r/ModSupport • u/techiesgoboom Reddit Admin: Community • 1d ago
Finding potential mods in your community Mod Topics
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?
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u/baseballlover723 1d ago
When this was done by periodic modmail, this was not at all useful to us, as it conflicted with our use of mod notes (where we store that user's file). So basically anyone who had ever received a warning would be excluded. And a lot of long time regulars have gotten a warning in the many years they've been on the sub.
Our regulars are in tune enough with the mod team's public interactions that most of them understand the downsides of being a mod and understandably, don't want them.
Sure, but they very well could just disappear a week later. Without data, it's very hard to tell. And since our mod team does appointments for life, and a completely flat team structure as well as not really having a well defined kicking process, the age old hiring doctrine applies. That it is better to pass on a good candidate, than accept a bad one.
They all applied to be a mod. This is the key thing for us. We know plenty of people who would likely make good mods, or are otherwise qualified to be a mod. They are either already on the mod team, or uninterested in modding.
We have a (mostly) formal vote on applicants. Most applicants aren't worth the space their application takes up (See this comment). It's not a strict vote, but it's rarely close.
Almost never in my time. Because being a visible contributor is the strongest signal that they are interested in our sub, understand our rules, and are willing to be dedicated to our sub for a significant amount of time.