159
$\begingroup$

I've been thinking about this for some months now, and recently I've made up my mind to retire from moderator duty. It has been an awesome four years, and I see a lot of positive in how the community has developed during that time. So I want to thank the early users who put their faith in me, and also the entire community for their support of the mod team in general.

Practicalities

An election will be held in the near future [Edit 2014-12-10: right now!]. (Possibly quite soon; we are in discussion with the Community Team on the best timing.) I will stay on until the election is over, at which time my diamond will be removed and the newly minted moderator(s) will take over.

Reasons

I am sure a lot of you will want to know why I am retiring. Just to get it out of the way:

  • No, there's been no disagreements in the mod team.
  • No, I have no qualms with the direction that the site is going.
  • No, I have no trouble working with the Community Team (SE Inc).

If anything it is just that after 4 years, I find that I cannot summon the same level of enthusiasm that I had earlier in my moderator term. In addition, I have become more busy all around and with there being only 24 hours in a day I find myself slowly slowly cutting away my time on Math.SE for other tasks and duties. So while I am not burnt-out per se, I still don't think that I can serve the community in a capacity that meets my own standards.

Another reason is that I have come to understand, after 4 years in service, how much the smooth running of this website depends on you the users in general. Due to the big unilateral hammer we carry, moderators have often refrained from the day-to-day maintenance activities (think close/delete votes for example), and deal generally only in the more exceptional problems. This means that I realized that I can still contribute, in some ways and in my own schedule, to the growth of this community, even without my diamond. (So yes, maybe I will earn some of those other moderation badges!)

In conclusion, thanks for the ride, and see y'all around.

$\endgroup$
23
  • 96
    $\begingroup$ On the one hand, I want to downvote, since I don't like good mods retiring. On the other hand: Thanks for the hard work. $\endgroup$
    – Daniel Fischer
    Commented Nov 19, 2014 at 10:58
  • 13
    $\begingroup$ I would like to thank you in particular thank you for your effort related to tags, correct tagging and tag management and also for your activity on meta. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Commented Nov 19, 2014 at 11:09
  • 15
    $\begingroup$ @MartinSleziak: I take it as a sign of health of the community when "ordinary users" like you and Rafflesia and others are now providing a lot of meta support and opinions guiding the growth of the site. I have found it wonderful the number of non-moderator initiated things that have happened: the most prominent for me being the tagging (and other special issues) chatrooms. $\endgroup$
    – Willie Wong Mod
    Commented Nov 19, 2014 at 11:15
  • 16
    $\begingroup$ See you on the playground, then! Thanks for the hard hard work! $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Commented Nov 19, 2014 at 11:37
  • 15
    $\begingroup$ I'm glad you'll still be around and this isn't a total retirement from the site. You've served the community very well these last years. $\endgroup$
    – Dan Rust
    Commented Nov 19, 2014 at 14:55
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ Might as well go out with a song! $\endgroup$
    – Lucian
    Commented Nov 19, 2014 at 16:58
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @WillieWong Thanks for your service. I'm a relatively new user here and I really admire the community. It takes a set of dedicated moderators to keep the site running well, and I think you (and the others!) have done a fine job $\endgroup$
    – daOnlyBG
    Commented Nov 19, 2014 at 17:50
  • 6
    $\begingroup$ Thank you for your contributions to the site, both mathematical and moderatorial. $\endgroup$
    – user98602
    Commented Nov 19, 2014 at 19:10
  • 5
    $\begingroup$ The title scared me because I thought you were retiring from the site altogether. $\endgroup$
    – Joao
    Commented Nov 20, 2014 at 6:29
  • 7
    $\begingroup$ Disclaimer: Like Daniel Fischer, my upvote is to be taken as a sign of gratitude for your (Willie's) hard work, over four years time, your fairness, and my fond memories of my earliest interactions with you when I was a fledgling newbie at MSE. $\endgroup$
    – amWhy
    Commented Nov 20, 2014 at 14:21
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ I'll miss you! You've been consistently patient and sweet. Thank you for being moderator here for so long. $\endgroup$
    – Ellie K
    Commented Nov 23, 2014 at 5:57
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ @user45195 There is a news column: "Hot Meta Posts" in the sidebar on the main site. This post appeared there for a while after its creation. $\endgroup$
    – user147263
    Commented Nov 26, 2014 at 16:31
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ This is great news. Now you have time to write up the ultimate blog post on separation of variables in PDEs :) Seriously though, thanks for your effort these past years. $\endgroup$
    – James S. Cook
    Commented Nov 27, 2014 at 19:14
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ So long and thanks for all the fish. $\endgroup$
    – robjohn Mod
    Commented Dec 9, 2014 at 1:05
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ @quid: I haven't actually seen the vote total until you mentioned it. (Comment notifications bring me straight here and doesn't show me the "top part" of the screen.) So close! Yet so far! (But JFYI I already have one.) $\endgroup$
    – Willie Wong Mod
    Commented Dec 10, 2014 at 13:13

0

Reset to default

You must log in to answer this question.

Browse other questions tagged .