Some time ago, I recommended a chat room called “The Village” for people looking for mental health support and information. At the time, I had just returned to “The Village” after a long break. I believe I was looking through rose-colored glasses then, seeing only the few good parts of that chat while trying to forget the many, many, negative aspects of it.
“The Village” is no place for any sort of meaningful support or discussion. It is rife with filth and turmoil. A supportive discussion of mental health is almost never to be found. I cannot even begin to describe the filth that permeates the chat there without offending the decency of this forum.
Routinely new visitors will come to “The Village” seeking support. They are almost universally ignored, ridiculed, insulted, or offended by the chat. I cannot count the number of times this has happened.
Recently, “The Village” was evicted from its IRC network. The channel was too much trouble for the network to allow it to continue. With the exception of one op, there is no control over the room. When one of the other ops actually takes the time to attempt their job, warning after warning are issued to no effect.
The channel owner continues to advertise the chat room as a support room. I don’t doubt that she thinks it is, she has good intentions, but it is not. Perhaps someday, if massive changes were to be made to the chat room, it could become a support room.
I have asked myself how I would feel if someone in my family were to visit “The Village”. I would be ashamed and embarrassed beyond measure. Likewise, I am deeply ashamed for recommending that chat room to this forum.
If anyone has visited “The Village” on my recommendation, I’m sorry.
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Schizophrenia.com used to be similar to “the village” before moderation. I understand your wanting to withdrawal your recommendation of “the village.” There are other good chat rooms on ircstorm.net such as #eden and #schizophrenia. Each has it’s own character. My understanding is that “the village” wants to cater to the “wild west” types. However, there are certain guidelines for chat rooms on ircstorm found in the signon message which you may want to pursue with ircops to tame “the village.”
Frankly, one needs to take responsibility for bringing “the village” to the attention of the afternet ops which ultimately led to it being chased off afternet.
One thing I did was become an op in “the village.” I also spread messages by pm which I shouldn’t have. I feel like we have a fresh start with the village on ircstorm. People can be pointed at alternatives on ircstorm and afternet if they don’t like the wild west attitude in the village. One thing I feel I did right was to recommend that quidnunc start chatting in #eden when the atmosphere on the village on afternet became too oppressive.
I realize you may not have a place to chat right now. Perhaps we could set up something on schizophrenia.com that is heavily moderated. I understand the need for a heavily moderated chat room. The village isn’t it.
That was what, a year before it was evicted? Six months after I had left? You’re saying I’m responsible for the behavior of the chatters and ops in “The Village” that got it removed?
I would hope that the owner and the ops of the channel would be the ones to “tame” it.
Exactly.
After you left the afternet ops left it to the village ops to chase down all the proxies, tor clients, vpn connections, etc that were illegal. Something I believe you were doing but do not know if you were doing or not. The reason there was so much of this kind of traffic was that people were being banned for avoiding devoicing–a policy that has been abused by village ops. Frankly the overhead for the village ops to comply with afternet’s policies became such a burden that we decided to leave afternet. Ultimately, we couldn’t chase down all the proxies. Also proxies are good for people who want to protect their privacy. I know that there were mechanisms on afternet to protect privacy, but when you are paranoid, how much is enough?
In otherwords, the village ended up being a bad match for afternet after the afternet cracked down. So we mutually parted ways. I believe there are still channels to discuss schizophrenia on afternet. Some people don’t like ircstorm. Another community split by heavy moderation.
Again, about “taming.” I wish certain topics weren’t discussed on afternet. The channel doesn’t always cater to me. Sometimes, people are triggered. I believe they should choose one of the tamer channels. I understand that you may not have as many options as others for a place to chat. I’m not sure if you hold others responsible for that or not. There’s an old saying, “Don’t burn your bridges.” I’ve burned bridges too. There should be a chat room for people who have burned their bridges.
That’s what I want the village to be. That’s why I don’t light fires in the village.
I view a devoice as water. I view a ban as fire. I view a gline as a nuclear blast. Those are my policies as an op. Perhaps I should not be an op. That’s the decision of the village owners. If I’m not a good op, they can take me off the op list.
You really need to be more informed about what goes on. Talk to the owner.
I don’t understand what you mean. Are referring to sana’s room? I could chat in the village or a thousand other chat rooms.
The entire point of this thread is simply that I withdraw my recommendation. Obfuscate it as much as you like with uninformed half-truths, but in the end this is entirely about my regret.
We regret it to, malvok. That’s what I was writing about. Everyone wants chat to be comfortable for them. The important thing is we respect each other. Calling the village filth is kind of like spitting on a homeless person.
Ridiculous.
Look through this forum. The village is nothing like this place. As I mentioned above, I will not go into the details, but bestiality, incest, pedophilia, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, racism, and intolerance are all daily topics in “The Village”. If a homeless person was yelling such things on the street then I’d say he was spouting filth as well.
This thread is no longer productive.
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