Group Chat Admin Abilities
tracked
JustHereVisiting Resident
Group chats lack the ability to be moderated like in most forms of widespread chats. As such we get things such as scam links, hate speech and various other undesirable aspects.
I propose we add a new feature to groups that allows the ability of chat moderator.
That chat moderator(s) is able to delete chat sent, mute a participant from chat for x minutes, 0 would be forever making them unable to chat.
Chat moderation could allow for things like blocking hyperlinks all together, muting people indefinetly within the group chat.
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Macrocosm Draegonne
The ability to delete offending posts by moderators was my first thought on the topic, after seeing the scammers posting fishing links, and the hateful trolls babbling their smooth-brained nonsense trying to cause disruptions. Sure a lot of groups may not moderate, but the really big ones the trolls/scammers love to hit are moderated, giving them tools seems prudent, & would make for a better user experience overall.
Someone else said that the group chat communications setup would need to change, which could really be a good thing, im sure there's lots of libraries out there you can integrate and customize to fit the purpose, plus you're on the cloud now which might create more secure, flexible, and performant options than were possible previously.
KecskeShajt Corvinus
Having an option to disable links or at least unknown links would solve 99% of the problems. It could be assigned to the owner+an ability to set for roles.
steph Arnott
I do moderate, many do not bother, simple fact is will to do.
AlettaMondragon Resident
We do have group chat moderator abilities in SL, they're just not modern abilities. You can mute a participant for the remaining time they spend in an active session, and that's quite all of it. Removing malicious messages would be nice, but I think LL would have to rebuild group chat delivery completely to make it possible. Right now, once the server sends the message to the participants, there's no going back. Rebuilding group chat delivery completely would be a good thing for other reasons too, by the way.
As for blocking hyperlinks... just no. Block platforms that host malicious websites, sure. Blocking hyperlinks altogether... go back to the early 1980s if you like, but don't force others to go back with you. Do you really think the mindless people that get so excited about those ridiculous scam ads that they rush to open the links and enter their login credentials willingly, they wouldn't just copy the plain text link and paste it into their browser to get the oh so lovely free or 50% off whatever they saw in the message?
Rowan Briar
AlettaMondragon Resident. A group owner should have the ability to not allow hyperlinks per member roll, IMO. CSR are one example of a roll that could be allowed. Personally, i never open any of them in any group. YMMV
AlettaMondragon Resident
Rowan Briar I have no problem with them wanting the ability to disable hyperlinks in their groups if they so insist, but they should know that it doesn't solve anything. As for clicking links in general, indeed everyone should first read the link carefully and decide if it can be trusted, and if they have any doubts, shouldn't open the link. Whether the link can be opened with a simple click or has to be copied and pasted, has nothing to do with developing this thought process.
Shadow Siamendes
AlettaMondragon Resident
"Block platforms that host malicious websites, sure."
Well, I would say that's basically pointless. Malicious websites changes their addresses all time, even more now with help of AI. It would be an endless "cat-rat chase". There is already another discussion on this topic though.
AlettaMondragon Resident
Shadow Siamendes It would be better than nothing at least, because what we have now to deal with these things is just that, nothing.
Neil Foggarty
For the issue of scam urls, the viewers could have some kind of url White list type system built in where genuine urls ie marketplace.sl.com (or what ever the base url is) could be added and all others either not published or greyed out
AlettaMondragon Resident
Neil Foggarty Firestorm has a new tool called Omnifilter for that, which works pretty well according to the people who use it. Everyone has to set up the filters on their own end though, it looks like the filters can be exported and imported so they can be shared. I think that is a correct solution and everyone can decide if they want to use it or not.
The "or greyed out" part would not work, still, if someone sees a plain text URL, they'll just copy and paste it. That is exactly why hating on hyperlinks is pointless.
Rowan Briar
While i agree that hyperlinks should be something a group.should be able to disallow, the option to delete something already written wouldn't be possible IMO. Chat of any kind can be logged on anyone's computer. There's no way to change that.
Groups can also assign moderators with the ability to block any group member from using chat for whatever time frame chosen. There is a group members option to "moderate group chat" if it's checked in that members assigned role
SL Feedback
updated the status to
tracked
SL Feedback
Thank you for taking the time to write up your proposal for adding group chat moderation tools (deleting messages, temporarily/permanently muting participants, and optionally restricting things like hyperlinks). We found that this request matches an earlier report from Second Life’s previous bug tracking system, and we’re going to track it under
BUG-232529
.To keep everything in one place and make it easier for the team to review, we’ll mark this post as a duplicate and consolidate feedback under that tracked issue. While we don’t have an ETA to share, your added details around scam links, hate speech, and practical moderation controls are helpful context for why this is needed in group chat.
Thanks again for helping improve Second Life—please keep the ideas coming.