The information contained in this document is for your eyes only.
Please do NOT forward it to anyone else for any reason!
There is a great deal of information to pass on to a new moderator. This rather lengthy guide has been prepared as a reference to be kept and read at leisure. File it away and refer to it whenever you have procedural questions which arise from time to time. It’s a long read, but it will save a heap of questions in the future!
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The 321 Chatrooms (and there are 13 of them) are all owned by Greg Barrow, whom we generally refer to as "Admin" or the “Site Admin” when speaking of him with the chatters.
There are also three mods with “admin” status;
China Doll (aka ChatCat),
Paul (aka ChatMaster) and
Kim
They have to keep a constant check on chats to prevent lag by resetting the server whenever required.
When lag strikes, you can email any or all of us for a reset. No need for a message, just put "Lag - reset, please?" in the subject and send. Whichever of us gets it first will check the status and reset, if it's still lagged. (Some of us also have other chatters who email us when there's lag.)
To make life easy, enter us all in your mail contacts as a “group”, or as “Reset 1”, Reset 2”...etc.
Kim - message via the forums
<fifichinadoll@hotmail.com>
<chatmaster@321chat.com>
Lag has been greatly reduced in the past year and has almost been eliminated.
Basic mod rules and info:
The “Chat Rules” as stated in the link on the entry page of your particular chatroom are your main guide. Please familiarise yourself with them.
However, over time, we have added some as new misbehaviour appears:
1. Instantly ban the "camwhores" who openly (or covertly via their profiles) advertise cam shows. Even the ones who claim it's free of charge, as they're paid by the number of hits they get to the website, etc. (See Tips & Hints at the end of this document) And this includes people who are offering cash for cam services.
2. Instantly ban anyone who floods chat a number of times with large posts intended to disrupt. Don't bother to warn them...just ban. Edit the default message to give them an indication as to why they've been banned. Only warn chatters who are just being a bit silly, but are not flooding maliciously. You'll recognise the difference.
3. Instantly ban any chatter who is openly a paedophile or tries to discuss (or make rooms about) incest or bestiality. You are under no obligation to warn them. However, it's your call, depending upon the situation.
4. Instantly ban "profile kickers". These are chatters who normally, but not always, use a double login (two chat windows) to kick other chatters for fun. If a chatter complains about being kicked, check the IP of the most likely suspects, then see if there's another user with the same IP. If it's a regular who's doing it to get rid of a pest, you could maybe kick out the second login with a message like "wouldn't it be a shame if this chatter had to be banned?!" That should suffice to warn the kicker that s/he's been spotted!
NOTE....there's no rule against a chatter having two logins if s/he simply wishes to "multi-task", however. We've noticed, over the years, that the occasional chatter logs in with two different nicknames in order to "be" two different people. If it's being done for mischievous purposes, by all means kick one out, otherwise, you can leave him/her alone.
5. Instantly ban a hacker. This may be a chatter who claims to be a hacker, or does something which demonstrates s/he is not a "normal" chatter, like making mass rooms on the rooms list, etc. Please provide a screen shot.
If you're not sure, pm (private message) and ask careful, casual questions. (Don’t bully, and don’t accuse...it’s not wise to make a hackbrat angry!) You can make your own judgement from the responses. Generally speaking, mods are asked not to chat to hackbrats by request of the site admin.
6. Instantly ban a nasty cloner unless you suspect it might be a regular chatter having a bit of fun. If that's the case, pm and warn them. If they persist, ban them. Again, use your own judgement.
7. Instantly ban an underage chatter in an adult chat with the extra message typed in the ban box saying ....please try www.321TeenChat.com or please try www.321GayTeenChat.com - whichever is applicable. Many mods believe it’s nicer to pm teens and tell them they shouldn’t be in the adult chat and should go to the teenchats, but let’s face it, they already know that and decided to come into an adult chat anyway! If you ask them to leave, they’ll simply come back with a different nic, or on another occasion. Easier to ban them straight away and save future hassles. (Open their profile in case they leave as soon as you pm them....it’ll help identify them if they return minutes later under a new nickname.)
8. Instantly ban an overage chatter in a teen chat.... no extra message required in the ban box, but it’s up to you. There’s always going to be predatory adults in teenchats, but there’s often young adults who would rather chat to teens than other, older adults, understandably. If a chatter is 20-25, say, you may like to add a message to the ban box saying ...”try http://www.ChitChatting.com/adult.html for a younger adult crowd”. It’s up to you.
Banning:
Think twice before banning!
It's not a pleasant experience to be banned from a chatroom, so please use the ban button sparingly. For the most part, warnings and/or kickings will suffice.
Banning/kicking procedure -
1. Click on the offender's name on the list and bring up his profile. Slide it over to the side of your screen. Now, no matter what happens, you still have his details. (Not recommended in TeenChat where many users have their URL ‘protectors’ operating to prevent themselves being kicked by other users.)
2. Click on his name in the list and then on the ban button. This will open the ban window.
3. Check that you have the right chatter!!! (Often the list jumps around and you may have the ban window open on the wrong person!)
4. You will see a default message in the window...."You have been disconnected from DigiChat by the ChatMaster."
This message can also be deleted and/or added to. If you are banning an under 18 chatter, for example, you might add
....please try www.321TeenChat.com
If the chatter refused to take your advice... for example, to stop explicit sexchat and ignored your private messages to try 321SexChat.com, you might add.... please try www.321SexChat.com
If you have decided the chatter is to be banned for a week, you could add "....for one week."
If a chatter ignores your requests to hit his caps lock, you might delete the ban box message and type in - Lose the caps!!! Then just kick him.
...and so on.
5. If you only wish to kick the chatter as a warning, click on "Kick". The chatter will be booted out, but can then log back in.
If you wish to ban the chatter, check the box beside "Ban this user's IP....." then click on "Kick". In most cases, this chatter is now banned.
If the chatter is someone we might want to keep out for a longer period than usual, such as a hacker, flooder, nasty cloner, etc., please check the box beside "Ban this user's host" as well. In such cases, checking both boxes will show us more info about the chatter in case we need to impose a server ban on him.*
[Note - in some chats, mods are instructed to always check both boxes. If that applies to your chat, please do so. In general, we actually prefer both boxes to be checked unless both the IP and host line are identical.]
*Many chatters cannot be banned by the usual methods because they have dynamic IP's. If these people need to be kept out, please ask/email a mod (or admin) who knows how to enter server bans, giving them the ban number(s) from the list and the IP. If you have banned the same person several times, include all ban numbers as the more IP’s we have, the easier it is to formulate the server ban.
6. Whatever the case, ALWAYS check the name in the ban box against the profile you have brought up in case you have the wrong person!!!
If you ever feel unsure that you've banned the right person, go into the ban list and check the ban against the profile which you still have sitting on your desktop. If you have made a mistake, remove the ban (by suspending it with - - - before the IP and add a note to the end of the IP) you have just imposed...both lines of it, where necessary. Then enter the correct ban manually. If you forgot to bring up the profile and you're uncertain, remove the ban anyway. Far better to unban an offender than to leave an innocent chatter banned!
If you bring up the profile, then pm the chatter about his age or whatever, and he "does a runner" (immediately logs out), open the bans list and manually enter the ban by clicking on "Add" and typing in the IP from the profile window, then clicking "OK".
7. After banning the chatter, go to the bans list and type in the info on the banned person. Say who it was (if you can remember the nic), reason, date, and your nic (so we know who to contact if there's any queries)....for example:
2187 220.235.57.42
2188 dip-220-235-57-42.wa.westnet.com.au
2189 ^ Frank / vicious serial cloner / Apr8 / Bear
1339 62.185.47.0
1340 ^ 19F Ashley / camwhore / Apr8 / China
1667 873.82.98.66
1668 ^ Jimmy / fighting, remove in one week / Apr8/ Kim
You will find examples in the ban list.
(Please enter date as shown, rather than 8/4 or 4/8, as Nth Americans and UK/Aust/NZ write them opposite way round!)
However, if it’s very busy and you’re being driven nuts, it’s understandable if you miss this step.
NB....don't forget!! Before closing the panel, click "Save" (at the bottom of the panel)!
DELETING BANS:
Mods are not permitted to delete any bans, ever.
If you banned someone by mistake or banned someone for a period of time, you are required to suspend that ban.
To suspend a ban, you click the ban, click edit, add - - - at the very start before the IP leaving a space between the hyphen and the numbers then add a note at the end after the IP and include the date and your mod user name.
Before banning -
When a chatter is behaving badly, this is the best procedure -
1. Warn in pm - private message. No-one likes being told off in front of others, so if you warn on main (that is, the main chatscreen), it may embarrass the chatter and make him abusive, which will end up with you having to ban him. [Sometimes, all you have to do is pm with one word - "Behave". That will show them there's a mod present who is watching the room and they will usually stop their bad behaviour.] 321Teen and 321Sex has a warn system - it's useful and stops the user replying to you privately - useful when you're invisible.
2. If the chatter ignores you, you may choose to warn once more, or twice...your call. The final warning could be in the ban box before kicking him.
3. If the chatter doesn't modify their behaviour, ban them.
Please note...we do NOT ban a chatter on the word of another chatter! If you don't witness an objectionable pm, for example, or weren't present when a chatter was behaving badly, you cannot ban them.
[Exceptions are possible, however, in certain cases. If, for example, a newcomer is obviously pm'ing all the ladies with objectionable remarks, they will all be screaming at him on main, so he should be warned/banned.
If chatters complain about someone who is just being annoying, but you don't feel he's annoying enough, tell them to redline him.]
Finally...NEVER remove any ban on the list that you didn't place there...NEVER!!!
You may not remove a ban unless it's one of your own bans, which you may have accidentally imposed or maybe intended to be a temporary ban...a day, or a week or whatever. Use the suspend procedure we have put in place and is explained above. Do Not DELETE A Ban. (Admins clear the bans that are over one-two months old.) We have made that a hard and fast rule for a long time, now. We do NOT remove other mods' bans.
If you hear of a chatter who has been accidentally or unfairly banned, you email the mod who imposed the ban (it should be signed) and ask if s/he could remove it or explain the ban. If the matter cannot be resolved, please email an admin who will remove the ban when we’re satisfied the reason is valid.
Don’t forget.... chatters can also appeal their own bans by using the links provided on the login pages, so there’s not really any reason for a mod to become involved in an appeal.
The Digichat panel....access by clicking on "Set Site Options..."
1. Chatwatch (may not be made available to some mods depending on the chatroom) - life would be difficult for mods if we didn't have chatwatch! In it, we can censor inappropriate words, racist words, etc., but more importantly, we can enter codes so that instead of typing the same messages over and over again, we can just type the code for that message. (Sadly, the codes don’t work in the ban boxes!) You will find our chatwatch entries very useful. Take the time to browse through them... go into an empty room and type in all the codes to go through them to familiarise yourself with them.
Make up your own codes* and messages as required (or email an admin to enter a new one..... but always make sure there is no existing ChatWatch of what you’d like to see added.)
You can edit or remove items by clicking on the item in ChatWatch, then on Edit or Remove, then click Save at the bottom of the window. However, please don't edit or remove any existing chatwatch unless you ask an admin first.
Some of the sites have particular chatwatch IDs that are to be edited over and over instead of adding many new chatwatches.
*Warning! Always make sure the code word is something that chatters would never type themselves, otherwise they'll accidentally be entering the messages! (Except for asl, of course)
Also, do not EVER tell chatters the codes for the chatwatch messages, or they'll all be using them in no time and driving everyone crazy. Some chatters already know some of the codes, but we don't want anyone knowing any more!
2. Categories/Rooms Tab - click on "Digichat Categories" in the left column, which will reveal the current rooms in this chat. The red tick must always be present against Lobby. If it's ever missing, simply click under the red tick column beside Lobby.
If there's an offensive room made by chatters that you wish to remove, click on it, click on Remove, then click Save at the bottom of the window...... although it’s best just to edit the room’s name to something harmless and check the entry/exit message box so that the occupants won’t notice the name change!
If necessary, you can also add a room by clicking Add.
3. In the Digichat controls, the second item is Send Chat Broadcast. We don't use it much (because it annoys the chatters), but it's useful to warn a room that it's about to close..... such as an Incest Room. (There's a drop-down list of rooms to choose from)
It's also fun to wish a chatter a happy birthday, or wish the whole chat Happy Valentine's Day....etc. As a general rule, though, please don’t use it.
(Some sites don’t allow mods access to Broadcast at all.)
General info...
1. Please greet chatters. This is most important and can be observed in most chatrooms. Generally chatters will greet new arrivals, but sometimes they don't, and can leave the newcomer feeling ignored. It is therefore up to the mod to greet and make the new arrival feel welcome. (Not so important in the large chatrooms, but still appreciated!)
2. Don’t feel you need to spend any more time in chat (as a mod) than you presently do. We appreciate your time, but don’t want your everyday life to suffer!
We do have a rule that if there's a mod already in chat when you enter, that mod is the "duty mod"...ie., the one who does the private message warnings and kickings, and such. We found in the past that absurd situations occurred where one mod was busy typing a warning message in pm to a chatter and was halfway through, when another mod kicked the chatter out! Or one mod would warn on main that caps should not be used, followed almost immediately by the same warning from the other mod.
If the present duty mod wants you to take over, s/he will tell you.
If it’s a large chat, take a moment to decide who is focussing on what...maybe one could watch the lobby chat and what problems arise there, whilst another could be watching the list for under/overagers, inappropriate nicknames, illegal rooms, etc. whilst patrolling side rooms.
And remember....you are under no obligation whatsoever to be in chat for any specific time or days. You are as free to chat at times of your own choosing as you are now. However if you feel you will be away for a long period of time, let us know.
3. Your position as mod gives you privileged access to info about chatters, such as their locations, based on their IP's. This should be treated with respect, of course. Such info must not be passed on to other chatters....especially IP's!!
(For example, if an English chatter wishes to pretend that s/he's American, that's his/her business, not ours!)
If (for your own purposes) you need to find the location of a chatter based on their IP, you may wish to use these websites like these...bookmark them...
http://whois.domaintools.com/
http://www.geobytes.com/IpLocator.htm
4. If a chatter complains that someone has been banned unfairly/accidentally and, after checking with the rest of the mods, you find this is apparently so, you will need to find out the banned person's IP. Surprisingly, many people don't know how to find their own IP, so always insist that they use a site like the following to make sure they give you the right one:
http://www.WhatIsMyIp.com/
(To find an IP on the bans list, click on the "Name" heading which automatically sorts the list into alphanumerical order.)
5. Fairly obviously we cannot impose our own personal morality on the room. If a mod detests bad language, for example, that's his/her prerogative, but s/he cannot insist that chatters refrain from bad language. (We do not have to tolerate some extremes, however!)
Common sense is always our guide. If a fight breaks out between two chatters, it's your call as to how long you let them go or how far you let it escalate. There's heaps of things chatters can do which require your intervention, as you'd be aware of.....someone private messaging too frequently...being an utter pest on main....flooding....etc.
However, if a chatter complains about another chatter’s behaviour on main, if you don't consider it to be overly offensive, just tell them to redline!
6. Please be more tolerant with regular chatters than you might be with casual 'blow-ins'. Our regs may on occasion be in a bad or mischievous mood and misbehave a little....a warning or a short ban (anything from an hour to a week (then suspending, not deleting), as befits the 'crime') is usually all that is necessary.
7. If you don't know how to take screen shots, please find out. Sometimes it's important to take shots of a situation for purposes of evidence in a dispute between chatters, or you and a chatter, or even a hacker in chat. It's a very important skill!
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/tips/screenshot.mspx
http://guides.macrumors.com/Taking_Screenshots_in_Mac_OS_X
8. A special warning to male mods! Don’t think you have suddenly become the most attractive guy in chat. Chatters are attracted to mods...it’s a power thing. Women are attracted to male mods even more so. Please be aware and resist the temptation to get too involved. We’re not saying you can’t have a relationship with a chatter in your chatroom, but it would be better if you didn’t. Such relationships almost always end badly, with the mod banning the “ex” or even banning the ex’s next bf/gf!
Trust us on this...we’ve seen a number of examples of it.
9. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, always use humour to defuse a situation....always!
Do not get into a fight with a chatter on main...especially a smartmouth. It's easier to dismiss them as soon as they start...don't get suckered into a brawl, because ultimately you'll lose. Everyone loves the opportunity to scream "abuse of power!!!" [That's why the poor cops can't ever win in crowd-control situations.]
If a chatter tries to provoke you by claiming you're abusing your power, agree with him!!
Say something like...
"Yes, you're right...I'm a terrible person but I'm in therapy! :D"
....etc.
There's no comeback to someone who agrees with you when you attack/insult them! This forces the attacker to give up and it makes the others laugh.
Never get into an argument on main. If you need to challenge a chatter about anything, do so in private or not at all. Chatters love gossip/fighting/drama, as you well know, and what better entertainment than to sit back and watch a mod being attacked by a pack of chat-piranha in a feeding frenzy?!
It's worth repeating....always use humour to defuse a situation....always!
Any questions? Please email us!
China Doll (aka ChatCat) - fifichinadoll@hotmail.com
ChatMaster - chatmaster@321chat.com
Kim - Visit the forums
Tips & Hints -
1. If there’s a kicker you can’t catch, and you really want to, open the DigiChat panel, go to the Rooms tab, click on Lobby (or whatever room the kicker is operating), then Edit, then uncheck the “Suppress enter/exit messages”. This will then show all entries/exits from that room, and the user complaining of being kicked will always be closely followed by the kicker ID. When you’re sure you have pinpointed the kicker ID, ban it....but be very sure! [This would not be a good idea in the very large chats like Teens and Sex, as it would be very difficult to follow all the entries/exits, and they’d drive the chatters mad in the process!]
2. Many chatters know the trick to protect themselves from “profile kickers”....especially in TeenChat, where it’s almost a necessity to use it. To protect yourself against being kicked by chatters when pm’ing them (your profile is exposed only in a pm window), use the “URL protector”.
In Settings, type the word “none” into the URL field (although I believe any word or series of letters works). Then, if a chatter tries to kick you, he will be kicked out instead. Please do not spread this around, though, as we don’t want a situation where we mods will be kicked by trying to profile chatters on the list. Kicking is really only a problem in the teen rooms, but there are odd chatters who do it in other rooms, too. If kicking is not a problem in your chatroom, don’t allow users to use the URL protector. If you are booted out when trying to profile a chatter in your room when you know profile kicking is not an issue, warn the chatter to remove the kicker from his profile or risk being banned. Your call....
3. Camwhores can be easy to spot. They particularly like being on top of the list, and will invariably use a ! to make sure they are. They will usually choose the sexiest icon they can find, and an amazing number of them are “19f”. They never chat on main, of course, because they’re waiting to be pm’d. If you suspect one, pm her and say “hiya....want to chat?” If/when she replies, it will usually be with a copy/paste message about her services/charges. Then you can ban her instantly.
4. If a chatter wishes to make a complaint, you are obliged to give them our feedback email <feedback@321Chat.com>, or at least remind them that there is a “Contact Us” link to be found on the login page. (Please warn them to check their junk folder for our reply.)