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To find good server staff can always be tricky. You need people who can be trusted, responsible, hardworking, etc.. for a Staff Position on your Minecraft Server. As a Server Owner, you probably have a goal and want your server to strive for the best, and one of the key-factors to reaching that goal is having sharp Staff. You may not realize it, but having good Staff is extremely important for a Server.
Here are some Pros of having a good Staff for your Server:


Also, when looking for Staff to fulfill the roll of OP, Developer, Builder, etc., you should ask that person some good questions that will make you think smarter as a Server Owner.
Here are some good questions to ask your possible Staff:

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Trust is the main issue with many Servers, because not all Staff say who they really are. This is why highering someone with Past Experience is a normally a better idea than someone who does not. Unless you have absolute trust in a person with no Staff Experience, I recommend you don't employ that person with a Staff Position on your Server, because if just one of your Staff Members feels like he/she wants to wreck your Server, then you are going to be in for a rough time to fix it, which of course would suck.

Communication is also extremely helpful when finding Staff for your Server. It is important to communicate with your Staff for many many reasons. Voice to Voice conversations are normally the most efficient ways to speak to one and another. Voice Programs like Skype, Mumble, TeamSpeak, and Ventrillo are good ways to communicate. Although I would recommend Skype the most out of all of these Voice Programs because it is one of the most common, easy to use Voice Programs available.

Maturity and Great Attitude are of course, a basic trait you as a Server Owner want from your Server Staff. These two Traits go a long way when they begin to talk and help players. Having a Staff Member who just likes to goof-off and help no one is very bad, because it may uphold an unappealing reputation to your Server, which can cause to a number of bad outcomes. When looking for Staff, you are going to want someone who will do the following:

Keep an eye on your Staff. As a Server Owner, it is also your duty to remove bad Staff from their position. There are ways to stay invisible on the Server, so you can watch your Staff without them noticing. This is good to do because normally, Staff will act different when they know if the Owner is on, so it is good to see them on both sides. Also, you can check the Chat Logs for your Server, which may be a more secure way of watching how your Staff acts.

Also, if one of your Staff Members is doing something that goes against your line of regulations for your Staff, you need to punish them. I would first give that Staff Member a warning to not do it again. If that Staff Member DOES do it again, it isn't a bad idea to demote them, seeing as they don't care much about the Server or you. However, be careful about how harsh you are and what they did wrong. Example:

Announcing that you are looking for Staff to many people is normally a good idea as well. The reasoning for this is because, say you just hired a Staff Member, but you wish you had hired someone better? Well Announcing that you are hiring will get the attention of lots of people, and some of these people might be even better at the Staff Position than your old Staff Member. So, when looking for Staff, you should set your options to a great variety by getting the attention of lots of players.

Slowly Ranking-Up your Staff is another good way of ensuring the safety of your Server. Perhaps say, you have Staff who are doing their job good enough that you don't need any more Staff for that position, even though there is one person who you want to promote to, even though you don't really need to or you don't trust them. The process of rank-up for Staff is a good procedure for the following reasons:
To get to know your Staff through a slower process rather than just higher them at once, is a good process to know when finding Staff. This definitely enables another whole trust level that can go up or down in that Staff Member, which is good to have. If you don't know what I mean by this process, it means instead of OP, perhaps give that Staff Member the rank of Chat Mod first. This will allow you to get to know their Staff Experience and traits better.

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What Can Happen If You Pick Bad Staff:
Now I am going to tell you what horrible things can happen if you accidentally choose bad staff for your server, in a full list of things that could happen. Different ranks of Staff can do more or less, depending on the power they have as Staff. A bad Chat Mod, can do things perhaps like drive away players from negative attitude, or use the /ban command and kill your community, where as someone who has Operator Status like an Administrator, can tear your Server to shreds.

Here is a list of the bad things that can happen from different Staff Ranks (note, lots of servers have different names for their Staff ranks, I am just using the most common Staff Ranked Names):

That wraps up this guide, may your Staff be at it's very best Server Owners! Also please leave a comment on what you think should be added to this guide!

Credits To Those Who Helped:

Quote from ForeseenParadox

I think this is a good guide. I can't believe those topics who just accept everyone who applies as staff.

Thanks for the support.
On a side-note I will add a lot more to this guide. I have just been sorta busy today.

Added more and edited some mistakes.

Edited a few grammar issues. Also guys tell me what you think of this guide by leaving a comment/post so that I can improve and make it better

Quote from rugerty100

I think you should add something about gradual permissions. If the owner isn't in desperate need of staff, start them off at some small administrative position like Chat-Mod. If they're dedicated to the server, they'll perform that job well, then you can promote them to some other rank with slightly more permissions. This gradual release of power usually keeps away the people who just want to wreck the server.

I like that, thank you for your help to this guide

Quote from teamkazm

chat mod?

Are you asking what a Chat Mod is? If you are, Chat Mod is normally a basic rank below Admin or Operator Status. They have commands to /ban and /mute and are normally like an extra pair of eyes for the Admins. They also help out players in the chat.

Quote from Phatteh

Good guide, why didn't I think of this?

Thank you for the comment

Made the format a bit neater

Quote from Luvtooty

Nice work. This will definitely help.

Thanks for the support

Quote from LCvideogamerP64

Nice guide Spencer! I hope people who are creating a server and are looking for staff read this. It will most likely help them get the best staff members possible!

Thanks for your support LC

Also guys, feel free to spread this around to other members on the forums who need a bit of help with this, but make sure you don't break the rules (which I am sure you won't). Thanks in advance!

Quote from SharkyGAMER

Nice guide!

Thank you

Quote from the__watcher_

I would just like to say that by chatting over Skype with applicants for a staff position you can really see if you get good vibes from them or not and helps a lot with choosing who would be the best for then spot.

I pretty much already have this in the guide with the Communication part, but thanks for asking even though you didn't know, because it would work well with the guide

Might be worth having a few points that explain the downsides of having bad staff & also trusting the wrong people?

Other than that, very nice guide!