QUOTE(Yoshimi @ Mar 8 2012, 05:08 AM)
Rather than that (which is pretty obvious) you should probably have had explained that people that want to moderate will have to be capable of working with people of other opinions and attitudes without getting hostile towards them; will have to take responsibility for the descisions they make (I mean, the point of a moderator is not that s/he always asks some higher staff "Is that alright?" before they take action); will have to be able to accept when they are in the wrong; will have to have grown "a thick skin" on these forums (yeah, it's getting old saying this over and over but it's still as true); will have to have an approriate knowlege of other members (like, you see when someone is just making a harmless joke or when someone is troll baiting); will have to be able to restrain from developing a superior attitude (because on another level we still all are pretty equal as humans --- I have seen mods/staff in your team, though, that fail in that department) etc.
I mean, come on. Everybody knows that a moderator moderates some forums according to the rules. That shouldn't be everything there is to it though (and it is not, from what I gather from Robin when we are casually talking about one thing or another). You should make that clear to people before you ask them whether they want to submit an application.
And it is something I see happen unfortunately. Not much, but a lot of people who weren't prepared gained a bit of an attitude.
When you moderate a forum, you are basically the janitor. In fact, a good buddy of mine from The Hylia describes his role there as pretty much exactly that. An almighty Janitor *
maybe*, but still a janitor. You get rid of spammy/crap posts, you edit things that need to be edited, and if serious action needs to be taken with someone, discuss it with your peers. It's the same way it works on any board.
...other than that, Yoshimi has basically described how to not look like a jackass on Facebook.
Yes, it applies to PureZC as well.
I'm not saying everyone who posts in this thread has a shot of moderating here, but for those of you with this kind of passive "I'll never be worthy" attitude, allow me to reiterate that the people you look up to on this board are not saints. They're people like you who just have a mess to clean up (no I'm not saying they're nannies, heaven forbid.) In fact, if there's any mods/staff who would like to volunteer themselves by saying "Yeah I'm one of those people who isn't perfect, I mean I do X and X...", by all means tell us about it.
As for the other people, who are not willing to accept that kind of responsibility? *Perfectly understandable*. It's not quite Detroit, but Pure has a reputation due to its primary demographic. However, I strongly doubt that PureZC staff measures success based on how often you actually moderate, that would be silly. Does everyone get fired if it is a slow week, or someone beats someone else to something? No of course not. The idea is that there will be enough moderators to reasonably respond to issues on the board without waiting eight hours for one to log in.
If you as a moderator find you cannot handle the current situation in a thread, then leave that thread. Go! It will happen, especially here. If you want to build your relationships with your fellow staff, call on their help when you can't do the job, for pete's sake. You're not Superman. Just do the best job you can, and make FRIENDS, not RIVALS, with your peers.
Over at AGN, this is the kind of relationship we moderators have. It's not like the AGN of five years ago where the mods were elitists and pecked at new people like a flock of vultures, no. They're actually pretty nice people now. Life there is slow, but different. Ironically, PureZC mods could learn a thing or two from AGN.
Edited by King Aquamentus, 08 March 2012 - 09:05 AM.