1) Basic Information -
Minecraft username: SourMatt.
Previous Minecraft usernames: There have been quite a few, but the most relevant are Mattykins, HeyItsMatt and Synchronus.
Timezone: Eastern Standard Time (GMT -5)
Age (Note: You must be 16 or over to apply): I turned sixteen at the end of September.
Do you have access to TeamSpeak and a working microphone? Yes and yes. My fondest memories were formed on the Hypixel Teamspeak, which is where I hope to create many more.
Do you have the ability to record minecraft video? I use a program called Fraps to record my game at 50 FPS. I always keep it open in case I come across an impromptu hacker.
Are you VIP (or above) (Note: You must be VIP or above to apply.) I bought MVP last Christmas and upgraded to MVP+ this summer, so yes.
Gaming Twitter link (If you have one): https://twitter.com/SourMattMC
Are you multilingual? (Fluent in multiple languages. Not just learning one.) I am only fluent in English.
2) Where are you most active on the Hypixel Network? Most of my playtime has been spent in lobbies answering questions and interacting with players, however I also commonly can be found around TNT Run, Warlords, Skywars, Mega Walls, and Smash Heroes.

3) How much time do you have to contribute to the role? I am not a very busy individual anymore, so expect at least 5+ hours in-game. I have already found a functional balance between playing games and helping players, so expect my time to be split between both. There are obviously times where I get breaks from school such as around Christmas, and during these times my activity skyrockets. On the contrary, I also do have times in the year where I take vacations or breaks to cater to my real life needs, which is not very often.

4) Have you ever been banned or punished on any server? If so, please include details. My only punishment I have ever received on Minecraft was about three years ago, I was obviously new to Minecraft and had no idea what the term “griefing” meant. I logged onto a lovely survival server and started destroying houses left and right. Evidently, this was a server that did not allow the destruction of other people’s property, and I was banned instantly. I appealed my ban a few months later after I became acquainted with many common Minecraft multiplayer terms such as griefing and was accepted. Ironically, this moment has value to me. It shows my progression over the four years I’ve been playing Minecraft, and gives me a silly little moment to look back on.


5) SCENARIO: Suppose it's your first week of being a Helper and you mute a well-known player. Their guild mates start spamming your twitter calling you a bad Helper and telling you to unmute them. What would you do? Wow, this sounds familiar. I’ve learned over the years to kill them with kindness. I could start off with an apology that they were muted and link them the appeal format. No matter how many DMs, tweets, or messages that I get, my response will not change, and I will not crack from the pressure. Being as nice as possible shows that you are handling the situation calmly, which is important.

6) Tell us about one of your best moments on the Hypixel server This one’s tough, there are just so many amazing moments. Probably the most significant to me is the day I was accepted onto the Hypixel Karaoke Team. Being on the team truly allowed me to meet so many new community members and opened up my boundaries. Being able to interact with dozens of players every Saturday both on Teamspeak and on the Housing plot was one of the greatest times I’ve had on Hypixel to date. While I am no longer on the Karaoke Team today (I left because I needed to focus on some real life issues at the time and no longer had the ability to host karaoke), I still keep contact with plenty of the people I have met during my time.

7) Tell us about a time you made a mistake? How did you deal with it? What did you learn? I’ll be the first to admit that I make mistakes frequently, but this is not something I view as a negative thing. Every time I make a mistake, it gives me the opportunity to learn something from it, which I will attempt to convey as detailed as possible. As a kid, I grew up in a fairly hostile environment. Naturally, I thought this was how everyone lived. During my first few years of elementary school, the behavior I grew up around started rubbing off on me, and I began reflecting it upon other people. Once it got to the teachers and administrators, I was informed that I cannot be saying the things I was saying to people, as it hurts feelings. This was sort of a revelation to me, as I never realized that I was truly making a mistake in assuming that everyone lived the same way I did. The first thing I did after this happened was apologize to those affected. Obviously as a little elementary schooler I didn’t exactly have the widest vocabulary, so all I can remember saying was a pitiful “sorry”, but let’s pretend it was much wordier, okay? I now try to acknowledge that not everyone has the same life at home, some are happier, and some are like mine. Ever since this incident, I have done everything in my power to treat people with respect. You don't know what other things they go through.

8) If you have any, what hobbies or activities are you involved in outside of Minecraft? Throughout my middle school years, I was dedicated to playing soccer, and honestly still am. While I have not played on a school-run team since I started high school, I am still actively playing the sport with family and friends. In addition, I thoroughly enjoy competitive swimming and have for years. Other than those exceptions, I am a fairly indoor-loving person. I prefer to be inside where I can focus on things such as drawing and gaming. Although, I recently have picked up photography, and have scheduled myself to take a photography class in school next year.

9) Do you have any previous server moderation or leadership experience? I have served as a moderator on many smaller servers, which has taught me many basic functions such as punishing, working as a team, etc. A little more than a year ago, I was accepted onto The HiveMC’s Moderator team, and served for about seven months. This easily is my most notable and significant staff experience, as I was trained to work in a much larger group than before. In addition, my dozens of hours spent moderating lobbies and games is something I loved doing, and is one of my favorite things to do on Hypixel. I learned that being a staff member is not who can rack up the most punishments, but it’s primarily about providing the community with a group of people who are always there to assist them when need be. I worked with many new players to The Hive to help them understand many basic controls of the network, but I also helped train many of our newer moderators to make sure they can do the same. I was extremely invested to my position, but it all came to an end when I resigned at the end of April due to mass amounts of corruption and a decline in our Staff Manager’s activity. After resigning, I noticed many of my friends were playing here. I obviously had played on Hypixel quite a bit in the past, but after leaving Hive, I decided that Hypixel was the place for me.

Outside of Minecraft, I joined my middle school Leadership Team a few years ago, which gave me the opportunity to start fundraisers, work with our school administrators on renovating older sections of the school, as well as assist the principal and counselor with student vs. student issues. I don’t think I have ever learned so much about being a leader than I did during this time. Being able to see the background operations of the school and fully commit to helping it was one of the best times of my life. Next year, I will be applying to my high school’s Student Council in hopes of getting a similar experience.

10) SCENARIO: "You come home from school/work and have ton of homework/work to do, you think to yourself I'll just take a 5 minute break before I start and get on Hypixel. The next thing you know 2 hours have passed and you've been on the server all that time." Does this scenario sound familiar to you? This scenario is something I personally have never been through. I prioritize tasks such as homework before anything else, and rarely ever stray away from that. I’d like to think I am a fairly focused person, and take important things such as homework seriously before I get on Minecraft.

11) SCENARIO: You're in a busy lobby as a helper, questions are flying at you rapidly, you can just about keep up. You're getting messaged by 2 different players both asking you to get them a moderator for a hacker, someone then pokes you on teamspeak telling you that there is someone blasting music in their channel. What do you do? Yet another uncannily familiar scenario. I have been trained to handle chatting and helping in lobbies with over 40+ players at once, so this is a scenario I had experienced on a daily basis. What I have learned from my time is to prioritize things, similar to how I handle my homework. Since the user who poked me can easily client mute the mic spammer in their channel, they can likely wait ~20 seconds while I inform Moderators of the hackers. After the Mods have been notified of the hackers, I would likely type a message in chat saying something along the lines of “I’ll answer the questions in a minute, just need to take care of something” and then handle the mic spammer in Teamspeak. Once that situation has been resolved, I would then finally answer any questions that I needed to answer in chat. Situations like this were very common for me, and I found that remaining calm looked much more professional, and refraining from making it evident that you’re swamped with tasks makes you like a very collected and well-trained Helper. This is something I strive for, as how would people take you seriously otherwise?


12) Have you made any previous applications, if so how many and what is the date of your last one? This is my first application for Helper.

13) Anything else we should know? I'll use this space to go into more detail about something rather important; I am not applying for Helper because I just want to run from one network to another. I have spent months on Hypixel helping people without the rank, and want to apply in order to gain more tools that I can use to assist even more people. I feel like a common misconception when someone retires from network and applies for another is that they just want to get more power on a larger network, but that is not the case. I truly care for the community, and spend countless hours answering questions both on the forums and in lobbies.

Finally, I'd like to mention that I do have an interest in working with the Appeals Team at some point. I have always enjoyed looking over evidence and providing players with proper reasoning behind their bans. While this is obviously not the point of this thread nor is it very relevant to this application at all, I just want to show that I do have goals past just becoming Helper. I want to assist the network in any way I can, and increase my workload over time.

Regardless of the outcome of this application, I will still remain strict to the same principles I have talked about. I hope you have a fantastic day. c: