The Role of Curator

Man.

Fuck curators.

I'll be honest, I only have the motivation to write this blog because of the #Litorre btw).

I do not know if s still think that way, but I back then a good amount of people really wanted to become a curator.

And I sure was people.

I became curator on November 30th 2018 (from what I ). Then I left.

Then I came back.

...Then I left again...

And now? I am considering coming back, although I'm still unsure.

But unlike many others, I have experience as a curator and as a leader in another, yet much smaller Amino.

So, I wanted to make a blog about the role of Curator. Especially talking about the experiences and why the role itself is lacking, especially compared to the role of Leader.

What are curators?

Curators are pretty much the s of a specific Amino, while the leaders are the s.

Their primary job is to make sure the s are safe and that they follow the [Guidelines]. Their presence helps making the leaders' other jobs easier (striking/banning people or taking care of flags).

Obviously, they can also be given other jobs by the moderation team, like making a PSA or an official chat.

You recognize them by the very ugly green rectangle in which it is written "Curator" in it.

How do curators get elected?

The method of election varies with the Amino, but on Smash Amino, curators are elected through applications.

Summer 2019 Curator Applications

The Results

The Final Smashers (so the leaders and curators) choose who will become curator thanks to the applications and their knowledge on the s who applied.

From what I recall, the voting goes by phases. Each phase is meant to reduce the amount of possible choices until it reaches a reasonable number (between 3 and 6 I believe).

Applications open occasionally, once or twice a year.

What can curators do?

They can hide posts on the shared folder and the latest feed, feature blogs, disable chats, kick out of chats, delete chat messages, take over a chat (so they become host) as well as other minor things like accepting a wiki in a catalog.

They can NOT warn, strike or ban a . Hell, they can't even look at flags. The only thing they can do against a directly is hide their profile, which doesn't do much other than hiding the pfp for other s.

Most mods take time on the latest feed or the shared folder. When they see a post against the [Guidelines], they hide it and send you a very nice and totally not automated message through private messages.

And obviously, they participate in the mod chat, which, I'll be honest, is not always about serious matters. Chances are you'll see Shüan and Nokcha talking about Robin or whatever things Robin mains talk about with each other. Nonetheless, serious matters can still be treated there.

What powers do leaders have over curators?

Leaders can obviously do everything a curator can do.

However, leaders can also do 10000 more shit.

More shit includes, but is not limited to:

- Ban, strike and warn a

- Change the Amino's aesthetic

- Give a the role of curators as well as cosmetic titles

- Broadcast a chat or a post

- Take care of flags

- Probably commit several war crimes without any consequences

Honestly, the reason why we don't see as many leaders is likely because this title gives much, MUCH MORE power than curator. Shit makes no sense.

My Issue with the role of Curator

Curators suck omg (my bad opinion).

They barely can do anything other than looking like robots because people can't read the [Guidelines].

And they aren't even that good at hiding posts (tbh leaders aren't either).

Imagine if there is 5 disruptive posts made by the same person. You have to hide 5 posts, then message the person to say FUCK YOU GO FUCK YOURSELF and then go on with your life I guess.

But hiding a post is slow you have to press 3 buttons and it takes a few seconds to actually hide it.

It may not sound too bad for you, but I had to hide 100+ posts in a single morning once because a hentai raid was happening.

It took so much time the raiders were pretty much done before I finished hiding posts.

And now imagine how easier it would have been if I could have just banned the raiders. Or at least hide the posts all at once.

And you could think that curators are more trustworthy to make posts or create chats but I don't even think that's true. Just look at the Event Team, they're very much capable of doing it.

And with the addition of co-hosts, curators don't feel needed in chats anymore either.

So truly, curators don't have enough power. Considering it is an official Amino :tm: :copyright: :ed: role, I really think this role is underwhelming.

How I would like to fix the issue

Give curators more power

I think the easy solution would be to give curators more power, and it's not a bad idea actually.

Granting curators the ability to warn and strike , to broadcast posts and to take care of flags would already make them much more reliable as s (outside of the fact they could be shitty human beings cough cough). They can actually deal with disruptive s and not just kick them or hide their profile, which is truly something terrifying btw...

They'd only be unable to ban people or modify the Amino through ACM.

I like that idea, but it is possible that other people do not. So I have a second idea to offer...

A new moderation role?

It sounds weird and probably too big of a change, but let's think about it: what if we had a new moderation role more powerful than curator, while still not as powerful as a leader?

It'd be some kind of role between leader and curator.

A with this role would basically gain all the power that leaders have, except their bans are only temporary (they can't have access to ACM either).

This could possibly make the moderation team more organized:

Curators would mostly take care of hiding posts, while s with this title would be able to take care of s who violate the [Guidelines] by striking or even temporarily banning them. This would make the leaders' job easier.

I believe leaders should also have the ability to temporarily ban. Strikes technically act as such, but they are irreversible and only effective up to 24 hours.

Obviously, I also believe all s should be able to take down multiple posts at once so it isn't as slow and boring as it is, but I don't think Amino will ever listen to me.

Additionally, we could give leaders the ability to IP ban s, although I am not sure if it is efficient enough.

José's opinion on the matter

So, I felt like I needed the opinion of someone else for this blog. And who else than José has more experience here? I mean, he's literally the agent leader of this Amino.

So I asked him a few questions correlated to what I talked about earlier.

Are curators useful?

Do curators lack power?

I think the idea of "trust" is pretty interesting.

After all, if we wanted, we could make all curators leaders, right? Is it a good idea though? I don't think so.

Maybe Worlder ash or Salt King would wrongfully ban someone who was just mildly bothering them in a chat.

I say Ash and Salt, but me too. Who knows what I would do if I had the ability to ban anyone?

Plus, they'd be able to mess up with ACM, which is pretty annoying.

Would you like an update in which curators are granted more power?

I seriously believe the strike system is terrible.

An irreversible mute which can only last for 24 hours maximum is dumb.

What is your opinion on the third possible role?

Again, strikes are dumb

How many s would you like to promote to this new role?

This follows what I said earlier about the trust needed to give someone the role of leader.

If strikes and temp bans were irreversible, I'm pretty sure it'd be easier to trust curators to promote them to this new role, or even leader.

Something I haven't mentioned is that you can have up to 10 leaders, and as many curators as you like.

Source ig

Thank you José once again for providing answers you're awesome ily

My story as a curator

I wanted to talk about my experience as a curator, I'd assume that maybe some people are interested to know.

I'll be honest: I make it sound like it was a nightmare, while it wasn't actually too bad.

The mod team was really nice, and having from friends made it all better.

However, it wasn't too great either. And I guess part of it was my fault.

I wanted to do a lot: the character leaders, the RP Hub, hiding 20 posts a day... It got me bored quickly.

Copy and pasting the same messages to have people block you, curse you or even call you a racist (though that last instance only happened once) also got me tired as fuck.

And I believe what happened with Zwei, Aaron and DeLonge just sucked up my joy. Looking back at it, it was funny, but back then it annoyed me a bit too much.

So I left. I don't the date. I was still in the mod chat though, but it was mostly just to talk with the other mods.

But then, I came back around the same time the new curators were back. I don't know why I did, I guess it got me excited again or something. However, this time, I was barely doing anything as a mod (but was still active for a good while).

I left again around late February of this year. I was less active, and it made me feel better about myself. My decision was very sudden (I didn't ask anyone else's opinion on it), which made me feel stupid.

It has been multiple months since I left, and my life is more stable than before. I feel good about myself. I feel like I could become curator a third time, but that would probably look stupid both for the mods and I.

This may be just me being stupid, but I also had the feeling that people treated me differently. Like some people would try to talk because I was a curator, not because I was Pichoco. Since I'm a bit paranoid at times, I could be wrong about it. But maybe there are people that just wanted to be on my good side.

Although, while the role is pretty boring (especially if you try to hide a lot of posts), I still think it isn't too bad. Sure, I found a good amount of bad apples, but being able to help s really felt great. If you also want to help , then you should definitely give it a shot in the next Curator Applications.

:melon:

So. I guess that's it for the blog.

I have nothing else to talk about. I think the role needs an update (or maybe we should get a third moderation role), and maybe others do, who knows.

In the end, it's up to Team Amino to make curators better. And relying on Team Amino is probably the worst mistake one could make on this damned app.

Well then, goodbye! Hopefully I'll make more blogs for the event hahaha funny joke.