In connection with the moderator elections, we are holding a Q&A thread for the candidates. Questions collected [from an earlier thread](http://meta.judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/4181/2017-moderator-election-qa-question-collection?answertab=votes#tab-top) have been compiled into this one, which shall now serve as the space for the candidates to provide their answers. Not every question was compiled. As stated, we took the 8 highest ranked questions, plus two of our default questions, for a total of 10 questions.

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 first set of three dashes](http://meta.judaism.stackexchange.com/revisions/a298e539-acb3-485e-b64a-9ec0512a83b7/view-source). Please consider putting your name at the top of your post so that readers will know who you are before they finish reading everything you have written, and also including a link to your answer on your nomination post.

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!

**Oh, and when you've completed your answer, please provide a link to it after this blurb here, before that set of three dashes. Please leave the list of links in the order of submission.**

To save scrolling here are links to the submissions from each candidate (in order of submission):



---

>1. What is something about the character or policy of the Mi Yodeya that you'd like to work to improve as a mod, and how would you work on it?



>2. What is something new and/or unique that you can bring to the moderator team and/or to the site? (eg. active at unusual times, familiarity with a certain topic, past applicable work experience, extreme love of waffles, etc.)



>3. Why do you want to be a moderator?



>4. [Purim Torah season](http://meta.judaism.stackexchange.com/q/797/759) is a time when moderators here end up having to use personal judgement a little more than they usually do. As a moderator, how would you tend to steer the direction of our annual Purim silliness (compared to how it's been in the past, I suppose): keep more of it around since it's just two weeks or cull mediocre or borderline jokes to keep things somewhat focused? Something else?



>5. Tell us about a time (here or elsewhere) when you managed to successfully spur a group of people to positive action that wasn't required of them.



>6. Mi Yodeya sometimes struggles with posts that are not from a mainstream Orthodox perspective.  We generally follow the approach we worked out [here](http://meta.judaism.stackexchange.com/a/1307/472) for questions and answers from other movements, and we tend to delete posts that ascribe authority to non-Jewish sources/ideas.  That said, there's still a lot of room for interpretation, and sometimes discussions get heated and flags build up quickly.  As a moderator you'll be called on to adjudicate.  Please describe your approach to these challenges and your comfort with enforcing the existing policies.



>7. I have frequently found that a number of new users are intimidated and discouraged to continue on this site because of moderators closing questions or putting them on hold. While we do publish our policy in the guide, the language there may be too wordy or ambiguous to many new users. Even with carefully readig the policy, the decision to close or put a question on hold is often voted on by several users often without adequate explanation. Sometimes, moderators take action without waiting for the vote. Comments sometimes help clarify things, but, I sense that often, it has discouraged new users to persevere and stay with our site. They may get intimdated and leave. What actions would you do as moderator to encourage users to stay?



>8. Comments: bane of any site that wants to maintain a good signal:noise ratio, harmless, something in between? What do you think about comments and the moderation thereof on Mi Yodeya, and what would you like to change about it?



>9. 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?



>10. How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?