Applying to Staff

Hi there! So you want to apply to become a Standing Trials Staff Member? That’s fantastic! We are always looking for bright, dedicated individuals to help us out. Please be aware that there is a minimum level of activity required of all staff, so make sure you have enough time in your schedule to accommodate your time as a volunteer staff member before applying.

Activity Requirements are listed at the bottom of this article.

Staff Application Checklist.

You must be on the forum for no less than 1 Cycle (4 months).
You must show that you are consistently active on the forum.
You must show a willingness to learn and be proactive.
You must be sixteen years of age or older.
You must receive 2 written recommendations from current staff members which must be posted in the Player Notes prior to the application. The recommendations must not be from the same individual.

Note: (New Staff are not permitted to give recommendations)

If you feel that these prerequisites have been met, then please fill out the application below. Please send all applications to the current Advocate Team Lead.

Initial Questions
1. Name: (Real life first name.)
2. Age: (Real life age. Your information will be kept strictly private.)
3. All Characters You Control: (List all PCs, past and present ones.)
4. Start Date: (When did you first join us?)
5. Staff Position: (What staff position (Storyteller or Developer) are you applying for? If you want to become an Advocate at a later point, include this here. If you wish to be a city moderator, list that here along with any preferences for location.)
6. Recommendations: (List the name of the 2 staff members who recommended you.)

Standard Questions
1. First off, why do you want to be a part of the staff? The answer can be simple or detailed, we're just curious.

2. What experience do you have as a moderator on a role-playing forum? Please list the names of those forums. If you have none, please say so.

3. Why did you choose the above-mentioned staff position and city (if applicable), and what might we see you doing with it in the future?

4. Have you submitted any development pieces to the Creating The World forum or individual cities? If so, please provide links to your submissions. Have you produced any lore or development pieces for other role-playing sites? If so, please describe the work you have done.

5. Have you had any negative incidents regarding you and the staff related to inappropriate behaviour, rule breaking, or other issues that conflict with the Standing Trials TOU? If so, explain the situation(s), what you did wrong, and how you went about trying to fix the issue.

Personal Questions
1. Do you have anything going on in your life right now that could pull you away from moderation for a substantial amount of time? We're not looking for an explanation or detailed response. If you have school, say that you're in school. If you have a full time job, list that.

2. What do you consider your strengths when it comes to Standing Trials? What about your weaknesses? This question is meant to help us help you by pairing you with the right moderators and forums.

3. Do you have any issues with certain players or moderators that we should know about? This question will remain private between you and the Prophet looking over your application.

Developer Questions - For Developer Applicants Only
1. Which aspect of Development appeals to you most, and why?

(answer two of the following:)
2. You have spent the last three weeks working on an incredibly challenging development piece. Just before it is time to release it, someone brings to your attention a pre-existing but small piece of lore that unravels all of your work. What do you do?

3. Two players come to you in a dispute over a point of lore that will greatly affect a thread they are doing together. They both cite previous rulings in defense of their interpretation. Checking back, you see they both had understandable precedent for their different takes, but they are different enough that only one can be right. How would you resolve this?

4. You have agreed to work with a Storyteller to develop an Immortal's mark, but about halfway through you realize you have drastically different ideas of how the Immortal acts and their attitude. Tensions are beginning to rise and a number of factors such as different time zones and poor communication cause issues between the two of you. Describe how you would go about handling the situation.

Storyteller Questions - For Storyteller Applicants Only
1. Which aspect of Storytelling appeals to you most, and why?

(answer two of the following:)
2. When looking over graded threads, you notice that a particular player was rewarded the maximum amount of points and knowledge while another player received a very small grade. After examining the roleplay, you see that the player who received less of a grade had better post quality and content than the player who received more points. When investigating, you find that the grader and the player with a better grade are close friends. How would you handle this situation?

3. It comes to your attention that a player has made a post in direct contradiction with the lore of the city (e.g. they are an unacceptable race) or they have committed a crime (e.g. they have murdered a senior ranking politician). How do you deal with it? What if the thread was finished and you came across the issue when grading it?

4. You are running a moderated thread when you notice a player has begun to metagame, taking into account OOC information that their character could not know. You hadn't caught it in time and several players have responded, taking into account that metagame information being brought IC. How do you handle it?

5. In your city there is a faction of villains. A PC joins with the aim of turning them all into "good guys" and starts a series of threads where they do so. How do you deal with this?

Advocate Questions - For Advocate Applications Only
1.Which aspect of Advocating appeals to you the most, and why?

2.You have been approached individually by a player and a staff member. Both are mentioning complaints about each other due to a simple disagreement over the lore. What do you do?

3.A Staff member comes to you with concerns about a player’s negative behavior either in chat or on the forums. How would you get to the bottom of the complaints and then address the issue?

Standing Trials Staff Activity Requirements

Please review these requirements when making the decision of whether or not to apply.

All Staff Requirements

(please note: this applies to “Staff” rank only. “New Staff” have a workload appropriate to them and in discussion with their mentor. However, the new staff period should be preparation and training for the full “Staff” role)

1. Staff are expected to remain active members of the Staff Community. Please note that Discord Announcements Channel is the official message board and all messages of importance should be posted there.

2. It is your responsibility as a staff member to keep up to date on what is happening. Staff are expected to engage in discussions and to do so in a timely manner.

3. All staff members are expected to participate in the standard duties that we all share. This includes reviewing Character Sheets, reviewing threads and responding to Prophet Support Forum tickets. Since not everyone will enjoy every one of those activities then we only request that all staff members complete on average two of these activities each week in order to keep things functioning. This allows for mixing and matching as desired. You could for example take two thread reviews that week or do a character sheet review and a prophet support forum ticket. It's completely up to you as to which two activities you participate in. What's important is that you are indeed participating.

4. Maintaining Prophets Notes / Player Notes: When you implement / effect/ approve a change which needs to be recorded in the Prophets or Player Notes, it is your responsibility to action that.

City Mod Requirements (any team)

1. Maintain an up to date city calendar. All calendars must be completed within a week of Cycle change. Calendars will include a list of events, news and weather.

2. Respond to player inquiries related to your city in a timely manner.

3. Keep job / wages / developments up to date in your city, in a timely manner.

Advocate Requirements

1. Manage disputes and feedback, be it through the use of banning, warning or generally discussing with the people in question (this is not applicable for staff x staff disputes, which falls to the Advocate Team Lead currently)

2.Maintain Medals, Character Sheets and Welcoming new players - be a friendly and helpful face on the site that is seen to be making a difference for players both old and new.

3. Manage the story of the Month through teamwork and communicate with one another about it.

4. All Advocates must remain active for all periods of time, with any absence being noted prior. More than a week of unexplained absence may result in a PM being sent out inquiring about the absence; and a week after that will result in the member being removed from the team, needing to apply to become an Advocate again. If an Advocate receives two IC or OOC warnings, or one of each, they will no longer be viable to be an Advocate.

Developer Requirements

1. All Developers are required to be consistently working on at least two projects. This can include working on factions, locations or NPCs for a city or focusing on larger projects that are central to the lore of Standing Trials. Currently active projects should be given to the Dev TL, and publicly posted. This will help to keep people aware of who is working on what.

2. If a Developer is not maintaining a city actively, they will be expected to be maintaining more of the Large Projects, as deemed by the Dev TL. Developers who are not maintaining a city or at least two projects may be approached by their TL after a month of inactivity to ascertain what they have been working on and if they are a good fit for the team.

3. Since development can take an extended period of time, all Developers are required to post up their current projects in the staff development forum. This can be the project itself or a link to the document. This way it will be easy to discern who is working on what and how much work they have completed.

Storyteller Requirements

1. In order to be considered active, a Storyteller must post in a moderated thread at least twice a week on average unless they have posted a notification of their absence in the staff absence thread. (Grading your threads will count for your weekly quota as well)

2. As a Storytellers you will often be contacted by players in order to facilitate plots and stories for them. You are to respond to the communications in a timely manner and provide the player with a plan for moving forward with their stories, whether it be a self moderated or a fully moderated solution.

3. If you are unable to perform your duties as a Storyteller for three weeks or more then you may be contacted by your Team Lead in order to determine if being a Storyteller is right for you. If you wish to continue in this role then you will be given an agreed upon time period in order to increase your activity.

==Additional Responsibilities:==
Some staff have chosen to volunteer for additional responsibilities, such as Lore Analysis or overseeing the Q & A forums. If you choose to volunteer for this, you are doing so in the expectation that you will undertake this in a consistent and timely manner. Lore Analysis should be undertaken regularly and Questions should be Answered within, at the very most, a week. If you can not keep up with this, then please do not volunteer for the role and, should it become something you can no longer keep up with, please just let other staff know.

Absence/Low Activity Notifications

If for any reason something happens and you are unable to temporarily fulfill your duties, please inform the rest of the team in a timely manner. This can include any real life problem or event that will limit the time you can volunteer on Standing Trials. It’s perfectly normal and acceptable to have occasional lapses in activity due to real life. However we do need to be conscientious of when we are no longer able to do our jobs and need to step down.
Should you have a planned/schedule absence coming up, please at bare minimum, make sure all open PSF tickets are finished out, archived, or handed off to a VOLUNTEER staffer. If you have active stories, please reach out to those players via PM, in order to make them aware personally of the delay. If needed, find a volunteer staffer to pick these stories up.

==Ways to inform:==
PM your TL
Post in the Excused Absence Thread
Post in the Discord “Staff Comings and Goings”

Staff Application Form

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