We need to talk about Chat

Question

I would start this post with something along the lines of "without naming names", but I think it's time to pinpoint the issues we currently face in chat and take action.

This is a follow-up to The state of chat. This post aims to identify specific problems and specific problematic users. Because nothing has changed.

Self-Promotion

A post / series of post by a user clearly affiliated with the content linked to (not exclusive to PPCG) for the sole or main purpose of promoting said content. This becomes a problem, when it is noticed by many different users. It's a serious problem, when this behavior persists, even after the user(s) has been asked to stop.

A few examples of recent responses that have gone unnoticed as it seems:

Can you stop advertising your answers in here ? (21 stars)

Quit "shamelessly" promoting your posts. At this point, you should be ashamed. (9 stars)

TNB is not a place to advertise your posts, whether on PPCG or elsewhere (13 stars)

As much as I like the bots, they have a separate room(s) for a reason. I don't mind a quote every now and then, but we don't need a running update (6 stars)

Deleting Messages

A user keeps deleting chat messages with no apparent reason. This becomes a problem, when the amount of deletions is unjustified, the flow of the conversation becomes disrupted and/or users joining the chatroom become disoriented as to why these messages have been deleted.

For heavens sake, stop deleting your messages. (5 stars)

A good alternative to deleting a message that you didn't think before posting, is to think before posting (19 stars)

This becomes a serious problem, when the deleted messages actually were relevant and exhibit a higher quality than most of the other content posted by that user.

[...] I don't get why you would delete a legitimate question, but regularly post nonsensical messages containing nothing but bad English and crying smilies. You should really start to think about your signal to noise ratio. (6 stars)

Intentionally Lowering Quality

A user posts messages that add nothing to the conversation. Worse yet, the contain nothing but

• (redundant) text emoticons
• intentionally bad English
• questions that the user doesn't really need answers to
• straight up noise

This is always a serious problem, and I'll explain why. A few months ago, when chat was quiet, a message occasionally appeared indicating something like "the last message was posted xh ago".

Now these messages have been replaced by "conversations" that are completely uncalled for, useless and a bad example for any user. Instead of an interesting chat log, followed by a brief period of silence, new users now encounter the worst side of TNB when visiting during these (previously) quiet periods. This influences other users.

[...] Spamming the room with noise will not be tolerated. (37 stars)

[...] Please don't speak like this. It lowers the tone of one of the few (usually) civilized places on the internet. (14 stars)

[in response to a message containing nothing but noise] unnecessary (4 stars)

Arrogance, Drama¹

Nobody said that. Don't create drama for no reason (9 stars)

Stop it already with the artificial drama! (7 stars)

I don't mind having you in this room, but sometimes I wonder if you're just intentionally trying to create drama that wasn't there. (6 stars)

Did you notice how all three above are directed at the same user? Over an unacceptably long period of time? Weird, seeing how their response to my statement

You'd think that after being repeatedly called out for sub-optimal behaviour in chat, one would try to reflect and improve. But somehow that doesn't seem to apply to a few members here. (link)

was

Me excluded. :{ [...], however, included.

which is provably false and defintely

a bit arrogant. (2 stars)

Users

We all know who the users are that cause all of these and more problems. But let's take a look at the messages per user in Trash that have been manually moved there by a mod:

TùxCräftîñg:             95
LegionMammal978:         56
CrazyPython:             22
Matthew Roh:             16
EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ:             16 (mostly msgs containing only carets)
R. Kap:                  15
Erik The Golfer:         14
CᴏɴᴏʀO'Bʀɪᴇɴ:            9
betseg:                  8
Molarmanful:             8
BusinessCat:             7
Destructible Watermelon: 7
dorukayhan:              6
Bálint:                  5
Mars Ultor:              3
zyabin101:               3

The root of basically all noise and low quality messages is TùxCräftîñg. Despite them being relatively "new", they already hold the questionable record of the most messages so bad they are already trashed.

zyabin101 is also on that list. But rather than posting straight up nonsense, they like to stir up trouble (see above evidence) and are generally completely resistant to any kind of notice by other users about their behavior. Here's a recent example of what I mean:

@zʏᴀʙiɴ101 Please don't answer for other people. (link)

@zyabin101 Why do you always answer for other people. (link and then again here and here and here)

@zyabin101 minxomat still has a very valid point that you should probably not answer for other people. (link)

And just denying it even when caught in the act:

What to do

See my answer for my suggestions.

The question for you is:

• What specific action can be taken to mitigate this behavior?
• What is our long term strategy?

IMO it's time to define hard(er) limits for this behavior (i.e. when to apply a ban etc.). Tips like "set an example" prove to be a bit useless, because that (apparently) does nothing to improve overall quality. Use the linked meta question for such tips. This question is more aimed at moderators.

Answer 1

In light of recent issues, two users have been suspended for 7 days. Please Be Nice and don't discuss their suspensions.

Remember that chat flags are visible to all 10k users on the entire network, and even moderator-only chat flags are visible to all SE moderators in chat. Therefore, use them only for events that require immediate intervention.

In the absence of a way to notify only PPCG moderators in chat, you can flag any post of a user on the main site instead, using the in need of moderator intervention options and a custom flag reason. If the affected user hasn't posted on main, you can flag one of your own posts instead.

Answer 2

This is one of those situations where I feel a temporary chat ban would be in order (3 stars)

Exactly. Just because chat is a general discussion, doesn't mean the discussion has to be this low quality. We learned over the past few months, that giving tips to users to better themselves is not very effective.

So I suggest:

• keep trashing conversations that have no place in TNB and thus raise the quality new users experience in our chatroom
• start applying chat bans if users refuse to respond to criticism (especially if that criticism comes from a moderator)