<p>Cross Validated, <a href="https://stats.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4885/2017-moderator-election-requested">as has been noted</a>, is scheduled for an election <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/election/4">next week, August 7th</a>.  In connection with that, we will be holding a Q&amp;A with the candidates.  This will be an opportunity for members of the community to pose questions to the candidates on the topic of moderation.  Participation is completely voluntary.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p><strong>The purpose of this thread was to collect questions for the questionnaire. The questionnaire is now live, and you may find it <a href="https://stats.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4901/2017-moderator-election-qa-questionnaire">here</a>.</strong></p>
</blockquote>

<p>This is similar to how we've done things in previous years here, except this time the question collection will happen <em>before</em> the nomination phase, allowing prospective candidates to review what they might have to answer ahead of time and then allowing answers to the Q&amp;A show up at around the time they submit their nominations.</p>

<p>Here's how it'll work:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>Until the nomination phase, (so, until  at 20:00:00Z UTC, or 3:00 pm EST on the same day, give or take time to arrive for closure), this question will be open to collect potential questions from the users of the site. Post answers to this question containing any questions you would like to ask the candidates. Please only post <em>one question per answer</em>.</p></li>
<li><p>We, the Community Team, will be providing a small selection of generic questions. The first two will be guaranteed to be included, the latter ones are if the community doesn't supply enough questions. This will be done in a single post, unlike the prior instruction.</p></li>
<li><p>If your question contains a link, please use the syntax of <code>[text](link)</code>, as that will make it easier for transcribing for the finished questionnaire.</p></li>
<li><p>This is a perfect opportunity to voice questions that are specific to your community and issues that you are running into at currently.</p></li>
<li><p>At the start of the nomination phase, the Community Team will select <strong>up to 8 of the top voted questions submitted by the community</strong> provided in this thread, to use in addition to the aforementioned 2 guaranteed questions. </p></li>
<li><p>Once questions have been selected, a new question will be opened to host the actual questionnaire for the candidates, typically containing 10 questions in total.</p></li>
<li><p>This is not the only option that users have for gathering information on candidates. As a community, you are still free to, for example, hold a live chat session with your candidates to ask further questions, or perhaps clarifications from what is provided in the Q&amp;A.</p></li>
</ul>

<p>If you have any questions or feedback about this process, feel free to post as a comment here.</p>
