I have been receiving a steady stream of various reports regarding inappropriate conversations in Region Chat over the past couple months and I feel that it's time for a site-wide reminder of what is and what is not appropriate.

What Is Appropriate?
Anything Sylestia related is pretty much always appropriate assuming it abides by our Terms of Service.


What Is NOT Appropriate
Anything political is not appropriate. Spreading misinformation about real life topics is not appropriate. Publicly harassing others is not appropriate. Having an argument or disagreement publicly with another player(s) is not appropriate. Spamming things for sale, nurture requests, etc., is not appropriate. Discussing non-Sylestia related topics that others ask you to stop discussing is most likely not appropriate. Any type of discrimination towards other people or their personal preferences is not appropriate.


What Is Gray Area?
Light use of chat for advertising, nurture requests, etc. Please limit this to once a day or at least infrequently enough that players aren't going to notice you repeatedly requesting the same thing over and over. If you're doing it enough where it's bothering multiple other players, then you are probably spamming it too much and please tone it down and use the Forums instead.

Non-Sylestia related topics that are light in nature and not going to bother others. This could be talking about your pet cat. Or this could be talking about something funny your kid did. Or talking about a content-appropriate movie, TV show, book, etc. As long as it's a topic not prone to bother others, is a topic fitting to Sylestia's TOS, and others aren't asking you to stop talking about it - it's probably okay for light discussion.


In Summary
Please just use common sense. Region Chat is a tiny box where dozens, sometimes up to 100+ people, are all sharing at the same time. Please be respectful and courteous of others. Sylestia exists to be a place where people from all walks of life can chill, relax, have fun, and socialize with others from around the world. Strive to make Sylestia a welcoming place for everyone.

Region Chat is one of the major features on the site that let's the community directly connect with each other. Please keep it welcoming to everyone. Please keep private conversations out of it and instead use PMs, IMs, or off-site chats like Discord instead. Please keep inappropriate topics out of Region Chat.

Thank you.

ok kirin ill make sure nothing like this is posted within my account :)

Ok :)

Thank you for this ^^

And then there is the option that I used, which was to go to cometchat.com and turn off ALL of the permissions, block all cookies, images, etc...then go into my hosts file and input 0.0.0.0 *cometchat.com* to get rid of the nasty thing. I hate chats.

Thank you for bringing attention to this Krin. It has been pretty bad recently and those of us who have spoken up in chat about it usually just get ignored or talked over. Hopefully this helps

Coolio
Havent been on much so idk whats happening aorund very well but good to get a review of the rules :)

Personal Opinion:

Whiney whiners gonna whine.

As someone who mostly stays OUT of the communal chat channels, I can confirm that it's not hard to close the chat window when something is bothersome. And it is FREQUENTLY bothersome. But that is the nature of the internet. You don't ask the internet to moderate itself. Ban the most obvious offenders and move on. Maybe learn how to code an ignore button.

alright thanks Krin

In addition to what Frawn has said, it is very hard to get a community (especially on the internet) to moderate itself, yes.

There are a lot of people who post reminders (but as Paint also mentioned, are talked over or ignored) about chat rules when needed, but I think some things could also be solved by one or two chat moderators (helpers sounds less intimidating) to help monitor and aid when things get out of hand/steer topics of conversation away from problematic topics if needed.

That's my opinion at least :p