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.
Some of the parts of what is expected of a moderator is typed at the end of Cormyn's post.
Downs: --Deleting spam and getting accosted by the increase of spam. --Awarding merits when you see a great comment and getting accosted by the lack of merited comments. --Having to mediate, as in having to break up a dispute between two users. --Having to resolve the same issue 10 times a day. --Having to ban advertising bots 4 times a day. Some masochists/sadists like me like this.
Ups: Getting to act like a bunch of clowns and playing off each other like the Muppets. Like these guys above.
......I think that's it.
I'm the only serious moderator 100% of the time. That's the joke.
I'm the only serious moderator 100% of the time. That's the joke.
LOL One fit for a stand-up comedian!
And I think you forgot the mentioning of having a gathering to drink, like Cenere said...
I'm really amazed on how little pages this thread has... is it the lack of users being active in the forae or have you guys deleted a lot of posts containing "I want to become one, where do I sign up and get my mod-shield?!" -questions? *grin*
That is not one of the upsides, it is a necessity to not go crazy. And it goes out of our own pockets anyway.
Is it THAT hard for you guys to keep focussed? Ouch... well, a drink does do the trick there at times, that is... if the bank account approoves. *hick-up*
It's a sticky, it is invisible to the majority of users, hence the incredible amount of "How do I mod" questions we keep getting.
LOL Yes, that seems to be the case sometimes. (I know because of the music competitions) Maybe they should implement a same sort of programm like GetSat has, offering similar posts before making one? That would help you in your ongoing struggle to fight those questions, wave after wave - after wave...
Here... *hands a nice cold one* ...relax, you're doing fine so far!
*Sane Focus is easy. Sanity is a whole other measure.
LOL Yes, that seems to be the case sometimes.
It feels like all the time.
As for the getSat thing, I just wish they would update the help page to include all these informations, so we could just go "Have you checked the help page? No? You wouldn't think it would be helpful to look there first before making a thread? It's in the title: HELP page." This of course weeding out all the "Moron", "idiot" and explicits we think, but doesn't write down. Because we are customer minded.
No, but moderators must be active members of the community, so (at least in AG2), you're automatically going to gain a decent amount of points whether you like it or not before you're considered for the position.
You can't, for example, have 1500 posts and still be a serf. That's physically impossible. Don't try it because you'll end up turning into a knight against your will, and you'll lose your serfish innocence forever.
If you go to the web archive you can see pages of Cen with only 170 AP.
Contrary to what you may believe from your joyful experiences with him, Cenere wasn't appointed a moderator the day he joined. Yes, he did have 170 AP at one point, as all of us with 170 AP or over do, but he wasn't automatically a moderator just because he was Cenere (although even then people often confused him for Strop).
You don't say. Seems like the entire site is confusing your, to judge from your comments, but let's have it: This topic is about the requirements you will have to live up to, if you want to become a mod. Hence the title. If you read the very first post, you will learn what other mods are looking for, when they try to find a new mod, what the admins might be looking for and so on. Basically, it is a check list of doom and destruction, with an added random calculation of "Will the mods like you?" and "Did you actually try to become mods, because then you won't become one".
So, go read the first post in this thread (on page one), and you might understand it a lot better. As for anything else, you might need to consider reading the rest of the stickies and not post questions in your comments where no one can see them. And have a nice day!
I wouldn't worry about the moderator position right off the bat. I would just enjoy the site, make some friends, understand how the site works, and learn from it as you go. From there, you can read the first page to figure out just what is required.
I see Frank is still with us! Haven't given up yet, struggling under pressure? =P Just kidding, I KNOW you're doing a good job! It's just to bad that you don't seem to have time for a normal comment anymore... =(
Anyway, is it that hard to find any new moderators? It's been pretty slim if you consider how many have been appointed over the course of a year (*nods at Freakenstein*) and there's even one that has turned in his stripes... so I guess not many make the cut? (o.O)
