^ Indeed, i believe i have played a game before where if you needed help of a gm, you could /help and it would warn all the gm's online (or admins or mods in this case) and therefore you could only pm them once you had been replied to.
Or you could do a WoW type thing, and make a ticket to PM mods and what not.
But a @command to show the status seems useless, I would make it so if you need help, you can just @help and it would message all the online staff with your name therefore, a staff could whisper you.
Only because, I dont think there would be a problem with just putting the staff at the top of the list.
EDIT: Or you could be twice as professional, and make santa code a TAB next to the "Guild" and "Friends" thing, that says like, "Online Staff" or maybe just "Staff"
Which would take you to another little window where it only shows the log for staff members. (This is only if you cant find a way to put staff at top of lobby list)