Webcam Chat Blog

Mod Motivational

Make Words Work
Chat, Listen and Learn

The moderators communicate with courtesy, clarity, and care in verbal and non-verbal messages. We listen attentively to the regulars to understand their needs and to ensure they understand the system and the service we provide them.

Stress Less

Better manage stress and talk to a more senior mod when needed. Strive for a mod/real life balance.

Chat More

Keep chatting - it helps the community
and you will feel better. Everything counts!

All For One, One For All

CamChat.org moderators share a common purpose: to serve the users and regulars. We build up each other; we share our successes, failures, information and ideas.

Attitude Is Everything
Create a lasting Impression

WE treat each user as if he or she is the most important person in the chatroom. Our behavior and attitude create a positive first impression that is lasting. We strive to exceed expectations and provide a clean perv-free environment.

Viva La Difference!
Diversity

At CamChat.org, we know that our differences, unique talents and varied backgrounds come together to create a strong and whole mod staff.

To “P2P” or Not to “P2P”
P2P Manners

Using P2P may save the mod time, but may not always be the most appropriate way to communicate. Mods should use discretion in sending and responding to P2P messages. Remember that P2P conversations can be logged used as evidence.

It’s a Private Matter
Confidentiality

CamChat.org room mods protect the user and their confidentiality. We should protect their privacy in all situations. We are sensitive to the regular user and the nature of webcam chat. We do everything we can to earn the trust that the regulars place in us. We strive to promote a peaceful chatroom and to relieve anxiety.

Make it Better!
User recovery

When the CamChat Experience doesn’t go right for a user, we try to make things better. We listen and respond with empathy, and apologize for not exceeding expectations. he mods are proactive in making amends, even in those difficult situations.

Think Safe, Be Safe
Safety in the chatroom

It is essential that we provide a hospitable, welcoming, healthy, and safe environment at CamChat.org
We identify and report hazards promptly to the proper authorities, and apply our remedies whenever possible.

Hello everyone and welcome to this webcam and chat post. First of all I’d like to say I did not call this meeting.The webcam users did.

A big thanks to our chat user Lokatana for his input on this subject for our community.

The first thing I saw that concerned me was our moderator named Mango being overworked in the chatroom. I clocked in and went to work of course … but I found this most unusual.

A bit later I discovered that the moderators along with some regular users were on Camamba instead. This is fine but it makes it a bit hard on Mango and myself to manage the entire room. Of course I can’t say anything about where you chat but I can tell you we do miss you.

It’s true we are supposed to point users over to Camamba to get their premium service but something has gone wrong.

If you guys will put yourselves in my shoes for a moment. It seems as if I sent you guys over to Camamba to get your free premium service and you never came back to the chatroom.

So I contacted Thomas to get his advice. I told him to spank you guys and send you home to camchat.org and he tried but this brings up some issues. I have to realize I can’t tell you where to chat.

I feel like my Free Premium for mods program (suggested by Loka) backfired on me. This does not help our webcam chat community.

I know that Camamba is a bit more slack and with less rules, a bit more pervy if that the allure? I can’t go there.

So I guess my big question is What can I do to make CC more exciting for you to be here instead of there.

We’re seriously low on chatroom moderators and I’m just trying to figure out is going on.

There are many items that do not form part of the main webcam and chat negotiations but are nonetheless very important to the project. They seem minor but being overlooked or forgotten could pose problems for the project and the website itself. We’d like the chat mods to quickly jump to the VIP Area and either view a list of current chatters or make a nomination. Once two moderators of the chat room have sponsored a user the site owner should get an alert via email and maybe text message. However any mod should be able to quickly remove the user making the VIP pass in a suspended mode until two mods have again agreed on this person. No alert is needed to the site owner on VIP Pass suspension. When suspending a VIP pass for the chatroom a text area should be required to explain what happened.

Purpose: Camchat.org is a webcam and chat community that has moderators. The moderator status is stored in a database. As our site grows we need the ability to identify certain users as known regulars and should be granted access to the chatroom even if we have the room set as full.

We’d like two current room mods from the chat room to agree to sponsor a regular user that is usually on webcam as a VIP user. This would mean that that a user could log into the system even if the chatroom were full. We need two current mods to be able to nominate a user as a VIP user. Several bits of information must be entered at some point. The VIP member’s email (for the password) and the start date. (which they have access to) nickname. etc

I love SEO. It has been my hobby for many years. Though professionally I work in QA, I’m signed up for a lot of newsletters and I read a lot of blogs and pages about SEO. I enjoy getting a site visible on Google.

I’ll always rank for “cam chat” because of the domain name. But that’s not the real keyword I want to rank on. According to available tools more people search on “webcam chat”. So as “camchat” is a given for us, I have optimized for “webcam chat”, the second biggest search term in my industry. There are tools to see what people actually search for in your market.

After several weeks running on page #2 results for “webcam chat” we are finally back in top 10 results in most areas. The numbers have already picked up slightly.

Oh great fun.

Just felt like typing,
John
Webmaster
www.camchat.org

In the nomination area for the webcam and chat room moderators we would need several fields. We should have fields for the first nomination, a second nomination, email, start date and a text fields. The nominating mods would be responsible for entering all the required information.

It would be nice if the mods could set their nomination with a drop-down list of the mods names. If this is not possible a text entry would work.

A text field should be seen but is optional and could be used to comment on the user being nominated.

Maybe the second nominating mod could click submit to send the request for final approval.

The site owner might receive an alert either by email or txt msg. or both that a new VIP member needs to be approved.

On approval the system should automatically generate a chat room password and send an email to the new user congratulating them and giving them their pass key.

Checks should be in place to ensure the nominating mods names do not match others in the chatroom, and that the start date is within the date range set by the owner in the owner control panel.

We envision the final approval as well as room size limits being one day handed over to the mods themselves. For now all VIP passes and room size must go through the webcam site owner.

One of my favorite things to do is look back on our webcams and chat experience through the years. For a long time I updated the site with a new design for the chat room each year. It was around 2006 that my wife took over the web design duties. Anyway here’s a link to all the years of design changes which is always fun to look at.

CamChat.org on the Wayback Machine

CamChat.org needs a way limit the size of our webcam chat room while letting known regular users in even if the room is full. We envision two room moderators nominating a user for a “VIP Pass”. Once the user has two sponsors then an email would be sent to the user with their VIP Pass Number after the site owner approval. This could be entered in a new field on our sign-in area.

The room moderators would have a link to the new VIP area. We would likely have a list of VIP Pass holders, those that only have one sponsor, as well as the list of suspended users. We also need a way to nominate new pass holders.

Maybe we can have an entry page where the mod can chose to see the list of users, or go to the nomination page? We are up for any suggestions.

Why do we do it

Like I have said in the chat room and mod forum the reason I put so much time, energy, and money into it is because I enjoy chatting with people from all over the world. I have from day one with my webcam. I knew early on that this is what I wanted to do.

Everyone wants to be a star. Everyone wants to be seen. Everyone wants to be in the camera’s eye. People want to be liked. I think this is deep in the roots of the webcam chat experience. In watching my first chat room and webcam sites back in the 1990’s I already had dreams of what I wanted to do. CamChat.org is the result of that.

Some of the first sites I had bumpped into and enjoyed watching was AnaCam, JeniCam.org (now closed), and Sunny. Yes they were all “camgirls” but it was fascinating to me how their communities grew and worked. I wanted one of my own. Yes my image was the first ever uploaded here. I wish I still had that image. I think what keeps us going is being able to sit down at your computer and chat with people from all over the world for free. Come on in and enjoy the free webcam chat.

PuP

We are seriously intriguing you’d have to admit. The first webcam image (well camera image) was probably in 1991 at Cambridge University in England. It was called the “Coffeepot Cam”. An yes it was a view of the network engineers coffpot. They used it to check if there was any coffee in the pot. It ran until 2001 when it was finally switched off.

The oldest webcam that is still running would be “Fog Cam” at SF State Uni. It was started in 1994 and still runs today. See it at fogcam.org.

I built a webpage and uploaded my first webcam picture in 1997. In those days streaming video didn’t exist, it was just pictures. Software was used to grab a webcam picture and upload to a server using FTP. We used javascript to check for a new image every 60 seconds so if a new picture was up, it was displayed for the user.

I thought I’d share a funny story here. When I had uploaded my first webcam picture, and had a chatroom going, I was so excited I sat in there for three days straight … by myself. That’s when I started getting new users. Soon there were 10 regular users, then 20, then 30. We have always used ChatStop.net for our chat service.

In those days I was just using free websites like Geocities or web1000. The guy who was the second webcam added became my partner in the project. I won’t mention his name at this time. I’ll tell you why later. He was also affiliated with a website called MetalFlakes.com, which is a heavy metal website still active today. My chatroom became the chatroom used by this site as well.

Happy Chatting and be sure to join the chat room.