A Quick Guide for Replying to Applications

Overview​

Hello everyone! With the recent addition of allowing players with lifetime ranks to reply to staff apps, I felt it important to create a guide centered around what is the appropriate way to give input on an application, as well as warning against other actions that could be taken as harmful towards the application process. I hope to help inform people on what is appropriate to post and what should be avoided.

The Purpose of Replying to Staff Applications
​

When you see someone apply to be staff here at Brawl, you may have some opinions about them that you’d like to share. You may also like to ask the applicant some questions regarding some section of their activity, maturity, or application itself. While profile posts are easily assessable to use for these reasons, the character count greatly restricts having an in-depth discussion with someone over why you feel they should be staff or why you feel they should be denied. Because of this, the overall purpose of replying to staff applications is to give your input about whether or not you feel someone is fit for staff. Doing so on an application avoids clutter on profiles, organizes input into one place, and allows more people to be involved in the discussion surrounding an applicant.

Appropriate Behavior Regarding Application Feedback
​

With this recent addition, there are a few guidelines I’d like to attempt to set in stone for those wishing to reply to staff applications in order to avoid chaos, flame, harassment, and eventually having this privilege being revoked. A lot of trust is being placed on the community members and staff would hate to see that their trust was placed falsely.

With that said, the first point I’d like to mention is to be positive. Applying for staff is a stressful move for a lot of people and they’re expecting that their app will be taken seriously. Replying with the intent of helping the applicant become a better candidate should be the first thought on anyone’s mind. Being positive does not mean instilling false hope. If someone applies that’s never been on teamspeak, doesn’t log ingame for longer than 5 minutes a day, and has 0 forums posts aside from their application it isn’t fair to them to make them believe they’ll be accepted. An appropriate response would be to politely point out where they need improvement, then state that it is a -1 from you, but that if they work on what you mentioned they will be much more qualified the next time they apply.

The second point I’d like to talk about is to be constructive. Those that have applied have done so with the intent of helping the server. Maybe they’re a wonderful person ingame, but they don’t have many forums posts. Tell them that! Being honest with someone about what they can improve on will help you become a credible source of information and help the applicant know what they’re faltering on. Being constructive does not mean you should be pointing out all of their flaws, though. We’re not trying to dissuade them from ever applying again. Instead, focus on the bare minimum of what they’d need to do to be accepted, then when they’ve done that you can afford to be more nit-picky. Just like you wouldn’t want to have to study 7 chapters of material for a test in 2 days, an applicant won’t want to work on 7 different aspects of himself all at once. Another point that is important to make is to be sure that the feedback being given has substance. As @MattM1PVP has said, it isn't good to just write "+1, hope you get accepted!" without explaining why you believe the applicant is a good pick or giving ideas on what they could improve on.

Lastly, keep it on topic! Staff apps are a place for giving input on an applicant, not spent flaming each other over a fight through pm’s ingame or talking about what you did over the weekend that caused you to be late in responding. The player that has applied has spent (hopefully) a long time formatting their application, proofreading, editing, rewriting, and making it the best it can be. As someone who can respond and have an impact on whether or not others think this applicant is ready, it is your responsibility to give them the feedback they deserve for the hard work they did. Make your opinion unbiased. As a reference, the 5 categories that are looked at most often when deciding on an applicant is:

• Their application - spelling mistakes, brevity, depth, details, etc.
  
  
• Their ingame activity - recent punishments, how they respond to questions being asked in chat, etc.
  
  
• Their forums activity - quality of posts, quantity of posts (quality is more important in most instances, but spamming is still frowned upon), etc.
  
  
• Teamspeak - how often they log in, where they spend their time (public or private channels), if they don’t use teamspeak do they make up for it by being on discord, etc.
  
  
• Maturity - how they handle themselves in heated situations, age (not very important, but still worth noting), etc.

When in Doubt
​

If you are ever unsure about how you should respond, if you don’t know the applicant very well, or if you’re ever on the fence about whether or not someone is qualified, don’t respond. You aren’t hurting anyone by not replying to every single staff application and it would be better to be sure of yourself before giving your input. If you’re unsure how you should respond, take a moment to look at this thread for some ideas or look at how other people are responding. If you don’t know the applicant, let others that do know decide instead of attempting to judge a book by its cover. If you’re not quite sure about whether your vote would be a +1 or a -1, either let them know what is holding you back from a +1 or respond saying that you’re not comfortable with a +1 or a -1 and instead opt for a +-0. Communication is key here and the applicant deserves a discussion.

In Conclusion
​

At the end of the day, the ability to respond to applications is a privilege and a responsibility. The option was originally revoked because of players being harassed on their applications, troll responses, and lack of maturity when responding. Over time, staff realized that it was important to be able to have an in-depth discussion on applications in order to better judge applicants. Because of this, build, wiki, and media team members were given the privilege of responding on apps. With the recent success, the decision seems to have made, this option has been extended to lifetime ranked community members. The ball is in your court now, and depending on how players with lifetime ranks handle this determines whether or not the option is kept or revoked once more. Your response will be used and looked at by Canoodle while she is making her decision, so it is important to be responding in a mature, organized, and well-thought-out way.

 

You cannot? @chickenputty can you confirm this?

Will do just in case this guide is still relevant!

 

Hahaha true, but his is about writing apps, not replying to them.

 

o.o dang it. xD This is what I was trying to avoid. Can you go ahead and lock this then?