@HarryGindi Actually, they can. If a mod clicks on your name in chat, there is the option to "kick this user".

Oh, there's another option too...

You'd have to visit his profile to see it though.

@Harry - you're probably on an endorphin high right now, but if people remember you as that obnoxious guy who returned to kick up a stink on MO2.0 .. . not so good. On a more positive note, congratulations on finishing undergrad; I assume you're hoping to work with Cisinski?

Reminder: flags as offensive, inappropriate or spam are broadcast to all users with 10k aggregate reputation on the network and, if validated, ban the flagged user for 30 minutes. Make them timely and make them count.

Oh, so not a way to clean up the feed, or generally discourage stuff that's madly off-topic? Point taken. Is that all users across the whole network? How can they validate a flag otherwise if they have no way of telling the difference between on-topic and off-topic for MO?

@DavidRoberts custom flag

or tell the user to stop posting such things

The issue with spam flags is they carry a 30+ minute chat suspension

they're like the red flags on your site that dock 100 reputation point if validated

do use them if people post naked ladies or viagra ads or call each other names

to be clear: if someone's making a nuisance of themselves, has been warned, and keeps at it to the point where multiple people are flagging them (and you can use custom mod-flags too to say this is why you're flagging them)... then a 30 minute time-out isn't unwarranted. For that matter, mods can and do hand out much longer chat suspensions in cases like this.

Oh, Mr Crank, please stop asking questions about the Reimann Hypothesis (see what I did there), even if they appear completely sensible, we know your history. The whole point is to suspend in that case.

So here's a dumb question: how do I custom flag?

@David, I don't think you've seen the MSE chat, where there were flag wars, much adolescent idiocy. Much hangs on whether people actually continue to use MO chat after the first few days of working out the kinks on 2.0

@DavidRoberts click the little arrow on the left, select "flag for moderator"

@Will This is true.

you're having one hell of a migration with the new close reasons stuff thrown in for good measure as well :)

Ah, I see. The magical arrow that doesn't appear until you mouse over it.

@DavidRoberts eh, the flag button also doesn't appear until you mouse over it.

@David, meanwhile, MO peope do not dislike each other any less, but I am hoping things stay manageable owing to people using their real names and having other things to do with their time.

(of course, there's a script that lets you do it with the keyboard)

@WillJagy Real name policies have proved quite ineffective to raise the standards of online communities. See also: Facebook

OK ok, I'll calm down :-) This aint my favourite medium, so I'll be wary of getting sucked in here.

@WillJagy I'm going to be hanging around here, and I think a bunch of SE employees will too. Hopefully any problems will be stifled.

s/stifled/exacerbated

@badp, yes. I have not paid that much attention tot the others, although i use FB. I'm not sure what might happen here with people other than Harry, who is a world unto himself

(I'm kind of touchy on the subject, given that I've been suspended from Quora and almost suspended from Google+ for this)

@WillJagy From what I've heard IRL (from math researchers I know) is that MO is usually quite professional. Hmm..

@WillJagy What happens in here is in the hands of the people who are in here. They ultimately set the tone of discussion and what goes/what doesn't.

Keep in mind that you can make as many rooms as you need, but rooms that doesn't get any activity in two weeks are "frozen" (archived and closed)

For example, one of the new features of the site is that if two people are going back and forth too much in the comments the site will propose that they get a room in chat to talk directly

@WillJagy Well, become a chatroom regular. If you wish, open up a meta post asking if HW should be allowed

You can get around people advertising their questions on site by automating the process through a feed that posts all of them. It only works well if the room is active enough that the room doesn't become a glorified feed reader.

@badp Ticker

@ManishEarth The ticker is the most annoying thing ever.

However, MO has a really high volume. A ticker may be annoying too

Also, there are now countermeasures that can be activated to limit the harm that people posting several low quality questions in a row can do

@badp Well, at MOs level of activity, a feedbot would be very annoying

See also http://stackoverflow.com/help/question-bans

@badp activated on MO?

(Questions bans are not enabled by default, you need to ask for them if needed)

@ManishEarth "that can be activated"

Ah

Things you may want to request activation of:

On most sites, manual suspensions from mods suffice

- Question bans

- A blog

- Migration path to Math (and Physics maybe)

By migration path, we mean that users with 3k reputation can just send questions to Math; otherwise you need a moderator to intervene

@Manish, I did already put a Meta question talking about your coments (I starred them) about room owners and homework questions.

ah

Meanwhile, I will be watching this chat for a few days, as i am familiar with the format from MSE

So far, the only thing that actually mattered a little was that people did not know how to activate MathJax on Chat, after telling a few individuals Mariano put a permanent link to robjohn's ChatJax thing at ucla

@ManishEarth This is like asking if questions about writing a hello world program are acceptable on StackOverflow.

@DavidRoberts There's a difference between "Totally unacceptable" and "Meh, sure, ask, but we'll ignore you"

THis is chat :P

Is that like "THIS IS SPARTA!!!!!11!"?

yep

Hopefully the people who will be put off MO by inane HW questions (I'm thinking top-tier, medal-winning mathematicians) won't think of coming to chat, then.

@DavidRoberts Alternatively, hopefully mods will stick around and keep it clean

Room owners have limited powers, too

Mods from other sites like Mariano or yours truly can also kick people of chat here.

Hence my use of a flag earlier... But I suppose we are still on training wheels at the moment.

@MichaelGreinecker Or me

If you do create a chatroom etiquette post, it's a lot easier to get rig of HW trolls

@MichaelGreinecker, I got nervous when Ethan and skullpatrol looked in here briefly, but they seem to have wandered off.

@WillJagy Yes. I'm sure skullpatrol just wanted to troll Asaf.

@WillJagy Ethan was recently chat-suspended (for 2 hours). Flag him with a custom flag if he bugs you

@ManishEarth, not something I knew. He and a few others seem genuinely compulsive people. Just on bunch of odd math expressions after another, not really going anywhere. Questions, yes, but...

He was recently going all around chat trying to annoy as many rooms as possible

Oh, lord. Well, I wrote to amWhy asking about him, as he kept asking about how to install Latex over and over. Had plenty of time to actually do it.

@WillJagy ?

amWhy?

is that a typo or a username? :P

Yes, just a minute...math.stackexchange.com/users/9003/amwhy

You can edit chat posts...like this

Use the up arrow on the keyboard

(or the edit option visible in the down arrow next to the post)

@WillJagy ah

from here it looked like you forgot to type half a sentence :P

@ManishEarth, right, I volunteered to be a go-between when she was accused of plagiarism on MSE Main. I sent messages back and forth between her and robjohn. From what I could see, she never admitted or denied the charge, she just wanted moderators to know how uncomfortable it was to be scrutinized so minutely. So I know her email and some of her particular problems. I have gradually backed out of spending too much time with people i cannot really help...

probably too much information