moderated chats

discussion without insult

Most people are familiar with a chat room -- a text based conference area where people type their contributions to a conversation and then submit them to general area where everyone connected to the chat can see what they have typed. Chat rooms can be configured for as little as two people to thousands of people all chatting at the same time.

People who might have heard of chats but not used them very often might not know that chats have gotten extremely sophisticated with many features that are extemely beneficial to coaching, counseling and mediation settings. "Moderated chats, are chats that include two or more people and a moderator or administrator. In a moderated chat, the moderator "screens" all potential contributions to the chat area. So, if a participant is hostile, rude, or otherwise inappropriate the moderator can ask the participant to rephrase the communication or even model a more appropriate response which communicates the same thing.

Moderated chats can remove all the "iinsult cues" that come with face to face conversation; and are a good means of stripping down tense high conflict communication to concentrate primarily on the issues at hand.

The chat log for any chat can be saved or archived which eliminates the need for note taking. Chat logs are stored in a secure area of the server. This is one way that provacy issues are taken into account. Entry to chat areas is also secure and password protected to make certain only the pople who are supposed to be in the chat area are there.

For those intereted in analyzing the behavior of the participants, various "helper applications" can run simultaneously with the chat giving the moderator the opportunity to rate the quality of the chat responses and to monitor and track positive or negative trends in the communication over time. Progress notes and further analysis can be added to the moderators notes in real time.