How do you become a mod?

[andyspins]

I'm not asking for someone to make me a mod, I'm asking how to earn being a mod. Any answers?

[The Skirata Clan]

From what I understand the current Mods hit the soon-to-be Mod with a club over the head then when he or she wakes up they are shanghaied into the job.

[Captain Del]

Originally Posted by andyspins

i'm not asking for someone to make me a mod, i'm asking how to earn being a mod. Any answers?

Originally Posted by Jack I

the staff here at pof is chosen by the administrative staff based off a variety of factors.

1. good grammar: your posts and messages must make sense if you wish to properly communicate with users.
2. able to communicate clearly: this goes along with #1. If they can't understand you, then it's hard for you to do your duties as a mod.
3. clear understanding for the rules: should be self explanatory. If you understand the rules and have a mostly-clean history you're in good running. Rule-breakers do not make good moderators.
4. some knowledge of the game and forums: if you don't know what's going on or how the forum works, it's kind of hard to help others with it.
5. maturity: maturity is an important part of the selection process. While there is a point where you can just be "too young" to be a mod, it's more based on how you present yourself than how old you really are. There are younger members on the staff that you would really expect to be full-blown adults, but are not.
6. helpful around the forums: the users that are selected to be moderators usually have contributed to the site in some way that has been very helpful to the community, or is constantly seen answering user's questions.
7. doesn't beg to become a mod: it's ok to ask how one becomes a moderator, but when a user begs for the position that usually shows the admin staff that the user is not okay for the spot.

the best thing to do if you want to be a moderator is just to go about your business as a member, and when the admin staff goes looking for a new moderator they may contact you if they feel you are right for the spot. It goes with the age old motto though, "don't call us; we'll call you."

Don't know why the quote was in all lowercase letters.. guess it's the rum

[andyspins]

Ok, I also read that mods are chosen for being helpful, so would answering questions as best as I can help?

[Batleth]

When we feel we need more mods, we review who's active on the site at that time. Yes, we do look for a number of good qualities such as helpful to other users, knowledgeable about game content, and many other innate skills that we look for in a mod. We look at how long they've been on the site, prior policy violations, post count, etc, etc. We do hire non-adult mods from time to time. We do prefer adult mods but we have several teens that has really turned out to be outstanding mods on some of our sites. We've never hired anyone that was younger than 13 before. We feel they just don't have the worldly experience and customer service skill yet to be a mod.

Once we've come up with a short list of possible users to make mods, an Admin will send a PM to our first choice and wait to hear back from that user. If they turn us down, we move on down our list till we've filled all open positions for mod that we need at that time.

If you aren't picked to be a mod, you shouldn't feel bad. We've got 100's of users on the forums that are active and many of them wish to become a mod. Problem is, we've only got a handful of new openings each year as the site continues to grow or some mods step down. Combine that with our strict qualifications we have for someone to become a mod, anyone's chances to make it is pretty slim.


Yes, we do provide new minimods with training.
Yes, they do get some perks for helping out the community as it's a non-paying position. For example, they get extra PM space so they don't have to worry about having a full inbox while trying to help users PMing them.
No, there is no set limit to how much time you have to mod. It's a team effort and as long as they continue to help, they qualify.


I think that should answer most basic questions. If anyone has anymore, feel free to post and I'll try to do my best to answer.