Forums
So, we've all had some great conversations interrupted by that misbehaving chatroom lately. Mr. Pid wrote a great song on the subject...
Feel free to pick them up again here. Or report your more surreal episodes of being booted for misbehaving.
yes, the chat room really is down
we think this is a transitory problem with the chat service and will soon fix itself, but stay tuned and we will too...
I was talking about E-Cigarettes when I got kicked off...
Yeah I was asking if anyone had tried to quit smoking using e-cigarettes? I got mine from http://www.ecigarettes4less.com and I am not smoking cigs anymore. Anyone else had any luck with e-cigs?
head games
the chatroom used to be a gentle place to meet folks, talk about the dead and have some fun.
It is now descending more and more into a rather creepy place, with all sorts of weird stuff and headgames going on that I neither understand or like. Certain people are even claiming to be logging and monitoring the transcripts, for reasons I don't understand.
For me that's enough. I'm gonna find some clearer water to swim in.
I've always thought
That chat rooms were creepy. The ugly side of people usually shows up in those places.
"Here's my half a dollar if you dare .. double twist when you hit the air. Look at Julie down below .. the levee doing the dopaso"
just stuck my head in there (chatroom)...
...agree with Badger. It appears rather voyeuristic. Hmmm, being fast w/the keyboard and getting your mental jollies?
I dunno. Doesn't seem intelligent at all, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be a place for people who want a cheap thrill.
Sort of like hippie crack?
I used to go there a bit
but it has seemed to have really gotten very juvenile, not funny. At times I have hit it right. I like to go there when I see certain people are there. Really had some great conversations there last year and before and as recently as several weeks ago. But usually will stay far away.
There are certain topics on this site that attract certain groups of people each kind of taking on its own personality. I guess chat room is like that too.
Kind of like a great bar that you used to hang out at and has slid downhill and now avoid and only visit to see if any of the old crowd might be doing the same. .
If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.
William Blake
I have completley avoided the chatroom
Ever since the gagalive thing happened . I would love to be able to chat with Dead.net members here . but it always seems like there is more people that I do not know in the chatroom then our own Dead.net members . It`s kinda sad. Bring back the old chatroom and I`ll use it .
The last time
I was in this chatroom (which I admit was a long time ago) I felt like I was hanging out with gang-bangers at a rap concert. I had to quickly check to make sure I was still in fact on dead.net.
"Here's my half a dollar if you dare .. double twist when you hit the air. Look at Julie down below .. the levee doing the dopaso"
to make change
some of us on the chat r trying and hoping to have the old timers come back. last week had to stop more fights than i want to admit ;( if u all leave then thats whats left. please dont leave badger and more kind souls plz try to come back now and then. peace! :)
apologies
to all the nice, honest open people who still use the chatroom. I was really angry when I posted last night and I should have mentioned that a lot of good folks are there whose company I enjoy a lot.
But it creeps me out that
a) one person is apparently logged on there almost 24/7 and hardly ever never says anything.
b) the names of some people in the chatroom do not appear on the lists of online users at the time (that includes the person logged in 24/7)
c) Someone is claiming to be logging the entire record and is using that as a means to threaten people. If that is true, then it is quite sinister. If that person is bullshitting then that is just sick.
It would be useful Marye if it could be discovered if people have 'cracked' the CR and are getting in through other routes. Thanks.
I am really not sure how secure gagalive is. If course one has to accept that it is an open space and not everyone will click and see eye to eye, but it is all too weird for me these days. Its a shame cos it sure brightens up lonely nights in hotels in strange cities and there have been some great sessions (even recently)
It would be good to have an 'is it safe to go in the chatroom right now' function somehow :-)
Cosmicbadger' s post....
...oh,how right you are Badger!!!!In fact there are moments on the chat when you have the feeling that instead of bein on dead-net,you hang around in a prison yard with strange laws,Bullies eager to jump on you for whatever comment one dares to do and those ganglike codes [..like strkyep,krkbe etc.;)!!!]which make you feel very strange.Oh,and to stay with your post-i am pretty sure that there ARE people there who God only knows how,able to manipulate the whole chat.Marye,i have seen and experienced it that i came into the chat with 2 people hangin around,and beside '' hallo'',i could not send away a single letter,with them 2 guys havin Big fun that the chat seems to have ''hickups'',so they where aware of the problem i had.How?Did they see my comments which did not appear on the screen?Is there a kind of electronic trap between the chatter and the chat-room?..or is it just like badger says that some folks have found other routes in...wow,pretty scary if you add the guy who claims to have all the chats on record.Anyhow,peace to all who enjoy the chat as a nice meeting place,but it for sure aint safe...
What MONA said!
Please don't go Badger! Would miss your wit and interesting travel tales like hell!
Are a handful of us trying hard to get the old vibe back, a place for warm, intelligent conversation. If our old-timer friends desert us, how can we manage this??
**********************************
By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity -- another man's I mean.
Mark Twain
it's not ok !
it's not ok that a couple people, not entitled to do so by deadnet management ,register all the scripts of each word said at chatroom . it's not ok that one of these people feels also entitled to threatened to disrupt our computers with a virus at chat because someone's opinion is not approved by a bully . it's not ok to slander spitefully for a cheap thrill at other's expense . it's not ok to spy on other's conversations due to lack of respect and ill manners towards others , and then warp what was said to propagate needless strife among others . But , methinks, we shouldn't let that run us off chatroom and lat bullies win ! So good people , do take a stand and join us again at chat !
I am sorry TL and Mona and
I am sorry TL and Mona and Swan and everyone else, but I am not going near that place again until I can be more confident that i) it is reasonably secure ii) people who use it are identifiable and accountable iii) it is not being taken over by hackers iv) our conversations are not being recorded and manipulated and v) my computer is not vulnerable to attack (the consequences would be catastrophic for me)
Some or all of the the claims and threats that have been made may very well be utter bullshit. I don’t know enough about computers to know, and I am not sure how these concerns can be addressed by 'toughing it out' from inside the chatroom.
Still, there must be other ways to fix this. By hosting the chatroom for the registered members of the site, Deadnet must have some responsibility for its security. Especially since the main protagonist has even claimed that he is an ‘insider’ who works for Rhino!!
again reasons I DO NOT use chatroom
Badger , swan , frankly you said it all . lets get rid of gagalive and make it a Dead.net MEBERS ONLY thing . I for one do not want to talk to folks who are mean and or just not like minded as we all are . I would be more then happy to come back to the chatroom .
Cosmic Badger KA Swan
Using a photo or scripts from the chatroom to harm others is an awful practice/ game and should not be allowed. I was told that recently, things that I had said, in " Play " an 'Imaginative spacey conversation we were having,' was re-posted elsewhere with some important content changed, someone had changed my words, to cause a very hurtful situation ! I know that this has happened to thers as well. I agree it is slander. We love the chatroom and mostly we love sharing The Grateful Deads Music in there... It should not be a tool, used to harm and manipulate others ! play on
it's with sadness
that i read these posts. i have had good and bad experiences in our chatroom, recently very good things have come my way FROM the chatroom, tickets and a hotel room to be exact, so i know there are still good, loving kind folks there. we don't always hafta agree on certain subjects or topics, and there are some that i intentionally avoid discussing in there because i know we don't all have the same point of view. the one thing we DO share is love for the music. other than prayer, the music has been the one constant in my life that i can turn to when i just can't take it anymore. please, any of you that are thinking about leaving us, please, please reconsider. if we keep enough kind folk in there, and commit to not dragging others down with our personal problems (and yes, i am one of those that is guilty of doing this, not intentionally but the chat is my refuge) mebbe we can outweigh the people who don't love the site as much as we do......badger, i'm gonna miss your kind thoughts and words, hopefully you will still use the forums? i love all of you more than you know....you are my FAMILY!!!
guys
I'm reporting this to see if there's anything we can do. I don't want to shut the chat room down, for example, so better to figure out something more reasonable.
As many have noted, no, threatening people is not okay, nor is misrepresenting yourself as a Rhino employee (or anyone else) to do so.
may i suggest ideas about chatroom's safety
for sure i want this chat room to keep going , and want topics to be discussed without " politically correct " restrains about opinions . The real urgency , methinks, is about safety settings in 3 easy steps ; 1) anyone wanting access to chatroom must be fist logged in at dead.net and 2) must first be a registered member with dead.net (with a valid e-mail) , and 3) gagalive/deadnet must install specific settings to not allow access to chatplace by bypassing login and registration at deadnet . These can be practical answers for safety , and to complete this format , a once prior agreement that anyone using chatroom is responsable to never send bugs and viruses at users of dead.net , nonrespect of that clause leading to definite expulsion from dead.net .
some thoughts
Thank you Marye. I am sure everyone appreciates deadnet hosting the Chatroom and as Swan has mentioned, it is not an issue of permanent moderation: in general conflicts have been sorted out pretty quick there. But the lack of security makes it far too easy for those few people with bad intentions to exploit and abuse others. In fact have now discovered just how easy it is to ‘break into’ the chatroom from outside. My understanding is that Gagalive is a free internet Chatroom service that has been embedded in deadnet and that it could be hard for Deadnet to impose its own additional security on it. But I am not an expert on these things. It has also dawned on me that as long as you are logged into the CR you can scroll back through (and therefore copy/paste) all the chat from the moment you logged in. So if you stay anonymously logged on for hours or days from the outside (like some people appear to do) you may be able just to copy everything that has gone on. I was going to do an experiment to test this, but eavesdropping even for a few moments makes me feel really bad, so I won’t. If the chat record has a much shorter life (a few minutes) it might make systematic logging much more hassle. Hope this helps
CB
My experience
With chat rooms and not necessarily at dead.net is that the people who are shady i.e. pose threats are in fact juveniles in the 10-12 year old range. It doesn't mean there isn't a more sinister plot going on too but the majority are kids being stupid. After watching what they write for awhile it is painfully obvious what their age is..
"Here's my half a dollar if you dare .. double twist when you hit the air. Look at Julie down below .. the levee doing the dopaso"
what swan said
I said this a year ago when I stopped using the chatroom . it took this long for others to notice. And yes it is sad as the chatroom was a haven for me when me wife had her surgery
and I had to stay home all the time .
Thank goodnes that is all done now .
well....i'll keep tryin'
i know there is still some good in there....jus' gotta drag it out....kickin' and screamin'
I just gotta poke around
In there again sometime :-)
"Here's my half a dollar if you dare .. double twist when you hit the air. Look at Julie down below .. the levee doing the dopaso"
chatroom trashers
Since early 80's i loved deadheads,so when i discovered this deadnet chatroom i thought i could renew frienships i had when in america .But now, after months gone by, i know all these great deadheads never go in there. Too many mean and vicious obsessional haters in there , as if playing with evil became a routine to spice shallow postures of "peace and love" bla bla .Coupled to the indifference cop out of those who never take a stand against the worse, the narrow-minded intolerance , bored druggies and warped drunks pretending their foul behaviors should always be excused simply because they like GD music ,enough is enough ! Whatever is left nowadays of the Greateful Dead , I don't recognize it most of the time, as music nor as people ! Sure , it's still ok for about 30%, but compared to the the 95% goodness I was used to, methinks the standards now just won't do anymore Eternity was never guaranteed, I realize we have to each go on our own Way and i'll let the wheels of Times roll on .C'est comme ça , et pas autrement !
that post
sound very full of bitter "narrow minded intolerance" to me. Sounds to me like you really want to be able to chat, otherwise you would not have posted what you did. So instead of throwing such harsh words around, why don't you try to accept what is and hold onto the "30%" that you feel is in there. Or if you can't, then do something else. But postings like this one aren't going to help anything. This community is human, just like any other-with strengths and weaknesses. Of course is not "ideal" but then nothing ever is.**********************************
By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity -- another man's I mean.
Mark Twain
oh dear
well it is a sad day when the poison starts to spread to reasonable people with good intentions and kind hearts. All the more reason to stay away. I don't think a chatroom 'community' is like any other community. It is not typical and not representative of deadheads or humanity as a whole. Its members are self selected, with their own reasons and motivations for being somewhere where they can be anonymous and unaccountable. Sometimes those motivations are benign, but they can also be disturbing. I am particularly suspicious of anyone who does not ever post on the forums. Best just stay away.
bla bla as usual !
It used to be that rock and roll was a world event , but it now sounds like a provencial habit for a small american club. The Rolling Stones stayed a planetary happening, and it would be ridiculous to resume it to a british only local band .Rock and roll used to be about rebels who had enough understanding about the world and dared to think for themselves, but this deadheads scene narrowed its views to think as their tv tell them to ! When hippies have the same opinions as their tv, it's called brainwashing, but as lilly said , it's useless to say different as no one wants to hear it and whoever has any opinion other than what 's approved is unwelcomed ! To top it all , me who used to travel with deaheads anywhere , days and nights, never planning ahead how and with who, because i was certain to always be with decent people around me , now i refuse to go anywhere with any of them ! That resumes clearly what's going on nowadays ! This chatroom clarified that , definitly .
a different take
I'm not a chat room regular, but I had a great time there last night, on and off for a couple hours as I did other work. Only positive conversations, thanks to mona, gamedad, david, twirlingirl and many others. Good storytelling! I don't often have time to chat, but sometimes I'll have a peek and if it's a conversation of interest and i feel like i have anything to contribute, I'll take a chance.
For those with negative experiences, i can sympathize. But one strategy that i'd suggest is one I use with telemarketers. Hang up. You don't need to give jerks your energy. Just drop them and they'll have no one to talk to except their lonely self.
As for the privacy, I'm not too concerned about joking around under alias. It's all fiction as far as i'm concerned. So, just wanted to say.. it's not all bad.
KA: Everybody got older...
...and after "put it on the plastic and I wonder where we''ll be when the bills hit", they found out. People got married, got careers, had babies and went through raw life. Attitudes change even as they still love the same music. Accept that pure long-hair hippie behavior is hard to find -- even at a Rainbow Gathering.
Rather than complain, gravitate toward the people who are kind and stick with them. I don't know who passes that litmus test in the chat room. Chat room nerds tend to dominate the medium.
I am reminded of going to a reunion of a fraternal organization wen I go to Dead/Furthur related events. I therefore don't expect to find the good-old-days in the chat room. Even some people who post in the forums here are right-wing-nuts and pro nuclear power now...
What can you do? Marye does a good job keeping order here. The chat room is a strange beast to tend to. Still, no need to despair!
~ When Quinn the Eskimo gets here, everybody's gonna wanna dose! ~
There Still Are Good Ones
After reading some of these posts, I tend to agree with alot that is said, and alot that is implied, and some not so much. One that I'm sure of through being a "chat room nerd" that we are held accountable! Of course there is no "moderator" as there should not be...we as a community should moderate ourselves. Of course we are going to get the slammers, bashers, haters, and non-good lovin people in there, it's the human race. I do know that we as a whole, the good hearted-kind people in this space we call Cyber, have told the offenders flat out to cut it out. After frequenting this place for alot of years, I do know one thing, there is LOVE and KIND people in there....after so long, you can just pick them out. When I say accountability, we have to be able to govern ourselves, and we do...it's a non-contrallable environment, except for the fact that YOU as a person have the power to control your involvement. In fact this reminds me of John Perry Barlow's battles over the interenet he's had since it all began with the EFF....
When you get involved, get involved with your heart and kindness. Negativity, has no place in our community. I love the Grateful Dead....I am not perfect....BUT, I know that my heart is in the right place and that others hear on Dead.net share that heart!
_____________________________________________
Will you come with me? Once in awhile you can get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right!
good discussion, folks
you can't control it. How you deal with it is up to you.
to my mind
it's kind of like ugly parking lot scenes vs. benign ones. CC Joe posted a great tale of Old School Deadheadism a couple years back that's quite resonant with all this.
If you cannot lead the bad actors by example, or use white corpuscle effect on them, just walk away and leave them spewing their bad vibes. As noted above, they thrive on your energy.
man i thought we had got past this
PPL go in forums and chat. its not one or the other. someones not listening on chat. i have foind alot of love on chat. and i see PPl here slamming PPL on chat for things they have done there selves. maybe could say its easy to judge PPl here without someone standing up to u like on chat. we have all worked there to get a posative vibe going now. not easy but it is what we work 4. can u say that about other chats? we r everywhere and to call us drunks ect... have u been to a greatful dead concert??? lmao! love u all no matter where u post lol PEACE (~);-)
OK !
thanks CC critter and CosmicBadger , and you Lamagonzo , and Kristen 10 , you had interesting insights, When GD sang Cassidy , it brought a Krishna Dance, and magik blessings around. The right sounds on whatever could maybe still work wonders ! Maybe , or maybe not anymore ...Time will tell ...
Chat Room Nerds Unite.....
I thought it was all about fun, games, stories & music in the cr.....? Oh, yeh & "whole lotta love"
chat room misbehavior, not the software kind
mod hat on
So folks, as you may have noticed I am not inclined to micromanage life in the chat room. There are several reasons for this, but certainly tops on my list would be the fact that, in my experience, it doesn't work.
From time to time I get complaints that this person or that is doing something in the chat room that's making someone else unhappy. Or, even better, two people complaining to me about each other. And let's just say that in many cases serious lines have been crossed, and in many cases the heat of the moment was involved, and throwing stones/glass houses/etc.
However, let's just say that harassing and abusing one's fellow participants in the chat room, whether by threatening them, serving up hate speech against some group present or absent, showering people with profanity, or otherwise creating a hostile atmosphere, is behavior that puts one on thin ice.
Spammers aside, I very, very rarely block people or delete their accounts. I think it's a very extreme step. Nonetheless, making life a misery for other people hereabouts on a sufficiently regular basis to get noticed definitely improves one's odds of being in this select group, to which I would infinitely prefer not to add at all.
Thank you and mod hat off.
ME
As far as I remember...
... we NEVER used to have these issues (chat room misbehavior, not the software kind) in the chat room. What ever happened? I believe the chat room's demise was the discovery, by a certain group of unpleasant, RUDE people, of our peaceful little place on the inet. So what to do? Well, many of us have decided to stay away, we still PM each other from time to time, but I look at it much the same way as the scene at GD shows after the summer of 1987: There's not a damn thing that can be done to fix it. So I guess if ya don't like it, don't use it.
Think Marye has it right
What can you do? The amount of freedom that is allowed is important, perhaps more so than the few who are misbehaving. I think Marye strikes a good balance in a difficult situation. Saying that people should only PM one another because of this is an overreaction.
Can't stand the heat? Stay out of the chatroom!
(Thanks to all kind heads who have tried to lift the vibe there)
Alrighty Now ~
You boys are members.... of the Group W Bench :)
"Kid, whad'ya get? I said~ I didn't get nothing, I had to pay
$50 and pick up the garbage.He said, What were you arrested for, kid?
And I said ~ Littering. And they all moved away from me on the bench
there~ and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I
said~ And creating a nuisance ~ And they all came back, shook my hand,
and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, Mother stabbing,
Father raping ~ all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the
bench there ~ And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and ALL kinds of
things...."
PEACE
welllll.........
THAT....i can handle.......the group W bench...fine place it is, with many fine folk