Any WRITTEN rules for #absolutewrite chat?

Thanks for the suggestions, Ben. I'll discuss it with Peter and the other operators in the chat and see if this is something we need to address and how we do it.

For the time being, we try to keep it within the Office Party guidelines, that means nothing contentious or potentially incendiary. And the basic "respect your fellow writer" holds true there as everywhere on this site. While we try and keep the focus on writing, there are a lot of friendships through the chat that sometimes mean we talk socially. Writing topics will always take priority.

If you are ever unsure what is and is not safe to discuss, just ask the operator present at the time - some have different boundaries to others.

I guess if it wasn't a mod, people were making up their own rules.

Not at all, Rich. See my post above.

Cath said:

If you are ever unsure what is and is not safe to discuss, just ask the operator present at the time - some have different boundaries to others.

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Too true.

We all have to deal with the operator we are handed whether it makes sense or not.

Don't forget - chat room operators are volunteers, just like the mods in the main forum!

There are enough regular users in there to know what goes and what doesn't -- and my experience is that the unwritten rules are followed pretty well even when there isn't an operator present.

That said, I think Ben's right to bring this up. I promise to discuss this with the other chat room operators to find a consensus about how we deal with this. I hope that's sufficient.

I'm confused...as always.

Rich said:

I'm confused...as always.

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Well, why don't you come into the chat sometime and find out what it's all about, Rich. I don't think I've ever seen you in there.

MacAllister said:

Hi, Ben -- there's certainly been no such official policy regarding what should and shouldn't be talked about in chat. It's never been a question before, and I'm glad you brought it up. I don't blame you a bit for being a bit perturbed, I'd be flat pissed off, if it was announced I was breaking a "rule."

My best guess is that the chat room is primarily about the fiction writing challenge on Sunday nights, so the mods running that challenge are doing their best to keep the focus on the task at hand.

You didn't break any AW rules. I'll visit with the channel ops and see how we can best address this, and in the meantime, we're working on a chat client that would be AW specific, and altogether easier to use, as well.

Again, thank you.

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Can I PM you about this topic? I've had some concerns and an issue similar to this before, and I was a littly pissy when it was all said and done.

OK, I have a question for you guys -- and you can PM me if you prefer not to share it in the thread.

Why don't you feel like you can approach the chat room operators if you have a problem? Are we doing something wrong?

I'm not going to make excuses for anything. I just want to know what the problem is. We can't change our behaviour unless we know we're doing something wrong. And for that you need to tell us, because we don't always pick it up on our own.

benbradley said:

Perhaps mods could make it clear that they're available for PM/private chat about any chat-related problem, whether technical or interpersonal (or animal, mineral or vegetable). That MIGHT have prompted me to PM a mod "Who is this and is it a real rule?" If anything, the silence of everyone else on the issue led me to think it was indeed a real rule I hadn't heard of before.

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**staples notice to the door**

"Please contact me if you have any chat-related problem -- technical or interpersonal - animals, vegetables and minerals welcome."

That do ya?

Im with Cath on this. Since Im in the chat room more than any of the other mods, anyone may feel free to pm me here on the forums or in the chat room anytime you see me in there and I will endeavor to answer any questions or help with any 'problems' that may arise in the chat room. I have a sneaking suspicion as to what may have happened last sunday, but I was not there at the time of the incident so Im not going to try and guess what happened. It would be easier to pm me in the chat room as I dont spend as much time in the forums as most people seem to. Hope to see more of the forum users in the chat room.

yer pal Brian

I was in the chatroom with Ben on Sunday and it was me but I never said it was a rule and it isnt a rule, per se. I was always told ever since I started chatting that it was agreed that we didnt discuss politics or religion as things had gotten heated before and people had become so upset or mad or indignant or hurt that they left and never returned. So it was just something that the chatters had agreed upon to avoid. Several of the mods have said that.

I do remember sunday and I am sure I didnt tell Ben that it was "A Rule" with a capital "R". We were, in fact, all talking politics and as a joke, I said Oh but of course we dont discuss politics in here. lol" LOL meaning that it was a joke. I'm sorry that Ben didn't understand that I was joking.

I've had my fingers slapped for some pretty innocuous things in the chatroom. I got over it. Different mods, different rules. Personally, I think we're all adults and we all know "the rules" for decent, respectful interpersonal behaviour and I dont see the need to write up rules for chatroom topics. Like I said, we're all adults. (well, some aren't but they've no problems interacting) But there's just something about politics and religion that makes people forget about respect sometimes. I always thought it was a sensible agreement. And that's all it is. A gentleman's agreement among adults.

As general rule because I am an OP on a different channel on starchat, I log channel and private chats. I have the logs from Sunday and I will be hanged if I can even find anything confrontation in what was said. In fact it was so innocuous I went back to read it again. If Ben was offended he did not indicate that to anyone in the room.

I will add to this discussion my two bits for whatever they are worth. Yes, I too was informed that religious, political or topics of a graphic sexual nature were discouraged. There was no rule only polite consideration for others.

I have seen discussions take place in the chat before that split many people away from us as a group because they were offended. I don't mind talking about sensitive subjects as long as we all remember that we are in fact like a large family and need to respect one another and everyone's opinions even if we don't agree.

I have every confidence however that should you decide to, Mac, have a more formal set of rules that we will all be happy to follow along and respect what your vision and purpose of the chat is.

Hey Ben,

I put some stuff together with - more or less - consensus from the chat room people. I don't know if it counts as official at all. I never got around to asking someone to sticky it, but I guess I should...
Here:

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56421

*sigh* Now, if I could only figure out why I've been unable to access the chatroom for about a month now. It always worked before, but not anymore. I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with clearing the cache, which my computer does automatically after closing my browser. My username is probably deactivated, but I can't even sign in under "Guest" and get past the "Connecting to javachat..." message.

Alan Yee said:

*sigh* Now, if I could only figure out why I've been unable to access the chatroom for about a month now. It always worked before, but not anymore. I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with clearing the cache, which my computer does automatically after closing my browser. My username is probably deactivated, but I can't even sign in under "Guest" and get past the "Connecting to javachat..." message.

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Have you tried downloading mIRC for PC users or Aqua Xchat for mac users?

www.mirc.com

http://sourceforge.net/projects/xchataqua/

I'm not sure it's the cache clearing, Alan. I can't use javachat either.
There are several different irc clients for any given operating system. Some of them make you pay, but some don't, so don't be tricked into thinking you have to pay

Woot! Got the mIRC program all set up, and finally figured out how to get to AW channel. I'm on there right now. And it's added to my Favorites. Thanks!

Alan Yee said:

Woot! Got the mIRC program all set up, and finally figured out how to get to AW channel. I'm on there right now. And it's added to my Favorites. Thanks!

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You're welcome cutie! Anytime

Before this thread goes totally off topic, there are some things i need to get off my chest. I enjoy the chatroom. People are polite, they are funny, we have some great discussions. I've been told that apparently now no topic is supposed to be off-limits and I have to say I totally disagree with that.

First of all, there are quite a few chatters who are underage. We've always been great about censoring ourselves to make sure that nothing inappropriate (well not too inappropriate) gets discussed. And the mods especially were great about providing some guidance from that. But now, from what I understand, anyone can come in and talk about anythign inappropriate and the mods cant do anything about it and us chatters cant say that we dont discuss things like that. Is that really a responsible thing to do considering that some of the regular chatters are 14? and younger.

Secondly, I treasure the chatroom as a place where we can talk about things that no one is going to get too heated about. If there are two things that people always argue about it's politics and religion. Which is why it was always agreed that we wouldnt talk about those things, in general, in order to keep the chatroom a friendly and mostly non-confrontational place to be. But now we have no such restraint and there will be tons of arguments because you know people fight about religion and politics.

Thirdly, no offense meant, but Ben is never in the chatroom. He comes on sundays for the FF challenge, doesnt talk while he's writing and then disappears but somehow those of us who chat regularly and have never had a problem communicating must now throw all agreements aside because he didnt understand that a joke had been made?

And Mac, again no offense, i am only making an observation, in all the months that i have been coming to chat every night (which is more a comment on my pathetic life than anything else) I think I have seen you four times, three times in teh last two weeks and you never seem to say very much. So I wonder how much you can understand about the dynamics of our particular chatroom and the discussions we have. To say that any topic is off-limits is not true. We do discuss politics and religion. Goodness knows we are not afraid to state our positions. Everyone knows that I think that Bush is a moron and that Festus feels that Hilary Clinton is the anti-christ. But nobody argues it and we move on without getting into a deep discussion because we have decided that it's not worth the trouble to fight over.

I cannot stress enough that my statement on sunday was a joke and that everyone except for ben understood it to be one which is why, as ben noted, nobody challenged me.

It just seems to me that some major changes are being imposed where not necessary over a minor incident that nobody even remembers. Changes that I think will not keep the chatroom the pleasant, fun place it is, where members come to chat, where we talk about writing, where the FF challenge is the only time that I write anything lately, where I've made some great friends, and where we can all go knowing that no major arguments will happen (well except for the ones between me and JBI but everyone knows we're just needling each other), and most important to me, young people can come where they are treated with respect and where they can see how civilized adults cooperate and communicate with respect.

I was informed by several chat members when I came into chat about the change. If i was misinformed, then mea culpa. But I stand behind what I said.

It's funny that this whole thing started over a misunderstanding, and yet I'm being slapped down for speaking my mind. Isnt that what this whole thing is about? People feeling that they're not allowed to speak their mind?

I've never been in chat where a conversation about writing has been snuffed out. We also have had discussions about Heinlein and women. Nobody ever changed the subject. I guess I dont understand people not standing up for themselves. The thing in the chatroom is that sometimes several conversations happen simultaneously. It might be they felt that nobody was participating in the writing discussion. Or it may be that that it wasnt really a discussion but one person's statements and that person didnt like to have his statements challenged.

But if that many people felt that they cant open their mouth then why wasnt that addressed before? I had no idea that people felt like that. There has been an incident where someone had a problem with me, went to an op, and that op talked to me, and the problem was dealt with and resolved immediately and amically. But now it seems that there are "at least ten" people who feel they cant speak their mind. That's more than the total attendance of the chatroom most nights. How come these people's concerns werent taken care of?0

I dont know how to do the multiple message quote, so bear with me. You told Ben that there are no rules regarding chat, and yet you tell me that the problem is that some of the ops dont know what the rules are. That seems contradictory.

Interesting use of passive voice, there
Another interesting construction, that. Disingenuous, much?

No, not disingenous or passive. I'm trying to be polite. I'm trying to not be inflammatory and anger people more. I didnt feel that my post needed to be overly aggressive or confrontational. I didnt feel that swearing would be the way to go. I only wanted to speak my mind about the situation as I understood it, because I love the chatroom, love the people that come there.

This is quite obviously not the end of this discussion -- but I gotta say, Nevada, you're not convincing me that it's worth my while to bust my ass and potentially lay out bucks to bring a dedicated chat server to AW, for the sake of a small cadre of people who want to have public temper tantrums over new people who dare to open their mouths in what is ostensibly an AW chat about unofficially "agreed upon" supposedly non-approved topics.

I"m having a public temper tantrum? Really? I've been nothing but polite, I have not insulted anyone, I have not sworn. I was told some major changes were being made over a minor misunderstanding. If i was misinformed then I should have been more careful in researching my information, but I was not wrong about speaking my mind. I was not the one that took a perceived problem public, instead of approaching a mod or an op, or, heaven forbid, actually say something when it happened.

I have no idea why Ben felt he couldnt say something at the time. I'm sure the logs show that I made a joke. Nobody shut him down. It certainly didnt happen the way you portrayed it above and in fact what you've insinuated in the above quote never happens. It's not like anyone says "Shut up, we dont talk about that. How dare you bring that up?" That's ludicrous.