This is going to be a little long and inside baseball-y. I've had some cocktails. Here's a tl;dr:
Wow, and that was already pretty long. Get ready for a wild ride, folks!
As some people know and - many - others don't, I was a moderator and super moderator at multiple times in PC's history. (I've also
not been around these parts for much longer than I've actually been a part of this place, so definitely take what I'm saying with the biggest pinch of salt you can find!) Because of this, I've been through the mill multiple times at multiple times and there are things about the promotion process that work and other things that, quite frankly, don't. I won't go into those things any more than necessary, except when I forget and go off on a tangent, like this one here!
One of the best things about being a super moderator was being part of the decision process for appointing moderators. If a section was suddenly having a burst of prolonged activity, or a previous moderator had resigned/been fired, or if there's some other bespoke reason, that would normally kick the process off. As I mention above, for the most part, the whole thing normally takes a very short amount of time; sometimes hours, sometimes a few days, rarely longer. Often there'll be people on the radar of higher staff (HS) for various reasons of quality. If not, HS trawl the section in question looking for quality posters, and it's normally very clear who should be the new moderator of a given section. That person will generally have very good communication skills, a high degree of knowledge about the section in question, a generally upbeat and mature attitude, and a relatively good level of activity. Normally there's only one or two people who fulfil all four criteria at the right time, and if there aren't, after a few days of a lack of moderation in a particular section, someone will normally come out of the woodwork and start displaying these hitherto undisplayed attributes. Gold warehouse/Vendak is kinda right in his much pithier assessment mentioned above.
A HS member will bring a candidate/candidates to the attention of the rest of HS and there'll be a HS vote. Sometimes it's a rubber stamp exercise, sometimes there's a discussion about the relative merits of each candidate (Will he or she 'fit' with the wider team? Do people have prior knowledge of the candidate's history (e.g. infractions, length of time on PC)? Is this person only behaving this way to
become a mod? etc.) but at some point there'll be a selection, and then happy times and a thread in Celebrations and an update to the Small Updates & Changes thread and yadda yadda yadda.
Applications for advertised positions would just make everything much more complicated than it needs to be. For one, in order to make the process as fair and transparent as possible, there'd need to be a fair amount of time between posting the advertisement and receiving applications (especially if you wanted answers that had a modicum of value to them). There'd then need to be some time set aside to looking through the applications, as there'd undoubtedly be many more than is necessary for the position. Once the applications had been read, there'd need to be a whittling down process to a final two/three/insert manageable number here. And only THEN could you go on to the current process described above of actually deciding which person to actually promote. Rather than having a promotion take three hours (as I can definitely remember one doing), each one would end up taking over a week, and possibly closer to two! In addition, the axiom 'actions speak louder than words' wonderfully sums up the approach to promotions of members and moderators. If people were to ask me 'how do i become a mod???????????', the first piece of advice I'd give would simply be 'act like one'. I don't mean going around pretending to ban people or close threads, but by posting intelligently and frequently, coming up with ideas to elevate the section in question, reporting bad posts etc. Having previous evidence of moderator-like behaviour can only put candidates in good stead. Simply saying what he or she would do upon promotion adds a much more uncertain element to the whole thing. As people have mentioned above, there's plenty of scope for people to exaggerate their achievements or just say things about themselves that aren't true but may help them get ahead in the process. Without the benefit of previous posts/actions, there's potential for some real bad eggs to fall through the cracks and become staff. (Of course, I'm assuming that HS would be able to spot the bullshitters a mile away, but it would just go back to the added time element above of making everything so fucking convoluted.) So, yeah. Those are my incredibly long and rambly reasons as to why I would not be in favour of moderator applications on PC.
(1,000 words down. Let's go on to higher staff!)
One of the most rewarding and deeply frustrating things about being a super moderator was being part of the decision process for appointing other super moderators. Rewarding because there's the sense of joy of bringing people into the inner sanctum of PC; frustrating because the inner sanctum of PC is so fucking political it hurts. Unlike the promotion of members to moderators, there's no real rhyme or reason as to why moderator promotions happen the way they do - either the frequency of, or the types of people involved in, such promotions. Sometimes they can be caused by resignations, other times not; it really varies. Much like member promotions, it essentially comes down to a HS vote. Unlike member promotions, there are always many candidates on the table and the process can take weeks, depending on how political people are feeling!
I sometimes like to think of PC as a company. Members are employees/shareholders. Moderators are supervisors of particular sections and people and responsible for keeping their section in order. Higher staff members are akin to a company's board of directors: general oversight of the entire organisation, 'big picture'-thinking about strategy and maintenance and ultimately responsible to the members whose interests they're working in. The analogy only stretches so far, but it's a useful one to show that a higher staff member isn't simply a 'very good moderator'; the role and its function is very different and, apart from the 'general oversight' description i.e. looking after mod-less forums, there isn't a lot of overlap between the things that moderators need to think about and the concerns of higher staff. Although a number of very good moderators have become very good higher staff, the jump up isn't always as successful as one may think it is, and there have been mods who have really come into their own as HS rather than as simply moderators.
There are a number of reasons as to why the staff make-up is the way it is, most of them boring and historical (and some of them sexy, but not many). If I'm remembering correctly, there've been as many as 16 and as few as 9/10 HS members in total, and various degrees of seniority and importance. (Does anyone remember the 'Praetor' quasi-admin level? And Kairi? Those were the days!) Contrary to popular belief, there's not really one ideal type of higher staff member. Going back to the company analogy, it's important for the HS to be as unified as possible in public, whilst still being open for debate and discussion when making internal decisions. That's why there's not really one 'type' of higher staff member. If there was a perfect higher staff member, there'd be no need for any more than one (and certainly not 13!) as everyone would vote the same and think the same and act the same about decisions. Maybe there'd be enough for different timezones to ban spambots and the like, but that'd be it. What's important is an ability to work with others with strong opinions, whilst still putting forward your own point of view as to why you think things should be the way they are or should be. Negotiation skills, assertiveness, the ability to compromise, very keen judgment: these are all essential qualities of HS members. However, they don't result in a particular 'type' of moderator that fits that, especially since moderators aren't generally called upon to utilise these skills in their line of work policing and improving their own bespoke sections. In addition, and importantly to the matter of moderator promotions, different people have different perceptions as to what other qualities a HS member should have. When I was looking at suitable candidates, a modicum of forum-wide activity was an important consideration for me; other HS members didn't give that as much thought. Similarly, other people put a lot of emphasis on candidates' prior initiative, whereas for me, I wasn't as concerned about it. Hopefully you can get a sense as to why these things take forever, with so many more variables and so many more candidates to choose from!
I'm aware that this is getting too tl;dr even for a tl;dr, so I'll try and make the rest of this short and sweet. Because of all the claptrap I've just written about, I think that super moderator applications could be a real benefit to the process. As mentioned up-top, the whole promotion thing is shrouded in mystery: no one exactly knows what they're looking for, the moderators don't entirely know how they're supposed to act or what qualities to show around the forum. If there were criteria available or an application form detailing the inherent qualities to a successful super mod, I think there'd be a lot more transparency and people actually
demonstrating those good qualities. In addition, where there's politics there are rumours.
Sayre's law holds that "academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low." I'd counter that PC politics are even more vicious and bitter because the stakes are even lower! If there are rumours that there'll be new HS (either because of a resignation or just through the grapevine), oh my fucking god do things get intense. People are normally professional enough not to bitch about things on the forum, but instant messaging platforms can become minefields! Application forms enable things to be relatively open-ish and much less cloak-and-dagger, hopefully alleviating the mood of the moderating team and not causing unnecessary anxiety about the process. Finally, provided that the questions were solid, applications could reduce the process for appointments by letting candidates bring their own experiences as a moderator (and in life, to a certain extent) to the table for other HS members to see and judge accordingly. Rather than having HS debate the merits of preferred candidates' experiences, candidates can simply point to events they've hosted or ideas they've brought up to improve the forum as concrete examples of how they'd act upon promotion (again, going back to the adage 'act like a super moderator to become a super moderator'), speeding the process up significantly.
Aaaaaaand I've passed 2,000 words. Go me! I presume if you've read this far, you'll want to know what questions I'd ask in a hyptothetical application form, and I don't want to disappoint my five readers! Going back to everything I've said so far, I'd make the questions as practical and/or as previous experience-focused as possible. Given that the candidates are mods already, criteria such as communication skills are a given. What I'd be looking for evidence of include suggestions to improve either their own section or the forum at large, a good sense of judgment, and their ability to react to the types of stuff that a super mod would encounter. So, without further ado:
(You can tell I've been through a lot of interviews recently! And been through a lot of whiskey!)
I think that's it. It's possible I've given this too much thought. I'm quite drunk now so apologies if none of this makes sense. I'm going to go and drink a lot of water. Bye Felicia. (Young people are saying that, right?)
