Chat Function

My biggest concern is that new vistors will get turned away because they see abusive language in the chatbox.

I would like that chatbox visible to new users as I believe that it has the potential to quickly trouble shoot technical issue. sIt is also a useful way to build community through social chatting.

I like the idea of banning specific people. This is in the cards. The plan is, assign Chat privileges as a role seperate from the Authenticated User role. That way chat privileges can be removed for a single person. Currently it's a ban for everyone, or noone.

Thoughts?

Seems reasonable. A set of rules needs to be drafted and made very clear to all chat participants so there is no doubt among individuals as to what is 'acceptable' and what isn't.

How about turning it into an IRC room so Abusive users can be banned / muted

Installing an alternative chat module is an option. Last time I looked at modules was when I set this site up. Months have passed and possibly there are new modules, or that the modules I turned down are now ready for use. One of them integrated IRC into Drupal, I think. The suggestion I made above is effectively an option to ban an individual. I handed out authority to censor comments a few days ago, which isn't quite as good as muting because it requires an active moderator.

Hmm yeah thats the only thing, Im not sure how many if any IRC server addons for Drupal, I know their are a few for Joomla (my CMS of choice)

I think having Tribune as a seperate privillage and banning those guilty of abuse. It is a good feature as trouble shooting can be done quickly, as well as giving contributers the opportunity to discuss changes/content being made. The personal issues should have nothing to do with this site, and banning those who can't understand that and continue to air their dirty laundry on here is a viable option in my opinion. I'm not sure adding an IRC module will achieve any more than just making tribune a specific privillage. Either or would do the same thing really. Would changing the tribune access not be easier?

Agree with the thrust of whaka's comments. The chat has it's uses, but must remain a privilege subject to agreed behavioural norms. I like the idea of restricting access / visibility to signed on members only and the ability to ban individuals from the chat room just as TM does while not restricting their activites elsewhere. Out of curiosity I have had a look at 2 wiki members activity on TM. Both are regular traders with 100% positive feedback although one has a lot more trades under the belt than the other. It seems odd that they can be such well respected traders on TM but be at loggerheads here. hence my support of whaka's approach combined with OTFs suggestions above.

I've installed the Auto Assign Role module. All existing users should be able to chat now. Individual users can be banned.

Things that need testing:-

1. That new authenticated users do get chat privileges on registering
2. That wikiministrators can ban

I'll test these when I get a chance.

Seems like the right way about getting this sorted. Hopefully we get it right this time round.

Nice one OTF. Give everyone the privilege of using the chat function. When people abuse it it shall be taken away. I think it's important to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.
Will be good to see how it all works out, I think we have the majority of it under control and if anyone plays up they will start getting banned. Simple but effective. I'm sure we can all
abide by a few general rules. Perhaps we should agree on some rules and have them posted on the tribune page. I think the following are important:

-Respect other members.
-No abuse toward other members
-No sharing of other peoples personal information
-Have fun, we're all here because of our love of computing

Anyone else have anything to add to that list?

• Anti-spam measures?
• Disallow the interaction of TM based auction/trades?

yeah anyone spamming can just get banned too. We don't seem to have that problem but it should be on the charter all the same

• Disallow the interaction of TM based auction/trades??

I am not sure I understand. You mean disassociate ourselves with TM?

In the same way TM's forums don't allow the discussion of auctions which may give other users an unfair advantage or be of a sabotaging nature.

Yep, I'd agree with that. Any more?

Good rules. We can make a page with them, and display them to new users when they register. Possibly they could be condensed? Perhaps three rules which are broad enough to cover all the points? If they're short enough people will actually read them!

Rules rule 4 me. Good move, fully supported by me. Any concerns about language used or do you prefer to keep that relaxed but request reasonable limits say consistent with widely used day to day conversation. We surely don't need one of those Monty Python type lists of "You can't say $%^& on the chat room"

I think swearing is alright as long as it isn't over the top. But that would come under the whole spam thing. How does this sound...

1. Be respectful of other members
2. No Spamming
3. Respect others privacy
4. No using this site to bypass existing TradeMe Auctions

(I think it is unfair to not be able to facilitate trade through here. If I am looking for something and a member on here has it, I don't see why we should be forced to pay TM fee's. In saying that if an auction
has been listed the tribune chat facility should not be used to undermine TM.)

Thoughts?

I agree, fully support the above post.

I agree. People can conduct business on this site as long as the transaction has nothing to do with an existing auction. I want to keep on side with TM.

Absolutely. There is no need to be conflicting with TM or have our rights limited, I will set about adding these 4 rules into tribune.

Might want to cleanup the look of those rules on the tribune page - seems too cluttered personally (and poor grammar ).