In connection with the moderator elections, we are holding a Q&A thread for the candidates. Questions collected [from an earlier thread](http://meta.travel.stackexchange.com/questions/1286/2013-moderator-election-qa-question-collection) have been compiled into this one, which shall now serve as the space for the candidates to provide their answers. As a candidate, your job is simple - post an answer to this question, citing each of the questions and then post your answer to each question given in that same answer. For your convenience, I will include all of the questions in quote format with a break in between each, suitable for you to insert your answers. Just [copy the whole thing after the linebreak](http://meta.travel.stackexchange.com/revisions/63345dc9-f739-41df-885f-957160c47af4/view-source). Once all the answers have been compiled, this will serve as a transcript for voters to view the thoughts of their candidates, and will be appropriately linked in the Election page. Good luck to all of the candidates! --- > In your opinion, what do moderators do? > 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? > In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep? > 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? > How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been? > **How would you deal with situations arising from community differences on questions / answers related to disputed geographic territories?** To explain, Travel Stack Exchange is in a unique position in the Stack Exchange network of sites because it gets questions related to politically volatile or disputed regions. These can tend to have loaded implications for many community members. How will you best defuse a situation such as these? > **How would you deal with questions that overlap with The Great Outdoors or Bicycles Stack Exchange?** One of the trickier situations we have as a community is that questions asked here on Travel Stack Exchange sometimes overlap with the remit of other Stack Exchange sites, specifically The Great Outdoors (for camping / hiking) or Bicycles (for cycling). How will you distinguish situations where these questions need to be migrated or allowed to remain here? > Were you always happy with the pro tem moderators? Is there anything you think you could do better? > How would you handle with off-topic questions? Close them immediately and reopen if they get improved or give some time to the OP to improve it?