7Seas Social Chat is a group-IM based chatroom which lets fishers
connect with each other, find contests, learn about new custom catches
or other 7Seas-related creations -- or just hang out and enjoy talking
socially on any PG topic. It's a terrific resource for fishers
looking for an enjoyable fishing experience, and fishing area owners looking
to draw a crowd!
If you would rather not see group chat, you can instead join the "7Seas
Fishing" group for official announcements only.
How to Join
If you've been fishing for over two weeks, you may join Social Chat.
Find the Join Social Chat object that came with your fishing rod,
wear it, and click it. Our bot should send you an invite within the next
24 hours (if not, send an IM to 7Seas Sass.)
Participation Rules
Updated August 13, 2013. We enforce the rules below as consistently
as we can, and we'll revise them as we deem necessary. We do log group
chat, and thousands of people are listening at any given time. If you're
not comfortable with logging or with the rules below, don't chat.
Rule #1. Subject matter. Casual chat and 7Seas promotions are
welcome, as follows:
- Discussions don't have to be fish related. If discussions get heated
or start drowning out contest announcements to the point that people
complain, we advise that you swap to IM.
- Event or venue promotions must be 7Seas-related and should mention
if certain types of avatars aren't welcome at the venue. For promotions,
we advise that you try to avoid annoying the group with overly-frequent
or overly-long announcements.
- Try to keep language "PG" (not explicit, no cursing) since
the group uses SL's General rating. However, in practice it's usually
fine if the actual topics wander into a PG-13 zone. We're all supposedly
at least that old in RL, after all.
- In general, anything you're doing in the group that consistently annoys
others is likely to get discouraged by the moderators.
Rule #2. Stay friendly and civil. When interacting on this channel,
always take the action that is most likely to minimize conflict and irritation.
This means...
- Don't complain about others, even if you consider your statements
to be wholly factual and fair. If you get banned from somewhere or if
someone griefs you? Find another way to tell people.
- Don't retaliate just because "they started it" and you want
to defend yourself.
- Often the best action is to not respond at all. And if you mute the
person who offends you, you'll never have to hear them again.
Rule #2 is broken most often.
Breaking this rule achieves nothing constructive
and irritates the thousands of other listeners.
We enforce this aggressively.
Rule #3. Respond appropriately to trouble. If you spot issues
or rule-breaking in our group:
- Don't confront or argue on the public group channel. (That would perpetuate
conflict, as described above.) At most, we suggest you provide a reminder
link to this page of rules. Beyond that, drop the topic or send an IM
instead.
- Alert our moderators by sending a log to 7Seas Sass.
- Include enough so we can see some context for what happened. We'll
compare with our official log from the bot.
- We'll decide whether we agree. If so, we'll warn, temporarily
suspend, or permanently remove group access.
- If you think the person is also violating LL's Terms of Service, file
an abuse report using SL's Help menu.
- Accept that because we can't monitor the group 24/7, that means we
may not be able to immediately step in and stop someone. Even so, continue
resisting the urge to engage beyond linking to the rules and alerting
Sass.
Rule #4. Those are the only rules. Our sole goal with these rules
is to try and keep the peace in the official chat group so people can
continue to enjoy it and advertise 7Seas events.
Beyond that, we don't control or police the following. Don't complain
to the 7Seas moderators, don't complain to the group.
- Local fishing area rules -- we don't control their land, we
just provide a game. It's entirely up to the area owners to decide who
gets access to their land.
- Banned? You could try appealing a host's actions to the area owner
or region owner if you think they'll care.
- Ask your friends or others in the 7Seas Social Chat group to suggest
their favorite fishing areas.
- For a list of areas that don't exclude predefined sets of PG players,
check the "General Access" category on the Fishing
Areas list.
- Griefers and jerks -- we understand and sympathize, but don't
want to hear about it in the group chat. If you feel wronged, tell your
friends privately, tell the fishing area owner if you think he or she
might care, and report ToS violations to LL.
- Concurrent contests -- with so many fishing areas, it's inevitable
that two or more contests will overlap. We understand why it can reduce
a given area's traffic, but we've found no approach that's more fair
(or logistically feasible) than letting hosts make their own decisions
about timing.
- Alts -- We don't have, and never will have, a global rule against
alts. We don't even mind when people banned from the chat group reappear
there using alts, provided they behave. However, some fishing area owners
do ban alts or suspected alts.
Thanks for understanding and for supporting a positive environment for
the community!
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