Moderation Manual

Moderators are the story tellers in Aelyria, and players are the actors of these stories. As a fundamental piece of our game backbone, moderators are an integral part of the Contributor Program; within the Game Team, assistant game masters, game masters, and game directors all assume varying degrees of moderation of the game world. The Moderation Manual provides a simple reference document for our moderators to use when providing moderation support for players.


Becoming a Moderator

Participation in the Contributor Program is open to all community members, provided you meet the eligibility requirements and prerequisites for application. Please review the Assistant Game Master and Game Master pages for a detailed view at each position, and when you are ready to apply, please submit the completed questionnaire to the Help Desk. Active players are always encouraged to take a part in our contributor teams, whether or not there are any vacancies. If there is no position readily available, your application will be saved and used for reference the next time there is an opening.


What is a Moderator?

Generally speaking, a moderator is someone who manages a forum and keeps the experience orderly and friendly for everyone. In Aelyria, moderators can either belong to the Player Team (to mentor players), the Creative Team (to design and develop content), or the Game Team (to run our game), and all of our moderators are equally integral to our website and the services we offer our users. Each forum is assigned a primary moderator; in the game forums, each city has a full-time Game Master. The Game Master uses the forum controls to moderate (e.g., move, close, open, stick, unstick, etc.) threads, while also using a moderator control panel to access some advanced features available to only moderators. Game Masters can also appoint team members to help in the moderation of their forum, and these persons are called Assistant Game Masters. Together, the Game Master and their Assistant Game Masters form the forum/city team.


Moderator Privileges

Members of the Contributor Team receive access to the Plane of Eternity, and specifically, the Contributorium. Within, each team has private areas and public areas available to other senior moderators. A collection of tools and resources, including access to modplans, secrets, and storythreads helps moderators coordinate and organize their creative ideas. Moderators also receive access to custom avatars, custom profile pictures, profile styling, and custom titles on their staff accounts. Members of the Game Team should register a new account using the name (either a real name, like "Juan", "Charlie", or "Anne") or a nickname by which you would like other contributors and players to address you when you volunteer. As a side benefit, contributing to Aelyria as a moderator can qualify you for CAS hours in fulfillment of honor society, community volunteer, or extracurricular obligations. Please submit a Help Desk ticket if you need assistance with a claim form and we will support your request.


Moderator Duties


Moderators have tremendous responsibility, and are trusted with a high degree of autonomy, to manage and oversee their cities. There are various high-level components to this task:

• Moderation
  • Provide service and support to users.
  • Reply to player actions by posting reactions.
• Storytelling
  • Create plot-driven experiences for players.
  • Tell the story of your city and the characters in it.
• Design
  • Build new geographic locations in your city.
  • Maintain old city locations and update them.
  • Work across teams to ensure consistency.
• Development
  • Build and execute multiple city stories.
  • Post local storyarcs based off of the game-wide epic story.
• Management
  • Direct and oversee assistant moderators.
  • Mentor and supervise team supporters.