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Let me start by stating that I consider chat.se a bit like a free zone. Whatever is considered off-topic in both travel.se or meta is possible on the chat, of course in the boundaries of decency.

However, there has been some face palm behaviour lately between some disgruntled users. Their behaviour is not helping and honestly in this specific case both users are equally responsible, in my opinion.

At the same time I would like to question the sudden massive arrival of external moderators once someone flags a comment as being inappropriate. Usually this is not helping in diffusing the issue, on the contrary.

Yesterday one of these mods suggested to discuss this in meta. At first I wouldn't even consider spending time on it. Chat should remain a lightning rod.

However some users and moderators seem to have the recurring tendency to get carried away once and a while.

So maybe it is indeed time to rule up the chat conversation as well.

For the participants it is easy: BEHAVE and keep it decent. Ignore comments that might look offensive. What is considered offensive in one culture isn't in the other.

For the external moderators I like Dirty flow's comment: "Remove the messages, suspend the user and go on".

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More suspensions might be the answer. Which sucks. However, even back ages ago when I was a mod, we wrote this:

Rule 1: Be Nice

And it's been posted several times in chat, to little avail. Suspensions give people a good reminder about behaviour, and if it doesn't, at least we get a break from their arguments for a bit.

(not singling anyone out in particular)

As for the mods coming in, they won't have read any 'rules' you create anyway. They're following the stackexchange moderator guidelines, and if you feel they aren't, you can complain about them to SE. I believe it's happened in the past, so you won't be the first. It's best not to add to complaints in the chat, from when it's happened, it doesn't seem to really help the situation.

My two cents' worth.

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  • Two cents? too much to pay for this cliché ;)
    – Nean Der Thal
    Commented Jun 21, 2014 at 13:39
  • @MeNoTalk care to elaborate, or just dropping in with non-constructive comments?
    – Mark Mayo
    Commented Jun 22, 2014 at 14:44
  • 1
    It is constructive, you are biased, you always take sides, even though you try hard to show you are not.
    – Nean Der Thal
    Commented Jun 22, 2014 at 14:52
  • 3
    (facepalm).....
    – Mark Mayo
    Commented Jun 23, 2014 at 3:15

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