Crystal Mod Survey Response

1. How well are you able to handle conflict between individuals and in general?
Given I've moderated during some of the most conflict-filled times in this server's history, I have experience with defusing conflict -- in addition, I'm level-headed enough to mediate between individuals in conflict and work out conflict to everyone's favor. On the whole, I'd say I'm very well able to handle both types of conflict.

2. In times of stress, what is more important to prioritize: mental health or moderation?
Mental health is absolutely more important to prioritize than moderation -- at least in terms of the moderator's own mental health. If someone's stressed, depressed, anxious, or otherwise mentally imbalanced, the quality of their moderation will suffer -- mental health should be prioritized over moderation in order to increase the person's own mental health and also improve the overall moderation ability of a mod team. Online communities, as wonderful as they can be, shouldn't suck away time or effort a person could be using to take care of themselves. In the case of a citizen's mental health, their mental health should also take priority as long as doing so doesn't degrade the overall stability of the server.

3. In an emergency such as raids, intense conflict, and so on, what would you do?
In an emergency, I would immediately step in and attempt to head off the current emergency as much as possible -- lock channels if necessary during a raid, activate a raid mode on a bot, immediately intercede in the conflict... Moreover, I would also alert the rest of the mod team before taking any action, making sure that they could also help and that I wouldn't be working alone to solve the emergency. I wouldn't take any irreversible actions, such as kicking a user or deleting messages, without first consulting with the rest of the available staff.

4. As a moderator, what do you expect your strengths and weaknesses to be?
I expect my strengths to be that I am often online and able to respond to things and participate in moderation, that I'm level-headed, mature, and generally able to make good decisions in hectic situations, and generally that I'm available, stable, and experienced at moderation.

My weaknesses would likely be that some people seem to find me hard to approach, and that my life is busy and will likely unavoidably get in the way sometimes.

5. Name three aspects of moderation duty that you think are important, and why.
The first aspect I think is important is being part of the community. You aren't magically set above the rest of the server simply by virtue of being elected to help make the server stable and a good place to be in -- interact with people, have fun, and generally be another person in the crowd, not just a mod who's up above them. You don't stop being a citizen and community member once you're elected. People will like you more and trust you, both as a mod and as a person, if you don't get it in your head that modship means you're better than them.

The second aspect is setting an example for the server. You didn't stop being a citizen when you were elected, but you did become an important server figure and essentially a role model for how everyone else will act. Be mature, don't abuse your mod powers, try not to get into fights or call names, be level-headed and fair. You don't need to restrain yourself or be robotic, just be a good person and the rest will flow from there.

The third aspect is open-mindedness. Be open to user suggestions, be open to ideas from your fellow mods, come up with new cool ideas yourself... be open and don't stick yourself down to one idea or course of action. Another part of this is being open to the idea that you were wrong and someone else was right, and not being afraid to admit it -- if you acted badly as a mod or as a person, admit it, apologize, fix the situation as best you can, and go on from there. Be open to different perspectives, listen to people (including people you dislike or are in an argument against) and generally think broadly, not narrowly.

6. Finally, tell us a joke about moderation. The funnier it is, the more we'll laugh. Promise.
John was a mod on his friend's large Discord server. Everyone on the server commented on how dedicated he was to his position -- he often checked the server every few minutes just to make sure everything was going okay, he set up alerts so in case anyone was having trouble they could just ping him, and he'd even written a customized mod bot for the server. However, one day he made an announcement that he was going to be reducing his mod duties to free up time to develop his life. Everyone was saddened to see him go, and one person asked him why he'd made the decision. He said that he'd recently met someone new at a party he'd gone to, and developed a friendship with them. Something that friend, who often went to wild parties like the one John had met them at, had said during a conversation stuck with him, and he'd decided to make a change:
"Everything in moderation, even moderation."