Moderators and Admins is the commonly used terminology these days,
Ive been involved in Internet chat around 8 years by now , Ive set up and helped run rooms , its a fairly thankless job to be honest . Most people just get along , you will like in every other walk of life get the odd sociopath or other personality disorder hell bent on mayhem, Flip side of that coin is when the Mods and Admins form a cabal and start behaving with impunity , favouritism creeps in and nice guys n gals get washed away like the snow and the rain .
In my experience the simpler you keep the interface the less hassle. Depending on the software theres all kinds of tools available such as ,giving mods or admins the abillity to sneak a look at peoples web cams or evesdrop on other users private messages's , to hold chat logs or not is another option on most softwares, then you could decide to give regular users access to logs etc . In my limited experience any of the so called mod or admin 'super powers' eventually lead to confidence breakdowns .Even if you do keep chat logs , its safer not to make them available to regular members or even staff unless theres a strong reason with checks and balances built in .
I guess over the years I found myself both sides of the fence , either as a regular chatter fighting against abuse of power by admins or trying to get genuinely nasty people removed , or trying to stand up for vulnerable souls. Ive seen attempts at blackmail , suicidal cries for help that ended up with law enforcement involved , fell out of contact with people I was good friends with , people simply dropping dead etc.
On the upside Ive made friends with people from 'Smalltown' middle of nowhere and got many interesting views on life in far away places .
I tried to form a room without the usual pryamid heirarchical structures ,so no one person had to handle taking out the trash ,which often brings a backlash such as room hackers etc .
Ive settled on a fairly well run place in more recent years , a bit like the brewery we dont all agree on everything ,but when you get to know where people stand its easier not to step on each others toes .
Met some nice girls , some not so nice , One girl a school teacher from Belfast started out posting nudes in pm , then links to her extra marital sex tapes to every man in the room , culminated in her asking me and another Irish guy to meet up for a threesome in a hotel , got a bit of a giggle off it but it was never going to happen .
Theres some strange fish out there for sure ;D
My guess is forming a chat from users here isnt such a bad idea , there being a common interest , more than about 15 or 20 in a room at a time and things tend to fragment a bit though.
The less rules the better in my opinion , often you find a list of banned words in rooms , its really the context a word is used that counts I think. In any case it only requires a little creativity with the keyboard to get around word bans, better treat people like adults not school children .
Anyway hope to see a few more try out the new space , building a room by concensus where everybody has a stake might be worth a try.
Ive been involved in Internet chat around 8 years by now , Ive set up and helped run rooms , its a fairly thankless job to be honest . Most people just get along , you will like in every other walk of life get the odd sociopath or other personality disorder hell bent on mayhem, Flip side of that coin is when the Mods and Admins form a cabal and start behaving with impunity , favouritism creeps in and nice guys n gals get washed away like the snow and the rain .
In my experience the simpler you keep the interface the less hassle. Depending on the software theres all kinds of tools available such as ,giving mods or admins the abillity to sneak a look at peoples web cams or evesdrop on other users private messages's , to hold chat logs or not is another option on most softwares, then you could decide to give regular users access to logs etc . In my limited experience any of the so called mod or admin 'super powers' eventually lead to confidence breakdowns .Even if you do keep chat logs , its safer not to make them available to regular members or even staff unless theres a strong reason with checks and balances built in .
I guess over the years I found myself both sides of the fence , either as a regular chatter fighting against abuse of power by admins or trying to get genuinely nasty people removed , or trying to stand up for vulnerable souls. Ive seen attempts at blackmail , suicidal cries for help that ended up with law enforcement involved , fell out of contact with people I was good friends with , people simply dropping dead etc.
On the upside Ive made friends with people from 'Smalltown' middle of nowhere and got many interesting views on life in far away places .
I tried to form a room without the usual pryamid heirarchical structures ,so no one person had to handle taking out the trash ,which often brings a backlash such as room hackers etc .
Ive settled on a fairly well run place in more recent years , a bit like the brewery we dont all agree on everything ,but when you get to know where people stand its easier not to step on each others toes .
Met some nice girls , some not so nice , One girl a school teacher from Belfast started out posting nudes in pm , then links to her extra marital sex tapes to every man in the room , culminated in her asking me and another Irish guy to meet up for a threesome in a hotel , got a bit of a giggle off it but it was never going to happen .
Theres some strange fish out there for sure ;D
My guess is forming a chat from users here isnt such a bad idea , there being a common interest , more than about 15 or 20 in a room at a time and things tend to fragment a bit though.
The less rules the better in my opinion , often you find a list of banned words in rooms , its really the context a word is used that counts I think. In any case it only requires a little creativity with the keyboard to get around word bans, better treat people like adults not school children .
Anyway hope to see a few more try out the new space , building a room by concensus where everybody has a stake might be worth a try.
