Public Chat Log Discussion

[les]

                   


                   


                   

[DellaRoss]

Les Please stop posing pictures that in essance are calling people a baby. i think that people are havign a rather spirted debate at the moment ad doing that is not really contributing anything.

Thanks a million in advance
Della the Blackbird
= (*v*) =

[Banquo]

Simply sit and enjoy watching without taking part. Is this really such a crime?

This is a reasonable point. I do believe that if somebody is just reading the chat and enjoying the energy while being maybe too shy to take part, there is nothing wrong with that. However, we need to balance that against the need to have an intimate atmosphere in the chat. I think asking folks to sign up and join the chat if they want to watch is a reasonable compromise for the general purpose rooms.

We could maybe do a separate room "Town Square" that is publicly logged for public humiliation / exhibitionism type scenes. It would be good for holding a technical Q&A session on Eos as well, for example.

Exactly, I have always seen the lounge as this kind of area anyway.

Yes because you can hand on heart say that this has happened in the past with users who have casued trouble can you? prompt direct action from the mods? or feeble hand wringing and excuses of "seraph doesn't like it when we ban people"

If we didn't have that policy, you might have been banned by an annoyed mod by this point. It's easy to confuse a critic for a troll who wants the debate for the sake of causing trouble. Comments like "Well how gracious of you to finally comment on this thread JP" are totally uncalled for. The chat log policy has only recently been instated and debated at length, so I think it speaks for our mods that they are willing to reopen the issue at all.

Granted I will admit I have needed to be a bit...aggressive in order to illicit a response from the team. But they ignored this topic for over a week, and it wasn't as if we hadn't made clear genuine points. We had, they just did not have answers so ignored them. And on the subject of banning etc. I have honestly been told by chat mods that they are afraid to take action against certain trolls because they are scared they will lose their status as a mod. Is this an acceptable excuse for allowing some trolls to persist in disrupting the chat for months on end. I'm not just on about general trolls here, I am on about people who continually and purposefully bully and name call in the chat and destroy the flow of scenes.

I do agree with you that if mods don't react to a troll, users have to deal with the problem themselves. This is the better way in most cases anyway, because it's much more democratic and differentiated. If I'm amused by a fairly creative troll I can enjoy his exploits, whereas someone who is bothered by it can ignore them. (I'm not sure how good the ignore feature is for the new chat - if it's not persistent etc. we'll definitely work on that though.)

What I disagree with is that you need public logs to do that type of self-moderation. If somebody bothers you in the chat, ignore them in the chat. Anything that is said in the chat while you're not there doesn't concern you any more than what people say in private messages precisely because there are no public logs.

No one has given this as a reason, we don't want to have to police ourselves, we just want to be able to read what has been going on in chat if we have missed it for whatever reason, or simply to be able to sit outside the chat and watch people getting up to stuff, it's not about privacy. Milo chat is a public and open place. If people want privacy they can and do go into PM conversation.

A permanent record just increases the amount of damage an emotional comment or offhand attack does. If it's just in the chat it's water under the bridge and will be forgotten soon enough. If it's enshrined in a permanent log it may start a whole debate about having the insult deleted and the person who made the comment punished. And that's bad because I believe that everybody deserves to be able to say something in the heat of the moment and not be armchair-criticized and picked apart beyond reason.

I don't want a permanent log, the last 24 hours is plenty for what I use it. I agree that a permanent log could be something that can cause more harm in the long run.

Maybe we need to distinguish between a public, temporary log and a public, permanent log. Most of my criticisms are definitely against permanent logs. A log of the last 24 hours for example would be less of a privacy issue for example.

That is all I for one am interested in.

Banquo

[Banquo]

                   


                   


                   

Les if you can't contribute intelligent debate please don't spam the boards with pictures to do with babies, if SC see's all this he will have some kind of fit about under age material.

[Oda]

Les pictures are a cruel act of harassmant! We should forbid pictures! :D

Just kidding of course. Juts think this was a chance to point out, what i exactly mean. :)

[DellaRoss]

Oh and just for the record i think that Jen;s idea of a temporary public log is a great compromise.

AS good as rthe idea of a "public square" sounds i am not personally a fan. I like that people feel comfotable to play and share in any room and it would sort of deminish that. I however think that if it is a chocie of that or no logs at all then i would gladly choose to have have a town square room.

Just me feelings on the matter
Della the Blackbird

[Dream_On]

I do not find the ignore feature to be a solution to problems in chat like trolls. Most will act in the manner of the insect that was removed and move on to a different target when the initial target stops responding. Thus the ignore may have stopped the troll from bothering one person, but it did not resolve the issue of the troll harassing people. I think we need to be more proactive in acting on trolls than we have been, instead of telling people to just use the ignore feature as that often isn't used by the people affected and doesn't solve the problem in the first place. It should still be an option for people to have so they can block out people that annoy them but aren't doing anything wrong, but definately not used as the first line of defense against trolls/others that harass people in chat.

[shell]

I have sat here for some time reading down through everything carefully.

I had a rather long post, replying to this and that.......
But then.....I remember the road that Lady X took............and that road took her from here.

So instead....I sit quietly......listening.........

[seraph0x]

I have honestly been told by chat mods that they are afraid to take action against certain trolls because they are scared they will lose their status as a mod.

I'm not involved with chat bans one way or the other. Chat bans are up to Jen, site-wide bans are up to me. (Currently IP bans are site-wide for technical reasons, but I fully intend to build something that lets the chat mods issue IP bans for the chat only.)

I would get involved if I thought the chat policy is so far removed from our values that I just don't want the site to be associated with it anymore. But that would have to go way far beyond a couple of ban decisions I don't agree with.

There are many bad reasons for a ban, as a mod you can get talked into taking sides in disputes or get manipulated into banning the wrong person. So I try to teach our mods to be cautious with bans and try every other measure first. Solving an issue is a victory, banning somebody is a defeat. Moderating is also a team effort, so it's a good idea to get a second opinion unless it's an extreme emergency. Accountability is also good, so if a ban is potentially controversial it's a good idea to document the offense and the reasoning for the response in the chat mod forum or Team forum respectively. Finally, a measured response is good, so a temporary ban should be tried before a permanent ban is considered.

All of that said, none of this is set in stone. A mod should make an effort to be neutral and use their best judgement and I do believe that I can sense when that's the case. If I thought a mod was making an honest effort to act in the spirit of objectivity and respect for all I would never punish them, even if I thought their decision was wrong.

@Banquo: I have a feeling you may be prone to ask for bans for the wrong reasons, so I hope chat mods will continue to tell you no on ban requests many times. But I certainly hope they will no longer do so because they are afraid of me or Jen, but simply because they are trying to do a good job as mods.

Back on topic: To answer Jen's question: Yes it's certainly technically possible to have 24 hour logs accessible by all and full logs accessible by mods only. Perhaps we've found a compromise acceptable to all?

If this is the decision we'll add the logs to the todo list. I'd estimate that I could to doing this in anywhere from a few weeks to maybe two months or so depending on how much time I have as there is some high priority stuff I want to get done first. My time situation may also change at some point in July/August and if that happens I want the Eos private beta released beforehand and that would mean putting everything else on ice for a bit. I feel like if I don't get Eos out this year, it won't come out until twenty-god-knows-when.

[les]

I would like to see about 5 or 10 minutes back chat,
When entering a room
To get a feel of the current conversations.
Like the old chat room did at one time,

And the listing of members inside before entering.

[Mistress Jenifer]

I would like to see about 5 or 10 minutes back chat,
When entering a room
To get a feel of the current conversations.
Like the old chat room did at one time,

And the listing of members inside before entering.

There is that.

If I am not mistaken you get to see....25 lines of the chat prior to your entering the chat (excluding the lines stating when someone enters and leaves) and I think those can be time-stamped as well by enabling the feature if it exists in Candychat.
25 lines actually surpasses what flashchat did which only gave you like... 8? or 7? idk it was some low amount.

[Dream_On]

@Banquo: I have a feeling you may be prone to ask for bans for the wrong reasons, so I hope chat mods will continue to tell you no on ban requests many times. But I certainly hope they will no longer do so because they are afraid of me or Jen, but simply because they are trying to do a good job as mods.

I have not seen Banquo or anyone else for that matter ask for bans because they didn't like someone. People just want to see action taken when there is a situation that merits it. They want to know that the mods and admins are looking out for the community as they should be.

[Banquo]

I have honestly been told by chat mods that they are afraid to take action against certain trolls because they are scared they will lose their status as a mod.

Spoiler: show

I'm not involved with chat bans one way or the other. Chat bans are up to Jen, site-wide bans are up to me. (Currently IP bans are site-wide for technical reasons, but I fully intend to build something that lets the chat mods issue IP bans for the chat only.)

I would get involved if I thought the chat policy is so far removed from our values that I just don't want the site to be associated with it anymore. But that would have to go way far beyond a couple of ban decisions I don't agree with.

There are many bad reasons for a ban, as a mod you can get talked into taking sides in disputes or get manipulated into banning the wrong person. So I try to teach our mods to be cautious with bans and try every other measure first. Solving an issue is a victory, banning somebody is a defeat. Moderating is also a team effort, so it's a good idea to get a second opinion unless it's an extreme emergency. Accountability is also good, so if a ban is potentially controversial it's a good idea to document the offense and the reasoning for the response in the chat mod forum or Team forum respectively. Finally, a measured response is good, so a temporary ban should be tried before a permanent ban is considered.

All of that said, none of this is set in stone. A mod should make an effort to be neutral and use their best judgement and I do believe that I can sense when that's the case. If I thought a mod was making an honest effort to act in the spirit of objectivity and respect for all I would never punish them, even if I thought their decision was wrong.

@Banquo: I have a feeling you may be prone to ask for bans for the wrong reasons, so I hope chat mods will continue to tell you no on ban requests many times. But I certainly hope they will no longer do so because they are afraid of me or Jen, but simply because they are trying to do a good job as mods.

Ok, firstly thank you for a good well explained response about this subject. As this has been a big issue in the past. I can honestly say I have never asked for a member to be banned. I along with other members did write a PM to Jen around 4 months ago asking her to deal with a member who was essentially running riot in the chat. This PM held the signatures of (off the top of my head) around 8 or more of the regulars and at least one mod. We asked for some kind of action. Anything to help us deal with this pest. And until very recently, nothing was done. And this member was allowed to bully and harass almost anyone who came into the chat. Now this situation could have been nipped in the bud long before we needed to write a letter to the admin.

Back on topic: To answer Jen's question: Yes it's certainly technically possible to have 24 hour logs accessible by all and full logs accessible by mods only. Perhaps we've found a compromise acceptable to all?

This is exactly the kind of compromise I was hoping for, in truth I never used the facility that flashchat had where you could look back up to two weeks (I think it was that long) I had access to it, but was not interested in anything other than the last 24 hours.

If this is the decision we'll add the logs to the todo list. I'd estimate that I could to doing this in anywhere from a few weeks to maybe two months or so depending on how much time I have as there is some high priority stuff I want to get done first. My time situation may also change at some point in July/August and if that happens I want the Eos private beta released beforehand and that would mean putting everything else on ice for a bit. I feel like if I don't get Eos out this year, it won't come out until twenty-god-knows-when.

Of course, I completely understand that the logs won't be a priority, there are bugs etc to squish first. But *smiles* I am happy they now seem to be on the to-do list.

And the listing of members inside before entering.

This ^^ I certainly used to make use of this feature *smiles* again, not a priority, but something that I would love to see on the to-do list.

I do not find the ignore feature to be a solution to problems in chat like trolls. Most will act in the manner of the insect that was removed and move on to a different target when the initial target stops responding. Thus the ignore may have stopped the troll from bothering one person, but it did not resolve the issue of the troll harassing people. I think we need to be more proactive in acting on trolls than we have been, instead of telling people to just use the ignore feature as that often isn't used by the people affected and doesn't solve the problem in the first place. It should still be an option for people to have so they can block out people that annoy them but aren't doing anything wrong, but definately not used as the first line of defense against trolls/others that harass people in chat.

Completely agree with this. What can I say. Ignoring something doesn't make it go away. As stupid as it sounds, I find that using the ignore feature makes the issue worse, especially if you are the one being attacked. (you can probably tell I like to stick up for my self) and not being able to see what a would be troll is saying about me does not make me comfortable in the chat room. I do remember the ignore feature being useful one time though when there was a guy who was just posting one letter per line etc (essentially spamming the chat.) But as I recall he was booted by a mod in the end, or muted or something. But when dealing with certain honey loving trolls, ignoring them just shifts the bullies target onto the next victim.

Banquo

[les]

Will we mere mortals be able to make and use the private room facility?
And I assume these and Private chats will not be for public logging?

[Snare]

I said I was gonna stay out of this, but as it is chat and I am one of the moderators, I think my opinions should be heard.

1. I am against all public logs. I don't see much of a use for them (besides admin use) and I would rather not have to deal with the issues that can occur with having them. But the tribe has spoken, and if my fellow moderators don't have a problem with it I will back off and let it all happen again. (The 2 users that abused the chat logs used logs that were not even 24 hours old.)

2. I had an issue with this statement:

So I try to teach our mods to be cautious with bans and try every other measure first. Solving an issue is a victory, banning somebody is a defeat.

I was never told by you how to manage bans. I got all my knowledge from Jen, Indy, and my own common sense. If there is a certain rules you would like us (chat moderators) to follow or advice you would like to share with the 3 of us about kicks, bans, etc, please post on our forum so that we can know as well.

Signed with a
Snare

P.S. Edited cause I noticed a mistake. I like my posts to be perfect.