This chat room is intended to be a clean safe edifying environment for internet chat. Please treat everyone in here as your neighbor and remember that at the other end of the nicknames you see on the screen are real people!
The moderator team do not believe that a strict set of rules is beneficial. Circumstances will always vary, and strict rules will cause more legalism rather than a good friendly chat environment. The members all have a responsibility of making the chat room a wonderful place. When involved in a conversation, it helps to think:
There is information tracked by the chat room for the purpose of helping the chatters; contacting chatters when necessary; diagnosing problems; and to stop chat room abuse. This information includes:
What this means is that we can:
This information is visible to moderators and administrators. It is not visible to other members, and is never sold or given to any third party. The email addresses will never be used for mass mailing. Your privacy is respected.
If you have problems requesting a new password via the logon page, or any other logon problems, you should send email to chat@thehunters.org.
This is something that causes me the most grief with chat. Where do you draw the boundaries? On one hand, I don't want people to feel tied in what they can talk about. On the other, we have to remember that that this is supposed to be a safe environment.
Here are some questions to ask yourself regularly:
As a general rule, the Reception should be "PG-13".
It is very easy to push conversation boundaries. We struggle with the flesh, and are easily flattered. It is easy for flattery to lead to substitution, allowing the attention of another chat room member/members to take the attention away from our spouse and lead to marriage struggles. More so if there are problems not being addressed in the marriage in the first place. I'm very conscious of this when I see innocent flirting in chat. This is why I say "how would a spouse perceive this?"
On a similar note, I do not want the chat room to become a "singles bar". Overt flirting with intent to attract someone of the opposite sex is not tolerated. Overt flirting between a couple can very quickly become exclusive and should be moved out of the room. Jovial flirting can also become exclusive and as per previous paragraph can lead the parties into dangerous waters. It is strongly discouraged.
Profiles can be viewed by all chatters including guests and children. Some of the information is only available to moderators and administrators. For example, your email address is not visible by all chatters unless you choose otherwise. Your IP address is not seen by other chatters other than moderators and administrators.
Solicitation is essentially coming into chat with the intent only to advertise.
An example would be:
ChatterName - Entered Reception
ChatterName: Visit the best website
ever - www.mywebsite.solicit
Flooding is essentially copying and pasting a message several times.
An example would be:
ChatterName: Visit the best website ever - www.mywebsite.flood
ChatterName: Visit the best website ever - www.mywebsite.flood
ChatterName: Visit the best website ever - www.mywebsite.flood
ChatterName: Visit the best website ever - www.mywebsite.flood
ChatterName: Visit the best website ever - www.mywebsite.flood
In the above examples, there was no reason for either except solicitation. Flooding could easily be viewed as "live spamming" and just as spam in your e-mail is not normally welcome, it's not welcome in chat either.
This is not intended as a complete list, but serve as examples.
A typical reason for a ban is your behavior in chat. We expect chatters to be respectful to other chatters, moderators and administrators. If you show disrespect then you will be kicked or banned.
Note that if it appears that you are chatting while intoxicated, even if otherwise exhibiting good behavior, you will find yourself banned for a short period of time as we do not want to encourage this behavior.
The chatroom allows one registered account per user. If it is apparent that multiple registered accounts are associated with a single user, this will result in one, more or all of the accounts being deleted.
Examples of bypassing the filter would include "B adword" or "B.A.D.W.O.R.D." with the intent to be offensive. This is not tolerated and offenders will be banned.
Using a profane nickname is not tolerated and the offender will be banned.
If we believe you may be involved in questionable or illegal activity, you will be banned.