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Someone with 10,000 rep has access to the moderator tools. What's the difference between them and a moderator?

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"Moderator" actually refers to anyone who participates in community moderation. Depending on how strictly you use the term, that is at 20k, 10k, 5k, 3k, 2k, or even 1 rep (flagging).

Usually, it refers to either 10k+s or ♦ mods.

Some differences between 10k/20k and ♦ powers:

  1. ♦ mods are elected (or "chosen", in the case of pro tems like me) by the community. I've seen users on SO with 20k+ who I'd hate to see as ♦s (judging by the quality of their posts). One can get to 20k without knowing SE policies, and just by posting a high volume of mediocre answers.
  2. ♦ mods have access to sensitive data. A lot of it.
  3. ♦ votes are binding. (close, delete, undelete, reopen, etc)
  4. Certain flags (under the "it needs ♦ moderator attention" section) are only seen by ♦s
  5. ♦s can merge users/posts/tags. They can migrate posts (to any SE site), convert to comment, wreak havoc in user profiles, lock posts, and a few other stuff I can't remember.
  6. ♦s have the power to PM ("mod message") users for important stuff. They can annotate/suspend/delete/destroy users as well.
  7. There are other powers as well, quite a few of which are under /admin/links.
  8. ♦s have extra powers on chat as well. Handling ♦ flags, suspensions, superpings, user profile editing, and access to a special "private room" option (Makes room only visible to mods of that site and invited users; if the room is associated with SE.com then all mods can see it)

I think that sums up most of the differences. The well known ones, anyway.

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    EEEEKKK!!! It's full of diamonds!
    – Lix
    Commented Jun 20, 2012 at 14:05
  • The bullets of the list with the diamonds near them are.. weird. Care to change to numbered list? :)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Jun 20, 2012 at 14:06
  • @sha switched to mobile, rather annoying change to make. Could you do it? Of course, I can argue that the weird bullets are [status-bydesign] :P
    – Manishearth
    Commented Jun 20, 2012 at 14:55
  • I think actually (officially) "moderator" only refers to diamond mods. The usage of the term to refer to users who participate in community moderation (usually those with at least 10k rep) is colloquial.
    – David Z
    Commented Jun 20, 2012 at 16:16
  • Sorry wasn't around - see you pulled it off anyway, cheers! :)
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Jun 20, 2012 at 18:22
  • @david strange. I've seen 10ks being called moderators on some official page or the other. I'll look for it and modify my answer.
    – Manishearth
    Commented Jun 21, 2012 at 0:56
  • @ManishEarth there was a change in the recommended terminology a while back, IIRC. So there might be some official pages that still refer to 10k users as moderators, but it probably just means they need to be updated. Though you could ask in TL.
    – David Z
    Commented Jun 21, 2012 at 1:56
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There are three main differences:

  • The moderators are the only ones who have access to certain flags.

If you pick the flag → it needs ♦ moderator attention → other option, your flag will be treated with the highest confidentiality and will only be visible to community moderators and Stack Exchange employees. In addition, flagged comments and spam/offensive flag counts are not visible to you.

  • Moderators are elected. The election process can be found here.
  • SO members with 10k+ rep are not expected to participate in advanced moderation. The elected moderators are. Jeff Atwood describes the position of the elected moderators as

"...human exception handlers, there to deal with those (hopefully rare) exceptional conditions that should not normally happen..." (full post here)

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    On the contrary - moderation is a part of every user on the site. Voting, flagging, editing, reviewing edits, etc... are all processes that moderate the site. The diamond mods are "...human exception handlers, there to deal with those (hopefully rare) exceptional conditions that should not normally happen..."
    – Lix
    Commented Jun 20, 2012 at 13:27
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    Good catch, I've added it to the answer.
    – SomeKittens
    Commented Jun 20, 2012 at 13:33
  • @Lix Well, it is expected that the user base will take over some of the moderation, but it's not expected of each individual. As a normal user, you can choose to participate without doing any moderation whatsoever. Diamonds can't do that, or at least not without getting their status revoked.
    – a cat
    Commented Jun 20, 2012 at 13:34
  • Moderators are also the only ones who have access to comment, spam and offensive flags.
    – Matt
    Commented Jun 20, 2012 at 13:35
  • @lun - This is true. But then we would have to discuss what exactly "participation" entails... Asking but not answering? Editing but not reviewing edits? Voting but not VTCing? At the end of the day I think it is expected of everyone to perform maintenance on the site in whatever way they feel comfortable with...
    – Lix
    Commented Jun 20, 2012 at 13:37
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There is a fourth (and most significant) difference:

  • Moderator votes are binding and instant.

When closing a question what ever close option the moderator chooses is the one displayed and the post is closed regardless of how many other votes it has. The same it true of deletion.

A fifth difference:

  • Moderators can migrate to any site on the network.

While regular users are limited to the (up to) 5 destinations presented on the migrate dialog, diamond moderators have an extra box to type in the name of any site.

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