Post #791366

2026-03-25 23:59 UTC

Chatrooms were not meant to last forever. I am currently in a chatroom which is about 10 years old, with about 40 members, and it is showing clear signs of rot. Nobody is actively moderating it. A couple of people are trying, but their attention is split, and this room is the lower priority. When a sufficiently large group is unmoderated, and abuse arises, the victim has no choice but to leave the group to evade the abuser. This means that, in general, unmoderated groups tend to shed their most vulnerable members and retain their most toxic ones. This is why I am disappointed in every chat platform that does not give an easy way to export your chat history. Because people stay in the room to keep access to their memories, when they should be leaving and letting the chat die. On IRC you didn't even have to request a data export, because everything was logged in plain text already. It's complicated now, and for reasons I do not find satisfying. This is why people like me refuse to use Discord as a forum, as a wiki, as a knowledge hub. Because knowledge hubs are supposed to last forever. And chatrooms are not. #indieweb #chat #moderation

Replies (4)

@khleedril@cyberplace.social 2026-03-26 07:01

@nycki I ran a chat room for ten years, maxing out at about 200 members. Eventually people get bored with it and start being nasty to each other. It is a phenomenon. (The reality is Facebook killed it.) I'd be interested to hear if any management standards appear out of this, especially with regards to regaining logs and access to the old records. Keep us informed!

Open ##1658994
@nycki@critters.gay 2026-03-26 05:21

hmm. what if: chat where connected users automatically save logs but idle users get auto-kicked so you always have your own logs but if you leave overnight then you have to ask what you missed maybe with some sort of "on the record" bot for when you want receipts for later is that a thing yet?

Open ##1658995
@nycki@critters.gay 2026-03-26 00:11

Because of this, I've been thinking a lot about the purpose of "rules" in a chatroom. I think it's good to have some, because then the moderator's job is easier. Let other people report violations so that you don't have to read every message every day to catch them. As former outcasts, I think a lot of us are afraid to write strict rules for our chatrooms. "What if we become the bullies?" My answer to this is: write the appeals process first. Kick people early with little to no warning, but make it easy for them to rejoin. Ideally you could kick someone in a way that they keep their chatlogs, so that they could reference them during appeal -- again, automatic log export is something I deem necessary for safety.

Open ##1658996
@astraluma@tacobelllabs.net 2026-03-26 00:02

@nycki ngl, i have considered a discord-based website builder just so people would do something to get off discord

Open ##1658998