Chat Safety Advice.
Online safety is something we take seriously at Just Chat. However we cannot guarantee our site to be completely safe, or free from abuse.
Click on a subject below for more information:
Introduction to Just Chat
Basic Safety Advice
Safety Features
Moderation
Moderator Feedback
Registration
Profiles
Reporting Problems
Further Advice
Just Chat aims to provide a place where all adults can communicate online without being constantly abused, threatened, intimidated or subjected to sexually explicit conversation.
Just Chat is not to be used by children. Our site is only for those over the age of 18 looking for a more pleasant community experience.
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NEVER give out any personal information. This includes your address, telephone number etc.
Remember people online may not be who they say they are. Anyone with access to the Internet can use our site, regardless of any subject matter.
We always advise against meeting anyone you meet online in person.
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Our chat forums offer you the facility to prevent incoming private messages. Simply click on the 'Options' button once you have logged into the chat forum, and deselect the option marked 'Accept New Incoming Private Chats'.
You can also block incoming private messages from a specific user. To ignore a specific chatter, highlight their name from the main forum list and click the 'Ignore' button which can be found on the bottom left hand side of the main forum screen.
Please be aware our Chat Guides cannot monitor private conversations - some chatters will use this to their advantage by trying to engage in offensive chat or otherwise breaking the site rules. Therefore we do recommend blocking private messages to help defend yourself against abuse and offensive behaviour.
Our chat forums contain a language filtering mechanism which prevents most obscene language. Some chatters however, will get around this by slightly misspelling some obscene words. This is very hard for us to combat.
If you are being abused, feel free to send a private message to one of our Chat Guides by selecting their name from the main forum list and clicking the 'Chat' button.
If a Guide is not available, you can block incoming private messages as described above. If you ever feel threatened, simply exit the chat forum - you are always the person in control. Please feel free to report any abuse to us via our contact desk.
Posts made on our message boards are moderated at random. If you see any abusive posts, please contact us so we may investigate.
Our epals service is also randomly moderated. We actively encourage all users to help make our community safer and more pleasant for all of us. Any reports of abuse will be treated with the strictest of confidence. If you receive abusive messages or find offensive content on the epals system, again please contact us.
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We cannot guarantee a Chat Guide will always be present in our chat forums and as such we do not consider Just Chat to be a moderated site.
Our team of Chat Guides cover the chat forums as often as possible to reduce abuse, threatening behaviour and explicit or other unwelcome conversation. The fact a Chat Guide is on duty does not mean the forum is guaranteed to be free from abuse.
Our Chat Guides are volunteers who undergo a lengthy training and supervision period after proving themselves as responsible users of our site. All Chat Guides work as a team, and only the very best applicants are accepted. We regularly monitor our Guides to ensure they are the right people for the role.
We randomly moderate our message boards and epals service but again cannot guarantee they will be free from abuse. If you ever see abuse taking place on these services, please contact us.
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Any feedback you may have about our Chat Guides can be sent to us through our contact desk.
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You do not need to register any personal details with us in order to use our chat forums. More information is available in our privacy policy.
To use our message boards, we require a valid email address from you to help reduce abuse. Similarly, to register with our epals service we will require an email address for your membership to be activated. Any additional information you give is entirely optional. All information received by us will be treated as declared in our privacy policy.
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Before you log into our chat forums, you choose a username you wish to appear by. There is also the option of adding an optional profile. If you choose to add a profile, you should always be cautious about what information you enter here as it can be viewed by everyone in the chat forum just as your chat username is shown to all forum users.
When using our message boards or epals service you may complete an optional profile. Again, this information is visible to all other users so you should be careful not to reveal sensitive or personal information.
We always recommend you NEVER give out personal information to people you meet online. The same goes for your profile and chat username. The more anonymous you are, the better.
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Should you feel the need to report abuse or threatening behaviour to us, please contact us providing as much information as possible. Always ensure you include the following information:
The user name of the person you are reporting
The location where the incident occurred
The date and time of the incident
Wherever possible, please copy any chat forum abuse into your email. This can be done by highlighting the text you wish to copy from the chat forum, then holding the 'Ctrl' or 'Control' button on your keyboard. Whilst holding this button, press the letter 'C' on your keyboard.
To paste the text into the email, place the cursor where you want the text to be copied, and whilst holding the 'Ctrl' or 'Control' button again, press the letter 'V' to paste.
Please copy all the conversation, from the start to the end of the abuse.
When we receive your email, we will look into the incident - we may ban the user or report them to higher authorities if we feel such action is required.
In either case, we will always respond to your complaint. We aim to do this within seven days from receiving your email.
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An excellent online resource to chat safety can be found at http://www.chatdanger.com/. We highly recommend this site if you are looking for any further information about the topic of chat safety.
Whilst every care is taken by the owners and everyone connected to the site, we cannot monitor what everyone does or says all the time. Whilst we take all precautions in ensuring this site is as safe as possible, we cannot be held responsible for any consequences of your use of our services. Please see our disclaimer for more information.
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