Chatroom - Minimum Post Limit - 10 Posts

From Sunday (19th August) we are imposing a minimum forum post count requirement of 10 posts before members can use the chatroom.

The reason for this is that we are concerned about the number of people (some showing their orientation as "Straight") signing up just to use the chatroom, and the conversations that have taken place in there between them (mostly in private chats). I think some people have become aware of its existence as a free chatroom that allows private chats, and are just using it for that despite having no interest in what EC is about.

By setting this post count minimum (which is the same as the use of the galleries and blogs) we should limit the use of the chatroom to genuine EC members, who are the people it is really intended for.

Anyone attempting to use the chatroom without sufficient forum posts will see an error message denying them access. Hopefully I will be able to edit this message to explain the reason.

Anyone making rubbish forum posts just to get their post count up to the limit is likely to be banned from the chatroom until they have shown (by means of proper forum posts) that they are genuine EC members.

If you encounter anyone in the chatroom who is not an active forum member, you may want to tell them about this change.

 

Re: Chatroom - Minimum Post Limit

I have just sent a PM to the 121 people that have logged into the chatroom over the last few weeks.

 

Re: Chatroom - Minimum Post Limit

Yes, we can see what's been discussed in private chats, though we don't read any of the stuff (public chatroom or private chats) in detail - it would be too time-consuming and probably boring! We do skim through it all though, and tend to take more notice of what unfamiliar usernames are saying.

It looks like an EC member is getting all his/her straight friends to sign up just so they can use the chatroom for their own purposes. That's not what it's for, and is what this is intended to stop.

Yes, you're a geek. But don't worry, we won't be forceably downloading a piece of software to prove people are "Genuine EC Members"!

I had a PM from one person, concerned that some people may genuinely want to use the chatroom and not the forum, and are the sort of people EC is intended for. We can always make special arrangements for specific people on request, if it proves necessary.

 

Re: Chatroom - Minimum Post Limit

Yep. Though as I said, we have better things to do than read it all. There is masses of it in the logs, with private and public chats all mixed up together. We just skim through looking for inappropriate discussions, usernames we don't recognise etc.

 

Re: Chatroom - Minimum Post Limit

This change is now done.

We will be watching for people who just make 10 trivial posts then use the chatroom and never post any more. If we become aware of people doing this we may add additional restrictions on chatroom use, for example a higher post threshold and/or a posts per month requirement.

 

Re: Chatroom - Minimum Post Limit

That's exactly what I was wondering. They can have their own private chat, without having to use some unrelated site and without being bothered by the moderators of that site!

 

Re: Chatroom - Minimum Post Limit

I was tempted to delete those two posts for neatness, but that would be cruel!

 

Re: Chatroom - Minimum Post Limit

I have now fixed the error message on this if you don't have enough posts (it previously said people were banned, which was not very helpful).