Interview [Issue 34] Staff Interviews: Facebook Moderators

[The.Skilled.Legend 1,459]

 

Facebook moderators are responsible for everything related to the official FB page of Tanki Online. They answer players' questions, moderate posts and help Community managers in running contests and events. In this interview, you will get to know them a little and also gain an insight into what they do.

 

@DarkOperative

 

I have asked all of them the same questions and I hope you enjoy the interview! Yellow is for the questions and Grey for the replies. Let's begin!

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 It's nice to be able to talk to you guys. Please start by telling us a little bit about yourselves.

 

: Hello everyone! As most of you already know, my name is Mia. I'm 19 years old. I live in Montenegro and I'm finishing the last year of High Economics school. I am planning to join army after that, but I'm still not 100% sure. I love everything about being a soldier, I love cars, planes and of course, I love tanks.

 

I'm not much of a social type, I don't hang out with people because I can hardly find someone who suits my personality. I like being alone in my own world. I'm an artist. I like to paint, I like to try new things, I'm probably the most weird, complicated, curious and stubborn person you will ever meet. Not many people can handle me, but those who do, they will not want to lose me. :)

 

I dislike people having the same mentality. I dislike people who don't have their own opinion about anything, who only follow what others tell them. I prefer to differ even though it costs me every friendship I make. "If you don't want to be the part of our circle and follow our 'rules', you can't be our friend". Like I care. Oh yes, I'm a lot careless too. Especially about others opinions about me. :D

 

I am a dreamer too. I believe that dreams predict future. I believe dreams are teaching us to accept the fact that something will happen, before it actually happen. I also love everything about life. I love... loving. Love means everything to me.

 

@DarkOperative: Good to see you, Electro. I'm DarkOperative and am known as DO, Dark or just Darky. I've been playing Tanki for 2 years now. I've spent most of my time in Tanki using Hornet & Railgun combo. As a matter of fact I first used XP combo at my early few months of TO career. Even got my first gold using XP. I joined the forum a few months after playing TO when I was invited for a clan formerly known as "Death Angels" or DA. I spent a good amount of time as a co leader in the clan. Due to some reasons the clan's leader didn't want to lead the clan anymore and requested me to takeover his position. The rules at the time didn't allow my rank to do that. After the leader was changed, the clan didn't last too long and was closed. After leaving my first ever clan, I explored the forum a lot and learned many things which helped me in my Tanki career. I read FAQ guides and got rid of gameplay issues, found out contests and won crystals. Later on the forum became my everyday thing. I always logged on the forum first rather than the game and still do :ph34r: . Some time later I knew the forum very well and started helping players by the information I had.

 

As for real life - I'm a Biology student. I do play football a lot as a hobby. Other than football I used to play Cricket a lot. That's it. :P

 

: Hi, thank you for taking the time to interview us! Facebook moderators are of course responsible for the Facebook page of tanki. It includes answering comments and queries, personal messages and keeping the topics clean from inappropriate language or malicious links.

Some of us also help to organise the Facebook events, which are advertised on the Facebook page.

 

: I'm Federalissimo, previously known as Mr.Useless and ulyssus. I love to play the instruments of the percussion family, specifically the drums. I am 15 years old and I am currently in the 10th grade of High School, and I have been playing Tanki since 2009. :)

 

: Well, I'm human (unlike some other members of the team), so that's a start. I'm Micah, oldest member of the newest Facebook team. I live in the USA, am currently a States champion and National qualifier tumbler, and like Chinese food. Like the fake legit Chinese food from Chinatown.

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Nice to meet you guys! When and why did you want to become a Facebook Moderator?

 

: I didn't want to become a FB moderator. I applied for every other job, except it. It's just that, back then, I didn't think facebook moderating was so important and fun. It wasn't attracting me so much. BUT... some people, who were responsible for facebook, saw potential in me. They asked me to help them in preparing events and so I did. I started loving it. I was always pushing them to make more events, more often, not only once per month. Meanwhile our CM came and offered me a FB moderator position which I refused at first, but accepted after some time after seeing how many inactive FB mods there are. It was November 2014 as far as I remember.

After a while, I became main event organizer. Guess my planning and organizing skills took me here.

 

@DarkOperative: After spending a good amount of time as a Forum moderator, I found out that there were FB moderators needed to manage events as well as the page itself. So I decided to apply for it. Later on FBI contacted me and shortly I was a FB moderator. I've always been around answering questions on the forum, whether it be on topics or Messenger. The first thing I noticed as a FB mod was the cooperative colleagues and Admins(later on Issho joined Admins :D) I had. They are all dedicated to their job and work very hard to maintain proper content in place. As I began, I answered a lot of Questions mostly in PM as well as comments. It was a nice experience helping tankers and solving their issues. Not only that, in PMs we receive good art work, ideas & suggestions and feedback as well. Some of the ideas are mind blowing!

 

Sadly though I had to leave the position after a few months as I wasn't able to focus on two jobs as well as I did before. I spent many months working on the forum. FBI and I were having a conversation about consultants and he invited me to become a FB moderator(probably because he knew Consultants will be merged with Chat moderation). I'm still in the post after that invitation. :)

 

:  After becoming a reporter, and loving the job, I thought about finding more ways of trying to get involved. I don't have the time to be online a lot of the time, and wanted a job which was flexible, which is probably the main reason I picked Facebook moderator out of them all. Not to mention the Facebook moderating team was on a low, I think when I joined there were just 2 or 3 of us!

 

: I firstly applied for the position on December 13th of 2014, that had been the first time I applied for Facebook moderator, so why not give it a shot, right? I wanted to become a Facebook moderator to be able to help out the community as I always have been dreaming of since I joined Tanki in 2009. :)

 

: It was new and I hadn't already applied for it, so Facebook Moderator made the most sense. Oh, and I liked being able to chat with friends and work at the same time, but don't tell anybody ;).

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Cool, cool. What skills and abilities are necessary for someone to apply for this job?

 

: - First and the most important is knowledge about this game. When I say game, I mean absolutely everything about it: Game rules, FAQ, full Tanki Wikipedia, every solution to every problem...- Second, but not less important, is high maturity level and ability of speaking fluent English. You can't be a part of our team if you don't know how to behave, how to be patient, how to speak wisely, how to have self-control. Even worse if you don't know English grammar so well and mistake tenses and confuse players by your answers. I personally hate grammar and I also make a lot of mistakes while writing, but when I'm working on FB page, I make sure I put these mistakes on minimum.- Third thing isn't that important, but it indeed is useful. Don't apply for this (or any other job) if you want to work for crystals only. Only people who have a great wish to help others should give it a try.

 

@DarkOperative:As all the jobs require a cool head, this one does too. The basic skills one must have in order to moderate the page is the ability of speaking English fluently and the knowledge of garmmar/punctuation. But it doesn't end there. The applicant still needs to have the sense of responsibility alongside many other hidden abilities for the job. Believe it or not, parkour skills are optional but needed as well :D

 

That is the composition part. Now comes the knowledge bit. A FB moderator deals with tons of questions everyday which he has to reply with precision in order to avoid any misunderstanding. If one doesn't have the knowledge for it, one will not be able to go through the Questions being asked by players which would end up in more waiting for the player whom questioned. Which most obviously shouldn't happen.

 

: The most important thing in my opinion is game knowledge and also an awareness of what's current in Tanki. Without this knowledge, you wouldn't be able to answer much! Patience is also more important for Facebook moderator than say, my other job as a reporter, since sometimes the pile of messages reaches hundreds and hundreds... Questions can be repetitive, and it can get dull at times!

 

: In short, you must have a ton of knowledge of the game. Back when I was a normal player, in about 2013 I started to help out others in the chats and have gained much more knowledge since. I really haven't looked at the Wiki to obtain my knowledge, I would say I gained my knowledge from playing the game for all those years. With that being said, you must have great knowledge of the Game Rules as this will be a necessity for taking care of violations on the Facebook page which we sometimes run into. ;)

 

: Time and patience. Without those two key things you will never succeed at this job. The position requires hours of time dedicated to answering questions that tend to get a bit repetitive.

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Alrighty! What do you guys most enjoy about your work?

 

: Everything. I love everything I do here. FB mods are pretty much the same as consultants. We daily get so many comments and messages we need to answer on. And just a feeling of being helpful makes me feel complete. I like joking around with some stubborn kids who hate this and that and I love teasing them. After a while, they join me and we have a lot of fun together. Our FB inbox is the only place here where they have contact with moderators every day, 24/7. It happens to me to listen to a story from a player for hours and I simply don't get bored.We get many interesting messages, pictures, videos, suggestions... support. Yes, the cutest thing you can read on our page is - "Tanki, you are the best game ever. I really love all the hard work you do. I love how moderators are helping players and I hope to be able to help some day too. Keep giving your best, you have my support!". These sentences are giving us strength to continue helping more and more.

 

@DarkOperative: I enjoy helping players as always. It is a pleasureful feeling to have solved someone's issue with the game. It brings relief to both the moderator and the player. Above that, we learn from the players as well as from our colleagues on a daily basis as well. Gaining knowledge is always a good thing.

 

:  Right now, I'm not very active as I am busy with exams in preparation for university. But before I think the highlight was definitely just being able to clear doubts and answer questions. Sometimes, people will thank you for your help, which honestly means a lot of me personally. Shout out to you guys!

 

:  The thing I enjoy about my work would be the gratitude I get from other players and the English community is so great for meeting new people and making new friends, it's quite an awesome experience. I have always wanted to be a consultant because I always love to help others in the chat when they need it, I actually still do it to this day, it is just a great thing to do to help out. :)

 

: The people. Work is work, but when ya have awesome people doing it with ya, work becomes something more. That is the core requirement of a successful team. And I think we've achieved that to a certain extent here. Not maybe as well as Forum Moderators though.....

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Awesome. What do you guys plan on doing in the near-future?

 

: Eh! Many things, actually. My team and me are preparing new FB events so called "Kill The Fatty" and "Dizzy Shots". All we are waiting for is their designs from a Tanki designer. It may take some days because we will have to test them once again, to make sure they are good enough to be officially hosted. Once all is fine, we are ready to go! But that's not all. Recently we hosted an event with total of 6 battle links (at the same time) which is pretty much a new record! We had 6 moderators to do these events and 1 spectator to watch over all of them. And guess what? We made it. We got positive feedback on this change and we are clearly going to improve every other event as well. We do listen to advices. ;)Another thing we are planning to do is post more interesting stuff like fan-art photos, funny/informative videos, parkour guides etc. We also prepared many contests with nice prizes which will come soon. We will make sure to keep players entertained all the time.One thing players ask for is sales. Maybe, but MAYBE, we gonna have double fund day every week. I've been planning to talk to developers about this, and knowing how annoying I can be, maybe they will listen to me *giggle*. This change would make players stop asking for sales every possible day. :DI could say more things, but I rather keep them as a secret. I think I shared enough. 

 

@DarkOperative: Certain things I cannot share here as they are meant to be kept as a surprise. However, it is quite an old discussion that we've had in the past and still do time-to-time - the procedure of judging FB contests. Participants mostly do not participate fairly and use certain means of softwares/websites of getting more likes on their post/comment. As you already know, some questions in the contests are quite easy to predict. The one whom knows the definite answer increases his post likes by using other means. While others, whom try to do it manually, do not get a chance for the contest bonus. So that is what we have always been trying to improve and possibly will manage something out in the near future. ;)

 

: Actually I will probably not be very active for the next few months. I have exams, and a whole lot planned during the summer. But definitely I hope I can keep this role and come back to it from time to time to help out and do my bit!

 

: What we are planning in the near future would be creations of new Facebook events. Right now we are taking suggestions for events in a special topic in the forum. Other things that are being planned for the future, let it be a surprise for you all. ;)

 

: The exact same thing we've done since Facebook was created. Comment and answer PMs. Oh, and also run more contests and exciting events. We do lots of that. I can't say I've ever done a contest, but the people running them are excellent and do a great job.

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Can't wait! Have a few words for the audience?

 

: Be who you are, don't be what people want you to be. Make sure you stay stubborn and proud, love yourself, believe in yourself... These things will take you far in your life.If you can't be moderator in a game, don't let this break your hope down. Some real people out there need your help too. Even putting a smile on their face will make you feel like you did a big thing. ;)

Once again, thank you for this interview. It was a pleasure. Good luck! •[ʍɨą]•

 

@DarkOperative: Do not forget EVISITOR's wise words; "Read Rules", play safe, help others by the knowledge you have, gain more knowledge and help even more players and never feel sad on being declined for a staff job. It isn't a deadline after all. You can help others just as equally as a staff member does. :)

 

: Ehm, I'm unsure about what to say! Thanks for reading this interview and hope you've gained some insight into what we do!

 

: To anyone who wants to become a Facebook moderator, have a great personality, a good portion of maturity, have great knowledge of the of the Game, and most importantly, have a smile on your face wherever you go. :)

 

: Have fun! If you really want to join our team, don't become a mindless workaholic. Then ya will seem boring and Feddy might skip over ya. Be that shining personality with an awesome sense of humor who keeps the forum alive and helps others. That's what we look for. Not that we do the looking, since ya come to us, but that's what I personally think defines a good staff member.

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I hope you enjoyed the interview! Special and big thanks to Mia.ArchangeI, DarkOperative, Kirby2008, Federalissimo and Micah7586 for answering my questions!

 

Still have questions about Facebook Moderators? Feel free to comment below with your question(s), I'm sure they'll be happy to answer you!

 

Edited July 29, 2017 by Hexed

[unholycloak5 1,814]

Great interview, Electro! ^_^ 

[RamzanTheGreat 471]

Great interview, Electro! ^_^

[jazz20 1,181]

wait.....so first it was Ulyssus. Then it was Mr.Useless. Then you changed it once more to Federalissimo. Again it wet to Mr.Always (for maybe like 2 days or so), and then back to Federalissimo.........How Rich Are You?!?!?!  :blink:  :P

[tanker538N 394]

Mia writing 999+ words pls. Great interview! :p

[Darren4Turbo 4,913]

Great interview  

[The.Skilled.Legend 1,459]

Thanks All! :)

[Taco 2,820]

Good job! :)

---

[beaku 2,656]

Do all FB mods get Event account and spec mode?

[samuelmanasseh 35]

Awesome,

 

and wut about this guy?

unholycloak5

[tanker538N 394]

 

Awesome,

 

and wut about this guy?

unholycloak5

 

He rejoined just a few weeks back, so I don't think he is eligible for it yet

[samuelmanasseh 35]

He rejoined just a few weeks back, so I don't think he is eligible for it yet

he is an awesome guy.

[RamzanTheGreat 471]

He rejoined just a few weeks back, so I don't think he is eligible for it yet

He rejoined just a few weeks back, so I don't think he is eligible for it yet

He rejoined just a few weeks back, so I don't think he is eligible for it yet

He rejoined just a few weeks back, so I don't think he is eligible for it yet

U posted this 4 times

[Winner_Of_Turkey 2,647]

Do all FB mods get Event account and spec mode?

We all have access to event accounts, but we dont have spectator.

[beaku 2,656]

We all have access to event accounts, but we dont have spectator.

Oh! Then who records FB events?

[unholycloak5 1,814]

Oh! Then who records FB events?

@Ilia.ArchangeI

[r_royalraj0 1,810]

nice interview facebook moderators :)

[liverpoolaum 811]

nice

[Bem 521]

Nice interview

[r_Mia1 8,513]

Mia writing 999+ words pls. Great interview! :P

I LOVE TEXT WALLS :ph34r: 

 

Do all FB mods get Event account and spec mode?

We used to get event accounts from administrator. Each time passwords would change. But now, event organizer is having all these accounts and once there is event to be hold, organizer gives accounts and passwords to all fb mods who are about to do the event.

 

None of FB mods gets spectator. To get it, they need to do the same thing as every other normal player - awesome youtube channel, any views, subscribers etc. I do have spectator mode and as organizer, I use it to communicate to players during the event and explain rules to them, same time using it to talk in team chat with other spectators (in this case game_violators accounts - chat mods) who are banning/kicking players who are violating rules of the event.

 

Oh! Then who records FB events?

Anyone who have spectator can record. @Ilia.ArchangeI was recording them all the time, but recently he got busy in RL so we are not having event videos.

[anshi_bringitup 16]

I want to the Facebook Moderator in Future as I'm use facebook regularly and I have greate personality..!!!
My Knowledge of game is just Outstanding as I update my knowledge like everyday...!!!
I want to be Moderator in near Future and I will not let you down..!!! 

[Mr.I3oSS 557]

Bravo!  :rolleyes:

[G.A.T.O.R 130]

Nice

[S_T_A_R_S_T_O_R_M 8]

Great job Electro, enjoyed the Q&A session. 

[Omar_Enze 846]

Great interviews ! 

 

We want to see more .

 

Mia writing 999+ words pls. Great interview! :P

True :P