Staff Applications are open!

[Romanos]

Good afternoon everyone!

This announcement is inform all of you that we have opened up Staff Applications for Moderator. If you are interested in applying for Moderator, you can fill out an application by using the following link, or by clicking on the Moderator Application link in the Moderator Apps forum. Please note that you must have at least 100 posts to apply, must have been a member for at least a few weeks. With in regards to post statistics, your posts will be checked to ensure they are of good quality and were not spammed to reach the necessary post count. Currently there is not a date when applications will close, so I encourage all interested parties to put in their application as soon as they can!
http://christianityhaven.com/application-forms.php?appid=1

I wish all of you the best of luck and we look forward to selecting our first Moderator!

In Christ,

Romanos
Executive Administrator

 

[psalms 91]

Thanks

 

[Romanos]

In case anyone has submitted an application, please accept my apologies. The system had an error to where it was showing that once an application was submitted, the application was not going to be posted in a forum. If you have submitted an application, we do ask that you please resubmit the application.

Again apologies and thank you!

 

[tango]

Good afternoon everyone!

This announcement is inform all of you that we have opened up Staff Applications for Moderator. If you are interested in applying for Moderator, you can fill out an application by using the following link, or by clicking on the Moderator Application link in the Moderator Apps forum. Please note that you must have at least 100 posts to apply, must have been a member for at least a few weeks. With in regards to post statistics, your posts will be checked to ensure they are of good quality and were not spammed to reach the necessary post count. Currently there is not a date when applications will close, so I encourage all interested parties to put in their application as soon as they can!
http://christianityhaven.com/forumdisplay.php?70-Moderator-Application

I wish all of you the best of luck and we look forward to selecting our first Moderator!

In Christ,

Romanos
Executive Administrator

Your link is broken

http://christianityhaven.com/forumdisplay.php?70-Moderator-Application

 

[Romanos]

Fixed that, thanks contango. It was working yesterday.

 

[tango]

What sort of commitment is required? It would be good to know what the role entails.

For disclosure I'm not sure if I want to be a mod just now, but it would be good to know what responsibility it carries.

 

[GenesisGirl]

What sort of commitment is required? It would be good to know what the role entails.

For disclosure I'm not sure if I want to be a mod just now, but it would be good to know what responsibility it carries.

The requirements as well as the roles will change as the site grows, but for now we expect to accept members as staff who are an asset to the board in that they post often, show good leadership skills and can be examples of good behavior with the ability to work as a team.

 

[Romanos]

Applications are still open! If you are interested, please get yours in as soon as possible!

 

[tango]

The requirements as well as the roles will change as the site grows, but for now we expect to accept members as staff who are an asset to the board in that they post often, show good leadership skills and can be examples of good behavior with the ability to work as a team.

Does someone have to post regularly to be a good moderator?

Leadership skills and a sense of balance and fairness are obviously important attributes but isn't it better to have someone of few words and much wisdom than the opposite?

 

[tango]

Fixed that, thanks contango. It was working yesterday.

It's broken again

 

[GenesisGirl]

What error are you getting?

Does someone have to post regularly to be a good moderator?

We have heard horror stories of staff members who hide away in their own staff world and that causes them to lose touch with the members as well as members not trusting in them. It is much better if staff helps build up the site instead of shying away from it, and it helps if the members get to know their character, for when they give staff actions, their personalities will come into play and some misunderstandings in wording can be avoided.

 

[tango]

What error are you getting?

Romanos' link sends me to http://[url/

Firefox gives me an error that says it can't open the site. The corrected link I put in my post works fine.

We have heard horror stories of staff members who hide away in their own staff world and that causes them to lose touch with the members as well as members not trusting in them. It is much better if staff helps build up the site instead of shying away from it, and it helps if the members get to know their character, for when they give staff actions, their personalities will come into play and some misunderstandings in wording can be avoided.

When I was an admin on another board we had a couple of mods who posted more in the staff areas than on the open board, so gave them a poke to join the board as a whole. My point wasn't that the "strong silent" type was necessarily a good mod, just that for moderation I'd rather see few words and much wisdom than many words with little wisdom. Disputes between members usually seem to call for more wisdom than words.

Where staff actions are concerned a well-constructed template can go a long way. It saves an awful lot of feeling like you've been sent to the naughty step just because the standard template says "You have received a warning from..." when perhaps the message in question wasn't meant as a warning at all but just a note that off-topic posts had been deleted from a thread. I remember on the other board I mentioned, before I was a moderator I got a staff notice that a post had been deleted - I'd inadvertently posted in the Young People section (people guessed I wasn't under 25 because my other posts referred to having been married for 12 years!). It was a genuine error on my part, the moderator who sent me the message didn't mean any harm but the standard templates really felt like I'd been sent to see the headmaster. At the time I was a new Christian, all I'd done was try to help someone with a question, and it really left me wondering whether I wanted to be associated with such pettiness at all. Those initial feelings of having been slapped and sent to the naughty step subsided, but from talking to others over the course of my time on the team it was clear that many others felt the same way.

 

[GenesisGirl]

Would it benefit the site if we allow members to help us construct templates since we do not have any yet?

 

[tango]

Would it benefit the site if we allow members to help us construct templates since we do not have any yet?

Possibly, although it could create a lot of noise with little benefit.

I've seen templates for warnings and infractions, I guess my suggestion would be to have another "moderator notice" template that basically says you haven't done anything wrong but your post is modified for some reason. On another board I help moderate one of the members was excited to hear his daughter was pregnant and posted the ultrasound scan. I deleted his post because the scan had his daughter's name on it and sent him a note to explain what I'd done any why, saying that if he wanted to post it again he was welcome to but to be aware that his daughter's name was visible on it. (He reposted with the scan cropped to remove her name.)

 

[tango]

To summarise, it's very easy to sit behind the moderator mask and send a notice or an infraction without stopping to ask "How would I feel if I received this?"

Once the standard methodology gets too ingrained it's the sort of thing people simply don't think about. Even having received a notification that made me feel like I'd been sent to the naughty step, when I became a moderator and followed the standard procedure I issued standard notices before realising that I was doing the same thing I found so troublesome.

The next step was to figure something needed to change, which was usually to open the message with a note to ignore all the "you have received a warning" blurb, but it's easy to see how that leaves people wondering why it's there if they are being told to ignore it. Hence my thought to have a standard infraction (that carries points), a standard warning (that carries no points but registers a rule breach) and a standard notice (that carries no points and is intended as a courtesy so people know why their post disappeared).

 

[tango]

To summarise, it's very easy to sit behind the moderator mask and send a notice or an infraction without stopping to ask "How would I feel if I received this?"

Once the standard methodology gets too ingrained it's the sort of thing people simply don't think about. Even having received a notification that made me feel like I'd been sent to the naughty step, when I became a moderator and followed the standard procedure I issued standard notices before realising that I was doing the same thing I found so troublesome.

The next step was to figure something needed to change, which was usually to open the message with a note to ignore all the "you have received a warning" blurb, but it's easy to see how that leaves people wondering why it's there if they are being told to ignore it. Hence my thought to have a standard infraction (that carries points), a standard warning (that carries no points but registers a rule breach) and a standard notice (that carries no points and is intended as a courtesy so people know why their post disappeared).

 

[Romanos]

Possibly, although it could create a lot of noise with little benefit.

I've seen templates for warnings and infractions, I guess my suggestion would be to have another "moderator notice" template that basically says you haven't done anything wrong but your post is modified for some reason. On another board I help moderate one of the members was excited to hear his daughter was pregnant and posted the ultrasound scan. I deleted his post because the scan had his daughter's name on it and sent him a note to explain what I'd done any why, saying that if he wanted to post it again he was welcome to but to be aware that his daughter's name was visible on it. (He reposted with the scan cropped to remove her name.)

I do see where you are coming from. Contact templates can go both ways, but normally they tend to rock the boat more than keep it steady and smooth sailing. I'm more of a person who believes that even though you're moderating and sometimes the situation calls for being stern, a hand written message rather than a copy and paste template can easily help make the member feel more at ease rather than feeling like they've just been given a ticket and there is no way out.

 

[tango]

I do see where you are coming from. Contact templates can go both ways, but normally they tend to rock the boat more than keep it steady and smooth sailing. I'm more of a person who believes that even though you're moderating and sometimes the situation calls for being stern, a hand written message rather than a copy and paste template can easily help make the member feel more at ease rather than feeling like they've just been given a ticket and there is no way out.

That's the key.

If you get a message that looks like it was written to you it's clear what has happened, whereas a message that boils down to "Dear (member), you are a Very Naughty Boy because you did (issue). Please don't ever do that again. In Christ's Love, (moderator)" is like a slap in the face followed by soothing words that just add insult to injury. The ticket analogy is a good one, and if there is to be a "right of appeal" (and for warnings and infractions I think there should be) it's good for transparency if such discussions are assumed to be publicly visible unless the member wants them to be private.

If they are assumed to be publicly visible it makes it clear that the staff team have nothing to hide, but the option for a private discussion allows the member to talk about an issue (infraction-related or otherwise) in private with trusted staff members. If any appeal process is conducted in an area where only the member and the staff can see their post it can come across like being taken behind the bike sheds for a kicking with no witnesses, which can (and does) lead to people doing things like taking screen shots and HTML dumps of their threads. I've seen that happen, and in one situation where I had lost confidence that the board management would do the right thing I took HTML dumps and screenshots of discussions.

On a loosely related note, it's good to keep an archive of post edits so that if a mod edits someone's post it's possible to see what it once said and what it says now. It's also handy for dealing with members who habitually edit their posts after people have replied to them, making it difficult to follow conversations and making it look like everyone else is missing the point they are making.

 

[tango]

Boy, I must be in line for enough CH cash to buy myself the Monster Supreme Pizza With Everything On It And Extra Cheese by now, right?

 

[Romanos]

Staff Applications will be closing this Friday night!