No, people could lie in their applications. Also people who have literary joined the server for a couple of hours could submit an application and could get accepted. The staffs method of recruiting people have seemed to have worked so far so I would personally keep it that way. You also get the odd person in game spamming "Can I be mod/admin" Imagine the amount of spam staff member would get of random people wanting to get staff. 9/10 these random people only want to be apart of the staff team to abuse and bribe other players to get their way and often ban/mute people because they simply don't like them. Pretty sure this has been suggested in the past and has been denied.