A compromise

I was away for the most part of yesterday and today, and when I came back to Union Activeness I ran across a thread that, for lack of better terminology, got a little heated. Yes, I am talking about the Skype Off-Topic Improper Usage Discussion. As I was in the Skype chat this evening, I noticed that there is indeed a lot of Union-related discussion going on, but somewhere in the middle of it all the conversation goes off on a tangent. I myself, personally am responsible for some of the tangents. However, there is a fine line between friendly chatter amongst friends and new acquaintances and spam. Quick tangent, just the other day, Huston came to the forum for the first time. He said something that warmed my heart. He said he never thought that the Skype chat would be so fun. But I digress, back on topic.

I suggest we have a couple of Moderators to lurk in the corners of the chat. Kinda like they do at Simtropolis. The Chat Moderators would be there to ensure that the conversation in the Off-Topic Discussion Room, or whatever Thomas changed the name to, stayed on a course that was indeed appropriate and Union Related, with allowances for apropos tangents. This way, the Off-Topic Discussion Room could still be used as a social hang out for our members, a feature that a lot of AIN members have come to enjoy, and a way to Role-Play and Develop our individual countries, or to discuss Union Matters on an open forum, and the conversations would happen organically, the way Nature intended.

Truth be told, there might not be something Union-related to discuss everyday, so there's no need for a separate room just for union affairs, and furthermore, in my personal, and unsolicited opinion. I feel that this matter was handled incorrectly by all parties involved. I feel that this should have gone through the channels of Parliament and come to a vote. If, at that time, the President was unhappy with the decision, He could have exercised his right to Veto. I also feel that some people were spoken down to when they were only trying to give their opinion. I do understand where people are coming from in regards to the spam. I do not, however, agree with the way that these issues were addressed. Under no circumstances should specific incidents be used to embarrass the parties involved on public forum. Those are things that should have been either omitted completely from the conversation or whispered privately. And lastly, I feel that everything deserves to be up for discussion or a debate. Everyone has a right to let their opinion be heard and to ask questions if they need clarification.

I am not trying to ruffle any feathers. I am just bringing to light that we all need to watch the ways that we interact with one another. We do need to watch our language, edit ourselves for content, and learn to spell things. On the flip side of the coin, we need to ensure that we are treating all members with the respect they deserve and are entitled to.

I am going to step down from my soapbox now.

Thank You for your Time... Vote for Me!

The issue for me is that I come online and see over 800 posts in the Skype room, and scrolling through them all, very often all I see is endless lines of smilies and ridiculous stories about shooting and other stupid stuff like that.

This has only become a problem since about Christmas, and if the spamming stops, currently it only occurs at one time of the day, then I have no problem with the Union Discussions area being used for other things as well. I enjoy the non-AIN discussions in there, but they have gotten out of hand and have become offensive in the past.

Basically it's a few people ruining it for everyone.

hence a moderator

I am sorry that i over reacted the last day. And well agree whit JJ. Only Daniel be more relaxed about this topics.

Yes, I think we should have a Skype moderator, that should be one of the current administrators. I now don't open Skype when turn on the computer because there are so many messages that my computer can't process them all.

Never had that problem and well we can't really not talk because of some one computer does not load. And we will still talk freely so expect normally many messages.

Yes, but that is not the point. The point is that people are posting many off-topic messages in Skyep and like Thomas said: open a new conversasion.

It's just a matter of flat out maturity. We have members who are in teens, 20s, and 30s. A 13 year old isn't going to have the maturity, of a 20, or even 15 year old.

So it goes...

Miguel, you haven't read the conversations so you have no idea why we're doing this, I think you're missing the point.

As B'more says, this is a question of maturity.
We have members of the chat who aren't mature enough to actually have reasonable conversations, and until they stop having these offensive conversations then we're going to have to ruin the fun for everyone.

We don't want to enforce these rules, but we have to because the Skype room is being abused.

We can't enforce a ban penalty?

We now have a 3 strike system. Three strikes and you are banned for 3 days from both the website and the Skype room.

Daniel wrote:We now have a 3 strike system. Three strikes and you are banned for 3 days from both the website and the Skype room.

Oh, ok, thanks. Can't really argue with that, you get 3 chances.

And I have the power to ban people from the Skype room, and if anyone re-adds them then they will also be banned.

3 strikes for what exactly?

In fact, I am not inside this matter, like Thomas said.
But we need more maturity, specially for the youngest members.

hence a moderator

MiguelLeal wrote:In fact, I am not inside this matter, like Thomas said.
But we need more maturity, specially for the youngest members.

True, but I just realized that some of the people causing issues are our age.... :shock:

For the behavior that has been shown. Ejecting people from the room for no reason.. Editing peoples posts against their will, not respecting a member of another union who was in the chat as a guest, swearing, offensive conversations, derogatory language that some members may take offense to.

I think this topic is over made, we got a moderator, we will control it. Before we diden't have any one against. So just all relax and forget about it. If some ones do something wrong we will give 1, if he or she gets to 3 then of the chat. So relax and don't over do it.

If this behaviour does stop then we will consider re-opening the Union Discussions room for all conversations again.