Hi guys
Its nice to post and not have anything to tell people about for a change, as things seem to have settled down in the chat room for now.
We have been working on trying to get the chat room busier, and making it more popular, so we hope to be adding some more content to the site soon.
If anyone has any ideas please let me know !
Woc
Hi guys
I’m sure some of you are wondering what has happened to the Dj service that we had on World of Chat. I thought I would post about this, just in case any kind of misleading rumours surface around this issue.
We have decided not to continue with our link up with Time2danceradio, this is not a reflection on their service, as we felt the DJ idea worked quite well within our chat rooms.
The issue we had with Time2danceradio is that we felt we were not getting a fair deal after all World of Chat is a business, we felt we had given many hits to Time2danceradio, and premium advertising spots to them, in return we only got one link that was placed at the bottom of their website and very few hits in return.
We did try to discuss this issue with the people at Time2danceradio we asked for better links on their website, this was refused and communications broke down, so we made the difficult decision to sever links with them.
We at World of Chat have no hard feelings about this, it just didn’t work out how we would have liked and both sites are clearly moving in different directions, so we wish them all the best with their website.
Woc
Hi Guys
As I have mentioned on the name and shame, anyone coming into the room and logging straight out, the next time they enter the chat room, they will be bounced !
You will be booted out once for everytime you bounce the rooms, until this practice stops, as its driving everyone mad, its happened twice today already, and once yesterday.
So clearly me telling people isnt working, I expect a few more might do it later as well.
Woc
Hi guys
As some of you have noticed the rooms are locked for the moment, they will be open again soon enough, lets hope some people have learnt something from the closing, because Admin will not be in a forgiving mood when they do open, if you don’t stick to the rules expect to be banned !
If you dont wanna chat, don’t come into the room as im pretty fed up of people logging in and straight out, if you dont like the rules dont come in, simple as that !
There have been some good points made on the forums, by some of the regulars, Pete made a good point when he said that woc isn’t an extension of msn messenger, this I feel is a very good point, people coming into the room and continuing a conversation they have had on msn, or continuing some kind of clicky chat among friends, this isn’t what chat is about, keep those conversations on your msn.
Its a shame that some people even started bickering on the Forums during a time when the chat room was closed, you people know who you are and you should take a look at yourselves, as you are all adults and responsible for the way you react to what people write on there, we could all read whats on the forums and take it personally.
People seem to enjoy finding insults in the tiniest comments and then replying with some kind of small coded dig and then it all carries on from there, well GROW UP this is what children do, she said this and he said that, its pathetic and if I see any more of it you will be banned, no questions asked, we don’t want to waste our time dealing with childish issues, we want to use our time to make World of Chat the best chat room on the net.
Woc
Hi guys
I have decided to follow up my shame on Dmoz post with an update, I didn’t realise what kind of a response I would get from such a post.
I really didn’t expect the kind of negative views and abuse that I have received, although Alucard on Digital point was helpful so I would like to thank him for his time.
Why Single Out Dmoz
The object of my exercise wasn’t to single out Dmoz, Dmoz are the biggest directory on the net, that is why i targeted them for chat room safety and i wanted to make a point that some of the sites they have listed are not safe. They have a lot of influance on the net, much more than I could ever hope to have.
If Dmoz were to remove these sites I had hoped it might set some kind of precedence to webmasters who don’t care about chat room safety.
This is certainly a problem for lots of directories and not just Dmoz, so my intention wasnt to take pot shots at Dmoz, but since I had targetted them first, I had to approach it from a strong position.
Did It Work
NOPE, seems Dmoz just list sites, they dont actually care about the content of the sites at all, never mind safety, so my safety campaign didnt work at all, if your site meets their criteria you might well get listed or not lol !
I also got a lot of negative comments which I was quite shocked about, after all chat room safety is a good thing is it not ?
Seemingly not, the problem with somthing like this, is its only important when it happens to someone you are close to or who you know. This is a problem that will begin to grow slowly as more people get online.
As Admin at World of Chat, we have often talked about this issue, the conclusion we reached is that nothing will be done about this, until somthing bad actually happens, in the same way that if somone gets knocked down on a certain street, then they put a speed camera there to try to make sure it doesnt happen again.
So the sites i suggested that shouldnt be listed are still there and will continue to be listed and World of Chat will not be listed simple as that !
Woc
Hi Guys
I’m sure some of you don’t know what Dmoz is, Dmoz is a massive directory on the net, that is owned by AOL.
Dmoz is unique as its run by volunteers, you would think that would be a good thing, unfortunately it isn’t, I have various issues with Dmoz its really hard to know where to start.
My main issues with Dmoz is chat room categories on there which are out of date and the sites are in my opinion unsafe, you would think with World of Chat being one of the safest rooms on the net, this would automatically get us in there, you would be WRONG to think this.
Why would I be upset about this so much, the problem with the chat room section on Dmoz is that most of the chat room sites have no safety information, moderation or any security at all, which is frankly asking for trouble !
Dmoz by listing these sites is promoting these sites and sending visitors to these sites, yet decent sites like World of Chat cant even get listed !
I emailed Dmoz with my concerns which was of course ignored, and I’m pretty sure i will never get a reply, as the problem with something being moderated by volunteers, is there is a hidden agenda, which is that people are promoting their own sites via there and their friends sites.
Whats even more amazing is Dmoz answer to no one, you can email them but you wont get a reply, you cant query or challenge a decision, even if its legitimate how can this still be happening in this day and age ?
Why is Safety Such an Issue
The incidents of sexual exploitation via chat rooms has grown, the last official line was 2 a day, which is frightening !
Admittedly you cant stop anyone under age from getting into a chat room people can lie about their age, the only thing you can do is try to deter people and have all the safety information available on your site, some sites don’t have this, this should be a minimum on all sites, especially so if your site is for people under the age of 16.
This undermines everything we are trying to do on World of Chat, we put a good deal of time into moderating the rooms, it also gives webmasters the free run to just create a chat room just to make money and gives them no incentive to make their chat rooms safe, this is surely wrong !
I did an unofficial review of most of the chat rooms within one of the categories and emailed this information to Dmoz, i even applied to tidy up their chat section, with no reply !
Ridiculous
Here is my list of sites that are in dmoz and in my opinion shouldnt be there !
Aol chat – No Safety information, Doesn’t even work !
Chat Web - Advertised as a teen chat room with no safety advice and doesn’t even have a chat room, just links to another website with chat rooms !
Chat Attic - Awful site with no quality, and a clear attempt to get people to donate money to their chat room.
Chatglobe - Not in English and no safety information, cant use it properly as there are so many pop ups on the site, plus the chat room doesn’t work !
ChatWeb - Decent site, but the chat room isn’t even a chat room, its just a script that runs like a chat room, outdated probably about 10 years old.
English Chat - No safety information, doesn’t have a chat room, and has keyword stuffing at the bottom of the page. No safety information and again doesn’t work, and just generally of poor content and quality
Fire-house58 - No safety information, outdated script must be 10 years old, not even a proper chat room, poor quality content.
Hip Planet Chat room - No safety information and site is corrupted as all the image files are missing.
Joe
Leahims Java Chat - No safety information doesn’t have a chat room !
Mikes2000chat – Hasn’t been updated since the year 2000, outdated !
Shophub - No safety information, another outdated chat room, not been updated since 2000
SHAME ON YOU DMOZ !
Woc
Hi Guys
Its nice to have my own say on the goings on in and around the room over the last few weeks, the room had been picking up and was getting busier, but now that’s changed.
The goings on of the last few weeks are frankly embarrassing, after linking up with Time 2 Dance Radio over the last few weeks, I had hoped things would pick up even more, but no people had to spoil it, and I have to apologize to the people of Time 2 Dance Radio for other peoples behavior. Fortunately they have been understanding.
It never fails to surprise me how selfish people can be, as World of Chat brought most of you people together, but when things go wrong the room is the main thing that suffers, because some of you can set your differences aside and that is to everyone involved in the problems, I don’t care about who started it or who said what, your supposed to be adults and a community.
That means supporting your community and helping resolve issues, not by saying oh im not coming in now until it gets better!
What’s even more frustrating is that no one even mentioned what was going on, to any admin and then when asked, the common response was “I aint mentioning any names” well if you cant mention any names, don’t mention it at all.
What is even more amazing, is after all my warnings yesterday about people hiding banned users in the room and not mentioning them to Admin, someone still managed to do this yesterday, as a old quote once said, “ if you not part of the solution your part of the problem” and there wont be a room to chat in if this continues.
Woc
Hi guys
As some of you might have noticed, world of chat has linked up with Time 2 dance radio, to bring you music while you are in the chat rooms.
The djs will mainly be working from the Woc lounge for the time being, and taking live requests on certain nights of the week, so please do your best to support them.
They will take requests for birthdays and things like that as well !
Woc
Hi guys
Last month one of the very first Uk chat sites finally has closed it doors, Uk chat was one of the first chat sites that many people can remember, it just shows how competative chat rooms are.
I never really used Uk chat, but i think its sad that they have had to close, they mention on their site that a move towards social networking sites has affected their numbers.
I am not sure if this is true, although there is definatly more people on social networking sites now, im not sure this means the end for chat rooms.
I think its very apparent you have to keep sites up to date, and change with the times, who knows somone might take over Uk chat yet.
Woc
Hi Guys
It was quite funny to hear that the msn live AI intelligence bot has been withdrawn, as the program had run into problems.
The program that people just chatted to via msn messenger, was supposed to be a bit of fun, and something kids could chat to safely online.
Seems the Santa bot had been a docker in a past life, as its language turned with such phrases as dirty bastards and describing sex acts.
I never added the bot, but i have experienced bots before, and they are not clever enough to choose their language carefully, so it isn’t really a surprise.
There is a serious side of course, most parents would be mortified if the Santa had spoke to their child like this.
After hearing a Microsoft representative on the radio, he said the program didn’t behave how they wanted it to behave, too bloody right it didn’t lol !
Woc