objective of this meta post was to bring to notice to the community about the long absence of 2 of its moderators. Lets thank them first for their volunteer service to community so far and be respectful to all 4 of them.BUT At the same time let us focus as a community on how best to address this Moderator-Absent crisis...instead of blaming/abusing each other!!
    – AADHinduism
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 11:53
  • @AnkitSharma, in no way the moderators are disrespected by using the English idiom "it's a shame". This modern idiom is famous for stating something "unfortunate", "something to be pity". Refer: Is there a more modern way to say “it's a pity”?. I think, probably this has got the other moderator Mr.Alien angry. :-) I will edit the answer to make sure that people don't carried away and misunderstand this to be a fight. In the answer, I have also mentioned that inactive moderators should be removed with all due respect.
    – iammilind
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 12:17
  • @ChinmaySarupria Agree with you partially. We need sources as this is Religious site. But all Puranas can't be trusted as they have lots of interpolations.
    – The Destroyer Mod
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 13:11
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    @iammilind But the shame was bold in the previous version and this site is more full of non native English speakers and i do know the idiom but it didn't appeared like that at first glance. I am happy to know that you didn't intended that.
    – Ankit Sharma
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 16:47
0

I am not a regular user to Hinduism site but comes after sometime and visit questions and sometimes ask too. I don't know about moderator's activity but I saw this question and felt that there is some problem with the site data. See the question at this link. It says It is closed by Cheenbabes on Jan 22 (2016) and here in this question it shows that Cheenbabes has not been seen from Jun 4'15. I think there can be similar problem with other mods as well. I think its will be better to confirm first before deciding.

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    software bug or not, but I think it is obvious that those two moderators hardly are involved. Even when this discussion about changing them is going on, they are not coming forward and explaining to community why they are absent. Just visiting site is not enough for MODERATORS they must play more Active role.
    – AADHinduism
    Commented Jan 29, 2016 at 2:32
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    Just another observation, I may be wrong. But the Last seen Jun 4 '15 at 15:29 is for the mods meta.hinduismprof and not the main site. So it is not a bug.
    – Bhargav Rao
    Commented Jan 31, 2016 at 22:55
  • @BhargavRao Forget about last seen for time being. This question is posted almost a week back and such is the interest level of those 2 moderators that the whole community(at least few active members like us) are discussing about their role as a Moderator and their Absence, they both did not STILL Turned up to defend/justify their Absence. Isn't it not Enough to conclude that they are NOT ACTIVE and should't we seek for MORE ACTIVE Moderators to help grow site?
    – AADHinduism
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 6:22
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    @AADTechnical I agree with the your comment. I posted a question a month back (Where is the Hinduism SE FAQ?) and have yet not received a official feedback.
    – Bhargav Rao
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 8:25
  • @BhargavRao Agree! As per earlier comment from one of the active moderator named Keshav, that there are changes planned/underway. He did not disclosed much but lets hope we finally have more ACTIVE moderators in this site.
    – AADHinduism
    Commented Feb 2, 2016 at 8:43
  • @BhargavRao I have presented a community wiki answer for it. We should make a list of such question first, then we can ping any mod to make them tag it with faq.
    – Ankit Sharma
    Commented Feb 5, 2016 at 11:39
  • @Ankit yep, I saw that a few moments after you wrote it. I have my GATE exam tomorrow, will get over in the evening. I'll try to enhance your answer and give a few tips after that :)
    – Bhargav Rao
    Commented Feb 5, 2016 at 13:54
  • @BhargavRao will surely love to see that. My answer is also incomplete even from my site, had some work to do first.
    – Ankit Sharma
    Commented Feb 5, 2016 at 14:14
  • @AnkitSharma then we can ping any mod --- Pinging you ;) (Congrats BTW)
    – Bhargav Rao
    Commented Feb 9, 2016 at 18:24

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