Moderator

Ripped from NERVUN's post in the NationStates Moderation Forum:

What is a Moderator?

A Moderator (often called a Mod) is a player just like you and me that volunteers his/her time to make this site clean from spam, flaming, and make sure the players stay within line. Think of them as police/judges/jurors/janitors.

How do I become a Moderator?

If you make helpful posts in Moderation, Technical, and anywhere else help is needed, the Mods will notice you. If you're kind, helpful, and level-headed, you may have what it takes to be a mod (That said, while we look for helpful people, back-seat modding and spamming Moderation are among the quickest ways to get yourself taken out of consideration). When new mods are needed, you may be asked to become a Forum Mod.

Just a note: Don't ask to be a mod, that usually only hurts your chances. "Let your actions speak louder then your words." Self-nominations will not be accepted. Asking to be a Mod is a sure way to get the 'No' check-box marked.

Who are the mods?

Game Mod, Forum Mod... what does it all mean!?

Let's break down the ranks for a second:

Forum Mod: These moderators maintain the rules of the NationStates forums. Forum mods have the power to move threads from one forum to another, lock threads, forumban rulebreakers, and edit out posts and images that break the site rules. All new moderators begin as forum moderators.

Senior Forum Mod: An experienced Forum Moderator, often one who has been offered a game mod position and turned it down.

Game Mod: From time to time a Forum Moderator will be promoted to the rank of a Game Moderator. Game Mods have all the powers of a Forum Mod, and more. Among these powers are the abilities to delete nations, eject nations from the WA, edit issues, delete WA proposals, and IP ban troublemakers.

Senior Game Mod: An experienced Game Moderator.

Issues Tech: A player who works behind the scenes to find and fix errors with issue statistics and nation modelling.

Senior Issues Moderator: A moderator who devotes most of his or her moderating efforts to editing and posting new daily issues.

Issues Editor: A player who has volunteered to help edit issues. These players are NOT moderators and have no authority.

Forum Admin: The most senior rank a moderator can hold. Forum admins handle the more technical aspects of forum maintenance - adding new subforums, tweaking code, adding features, and more.

Technical Admin: An admin who is responsible for coding new features, bug fixes, and other goodies into the game.

Site Admin: This is as high as it gets, the most powerful position in the game. Our own beloved [violet] and SalusaSecondus belong here. The Site Admins do all the coding, and techie stuff to make this game run smoothly. In addition to coding, they are responsible for making the final calls on disputed decisions and the ethical direction of NationStates.