In the past, I've been told (via the 'declined' message of a flag) that a certain action was not within a moderator's power; I had flagged the post (and indicated in the flag report) in the hope that a particular action could be taken with regards to it (I don't recall what it was, and it is not important for this discussion), and I was told it couldn't.
To prevent flagging in the hopes of a particular action that is not within the moderator's power to perform, let me ask whether the following actions are within their power. I'll include some I already know the answer to (and indicate it) just for completeness. Also, I would like to know if some of these are actions that could be taken by other members of the community (even if not unilaterally).
- Can a moderator take what has been posted as an answer but is clearly a comment (e.g., the author states s/he cannot comment and is posting an answer instead) and turn it into a comment?
(Yes, I know this can be done, and community members cannot do this.)
- Can a moderator take what has been posted as an answer but is clearly a question unrelated to the original post (e.g., not even in the same general field, like a combinatorics questions posted as an answer to a question about algebraic geometry) and turn it into a question?
(While community members could vote to delete the "answer", they would not be able to post it as a question)
- Can a moderator take what has been posted as an answer but is a follow-up question and add it into the original question, or does this involve simply deleting-and-editing (which could be done by others)
Please feel free to add other actions to this list as questions. I will request that this be turned into a CW question; perhaps if the community understands a bit more clearly what is and what is not within moderator's "special powers" (as opposed to stuff that can be done by any high-enough-rep user, such as voting to delete), we can lighten the load.
