1. I've been an active member of the forum for four years.
2. I've been here for four years (shortly 4,5 years) and I think i've seen a lot to this day. I've seen the community go through a lot of drama, but also a lot of great and constructive discussions. I am eager to become a moderator because I care about creating a positive and supportive environment on this forum. I believe I can do this by using my skills in organization, communication, empathy, and following rules. I want to make sure everyone feels welcome and valued and that the community is a place for meaningful discussions, and harmful discussions are as minimal as possible. My goal is to help the community be the best it can be.
3. My availability is generally pretty good during all times. I check the forum every day when I have nothing else to do. I go to school, but the days are not very strict. Of course, there are times where I check the forum more rarely, for example if i'm on a vacation, but this doesn't happen very often.
4. As a moderator, I have strong skills in communication, empathy, organization, following rules, and working with a team. I am good at talking and listening to others, understanding different perspectives, keeping things organized, making sure rules are followed, and working well with others. I am confident that I can help make the forum a better place.
5. I used to be very gentle, not wanting to hurt others even if they did me wrong, but i've changed, and i've learned to say my opinion in a way that won't hurt others, but will give them an understanding of what I think. Also, when I first joined the forum, I asked a lot of questions about programming that probably I should have figured out on my own, which yes, I understand why some found it annoying. Also, when I first was unrestricted, I said my age was 19, as I thought that children would not be allowed here and this forum would be for 18 years or older, but that's really not a big thing anymore. I've made mistakes, but i've learned from them.
6. No, i've not received a ban.
7. I thorougly understand the rules of this forum and I will enforce them fairly. This means even if I don't like someone, I will not punish them or personally attack them in any way, and also if I like someone as a person, but they do something that's against the rules, I will do what is necessary.
8. I think the biggest problem is the amount of personal attacks and the toxicity. I want to minimize the toxicity here.

To make this change, for example, if I noticed a topic is getting very heated, I would first step in without punishing anyone, asking generally to stop and to calm down. This obviously depends. If the toxicity is caused by one user, I would tell them to calm down. If the behaviour continues, I would do what's necessary.
9. I would give a 4 for familiarity with Discord. I use it a lot with PC and iOS.
10. I have good communication and empathy skills. I have not contributed much to the forum in the past, but I am eager to get involved and make a positive impact. I want to understand the community's values and help keep the forum safe, respectful, and inclusive. I believe my passion and desire, along with my communication and empathy skills, make me a good fit for the moderator role.
11. If I were faced with this situation, I would be concerned for my friend and the situation on the forum. My first step would be to reach out to my friend privately and offer support and understanding. I would understand that they are going through a tough time in their personal life and advise them to take a break.
Next, I would review the situation on the forum and assess the negative interactions. I would consider all perspectives and make a fair and impartial assessment. If necessary, I would issue a warning to my friend to remind them of the rules of the community.
Regarding the comment on the Discord server, I would approach the situation with professionalism and tact. I would have a private conversation with the moderator and express my concerns about their approach. I would also emphasize that a ban should not be the first solution and that all parties involved should have an opportunity to address and resolve the issue.
In resolving the situation, I would aim to create a positive and inclusive community while upholding the rules and maintaining order. I would facilitate a discussion between all parties involved and encourage everyone to be respectful and understanding of each other's perspectives. If necessary, I would enforce the rules and maintain the safety and well-being of the community.

1. I have been an active member of the forum for about three or four months now. I made an account and posted a little in 2019, but I didn't start checking it every day until recently.
2. I want to try and be a moderator because I think this site has so much potential to be a resource and networking opportunity for many, if it has enough people helping to keep it afloat. It makes me feel very passionate about helping out when I see the amount of hate that some direct at the staff team, whether they mean to be malicious or not, because I know that people are trying as hard as they can, and I want to help those who are genuinely trying to make  a difference here and are likely overwhelmed. I think I could offer a new perspective on certain issues.
3. I would be able to at least check the forum every day with my current schedule. I might miss some days, especially on the weekends, but for the most part I could be fairly consistent. I also never leave my phone more than a few feet away from me, so I’d be easy to get a hold of if it was urgently needed.
4. I do not easily become aggressive or irritable. I am able to see other people's point of view very well. I've always been good with people and psychology, and I think that might help on the moderation team. I consider myself to be quite good with words and defusing situations. I am generally a very calm person and think I would be able to make a level-headed and thoughtful addition to the team. I also have a very academic mind by nature, and take deadlines and responsibilities very seriously. I tend to comb through things in a methodical fashion. I am also detail oriented.
5. I tend not to engage in conflict. Even in my post profile, you can see that I usually stay away from topics that are high-intensity or likely to turn ugly. Therefore I could understand hesitation and questioning of my ability to take up this position because my post history is so non-confrontational. I understand that to become a moderator sometimes can go hand in hand with dealing with conflict, and I am willing to make the change.
6. I have never received a ban, warning or caution.
7. I have a thorough understanding of the forum's rules and am committed to enforcing them. I think that they were very well thought-out and are all there for a very good reason.
8. If I could change one thing about the rules, I would clarify what counts as thread necromancy. I have seen people question what exactly that means, how long ago a thread had to be dead before it's considered grounds for a caution, etc.
If I could change anything about the culture, I would change how quick people are to attack one another for disagreements in opinion. I understand that is a very hefty goal, but I would hope to encourage people to see other’s perspectives more often. I believe many disputes are born of misunderstandings, maybe even language barriers at times.
9. My familiarity with discord I'd say is about a 3. I use it regularly on the computer, but I still have trouble with the IOS app occasionally or finding things other than my messages and channels through the quick switcher.
10. Though none of them have been published anywhere yet, I have written over twenty novels and novellas, samples of which I would be happy to share with anyone who is interested. Therefore I think I am an effective communicator, often realizing things when I write them down that I did not realize when speaking aloud. I also have shared some of my musical projects with the world, and as a result know what it's like to be a creator. I understand, at least partially, the way that developers feel when sharing their work with the community. I understand that takes a lot of bravery, and I'm committed to this being a place where they feel welcomed and encouraged to do so.
11. I would tell the moderator that there is room for improvement on both sides. I would suggest that action does need to be taken against my friend, because favoritism is only going to make things worse, but would also say something like this to the harsh moderator in question. I think that my friend reacted so extremely because they felt that they were being unfairly treated by the staff team. I'm not saying we don't take action against them because they did break the rules, but there was another way to warn them. I would then provide examples from the moderator's post that I thought were overboard. I may add something I knew of my friend, for example, my friend takes offense to the word you used in the post because of his/her background, a detail that is not too personal but may help the moderator understand what they've done wrong. I would listen to the rest of the team in regards as to what punishment my friend deserved, because I would understand that I might have at least a little bit of personal bias toward them. I would talk to my friend outside of the situation to try and pacify them and explain what had to be done and that they are not above the rules, but of course, it would be as a  friend and with understanding.

1. I've been active off and on since 2017
2. I want to be a moderator because I like this forum, and I want to see it thrive. This is one of the few places on the internet where political discourse can be had without the moderation team interfering for their own preferred political faction, yet some decorum is still required.
3. I am typically available throughout the week, barring classes. My weekend availability is a little more iffy as I do have games to attend those days.
4. I can make fair and honest attempts to understand others. If someone comes to me with a problem, I make every attempt possible to see why each person made the decisions that they did. I try to get down to the truth of a matter. I try my best to keep to the spirit and word of the rules, and prefer to be up front when I make decisions. Rules are important to cultivating a community, and the internet is no different in that regard. When considering actions, I can check them against rules to verify legality, and those I struggle with, I can discuss with the moderation team for guidence. Indeed, I feel that it is best that the moderation team act together rather than one person controlling the show in a given situation.
5. The most concerning issue is that i've generally been spotty in terms of participation on this forum with blank periods when life got in the way. I think it has happened approximately thrice, and they were long breaks.
6. no
7. I understand the rules, and I will enforce them fairly. I will also go back to those rules to ensure complience with each event that comes up.
8. I would like to see more clarity on when double warnings are issued. Such a change would require approaching the rest of the team about the idea, hashing out language for the rules section, and then one of us publishes the change.
9. 4
10. I do not have too much moderation experience, but I do have a little system administration experience. Not much, but a little.
11. The first thing to do is to handle the volitile situation that could arise on the discord. My message would be as follows. "Before we do anything extreme, I'm going to ask what I do understand is typical of me to take some time to review the post point by point." Next, I will take the post, open up the rules page, and optionally grab a cup of tea. We are looking at potential rule 2 violations, and the Obligatory additions section under the behavior update of september 2019. This means that, at least with moderation actions, we really can't use kid gloves. Now, let's check the post. "Look, I don't care what you say anymore. Just fuck off and leave me alone. I am sick to death of people always picking on me." Mostly good, except those last words..."I am sick to death of people always picking on me." If we check under the clarification section, we see a section on Character Assassination. Under that heading we have: "Character assassination is defined as the slandering of a person or group of people with intent to destroy or seriously undermine confidence in that person or group without adequate reason." The thing is, this line does not seem to fall under that definition so cleanly, but I would note to bring this to the moderation team. I would expect input from the moderator already handling this case, but I would request a third party just in case. Better safe than sorry if we don't agree on character assassination cases. Next: "I mean, I make one little mistake, and suddenly everyone's out to get me." As above. This would be part of the same instance. It also occurs to me that character assassination against everyone is a dubious claim anyway, but better safe than sorry still. "I don't know what sort of god-damn power trip you and the other mod-lovers are on, but I've had enough of it." Oh, now we have a more defined group this time, and more importantly, a well defined individual who might be getting attacked. Under the clarification section, under personal attacks, we find "'You're power-hungry/you get your kicks from shutting people up'" The entry suggests that this one might be up to personal interpretation. Note to bring this up with that afformentioned panel of moderators for review. "I really don't care if they ban me at this point, I am fucking done playing nice and playing politics because everyone else gets their feelings hurt and I'm supposed to just eat it." Nothing notably wrong with this line. "We're supposed to be here to have fun and support each other as gamers, but that's not what I see." Oh, this is an important line. This gives us a common bridge to work with. Always good to find some common ground. Even if the worst case scenario occurs for this user, perhaps we have a common ground to work with. "What I see is a bunch of immature, whiny assholes who can't understand that sometimes we say and do stuff that isn't smart, and we sometimes need a little time to learn from them. Yes, you're one of them. No, I don't care if that bothers you." This is part of a whole idea, so I should consider it so. Now, let's go over if this is a rule 2 violation. And a quick read through suggests that this would be name calling. I've already got a panel looking at this post, might as well double check this while I'm here, but I'm confident that all three of us would agree. "You gave that up the moment you told me that I probably didn't belong here if I had such thin skin. " Not much worth saying about this line. "Seriously, fuck all the way off with your high-handed judgments." And this is more attacking the ideas in a sense. Compared to our earlier finds, this isn't that bad.
Now that that's been done, time to go back to the discord. "I've reviewed the post, and here's my findings. What do you all think?" Followed by listing, in a more compact version, my findings from above. Requesting two other mods to look at the more dubious cases. Now, here's where things get interesting. More than likely, this post is warning worthy. The question is how many. Also, the matter of people calling the user a snowflake is also worthy of at least a caution, I might ask the mod team if this is also a warning worthy event. I'd argue probably one warning for the obvious personal attacks. The other event would depend on the other mods. It would be more suitable to give one warning in any case if only to try to avoid further unnecessary hostilities. I would request to take this one on giving something like this: "MODERATION:
@post Calling people Immature, whiny assholes is not acceptable on this forum. As you said, we should be trying to support each other, and I understand that you haven't been getting that support. That being said, the rules are pretty clear here, and you shouldn't escalate the issue. In the future, feel free to report such instances of attacks on your person. To those of you calling @post a snowflake, consider this a {warning/caution} as well." Finally, file the actions under the discipline thread and that should do it for a while. Perhaps, privately tell my friend to take a break from the internet for a while.

I have been an active member on this forum for about three weeks now. I’m fairly new here, but I still wish to help.
I’d like to be a moderator because I’d like to be able to intervene when there are toxic threads or conversations going on in this community. I understand that I can’t be a hero, and that’s not what I’m trying to do. However, toxicity can ruin friendships, and it can also hurt people in general, even if they are not necessarily friends, and I’m talking about anyone who is involved in said toxicity. Even if someone is simply reading a toxic conversation, things could be said that could be triggering to some people, and so my goal is to bring that level down as often and as much as I can.
When it comes to my availability, I honestly check the forum several times per day. I don’t always contribute, but I’m definitely still here. So, as a result, I would be checking every single day to make sure this place is staying friendly if I get excepted to be a moderator. There’s honestly no way to tell exactly what times I will check the forum on a given day, but you can definitely be assured that I will at least be on the forum no less than three times per day, scattered throughout the entire day.
As a moderator, I would bring fairness, equality and patience to the entire forum, as well as the team of moderators and admin working alongside me. If an admin or moderator decides that a user should be punished, but they wish to have a conversation with the rest of the team, I would do my best to find common ground With the person who thinks the punishment should be given. Obviously, people can’t always agree, which is why I would always try to find common ground with the entire team to make sure that the situation was handled the best way possible.
Sometimes, I can be very gentle. I hate to make people feel bad. However, as a moderator, I would definitely enforce the rules. Even though I’m a gentle person, I’m not too gentle. For example, cracking games is not OK. People worked on those games, and it is simply theft. Stealing is not OK under any circumstances. So, if a person on this community is even hinting that they are trying to crack games on this forum, or give links to games that have been cracked or pirated, I would definitely make sure that a punishment was given. The only time where my gentleness may kick in is if someone says something a little too mean to someone, I may not necessarily think that a punishment should be given right away. I am the type of guy that likes second chances , but of course, bullying and personal attacks are not allowed on this forum at all. I would still give a punishment, and my gentleness will definitely never make me not give someone a punishment if they deserve it for being rude, especially if there are personal attacks.
I have not received any bans on this forum.
I went over the rules before applying for an account on this forum, but I also read them in their entirety before submitting this application just to make sure I understood. But yes, I do possess a thorough understanding of the rules, and I promise to enforce them fairly And I will always stick to this promise.
One thing that I would change about this community is the amount of personal attacks and the amount of people being rude in general. The way I would go about making this change happen is by letting everyone on this forum know that I check several times a day, and punishments will be given as soon as I get to them, which won’t be very long at all. People would definitely find out very quickly that they could not hide it from me. With that being said, I’m not the type of person who likes to show my power. If I become a moderator,  I’m not trying to scare anybody away. By saying this, I’m simply letting everyone know that they must follow the rules, or punishments will be given. I’ll also check the reports every time I log onto the forum just in case there’s something in a buried topic that I may have missed.
I rate my familiarity with Discord a 3. The only reason is because I don’t have a Discord account. It’s just that I personally don’t use it. However, I do understand what it is and how it works.
Playing with technology and discovering hidden features and secrets is what I love to do. I like to ask questions, explore new things in places, and just play around in general. However, I do understand that being a moderator is serious, and I would definitely take my position seriously.
First of all, I would not even consider the fact that the forum member is a friend. I mean, if this conflict really was happening with a friend, of course I’d feel bad, but it wouldn’t get in the way of my judgment as a moderator. The way I would handle it is create a post in the thread that was causing the most drama in the conflict, and I would let everyone know that we all make mistakes, and I would kindly ask everyone to drop it. As for the Discord server, I would most likely let one of the webmaster’s know about what the moderator was saying about the member. Now I know a lot of people would disagree with me, saying that you shouldn’t go straight to the top of the chain, but after all, the webmaster would be the only one more powerful than a moderator or admin. since in this scenario, my friend was going through turmoil before this, I would tell my friend outside of the forum that they probably need to stay off of it for a few weeks so that the other members can have time to forget about what happened, and more importantly so my friend could  calm down mentally and just take a break in general. I’d also privately tell the moderator who called my friend a snowflake that maybe it would be best to leave it to the other members of the staff team in this case. I would say it kindly, and I would say it because  if the moderator has a personal bias against my friend, even if it wasn’t my friend, it’s still could make said moderator give a more harsh punishment.

1: I have been an active member of the comunity since somewhere in mid 2011 and have been posting on a semmy regular basis.

2: I am noticing the current vacuum of moderators slowly but surely becoming a problem, with warnings not beeing given out although they are long overdue, reports are not read and, if a moderator is looking at reported situations, oftentimes random amounts of warnings beeing given out, exemplary a double warning or instant ban, without really explaining why more than one warning was beeing given.
I want to change that situation in improving the response times and bringing this place back into a situation where problems can be delt with faster and in an orderly manner.
I still think that this comunity can be something big if everyone works on it and we don't let this slip further than we already did.

3: I am generally available during the week in the evening, UTC +1, same for the weekends, although there might be days when I am available the hole day.
4: Throughout the last years I learned that patience is often key and both sides of a story need to be listened to before any solutions are thought of.
I would call myself someone who is able to analyse a situation and act acordingly if all evidence is on the table.
Another trait I developed is that I want to get things done in a quick and eficient manner. Due to my training and job experiences thus far I am able to fine tune processes and if procedures are convoluted to clean them up and change how things are done.
Nothing is static, one has to accept that things change over time and changes need to be made, adapting to new situations.

5: A cupple of years ago I got into a few useless fights with other members, resulting in warnings and a 90 day ban in 2020.

6: See above, I received a ban for aantagonizing the views of another user who was and is very pro chinese, I was mocking him for this and received the ban.
7: I have a very good understanding of the forum rules and I am able to follow and enforce these as necessary.
8: As written above, processes take far to long and nothing seams to be worked on. We are talking about change for the last cupple of years by now and we all know that this forum system is no longer an option if we still want to be a respectable comunity of blind and visually impaired gamers.
In my opinion, we need to do a hard cut here, set up a new forum, put this forum into archive mode if that is an option and start fresh again.
If we can create an image of this forum and either upload it to somewhere where people could then still search it or inject it into a new system that would be fine, but we need change now and sooner than later.
Another thing I would change is the promoting and demoting of moderators. Mods who are not doing anything, exemplary handing out warnings should be demoted after a while. I would put in a rule that after X number of days, a moderator loses his mod status, if another candidate who is still considered for a mod position should be promoted. If there is no other one, a new topic goes up with a fixed timeline where everyone who wants to be a mod needs to submit their application.
9: I'd give myself a 4.5, some parts of Discord I haven't explored yet, but nothing I can't work out.
10: As stated above, one of my strengths is leading a team and getting work done.
A few years ago we had to plan a new room for our school which would be used for computer work, in this case lessons in networking, analysing hardware components and working with them.
I was coordinating the hole project and set up a work plan, analysed what is needed for computers, how large the room is, what furniture is needed, which securitys are needed, as an example ESD protected tables, armbands, shelves and so on.
i then checked out what computers would do the job, checked different manufaturers and set up a cost and performance calculation, taking into account the cost, CPU, storrage space, support availibility which I needed to find the best system available.
Same with the ESD protected workspaces.
I enjoy planning out projects, making sure that all requirements are met and that there is smooth sailing all around.

11: Given that my friend has broken a forum rule I wouldn't appeal against the warning, we are in a comunity where rules are there for a reason, if we start bending the rules just because a friend of ours is involved, total chaos would ensue.
My first step would be to check out the forum threat to see what led up to this hole mess, noting down any previous altercations of other users to check if any other action needs to be taking, (cautions, warnings and so on).
I would then discuss my findings with the staff team on the discord to reach a final conclusion.
During this I would talk about the comment made by the other moderator and clearly state that he technically broke the rules off forum in calling someone a snowflake which can be considered a personal attack under §2 of the forum rules.
I also would state that if you uphold a rules of comunity it is not your place to attack the person directly, although this isn't public.
If in future the mod in questions would continue this behaviour I would reach out for other mods I trust to see what can be done about the situation or if  I am possibly overreacting.

1 years
2 megalomania
3 always
4 myself
5 nothing
6 probably
7 no
8 everything
9 5
10 jod
11 idc

Well, going by the standards of @12 and @13, 99 % of all active forum members would be better admins than these two. But other than Lundin, my application is actually serious.

1: I have been an active member for six years.
2: This community has, more indirectly than directly, helped me to many great experiences. For example enabling me to play so many great games by first of all helping me find them and second of all giving me tips on how to play them, or helping me find people who also like gaming, or just by giving me a laugh after a hard or bad day because someone posted something funny. After all that, I feel like I want to do something in return. In short, this forum could be a much better place than it is now and I want to help the forum and the community so they can make more of that potential.
3: I usually check the forum daily andbe able to commit the required time to the forum. However, when there's a particularly stressful time during my courses or when I'm on holiday/away with friends, I may not be able to check the forum for a few days. However, these periods would always be made clear beforehand.
4: When I am taking responsibility for something, I take that responsibility seriously. This means I will be as active as possible around the forum. I also believe that I am someone who can separate their personal relationships with other forum members from the official role as a moderator. I am also confident that I am very level-headed and can keep calm in hectic or stressful situations or when dealing with particularly tough moderation cases.
Where teamwork is concerned, I will always coordinate with other team members on moderation decisions, never making snap decisions.
5: I may have been harsh and angry occassionally (and I might still be), mostly if someone really pisses me off or tests my patience a little too much.
6: No, never. I haven't even received a warning yet.
7: Yes, I do. Even though the exact enforcement of some existing rules will have to be discussed further (the handling of copyright material, to be precise), I will enforce the rules fairly.
8: There are of course many things that I would change (most of them minor, some of them major), but I wouldn't even start with rules, I would start with transparency. At the moment, there are modes of punishment (double warning and the GCW case) where there is no protocol. I would clearly explain when a single warning is handed out, when a double warning is handed out and when there is a no-warning-ban such as with GCW.
9: 4. I would have said 5 because I use Discord daily, but I can't use Discord on my smartphone (IOS) apart from reading and writing (short) messages, which is also due to some accessibility problems with the IOS app. For more detailed things, I would have to use the Windows client.
10: Broad question. What I am getting into professionally (journalism) doesn't have a lot to do with this community. I am more or less regularly contributing to thegerman localisation of the Hearthstone access project, I am not involved with the development itself though (I can't code). I am currently a moderator on the ICC (International Camp on Computers and Communication) discord server, even though that server seems to be completely dead at this point, even though we (the server admin, another mod and me) may try to revive it at some point in the future (that's not certain though). I am also currently considering starting my own Discord server to maybe start a Discord community for german-language audiobooks and audio dramas, that is only an early idea though. My super-strength? In a journalistic context, it's creating audio content. but in a moderation context, I have none other than fully committing myself to a role.
11: To make writing the following answer easier, I will call the mod I often disagree with Jim and the friend John (all similarities to real names or forum usernames are coincidental of course).
I would start by talking to Jim about his handling of warning John harshly regarding the copyright material case and calling him a snowflake. If I mention the turmoil in John's life or not dpeneds on that turmoil's severity. As it is not detailed here, I can't precisely judge that. If it was something minor, I wouldn't mention it. If it was something serious that would put John in a state of getting emotional or aggressive quickly, I would mention it. Anyway, I would tell Jim that his handling of the earlier copyright incident was unnecessarily harsh and may have put John (independent of his personal situation) in a position where he is more leaning to be against mods and mod-supporting forum members, especially if the latter constantly criticise him harshly for his single mistake.
At the same time, I would go to the topic in question and remind everyone not to go after a single person for one mistake. I would also tell John that he overdid it with his last post, but I wouldn't give him a warning since there was no major personal attack in his final post.

Note regarding Discord: I may occassionally not be able to join voice chat on Discord.

you do realize #12 is you rite? also that's some extreme mod talent rite there!

At 12, claiming you have no weaknesses is false, everyone's got a weakness, and that also includes the moderators.

indeed, now a good aplicant would only get past the preliminary stage if they were to admit what their biggest struggle in the position would be, and that so that the other mods could work with the person to get around the afor mentioned weaknesses

Topics are topics only if they are enforced, otherwise they can be for posting whatever you want. Oh did I mention that my favorite Christmas song is Grandma got run over by a reindeer? Right now there is no enforcement so you can make the topic about whatever you want. I really enjoy riding roller coasters; my favorite amusement park is Cedar Point. And oreos are not that good. It is clear that this moderator application went nowhere because no new  moderators were adddedd ddue to it so even if enforcement were to happen, the point of the topic has been negated, so you might as well make it about whatever you want. Yes. This forum is pretty much a do what you want forum now. I want to get a lot of money, convert it into coins, and then drop all the coins from about 10-15 feet into a metal bowl so I can hear a loud clattering of coins. And iguanas are pretty neat but only lookingg at them; caring for them would probably be pretty annoying and expensive, because I think they eat other creatures so I would have to buy them.