Hiring: Comments Section Referee

chinaSMACK is one of the most popular blogs about China that is in the English language. We are often a source of news for many famous news publications around the world and many people from many different countries read our posts every day. We try to translate and report what we feel is being talked about by many Chinese netizens and through this way show a side of modern Chinese society and Chinese internet culture. We try to focus on social topics because Chinese are people too, and people are very colorful. Colorful people do colorful things that will result in colorful reactions. We translate some of these reactions from Chinese netizens and we have a comment section to allow non-Chinese netizens to share their reactions.

People from different backgrounds often have different reactions, views, and opinions. Many times, people who disagree strongly with each other will argue very intensely and this will affect other readers, commenters, and the entire community. We have had a comment policy for a long time although we admit that we have not done a very good job moderating comments that violate our policy. Because of this, we have received many complaints from readers, visitors, fans, and loyal supporters complaining about certain people arguing too much or “trolling” in our comments sections. Therefore, we are now looking to hire three Comments Section Referees to help us improve this situation.

Role:

1. Mediate arguments: Follow debates and arguments between individual commenters in the comments section and provide correct guidance to the participants. Promote intelligent discussion by highlighting good points and criticizing bad points. Debates should be like organized fights. There are rules and unacceptable conduct, and you are the referee. When an argument is no longer making progress, end the argument by declaring the winner and the loser.
2. Moderate comments: Monitor comments to determine if they are in violation of our comment policy. If in violation, determine the appropriate action to take. Give warnings to first-time offenders. Repeat offenders should have their comments moderated or be banned from commenting in the future to avoid unrest in the chinaSMACK community. Serious violations should have the commenter’s information forwarded to their internet provider, employer, and/or the relevant authorities.

Qualifications:

1. Moderation experience: It is strongly preferred that you have had experience moderating discussion forums, social networks, or high-traffic blogs with an active commenting community. You should have experience dealing with the illogical, unreasonable, or individuals with ulterior motives.
2. Intelligent and objective: In order to successfully mediate arguments, you must be able to identify valid and invalid points in arguments to help you fairly determine who is successfully criticizing or defending their argument so that you can declare the correct winners and punish the appropriate losers.
3. Excellent communication skills: You must be fluent in English and be able to communicate effectively with commenters without spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. You should know when to explain your decisions, ignore complaints, or moderate trouble-makers who think they have certain rights.

Terms of Employment:

1. This is a work from home position so you must have a computer and internet access. At least one person is required to be on-duty at all times. Each shift is 8 hours.
2. This is an hourly position. You will be paid a base hourly wage plus 0.5 RMB per correctly moderated comment and a flat bonus for every successfully mediated argument.
3. To avoid conflict of interest, you will no longer be allowed to participate in the comments section as a private individual, and may only use an official user account.

If you are interested in this position, please contact us immediately. Tell us more about yourself, why you believe you are a good candidate for this position, and any experience you have. Please include a list of 10 comments in the past month that you feel should be moderated. Also include 3 arguments in the past month between commenters and explain to us who you would declare as winners and losers.