Mariskah asked that I cover this since her and other moderators; get asked this question a lot. I know I encounter it several times a month. Now I can’t make any claims as to how other places work, but when it comes to a position here at theOtaku, it’s pretty simple. If we need someone, we’ll contact you.
Now I know people wonder how we find a moderator and that too is simple. Sometimes Adam will directly ask for applications for a particular position. A good example would be the news section of theOtaku. He posted that the person who did the best submissions in a month’s time would be given auto approval for submitting news. In the end, he selected four people for that particular job.
Another example before that would be our category guru position. Adam posted on his world about wanting someone to help. People applied and he chose someone out of the applicants for that job. So if you see something posted that you think you would be good at, then apply for it.
Now for other positions, it’s more of a, we’ll find you type of deal. If we need someone, we start looking. I’m always keeping an eye on people and if I notice that someone is particularly helpful or polite, consistently, then when a position comes up I tend to remember those people.
So the bottom-line is that the best way to become a moderator is to simply forget about it and just be a good member. You don’t have to be perfect. But you do have to be willing to own up to mistakes or to correct misunderstandings. We look for people who are even tempered and well behaved and yet understand the importance of upholding the site terms.
That’s really the best way to go. Being a moderator is work; many people get the job and find out the hard way that it’s really a very tedious and boring thing to do. Not only that, you’ll find that a lot of members second guess every move you make, literally. So it requires tremendous patience to work with others and not take that kind of scrutiny personally. Because no matter how hard you try, someone will always be unhappy or nasty to you when you’re just doing your job to the best of your ability.
I realize that doesn’t give much in the way of specifics, but that is how it works. If there is something else, feel free to bring it up in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer any other questions regarding this. ^_^
