Forum Post: Open Chat on LiveStream Needs To Go.

First of all, let me say that I fully support OWS, and appreciate your work. What you guys are doing is momentous, and historic. I truly wish you the best. You are true patriots, and may become heroes. My problem arose when I was told by some friends and relatives, my grandmother in particular, that they were kicked out of LiveStream chat for asking questions. I had sent them there so that they could see for themselves that the movement was not what they had seen in the MSM. My grandmother was banned from the Global Revolution room for trying to ask how OWS differed from the TEA party. She's in her 80's, and had never been in a chat room in her life. None of these people had. I was incensed. These are people that OWS needs to reach. They are not chat room people like us cool people. They don't understand what you mean by not talking politics, or being divisive. They don’t understand what spamming, trolling, or chatbots are. They are not trolls, however. I went to great lengths to explain to Grandma about trolls, bots, spammers, and general all-purpose chat room douche bags, so that she would not get too freaked out. As it turns out, it was the moderators that got her. When people are immersed in an activity such as OWS, it is easy to misunderstand the scope of its exposure to the outside. We tend to think that because it is so obvious to us what is going on, that everyone else must know all about it. To the people on the outside, however, it may be just a tiny blip on their radar. Their entire perception of the movement may be based on a snide comment they heard about it from their douche bag, short bus, bat shit crazy friend at the senior's coffee table at McDonald's. Uhg. Out here in the nether regions of America, it is very difficult for us to get an accurate picture of what OWS wants, who OWS is, and what OWS is actually doing. Those LiveStream chat rooms are the most visible connections, besides the video, which people can make to the actual movement, and they look bad to the casual observer. The chats are mostly dominated by actual chatters, who are, as you know, the lowest form of humanity. I know this because I am one. Regular people who have never been in a chat room do not understand the kind of communication that occurs between real chatnicks. You will never see a live chat box next to the video feed from CNN. There is a reason for this. Also, those regular people may ask legitimate questions that, to the weary moderator, seem to be antagonistic or divisive. Those questions, however, need to be answered. After all, a protest is basically a propaganda campaign. It is unreasonable to ask moderators to make endless split second judgments about such things, or to be able to effectively answer those tough questions. There needs to be a degree of separation. Those LiveStream pages exist as chat rooms with a video feed, when their function should be that of a news feed. Here is my suggestion, and I am fully aware that probably thousands have offered suggestions, but here it is.
Nix the open chats all together. Make the chats next to the video feeds moderator only. Task some of the moderators with providing up to the minute news in the form of short concise reports on current OWS issues, and goings-on. Also, have the moderators encourage people to utilize the various forums and chat rooms approved by OWS, while providing links to said venues. Have someone monitor those venues and find legitimate questions that need to be answered. Then the moderators would quote the viewer’s name that asked the question, the link/location of the question, and offer a pre-written response in real time. If there is a live feed going on the video, said moderator could invite the host to discuss the quoted question as well. This would give the kind of real time interaction that makes the live feed so interesting, while having a degree of separation that would provide order, and not frighten the newbies. This method would also provide an organized, respectable looking outlet for the movement. There it is. If you are going to have an open chat room, then you need to just let it go. Task the moderators with removing spam, and that’s it. Having the moderators hammer people continuously with censorship only enrages people, and creates a bad face for the movement. Thanks for listening. I hope you stay strong, and succeed.