I have been thinking and I would like to propose a suggestion regarding a slight change to the timings that moderators have to be online for: My idea is that 3 hrs + stays but it can be split between in game time and active forum time, for instance addressing ban appeals/complaints, helping users out. I think this would be good for those, like me, that are only allowed on minecraft for 1-2 hours a day, but would love to be a moderator. This would only be allowed for Blue Moderators, so all those above would have to be in game for 3 + hours. I really hope that this is considered, let me know what you think by voting in the poll or commenting below.
What type of forum work are you thinking of? Most blue moderator forum work is complaints and contracts which are generally encouraged, if not required, to be logged in game to be handling those. Forum work is an in game activity issue due to the fact that you need to be able to warn the user or speak with other staff about problems that are on going. On top of that, it is incredibly hard to track forum times. I could just sit on the forum refreshing the page every 5 minutes or so without doing anything just to pretend I'm active. Basically, active forum time is included in moderator duties and a good portion of them already, but it relates to and is part of in game time already.
Andrew will not accept this most likely because he likes the way his staff is run and to me, it is quite effective. That being said, and what was said by VTFAN8 pretty much sums up why this won't happen.
Staff moderation requirements vary from time to time, and are not published. We come up with these additional requirements and guidelines when we find certain areas lacking. We occasionally set specific (temporary) rules to target areas that are slipping. We have had rules similar to: "Moderators must handle at least 5 apps per week.", "Support threads must be replied to or claimed within 1 hour", "LWC removals should be handled within 3 hours". Obviously these latter rules would count against the mods who were online through any infringing period. While having staff dedicate time to watching the forum is a good thing, without targets we can monitor, it doesn't make sense for it to be a hard rule. Unless you have a better suggestion, I'm happy to continue with our flexible target/guideline system. If you think there are some specific areas of the forum which aren't getting the right amount of attention (except ban appeals, because those get lowest priority), you might want to raise that as an issue, and we might consider setting it as the next target to focus on.
Unfortunatly as you are not andrew, you cannot tell me what he will say, it may be something like that, but until I hear from him himself, that is not a comment needed here.
We do implement those rules and limits, they just change from time to time. We don't publish those sort of guidelines in public places, but on the moderator forums. We recently removed/relaxed the requirement for mods to handle x apps per y, because it was unfair on off-peak mods. We also had some mods doing more than the requirement and there being no apps left for others.
