It was a dark and stormy night, and on MSN I was asked to be staff

[Alexander Nicholi]

I thought since our staff are so integrated and active that maybe they could take a moment for our reading pleasure to share with us as much as is okay of the experience of getting promoted.

If you're not in da club here at PC or just wanna be cool, tell us of any other experiences of yours to do with promotion - on a forum, game server, chat, or what :)



Personally, I have never been promoted anywhere, at all. I've always been an administrator in staff instances, either co-founding or solely leading projects and endeavors, and I'm very comfortable in doing so. I really enjoy administrative work when it's technical, and like to have my plate full even when I have delegates to shove it off to. For me it's a big learning experience, and is why I'm so knowledgeable about all of the stuff to do with both consumer IT and server management. :3

 

[Lycanthropy]

I recently got promoted to permanent Dungeon Master in our Dungeons and Dragons group, does that count too?

 

[Nick]

Pretty much @ thread title. Except it wasn't storming and it was Christmas Eve and I had things to do, but I was in the usual group chat in 2008 and then suddenly they linked me to a post in the staff forum. I was completely unaware of it.

I continue browsing. My name was blue, I had access to the staff forums, and I just didn't notice a single thing different than before.

A few minutes later I remember typing "!!!!!!!!!!!!" in the chat after I finally realized, and they were all pretty unanimous in saying "Wow Nick" and things like that. It had been maybe 10 minutes since they linked me to the post???

For super moderator, the night before I was leaving to go away to college in 2010 I was in a group chat with most of the same people, and I was super emotional and then they just promoted me and it pretty much made my internet life. I had wanted to be a super moderator for a pretty long time.

Spent the rest of 2010 in HQ.

 

[Candy]

Does it count if I got promoted to admin on a Terraria trading server? :P

 

[Emboar]

I'm a moderator of one of the smaller rooms on our battle server, only because the room owner needed staff at the time. I'm also a moderator on a really small forum that's run by a selfish, power-hungry admin, because I asked to be a moderator there.

 

[Psychic]

I was promoted to Moderator on Serebii in 2006. I started out modding just one section, but I have since handled a range of sub-forums. Since I'm a writer, I also handle writing/editing rules and guides for users. I still enjoy my work there to this day.

Apparently I almost god modded on PE2K back when that was still a thing, but it didn't happen because they didn't want any more Jewish staff. :/

~Psychic

 

[Poki]

I'm actually quite responsible, despite being a lazy shit. I've been promoted a ton of times, and my first legit page, where I became co-owner in 2014, just hit 1,7k likes. I've also been made a mod on a few crappy forum sites, but they were all taken down by their owners due to lack of popularity. My first ever promotion was in 2007, though: I joined an Akatsuki fan club where they constantly held Skype group convos, and I eventually became a co-owner because I was liked there, I guess.

But yeah, I know how to mod, and it's pretty fun.

 

[starseed galaxy auticorn]

I've never been a staffer at any place, as far as I know. Frankly, I could careless. Being a staff person seems like really tough work. I guess I wouldn't mind if they decided I was perfect for the job. I've had my own forums I've staffed before, but they were pretty dead and never got very many members. So, I gave up lol. I do have experience with many different forum settings though, believe it or not. I'm a quick learner when I can explore my new powers and stuff like that.

 

[mikey]

Not PC related, but I got promoted to moderator on another Pokemon forum about a year ago. The forum had to close though, but I was a mod for about 4 months until it closed. One of the admins PMed me one day asking if I would mod the Pokemon Games section. Even though it didnt last too long, it was fun :3

 

[Ice1]

So I had my own tribe in tribal wars, and I modded the forums there. I don't think 11 year old was qualified to be either mod or tribe leader.

 

[Nah]

When I was modded here, it started like this:

Spoiler:

+1 face from Alex but that got bumped to the next page

Followed by:

Spoiler:

I was a little in shock on that day


Never been staff anywhere else though. A am an & in one room on the battle server so I guess that kinda counts too.

 

[Spiff]

I'm more on the supply side of why places like this need staff.

 

[Skip Class]

It was back in the day when I joined practically every pokemon forum that I could find. In the course of three years I got promoted from Moderator all the way to Staff Admin on a somewhat large forum known as Pokemon Mysidia (which at some point share the the same smogen servers with PC I think).
However on the second year I was also promoted to moderator at another large forum: PokeStation (which I think is currently PokeCheats right now).

It got to the point where I was having difficulty controlling my priorities especially since I was hitting my final years of college back then.
Pokemon Mysidia eventually closed down due to a lack of activity in 2012 before I could resign for being too inactive (although there was mention of a comeback, I guess that never happened).
There was a merger and then a somewhat incident between members of PokeStation in which myself and several other members (a lot of staff) left and created a smaller, yet more active anime forum which lasted about a year before we more or less just decided to live on skype.

Although it's been fun in the past, I've notice that whenever I am promoted somewhere I'll end up becoming more inactive so I don't really look into being on a staff anymore (didn't help I was on multiple forums as well as trying to stay active on PC too).

 

[Bellsprout]

I can't remember what the weather was like or anything, but basically Nick (patchisou yutohru) had requested me on msn which I found weird because we had never spoken prior to then. A week or so passed and he never messaged me, but then one day I noticed a ton of hstaff on my profile and when I signed onto msn Nick messaged me and asked if I wanted to be the Pokemon General Mod which I said yes to. But yeah back then it was all really unexpected as I had like 3 friends here and none of them were staff so I guess it was cool to be noticed. Most importantly it started the friendship between Nick and I and now he is my closest friend here! :)

Also one time I had a job with a guy who I really respected. I worked really hard for him and then at the end of the job (seasonal) he told me how much he appreciated me and said so many nice things that were just so meaningful to me. It also helped because I was coming to the end of a relationship with someone who I felt like didn't appreciate or care about me at all so to hear those words were really uplifting, I have never forgotten them. So it wasn't a promotion or anything, but it felt like a big achievement to have that respect given back.

 

[Klippy]

My first modding, I believe Mork and other hstaffers got me together to accuse me of being part of a secret hacking group trying to ruin PC. They linked me to a ton of old posts of mine saying, "oh this is proof you are part of it" and I was just like, "WTF" and they kept making it really obvious that I was supposed to be noticing my bold, blue name - only I was too freaked out to notice.

Second modding, I...can't remember as well. I think I got added to a big MSN convo and everyone was happy and stuff. Someone can correct me if they remember being there. It was a lot of the old staff.

THIRD modding, I was back for awhile on PC and Mork/Syd were like, "Oh yeah, you're a mod again" and I was like, "Well this is a surprise". But it was just a nice little thing and I got to meet all the new staffers. :)

NOW we arrive at smod and I was called by Syd for our regular facetime Skype calls. We were just hanging like normal and I got added to the h-staff chat and then she told me to look on PC and I did and I was like O_O really, haha. And then I just kept smiling and stuff. I sat there for maybe twenty or thirty minutes just watching my message count go up and my Skype blow up. It took me awhile to respond to everything that happened.

 

[Nolafus]

Regarding my promotion to mod for FF&W, Astinus had PM'd me asking for my feedback for an idea. Well, at least that's what the title suggested. I thought it was cool since a super moderator actually wanted my feedback for a section I was a regular of. The message started off talking about how this is an idea to boost activity in the section and whatnot. I opened the spoiler tag expecting to see details, but instead, I saw my name in bold blue. I started freaking out. After seeing the section go a few months without a moderator, I couldn't believe that they had picked me to run it.

My promotion to super-moderator was a bit more terrifying interesting. Morkula texted me to get on Skype immediately after work, as there was something we needed to discuss. I logged on to Skype and asked if there was something wrong. He said to look at PC and see if there was anything different. I logged on, saw my bold blue name like usual, and scrolled to the bottom of the page to start looking at the users. I saw Klippy's orange name, and said Klippy was orange. Morkula responded all excited like and said that I was a close candidate as well. I said that it was a well deserved promotion and we eventually got to a discussion on why I wasn't picked. He made me feel like I was getting fired, haha:

Spoiler:

[3/12/2015 9:43:27 PM] Morkula: The h-staff just didn't think you had enough experience as a mod
[3/12/2015 9:43:42 PM] Morkula: And some of them just didn't really like the way FF&W is going D:
[3/12/2015 9:43:51 PM] Nolafus S.: How so?
[3/12/2015 9:44:12 PM] Nolafus S.: Because it's become more lax since I took over.
[3/12/2015 9:44:16 PM] Morkula: I know it's a tough forum.
[3/12/2015 9:44:42 PM] Nolafus S.: But what are some of the issues people are having?
[3/12/2015 9:46:01 PM] Morkula: They noticed you'd been frustrated with it before. They also wondered if you're maybe losing some of your drive.
[3/12/2015 9:47:19 PM] Morkula: I don't know. I think a lot of them just don't see you being a mod for much longer.
[3/12/2015 9:47:32 PM] Nolafus S.: Well, I'll have to change a few minds about that, haha.
[3/12/2015 9:47:37 PM] Nolafus S.: I don't plan on going anywhere.
[3/12/2015 9:47:52 PM] Nolafus S.: FF&W is a tough section, but it's my section.
[3/12/2015 9:47:59 PM] Morkula: Unfortunately some people have other plans. FF&W isn't your section anymore, Nicholas.
[3/12/2015 9:48:17 PM] Nolafus S.: Oh my gosh
[3/12/2015 9:48:19 PM] Nolafus S.: What is this?
[3/12/2015 9:48:21 PM] Nolafus S.: ISDJPISDJVNISJBPQIUBPDOSKG
[3/12/2015 9:48:27 PM] Nolafus S.: I'm orange!
[3/12/2015 9:48:33 PM] Nolafus S.: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

 

[Ivysaur]

Jake contacted me on MSN 24 hours before the voting time was over to tell tell me he wanted to ask me for something "not PC related". Then he corrected himself and said he actually meant "not hack related", because I was beta testing his hack back then. So he apologised for ruining his own surprise announcement and told me that I was probably going to get modded in Funtime in Pokéland! (read: Pokémon Trivia & Forum Games) in 24 hours and that I should be careful not to do anything to ruin it. I told Nica & co., who were on a separate convo, and Nica thought it was a late April's Fools joke (it was the 4th) and wanted to ask Jake if that was true. Luckily she was stopped and I spent the rest of the day paranoid that basically every mod was stalking me to see if I did anything wrong to get an excuse not to hire me. Some months later, when I got smodded, I went back to read the discussion and found out there hadn't actually been a vote and Jake had read a bunch of "from all those people you mentioned, the one I'd prefer is Went" as firm votes. So thank you Jake.

My smod promotion was a chat full of hstaff people, which was super-hyper-obvious, and then my admin promotion was yet another boring chat, which I saw coming so far away I actually didn't bother to read it, haha. Instead, since I was already talking to Janna on a separate chat, I told her "hey, I have been added to a chat with all admins, watch as I get promoted in a few minutes", and she replied "omg you are red :O", and then I went to look at my profile and the congrats messages while people in the chat were "Congrats Went! Hello? Why aren't you replying?".

 

[Alexander Nicholi]

I think I have enough sap ITT to run a syrup business

These reads man :')

 

[Abnegation]

Of the five times I was to be promoted I was told beforehand. Nothing overly special, actually.

 

[Sirfetch’d]

I wasn't even asked to be staffed when I was promoted to CCC back in 2013! My good friend Geoff(morkula) was talking to me on Skype and said "CCC could use a 3rd mod" and boom I was blue! Then he and Razor Leaf created a Skype chat and went over everything with me and made a awesome thread for me to lock <3 Good times haha!