awwwww mr sue are you missing us ?
ok yes - can I come back in now?
This 5 minute problem keeps coming up and seems to upset more people than it solves any problem with people being kicked.
Crucially when servers are playing up, as server 1 seems to have done in the past couple of days, you are subject to the 5 minute delay through no fault of your own. The effect of this is to anger and upset innocent people who were not angry and upset before the delay.
Those who have been kicked, and think it has been unjustified, merely use the 5 minutes to fester and fume, and then come back with greater venom.
Clearly the current situation is not working. It seems more people complain against it rather than for it. Surely there has to be another way.
The Five Minute period was temporarily discontinued some months ago. I was in a full room that was completely ruined by some idiot who was being deliberately obnoxious and disruptive to everyone. Each time he was kicked he was back within seconds. Presumably he was a temporary, trial member so wasn't worried about any log-term ban being awarded in the future.
I am in favour of retaining a cooling off period, but agree that it would be an improvement if it were technically possible to restict it to those who have been kicked (in which case, I would like to see it increased in duration to, say, 15 minutes - when it might act as more of a deterrent to unsolicited whisperers, etc).
It's an Elliot question but unfortunately he's on holiday at the moment so I'll try.
I know when you enter the chat room, there's a record that's created in a chatroom table. This record keeps a track on who is connected so you can only connect once. If we didn't keep this record and you connected more than once, the chat room becomes very unstable. If you log out, the record is deleted from the table. If you don't log out or you are disconnected, the chat room will detect the record that you are still logged in and consequently when you try again you'll see the frustrating message to wait five minutes and try again. The reason it's five minutes is because the record will self expire after this time, enabling you to join again.
Could it be less time? I don't think so otherwise Elliot would have shortened it by now.
Is there a plan in the pipeline to avoid this in the future? Yes there is. You may remember some months ago when a new version of the chat was piloted and you didn't have to log out any more - this is because a different system was being used. We had to ditch the new version because people were getting locked in all over the place. At the time, due to the many complaints, we wanted to revert everything back to how it was until the chat room calmed down again. We could try again, but for some of us dealing with the moans, the very thought of going there again makes us shake uncontrollably.
Thanks Admin.. exactly as I thought - and I don't think there is going to be an easy solution to it
Hmmm - I'm confused by Admin's post on this which seems to indicate the 5-minute lock out is purely on a technical basis.
This is not what has been recently said by Ops - the view from some of them is that it has been retained for a cooling off period.
Can someone give us a definitive answer?
This question is being asked so many times in so many threads it would be useful to get it clarified so we're all on the same page. It seems to be the most regularly raised peeve for chatroom users.
If it's for technicalreasons, I again suggest the following (which is not difficult in coding terms):
- When a user is kicked, set a flag accordingly.
- When a user tries to join the chatroom, check whether the kick-flag exists. If so, impose a cooling off period of some fixed duration.
- If they haven't been kicked (e.g. their connection has dropped), check whether they are already logged in and if so disconnect and reconnect them.
This would solve both issues.
If it's for a cooling off period, ensure it only applies to those who have been kicked by checking for the kick-flag.
I can see your point, but with respect that's a different issue and there are already rules to deal with hosts who don't comply with the AUP and T&Cs.
I guess we're going to have to agree to differ on this one.
The way I see your view is a bit like saying "some people may break the speed limit so there's no point having the limit in the first place".
I think on balance it's better that a few may be temporarily inconvenienced on the relatively few occasions that an errant room host kicks them rather than all users being inconvenienced because of a programming issue.
There have been lots of discussions around functionality suggestions for an improved chatroom which it seems inappropriate to re-open here as it will take the thread off track. One consideration should perhaps be around who is allowed to host (e.g. perhaps you could only host after you've been a member for x months or some other criterion) and what tools they have available.
a good debate on the issues McrM4M-pvtOK and I respect your views and comments very highly...
G
That was an interesting exchange and further highlights the problem with the current system. It seems to me that not only clarity but honest about the current system is required.
This particular topic resurfaces on a regular basis and clearly lacks any clear resolution. With more and more people feeling quite sensitive about what they see as an injustice, it is more than time for this to be laid to rest.
If there are any technical reasons, whatever they are, they should be resolved as quickly as possible. With the increasing number of members this topic will not only resurface, for the nth time, but will become more of an issue.
Also the whole notion of people being "kicked" and being given "a cooling off period" should be re-considered and a proper system put in place. It seems to me we have a system that is unclear, and one that was not designed with certain limitations, but these limitations have been "highjacked" to try and resolve a separate problem.
It is time to 'clear out the attic'.
I don't have a problem with people being removed from a room per se; it's an unfortunate fact of life that some people in whatever society will act inappropriately and they need a lesson in the hope that they will modify their conduct in future.
The main complaint I think is about the unfairness and inappropriateness of the present system.
If someone is removed from a popular room by the host and there are more than 69 people in it, they can't return unless they have "extras" which allows them access until there are 80 present. If the user was removed indiscriminately or gratuitously, the host may have sanctions imposed - rightly so - but the damage has already been done.
In a less popular room, those in the know can easily and quickly re-join the room to either continue their annoying habit (assuming they were removed in accordance with the Ts&Cs and the AUP in the first place) or to question why they where removed (sometimes both!). This often has the effect of destabilising the room.
Of course, this is an entirely different matter to the Original Poster's question about the reasons why, if there is a system fault or their connection is dropped momentarily, they have to suffer the dreaded 5 minute wait to return to chat.
Perhaps a solution to that could be to tell the user on rejoining that they appear to be already logged in and ask them to confirm before dropping the original record in the user table and letting them in. This methodology is quite often used in application software to maintain system integrity and avoid ghost records. It might also help overcome the odd occasion where someone appears to be locked in SHyberspace!
as if :lol:
