A change in status for the chatbox

(24-04-2011 23:33 )iloveMegan Wrote:  While the "new" Chat does already have a long member list, the overwhelming majority of those people have not logged in to the chatroom itself (at least to my knowledge). There's only a handful of people that are regular users and all are friendly and follow the rules. As I said earlier, anyone who doesn't will be be dealt with accordingly.

While I can see where Deb is coming from, I think having the forum and Chat as two separate sites is a good thing. The Chat has run much better since the split, and it means any users who are banned from the forum can still access the Chat (which has come in very handy today )

Thanks for acknowledging my concerns and I take your point about things going well with this system so far.

But honestly, “any users who are banned from the forum can still access the Chat” doesn’t do much to reassure me - I assume people are banned from the forum for good and proper reasons.

Those people who register but don’t go in are another case entirely; most likely entirely innocent, but who knows why they’ve done that.

(24-04-2011 23:51 )Deb x Wrote:  But honestly, “any users who are banned from the forum can still access the Chat” doesn’t do much to reassure me - I assume people are banned from the forum for good and proper reasons.

And in most cases they are, but I think you're aware of the situation with tsurugi today.

(24-04-2011 23:51 )Deb x Wrote:  Those people who register but don’t go in are another case entirely; most likely entirely innocent, but who knows why they’ve done that.

I don't really know either. I suspect a few signed up when the original announcement was made, but why they haven't logged in, I couldn't say.

(25-04-2011 00:02 )iloveMegan Wrote:  

(24-04-2011 23:51 )Deb x Wrote:  But honestly, “any users who are banned from the forum can still access the Chat” doesn’t do much to reassure me - I assume people are banned from the forum for good and proper reasons.

And in most cases they are, but I think you're aware of the situation with tsurugi today.

Actually, not as much as you seem to think. I know he’s been banned, but I have no idea why. I didn’t know he’d been in the chatbox today so had no clue that’s who you were referring to. I assumed you meant it as a general rule.

Anyway, the more I'm learning about this, the more I'm becoming convinced it's only a matter of time before someone dubious takes advantage of the way it's set up. I wish you the best of luck if that happens, because I wouldn not want to be a moderator when it starts getting complicated.

(25-04-2011 00:14 )Deb x Wrote:  Actually, not as much as you seem to think. I know he’s been banned, but I have no idea why. I didn’t know he’d been in the chatbox today so had no clue that’s who you were referring to. I assumed you meant it as a general rule.

My apologies. As I understand it, tsurugi was banned from the forum due to a post he made while arguing with another forum member. This other member had also posted some questionable material, but has gone unpunished. I personally don't believe the post that got tsu banned would be enough to get him banned from the Chat, as what he said was obviously a joke. So in this case, if the Chat wasn't separate, he would be unable to use it, despite not breaking any of the Chat's rules.

(25-04-2011 00:14 )Deb x Wrote:  Anyway, the more I'm learning about this, the more I'm becoming convinced it's only a matter of time before someone dubious takes advantage of the way it's set up.

Takes advantage in what way? Even if a formerly banned member was to create a new account with the separate Chat section, they would still have to abide by the rules, so what would they have to gain?

(25-04-2011 00:22 )gazfc Wrote:  No offense to the chat box mods but could we please have some of these issues cleared up by admin?


As it seems that everyone is a bit confused as to whats going on

As far as I can see the concerns raised in this thread regarding the running of the chatbox have been answered very capably by iloveMegan. However, if there is anything regarding how the chatbox operates which iloveMegan's replies in this thread have not made clear, then just state here what the issues are which still need to be clarified and I'll be happy to provide some further explanation.

(25-04-2011 08:05 )admin Wrote:  As far as I can see the concerns raised in this thread regarding the running of the chatbox have been answered very capably by iloveMegan. However, if there is anything regarding how the chatbox operates which iloveMegan's replies in this thread have not made clear, then just state here what the issues are which still need to be clarified and I'll be happy to provide some further explanation.

Can you clarify my point regarding the way that you can sign up totally independantly from the forum to the chatbox, my concern here is that
you dont neceserily know who you are talking to, this will lead to all sorts of problems, theres 44,000 odd users of the forum and maybe 50 signed up for chatbox, whats to stop someone with a grudge signing up for chatbox as someone else's log in? are these IP's checked back to ensure that there is no messing?
Are similar sense checks being performed for multiple user id's in the way that they are on the forum to help prevent this?

Incidentally....on a seperate point and maybe this is more for SMC than admin, I notice there are only 50 signed up and at least 20 of those I have never seen in chatbox despite using it regular over the last 12 months, are they in the clique? .

(25-04-2011 03:10 )iloveMegan Wrote:  

(25-04-2011 00:14 )Deb x Wrote:  Anyway, the more I'm learning about this, the more I'm becoming convinced it's only a matter of time before someone dubious takes advantage of the way it's set up.

Takes advantage in what way? Even if a formerly banned member was to create a new account with the separate Chat section, they would still have to abide by the rules, so what would they have to gain?

That’s exactly the sort of scenario I’m concerned about. During my time on here, I’ve occasionally received PMs from members which have been fairly disgusting. I’ve ignored them, and mostly, those members have been subsequently banned for inappropriate behaviour on the main forum anyway.

Now, they can come back and jump straight into the chatbox under another name: could be something they’ve made up, or they could use someone else’s name with a good posting record, presumably . If they’re in the chatbox and start bombarding me with filthy, extreme whispers, then yes, the mods will act, obviously that hasn’t changed.

But my point is, before, at least I had a chance of suspecting they were likely to be troublesome so I could put them on ignore straightaway, before the whispers started. As you say, they do have to abide by the rules, but that only comes into play after the offences have been committed.

The thing they have to gain with this new system is a completely clean sheet. If you’ve been up to no good in the past, and suddenly there’s this extra opportunity to erase your history, then that sounds like a pretty good deal to me. I do understand that the multiple-identity people have been doing this on the forum for ages, but now there’s a whole new venue where this can be exploited.

I would be interested to know if you, as a chatbox mod, have the ability to quickly cross-reference the forum and chatbox IPs; I’d think that would be essential under this new system.


Thanks for explaining about tsurugi - not my place to comment on that ban, but there’s probably some room for clarification of the chatroom rules which do state “the chatbox follows the same rules as the UK Babe Channels forum” because the way you’ve explained it people can do what they like on the forum and still use the chatbox.

(25-04-2011 06:43 )elgar1uk Wrote:  

(25-04-2011 03:10 )iloveMegan Wrote:  Even if a formerly banned member was to create a new account with the separate Chat section, they would still have to abide by the rules, so what would they have to gain?

Thank you for your above comment iloveMegan. This is what I was referring to in Post: #8 of this thread when I said the following:

Quote:Why is it a 'free for all' when the chatbox has it's own moderators?

I get what you mean Elgar, but I think you’ve misunderstood what I initially meant by ‘free for all’ in my first post, as I explained here.
Hope that clears it up. Unless you're intimating you know what I meant better than I did when I posted 'free for all'...



Re. Sooky’s post - there do seem to be two separate discussions going on here - smc's the chatbox ’clique’ and security concerns about the ‘new’ chatbox. It does seem like it would be perfectly possible, at this point, to split the thread, if the second discussion is moving too far away from the original post.

(25-04-2011 10:29 )simplymarko Wrote:  Can you clarify my point regarding the way that you can sign up totally independantly from the forum to the chatbox, my concern here is that
you dont neceserily know who you are talking to, this will lead to all sorts of problems, theres 44,000 odd users of the forum and maybe 50 signed up for chatbox, whats to stop someone with a grudge signing up for chatbox as someone else's log in? are these IP's checked back to ensure that there is no messing?

It's not necessary to check IP addresses, although that could always be done if it was wanted (the IP addresses used in both places will be on record). If someone is using the same name as a forum member you can verify whether it's the same person by sending the forum member a PM and asking them to reply to verify that they have registered with the chatbox using the same username. This is an easy way for someone to verify their identity.

(25-04-2011 18:01 )simplymarko Wrote:  Although I do understand what you mean admin, I cannot see it is practical for chatbox users/Chat Mods to PM forum members with the same name should dubious behavior arise asking 'was it you?'

I wasn't suggesting that it be done only if dubious behaviour arises. It could be done at anytime.