How are moderators selected?

Moderation selection is a long and careful process that starts with recommendations from the current moderators. We look for users with the right personality, interests, and instincts: those who are helpful, friendly, rational, fair, who speak honestly, who understand how the MacRumors site is run, and whose participation has consistently been a benefit to their fellow forum members, not about privilege or ego.

They don't have to have volunteered and they don't have to have paid for membership. They must have been a member long enough to understand the forum community, and an ongoing participant, but there's no fixed minimum length of membership or post count. From their involvement they tend to be fairly well-known users, although some candidates come to our attention for their behind-the-scenes efforts to help other users.

It's advantageous for us to have team members with a range of views and opinions. We have no requirements that moderators share political or religious views (and they don't) but they must all be able to put aside personal biases when moderating. It's a benefit when we have moderators across many time zones, both men and women, and moderators of different ages. We don't require technical expertise with Apple products. Although many moderators routinely help users with technical problems, it's not part of their assignment as a moderator, just what they were already doing. We don't require prior forum moderation experience; we provide the necessary training. Moderators must be able and willing to spend time moderating that they might otherwise have spent in normal forum participation or away from MacRumors.

In summary, we look for forum members who excel in many ways and are very well suited for the role we ask them to take as moderators. We're admittedly picky and the number who qualify is small.