“DM me if you want to be a mod” gets you a stack of one-line replies and no fair way to compare them. This template asks every applicant the same questions, in the same order, so you read applications side by side instead of chasing details across DMs.
What every applicant answers
- When they’re around: their timezone, and the parts of the day they’re usually online.
- How much time they really have, on a 4-point scale from “Under 2” to “More than 10” hours a week.
- Their experience: a mod somewhere now, in the past, or for the first time. Only those with experience get asked where, and what they were responsible for.
- A conflict involving a friend: an argument in a public channel turning into insults, with a long-time regular they get along with on one side. How someone answers this tells you more than any list of past servers.
- Anything else, asked as a Yes/No first, so people with nothing to add move on.
An optional age gate at the start politely declines applicants under 16 and skips the rest.
Why it stops at the application
Accepting a mod is a human decision, so the template collects applications and leaves the choice to your team. There’s no automatic role and no participation XP. If you’d rather have a gating question hand out a trial role on the spot, the moderator funnel recipe shows that approach.
Variants
- Event staff or helpers: keep the availability questions and swap the scenario for one from your own events.
- Your own age rule: change which age option declines, or delete the gate if your server doesn’t need one.
- A different conflict: replace the scenario with the situation your mods actually run into most.