How do you become admin?

[CVMSAvalacheStudent]

To go up a rank, do you just post more or does someone have to promote you?

[NeilMehta]

You can get more stars under your name by posting more (but please, don't spam for stars), but to become a mod/admin I think you have to be promoted

[Schrodingerscat]

All staff positions (that is moderators and administrators) are hand-selected by current staff from active and trusted members. However, regular users can gain up to four stars just by their official post count (0,10,50,150), but those stars are otherwise meaningless. Four stars are also automatically given to users awarded an exalted medal. These are awarded semi-periodically by the staff to recognize substantial contributions to the site (most often for areas such as the wiki or test exchange, very rarely for posts), and the rank does confer a few small privileges on the forum. Finally, five and six stars are only available to moderators and administrators respectively.

[AnimeScienceGeek76]

Ooh that's cool

[EastStroudsburg13]

Essentially, you have to be promoted by the current staff. There are a couple considerations that are used though:

• Helpfulness around the site: That is, being active and helpful on the forums and adding to the various resources on the site. Currently this is mainly the Wiki, as the Image Gallery is still down. Most often, members will first become Exalted Members for significant helpfulness around the site, especially in terms of adding event information to wiki pages. I think most current staff members were first made exalted before being promoted to staff.
• Being around a while: A lot of people pass through this site as the years come and go, and when looking to add people to staff, we don't want to add people who we don't know will be around and active. So usually members have to be active for a few years before joining the staff. I wasn't promoted to WikiMod until my third year on the site, which falls in line with most promotions.
• Having a "posting personality" suitable for a staff position: As people are around enough, you start to get a sense of their personality and style. Generally, we want to be sure that the person being promoted is responsible and isn't going to get us into trouble. That's not to say you can't joke around, or have a perfect posting history; if you go back into a few of the admins' histories, we all had stages where we were very active in Posting Games. But, generally, you have to be a decent person, and we have to be sure of it. Being active on chat is a good way for us to get to know user's personalities, as well.

This is not an all-encompassing list, as there are lots of factors that go into it, but I think it can be boiled down to this in a pinch.

Stars are a different beast than becoming an admin or mod, and have been explained pretty accurately in the posts above.