If you are interested in helping with the running of the site, please send me a PM letting me know what positions you are interested in and qualified for, and why you would do a good job. Keep in mind that these positions can be a lot of work, and are a service to the community, not an ego trip.
As part of addressing various issues that have arisen over the past, we are in need of new staff members. Below are the current positions needing to be filled; this will be updated as needed, with clarification on responsibilities, jurisdiction, behavioural expectations, etc.
Initially, I am asking all current staff members to re-apply if they are interested in retaining their position; I know at least a few positions will be vacated, and we may be interested in adding extra staff for more specific tasks.
Considerations for All Positions:
- If you have a flaking incident in your past, you need to have been back and active for a while, and convince me that you aren't going to randomly disappear again.
- No problem behaviour on the forums; am willing to consider users with past problems that they have distanced themselves from, but you'll have to start small.
- Looking for users who are reasonably intelligent, well-spoken, and respectful of others. If I've noticed that you are terrible at reading and following directions, I'm not going to trust you to keep things organized in a position that requires organization. If you are rude or obnoxious in communicating as a user, I'm not going to expect something more positive if you are given a position of responsibility.
- Negatives: Immaturity; Grudges; Inability to act objectively.
List Mod
Responsibilities (some are queue-specific):
- Organize moderator (and player) waiting lists; includes verifying mod requirements and game limits, coordinating with review groups regarding setup approval, and giving approval for games to start or take sign-ups.
- Keep clear and up-to-date records for the waiting list, games in progress, and games completed.
- Regularly close and move completed games to the appropriate completed games subforum.
- Help police the Queue forum.
- Act as the first line of mediation in case of a dispute between players, or between player and mod.
- Participate in site policy discussions as needed by the administrators.
Qualifications:
- Positives: Long-time user (it's unlikely I will consider anyone who has been on the site less than a year); Experience moderating and playing in Mafia games.
- Negatives: Past incidents in Queue or Mafia forums.
Forum Moderator:
Responsibilities:
- Monitor discussions in the non-Game forums (including Mafia Discussion) to ensure the Forum Rules are being followed.
- View reported posts and take action as appropriate, including sending warnings and short-term non-game bans.
- Delete or edit inappropriate posts.
- Coordinate with mith regarding larger or repeat problems, and recommend further action.
- Recommend sub-forums as needed for particularly popular topics.
- Participate in site policy discussions as needed by the administrators.
Qualifications:
- Positives: Calm and reasoned posting; Respected by the users.
Mish Mash Moderator:
Responsibilities:
- Monitor the Mish Mash forums for potential issues, and to ensure the Forum Rules are being followed.
- Archive completed games.
- Recommend sub-forums as needed for particularly popular games.
Qualifications:
- Positives: Active in Mish Mash; experience running Mish Mash games.
Title Fairy:
Responsibilities:
- Foster discussion of possible titles, tracking nominations and seconds.
- Make final decision on suitability of titles based on posted rules.
- Police title thread for arguments/off-topic posting.
Qualifications:
- Positives: Long-term, active member of the community both in games and out; sense of humor; creativity.
Normal Game Review Group
Responsibilities:
- Collaborate with other members to review games based on an existing set of guidelines, and provide appropriate feedback to upcoming moderators.
- Participate in normal policy discussions as needed by group leader and administrators.
- Group leader will manager membership of group and work closely with the relevant List Mods to coordinate reviews.
Qualifications:
- Positives: Experience moderating and playing in Mafia games; Activity in Mafia Discussion.
- Negatives: History of ignoring rules/guidelines, particularly regarding "Normal" games - reviews are based on set policy.
Hive Press Secretary
Responsibilities:
- Monitor admin/staff discussion and assist in communicating rule/policy changes, status of long-term projects, and other updates to the userbase.
- Act as first contact for members desiring to communicate problems or frustrations with the site or staff, as well as feature requests and policy suggestions. (May, in this capacity, be asked to moderate Site Ideas and/or Help.)
- Organize and present these requests to the staff for further discussion and/or action.
Qualifications:
- Positives: Active, respected (by both staff and membership) user with good communication skills.
Additional Group Positions:
- Coding Group - Experience with PHP/MySQL and/or web design needed. Must be willing/able to coordinate with the administrators who implement new features.
- Art Group - In addition to possible work with the coding group on web graphics, main current/future project is cards (but also potential for new t-shirt designs after the first run).
- Scummies Steering Committee - Looking for a couple of additional members to help organize nominations, judging, and awards. May also look to add a writing group specifically for year-round work on the ceremony/[other things].
- Documentation - Sort of a catch-all "I want to help out and I'm organized but don't fall into the other categories"; we are perpetually looking for ways to update our rules/guidelines/how-to guides/FAQs/etc., and make such things more accessible for the average user (and in particular, new users). There is also probably quite a lot to be done with the cached pages recovered from the cache, as far as cataloguing and adding links to parent threads.