##What tools are available to regular chat users?

You, as a member of the community, have the ability help keep chat a place that is welcoming for everyone.  There might be a variety of other users, including moderators and room owners, in chat with you.  Users can be distinguished by the way their names appear - moderator names appear in blue and room owners are in italics.  

The nature of a social platform is that you'll occasionally encounter messages that you'd rather not see. You have three primary ways of dealing with these:

###Flag as spam, inappropriate or offensive

Use the hover menu at the far right of each chat message to flag it.

  > [![Flag option 1][1]][1]

When you flag a message as spam/offensive, the flag will draw the attention of other high-reputation community members, as well as moderators. In both cases, they'll be asked to determine if the flag is valid or not: 

![valid | invalid | not sure][2]

If a sufficient portion of those responding consider the flag to be valid, then the message will be removed and the author will be given a very short suspension. Moderator responses are binding: any moderator who reviews the flag will instantly mark it as valid or invalid, with the corresponding results.

**Remember: only flag things that are truly inappropriate or offensive.**

When you flag a message, you draw the attention of *every* mod and 10k user currently on the chat network. This means you should only be flagging things that they're going to see as offensive as well, which includes:

 - *Personal* attacks (characterized by *"you"*, i.e. "*you're* a moron")
 - Anything that [shocks the conscience](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shocks_the_conscience) (yes, this is subjective - let your conscience be your guide.)

###Flag for moderator

On the left side of the message, hover and click the dropdown arrow for the flag popup.  This presents two options - either flag as spam/offensive or flag a message directly for a moderator.

  > [![flag option 2][3]][3]

The former is described above; if you choose the latter, you'll be given an opportunity to describe the problem in detail:

[![please indicate why this requires moderator attention][4]][4]

When you flag a message for a moderator, this will alert the community moderators that something needs their attention. Be as descriptive as possible; by default, they'll only see your message and the content of the message you flagged, so if the situation requires them to view the full transcript you'll want to mention that. 

###Ignore a user

You can also **ignore** specific users, which will hide their messages in chat from your view. This can be an effective way to handle distracting or annoying users, but shouldn't be used in place of flagging for rude or offensive messages. 

**Examples:**

- *User is posting spoilers from a movie you haven't seen yet*

  Ignore them. Or leave the room entirely, and maybe go watch the movie.
- *Multiple users are discussing PHP.*

  Ignore them.
- *A user is harassing other users.*

  Flag as inappropriate/offensive.
- *Multiple users are discussing their favorite snuff film.*

  Flag for moderator attention.

##Lead by example

Once again, leading by example is a powerful tool. In many cases where a user is being annoying but hasn't posted anything that's offensive-flag-worthy, you have two options:

 - Flag for moderator
 - Ignore them

The latter, when done by *everyone* in the room, is very effective: if everyone ignores the problem user, they tend to go away and stop being annoying.


  [1]: https://i.sstatic.net/lUegM.png
  [2]: https://i.sstatic.net/s67ig.png
  [3]: https://i.sstatic.net/KOsiy.jpg
  [4]: https://i.sstatic.net/P5Yp0.png