Server Fault is scheduled for [an election starting next week, September 17th](https://serverfault.com/election/6), for 2 slots requested by the . In connection with that election, we will be hosting a Q&A here for 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. Unlike previous iterations, this time the Q&A question collection will be provided one week in advance of the actual elections. This will allow users some extra time to evaluate their decision on whether to nominate, as well as let them provide answers to the questionnaire during the nomination phase itself. **See also:** [A notice regarding the upcoming elections and timezone coverage](https://meta.serverfault.com/questions/9381/2018-moderator-election-notice-timezones) Here's how it'll work: - Until the nomination phase, (so, until Monday, September 17th at 20:00:00Z UTC, or 4:00 pm EDT 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 *one question per answer*. - 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. - This is a perfect opportunity to voice questions that are specific to your community and issues that you are running into at current. - If your question contains a link, please use the syntax of `[text](link)`, as that will make it easier for transcribing for the finished questionnaire. - At the end of the collection phase, the Community Team will select **up to 8 of the top voted questions submitted by the community** provided in this thread, to use in addition to the aforementioned 2 guaranteed questions. We reserve some editorial control in the selection of the questions and may opt not to select a question that is tangential or irrelevant to moderation or the election. That said, if I have concerns about any questions in this fashion, I will be sure to point this out in comments before the decision making time. - Once questions have been selected, a new question will be opened to host the actual questionnaire for the candidates, containing (up to) 10 questions in total. - 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&A. --- If you have any questions or feedback about this process, feel free to post as a comment here.