Rich Z said:
So has the chat room been abandoned now? If it is no longer wanted (meaning being used) here, I do have another site (and server) I may move it to.
Well first off, the chat room still gets used. I try to pop in nightly and see what's going on. Just last week I spent a good 2 hours in there talking to GWB about genetics, so the room is still getting used.
Now to the meat and potatoes, so to speak.
Rich Z said:
Yeah, it is just as I suspected. Some people apparently got their knickers in a knot because I posted this thread in an effort to get the participants to cut out the petty crap I saw taking place in it. So rather than comply, the people this thread was pointed towards decided to just go elsewhere.
Not really, no. It was more or less a case of just being sick and tired of having to deal with trolls without any recourse. There was/is just no good reason why a group of us in CS.com chat should have to CHANGE rooms because someone comes in from Fauna and decides to be an ass. Zero, zilch, nada. Unfortunately, trolls have been a problem since I've been on this forum---and they will always be.
For the past 3 years we've been the well behaved ones in chat. Chat was dead when I first got here, and myself, Connie and Chuck got it going. We would sit in chat all day and just wait. Enough people caught on and we had a blossoming chat room not after long. Unfortunately, people on Fauna saw that there were 15 people in chat---logged in---and then were disappointed when nobody was in the lobby and came into CS chat.
And well, that was okay for a while. It became unacceptable when you logged into CS.com chat and you were hit with 10 people talking about boas. I'm sorry, but the title of that chat subroom says "Cornsnakes", so if you want to talk about Boas---get out. Maybe that's rude, whatever. It's way more rude to take over a room with talk about something completely off topic than telling those people to leave. If you don't have the common decency to not take over a room---I just don't know. You NEVER saw any of the CS.com crowd going into the Boa room to talk about corns. It just makes no sense.
That went away, and then we were hit with the true trolls. "Eggy's Incubator" ring a bell to anyone? Again, why should we have to make a private room so we don't have to deal with trolls?
You've said, "just ignore them". Well yeah, in theory that works great. But all you need is one person unwilling to put them on ignore and the room is shot to hell.
What you then get is normal conversation with snippets of "troll banter" and it totally screws up the flow of the chat room. You simply cannot expect every person in chat to put a troll on ignore---it's just not going to happen.
Rich Z said:
I really can't believe that anyone would condone the crap I saw in chat log segments sent to me and get pissed that I asked that it STOP.
Again, you're missing the whole point. Nobody was pissed that you asked US to stop, and nobody was condoning what was said. Many of us that had been dealing with the same BS for 3 years simply got fed up and lashed out. Was it right? No, probably not. It was totally blown out of proportion because convos like that were not common-place.
I think what aggrivated some people was the fact that you asked US to stop and be mature, yet nothing was said or done on Fauna. The guy who totally flipped out and told us that CS stood for c*** suckers and told everyone to F off, well, what happened to him? Nothing. And yes, nothing happened to us either, but a little leeway would be appreciated---and I believe that was the theme. You have admittedly let Fauna go to the wolves, and I think it's just terribly unfair to ask everyone on this forum to 'be the better man' when they go into chat and simply ignore whatever is said by trolls. The vast majority of heavy chat users are paid contributors, and we aren't paid contributors so we can get into fights in the chat room. We're paid contributors because we appreciate what we have, and want to help you with the bills. You know that 9.9 times out of 10, this forum and it's members are NOT the problem, and you hold us to a higher standard as well. I don't believe anyone here has a problem with that.
Nobody said that we were well behaved that night, or being mature. Yeah, we jumped on the guy---and perhaps that was wrong. But there is just only so many times that you can fight fire with niceness. There comes a time when you have to fight fire with fire---and it happened that night. We had been emailing you chat logs for a long time when it came to problem trolls. Never once do I recall you emailing myself or anyone else back scolding us about how we were responding. For the most part---we did what you have asked---we ignore or left the room.
I personally felt that the chat regulars were thrown under the bus by this thread. We had been asking you for help for months and months. Some of us got the impression that you didn't want to be bothered by petty issues such as the chat room---so we stopped and took it into our own hands. But to come down on us when we had been asking for help---and for Fauna to be completely excused was just a bit too critical for myself. And yes, I got pissed off about this thread and stopped using chat for a lengthy while. A lot of people did, and it sucks. I think certain responses from members in this thread were completely ridiculous and many were very much so 'holier than thou', and many people commented and made judgements based on ONE snipet of a chat log. That is simply unfair when you have no idea of the big picture. They had no idea what was going on in the past with trolls, but Rich, you did.
We have NEVER chased out people from ANYWHERE without cause. We had plenty of people from Fauna chatting with us in the past---and we've welcomed all mature folks with open arms. I will say, this thread got a lot of people curious about what exactly went on in chat and many completely new faces showed up. Of course, just as many left---I'm sure because what they found was 'boring' and not like that thread they had read about. All those mean and rude chat regulars wound up being pretty nice and helpful.
All we have EVER asked was common courtesy and decency from anyone coming into that room. That has been too difficult for some of the Fauna boa crowd and too difficult for the trolls. When you enter a chat room and there is a conversation going, you don't simply interrupt it because it's your 'right'. There is no chat room out there where it's acceptable to barge into the room and DEMAND that the current convo stop so everyone can listen to YOU and answer YOUR question. That is absolutely absurd.
MohrSnakes said:
This last statement is sad but true. In my little, insignificant, stupid, moronic opinion we are going to lose some very important members of this community due to the political correctness exuded to idiots that ruin the chat and other parts of the forum. People are playing ball elsewhere and it is going to hurt OUR community...not add to it. With trolls in chat, bad guys posts, and the possibility of turning parts of CS into Fauna (see Insiders Forum, if you can't, pay your dues), we are going to lose something very special in the reptile world. This site is unlike any other reptile related site on the net and everyone who has spent time here knows that. Where else can you find discussions that involve so many BIG names in the cornsnake world and about so many different issues?
Sad to say, Jeff, this has already happened.
Roy Munson said:
I'm not actively boycotting the chat room. But it has been pretty dead since around the time that this thread was started. I think this thread damaged this community more than anything I've seen since I joined here. I wasn't part of the chat conversation that prompted this thread, but I still have fairly strong feelings about it. Rich Z. is a human being, and he's as capable of over-reaction as anyone. In my humble opinion, this thread was an over-reaction.
It seems that some of the established members whose efforts have made this site great had finally had enough of the b.s. brought to chat by destructive and trouble-making trolls. These members are human, and they reacted in ways that might appear unsavory to some, but I refuse to judge them. You can talk all you want about maturity, and civility, but wake up and look around you. Have you seen any campaign ads lately? Have you heard any political debates? Have you listened to the conversations in your workplace lunch rooms? You can dream all you want about standards of civility, but guess what? Maturity and civility are hardly standard operating procedure in real life. Why should they be expected in a silly chat room?
I'd hoped that this would blow over and that cs.com chat would come back. It doesn't look like that's going to happen. The trolls whose only real aim was to be disruptive have won in a big way, and they're off causing trouble elsewhere. Sometimes when you remind people enough times that it's your ball and you'll go home with it whenever you feel like it, they get sick of hearing it and they go buy their own ball. Sometimes they just stop playing ball altogether...
Homerun, Dean. I wish you had posted this back when this thread first popped up and the attacks started. Unfortunately, most people had never been in chat and only saw a snipet of a chat log.
It really does suck that chat has been cut in half. Yeah, people still use it---as I do myself, but it's nothing like it 'used to be'. It'd be nice if it could get back to where it was, but I'm just not sure.
I can't really do much chatting during the day, but if you see me online, and you're in there, drop me a PM. 
