The Problem

How many times have you seen a forum where somebody was asking for staff* applications? Ten? Twenty? A hundred? I haven't actually been a member of PMC for that long, and I've already seen more than I can shake a stick at. (And there's a forest behind my house, so I have a lot of sticks that can be shaken.) In fact, I just checked the new threads under the "Servers" tab and 11 of the 25 newest threads were people looking for staff. This may not be a hugely accurate polling, but it definitely means that this is a current and pressing issue.

*Staff means higher up positions. Owner, co-owner, admin, mod, and builder are the most commonly used titles. Each have a pretty self-explanatory position.

Why is this a problem?

The short answer is that, if you post a thread asking for staff applications, you get a bunch of 10-12 year olds wanting to become your co-owner or an admin. Do you really want some random 10-year-old running your server? No? Yeah, me neither.

Now you may ask why I'm hating on 10-year-olds. I'm not. The following ideas could be applied to people of any age, gender, race, ect. It's just that the large majority of people who respond to these "staff wanted" threads just happen to be between the ages of 10 and 12, give or take.

But aren't I still hating? I'm not. Cynic, yes; hateful, no. I'm being realistic. Now here's why.

First off, you don't actually know these people. Would you want to hand the keys of your new car to some total stranger to watch your car while you go shopping or something? Probably not. (Especially if they were 10.) If you give them perms (permissions) to do whatever they like, there's really no telling what they could do. And because you don't actually know these people, there is are no consequences for the tricksters. All you know for sure is their MineCraft username. The worst that could happen would be getting banned. But really, that's not such a big deal. They can easily find some other well-meaning server owner to fool.

So maybe all the people who reply to these "staff wanted" cries for help will grief to various levels of extreme, but that doesn't mean they're really such a good choice for admin or builder or whatever the rank may be. Usually, when people post these "staff wanted" threads, they'll write up an application that prospective staff members have to fill out. It usually looks something like this:

Age:
MC username:
Maturity:
Skype:
Why should I pick you:
If you are applying for builder, pics:
Previous experience:

These applications are just begging for fraud. You are setting yourself up to be lied to. You're asking them how mature they are? Well what do you think they'll write? They want to be a staff member, so of course they'll give themselves a high ranking, higher than they probably deserve. At the very least, they'd say 7, which is still a pretty high rating. By not rating themselves the best of the best, doesn't that show something? To that, I'd say probably not. Some people realize that saying 10/10 just makes it look like they're lying, so then they want to try a little reverse psychology on you. Don't fall for it.

There's a expression that's been circling around on social media lately. (Or not too lately; I'm not really sure when people first started using this expression.) "Pics or it didn't happen." This is likely what you are thinking if you ask for "pics." I've seen a lot of answers that say something like, "I'm a great builder, but I don't have pics." In reality, I think I've only seen 2 applicants that actually included images as "proof" of their building skills. And with pictures of builds, it's pretty easy to just google "awesome minecraft house" and copy and paste a picture. So there's no telling if the pictured work, if there is pictured work, is actually the work of the applicant or not.

The other major problem of these sorts of applications is that last question, about previous experience. Pretty much all applicants say something along the following lines:

"Admin on 3, co-owner on 2, mod on 5, and I had my own but it's no longer active."

To this, I say, "..." Look at that a moment. Does that seem realistic? No? Yeah, I don't think so either. (If you answered "yes" to that question, then you might be too trusting for your own good.) It's simply unreal. In other words, a total lie. In other words... well, we can just leave it at that. :P

Even if they really were so highly ranked on that number of servers, then they probably weren't servers that were very good. It might have lasted a few weeks, days even, and then shut down. Or, they might have been staff on a really great server that had tons of great members. But in a simple application like this, it doesn't matter how long a server lasted or how good it really was; all that counts is that it existed. Which, again, might be a lie.

What can we do instead?

Instead of looking first for staff, look for players. Give a little summary of the server, along with the IP. Let them on, see what they're like. Then, after they've proven his/herself a trustworthy and productive community member should you even consider giving them perms and/or op. Remember, don't even mention the possibility of a staff opening. This will attract the wrong kinds of applicants who are merely looking for positions of power.

And as for builders, you could try setting up a Creative World, where all players can build. Set up an area for people to build stuff right there on the server. That way you can be sure (or at least way more sure than asking for "pics" on a PMC thread) that it really is that person's handiwork.

(Originally posted January 19, 2013.)