Volunteers [usually] only do basic forum moderation. :D Sending dead threads to the graveyarding, moving threads to the correct forums, deleting spam, and using the report button to report any rule violations if they happen to come across them while doing their maintenance. It's an added bonus when volunteers do extra, like posting challenges, exercises, or projects. If a volunteer fails to mod regularly, it's no biggie and we just pull them from the list.
Because Iwaku has so many members and so many forums, we need a LOT of volunteers to do daily forum maintenance. O_O As long as you're not someone who has gotten in trouble for one of our major rules or gotten in to member fights/drama, we will hire just about anyone as a volunteer!
Staff Members, though, have A LOT of social responsibility. Not every staff member handles drama, but every staff member has to be qualified to handle drama. They are people that are able to handle severe pressure while under fire because they tend to get a lot of shit from people for doing their job. :( They step in to threads that getting out of hand, or contact members that are being jerks. They offer support for people that need help and keep an eye on the site for trouble. On top of that, all staffies are also expected to contribute to Iwaku through active projects or roleplaying. The staffies are the people that shape Iwaku's evolution. What you see on Iwaku today is from years and years of past and current staffers putting their ideas to work!