Using Chat

(JD) · Mar 25, 2011 at 01:35 PM

Hi there!

Psych Central has a CHAT option here so members can chat in real time, rather than wait for a response from a post.

You will find the Chat option through a tab on your task bar above.

Depending upon what "skin" you are using here at PC (another option regarding what your site pages look like, color, font etc) there are task bars near the top of your page. [ On one task bar, the top one you can access: Home Conditions Quizzes Ask Q&A Drugs Blogs News Research Resources Find help COMMUNITY. ]

When you click on the COMMUNITY tab, you find the index of the forums, and access to other areas, including chat. [task bar tabs: Forums Social Groups Blogs Chat (##) Photos Ratings Answers My Profile]

From the COMMUNITY Tab you can enter the chat room area. Only by being a member, and signed in, can you access chat.

BEFORE entering chat, you can view who is already there.
Run your cursor over the Chat(##) tab and a "drop down" window drops down. (The ##s next to the Chat option shows how many total members are in the chat rooms.)

It lists the rooms available in the chat area. (Lobby, Social, Support, 21+, Teen, Auditorium.) It also has two other options for: No pop-up Chat, and Who's in chat.

Click on the Who's In Chat and it will show in a new window, who's in what room. "Private" rooms are also shown.

You can enter a chat room directly by clicking on that room. Some browsers might be having pop-up issues, and if you all you receive from clicking upon a room is a blue screen that ends up telling you "authentication failed" then click on the "No PopUp Chat" option. That should take you into the Lobby, from where you can then enter another available room.

[I will not be able to address technical issues with anyone not being able to enter the chat rooms. Do know that brand new members will not immediately be able to use the chat rooms.]

Individual chat rooms:

LOBBY: this is the main entrance to the chat room area. When you enter, an automatic notice will be at the top of your screen:

Quote:

13:23 Welcome to the Psych Central Community Chat System. Please contact a Community Team member (a moderator or administrator) to report problems while in chat. All Community Guidelines apply here. Note: Do NOT enter chat under the influence of alcohol or drugs; members doing so may be immediately suspended without warning or notice. Do NOT enter chat to discuss active suicidal behavior or thoughts -- call 800-273-8255 instead.

The lobby is not for heavy, serious support for any one member or issue. This allows for a light, safe area so that anyone who is just entering the chat area is not triggered.

The next message you will read in the lobby is:

Quote:

13:23 You entered Lobby. Room topic is: Gather here & then move on to the room of your choice.

The next room on the list is the SOCIAL ROOM.
This is the room where the lighthearted, casual chatting of day to day events or thoughts take place. It's not for heavy, serious support of any one member or issue either.

The next room listed is SUPPORT ROOM.
This IS where to go for support from other members. If you are triggered or hurting or really feeling poorly and would benefit from having others help you think/work through something, this is the place to go.

Sometimes there is more than one, or even several members who are very needy at one time. Often, having multiple conversations in one chat room can be confusing, and even moreso if someone is hurting or confused already. Be mindful of this. You can always make private rooms, or talk in PM in chat, to make the experience more beneficial.

The next room is the 21+ Room.
This is for the more adult topics, separating them from the other chat rooms where there are often tender ears of teenagers present. No one who is not 21 or older is supposed to be in this chat room. It's all on the honor system. However, if you know of someone who is not 21 and is in the room, you can PM them in chat to remind them or contact a moderator for assistance. It's all with the health of the member in mind. teens are asked to honor the adult room.

The next is the Teen Room.
This room is only for teenagers! Sometimes adult members are invited into the teen room, by the teens, for help. But adults are to honor the teen room as their room.

The next is the AUDITORIUM.
While there are no harsh rules in the chat area, this room is generally left for hosted chats, especially DocJohn's. Sometimes Chat Leaders will create their own chat rooms, with the title of their chat, but it's also common for them to use the Auditorium for PC sponsored chats. Hanging out after a hosted chat is allowed, but is frowned upon. Once the chat leader has left (or if the chat leader wishes to leave and close the room) then it's only polite to leave the chat room. It can be confusing and disappointing to late comer members who enter the hosted chat room expecting to catch the hosted chat.

Now, what is in the chat room that will enhance your chatting experience?

If you look up on the right of your chat window, you will see icons. the first is a brown door. Clicking on that will give a drop down that gives you the rooms available, how many and which members are in them, such as:

Quote:

Public Rooms
21+ Chat (0)
For adults only and mature topics.
Auditorium (0)
For hosted chats, including weekly Q&As with DocJohn
Lobby (0)
Gather here & then move on to the room of your choice
Social Chat (0)
This room is for non-support, fun topics and discussion. No mature discussions, please.
Staff Only (0)
For the Psych Central Community Team
Support Chat (0)
This room is for people who are in need of emotional support and those who give it.
Teen Chat (0)

Below that regular listing, if you scroll down, you will see any member-created rooms, such as my private room I made so I could see the chat area while making this tutorial.

User Rooms

Private (1)(JD)
no topic
To join a room, click its name.

You use the door icon to enter another room in the chat area. It also gives you a chance to create your own private room. "Create Room." If you click on that, you can give your room a Title that will show on the chat room listing. It gives you a place to put what your room is going to discuss, if anything thematic, and it also gives an option of creating a password. You don't have to use the password option for your room, allowing anyone to enter.

If you choose a passworded private room, you'll need to be sure to give the password out to the other members you've invited to your room.

Only those members who have the password (which is requested when they click on the private room to enter) will be able to enter your chat.

Having a private room also allows you, the creator, to control it. You can "warn" any member who acts up or out of line, and you can "boot" them from your chat room is they upset your chat. A private room closes when the last person leaves.

The next little icon on that upper left is a gear.
Clicking on the gear gives several more choices. You can choose to see the member's avatars next to their names in the chat text area list, to see the emoticons (smileys), to see font colors. You can set to show when people enter or leave the chat, to ignore private chat PMs, to use large fonts. You can choose whether to see the members' avatars next to their names on the chat room attendance list, and whether you want that list in alphabetical order. (Otherwise it lists members as they enter.) You can also set sounds, to hear when a member enters or leaves the chat, when you receive a PM, or when someone posts to the chat.

The question mark gives you basic chat room use information, in case you forget. Here's what the additional useful information that it gives:

Quote:

Participating in Chat

When you join a chat, you see a window with the current conversation. The right pane of the window displays a list of active chatters in the room. You type your messages in the bottom pane.

You can format the text in your messages by using the buttons on the toolbar. Click the Send button or press the Enter key on your keyboard to send your message to the current chat conversation.
Private Chats

Click a name and select Whisper to send a quick private message without leaving the group chat tab. You can also double-click a name.

Click a name and select Private Chat to start a private conversation with the selected person. Private chats open in separate tabs. The group chat is always the first tab on the left. When new messages appear in a private chat, a balloon appears on the chat tab. When another user is typing, a pencil appears on the chat tab.

To select a private chat, click the corresponding tab at the bottom of the chat area. To quickly switch tabs, use Alt+Left and Alt+Right. You can directly select tabs by pressing Alt+0, Alt+1, and so forth. To close a private chat, click the Close button on the tab.
Custom actions

To create custom actions use the /me {action} command, or start anything you type with a colon : character.
Blocking Users

To ignore someone click their name and select Block User. The name appears in plain text with a line through in the participants list. This means that you cannot see messages from that person.
Status Selector

In the bottom right corner is the Available/Away button. Click it to let others know that you are away from your computer or that you do not want to chat. Click again to return to available mode. A nickname displayed with gray italics means that the user is away from the chat.
Room Navigation

Click the Rooms (Door) button in the top right to open the Rooms dialog which allows you to switch rooms or to create a new room.
Settings

Click the Settings (Gear) button in the top right corner to set various options such as displaying avatars or playing sounds. To read the chat text more easily, you can clear the Show Custom Fonts and Colors checkbox. You can also select the Use Large Fonts checkbox.
Chat History

Click the Save button in the main toolbar to save the current conversation to your computer as a .txt file or web page. This is useful if you want to read the conversation later.

And the little red button with the white vertical line will dump you out of the chat area! Please say goodbye first, and give others time to also say bye.

Just a few more notes.
To chat, type what you want to say in the text box window at the bottom, and hit SEND. Don't flood the chat with many entries in a row, whether they be of text or icons. If there are many conversations in one chat room, putting the member's name at the front of your reply will help them find--and reply--to your entry.

All areas of Psych Central are created for the support and encouragement of it's members. From time to time there are conflicts that arise. Please seek assistance from the site moderators or administration in those cases. It helps to copy the chat, and send them the transcript. (Again, to do this click on the blue disk icon and in the text window that pops up, highlight and copy "CTL C" the chat. You can then paste it "CTL V" into a PM window and save it, or save it to your computer's word processing program. Other members will not know if you copy the chat or not.

The chat can be pulled up by the webmaster, but it's a tedious task and might only be done if there is a serious breach of the TOU.

If there are conflicts in a chat, someone can also check at the bottom of the index forum page to see which moderators are online, and PM them directly during the chat.

I guess the main rule is to be civil, and supportive. Members here in general are great people, just suffering from some type of mental unwellness. How unwell they feel on any particular day will be depicted in how well they chat, as well.

If you have any questions regarding how to use the chat option, or the guidelines, contact a moderator.

Now, who's ready to chat?

(JD) · 08:43 PM

Note:
While I prefer to use the blue disk to copy the chat and update it from time to time as that allows me to read back all the way to the beginning of the chat....

I forgot to mention that there is a little ANCHOR icon just above the SEND tab at the right end of the reply text window.

Clicking your cursor on that anchor will stop the chat from scrolling so that you can read back a few lines. (Chat normally bumps / scrolls forward as each peson posts, making it impossible to read back. This option stops that.) Be sure to unshade it, allowing chat to scroll again.
.

(JD) · May 10, 2011 at 07:07 PM

Thanks!

Here's some wise words from our webmaster regarding chat etiquette
:

Quote:

From now on, purely social chatting should be done in the Social chat room (or the Teen chat room for teens, or the 21+ room for adults).

Members who are looking for support in any room but Social take priority over all else. If a member respectfully asks you to take a social conversation to a private room or Social room, you should do so.

We have said this time and time again -- the chat system is here to primarily support our mental health support community. If you are using it simply to chat with some new friends, that's fine, but remember to do so in Social, a private room, or one of the age-specific rooms.

Feel free to ask any questions you may have about these new guidelines, thanks!

And thank you for your continued support and cooperation,
DocJohn

http://forums.psychcentral.com/showt...iquette&page=2

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