3 Ways to Better Control a Group Chat Discussion

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Any group chat discussion should have various tools to control the discussion. Let’s try to explain the ways to control this discussion by giving a live example.

A psychologist (therapist) named Dana who is heavily using the RumbleTalk chat room platform, has created over than 100 chat rooms. In addition, she is part of our Beta group which means she can get all of our new features first prior any official release.

The group chat discussion

When we started, Dana was using the group chat discussion for supporting a woman after giving birth. She seems to be always in the chat, sometimes she spends 18 hours a day in the chat. As time passed, she created more support groups chats for various subjects.

Dana is using the chat platform to support large groups discussions but lately, she started to use also the option to call directly from the chat and talk verbally with users (audio calls).

Live video or in this case Audio calls are being performed from the one on one private chat option.

Now, she is running always into challenges that most group discussions owners are facing. Here are the 3 ways to handle the most common challenges as administrator (moderator).

Admin Only Feature

Dana’s chat is set to allow all users to upload files and images.
Now, normally this is fine, but there are occasions when Dana wish to be the only one to upload presentations and documents. She wants the focus and the attention of the group.

In that case, Dana is going to the admin panel and allow only ADMIN’s to share files (Chat settings -> Multimedia tab). This will result in hiding the attached icon on the bottom right for all users but the admin.

group chat discussion attaching files

Dana is also able to allow “only admins” (her mostly) to use voice calls or video calls.
This will prevent users from talking to each other in case Dana need to get their full attention.

Ban or disconnect Users

Dana experience from time to time  (like most chat owners) the need to deal with trolls or just users that misbehave. We help her by allowing 3 levels of control.

Block User – Ignore private messages from a certain user, this is good if someone is bugging her with messages. Note, the bugging user will not see that she blocked him and will think she ignores him. This option is available to any chatter.

Disconnect User – If a user is misbehaving, Dane may disconnect him as a warning.
This is only available for admin (moderator) of the chat.

Ban User by IP – You can block a user IP (his computer address) from connecting to the chat.
Banning a user is only available for admin (moderator) of the chat. Un-Banning a user can be done from the admin panel in the BAN-IP section.

Force All to Logout

Dana always places an OFFLINE message when she finishes her group discussion session. Now, this offline message will result in disconnecting all users from the chat. Therefore, Dana is using it from time to time to disconnect all users, then she is able to change settings and only when she is ready, she let all in,  after she releases the offline mode.

Offline ON/OFF is done from the admin panel, in the settings section, in the offline tab.

Offline message