Now we have a Potential Moderator position! This is to help the owners build trust in members before making final moderator decisions.
The Potential Moderators don't have as many permissions as real moderators do, how ever they do have the important basics, such as editing, deleting, and locking topics along with their posts. Unlike real moderators, they cannot create a sticky or announcement topic, nor do they have access to some staff boards.
No one will ever become a moderator without being a potential moderator for at least a day or two first.
So if we are hiring 5 moderators, we will take up to maybe 20 potential moderators, and then slowly delete (or eliminate) people until only 5 are remaining. Even if you have been eliminated once, you can reapply whenever you want. However if you do something harmful as a potential moderator, the owners can refuse to let your reapply, and you could get up to 50% warning depending on the severity as a result.