Idea from the Chat Team.(Mediation sessions.)
 

Hey everyone,
For those familiar with chat, you all know that sometimes disagreements between members happen, which can often lead to some drama. For some time now, the Chat Team has been considering setting up a system of structured mediation to help members resolve conflicts in a controlled, constructive manner. Any member may contact the Chat team to request mediation and we will do our best to help you resolve the situation. This is not only directed at site regulars, but at anyone on ryl whether they are normally only on the forums or in chat. What we are proposing is the following:

General Guidelines
1. 30 minute maximum time.
2. Any flaming will be an immediate kick.
3. Chat moderator will choose who speaks first.
4. Each person gets 2 messages per turn. (this is to prevent flood of 1-2 word messages and rambling. Make them count)
5. Speaking out of turn will result in a warning. Second offense is a freeze. Third offense is a kick and an end to the mediation session
6. Moderators will not take sides. They will merely guide and moderate the conversation to keep it civil and productive.
7. If no agreement/compromise can be reached, have involved parties agree to disagree and give each other wide berth. If, after mediation, people involved start/continue to antagonize each other, it will result in immediate points, as they have been advised to give each other a wide berth.
8. Any abuse directed at the moderator attempting to mediate will NOT be tolerated. We are only trying to help and didn't cause the problem. Any abuse toward the mediator will be dealt with harshly. First offense is an instant freeze. Second offense is a kick and points.
9. Anything said in mediation is to remain confidential.


Those are the basic guidelines we have so far agreed upon, but we would like to hear from you, the members of the site and chat, whether you all think it's a good idea, something you would like, would find helpful, would use, etc. Also, any suggestions on the structure/guidelines would be welcome by the team and will be taken into consideration.

Zankou
Deputy Head of Chat

Interesting!

Just to make this clear, the above does not apply to all of the regular chat rooms. A room would be set up specifically for mediation to take place, a moderator and the people involved would be the only ones there.

Just a bit of further clarification, Mediation will take place in a dedicated, password protected room in chat, not in open chat. The regular rooms in chat will remain the same.

Also, just in case people are wondering, this isn't a service aimed just at members who frequent chat, if you are having issues with someone on the forum and would like some 'real time' conflict resolution we would definitely welcome that. However in conjunction to the above rule about it not spilling over into other areas of RYL, if this occurs the chat mods will make sure the forum mods are aware that you have had mediation sessions.

I know Alex mentioned that it is aimed at everyone, however I know that in the past chat incentives have been viewed as being aimed purely at chat regulars.

I like this idea. So if someone wants to use the mediation with someone and the other person refuses, then what happens with regards to behaviour if the conflict continues after the other person has refused mediation?

Also, who will approach the other person, a mod or the person asking for mediation?

Good questions Steph. If the behaviour continued we would send a PM stating again that they are being offered mediation, if they dont want to do that and the same thing continued on then we would issue warnings/points in the same way as now.

The mods will PM the other person to let them know so that we can a.make sure everyone is on board and b.so we can arrange a date/time. We would advise members NOT to contact people theyre in contact with to inform them that they have been seeking mediation as it would probably make the other person go on the defensive and be less likely to agree to it.

Good idea!

Yeah I mean if it is getting too heated people can take a break, thats a good idea. We would prefer people to take a breath rather than start flaming each other because if that happens the mods will have to step in. We are hoping that because there will only be the 2 people and the mod in the room that any high emotions will be able to go down quite quickly as there will be no input from anyone else.

We would like this to be a safe space for people to talk about conflict and be able to express it without fear of judgement and to a certain extent we are going to let members be frank about their feelings as long as it isnt flaming.

Hi Irene,

I think thats something to discuss with the rest of the moderators but I do see 2 issues with that.

One is that the members wont have the chat powers that moderators do, so if it escalated to the point of flaming and rule breaking the mediator would be kind of powerless to intervene more than telling them to stop.It wouldnt really be viable to give the anon account chat powers because we do have to keep a level of confidentiality around the control panel etc.

I think maybe its something that could be trialled and it may be that there could be a mediator and a mod in the room, so the moderator could be there for back up rather than actually mediating.

Two is that if there wasnt a mod and there were a number of mediators who were on an anon account and the mediator either went and told people about what had taken place or broke the rules in some way it would be really difficult for us to trace back who it was which could potentially cause a lot of problems.

But I do think that its something we could perhaps talk about once the mediating has been trialled etc. I dont want the other chat mods to be overburdened with things so it might be helpful for us to have a team of mediators.

I think an immediate kick is a bit harsh as people are trying to sort out there problems and there issues and there grievances.
I think people should be allowed 3 chances and then be kicked. But I do think that the mediation
Idea is a good idea. and I think that epics ideas should be tried out, because I think that some people would be scared of trying to sort out there differences with a mod present because They will be scared of being immediately being band from RYL permanently and I would also be scared of this happening.
but the initial idea is a good, one because it's hard sometimes to try and sort out your issues and problems and any grievances out with in the man chat rooms.

I don't go into chat much, but this seems like a good idea.

What about flaming members who aren't in chat? Just like random bitching about other members? Does that usually have consequences?
(maybe slightly off topic, just curious)

Do you mean if members are bitching about another member in chat? We ask people not to do it and go through the warn/freeze/kick as usual but its quite a rare occurrence. But thats a different topic!

But people can sort out their issues without flaming, thats the whole points of mediation, solving issues without it resorting to flaming etc. If we go through 3 chances then the whole mediation will be taken over with trying to control someone elses behaviour and that is just a waste of everyones time.

I dont think there is any way that this can take place without mod involvement, whether thats with a mod being in the room or logs being taken and passed onto a mods, it really would not be viable to do without us. We are not in the habit of perma banning people from RYL and in fact the reason why we are trying out mediation is to stop people from being infracted/banned because of issues with other members.

The bottom line is that if you don't break any rules you wont be kicked or banned and if you are taking part in mediation then you are saying that you want to resolve a matter without rule breaking. If you can't get through the session without flaming then it is probably pointless wanting to take part in the first place.

We definitely want to remove the issue of people trying to resolve their issues in main chat where it can become heated very quickly.

Yeah, like if a few people in chat were bitching about a member of RYL but someone not in chat at the time.
Was just curious! I've heard of it happening and it makes me a little uncomfortable but as I don't go in there much I'm not sure what is done about it.

But yeah, off topic! Sorry!

I guess my question is more wondering about why this is a run by chat mods and not supporters and I guess one of those reasons is needing the chat room access.

I hope it helps people though, that would be nifty. I'm sort of sad we'd need a system like this but if we do then I'm glad it's there!

It's run by the chat mods because its an issue that crops up quite a lot in chat and the supporters have a lot to do with live help/emails etc. Also as a team we would like to offer more help to members as opposed to just rule enforcing. Plus as previously mentioned we need people who have chat powers and also me to create rooms and passwords and so on!

We hope it does too, it is a bit sad but I think it could have a really positive impact on the community and may help people to be more open about any issues rather than feeling like they are being bullied/isolated etc.x

"Also as a team we would like to offer more help to members as opposed to just rule enforcing."


I like that :) And yes, I do hope your latter point is right about being more open, speaking up and getting help from people around when there are so many willing to help out.

If you have mediation face to face I believe it is supposed to be done in a calm manner with no arguments. If these occur and aren't controlled straight away I think the session is stopped so mods would only be doing the same which I personally don't think is harsh. Having 3 strikes and you're out is a bit lenient especially as you're trying to resolve problems in a calm fashion (which may help you in the future with disagreements)and with the sessions only being 30mins long, 3 episodes of flaming is going to be a lot of the time spent bring unproductive in my opinion.

Animad, you have it exactly correct! If we give chances like that and people knew they had certain number of chances to flame without consequence, there is the strong possibility that people could take advantage of that and flame twice knowing they wouldn't be kicked if they didn't flame a third time. It would be complete chaos and we'd have to waste time trying to cut the flaming out rather than focus on resolution.

I am not sure how it would work, but you might need to do some pre mediation sessions to educate persons on what it involves. I suppose having it done via voice or face time (audio or web cam) might be too much? It sounds like a great next level of support, but I think you may also need to decide on goals- like what are you trying to achieve from the mediation. Is it like an opportunity for a person to not get banned from chat or RYL?