Plea

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Index

Why the name chmoot?

The purpose of chmoot

This thing doesn't work

Usernames and logging in

Chat room overview

User quality rating

Moderator elections

Chat formatting

Profanity filtering, lack of

Terms and conditions (do this, do that)

Privacy

Chat about help / try it out

Why the name chmoot?

The name chmoot was chosen after minutes of consideration for the following reasons:

• It's a partial anagram for "chatroom".
• The site offers a chat wherein usernames are moot.
• It's pronounced "shmoot", which is the nickname of a guy I knew.
• The domain is 6 letters. It's difficult to get shorter than that for $12 and still have a pronounceable word.

The purpose of chmoot

chmoot exists to provide a "down and dirty" group chat. The only requirement to access chmoot is a relatively modern web browser on most any computer or smartphone.

A chatroom on chmoot can be accessed via a very simple URL (e.g. http://chmoot.com/aq2), and a login is not required to begin chatting. A room is relatively private if the option to add it to the directory is unchecked. In order for someone to access it, they would need to know the URL.

This thing doesn't work

chmoot is in a, shall we say, "beta" phase of development at this time. As such, I'm both interested in hearing about problems that you have, and also uncaring after a point because there are many new features in the works already. If you encounter a bug or have a feature request, please email:

supportatchmoot.com

(Please replace the word "at" with the symbol @. I know it's less convenient, but it helps me out a ton because your email will be read by me and not by some silly corporation).

A note about the Android browser

The stock Android browser does not support the proper scrolling of DIVs, and as such new messages will appear at the top of the chat area rather than the bottom. I apologize for this annoyance, but it's a temporary workaround.

Usernames and logging in

Because you don't need to login to use chmoot, every visitor to the site is given a default username that starts with "moot", which is followed by any number of alphanumeric characters. At this point, your username is moot because it's completely anonymous.

To customize your username, click on preferences near the top of any page. You may then change your username, with the following restrictions:

• Your new username cannot start with "moot" followed by an alphanumeric character. For example, "moot4You" would not be allowed, whereas "moot_4You" would be OK.
• It must be at least 3 but no more than 16 characters.
• The first character must be an alphanumeric character (a-z or 0-9).
• The rest of the username must be alphanumeric characters, underscores, dashes, and/or periods.
• You can only change your username once every 30 days. This may be controversial, but if you want to retain some anonymity then just logout. You will instantly be given a new account and username.

It is highly recommended that you add your email address when editing your preferences. An email address is not required, but it is the only way to reset your password or troubleshoot your account in the future if you can't login.

If you do forget your password and have edited your preferences to include your email address, then click login at the top of any page. Then you will see a link that says forgot password. Click that link and follow the instructions from there.

Chat room overview

To keep things as civil as possible within chat rooms, there are three levels of authoritative users:

• Admin - Admins have full authority over any chatroom and/or user on chmoot. They can ban users from any room, or ban users completely from the site. Conversely, they can also lift any ban. They can also assign any user as a moderator, and strip moderator privileges away from anyone.
• Mod - Mods have full authority over everyone in a room except for admins. They can assign and unassign submod status, as well as ban and unban users.
• Submod - Submods have very little authority. They cannot change anyone's moderator status, but they can ban and unban users (except for admins, mods, and other submods).

All the users in the room are listed to the right of the chat area (or the list may be toggled on and off depending upon the client you're using). You are always listed at the top, followed by admins, mods, submods, unbanned users, and banned users. If multiple users fall into one of those categories, they are then displayed in alphanumerical order.

Clicking on a user will give you additional information about that user, and let you take action on them (this is particularly useful if you are a submod or mod).

If you create a chatroom, you are automatically given mod status. Even if you leave the room and a new mod is elected, you will retain your mod status when you return.

User quality ratings

A key feature of chmoot is the ability of users to rate other users. When you click on a name in the user list of any chatroom, you will see two grey arrows. Clicking the up arrow will give the user an increase in their quality rating of one point. Clicking the down arrow will likewise reduce their quality rating by one point.

All users start at a quality rating of zero, or neutral. As their rating decreases below zero, certain privileges get removed in the following order:

• For every increment in their quality rating below zero, the font for the user's chat messages becomes lighter in every other user's chat window.
• Color formatting.
• Large text formatting (emphasis).
• Inline image previews.
• Auto formatting of URLs to hyperlinks.
• General formatting, such as bold, italic, underline, etc.

The idea behind this is that the people in a room can make another person less annoying, even if the mods aren't paying attention.

As of right now, the only benefit to having a user quality rating greater than zero is the ability to include certain colors of text in your message. Future enticements are planned.

You cannot increase or decrease your own quality rating, and mods cannot change it.

Moderator elections

chmoot is not patrolled by "official" moderators. The creator of a room is given mod status, but they cannot dedicate their time 24x7 to moderating a popular room. To keep things from plunging into complete anarchy, when a mod leaves a room a new mod must be found. Hence, democracy! Here's what happens when a mod leaves a room:

• If there is one submod remaining in the room, they are promoted to mod and nothing else happens.
• If there is only one quality/un-banned user remaining in the room, they are promoted to mod and nothing else happens.
• If there is more than one submod remaining in the room, an election starts with the submods as candidates.
• If there is more than one user remaining in the room (but no submods), an election starts with the quality/un-banned users as candidates.
• The room is examined once per minute to see if a mod can be found. As soon as any users (or existing submods) join the room, they will be evaluated for mod status.

Note: A "quality/un-banned user" is any user that is not an admin/mod/submod, that has a user quality rating of zero or higher, that has not been banned (including muted), and has sent at least 5 chat messages in the room.

When an election starts, a notification message will appear in the chat area. Users then have 60 seconds to vote for a new moderator out of the pool of electable candidates. To vote, click on a user's name, then click the link that says "elect mod". The link will then disappear and your vote has been cast. You get one vote, and cannot change it once it's submitted.

The candidate with the most votes wins. In the event of a tie, the user that was in the room for the longest period of time wins.

If no one votes, then elections will be held again in two minutes.

Chat formatting

Providing you have a sufficient user quality rating, you can add formatting to your messages:

Syntax	Format	Example
**text**	bold	chmoot is a **great** chat thing chmoot is a great chat thing
__text__	italics	chmoot is a __great__ chat thing chmoot is a great chat thing
~~text~~	strikethrough	chmoot is a ~~great~~ fantastic chat thing chmoot is a great fantastic chat thing
^^text^^	emphasis	chmoot is a ^^great^^ chat thing chmoot is a great chat thing
%%text%%	code	%%var s = "i love chmoot!";%% var s = "i love chmoot!";
{r},{g},{b},{a}	color	too much {r}red{r}, {g}green{g}, and {b}blue{b}! too much red, green, and blue!
[text]{URL}	Link	visit [chmoot]{http://chmoot.com} today! visit chmoot today!

Formatting can be combined. For example, **__~~^^%%text%%^^~~__** will yield text. Take care though, as you must use the symbols after your text in the mirror image of the starting order. For example, **__text__** will work OK, but **__text**__ will not.

Profanity filtering, lack of

We have no profanity filtering. This includes usernames and chat messages.

Terms and conditions (do this, do that)

By using the chmoot website, you are agreeing to the following:

• Using chmoot to violate the law is against site policy. So don't violate the law where you live, or where we live (that's New York State in the US) while on chmoot.
• In keeping with not violating the law, do not use chmoot to disseminate (or assist in the dissemination of) pornographic images of any subject under the age of 18.
• Do not use chmoot to incite criminal activity against others.
• Do not use chmoot to disseminate copyrighted works without the copyright holder(s) express permission.
• It's just chat, not some kind of nuclear disaster in North Korea that they'll never tell us about. So use your head and don't take the things that people say in chatrooms super cereally (unless they have an ADMIN tag).
• ..and so forth. If it's not specifically listed here, that doesn't mean it's not against the law or against all manner of human decency. So you (and/or your IP address range) may be banned at our option for anywhere from 1 second to the end of the Unix epoch.
• On the other hand, if you're offended by something being discussed on chmoot and it's not against the law (which pretty much covers most things), then don't complain endlessly. Just go to a different chatroom or close Internet Explorer completely and go bird watching. Take some personal responsibility for what goes through your eye holes and into your head.

If you don't agree to those terms (and/or conditions) then please close your browser and never come back.

Privacy

Chat privacy

Privacy isn't guaranteed in chat rooms. Anyone with the URL to your room can view your conversation. The real privacy comes from the anonymity of users. All chats are saved in a database.

Private, non-logging chatrooms are on the development horizon.

Personal data privacy

Your username is publicly viewable.

Your password is stored using (probably) non-reversible encryption. We don't even know what it is, so we can't give it out even if we wanted to (which we don't).

Your email address is private, will not be made available to other users, and we will not email you unless you request that we email you. (Right now, the only circumstance where chmoot will send you an email is if you use the "forgot password" link). Further, we will not sell, disclose, or otherwise provide your email address to anyone else. The email address field is optional when editing your account. Hence, if you don't trust us, don't enter an email address (and try like hell to remember your password).

Chat about help / try it out

Use the chatroom below to talk to other users that are in search of help with chmoot, or use it to try out formatting and other features.