1. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

[Answer 1 here]

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc. a question that you feel shouldn’t have been?

[Answer 2 here]

3. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of on-topic questions, but seems to refuse to learn anything from the answers (s)he receive?

[Answer 3 here]

4. How do you propose to deal with duplicate questions, bearing in mind that many answers on this site are 'dated', and that newer versions of Mathematica often allow for a better solution?

[Answer 4 here]

5. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

[Answer 5 here]

6. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

[Answer 6 here]

7. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching enough reputation to access moderator tools or become a trusted user?

[Answer 7 here]

1. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

First of all, there doesn't seem to be such user(s) in this community as far as I know. (Our community is so friendly, sometimes a bit too friendly, I should say. ) Then, if such user shows up, I'd first have a talk with the user. If we find no consensus, then the compelling force should play its role.

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc. a question that you feel shouldn’t have been?

Again, this seldom happens in this site as far as I know. The only situ I can imagine is, it's a question that can be rescued by a careful editing. If such question shows up, I'd improve the question attentively according to the closing/deleting reason before reopen/undelete the question.

3. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of on-topic questions, but seems to refuse to learn anything from the answers (s)he receive?

Aha, this is the question asked by me, and you guys know who is in my mind :) . This is a question I've been thinking for a long time. For this question, C.E. has given a quite standard answer, "We are building a knowledge base and posting good questions is as important as writing answers", it's not wrong, of course, but, let's first consider the following:

1. Why isn't stackexchange an anonymous forum?

2. A knowledge base is for helping everybody, is the asker included in this everybody?

3. Will the asker really be helped if we provide answers to the asker in a bottomless manner?

I think the answers to these questions are obvious. So, I would do my best to get the asker back on track (as long as I'm not against the site rule, of course).

4. How do you propose to deal with duplicate questions, bearing in mind that many answers on this site are 'dated', and that newer versions of Mathematica often allow for a better solution?

For this question, I agree with Michael E2's comment:

The question is closed if it's a duplicate. It is better, imo, and the way it's suppose to work on SE, that a new answer be added to the old question if there is a new way to solve it (or a way that existed but was overlooked). SE even gives a special badge for a good new answer (Necromancer).

The only thing I want to add is, perhaps the moderators can merge questions a bit more often.

5. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

When moral restraint becomes ineffective, $\overset{\text{site rule}}{\text{law}}$ comes into play. Moderators are executors of site rule.

6. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

A mark is added to the name of the Tieba master, too, so I'm quite used to it. Actually this isn't something that needs to be worry about according to my experience, most people simply don't care much about the mark.

7. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching enough reputation to access moderator tools or become a trusted user?

Personally I think this question is similar to 5th question, so my answer is similar: the limited moderation tools available for high reputation users are definitely useful, but there exist situations that are intractable with limited moderation tools only. That's where the advanced moderation tools should come into play.

1. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

I would approach the user directly and explain the issue and reach a common understanding. If forced to choose I would favour the respect of the community member over the technical value.

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc. a question that you feel shouldn’t have been?

We have a system that I intend to respect. I would approach and share my concern. Depending of the severity of the issue I would either respect the autonomy of the other mod or reach for a third party perspective.

3. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of on-topic questions, but seems to refuse to learn anything from the answers (s)he receive?

I believe on straight forward communication and likely will attempt to reach out, but that doesn't seem a situation likely to create conflict. Perhaps one should be tolerant to the diverse spectrum of learning capacities and move on.

4. How do you propose to deal with duplicate questions, bearing in mind that many answers on this site are 'dated', and that newer versions of Mathematica often allow for a better solution?

That's a case by case issue. Duplicates can serve as a good gateway to complete existing answers or they can be an opportunity to update obsolete approaches.

5. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

The core responsibilities of mods is to be a "human exception handlers" that exercise a limited set of delegated powers as minimalistic as possible. Tasks include the participation on the community efforts to: following up on flags, handling disputes and mediating conflicts, removing spam, offensive content, and blatantly off-topic questions, locking posts when necessary to prevent further edits or votes, protecting questions to limit answers to more experienced users and suspending users who violate site rules.

A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

I feel the weight of the responsibility, but also the trust to fellow community members to guide me to do it right.

7. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching enough reputation to access moderator tools or become a trusted user?

That will not change, I will be the one receiving the flag instead of rising it.

1. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

In my experience, the most valuable users are also very impressive people. I am continuously in awe at the level of the people who have joined this community. That being said, if someone repeatedly breaks the code of conduct even after they have been warned about it, it will not be allowed to continue because they write good answers.

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc. a question that you feel shouldn’t have been?

There's nothing else to do than state your opinion.

3. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of on-topic questions, but seems to refuse to learn anything from the answers (s)he receive?

Personally, I don't think it's a big issue. We have a community specific reason to close questions which reads "...is unlikely to help any future visitors, or else it is easily found in the documentation" and we have been pretty good at using it. If the user somehow posts questions without showing signs of learning from the answers, but yet manages to write questions that may be useful to other visitors or may not be easy to answer with the documentation, and cannot be closed as a duplicate question and so on, that's ok in my mind. We are building a knowledge base and posting good questions is as important as writing answers, more or less.

A stream of questions is also important for the vitality of the community. If we want new up and coming users, there has to be questions for them to answer.

4. How do you propose to deal with duplicate questions, bearing in mind that many answers on this site are 'dated', and that newer versions of Mathematica often allow for a better solution?

I'm a very goal oriented person and it hurts me to see questions get closed as duplicates on autopilot even when the consequence of that is that good answers will never be written.

Having answered a thousand questions, literally, on this site, I know very well the feeling of writing an answer to a newly posted question. Whether you are the first to answer, or whether you are trying to find a way to differentiate yourself from the already posted answers e.g. by having a faster solution, more elegant solution etc. it can be very thrilling. In part because you know that not just the OP, but also the other answerers, are going to read your answer and be in awe at your brilliance.

Because answerers don't have the same experience answering old questions as answering new ones, it's very hard to get quality answers on old questions.

I think that we should always acknowledge questions that may be duplicates and link to them, but we shouldn't necessarily close them immediately if we think that a new answer can be provided using new functionality. Perhaps we can nudge the OP in a comment to make the question about how to solve it specifically with the new functionality.

That said, I would not intervene to stop it if members close the question as a duplicate because that is in line with the current community guidelines.

5. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

Moderators

• Handle flagged posts and resolve disputes surrounding them.

• Handle instances where users are in breach with the code of conduct.

• Keep the review queues from getting too big by exercising the right to take action with a single vote. (This right must be exercised with a great deal of judgement, usually it's better to let it be a group decision.)

• Lead by example. Moderators carry a diamond next to their names and should take even more care than other members to lead by example.

6. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

I know that it means that I have to lead by example, and I feel well prepared for that due to my many years of activity on this site.

7. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching enough reputation to access moderator tools or become a trusted user?

I will

• be able to help out with flagged posts.

• have a larger impact when reviewing posts (potentially saving others some time).

• be able to lead by example to a greater extent.

1. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

[Answer 1 here]

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc. a question that you feel shouldn’t have been?

[Answer 2 here]

3. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of on-topic questions, but seems to refuse to learn anything from the answers (s)he receive?

[Answer 3 here]

4. How do you propose to deal with duplicate questions, bearing in mind that many answers on this site are 'dated', and that newer versions of Mathematica often allow for a better solution?

[Answer 4 here]

5. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

[Answer 5 here]

6. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

[Answer 6 here]

7. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching enough reputation to access moderator tools or become a trusted user?

[Answer 7 here]

1. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

[Answer 1 here]

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc. a question that you feel shouldn’t have been?

[Answer 2 here]

3. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of on-topic questions, but seems to refuse to learn anything from the answers (s)he receive?

[Answer 3 here]

4. How do you propose to deal with duplicate questions, bearing in mind that many answers on this site are 'dated', and that newer versions of Mathematica often allow for a better solution?

[Answer 4 here]

5. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

[Answer 5 here]

6. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

[Answer 6 here]

7. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching enough reputation to access moderator tools or become a trusted user?

[Answer 7 here]

1. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of valuable answers, but tends to generate a large number of arguments/flags from comments?

[Answer 1 here]

2. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc. a question that you feel shouldn’t have been?

[Answer 2 here]

3. How would you deal with a user who produced a steady stream of on-topic questions, but seems to refuse to learn anything from the answers (s)he receive?

[Answer 3 here]

4. How do you propose to deal with duplicate questions, bearing in mind that many answers on this site are 'dated', and that newer versions of Mathematica often allow for a better solution?

[Answer 4 here]

5. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

[Answer 5 here]

6. A diamond will be attached to everything you say and have said in the past, including questions, answers and comments. Everything you will do will be seen under a different light. How do you feel about that?

[Answer 6 here]

7. In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching enough reputation to access moderator tools or become a trusted user?

[Answer 7 here]