2014 Moderator Election - ELU's real issue

Question

I have been traveling the past few weeks so I haven't kept up with the election stuff. I did look at the candidates and they all seem like they would do a good job to me. Who knows one might be corrupt and turn this into a Sanskrit shop?

But I feel that people have been beating around the bush a bit on the issue with the site. I wrote an answer-question here which I will ask here since it will allow people to answer more appropriately.

This is a bit of an extension of John/FF's questions... If ELU stays as a separate entity as ELL, how do we ensure that the people answering the questions don't belong on the ELL?

It is pretty easy to moderate questions and close them off. But I find that the biggest issue with the site is the users answering. Being a long-time SE user and one that uses many SE sites I get that you will have people answering questions without the "right background".

What happens is you get really bad answers. Those answers get downvoted and the user flails. But that doesn't work here because of the ELL/ELU issue (as pointed out by FF's question).

We have several users that are obviously not native speakers (John points this out) that answer a high volume of questions. Some of these users have been near the top of the leaderboard lately. They answer everything, seemingly using reverse dictionaries. They edit their answers 20 times based on comments and after finding out the first 10 things they put were incorrect. Often the 20th thing isn't much better or isn't explained with the right context.

Often they take answers from other users or simply take another answer and use a thesaurus to answer a question. This isn't rocket science. We all know who these users are.

So my question is what do the candidates think about these users? What can we do about this situation?

Personally I come to the site to learn. I find some of the accepted answers and highly upvoted answers ridiculous at times - so much so that I am not learning, I am doubting my own knowledge. I feel that these "answers" detract from the site and also halt good answers/discussion. These answers usually come with some sort of "proof" that taken by itself might answer the question but put in context they are absolutely incorrect.

Not sure how other people feel - but I just get tired of reading a half page of "research" from a non-native speaker doing a reverse dictionary on stuff that just doesn't make sense. I can downvote these things and I do. And I can upvote the good answers buried underneath and I do. But that doesn't make up for the 20 nonnative speakers that already upvoted the wrong answer, which goes back to FF's question.

And this kind of gets into some of the topics phenry discussed in his recent meta question. The bad questions can be tackled with different bylaws and policing but there is nothing in SE to combat users who shouldn't be answering and users who shouldn't be voting. Well I know there are some things in place but they don't work here.

Answer 1

We have several users that are obviously not native speakers (John points this out) that answer a high volume of questions. Some of these users have been near the top of the leaderboard lately. They answer everything, seemingly using reverse dictionaries. They edit their answers 20 times based on comments and after finding out the first 10 things they put were incorrect. Often the 20th thing isn't much better or isn't explained with the right context.

I know exactly who you are talking about, but it's one/two non native speakers out of hundreds/thousands, one particular user does edit his/her answer twenty (and once, to my amusement, even thirty-three times!) but at least he/she was aware that the post needed improvement. And who's to say that the twentieth edit is not an improvement? On the contrary, I have found it has been. Does it mean I'll upvote it, not necessarily. Besides, what about the times when the users posts are pretty good? When the answers suggested do fit, what do you do then? Do you refuse to upvote because of their previous track record?

I remember the OP's first contributions weren't exactly pearls of wisdom, however the quality of his posts over time has improved dramatically and I enjoy reading his contributions, he is someone who I can rely on to get an American perspective. I trust his judgement (read answers), but I needn't always agree.

What EL&U needs (and relatively soon) are more native speakers who ONLY vote, they needn't be grammar gods, but they would instantly see if an answer or question is grammatical without necessarily understanding why. The problem arises though when those "English native speakers" attempt to answer grammar-type questions. Often they'll just provide the "answer" without any explanation, and completely disregard any alternative solutions. They'll fail to explain "why", and the number of times I've seen misspellings, poor capitalization, and poorly constructed sentences from native speakers is embarrassing. Being a native speaker does not mean you have an awareness of your language, how it functions, how the words connect with each other; whereas speakers of English as a second (or third) language often do, and will want to understand further by asking those type of questions which your average native speaker will never have reflected upon. Questions which can be stimulating and fun to answer but will mistakenly be dismissed as being trivial, unimportant and general reference because your average NS will only be able to reply: "because it is".

An English language site populated and governed by the greater part by English native speakers is one destined to die. Don't believe me, look at SE Linguistics, practically a graveyard judging by the number of users and questions asked. If the OP wants a site where his intellectual prowess can be tested, I'd recommend that he visit that site. He might find it stimulating and gratifying or... out of his depth.

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EDIT
My suggestion that EL&U needs native speaker voters, is a provocation, nevertheless it is true that there is a rise in the number of inappropriate answers being upvoted. If the more seasoned members of this community wish to counteract this phenomenon there are FIVE available recourses:

1) Upvote the best answers.

2) Downvote those answers which are blatantly incorrect.

3) Leave a comment at the post (not necessarily accompanied by a downvote) explaining where the poster is mistaken, or how the post has not answered the OP's question.
This is the approach I prefer, and often posters have made edits which IMO have improved their posts. Consequently, I delete my comments and, sometimes, upvote their contributions. I do NOT provide an "answer". If the poster disagrees, and I really disagree with his/her answer I leave my comment(s).

4) Edit answers: a) correcting obvious grammar mistakes b) improve formating (paragraphs, italics in place of caps etc.) to improve overall legibility.

5) Write a better answer.
This I have done myself when the OP (in this case always a non native speaker) has accepted an inappropriate answer five minutes after it has been posted. Sometimes I leave a comment suggesting the OP waits at least a couple of hours before accepting the first posted answer. If my own post is upvoted once, twice etc. and other users have contributed, the OP can make a more informed decision.

Answer 2

So my question is what do the candidates think about these users? What can we do about this situation?

The basic SE model applies to all SE sites

Anybody can ask a question

Anybody can answer

The best answers are voted up and rise to the top

Regarding voting (up or down) on an answer

...good content rises to the top

...incorrect content falls to the bottom

On accepted answers

Accepting an answer is not meant to be a definitive and final statement indicating that the question has now been answered perfectly. It simply means that the author received an answer that worked for him or her personally...

Assuming that you want to stay within the general SE framework

1. You could suggest a change to the reputation limits perhaps raise the bar on answering a question to, perhaps, 5000. That would prevent the 'unproven' users from providing answers but would also alienate new users who could provide answers that meet your quality standards. At that level the 'answerer' pool would be reduced to around 100 users.

2. You could suggest that all users must declare what sort of education they have and/or whether they class themselves as native or non-native speakers and have a moderator judge them accordingly whether they are allowed to answer or not. That doesn't sound like it would be an acceptable SE policy but you never know but I suspect it would be difficult to manage as people would presumably need to provide evidence for their claims.

3. Moderators could be given the freedom to simply delete answers they judge as wrong, then those answers couldn't get votes.

4. You could down vote answers that you believe are wrong, leave a comment explaining why it's wrong and provide what you believe to be the correct answer. If the question author still selects a 'wrong' answer as the accepted answer then that is their choice. Perhaps even more important is to up vote all answers you feel are right/good.

5. Users could be prevented from both asking and answering questions until they have read the What is General Reference page. That functionality is available in SE through badges I believe. The GR page is something of a shambles but it could easily be tidied up into a proper If your question can be answered through any one of these linked sites then it will be closed as off-topic. If you answer comes from any one of these linked sites then the answer is a poor answer as the question author could have found it themselves, do not post answers that come from General Reference sites. Perhaps editing it into a list and locking it and only allowing moderators to add new items to the list would help maintain a structure that people might actually look at before asking or answering.

Items 1 & 2 will almost certainly draw more accusations of elitism/snobbery and whatever else EL&U is renowned for but isn't that the point? If I asked a question here I'd want it answered by someone who at least claims to know what they are talking about, not someone who happens to have a dictionary to hand.

Item 3 may have the [unintended] consequence of branding EL&U as unfriendly.

If item 4 doesn't 'work' then that might suggest that EL&U is not a good fit for the SE platform.

Item 5 will reduce the activity on the site massively, possibly to the point of making it a useless SE site

As an aside

The term 'non-native speakers' get used a lot on this site but it seems to be used to mean 'not very good [by some intangible standard] at English'. ELL makes it very clear that it welcomes non-native speakers. EL&U does not make it clear that it wants (if indeed it does) to discourage non-native speakers and/or people without a very good grasp of English; perhaps it should.

I'd also like to ask how you know (apart from 'I just know') that the answers you are talking about have been written by non-native speakers and have been up voted by non-native speakers ?

In summary

What do the candidates think about these users?

I'm not a candidate and I don't know who 'these users' are.

What can we do about this situation?

Item 4 in the list above would be my choice.

Answer 3

Here is my suggestion since I feel the need to have one since I complained.

Have a flag that says something along the lines "This answer reflects a lack of basic understanding of the English language". Let users over a certain criteria vote if the flag was good/bad.

If users get a certain amount of these flags passed for a given time period the get suspensions in increasing order. Note that editing your question shouldn't impact the flag. Whatever the user saw at the time stands.

So something like this:

10 of these flags in a two month period - 3 days
10 more after - 7 days
10 more after - 14 days

The point isn't to kick these users off the site, it is so they quit bombing the site with poor answers.

Note: I fully understand that I have given answers that could be flagged for this. I have 5-6 times misread a question and have been called out. I have then promptly deleted answer or dramatically changed answer. Would I be upset about being suspended for this? No. I would probably read questions more thoroughly and not answer when drinking. As it stands, cheers!