In my time at Armor Games, I've seen a few new moderators come on board, and every time we promote a user to Moderator status, there's always a flurry of "why wasn't I picked?" or "I think _____ should be a Moderator" or "why is ________ still a moderator" or lots of other questions about what it really takes to be a Moderator on the site.
As of this writing, I have three comments on my profile asking for 'exact' requirements for becoming a Moderator.
I know we have information scattered around the site, but I wanted to sum up briefly a few of the core things we look for in a user in order to be nominated to become a Moderator. Hopefully this will help clear up some of the confusion.
This topic is meant to be informational in nature. I will delete any message containing text which is negative towards our current team, comments suggesting some other user be nominated, replies of "well, I guess I'll never qualify" or anything else off-topic -- even if your message contains other good ideas. This is not the place for *those* discussions.
Also, it should be obvious that this list is NOT complete, because we don't want to give away EVERY detail about what we look for in a moderator. And this list is also subject to change over time, especially when AG3 launches.
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BACKGROUND
We are obviously much more strict in our criteria than other sites, but that's only because we already have the best users out there and we want to be sure that anyone being a Moderator can follow our rules, guidelines, and get along with others.
THE PROCESS
In a nutshell, candidates are presented to the entire Moderator team, and are reviewed thoroughly by an Admin. The Moderator team decides unanimously (the exception being users who are on hiatus/holidays) on whether to accept the user or not; a negative response could either be "this user should never be a moderator" (and give reasons why) or "let's check back in 3-6 months". If an affirmative decision is made, an Admin user will Email the user asking if they'll accept the role and responsibilities. If the user accepts, the Admin user will promote them to become a probationary Moderator. We guide probationary Moderators for a little while and then release them into the wild.
HOW WE FIND USERS
There are two ways we find potential nominees.
First and foremost is by daily interactions within the forums or user profile comments. That's not to say that ONLY "opular" people will get nominated, but we're not likely to nominate someone that nobody really knows. We've recently passed on a half dozen users because none of us really know them as individuals. We'll start paying more attention to them now, of course.
The second method we use is a piece of software I wrote which takes some of the quantifiable criteria mentioned below and scans our database looking for users who qualify. Generally, this software finds HUNDREDS of users, and then starts disqualifying them based on other factors. Once it reports the users to me, I examine the user profiles, and then present a final list of nominees to the Moderator team. Candidates to whom the Moderator team give a definitive 'no way, never', we add to a 'skip' list so the software won't even look at them next time. There's a second "skip list" for users we want to check back on in a few months.
The last scan I did, which resulted in Freakenstein being added to the team, found almost 400 users, filtered them down to less than a dozen, and we were left with one definite 'yes' (Freakenstein), and a handful of "let's check back later" candidates (who we will not name).
SOME OF THE CRITERIA WE LOOK FOR
To be considered as a Moderator nominee, here are SOME of the things we look for. This list is not complete and is subject to change at any time without notice. We may or may not alter this forum posting to describe new or changed criteria. Also, meeting all of this criteria doesn't guarantee anything, because the rest of the Moderator team still has to vote on accepting you into our small team.
- You obviously need to have an excellent understanding of our Terms and Conditions for being on the site, and know the Rules & Guidelines for both the forums and game/user comments. And you follow them yourself.
- You need to stay up to date on things happening at Armor Games, especially with Armor Games v3 coming out later this summer. Users who have been in the beta since late last year will get extra points.
- You need to have an exceptional grasp of the English language (excellent spelling and grammar) but being fluent in one other language for support purposes may help your chances. You don't need to be an English professor, but 1337-speaking / textmsg writing styles, or writing styles which are difficult to read/understand will disqualify you.
- You need to be able to take criticism, from Admins, other Moderators, and especially other users. And you need to humbly accept this criticism when it's "constructive", or learn when it's "destructive" and deal with it accordingly without losing your cool.
- You need to be at LEAST 18 years of age; if you don't share your birth date on your profile (at least the year and month), you'll never even show up on our radar. And we have backups of our user data, so don't go changing your profile birth date trying to cheat the system -- we'll ask for proof.
- You need to have been an active, consistent member of the site for a minimum of 12-18 months. Big gaps in your login/posting history will generally reset this timer.
- You must be a genuinely helpful person within several forums. We watch where you post, how frequently you post, how many times you've posted in each forum, whether you're posting just to jump in on the conversation or genuinely getting involved in the topic, etc.
- We look for well-rounded users who also have good communication via user comments, but not to an excessive (spammy) degree. As such, users who carry on really long conversations back and forth (technically against our rules) will probably get passed on.
- We look for a minimum participation level from forum posts AND user comments. We need to see that you don't just focus on one type of commenting. Obviously we won't quantify these "minimum" values, because we don't want users trying to cheat the system.
- We look for a minimum number of rated games and game comments, and *recent* game ratings and comments, because we need to know you're actually playing the games and having fun too, not just hanging out in the forums 95% of the time. If you never participate in game comments, how will you recognize bad game comments versus merit-worthy comments?
- You must not have excessive quantities of user/game comments removed as spam. "Excessive" is subjective, but we can see how many comments you've had deleted, and we weigh that as a ratio against your remaining active comments.
- Generally, we tell users that even a single temporary ban will disqualify you. A temp-ban for flaming, spamming, harassment, fighting, racial comments, excessive swearing, or blatant rule breaking like hacking will certainly disqualify you. But if the temp-ban happened a long time ago (more than a year and a half), while we never "expunge" them from your history, we may treat them lighter than if your temp-ban was more recent.
WHAT DO WE EXPECT FROM OUR MODERATORS
New Moderators will start out working on cleaning up game comments and forum posts, and looking for merit-worthy game comments. They'll also continue to be helpful in the forums and via user comments to offer help and support, making sure other users are aware of the rules of the web site (and follow them).
We understand that life throws a curve-ball now and then, and while we certainly don't expect Moderators to be on the site every single day, we do expect that you're on the site several times per week. We also expect Moderators to take a break/holiday from time to time. This isn't a paid job, you're doing it for free, so don't feel guilty if you need to step away for a little while. Excessive absences may get you demoted back to regular user status.
And of course, you can always turn us down if you don't want to be on the team, and you can leave the team at any time as well.
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Hopefully that helps clear up some of the confusion about what kind of users we look for as Moderators.
what will happen when AG3 comes out, will games change, will users have to re-register or something?
What does thi... The games will continue to be what they currently are, possibly with added achievements, your account will be moved when AGv3 launches, so making a new account there would be useless. For more info, check out the threads in the Agv3 dedicated section below this one.
Anyway, is it that hard to find any new moderators?
If the guidelines fall under the "TL;DR" category, then yes, it is that hard to find new moderators.
But it doesn't seem as though they're in need of another one at the moment anyway, since nobody has been appointed since June and there doesn't seem to be an increase of tomfoolery.
So moderators are just selected users that help clean up the site from spam? That sounds like a good idea. I don't think a lot of sites have that system.
C'mon Freak, here to boast about your mod status?! Just Kidding! Respect! You do work!
They just kinda ask you if you wanted to be one then? I remember when you were newish here... You posted a billion times a minute, super intellectual, and I was jealous that you already had two merits in the short-ish amount of time!
Is age going to be a category in the future that really counts. Is it not more down to what they port on forums and in the comments. Maybe if they have any merits. I do not know where the main age range for uses on this site is, but is it above 18 or not? And maybe there should be a maximum age as well. Some younger people have fresher ideas. However, I do respect your system, I am not going against it. I was just wondering. I do believe that your system is very good and better than other sites but i was just wondering how much is it subject to change?
Imagine a 13 year old telling an adult what to do. Farcical much?
Ernie pointed out the same at some point, mainly because he is older than a good part of us. Either way, I think the general idea was: 1. To have mods that was older than the majority of the users, and thereby able to stand out as an authority. 2. To make the general assumption that the mods would then be more or less levelheaded and mature, being out of puberty and the moodswings it brings. 3. Create a common ground for the mods, all of them being adults and going through work or some kind of higher education.
And maybe there should be a maximum age as well
Just going to point out here that the staff is older than the majority of users, and will continue to be, and that anyone "old" playing games on AG, participating in the community, making meritworthy comments and having no ban history or other issues, probably wouldn't be old fashioned either, and while not all jumping-up-and-down-look-at-this-proto-type, they most likely would be open and easy to talk with. Otherwise, they wouldn't be made mods.
OK, Thanks guys. I was just wondering because i used to use another website that had weird criteria and i was just wondering whether it was me thinking it was weird, or that it was to way to do things. For example, they have and maximum age for what i suppose you would call the equivalent of a moderator and i was just wondering if this was standard practice. Because you are right, we need these older moderators and administrators to keep the site in check. I am not that old myself and was wondering about how the site was controlled. Like were there older people in charge. Well now I know. And yes a 13 year old telling an adult what to do would not be right. Thank you.
