User blog:Flamefang/Behavior in Chat

Recently I've recieved a few complaints about topics of conversation in chat, not to mention the language used in it, and so I've decided that the issue must be addressed as soon as possible. As many of you know, I am a staunch proponent of freedom of speech and the right to say what you will in and out of our chat. However, all of us who share this opinion must acknowledge that in terms of the world as a whole we are in the vast minority. I doubt any of us would have a loud and vulgar conversation in a public space, and even if you would you certainly wouldn't do so in the presence of minors. Yes, this is the internet. Yes, societal rules, regulations, and conventions don't apply here in the same way that they do in the real world. However, while we may not hold the same values as real society we have built our own here and, as members of this community, it's about time we decided exactly what kind of face we want our society to have; what kind of environment we want to reside in. As many older users like myself are often prone to forget, more than half of our user population is below the age of sixteen and about a half of that section is below the age of fourteen. As our chat policy stipulates:

"Also, as there are many user's here who are young, the conversations should try to remain pg-13, an occasional slip of a swear may be overlooked, but heavy swearing, cussing, name calling, sexual innuendos or harassment will not be tolerated. Unfortunately 'heavy swearning, cussing, name calling, sexual innuendos, or harassment' is notoriously hard to define. Users are allowed to use the following: Damn, shit, crap, bitch, and their variations/combinations. Other words like "F*ck" should have at least single letter replaced by an asterix as shown. Cursing in other languages is generally tolerated. All of the above is up to chat moderator discretion."

See here for full chat policy.

Therefore any conversation outside of these limitations is absolutely unacceptable. If I see anything that can even be loosely defined as breaking these rules I WILL see to it that the offender recieves a verbal warning and, if he or she continues, a permanent warning and a temporary ban from chat. We simply cannot afford to let violations of chat policy continue in the manner they have been. It is not only detrimental to our community, but also to the credibility of our administration.

As we all know, wikia chat has been experiencing a series of technical issues over the past four weeks and so many of us have been resorting to the CHBRPW Provisory chat, and the Skype group entitled "This is for if chat crashes. So yeah". I will be pushing an ammendment to current chat policy dictating that these two additional chats are extensions of our wikia chat and therefore are subject to wiki policy. Naturally, it is up to the community to decide whether to pass this ammendment, but I sincrely hope that all of you will support it throughout the voting process.

Thank you for your time, consideration, and understanding,

Flamefang 22:11, October 31, 2011 (UTC)