Totally agree. It is especially different if you have many friends on the staff team, and the higher up those friends are, the higher chance you have of getting promoted. That’s not an opinion, look at all the accepted applications and you will start to see the corralation. And people who are quieter in chat? Those people are screwed. I agree as well, discord moderation should be for discord moderators. Man, you were spitting straight facts.

another thing is people act like staff have to be on a ton - they don’t. They just gotta help when they can, and do their best job at it. Efficiency is important, not total time spent on the server.
Tbh, what staff need to be able to do is manage report and appeals. Someone made a report about some dude island farming? Look at the evidence provided, ban. You don’t actually have to have had 800+ play hours on economy to know how to type /ban.

 

I agree, staff applications have become incredibly cringe worthy and are really not necessary when they contain so much garbage. Every single application says the same thing "mature" "reliable" "dependable" ..........

 

I dont think thats the case id love clarity on the subject

 

I am

You missed a lot skyblock funny moments all those years when it came to staff promotions since 2018+

 

I absolutely love this

When it comes to being mod I feel like some applicants strive too far to become friends and close with higher ups and everyone across platforms like skyblock/forums/discord/economy just so they increase their chances of becoming apart of Staff. Although its nice to have these people as friends I feel like some also see it as another support on their upcoming application which isn't how any applicants should approach becoming apart of Staff. With the time people are spending trying to rub elbows with everyone across these platforms and become close with Staff they should be proving they're reliable, dependable, helpful, and meet all criteria that Staff pay attention to when deciding on who becomes Staff. I think it should be necessary for Kerahna and whoever else that decides on who becomes Staff to leave a detailed paragraph or whatever that shows why someone received a spot on the Staff team and the process that the higher ups went through to fully decide why they became apart of Staff.

I really feel there should be specific roles/ranks for different Staff Members like Economy Mod and Skyblock Mod just how theres a Forums Admin and Discord Admin. Doing this could clear up the reasoning behind why a certain Staff Member is inactive on one platform but active on another. Although I do think perms across all servers should still be accessible to these Staff Members incase of emergency (like if they're the only Staff Member on), I really think this could clear things up and make things easier and more efficient for current Staff Members/Applicants so they aren't stretched thin worrying about activity on certain platforms. Even though this means there would be a need for more Staff Members it would make it easier for everyone if this type of system was applied.

Another thing that should be made public is if there is a need for more Staff Members or not so that applicants know that it’s not that they don’t meet criteria but that there isn’t a need for more Staff Members at the moment. This could give reasoning why its taking years for someone that meets the criteria to get on Staff or not. I don't think its right for someone to wait as long as some do like Bert who I assume was a great Staff member considering the majority of his replies are about how he was nothing but great (excluding the reasoning behind his demotion) during his last time on Staff and how he brought nothing but joy and laughter to not only other Staff Members but to the community while also getting his job done. I'm not going to turn this into a support reply for Bert but he and others deserve their spots on Staff and they've more than shown why everyone feels the same, and there is no reason why it should take them this long to receive a spot on Staff that they rightfully deserve.

These are just a few of my thoughts and opinions doubt any of it would happen in the future.

 

What?

Age of moderator shouldn't matter, only their ability to handle situations & the duties they volunteer for.

Why does this matter? What does that have to do with anything?

I'm not sure what your point is here

This statement is just false, first of all people who have more in/game items or are more 'famous' are more likely to have more positive community/social interactions and thus they will have more supports on their applications which staff will filter in when selecting moderators. Also if your definition of "famous" is the same as the oxford dictionaries, then making an application will make them known by most players. Most of the playing server are aware of who is applying at a given moment and who isn't, so in reality, all applicants are "famous".

I agree that many players post a staff application when they do not read the requirements, but again this is not relevant to the discussion topic. It seems like "Mark" just saw the thread had "staff application" in the title and started spewing out all the knowledge "Mark" had pertaining to the topic.

 

There are many things regarding the application process that I'm more concerned about. As an applicant it's something I didn't want to discuss openly, I'm sure you all know why, however I think it's important to address this issue in some way despite the fact that it could hurt my own chances.

I don't disagree at all that being close to people on the team, especially the higher ups, will land you a Helper position (or above!) sooner or later. Now imagine if someone who had a say in the decision disliked you (could be personal bias, or just anything that does not relate to your capabilities), you'd have zero chance at all, and that's the issue to me.

I think that so many amazing people are being ignored just because of reasons like these when, like Boss said, they could benefit the server if given the chance. The application process was not created for people to make connections.

I don't like how we treat applications as a competition either, and try to overpass one another when it's just completely unnecessary. This is a game so it makes me confused when people get judged so so seriously for no reason. We are VOLUNTEERING to give our time to help a Minecraft server and make it a better place for all the people within the community, so it's confusing having to see so many great applicants have to wait so long just to get promoted. Staff are in no way better than regular players, we're all the same, so treating promotions as if they are an acceptance to an exclusive friend group isn't a good way to think of it. ALL we want to do is have the tools to help the server and its players. That is all that it is and that is all that is should be. Applicants shouldn't have to go the extra mile.

As well as that, so many past applicants that had a lot of potential eventually locked their applications because the process was too lengthy. If things like this continue to be the case, there will soon be little to no applicants left. Every promotion is seen as motivation for applicants to try to be the next one promoted, however when things don't exactly seem fair, applicants only either start to become unmotivated and things go downhill from there, or they try to figure out what else could get them promoted (friendships, knowing the right people, etc.) and they succumb to that.

What we need to do is not hold applicants to such a high degree and expect them to be perfect. No one is. People should not be expected to spend so many hours in-game, on Discord, on forums, etc to be considered right for the job. We all have lives and are normal people so that is just too impossible of a thought. And PLEASE take growth into consideration when people apply. Everyone is human and has made errors in the past. It's life, people change. It is extremely unfair to act like they never will.

I believe that there should be guidelines for what staff are looking for, I believe that public player opinion should be taken into consideration and I believe that ALL staff should have somewhat of a say when it comes to promotions too. I think a lot of work could be done to better the entire system of it. It's not right to keep people who so clearly fit every criteria waiting for so many months, even years at times. At the end of the day all we want is the best for the server.

This is my own opinion of course so please remember that.

 

I honestly found applying for mod far more stressful than actually moderating. The expectations for applicants are incredibly high. I felt that if I made a mistake at all whilst applying, I'd be heavily judged for it.

The thing is, in my time as a player on Skyblock, I've seen multiple moderators do extremely questionable things, and they've gotten away with it without anyone so much as questioning their behaviour or their actions.

So why are the expectations for applicants so high? If they'll just settle down into mod and stop checking themselves on their every little action, surely that's a good thing? It just means they're comfortable in their position.
But then the whole "YOU GOT MOD AND YOU CHANGED" reaction from the playerbase comes in. I'm sure I wasn't the only mod that had that experience. Many of my old mod buddies also had the same reaction from players, we chatted about it a lot.

But the problem is, you shouldn't have to "fake it until you make it". Having applicants display incredibly exaggerated examples of their "helpfulness" for attention from the team shouldn't be how the application process works.

I've seen multiple moderators go from helping in chat at every move, to being relatively quiet. And the reason behind that is because nothing has to be so public anymore. Which is fine, pretty great.
But that should be the same expectation from applicants too. I know this happens because we all value community input on applications. Your support count really feels like it matters while you're going through that process. But really, even though this sounds like an a*****e thing to say, non-staff have a warped perception of what it means to be a moderator, simply because they haven't been on this team and they haven't been on the other side of things.

If the team put together a list of what they're actually looking for in applicants, non-staff would be able to see exactly what it is that the team really wants. And this would probably show exactly who would be unfit for moderator, and who fit the requirements anyway.

I dunno. Just my thoughts. I'm in class so pls ignore any typos or anything that doesn't make sense.

 

This is soo true its honestly humorus that staff are jugded less harshly than applicants. i mean staff actaly have experince. as for mais point about exaturating helpfulness alot of staff apps have told me that they do this and honestly i used to but quickly realized it was unnessary. I mean i probably built a bunch of pig farms/ other useless builds for people but then realized that a staff member has probably doesnt do that alot so i stopped. I find it best to just answer questions in chat/discord and occasionaly change a spawner.

sorry for the double post but the issue is we dont know the prosses. Are the recomendations public or private?

 

The Super Mods (or at least some of them) have a say in promotions too.

 

I agree. All staff would be working with the promoted applicants, so why not take their opinions into consideration too. Would seem more fair overall that way. That's how we used to do it back when I was in-game moderator, but things have changed since then.

 

that doesnt realy sove the issue they could be doing that rn. the issue is we the comunity have no information. one why one person s acccepted over anither

 

I completely agree. This is something I think we should all be told.

 

Heya! I am going to give a rather large response to this entire thread. That’s good, because I actually have to practice writing essays, so thanks for this opportunity!

I am going to give some personally seen flaws to the application system, after which I will give some solutions to these problems.

First of all I wanted to say that as a current applicant I was quite scared to write this reply. That’s because of that the current application system works on green checkmarks and red crosses. How good you are at actually helping the server is heavily undermined by how nice you are. So if I were to say anything that some people didn’t like I will get some more red crosses on my application. Another major factor in becoming a helper is that if you for example have two people message you at the same time: A greenbean asking for help or a Skytitan asking for your opinion on their latest build then as an applying helper first helping the greenbean is a given on most Minecraft server. However on this server applicants actually have to think carefully as the greenbean probably won’t give them a green checkmark, but the Skytitan may give them a red cross. Being a helper should be about helping people who need help, not giving attention to people who may support you.

Another large factor is that Skyblock is not small at all. There are about 150 concurrent players on Skyblock and another 60 on Economy, adding up to a total of 210 people playing at the same time. However we only have 3 active helpers (The front line to the players), 7 active moderators (The back bone of the players, doing more important stuff) and 4 super moderators (The people who do all very important things). Most of the time I play there is 1 helper online, maximum, but there are also lots of times there is no staff on at all. This should not be the case, as there are players who require constant help and attention from staff.

Another thing to note is that on every single staff application people talk about economy. Economy and Skyblock are however very different. I, as an example, will not be playing on Economy, but does that instantly make me a bad applicant? So a very simple fix is Helpers for Economy and Helpers for Skyblock. This is not a too difficult thing to do, but in my opinion very needed.

So what can be done about this? I have got a quite simple but large overhaul of the staff application process thought out:

A player can apply to the forums, which is a private section where only staff and the owner of the thread can come (Like the reports section). Here a player applies just as normal, with a professional looking thread and some of their traits. They also note on which server they play. After this an application time begins which lasts 1 month maximum. In this time the current staff team inspects the applicant: Their activity and if they actually help people. After this month the player is either accepted or denied (With constructive feedback). After this the applicant is NOT immediately a helper, but they are a Junior Helper. A Junior Helper will have the same powers as a normal helper (eg. /mute etc.). In this time the Junior Helper will be more carefully inspected in working behaviour (are they nice, do they actually help, etc.). If the Junior Helper does their job properly they finally get accepted to become a full Helper.

Thanks for reading! Give me your feedback if you have any

 

i sugested something like this such as bringing back trail mod this sounds great id love to get a staff members oppinion on this

 

I don't think titles should be divided. That has already happened before, for example NET Mod and ORG Mod etc., and it's gone now. Everything should stay the same in my opinion however I think that people shouldn't have to be active on both the servers, but they should still be able to moderate both.

 

Agent 1000%%

 

slide me mod