<h3>What are community moderators?</h3>

<p>Moderators are site users who have been elected by the community based on not only their knowledge in the topic domain, but also because they are:</p>

<ul>
<li>patient and fair</li>
<li>lead by example</li>
<li>show respect for their fellow community member in their actions and words</li>
</ul>

<p>Moderators have the very highest level of privilege in our system:</p>

<ul>
<li>Moderator votes are binding. Any place we have voting (close, open, delete, undelete, offensive, etc), that vote will reach the threshold and take effect immediately if a single moderator casts a vote.</li>
<li>Moderators can lock posts. Locked posts cannot be voted on or changed in any way.</li>
<li>Moderators can protect posts. Protected posts cannot be answered by new users.</li>
<li>Moderators can see all data in the system, including votes and user profile information.</li>
<li>Moderators can place users in timed suspension, and delete users if necessary.</li>
<li>Moderators can perform large-scale maintenance actions like merge questions and batch retag.</li>
<li>Moderators have access to the moderator flag queue</li>
</ul>

<h3>How do community moderators work?</h3>

<p>The following guidelines are provided to all our community moderators, and all moderators of any type are expected to abide by them:</p>

<ol>
<li>As a moderator, your actions now represent our community; please act accordingly. You are in a position of the highest trust.</li>
<li>Your goal is to guide the community with gentle — but firm — intervention. <strong>Respect</strong> your fellow community members at all times; demonstrate <strong>fairness</strong> and <strong>impartiality</strong> in your actions.</li>
<li>Keep the discussion reasonably on topic by providing visible feedback to indicate where and why things have gone off topic.</li>
<li>Regularly check for and deal with posts <strong>flagged for moderator attention</strong>.</li>
<li>In the case of serious disputes, communicate directly with users via email to help <strong>mediate and resolve disputes</strong>.</li>
</ol>

<h3>When should I seek out a community moderator?</h3>

<p>Don't hesitate to <a href="http://stats.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/flag-posts">flag posts for moderator attention</a> any time there is something you feel strongly needs to be brought to the attention of a moderator. And if it is extremely urgent, you can always mail the address provided in the footer.</p>

<p><sub>.Reference: Imported excerpt and wiki from the main <a href="http://meta.stackexchange.com/tags/election/info">Meta Stack Exchange</a> site.</sub></p>
