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.
The age restriction is mainly due to maturity, experience and authority. As the typical user is between 13 and 16, there might be issues in having a moderator at the age of 13 trying to tell a 17-year-old what to do. Besides, when everyone else is more than 18 years old, it kinda goes towards the socialization among the moderators, which excludes anyone not in college/university/having a job/life/family and so on. This is a job, age and experience does matter, not to mention that some, if not all teenagers have a habit of going through certain phases and emotions, which might clash with the job as an authority.
Reading the forum topic and description of cormyn has satisfied me greatly. cormyn, if you or any other moderator/admin reads this, if would very much like you to consier my ideas and personal beleifs and i hope that you do not discourage this comment
Ian/Cormyn is no longer a part of the staff. That said, there is a reason this thread is up: Moderators does not volunteer as much as get chosen and deciding to accept. If you haven't shown you can handle this job, you won't get chosen. Telling us you can do the job and that you have before does not add anything when you are this young and fairly new to the community. In a few years, I am sure you can replace some of us, but up until then, we expect you to respect the restrictions and decisions of the moderating staff.
Thank you for actually reading my post. I appreciate that you would rather that i did something instead of saying it. Thinking about this statement, i will definately spend a lot more time here, helping,organizing and generally being useful and hopefully in the future i will be able to show you i can do something around here instead of pleed. Perhaps then i will be treated with the respect i deserve.
teenagers have a habit of going through certain phases and emotions, which might clash with the job as an authority.
I understand this stage and have been through outbursts of it. My solution is simply to take a day or two off AG to sort out my feelings and perhaps take it out on aggressive sports that i play.
Sounds like a plan. Besides, while it might seem like an awesome job, moderation, as you might be aware, is not as fun as it looks. Taking a look through the most popular games and their comments and then imagining how it is to delete all the spam comments gives a pretty good image of how it is to be a mod here. Even if you deal with users or threads, everything is pretty much just another pile of spam that needs to be dealt with. Some of it is just self aware and somewhat egoistic.
Being able to take a break before going off is a good ability, and would definitively help, considering of how we are talked to every once in a while. Either way, "show, don't tell" seems to be the best advice at this time, and then otherwise not wanting to be a mod, or at least not working towards it. Everything works out better if you just act naturally and enjoy the community instead of trying to be mod-like. Mini-mods and people trying too hard have a habit of turning invisible when we discuss new candidates.
I have been told before on this and other sites that i sometimes work to hard. In my eyes i just do the best i can and be the best i can be. I guess it is simply in my nature and blood to try my best whatever the task that i have been set.
I understand how hard this sort of thing can be. In my previous experience, i was dropped to the floor with the amount of stupidity that i had to deal with. I got there in the end after of few days work and sorting out. Unfortunately, this problem never stops no matter how good you are at managing friendships and preventing cheating an unecessary acts. I guess it is guess part of life...
I do not like that the age limit is 18. Long story short, I'm not 18. But, how will the people present identification of their age? And also, how do they know them as people? It is a website, not a great way of communication. For the identification thing, do they need to present it to the AG headquarters, or just figure out a way to show them online?
is there a chance for lower class people such as me to be qualified for promotion to moderator (level in game with AP, i am only a silver squire)? p.s. i don't want to be come one i am just wondering, anyways i am under aged. thank you for making the page, very helpful.
By 'Under aged' he means older than 13 but younger than 18. That is what it sounded like to me anyway.
@cooldownman
Yes, you can be any rank to be a moderator but they are looking more for experienced users. So if you just joined it is extremely likely that you will not get picked where as if you have been on the site, well known and extrmely active then you would have a strong chance. Members that are active for a long time tend to have a high rank anyway. I am very, very active but i am only a gold squire because i have only been very active for about 1 month. You need to be active for a long period of time so that the staff know that you are willing to carry on with something and not stop and start, stop and start, stop and start.
Most members will start to be off the site because of Christmas holidays. Some users will still be online due to religion, not going on holdiay or expensive internet access wherever they are going. While i am on the topic of christmas, i would just like to wish everyone a very merry christmas and a happy new year!
