- For pseudonymous candidates, Are you a professional mathematician? In what capacity?
I'm using my real name. I have a permanent lectureship at the University of Bath.
- Should there be a term for which moderators are elected? If elected, how long do you envision serving as a moderator?
I think terms are a good idea in general, as they stop the power being concentrated and allow a variety of members to have a go. It also puts in a safety mechanism in the rare case that a moderator lapses. Though certainly moderators should be able to be re-elected once their term has come to an end provided their work is appreciated by the community.
I'd happily serve for a couple of years then see how I get on after that.
- There has been extensive discussion on MO Meta on how to make the MathOverflow community more welcoming and inclusive. How do you think the community should approach this issue, and what role (if any) do you think moderators should play in this regard?
I do feel that new users are often marginalised as they are not familiar with the standards of the community. I would help by encouraging patience amongst the current members, and use my moderators abilities to edit posts to improve the exposition as appropriate so that new users get an idea of the kind of style which mathoverflow uses.
- What time zone are you in?
GMT
- Assuming a notion of "culture" as explained here, what would a newly elected moderator do to preserve it? Will there be more efforts to preserve the culture, or more to steer it toward things nearer to "what a Stack Exchange forum should be?"
I really like mathoverflow and think that it has a great culture. The questions should be overall research level, where I interpret research level to mean PhD level and above. Certainly I think that PhD students can ask questions which more advanced researchers would find naive/basic, but I think mathoverflow should be used for this purpose. I certainly learnt a lot on mathoverflow as a PhD student, even though I cringe at some of the questions I asked back in the day (which were all part of the learning process).
- As MathOverflow is growing, the diversity of the moderator team might become an issue of interest. As I understand, the present moderators have much in common, and women are, to say it that way, underrepresented. In which way do you think would you contribute to the diversity of the moderator team?
My understanding is that there are no moderators in Europe at the moment, so I would be able to make sure that more time zones were covered. I would make sure that mathoverflow is open to all, and particularly encourage women to participate and feel welcome.
- What do you see as the biggest challenge for MathOverflow as a site and as a community in the next few years?
I think keeping up the momentum that it has and making sure that questions and answers are high-quality.
- Do you think women are underrepresented in the MO community compared to the mathematical community as a whole? Is this a problem for MO? If so, what would you do about it as a moderator?
I think that it is a substantial problem in mathematics in general that women are underrepresented, but I would agree that the situation is even worse on mathoverflow than the real world. I would make sure that mathoverflow is open to all, and particularly encourage women to participate and feel welcome.
- How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?
Discretely contact this user to point out the large number of flags and offer advice on how to improve their MO etiquette.
- How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?
Contact the moderator in question to discuss the situation and try to find out why they decided it should be closed. Through objective civil discussions we should be able to come to a joint conclusion as to what to do with the question.
