Board Thread:Consensus Track/@comment-6528030-20140124224808/@comment-4705438-20140126085221

I was going to make a similar post on rethinking what the purpose of the live chat was.

Currently is works as a general community hub, but unfortunately there has been a lot of drama on it recently. And that's what, in my opinion, pushes people off.

Attempts have been made to deal with the issues you've mentioned, we have new chat guidelines and there's a bot in the works to create a viewable history.

Of course, the possibility of completely revamping the system is still there as well. But let's think of other possible "chat archetypes":


 * Editor Chat - Live Chat would have a prerequisite of 250 or more mainspace edits. This would filter out the community greatly and chat would become a lot more TES related, but the downside is: It would also be extremely unfriendly to newbies. (This would also significantly cut down the number of staff required to maintain it)


 * Newbie Chat - Live Chat with the sole purpose of answering newbie questions. Again, a lot more TES related, but also empty and boring. It would require many dedicated staff members. Due to the inactivity it would also greatly decrease the frequency and speed of replies.


 * Community Chat - Live Chat for everybody to maintain the fanbase and make friends with similar interests. It does bring in the possibility of drama and other offenses, but also keeps the "staff" working and the place interesting.

The third option is, in my opinion, the lesser evil. So what we CAN do in the current state of the chat is to become a little more harsh with enforcement of the rules. Keep the drama out and try to keep it TES related. The TES wiki staff (the moderators) also need to have a better understanding of what their purpose is, and that their rank isn't a privilege over others, but a voluntary job.