Managing your public chat
Moderation and administration tools
As the host of a public chat you can provide administrative rights to other members of the chat so they can help you in the administration and moderation of the chat.
Hosts can accept, reject, eject or ban members from a chat and can also provide administrative rights to other chat users to assist them in moderating the chat. All of these options are visible to the host and moderators through the participants panel.
One way public chats
Hosts can choose if they want other users to be able to post to the chat or not. By setting a chat to read-only mode hosts can ensure that only administrators and selected participants can post to the chat. This can be useful when you wish to broadcast information to the group, in an announcements only chat or a special chat where only a few people can contribute but others are interested in hearing their views.
Eject and ban participants
This function allows hosts to eject participants and ban them from re-entering the chat. A confirmation screen will ask you to confirm that you wish to eject and ban the participant.
Please note: Once a member is ejected from the chat they cannot re-join at any stage.
Ending the chat
The end chat function ends the chat and no one will be allowed to participate in the chat. Please note: The host cannot leave the chat.
Removing Messages
Hosts can remove offensive or inappropriate messages from the public chat. A notification will be given that the message has been removed. The removed message will also be deleted from all participants chat history.
User states as shown to host
Chat participants can have a number of different states. Chat host can use these to manage their level of participation.
- Waiting — User wishing to join the chat. The administrators can either accept or reject their membership request. If they are accepted they become a member and can read and post messages. If the user is rejected, they are banned and cannot reapply for membership of this chat.
- Chatting — Regular participant in the chat. They can post and read messages.
- Read-only — User can read messages posted to the chat but cannot post messages themself.
- Host — Administrator of the chat, they have the word "Host" next to their name. An administrator can promote other members to administator, eject and ban users, set users to read-only mode and accept/reject applicants.
Changing public chat settings
The host can choose how they wish to run the public chat by defining moderation rules on who can enter the chat and whether they can post messages. To do this, select Options > Public Chats >Moderation Rules and choose from the following options:
- Anyone can post messages in this chat — Allow anyone to join the chat and begin participating straight away.
- Participants need my permission to start posting messages — Anyone can join the chat in read-only mode, however before they can begin to post messages the host must authorise them as members.
- Participants need my permission to start reading and posting messages — The host must approve all users who wish to join the chat before they can view or post messages.
You can also create community guidelines which will be displayed to all new members explaining the rules and guidelines of the public chat.
