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?

This depends greatly on the nature of the arguments or flags. If someone is being outright abusive, they should be warned or even immediately (temporarily or permanently) suspended. I would not delete their whole profile, with all their answers, but would most happily delete abusive comments and so on - of course. In a more realistic case, they would be committing (or being accused of) minor offences and the arguments be small-scale bickering. In that instance, I would talk to them first; not placing myself on either side of the fence, but alerting them that they are bringing disruption with them, even if that's not necessarily their intent, and if it willingly continues then they may face further consequences (e.g. temporary suspension, chat-banning,...). I might judge that they are doing nothing wrong at all. It, of course, depends. But in all cases, I would confer with other moderators too unless we are in extremely clear-cut territory.

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

I would gently "challenge" them, directly. "Respectfully, I have to disagree with this particular decision..." and so on; I would not undo their decision without having talked about it. Respect for fellow moderators is obviously important. But, if I feel things are wrongfully deleted/closed (as I am known to sometimes do!) I will happily verbally question that - and if I feel the deleted item has particular value, I will vouch for it - but I would not undo their decision unless a majority of the moderators agreed with me.

3. If you had to change any of math.se's community-specific policies and precedents, what would you choose, and what would you hope to achieve by this change? Here, "community-specific" refers to practices only in place on math.se, not the network at large.

The most concrete thing that comes to mind: I would want to not exactly change the enforcement of quality standards policy, but soften its implementation in some cases. I know many feel like it is not implemented enough, and that is also true. But it is ludicrous that volunteers who have given so much to this community should be suspended on these grounds; it is also ludicrous that new, well-meaning users will benefit from having immediate downvoting and closure as their first impression of the site. But let me be clear: I would by and large do nothing different. Cases where I feel standards (which are, you know, standardised, and not always fit for purpose in fringe cases) are too harshly imposed are rare. I only get passionate about instances where I feel delete-voters (e.g.) have not stopped to care for the human behind the question, and really see if there is something of value in the question or any future answer.

4. Math.SE seems to, in practice, fulfill dual purposes: to be a repository of mathematical knowledge in a Q&A format, and a place for people to get specialist, individual help with mathematics. Often these purposes align, but sometimes they clash. Which do you see as the primary purpose of MSE? What influence do you anticipate this might have on your actions as moderator?

For me, the primary purpose of MSE is to be the internet's most accessible and high quality mathematical skill base. If you are to be a Q&A, then you automatically leave yourself open to people wanting specialist help - you know, asking the Qs. So while I understand the question, I slightly reject its premise. For me, good questions are those where the original poster and all future readers interested in the topic may benefit; good answers do the same. Our site has as much value as a human community as it does as a vast encyclopedia. I did not grow to love MSE because I knelt in awe at the number of high quality answers... I grew to love the people, and their helpfulness. These clash, in my view, less often than people think. "There are no original thoughts": watching the specific doubt of another being addressed is good for you, too, because you may well have that doubt at some point. Though, perhaps not good for you, the reader, specifically, because you may well be quite knowledgeable in that topic already: the clash is most keenly perceived by those among us who are already "expert" and experienced with the site, but we shouldn't forget the bias we have.

So as moderator I would broadly toe the usual line, discouraging questions which are too specific to a person and closing lazy questions. I would however be glad to help anyone asking in good faith, and ask the community to do the same, even if the question seems small or 'uninteresting' (to the knowledgeable ones); there is pedagogical value, future and present, in many a basic question. Also, we could make the "does it have future value?" quibble with niche, high-quality questions - but many niche questions can be very interesting, and we should be proud of our ability to be able to answer technically expert, niche questions; yet these often receive very few votes and little attention. These count as seeking "specialist, individual help" but definitely have great value for us. I'm considering options for promoting these kinds of questions; perhaps, as we keep meta posts for undelete requests and so on, we might keep a community watch on niche, expertise demanding questions; I'm not sure the 'search for currently unanswered' or tag-searching features completely do the job.

5. What has your involvement in moderation issues looked like in the past? For example, have you helped maintain particular tags, been active in review queues, or provided help on meta? How do you see this changing as you step in to a more official role? (I asked this last election here.)

I haven't used the review queue system much as an ordinary user; I would, of course, as moderator since it would now be my job. I tend to engage with these more personally, just closing, flagging (or disputing closures of) posts as I find them in the wild. As moderator I would also be much more active than I am currently on community chat.

6. An effective question has always been: What is/are the most pressing issue(s) on Mathematics Stack Exchange and how will you address it/them as a moderator?

The two most pressing issues for me are: public relations/openness to newcomers, and the habit we seem to have of not voting for questions. Whenever I see a well-written question, especially if it is clearly a hard question, I will upvote it - even if I have no interest in the answer. I notice people tend to give interested comments under questions without voting for them; excellent questions often receive dozens of views and fewer than two votes. This is a problem not because the questioner needs the ego-boost of more votes, but because when we don't vote for questions they don't get promoted so much by the site, and they are forgotten: and then we have failed, for our service has failed to give attention to a genuinely high-quality question (meanwhile, any old integral post immediately gets 7 votes...). I've said a bit about how I'd address either already (the former just requires, I think, more willingness to give benefit of the doubt and good faith, helping newcomers with their posts and saying "in future, do this..." - that kind of thing) - for the second issue, I'm thinking we could do with several community-maintained lists of niche and forgotten questions, but haven't finalised ideas about how it would work.

There might be people disagreeing with my view. But here is my question for our candidates. First, it needs some motivation. Over my few years at this site, I have noticed the following two trends. Because of these trends, I now spend very little time on the site and am not as enthusiastic about answering questions as I was a few years ago. Decline in the quality of new questions: In the past, I enjoyed looking at new questions and often wondered why I hadn't thought of them before. Most of those questions were formulated out of genuine curiosity. Nowadays, most questions are plain, dry, and resemble typical homework problems. Lack of quality answers: There is a noticeable shortage of people capable of writing quality answers. Knowledge alone is not enough; the willingness to invest time in crafting well-thought-out responses is also important. In the past, I have learned many interesting things by reading answers. Now, I mostly see a bunch of bounty hunters waiting for someone to post simple questions. What steps can be taken to improve the quality of new questions and encourage expert users to invest time in providing well-crafted answers on the site?

I would not say there is much of a decline in the quality of new questions, but I've only been here for a few years. I see many questions daily that perhaps don't thrill me specifically but clearly are good, 'hard', and of value to anyone interested in that particular topic; their main sin is being niche, rather than of poor quality. We just have to promote interesting questions better (vote! people). For the lack of quality answers, I would say any answers to difficult or subtle questions do tend to be good; the phenomenon of "bounty hunters" (bear in mind, there is value in helping people with "basic" questions, so "bounty hunter" is sometimes a fair accusation, sometimes not) giving simple answers is one I have noticed too, but (1) we should not discourage simple questions (2) if the challenging and more interesting questions were promoted more, you would see more good answers. It is of course possible for a hard question to be answered correctly but uninterestingly/pedagogically poorly, but this is rare. Our more expert volunteers are quite good at presenting ideas. Besides, we can always add another answer if we think a teaching point has been missed (which I sometimes do). Don't mistake seeing a "green tick" on a question as a sign it is totally answered and no longer improvable upon.

8. In your opinion, what do moderators do?

Mostly, hopefully, not that much (as the Stack Exchange official guidelines suggest). One would hope abusive incidents are rare; but we handle them if they occur. The community is quite good (.. maybe a little too eager..) at closing and deleting questions themselves, so the strong arm of the law tends not to be needed so much. Moderators just have more authority, and they can make public announcements with that authority.

9. 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 completely fine about that. I will not change my profile or any past comments, meta posts, etc. I love this site, and have little to hide from it. If people are embarrassed, say, when they see my old 'baby' questions as I first began to cut my teeth on university mathematics while still in school - with the moderator diamond attached - then shame on them.

10. 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?

Moderators can instantly delete, close and undelete, reopen; as a trusted user, I often felt my reopen/undelete votes were ineffective, at best very slow to make a change, since we require several other members to weigh in. Moderators can also make Meta posts or assertions with more confidence and be more supported by the community. No one needs to listen to me, but they might be more likely to listen to a moderator.