This week we sit down with Aaron Hall and Nitsua60, two moderators from our network. Aaron volunteers on Stack Overflow and Nitsua60 volunteers on our RPG Stack Exchange. We chat about what moderation entails, what they are seeing in their communities, and some of their favorite questions from recent months.
If you follow community issues on the Stack network, you may be familiar with Aaron Hall. He took the time to respond to a post from our CEO and subsequently came by Stack Overflow to engage more deeply with our leadership and community teams. You can find his summary of events here. Most days, you can find him streaming on Twitch here.
Nistua60 is a moderator over on our RPG Stack Exchange which is one of the 25 largest communities our users have created. He's there to help guide curious role players through the important questions in life, like: How Can a Unicorn Establish a Foreign Location as its own Lair When its Already The Lair of a Lich? Answer --> here.
We chat a little about the new Instagram account Stack Overflow just launched. It's full of fun animations from Edlund Art that bring to life some of the best questions and answers from across the Stack network.
Chatrooms are one of the less well known features of Stack communities. Nitsua60 said that not only has he seen more conversation in the RPG chat, but a new room has spun up for folks from across the family of Stack networks to chat about issues and emotions relating to the global pandemic we are all dealing with. He likened what's happening across our neetwork to the recent op-ed from Stanley McChrystal about the importance of "digital leadership" in modern crises.
A great example of that is what's happening over at the Academia Stack Exchange. This community has seen a massive influx of activity as schools from kindergarten through university have shut down. In response, they put together an incredible set of resources for folks who are trying to adapt their workflow to the reality of shuttered schools , remote learning, and social distancing.
We hope you're staying safe, and thanks as always to the brave folks working on the front lines to keep essential services running and medical care available.