- 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?
Carefully. I certainly wouldn't want to discourage such a user from being such a fine resource; I might kindly suggest to him to consider before getting into an argument.
- How would you handle a situation where another mod closed/deleted/etc a question that you feel shouldn't have been?
I would respect my co-moderator's position; after all, he is just as much a moderator as I would be.
- What do you think Crypto.SE's biggest challenge is? (E.g. question/answer quality/quantity, too many/few closures, too many/few questions of a certain type, bad tools/guidance, …) What do you think should be done about this (not necessarily as a moderator, it's ok if this requires the whole community or Stack Exchange staff)?
The biggest problem (not the biggest annoyance; that would be the homework dumps we get) would be the stream of novice questions that have already been answered (I don't mind novice questions; I do mind getting the exact same question 10 times). However, to be fair to such novices, it's not easy to search this site for answers - we might want to consider ways where we could improve that.
- Would you rather that someone become a moderator who is competent in cryptography, but has sub-par people skills, or someone who is competent with people, but has sub-par cryptography skills?
Personally, I would prefer someone who is competent with people, while not being utterly ignorant about cryptography. After all, the role of the moderator is not to answer questions, but instead to try to 'keep the peace'.
- You've just deleted / closed a question alone (with your super-vote). The author is accusing you of abuse of your moderator powers, via meta or chat. How do you react?
I would explain the reasons for my action; beyond that, I wouldn't take any action.
- Votes of moderators are definitive. If a moderators votes to close a question he doesn't need to ask anyone and none has to agree before the question is closed.
With this in mind, will you change your voting activity (= vote more / less / equally often) if you'd be elected?
I don't expect I'd change my behavior that much. After all, when a question is closed, everyone could see who voted to close it. That means that you're still on the record.
- 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'm fine with that; after all, with my rep, I assume I'm pretty much treated as a semi-moderator anyways, at lease in that respect.
- How much do you know about, and how do you keep up with, the current trends in the field of cryptography (and snake oil).
I do make some attempt to keep track of things.
9 Give us an elevator pitch in a single sentence. Why do you want to become a mod?
As I mentioned when I tossed in my hat, I just believe that it's time for me to serve. If the people disagree, and would prefer someone else, that's fine.
- In what way do you feel that being a moderator will make you more effective as opposed to simply reaching 10k or 20k rep?
It's not making me "more effective" (whatever that means). And, I've reached 20k rep years ago...
