My view on mini-mods

[Creepah]

Hey all.

An often controversial topic is that of mini-moderators, who are non-staff members who are often seen posting staff like things such as where to post a ban dispute or replying to a general support question. Many users on the forums find these actions annoying and 'try-hard' like.

I've been thinking about where I stand with this and I've sort of ended up in the middle. But there's a few things that I'm pretty sure of.

If your only intention is to look good for your moderator application, then don't post. Us moderators do these forum tasks such as directing and assisting players because it's our job and we want to help out these players. I personally prefer making posts such as this one, more personal and engaging posts which contribute to the discussion of the forums. These other forum tasks are simply things we do to help keep the forum running smoothly.

Let the community get to know you through your posts filled with personal contributions to that topic, not a copy-pasted 'post your ban dispute here...' post on every person who doesn't know where to post it. The senior staff reviewing your application want to see who you are as a person, not how quickly you can reply to a support thread. A decent post will look better than a low-effort paste.

But on the other side of the coin, if you do see someone saying something that a moderator normally would, don't attack them and tell them to 'stfu'. As much as that person may seem ill-intentioned, it doesn't warrant personally attacking someone and ruins the openness of the forums. Just calm down and if it deserves it, report it if it's disrupting the thread.

This thread just reflects my personal views, and isn't meant to offend anyone

 

[Braden]

http://www.mcgamer.net/threads/mini-modding.193283/

 

[TwistedRain]

Im a "Mini-Moderator" myself but i do it to help the community i once prevented a ddoser from DDosing other moderators when he DDosed Amber, so im not in it for the mod rank i just want to help out others to the best of my abilities without the rank.

 

[Speech]

I helped because I found it fun. Now I help because I am a moderator and it's still fun

 

[Trilexium]

What I've said all along on this topic is that there is no such thing as mini-modding. You're either helpful or 'too helpful' (you could also not care, but let's keep this to the helpful subtypes).

There's a point at which you can be too helpful. That might not make sense, but what I mean by too helpful is being overly, in your face helpful. Jumping at any opportunity to get all up in someone's face helping them- sometimes, I see people (even mods) comment completely irrelevant advice on someone's question. Overly helpful people also sometimes get their position in the community confused with that of a staff member- ie; saying things that staff would usually say or asserting some sort of viewpoint that makes it seem like they have staff-like power.

There is nothing wrong with being helpful. You could also say that there's nothing wrong with being overly helpful, and you'd be correct. However, being overly helpful, as we've all seen quite a bit recently, gets you some negative feedback. That's the only hitch to it.

The magic slogan of the matter is "avoid crossing the line, and you'll be fine".

 

[Mamiamato24]

It really just depends on the person's actual intentions when making those kinds of posts (i.e. if they're trying to make themselves look good or for more practical reasons).
I don't know if it's just me, but I really hate when someone takes a really long time to try and explain the situation they're in and giving all the details and such, and the "mini-mod" just copy pastes a "report your stuff here at bla bla bla". Can they at least show that they actually read what the issue was and didn't just scroll through the wall of text, with a filter that only detects "i was banned unfairly", and none of the rest?
Maybe it's just me, I just really hate generic responses.

Some dude: "I like my red shoes"
Mini-mod: "CLICK HERE to apply for moderator on the MCGamer Network?"
-------------"CLICK HERE to post a ban dispute!"
-------------"CLICK HERE to post a report abuse!"
-------------"CLICK HERE for tips on how to write your moderator application!"
like pls, chill

 

[BaccaBoy1999]

The problem is they say they do it to help the community but its really obvious its for mod.

 

[XDBFplaysGamesX | Daniel]

»

Before people flame on me, please actually hear my opinion first.

In my opinion, I hate mini-modding. It's just something that can just straight-up irritate for these reasons:

1. Person: You know what? I want my application process to be easier because this is so hard! SO WHY DON'T I SUCK UP AS MUCH AS I CAN SO PEOPLE CAN LOVE ME?

If there is something that you should know about me, I hate suck ups. They say things that in many cases, they don't even mean, just to get in the good side of people. Frankly, I find it annoying and cringe-worthy when I see people like these putting this horrid idea in action. Because isn't it just obvious that they are doing it for the mod?

"I just want to help the community!"

Isn't that what Report Abuses, /Report and much more! And what about applying for mod? OH YAH! You're sucking up for the mod! Oh yah -.-

• When people actually have a job for this

This might not make sense but allow me to explain:

Moderators have chosen to live up to a duty under an oath (the agreement) to enforce the MC-Gamer rules in such ways as Warnings and XKMB [Xime-Kick-Mute-Ban], and frankly, the respect the people that mini-mod in some aspects, but there are people who are trained to deal with things, and just /Report or Report Abuse them!

One of the problems with mini-mods is that many mini-mods are so arrogant in enforcing the rules that it just makes this mini-mod community's reputation go to an all-time low because of the ones who choose to go to extreme in enforcing rules. Again, this might not sound bad, but at full glance, it can become the worst thing you might just see.

• The extremist.

As I previously mentioned in the last point, there are certain kinds of mini-mods called the extremist mini-mods. These aren't your everyday mini mods: these are the hardcore mini mods who will cross the line just to be the staff's little pet. They will venture to things such as:

-Spying
-Very deceptive manipulation
-Get information out of them to get them in trouble (kind of adding on to the last one )
-and more.

These people I have sadly met before. In the past, I met this person who added me on Skype and claimed to be a big fan of my forum posts, and then, this person started asking me these very odd questions which I won't mention on here. I later removed the person from Skype, and then I added 2 and 2 together to figure out that this person was trying to frame me in every way possible. Was he/she recording? Maybe; maybe not, but at least nothing was told the person to get their way.
_______________________________________

Ok, so here's the point:

Mini-modding annoys me but the ones who say "STFU" or "F*** off F*****!" really shouldn't say that because they're humans (I think, idk ;-, and if they choose to protect the community in such a way, then we should "respect" them. I don't like mini-modding, but I am forced to respect in such an environment as MCSG to avoid such trouble and fuss!

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[Ceroria]

If you're not a mod, don't act like one. It's as simple as that. There is nothing wrong with assisting mods, by doing things like finding threads that require a staff member's attention and helping out users who need it if you have the solution to their problems but don't act like you're a mod, because you're not and most of these people's intentions are rather shallow.

 

[BaccaBoy1999]

If you're not a mod, don't act like one. It's as simple as that. There is nothing wrong with assisting mods, by doing things like finding threads that require a staff member's attention and helping out users who need it if you have the solution to their problems but don't act like you're a mod, because you're not and most of these people's intentions are rather shallow.

YAS SAY IT AND SLAY IT

thats something TotalDramaTony says, right?

 

[jerffy]

It may just be me, but my definition of a "minimod" is where people say things such as "please do not spam", "please do not double post" and things like that; I don't think that answering support questions is considered minimodding.

On the server I used to staff on, minimodding is actually against the rules and I agree with that rule. Acting like a moderator when you are not one is actually quite disrespectful towards staff. It shows that you don't treat staff members seriously and want to be better than them. Answering support questions is fine, just that overdoing it with fancy text and copy pasted messages is really bad since it shows that you want to become a staff member badly, possibly for the wrong reasons.

Trying for moderator is good, but tryharding for moderator and faking personality isn't. At least that's what I think. When I used to grade applicants, I see how helpful they are and how genuine they are in their forum posts, not how quickly they reply to threads with low effort.

 

[XDBFplaysGamesX | Daniel]

just that overdoing it with fancy text and copy pasted messages is really bad since it shows that you want to become a staff member badly, possibly for the wrong reasons.

have you met an extremist mini-mod ;-;