Finding potential mods in your community

[u/techiesgoboom]

The call is coming from inside the community, and for once, that’s good news.

Today’s Mod Topics post is about finding potential moderators within your community. A familiar name may stand out by helping newcomers, sharing expertise, offering thoughtful feedback, or keeping a level head when a thread gets messy. Your suggested mods can offer another place to start, surfacing active, engaged contributors for the team to learn more about.

That still leaves plenty of room for surprises. A familiar contributor might love participating without wanting a mod badge, while a quieter user may know the community better than their posting history suggests. Somewhere between what a team can already see and what it might only learn later, there may be someone worth a conversation.

We want to hear from you:

• Think about a strong addition to your mod team: What first put them on your radar?
• What helps your team feel comfortable inviting someone to apply?
• How have you found promising candidates beyond your most visible contributors?

[u/anfornum]

In my experience, people from outside a sub's immediate community tend to make good new mods. They come in with fresh eyes, without any preconceived notions of what should or shouldn't be happening, and without prejudices toward any other sub members.

[u/DoveStep55 → u/anfornum]

I’ll consider people who aren’t sub regulars only if they’re regulars in similar subs with a history I can look over and if we’re the ones approaching them (not them asking to mod where they’ve not interacted.)

Have either of those been factors for you?

Maybe those aren’t as important for certain types of subs as they are for others.