Hi, everyone. I'm really, really new to RPG-Directory, so...yeah, hi! n_n

That being said, I'll jump right in.

I'm running a Pokemon forum; if any of you are accustomed to Pokemon, you would know that there are a lot of technical things that you have to take into account (leveling up, for one) and incorporate into a roleplay about it. Another thing that's necessary is moderating RP threads—in this case, giving members Pokemon to catch or battle with in their threads if they don't want to RP with other characters. A lot of people prefer this method to simply meeting other characters and battling their Pokemon or adopting Pokemon from Breeding Barns (places where a member can create up to 12 first-class or baby Pokemon for others to adopt for themselves).

The problem with this is that moderating is a requirement because of this strong preference. In the past, we had our moderators just mod for fun, but almost nothing got done that way. So, we decided we would incorporate a system to make things work. It's called a 'quo', and it requires you to have a certain amount of active or finished threads (or even a mix of the two) at the end of each month. We thought that way, hey, maybe some of this will get done! Well, we were wrong. The system is very easily manipulated, so we changed it up a bit, but that didn't work too well either. :sweat:

Here's how it works: "When you mod a thread, it's automatically part of your quo. It's kept that way if the member doesn't reply for the month; however, if the member does reply, then that thread is considered a part of your quo only for one week. If you do not reply to that thread before one week, then it is no longer considered part of your quo and it is open for takeover by other moderators.

If, however, you have an active thread from [x] last month, it can be carried down to the [x] next month.

If you finish a thread, it is no longer apart of your quo."

Can you spot the bad things about it? I can. For one, if the member doesn't reply, that thread counts. That's not a good thing! It's basically just an inactive, useless thread that's helping this moderator out. However, if the mod only has one week to reply, that's not very fair for the mod either.

Another problem is that if you don't meet quo, then you're demoted. However, our site is humongously active. We can't afford to be demoting any moderators (which we have about, oh, 7 right now); at the same time, we have to take the member's needs into account.

Also, our way of letting you apply for staff is a bit flawed. You have to have 250 posts and have been a member for at least two weeks. We need a better way of doing this, but we're really out of ideas.

Currently, we have 366 members, with about 50 that log on regularly. Do you see the problem here?

If anyone could help out and come up with a foolproof idea as to how to tackle this, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much! n__n

Well I dont think I understand half of what you explained, think I need to see it in practice. Anyways, lemme try giving you some suggestions/tips.

I suppose that like all other RPG forums you have a variaty of IC boards where members RP in (different towns, areas, cities etc.).

Why don't you just appoint a moderator to a few of these forums and split them up between your moderators? What I also find always helping is just put up a list of jobs that moderator has to do (or what's expected he/she has to do).

As for getting new moderators. I think that you should get rid of that 250 posts rule. Really you get the best staff members by 'asking' dedicated and active members from your community to become a staffie. Because with your current rule everybody with that ammount of post count could become a staff member. And really if you are the owner, you should decide who you want to have as a staff member.

And really, if your mods aren't doing their job, there's no reason to keep them really. Maybe that's become the case because people got 'promoted' via that 250 post count rule. So instead of earning it, they just wanted to get that many ammount of posts to get a staff position. Once having the staff position they just sit there. It's a case of wanting power, getting power, and then sit on a lazy ass (of course Idon't know if this is the case, but this 'can' happen if you promote members that way to a staff member).

I hope these, well insights, rather then suggestions might help you a bit!