It doesn't really matter, though IRC helps a lot. And friendship can't be striven for, either. If they like who you appear to be, then you have a good chance. If they think you'd do a good job and that they know enough about you that you won't do anything irrational (at least, before the position corrupts... absolutely), then you can be considered to be on their mental list of candidates.

See this whole thread is how not to do it, asking publicly about it, that is. The real way would be to either be actually qualified or else to influence WJ from the shadows whilst planning a massive coup d'etât.

This happens more often than you'd think.

Mostly by Pyro.
Not that I'm saying anything.
<--He said it.

Stop being dumb, Tim.

Also, remember that modship != respect. It only means that people will fault you for any, and possibly all, of the following: inactivity, underly strict observance of rules, overly strict observance of rules, pulling rules out of places where the sun doesn't shine (of which there tend to be many, considering the subject matter), lack of respect for authority, and unwillingness to support the worker's revolution. Quite simply, being a mod means that you've got to read more stuff than you'd like to and do controversial things that will undoubtedly demean you in the eyes of about 2/3 of the important people around here. Unless you want to do it out of charity, or possibly the desire to take part in the excessively interesting political dance that is forum administration, don't ask for it and accept it with light-heartedness and an acceptance that your life span will be irrevocably shortened.

EDIT: Yes, Lord Tim, it is a rule. That doesn't mean that people still won't hate you for invoking it.

Technically, the making up new rules to fit the situation bit is actually a rule. I like that rule.

You see, you can't really do much here without checking with Wizard James. Unfortunately, Wizard James is on average only here for 5 seconds a month. So that makes for a very small time period in which to fix problems. So usually, if anything actually happens, there's a great ruckus but nothing happens. Then the blame is shifted to us, then to WJ, and he's angry and doesn't come back for even longer. Then we fix a bit of the problem, not all of it, but just enough that nobody cares, and then a few mods suspiciously disappear every time WJ logs on. That's more or less how it works. Also there's always somebody that's holding a grudge against you that you have to work with.
So, bottom line, you don't really want to be on the mod team all that much. But those of us that are there...
Uh...
Well, we don't really know how long it is until WJ logs on, and thus we also don't know how long it is that we'll be on the mod team.

Why does it seem like a game of Red Light Green Light?

That would be because it is.
This forum's entire mod hierarchy is really just a bunch of games if you think about it.

So, play the game, become someone's tool, take the blame, and drown in a pool?
Can the lifecycle of a mod be explained in those 2 pairing rhymes or does it take more significant verbal manipulation?

I was a moderator. I requested to be removed from the line of duty.

When you're a moderator, you see... horrible things. Terrible things. Things that can break a man down, destroy his sanity piece by piece. Things that rape his sense of reality and sever any ties to the illusion of life so many of us still cling to. That's been torn away from me, never to return. I left the moderation force a changed man. A man wiser, but a man destroyed.

Moderation is hell.

Not if you never have to do anything!

and how

Then wizardjames removed your op for being too cool

Also why bump this topic!??!?! why you do this