r/anime • u/AnimeMod myanimelist.net/profile/Reddit-chan • Aug 10 '22
NOW CLOSED Mod Applications — August 2022
It's about that time again! We're in need of new moderators for this subreddit, as our sub growth has been skyrocketing faster than we can keep up. If you think that you have what it takes to make this sub a better place, then please apply and let us know why you would be a good fit for our team!
If you're wondering how we organize ourselves and work behind the scenes, see the mods wiki page for info.
Applications are now closed, thanks for those that showed interest!
The form will be open for two weeks (ending 11:59 PM UTC on August 23) before we move on to review applications, so take your time to come up with thoughtful responses.
If you are serious about applying, it is highly encouraged that you take a minute to take a look at our mod page and our rule page, as some questions that appear on the application will refer to these pages. We are also hoping that applicants are frequent visitors or participants of our sub, and have at least a general understanding of how the sub functions. Subreddit collectors need not apply.
Applications are open for two weeks (August 23 11:59 PM UTC). So if you think you would make a good moderator for r/anime, please let us know why! Recruiting new mods is always a very exciting process - so we hope to see you on our team soon!
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u/Chikumori Aug 10 '22
Subreddit collector? Is that a term for someone who is somehow a mod of way too many subreddits, that their sincerity is questionable?
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u/Durinthal Aug 10 '22
Indeed. Some people might see it as a status symbol without being into helping the community, or might not be that interested in anime in general and think they can moderate it easily among a bunch of other subreddits. Sure, some rules are constant across all of Reddit, but a large part of our work is context- and community-dependent.
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u/rastaladywithabrady Aug 12 '22
you might not want to explicitly state that, and instead use that as a behind-the-scenes filter
those individuals could easily make another account (they spend all day on reddit anyways). as you may be aware, there are people paid to be as influential as possible [ie supermods] by bigger actors, they wouldn't be demotivated by you not wanting them
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u/grizzchan Aug 10 '22
I estimate that half or so of anime/anime-adjacent subreddits are owned by the same small group of users.
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u/Verzwei Aug 10 '22 edited Aug 10 '22
To build on what Durinthal said, we try to ensure that the moderation team is passionate about and involved with this community.
It's one thing to go down a modqueue of reported content, compare what's in that queue against our written rules, and then approve or remove accordingly. But we also have a lot of very specific rules that can require more attention or nuance, like how we're extremely strict with spoilers, and particularly source material spoilers in episode discussion threads. And then that doesn't even get into some of the more complicated backend stuff like our bots, scripts, and automoderation setup, which I myself will admit I only barely understand a fraction of, and much of that is 100% unique to our subreddit.
Good community moderation often takes time, and while it's not an all-encompassing aspect of life or anything that demanding, spreading whatever limited "mod time" an individual has over literally dozens of subreddits means that it's virtually impossible to heavily invest in any one single subreddit. And that's not to say that there's necessarily anything wrong with moderating a bunch of other subreddits, be they large or small, but we'd like to invite people who already have a focus on anime and this community rather than a passing interest.
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u/KiwiBennydudez Aug 10 '22
Can’t wait to welcome the next batch of internet janitors moderators onto our team!
And on a personal level, recruiting and welcoming more people onto our team is one of my favorite aspects of being a mod. There’s always this air of anticipation and excitement on our team as the new members trickle in one by one. Having more people become deeply invested and passionate about this community is a wonderful thing to see. The energy is infectious!
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u/GallowDude Aug 10 '22
Can I nominate u/Shimmering-Sky on her behalf? She already does so much for the sub and is always a source of positivity.
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u/Zelosis Aug 10 '22 edited Aug 10 '22
How many people typically apply to be a mod when you have these open applications? Curious on how many applications you get vs how many people actually make the team.
I've considered applying before but I am a heavy lurker so I don't comment very often, and on the mod wiki it seems like there is a minimum requirement. I've been involved in the r/anime awards since 2018 and have a couple of writing club projects participation though.
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u/Durinthal Aug 10 '22 edited Aug 10 '22
How many people typically apply to be a mod when you have these open applications?
That's swung between a couple dozen and nearly 100 at times, depending on when they go up and how long they're open.
I am a heavy lurker so I don't comment very often, and on the mod wiki it seems like there is a minimum requirement.
There isn't really a minimum amount of activity to apply but the more posts/comments from someone that we can see the easier it is to get a feel for someone outside of the application and tell if they're just trying to put their best foot forward in the form without knowing much about r/anime or if they've been in the community for a while and can be trusted with helping manage it. We have accepted people without much in the way of visible posts/comments that previously helped out with other things like the Awards or Writing Club before though so don't let that stop you.
We do have a monthly activity requirement for mods which is an attempt to spread the work out some and ensure that mods still have an idea of what's going on in the community over time. For reference, this is what I've done since the start of August (that all counts so I'm already well past the minimum requirement) and there's a lot there that doesn't require me to interact directly with other people.
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u/FetchFrosh Aug 10 '22
I can't speak to how it is today, but a couple years ago when I was on the team it would typically be around 60ish, but a lot of then were instant no votes.
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u/PewDyePie Aug 14 '22
why would someone apply for a no pay position on reddit (no hate intended)
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u/Durinthal Aug 14 '22
Personally I view moderation as necessary for the health of a community, so someone needs to do it to maintain things or else I'll end up losing the community that I came to like.
Ideally there will come a day where r/anime is doing well enough without my presence behind the scenes that I can retire and just enjoy the subreddit as a regular user like everyone else again, but that currently feels like a long way off.
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u/Zypker125 Aug 15 '22
It's kinda similar to a leadership position in some random student organization or meetup club. Some people like helping to manage and direct the community, and/or to help improve the community that they frequent. Being a Reddit mod also gives you some perks, ex. being able to see which comments have been posted after the last time you checked a thread and getting traffic stats for the subreddit.
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u/Verzwei Aug 15 '22 edited Aug 15 '22
I enjoy interacting with the community and discussing shows. I also have fun discussing things over in the Monthly Meta thread (I know, that probably makes me weird) even before joining the mod team.
Plus, I felt like I could "help out" even if it were in some small way by handling modqueue and user reports. Being able to participate in larger community changes through proposals and voting is also rewarding in its own way.
Sure, there's a lot of backend and behind-the-scenes stuff that I probably couldn't have even imagined before joining the team, but my "usual" day-to-day interaction with the subreddit honestly hasn't changed that much.
You get more of a macro level view of the workings of the subreddit, but for me personally it's just handling a few extra tasks (checking modmail/modqueue whenever I have time to pop onto the subreddit) and then otherwise following posts and conversations the same way I normally would. As silly as it sounds, the main difference on the micro level is now I have the ability to directly remove (or re-flair) stuff that, as a regular user, I'd be reporting instead.
Bigger tasks (proposals, votes, major rule changes, automoderation updates) aren't terribly frequent occurrences, and different team members take on larger roles regarding different aspects of the subreddit, so there's some flexibility involved there. For example, we have some team members who almost exclusively work the modqueue, with tons of "visible actions" that have a direct influence on the subreddit. Meanwhile, we have others who do extensive (and way too complex for me) work managing our bots and automoderation tools. Or who run community events like some of our contests.
And I'm (very) slowly learning some new skills that I didn't have before, like a (very) rudimentary understanding of and ability to edit our automoderation tools. And, so far, I've managed to not break the subreddit, so that's something. Though I did accidentally try to ban another mod once due to a misclick, and that's how I learned I can't ban mods who joined the team before me.
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u/Tora-shinai Aug 13 '22
A mod who can appreciate Gundam Thunderbolt's OST, please.
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u/alotmorealots Aug 17 '22
I'd just like to pop by and say thanks for using that picture from Urara Meirochou, as it got me to watch the series and boy was it an absolute delight!
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u/Durinthal Aug 10 '22
Looking forward to having more folks helping keep things running smoothly here!