There are many times on this site where direct (perhaps even real time) communication between moderators or regular users would prove beneficial, such as:

• Handling spam posts or otherwise problematic users
• Dealing with site issues
• Ask for clarification about site norms
• Clarifying posts without producing pages worth of comments on posts

For such purposes I have created a slack for the biostars community, which you can access here.

Do not ask questions on slack that would otherwise be appropriate on biostars! Doing such multiple times can get you banned from slack (after a warning). Slack is meant as a convenient supplement for biostars, not a replacement.

This slack currently contains a general channel and a private "moderator-chat" channel. The latter is restricted access and meant only for those with moderator access here so they can discuss user issues privately (this is equivalent to the Teacher's Lounge on StackExchange, for those familiar with that). Just ping me to get added to this channel.

Please join us over on biostar.slack.com.

Please note that users in some countries may receive an error from Slack regarding being from an "embargoed country". I agree this is quite annoying, but something that Slack itself dictates. Currently the only country I know to be embargoed is Iran, but there may be others. For users in affected countries, please know that if you're able to get around the silly embargo that you're quite welcome to join the community (we're not going to discriminate against anyone based on the country they may be living/working in).

EDIT (by GenoMax ): If you are a moderator on Biostars then you're are encouraged to join the Biostar slack channel and then let one of the mods on slack know (most of us use the same names we use here) so you can be given access to mod-channel. Moderator-only channel has been extremely useful to coordinate moderation actions/get consensus on various issues to improve the overall quality of moderation on Biostars.