General chat, What's it for?

[Redlinelies]

Due to recent events the questions about general chat have been brought up. Apparently there's a lot to say regarding this subject, so now the question goes out to the community.

What should the general chat should be used for, what's ok, and what isn't ok. Should it be meant for advertising roleplays? What exactly do you want to see there? We're interested in what you think.

Feel free to write personal views and opinions.

[Raz.]

I'm going to get straight to the point.

Here's what I think it should and shouldn't be used for:

Brief conversations. This is not to say stop chatting in general altogether. I think it's ok if you want to use General chat to ask questions to those who are listening, or to try to find the location of someone. Little things like this.
If you want to continue your conversation, find that user and then continue in the Local chat.
Dragging out a longwinded sob story about how your life sucks/how you can't get out of that rock/what you did today/what your dog is doing right now in my opinion isn't what General Chat should be used for.
Although on the other hand, sometimes you get caught up in something and it just gets carried out.

Advertising Roleplay. I believe this is ok also, since how else would you gather others to join you in a rp ingame? However there is a fine line between Advertising and spam I think. If you post a few times with a bit of time inbetween post it's ok, however if it's all in caps every second, it's not ok and I think it's spam.
Mate/pup/cub/family beggars also has a similar scenario to what I just explained, and I'd be just repeating myself.
I should also be noted that users should know when to stop advertising/asking. If no one responds, no one is interested. Don't continue to press on with it and maybe try again in half an hour/an hour or so.

Roleplay. No. Just no. Because some/most users do not want to know how your wolf howled at the moon, or how your lion mauled that giraffe. It just clogs up the chatbox. If you want to roleplay, stick to Local chat, Group chat or even your own map.

Vulgarities Ugh. This is a huge no. I don't want to get into what I've seen that's been said over the General chat. ranging from sexual things/rape to other gross TMI bodily functions. I'd rather not hear about something like that so publically. Once again, if you really must talk about your TMIs stick to whispers and group chats.

Arguments. If something comes up and causes a fight, don't slather it all over General Chat. No one wants to hear your swears, crude/petty remarks and all round rage at one another. This also just unpleasantly clogs the chatbox and should be taken into local or just take your argument out of the game and have it over email/PM/MSN/etc.

Bullying. Another huge no. I've seen on multiple occassions small handfuls of users pick on another player for various reasons. I guess this could also come under Trolling aswell.

And finally the big ones, Spam and Trolling.
No no no no no no no. No.
I don't think I really have to explain this one. I'm pretty sure everyone has seen their fair share of spam and trolling in it's various shapes and forms in the General Chat.

[Rukata]

Oh, boy.

Well, for me General chat is just what it says: General. It can be for really anything; brief conversations, roleplay advertising, mate searching, and just whatever else. That is, assuming that what you want to use it for doesn't break the rules. For instance, it should definitely not be used for spamming, cursing, trolling, and all that other common bad stuff.

Honestly, I know there are some problems with General, but I think it's just fine the way it is. I mean sure, occasionally people break rules on it, but that's expected with any chat that covers a large area, like General in FH. If you want another example, Trade in World of Warcraft is often used as whatever people want, because you can view it in each of the five cities, therefore whatever anyone says in it can be viewed by a large number of people. Of course, Trade is meant for Trading but.. well, on my realm we say, "Trade never sleeps."

<Oh, a realm is like IT dimensions basically, if you're confused. >

[Babe]

I'm going to get straight to the point.

Here's what I think it should and shouldn't be used for:

Brief conversations. This is not to say stop chatting in general altogether. I think it's ok if you want to use General chat to ask questions to those who are listening, or to try to find the location of someone. Little things like this.
If you want to continue your conversation, find that user and then continue in the Local chat.
Dragging out a longwinded sob story about how your life sucks/how you can't get out of that rock/what you did today/what your dog is doing right now in my opinion isn't what General Chat should be used for.
Although on the other hand, sometimes you get caught up in something and it just gets carried out.

Advertising Roleplay. I believe this is ok also, since how else would you gather others to join you in a rp ingame? However there is a fine line between Advertising and spam I think. If you post a few times with a bit of time inbetween post it's ok, however if it's all in caps every second, it's not ok and I think it's spam.
Mate/pup/cub/family beggars also has a similar scenario to what I just explained, and I'd be just repeating myself.
I should also be noted that users should know when to stop advertising/asking. If no one responds, no one is interested. Don't continue to press on with it and maybe try again in half an hour/an hour or so.

Roleplay. No. Just no. Because some/most users do not want to know how your wolf howled at the moon, or how your lion mauled that giraffe. It just clogs up the chatbox. If you want to roleplay, stick to Local chat, Group chat or even your own map.

Vulgarities Ugh. This is a huge no. I don't want to get into what I've seen that's been said over the General chat. ranging from sexual things/rape to other gross TMI bodily functions. I'd rather not hear about something like that so publically. Once again, if you really must talk about your TMIs stick to whispers and group chats.

Arguments. If something comes up and causes a fight, don't slather it all over General Chat. No one wants to hear your swears, crude/petty remarks and all round rage at one another. This also just unpleasantly clogs the chatbox and should be taken into local or just take your argument out of the game and have it over email/PM/MSN/etc.

Bullying. Another huge no. I've seen on multiple occassions small handfuls of users pick on another player for various reasons. I guess this could also come under Trolling aswell.

And finally the big ones, Spam and Trolling.
No no no no no no no. No.
I don't think I really have to explain this one. I'm pretty sure everyone has seen their fair share of spam and trolling in it's various shapes and forms in the General Chat.

Pretty much took the words out of my mouth. ^^

[Onai]

General had been fine, until one mod decided they wanted to toss around some power and "End the spam" which was so cluttering everyone else. I've never once seen anyone in-game complain about people talking to others across the map, telling people how their day went, discussing and debating across the map with others. I HAVE seen players complain about "I NEED A MATE" and the repeated every four seconds "JOIN MY PACK!" advertisements. But nothing is said to these members. Oh no. The ones who get busted are the ones that are intelligent enough to figure out where favoritism is played.

Will anything ever be done about it? Probably not. There's only one mod doing it, the one most others have a fore mentioned already. They will get off scott free, like they always did, even in IT.  Why? Because the rest of the admins it seems are their friends, or at least they're trying to save one of their owns rears. I thought it might have been just me, just catching them on a bad day. Oh but with a little research, not the case. An older FH forum post has complaints about this same mod. DA journals complain about it. Other players I've encountered claim 75 to be the worst mod seen anywhere. I've always given people the benefit of the doubt, and overlooked it for a while. No longer however. There's too much working against them now. I've seen firsthand what they do, always showing off for their little friends. Other mods? No where to be seen, or the ones that are there sit in the background and just watch? And because they've been around for so long, every other admin just absolutely trusts their word and whatnot. Are you not seeing everything when he bans people for "Spamming" General? Do you not see how one person, someone who is a friend to this mod gets banned for a mere few hours or so, or just kicked? And the others? Banned. Days. Weeks. In my case, months. For disagreeing?

Sorry not to have much respect for people who can't show equal treatment to all players. You are an Admin, you're supposed to be there for us, make the community better. Not make us flippin' miserable 24/7 because our opinions aren't the same as yours. Thanks for that, aye? Is that hard to be talked down to, like a small child? When in fact you're acting like one at times. I don't get what happened, you used to handle things so nicely in FH, dealing with annoyances, not threatening/kicking/banning people over every word they say in a chat.

 [General Chat. <--- General; involving, applicable to, or affecting the whole/concerned or dealing with universal rather than particular aspects/not confined by specialization or careful limitation/]

If you only wanted it for advertising, begging for mates/parents/ and whatever else anyone feels like screaming in all caps over the map, why not call it "Advertising Chat". Or make one for that purpose? Better yet, leave it alone maybe? Let General chat run as it always has? There has not been any major issues in the recent months with it. It wasn't until people started getting banned for talking in it. Some people are shy, they can't comfortably want to walk up to random strangers in local and talk. Whisper? How in the world would they know the username if they're all the way across the map, and not added? I know I don't add random requests most of the time, who's to say others don't either. Group chat? That could work, you know, if you were in that group.

General offers a link between the community, people meet, make friends, find out where everyone else is hanging in that chat. And you're now going to kill it off? Because you think it's too cluttered? So what of in a few months? WQ was a great game, still is. So long as you don't want to type out a decent sentence. FH going to be like that? Drive everyone away because one person got a little happy with the ability to throw people off a game. Ban people cursing? By all means, do so. Ban people creating lude conversations? Of course. But for stating your mind, offering up your own opinion? If they don't like it, you're eaten. Where are Kovu and Raz on this? I assumed they of all people would care if people were having issues with the mods. But since its their friend, or part of their "Team", there will likely be no retribution.

~Onai.

[Kojayo55]

I'm going to make this short, and simple.
General chat is on a chatbox. You CAN NOT tell people they can't chat on the most general chat. What if I decide I don't want to search everybody down just to talk to them? This is ridiculous, and I'm fully with Onai.
Oh my god, every few hours somebody spams general, call the police! This wouldn't be a problem if their were more god forsaken in game mods, who didn't randomly decided to create some unjust rules about it all. And hello mods, where even are you during all this? Yesterday the conversation was struck, Ritza started to explain, then all the sudden 75 comes in and tells everybody chatting is off limits on general because it's considered spam. Once again, a simple fix it to get rid of the people who spam, and make some more, rightous moderators to do that.
The end. That's all I'm saying, I've already said more on general. Which is indeed, the general chat, the same way the general roleplay forum is general.
-Killian

[Featherclawspirit]

Ok. In my opinion, it is a chatbox, and it is expected that people will chat on it. As long as it isn't bullying anyone or trolling/spamming etc. I'm okay with it. As I understand it, everything negative someone does on a chat fits into one of those three categories. I believe normal chat should be allowed, just not the spamming and such that causes these incidents. Just my opinion on the subject. ^_^

[KaizaKan]

Oh wonderful. A place to let out those feelings for General chat. Watch this topic go down in flames, but either way, I will contribute to my thoughts.

General is just, general. It's a place for any general type of topic, chat, and so on with these rambling topics. General was fine and dandy, and I enjoyed speaking to people in the public maps actually. But now, it's just sad. The community can start saying maybe three lines of chat to each other in general and they get banned for a week, a day, an hour, and even worse. We don't sometimes don't feel like chatting around and a new potential friend pops in to chat, but in Local people might stare at you and ask what you want. That can easily be taken as a hostile remark and make them leave when all they wish might be to join in and have some fun as well.

I personally can't deal with it, so I stick to private maps whispering to friends that aren't busy. I just can't stand going into a public map to talk with most others. I like making new friends on here, but I really can't now that someone decided to let the power go to their head and ban people for simply talking to each other. Some of those people may have met for the first time for goodness sake! SOME of us would like to actually meet new people and be their friends. I enjoy most of the people in our community, but now I can barely get on anymore from this. When I do, I sit there in the maps just waiting for something to pop up to show we can actually talk to each other without getting told off like we're three. And, if you don't like how it is, then why have it?

No one ever really said that it was made only for advertising things. Bonfire chatting in local is understandable, as it is one small map that everyone can see what everyone is saying. And we can't all chat in local at the plains where most are because-think!- it's a huge map! I usually make a new buddy every so often on here, but now I don't at all. It makes me feel like the game is going to become some petty game that has the worst community possible, in which FH actually does seem to be driving itself to. And to think, we ALL have to suffer because one person decided to let their power-ego go to their head. And others are scared to talk in general for really anything because this one person decided to change the community to their liking. It really is sad, but sure, general doesn't need to have random sentences by people trying to get attention, but we don't need to suffer for some idiotic thought from one person. The community complains about this 24/7 and it is no shocker at all. I myself am thinking of going in a hiatus from the game until this is taken care of, I can't even meet anyone else. And not all of us want to send friend requests to twenty different people.

Heck, I sometimes go on the game as a character who has an RP group already and mess around with them, so with them group chat is out of the question, and I am very sure that many others do this. Not all of us would like to quit our group to chat about one topic. People in the community are starting to leave and state every thing that is wrong with the way FH is working out, and I can't help but agree. It really is getting on my nerves and some of my friends are leaving FH already until this stupid, petty problem is resolved. And to think, this is all because of one person. Makes most just stop socializing or playing entirely. I am sure plenty are thinking the same thing as well. And two got banned for stating their opinion, SO WHAT if YOUR oh-so-powerful opinion is not the same as others. Don't even dare to expect all of us to be your little drones and agree to your thoughts like slaves. I wouldn't be ashamed to be part of those two, I had agreed with them. This is insane, being kicked off for stating our opinions. Sorry, but not everyone wants to be a mindless drone who sucks up to your powerful feet just to stay out of trouble so they don't get kicked like the reasonable people do.

It astounds me that the real people who seem to have a mind get banned, when the suck ups get all the glory and roam around stating idiotic thoughts based off the mods. The one person is getting mad at people for just saying really anything that doesn't please their almighty thoughts, so they decide to kick them before they stir up something against their pleasure. They simply swing their banhammer and continue their ego-filled quest of banning every decent person in the community who has an opinion that is against their all powerful opinion.  It really sickens me how this community is, and if nothing is done, I can easily see it plummeting into an even stupider problem.

[Rukata]

(-only plays FH really late at night with the aussies, so she's never encountered 75-)
Sounds like a mod needs to be investigated by the Intelligence. -snort-
If any mod every told me general was completely off limits, I'd tell them to go out into the real world and find a girl or something to have something better to do with their time. Seriously, I'd really be like, "Screw you and get lost."
Oh look, it's Mr. Banhammer..

[KaizaKan]

No one ever said general had a rule in stone, and people act like the section has a rule. They result their actions according to a rule no one ever said was real. How shall we know what you don't like for us to do when no one has put up a rule about general, but this leads me again to ,'Why have it if you don't like it' subject.

Argh, I don't feel like dealing with it at all, so I won't be risking going ingame to get some more of this. Taking a break from this problem. PM me is you wanna talk about, any of ya. -slinks away-