Madridi, I agree with you. We always went with "we choose, if you ask you lose your chance".
Though, I think sometime we might miss candidates by doing that. Electing users, whom I forgot (because we have a lot!) at the election time is too bad
(edit: I have name's memory issues!)
We might also not think about someone, while he/she could be perfect for the job.
I suppose it's a critical situation, losing a very active supervisor makes the forum in a temporary free fight zone (please, don't pill up more job on purpose ;__; )
Ultimately, the decision will be the same, the staff will decide the same way than we always did. We will just have an idea of who's interested and feel strong enough.
Like you said, moderator needs to be cold headed (NOT cold hearted!), be nice to everyone and capable of discernment over kids fighting for futile reasons, trolls, etc. and you need to take proper decisions. it's not a funny position just to mess with the forum's content !
if you think you can help, do it because you like the place and want to make it better, not for the fun.
You'll have decision to make, decision which might get users angry, you'll need to be able to explain yourself (yeah, lot of users will come in PM to argue with you). You could ignore it, and be seen as "bad moderator", personally I always answer people and try to appease the situation. But I ended feeling bad being the "bad one" and people coming to criticize and argue the decision, crying people is tiresome. I have enough crying people at my real job, not on my free time too. I ended warning less, and doing my mod job less, until almost not at all. If you want to be moderator, you need to be mentally strong!
Personally, and I publicly said it many times, I don't have enough time to work as an active moderator and can barely read few threads a day. I can't follow what's happening in 3DS or Switch forum, I barely read Wii section for myself. I feel like I let the forum down.
being moderator requires a lot of free time. I wish I had more time and be more helpful to everyone.
Moderator: power over one specific section of the forum only. You can warn/rename/move/edit/delete posts in that section only. For example, you could be moderator for the Switch section, but won't be able to do anything in 3DS section.
Global moderator : power on posts and threads on all the forum. same job, but bigger! Usually you get global right away because it's too bad when you are the only online staff and can't take fast action against a bad post in another section. you also has access to private forum to talk about and take decisions (member's behavior, events votes like tempmas, etc.). Oh, and bonuses not said in Costello's first post : you also get mod power on filetrip and wikitemp ! You probably won't have time to moderate that part and might have forgot about them, but someone has to do it...
Reporters / other position : other staff members often get some of the moderator power too (rename/move/close threads)
Supervisor : have access to user's data (edit user name, birth date, etc.), and has access to forum's data (section name, layout, settings, new content developer). you can also ban people and have greater decision, moderator will come to you for advises on conflicts they can't decide what to do.
Admin: source code, servers manager, threats (virus, security, etc.), backup job and global ideas. (who would want that? really) Costello, you're awesome! thanks for what you are doing.
Remember too : the spirit is and always has been that GBATemp is a free speech place. you can't ban/warn/delete someone's comment just because you feel differently or don't like that user. you don't hide users you don't like! The job is not your point of view, but being a legal and sane place for everyone to enjoy.
ps: I used "you" but I was talking to anyone wanting to join, not just Madridi
