Today, we’re announcing a public recruitment drive to find passionate fans that can join our database moderator team.
Anime-Planet was created as a passion project 20 years ago and is still run by a small team of volunteers from around the world. Our goal has always been to be a friendly, welcoming community that provides the best quality information about anime, manga, and other fandom, and we’ve only been able to accomplish that because of the Anime-Planet community.
Because the site is run by volunteers, it’s inevitable that we both gain and lose moderators throughout the year… Typically we’re able to maintain a team size that allows us to handle your requests quickly, to make sure new licenses get added quickly, and to improve the database in general. Unfortunately, we’ve lost a considerable amount of the team over the past year due to increased stress and responsibilities caused by the COVID pandemic, leaving several teams severely understaffed. We’d love to find more enthusiastic, highly-motivated members who want to help out and are interested in helping the database grow.
What teams are recruiting?
We are looking for manga and people moderators, and for native language experts for a few specific languages. All moderator positions are unpaid, volunteer positions.
Basic team requirements
★ Ability to communicate well in a team, and to maintain positive and constructive relationships with other moderators and the wider community. As a moderator, you indirectly represent Anime-Planet.
★ Fluent in English, or near fluent understanding of English.
★ At least 16 years old. Certain teams require a higher age, noted below.
★ Experience with computers and technologies such as browser plugins and image editors. For security reasons, all database moderators are required to set up 2FA on their account (we provide a guide for how to do this).
★ Consistent availability in Discord, where moderators discuss guidelines, manage projects, and conduct training. All moderators need to be available in the moderator Discord, as well as the public Discord server for community requests. Most moderators have a daily presence in the Discord servers, even if they’re only available some days to check for important pings or to help with a few requests.
★ Willingness to participate in team projects, as well as group discussions, and daily tasks.
Team-specific details
Please fully read the below information about the team you’re interested in before applying.
Manga moderators
In the past, manga moderators handled submissions for anything in our manga database, such as:
- Manga
- Manhua
- Manhwa
- Novels (light novels, regular novels, web novels)
- Webtoons
- OELs
Because there’s so much to learn, manga moderators typically spent a great deal of time in training, We recently changed this process and no longer require training for all content areas. Instead, moderators can choose one or a few areas from the above list to train on, with the possibility of expanding your role after you complete training. Until we complete a few rounds of recruitment and get the team back up to its previous level, we ask that you stick with your initial content areas for the short term future.
We’re also hoping to find a few moderators who can focus on one or more of the following niche projects:
- Licensed content - helping update anything in the manga database that’s been officially licensed, to reflect the licensed name, covers, etc based on announcements.
- BL - there’s an immense amount of BL, Yaoi, or Shounen-ai content that users crave and want to be added or updated for all content types.
- Harlequin and Renta - there’s a huge amount of Harlequin manga and Renta releases that are released each month, and are currently impossible to keep up with. Having fans of this content on the moderator team would be a huge help.
Team responsibilities
- Basic moderation - adding covers, updating entries, finding full start and end dates, listing magazines/publishing labels, adding missing entries, etc. Manga moderators are expected to use our internal guides to help find information in native languages other than English; you are not required to read or speak native languages to become a manga moderator.
- Adding manga staff roles
- Updating entries to reflect official licensing information
- Handling requests in the forum, Anime-Planet’s public Discord server, and the moderator server.
- Participating in team projects
Team requirements
- A minimum 4-6 hours per week that you're able to volunteer.
- 18+ years old. The manga database doesn’t currently list hentai, but viewing explicit content is inevitable due to the nature of the requests we receive.
- Manga
- Manhua
- Manhwa
- Novels (light novels, regular novels, web novels)
- Webtoons
- OELs
Because there’s so much to learn, manga moderators typically spent a great deal of time in training, We recently changed this process and no longer require training for all content areas. Instead, moderators can choose one or a few areas from the above list to train on, with the possibility of expanding your role after you complete training. Until we complete a few rounds of recruitment and get the team back up to its previous level, we ask that you stick with your initial content areas for the short term future.
We’re also hoping to find a few moderators who can focus on one or more of the following niche projects:
- Licensed content - helping update anything in the manga database that’s been officially licensed, to reflect the licensed name, covers, etc based on announcements.
- BL - there’s an immense amount of BL, Yaoi, or Shounen-ai content that users crave and want to be added or updated for all content types.
- Harlequin and Renta - there’s a huge amount of Harlequin manga and Renta releases that are released each month, and are currently impossible to keep up with. Having fans of this content on the moderator team would be a huge help.
Team responsibilities
- Basic moderation - adding covers, updating entries, finding full start and end dates, listing magazines/publishing labels, adding missing entries, etc. Manga moderators are expected to use our internal guides to help find information in native languages other than English; you are not required to read or speak native languages to become a manga moderator.
- Adding manga staff roles
- Updating entries to reflect official licensing information
- Handling requests in the forum, Anime-Planet’s public Discord server, and the moderator server.
- Participating in team projects
Team requirements
- A minimum 4-6 hours per week that you're able to volunteer.
- 18+ years old. The manga database doesn’t currently list hentai, but viewing explicit content is inevitable due to the nature of the requests we receive.
People moderators
People moderators focus primarily on adding anime and manga staff information to the database, such as series credits or voice actor information. We are almost ready to announce a major overhaul of production credits on Anime-Planet, which means we need more hands on deck to help fill in this information. If you're passionate about seeing your favorite directors, translators, or mangaka credited properly this is the team for you.
Team responsibilities
- Basic people entry moderation - adding photos, listing alternative names, finding duplicates
- Adding missing production credits.
- Adding missing voice actor credits.
Team requirements
- A minimum 3-4 hours per week that you're able to volunteer.
- Handling requests in the forum, Anime-Planet’s public Discord server, and the moderator server.
- Participating in team projects.
Team responsibilities
- Basic people entry moderation - adding photos, listing alternative names, finding duplicates
- Adding missing production credits.
- Adding missing voice actor credits.
Team requirements
- A minimum 3-4 hours per week that you're able to volunteer.
- Handling requests in the forum, Anime-Planet’s public Discord server, and the moderator server.
- Participating in team projects.
Native language moderators
We’re looking to form a new team made up of language experts that can help assist all of the database teams with issues such as:
- Help define and maintain guidelines for romanization consistency.
- Quickly answer questions related to:
- How to translate a specific series name or staff name.
- Determining if a series is on hiatus or is finished based on a native language announcement or post.
Optional, but highly desired:
- Willingness to find new content that needs to be added by being up to date on native language announcements or websites. For example, our Chinese language experts could be on the lookout for new announcements for donghua or manhua that need to be added to the database, and would post requests to the applicable moderator teams to add the content.
- Interest in training to become a database moderator, in addition to the language help.
This is an unusual team in that moderators aren’t expected to actually moderate any database content themselves, but you’d be free to train on any team that interests you, if you want. The most important requirement is availability to help answer questions quickly, so that mods can handle requests quickly.
Applicable languages
- Japanese
- Chinese
- Korean
Note that we are looking for fluency in these languages, and the recruitment application requests specific information about your skill level such as applicable test scores, time spent living in a specific country, etc. Please do not apply if your language skills are limited to experience watching anime, being able to look up words, or other intermediate hobby-level type experience.
Team requirements
- A minimum 1-2 hours per week that you're able to volunteer. As language moderators won’t be actively moderating database content, what’s most important is willingness to be on top of Discord pings and to answer questions quickly, to unblock the other moderators.
- 18+ years old.
- Help define and maintain guidelines for romanization consistency.
- Quickly answer questions related to:
- How to translate a specific series name or staff name.
- Determining if a series is on hiatus or is finished based on a native language announcement or post.
Optional, but highly desired:
- Willingness to find new content that needs to be added by being up to date on native language announcements or websites. For example, our Chinese language experts could be on the lookout for new announcements for donghua or manhua that need to be added to the database, and would post requests to the applicable moderator teams to add the content.
- Interest in training to become a database moderator, in addition to the language help.
This is an unusual team in that moderators aren’t expected to actually moderate any database content themselves, but you’d be free to train on any team that interests you, if you want. The most important requirement is availability to help answer questions quickly, so that mods can handle requests quickly.
Applicable languages
- Japanese
- Chinese
- Korean
Note that we are looking for fluency in these languages, and the recruitment application requests specific information about your skill level such as applicable test scores, time spent living in a specific country, etc. Please do not apply if your language skills are limited to experience watching anime, being able to look up words, or other intermediate hobby-level type experience.
Team requirements
- A minimum 1-2 hours per week that you're able to volunteer. As language moderators won’t be actively moderating database content, what’s most important is willingness to be on top of Discord pings and to answer questions quickly, to unblock the other moderators.
- 18+ years old.
Recruitment process
Each team has created a screener and questionnaire via Google Forms, which are linked below. Applications will be accepted for approximately 2 weeks. Each team will review the applications and plan to invite around 3 or 4 people to become trainees, which is the most we can currently handle with our team size. We plan to set aside some applications so that we can reach out to more candidates in the future after the first batch of trainees have completed training.
We have limited space available so we can't guarantee a reply, but we encourage all applicants to contribute to the public submission threads on a regular basis. We frequently reach out to potential candidates based on the quality of submissions made there. Thank you, regardless, for your interest in this process and for your application.
Still have questions?
If you have any questions about the recruitment process itself, or any team-specific requirements, please post them in this thread and one of the team leads will reply.
Please avoid posting anything else in this thread (such as your intention to apply, asking what the status of your application is, etc). These posts will be deleted so that valid questions are more easily found.
This thread will be locked when the recruitment drive ends in approximately two weeks from the date of this post.
Apply for a position
- Manga moderators
- People moderators
- Native language moderators
Thanks, as always, for your support of Anime-Planet.
