The chat function within social traffic exchanges was surely never designed to be such a virtual minefield.
Depending who is online at the time, this cool social feature can become rather nasty and unpleasant indeed.
Sometimes it can be so utterly odd that I have no idea whether I took part in it or dreamt it.
Take this exchange for example. I have no idea whether any of it actually happened or whether the whole thing came to me in a dream:
Blain Jones: “Blain Jones is Awesome.”
Angry self-syled moderator: “You are not allowed to say ‘Blain Jones is Awesome’ in this chat.”
Blain Jones: “Why not?”
Angry self-styled moderator: “Because there are people in here who don’t agree with you.”
Blain Jones: “Those people are wrong but I am cool with that.”
Angry self-styled moderator: “Well it is against the rules – you have to talk about something else.”
Blain Jones: “Whatever.”
Me: “Hey everyone I just got the red key to the vault!”
Angry self-styled moderator: “You are not allowed to say “red key” or “vault” in this chat.”
Me: “Why not?”
Angry self-styled moderator: “Because there are people in here who don’t like red keys or vaults.”
Me: “Oh ok then. I am still looking for the blue key but I think I know where it is.”
Angry self-styled moderator: “You are are not allowed to say “blue key” in this chat.”
Me: “Why not?”
Angry self-styled moderator: “Because the people who get angry with you saying “red key” and “vault” also get angry with you saying “blue key.”
Troublemaker 1: “TimTech stole the vault idea from William Miller at Surf Skeleton anyway.”
Me: “No they didn’t.”
Troublemaker 1: “Did so.”
Me: “William Miller told me he was consulted about, approved and endorsed the vault game at TimTech. He was even one of the very first sites to use this new game and was blown away with the results.”
Troublemaker 1: “Well we only have your word for that.”
Blain Jones: “Blain Jones is Awesome.”
Angry self-styled moderator: “You have been warned once already Blane.”
Blain Jones: “Blain.”
Angry self-styled moderator: “What?”
Blain Jones. “You called me ‘Blane’ but my name is ‘Blain’.”
Me: “Friendzy badge code: ABCDE12345″
Angry self-styled moderator: “You are not allowed to post badge codes in here.”
Me: “Why not?”
Angry self-styled moderator: “Because there are people in here who don’t like badge codes.”
Blain Jones: “I like badge codes but then again I am awesome.”
Troublemaker 2: “We don’t talk about anything controversial in here such as badges, vault keys or items of clothing.”
Me: “Items of clothing are controversial?”
Troublemaker 2. “It depends who is wearing them but I am not allowed to talk about that in here.”
Me: “Are wand charges controversial?”
Angry self-styled moderator: “Yes!”
Me: “Batteries?”
Angry self-styled moderator: “Only TimTech batteries.”
Me: “You said TimTech. You mentioned the name of the evil empire in this chat room for all to see and you can’t deny it.
“You should ban yourself with all possible haste and repent before every sticker in the land curls up, turns to dust and is scattered to all four corners of the earth.”
Angry self-styled moderator: “Now you are just being childish.”
Me: “You started it.”
Blain Jones: “Blain Jones is awesome.”
Angry self-styled moderator: “I have had enough of you two. You are both banned from this chat.”
OK so I made all of that up but is is loosely, very loosely I might add, based on a real conversation which did actually take place in the LFMTE chat room on Saturday night/Sunday morning.
If anything the real conversation was even more silly than the made up one I have posted here but I prefer my version.
And now for an interesting and very real fact.
As I was writing this post William Miller from Surf Skeleton was just hitting the send button on his own blog.
He wrote this:
Click on the image above to read William’s full blog post but do leave a quick comment below before you go.
That was great.
I have obviously be hanging out in all the wrong chat rooms.
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Disgusting Lies intended to insight anger and make the whole situation wore..makes most of us sick.
This is a completely made up conversation that never took place.
Your a liar, and deliberatly causing trouble…
Robert,
you obviously did not read the whole post before commenting.
“OK so I made all of that up but is is loosely, very loosely I might add, based on a real conversation which did actually take place in the LFMTE chat room on Saturday night/Sunday morning.”
Robert, I’m amazed you called Patrick a liar on his own blog…totally out of order! Gave yourself away mate!
FANTASTIC ‘made-up’ conversation, Patrick! You had me in stitches!
HAHAHAHAHA, That’s the best made-up conversation I have ever seen.
“Blain Jones is awesome”
This issue has been coming on for a long time. There are folks who just want to impose their own preferences on everyone else. Chatting should be an enjoyable social experience for all. I believe the censorship being imposed by certain chat room moderators is a bit ridiculous. Adult content and promoting should, of course, be excluded and dealt with severely – but talking about badges, vaults, awesomeness???? Puh-leeeeeze! Obviously, these folks have nothing better to do than worry about other people’s topics of conversation….
BTW – TimTech rocks and Blain is awesome!
You too hmmmm well it’s obvious that this so called moderator is very prejdiced and targeting members of the CTP and also ignorant of the fact that Surf ‘Skeleton is a Nerd Surf site. By the way I came to this concluison by two ways the article I am comminting on and the fact that I was suspended by the same self styled angry moderator for sharing a mandatory share code for a friendzly badge
Patrick, chat should be a positive social environment and moderators should not favor one side of the chat user and ban those who disagree. It is sad to see what is going on and how some are by spreading false rumors. Rumors are carried by haters, spread by fools, and accepted by idiots
I hadn’t bothered registering for LFMTE chat until the other night, when I got a “you have to share this, can’t use it yourself” badge at a TE that uses that chat option.
So I registered, logged in, posted the code so that someone could grab and use it … and instantly got banned for five days because “this is not sticker chat or badge chat.”
Doubt I’ll bother logging in again. Kinda confirms the wisdom of my decision to go with a different script for my own upcoming site, too.
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Also yesterday I was part of a conversation over at Legacy Hits where an issue was raised that I had noticed that sometimes chats are over run with badge codes which non collectors might find annoying but still no real reason to ban codes but I do believe that there should a better way ( lack of better term) to share these codes. I do not think that restricting them to pm or skype is the solution. Perhaps a page at CTP where people can post codes they want to share.
Diane, CTP has a badge charing chat room already. Just scroll down when you login CTP
The above chat may be a bit exaggerated, however I happened upon the tail end of a LFMTE chat yesterday that had some negative undercurrents about badges. I had no idea what was going on and I found it somewhat disturbing and eventually turned the chat off.
I personally feel that such negativity is futile and counter productive. In any chat there are conversations that go on that I personally am not interested in, but how can you “outlaw” them. Is this freedom of speech? I think not. What I do think is that going about things in such a strong handed negative way will eventually only hurt us all as it gives off divisive vibes.
Why would any new person getting involved in IM want to even start if they see/feel all this negativity? If you don’t like badges, fine; but why put down those who do? It is sad to see such open bickering in open forums/chats and I fear we will stumble many along the way. Just “turn the other cheek” as the Good Book says. Enjoy life, be happy! You can’t be happy if you are negative. Tim Tech badges are not holding anyone back; negative “poor me” attitudes are.
Remember “It isn’t your position that makes you happy or unhappy, it’s your disposition. “
That is the funniest blog post I’ve read in the past 12 months – I think your real name is Patrick Python.
Seriously though your post exposes many of the trivialities, pettiness and point blank silliness that “social marketing” can draw out of people who just don’t get it.
I think your post is timely and thought provoking, please accept the following comments in the spirit that they are intended
There was a time that chat was dynamic and stimulating and I’m sure that it still is if you are prepared to really stick with it and build relationships.
Sadly when I do check out some of my old favorites I don’t see that anymore.
What I see is 2 camps and never the twain shall meet or so it seems.
I really don’t care if people want to swap badge codes or not, I understand the psychology from a sales point of view, I understand the whole CTP community angle and I applaud its originality.
It just has never grabbed me.
I have been called a CTP hater for stating that – which is far from the truth, but it also told me that to survive in TE’s I had to either embrace CTP fully or make a stand against it (which I would never dream of doing). I suspect that others have decided to be aggressive towards CTP which is, well, dumb with a capital D and so people are polarizing.
It is in many respects, demoralizing.
For these reasons, my business model changed massively over the past 12 months
I don’t have to participate in chat – in fact I don’t have to advertise on the medium, but something in me just keeps me checking out the scene,hoping against hope that sanity might prevail.
When the dust settles, Blain Jones will still be awesome!
What he said!!
And Marcus is awesome too, well most of the time anyway!
Click “LIKE” if…
1/ Blain Jones is awesome
2/ TimTech has awesome sauce
3/Patrick Griffin is the funniest British rambler/blogger you know
4/all of the above
5/none of the above
hmmmm…
Twitter: ITSergioFelix
Hey Patrick,
I think when either people LOVE YOU or HATE YOU, you’re doing things right.
I don’t think this is about a chat, its rules or even a badge code.
I think it is because some people can’t stand TimTech (only because they are NOT TimTech themselves and they are clearly not above them either).
Personally, I think they should be THANKFUL for people signing to the LFMTE chats to share their codes.
It promotes interaction, which is the actual IDEA of a chat room in the first place.
TimTech has been getting really big lately (and it certainly WILL continue to grow even faster) it would be the dumbest idea to not try to participate with them in some way if you are doing business in the TE world.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
Sergio
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would be nice if you would approve all the comments.
Twitter: chattopatrick
I allow all comments but my anti-spam program blocks comments with hyperlinks in the main body of the text.
I removed the link and your original comment should appear now.
P.
I’ve noticed Richmouse Points has been completely respectful and has has never had silly badge codes or sticker codes ever posted in any chat room. Why because we have the user use a username. Oh and the user can log into Richmouse Points website to trade RMP with any member because we have everything right at the users finger tips.
So Yes it does upset me to see codes in the chat rooms all the time with one persons products completely taking over the conversation.
It’s really annoying to see I got a 5 cent money badge okay cool but in the end what that do for everyone else and there bottom line.
Answer not a dang thing. My advise to you all use products that don’t require a chatbox to be promoted or useful Banner Points by Richmouse
And to make my points Richmouse Points has never used share codes and never will Richmouse Points
“One person’s products” can only “completely take over the conversation” if the conversants decide they want to let those products do so.
The cool thing about TEs is that there are hundreds of them. If chat is important to you, and if you don’t like what happens in the chat at one TE, just find another one where you’re happier (believe it or not there are all kinds of TEs without badges or stickers).
Personally, I find it disappointing that LFMTE seems to have a policy of undermining TEs that run on its script and use its chat, if the owners of those TEs also decide to get involved in a badge or sticker program.
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Twitter: andrewstark
May 7, 2012 at 7:13 pm
Hi Patrick
It’s amazing how good controversy is for getting comments.
I have to say that I find it weird that TE owners are not embracing change and letting the members decide who and where to advertise their pages. If you are teaching members to hate those who are doing well and bringing new people into the industry you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
Blaine, you are awesome, and you are one of the few TE owners who I look forward to receiving emails from. Keep up the good work and perhaps the haters should go look my guest post over at hitexchangenews – but the perhaps the thought of visiting a Jon Olson website is too much for them?
Andrew
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Twitter: chattopatrick
Hi Everyone,
Thank you all for your comments.
Normally it is my policy to reply individually to all comments I receive on this blog but on this occasion I have decided to let the matter rest.
All I wanted to say is expressed in my original post.
Once again thanks for such a great amount of thought-provoking and diverse feedback.
Patrick.
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Hi Patrick. This is really a funny post. And I have been catching the drift in the LFTM Chat the anger at CTP and it’s awesome people. I think it is sad that this is happening to the most wonderful people and company I have every met. It is also very silly and petty. I don’t think that this behavior is necessary at all. It is ridiculous and a waste of energy on the angry peoples part. They are unnecessarily draining themselves and their businesses.
To the angry people, Isn’t life hard enough without this petty behavior? Please let’s just all get along and be thankful for every day that we get to chat together.
Love and big hugs.
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