<p><strong>The multiple objectives of any SE site create an inherent tension,</strong> forcing us to make decisions that trade off between</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Being accommodating to people (especially new visitors) who just want a question answered (quickly),</p>
</li>
<li><p>Creating high-quality, canonical answers to clear objective questions,</p>
</li>
<li><p>Establishing a well-functioning set of semantic links to make it easy for people to get answers themselves, and</p>
</li>
<li><p>Rewarding community members for their participation.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>As an example, a visitor might post a question that is not initially perfect: it might include a request for code (<em>off topic</em>) with an indication that a statistical procedure is needed (<em>on topic</em>).  It might refer to a procedure that is obscure to the wider statistical community (<em>unclear</em>) but well-known within a subcommunity (such as &quot;cumulative match scoring&quot; in the face-recognition literature).  Any of the actions available to us--closing, deleting, commenting, editing, up/down voting, flagging, and even private conversations--will have positive and negative ramifications.  <strong>With many questions (and answers), there is no one best action to take.</strong></p>
<p><strong>How should we act?</strong> As a general moderation strategy, should we lean towards</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Providing friendly welcoming comments and editing new posts for readability, <em>even when they initially are not up to our standards</em> (objective 1),</p>
</li>
<li><p>Quickly closing any questions that require improvement--<em>especially</em> those that seem to be code-oriented--so that we are not plagued by bad questions and a low answer rate (objective 2),</p>
</li>
<li><p>Insisting on appropriate tags and evidence of prior research--such as providing links to related questions--before we allow a post to stay open (objective 3), or</p>
</li>
<li><p>Making sure &quot;bad&quot; questions and answers are closed and deleted as soon as possible so that people don't accumulate reputation and badges merely for a large quantity of bad work (objective 4).</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Each of these strategies, if pursued dogmatically, can be carried too far.</p>
<p>Moderators routinely have to make difficult decisions that will be good for some of these objectives but bad for the others.  A good moderator is aware of this and has a principled, consciously developed strategy for making them.</p>
<h3>As a moderator, where do you plan to strike a balance among these objectives?</h3>
<p>Please don't say you will accomplish all four: we have extensive evidence that it can't be done.  What principles will you apply when no possible action is good?  Which objectives do you want to favor the most?</p>
