What Happens if there is Unacceptable Behavior in Elemental Chat?

If you’re reading this article, you’re probably participating in Holo’s Elemental Chat public test and have had an unpleasant interaction with someone. We’re sorry this has happened — here’s what can be done.

• Elemental Chat doesn’t have moderation features.

• Every tester is expected to follow our Code of Conduct: be kind.

• You might encounter unpleasant messages.

• If you encounter something seriously threatening, offensive, or illegal, please report it. We may need to abandon the current chat space and create a new one.

Everyone who joins the conversation in Elemental Chat is expected to observe the Code of Conduct and Terms of Service. The Code of Conduct is simple: be decent to each other, respect each other’s dignity.

Because Elemental Chat is just a proof of concept, it doesn’t implement any moderation features. Nobody can downvote, block, mute, or delete messages and accounts. That limits our ability to take action against people who violate our Code of Conduct. We’d like to trust in the goodness in every person, but we’re asking the wider public to join in the testing and, well, we all know how people sometimes act in public chat spaces. So here’s what we ask of you:

• Understand that this will be an open-access, unmoderated space and prepare yourself to encounter bad actors. Don’t be surprised if you see annoying, disruptive, offensive, illegal, or even threatening messages in the chat rooms. In general, we’re not going to take action against mild cases, but we may have to for serious cases.

• Help moderate conversations simply by reminding people to be decent to each other.

• If you encounter messages that make you uncomfortable, take care of yourself. Avoid those people or channels, and look for support if you need it. Many trusted community members and team members will be participating in the test too, and we may be able to walk with you through your discomfort or pressure bad actors into changing their behaviour.

• If you see messages that are seriously threatening, including sexualised language, personal attacks, harassment, privacy violations, or illegal content, let us know right away via Elemental Chat’s ‘Help Desk’ channel or the Holo Forum. We may have to make a decision to ‘reset the network seed’, which ‘forks’ the Elemental Chat network into a fresh, empty one.

This might raise more questions for you — concerns about whether it’s even possible to build a moderation system on Holochain, or whether Holo has the power to shut down a hApp. If so, read our explainer article.