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PALTALK PERMANENT GROUPS ADMIN GUIDELINES

If you can, print this document out now. It will serve as a very useful reference for you. 

By creating a permanent group, you agree to accept responsibility to admin that group. Read this document carefully to make sure you understand your responsibilities before continuing. This document contains reference information you may find useful at a later time.

You may use this facility to create a permanent group on Paltalk in which you are the administrator of the group. Being an administrator allows you to moderate the room by giving you the power to take away a person's microphone (if it is a voice group) and the ability to bounce (remove) a person in the event that they are extremely disruptive or abusive. Your nickname will be identified as an admin account in your group by having an @ sign precede your name (see @buttercup in area F in the screen layout below). The @ sign indicates admin capabilities. Paltalk personnel have admin capabilities in all groups they enter. They are differentiated from room admins by having their nickname appear in red in addition to having the @ sign. 

This document will describe the abilities and guidelines for being a room administrator. If you abuse the admin privileges, your group and your ability to create future groups will be removed, so please make sure you understand what is required in the admin role. 

When you create a group, you will have the option of specifying a lockword or not. If you specify a lockword, anyone trying to join your group will be asked to specify the lockword before they are allowed to enter. In this way, you can control who may enter your room by who you tell the lockword to. If you do not specify a lockword, the group is open to everyone. Locked groups are limited to a max of 10 people. The only exception to this is locked groups which are also Commerce groups, which may have unlimited members. 

You may allow an unlimited number of people to coadmin your room with you. When you create the group you will be asked to specify a 4 digit admin code. The admin code is the key to your room. Anyone who knows it can open or join your room as an admin. 

Information you must supply

Group Type – There are 3 types of groups. The most common is the User Group (Free) type. It allows you to own, maintain and admin your own group on Paltalk. You may open this group at any time and it remains open only so long as people are in the group. When the last person leaves, the group closes. 

The second type of group is User Group Website/AD Pop-ups (Fee based). It basically is the same group as above except that whenever a user joins your group, their web browser will automatically open to a web page of your choosing. You can use this for example to promote your own homepage. A warning here is that it is possible to design a page such that when a user shuts down the browser window containing the current page, another page is then displayed. This type of design is strictly disallowed when using this feature. There is a monthly fee for this service. 

The third type of group is Paltalk Commerce Group (Fee based). Any individual or organization who would like a group on Paltalk for any type of commercial related activity must choose this group type. It allows you to control what banners are displayed in the group and also to direct users joining your group to have their web browsers automatically open to a page of your choosing. Unlike other groups, you may choose to leave your group open even when it is empty. Your group appears in the category of your choice but also appears in a Commerce category. There is a monthly fee for this service which varies with the maximum amount of people allowed in your group at anyone time. There is additional information that pertains to Commerce rooms at the bottom of this document. The same warning applies here as in the last group regarding popups that display another web page when the user closes down the window. That is not allowed. 

Note regarding nobanner subscribers – The vast majority of Paltalk users see banners when they use the program. However we do offer users a fee based option to not to see the banners. Any user paying for this option will not see any banners and will have the option of seeing or not seeing web page popups when they enter a group. This holds true across all groups even groups that you have paid a fee to use your own banners and/or popup instead of ours.

Group name – The name of the group. You are not allowed to make any group with a title that defames, disparages or excludes any race, creed, religion, age group, gender, national origin, or any other organization, business entity or individual person. You also may not make any group that condones or promotes the use of drugs, encourages software piracy, child pornography, or any other illegal activity. 

Category - Paltalk groups are organized into categories. You will have to select from a drop down list which category you prefer your group to be found in by others. 

Rating – Similar to a movie rating. The options are G, R or A. G rated rooms must be suitable to all audiences including minors. Text in G rooms is automatically filtered to eliminate possible offensive language. R and A rated rooms are suitable for adults only and the text is not filtered what so ever. The difference between these two groups is that an A rated group allows sexually explicit language where an R group does not. Note – users have to explicitly turn on an option to see adult groups (R and A). The default every time someone logs in is not to show adult rooms. 

Voice Enabled Switch – On indicates that you want to allow voice in the room, off indicates that it will be a text only room. 

Admin Code – A 4 digit numeric code that is the key to joining your group with admin privileges. Select a code that is easy to remember but that does not contain a pattern (for example 3333 or 1234 would be bad choices). Share this code with those people you wish to help you coadmin your room. 

Lockword – An optional field. If you specify a value in this field, anyone not knowing your lockword will be prevented from entering your room. Anyone trying to join your group will be asked to specify the lockword before they are allowed to enter. Locked rooms are limited to a max of 10 people. 

Intro Msg – An optional field. If specified, every time someone joins your group, they will be automatically greeted with this message .

Bouncing Someone

If someone is being severely offensive or disruptive, you have the power to remove (bounce) them from the room. To bounce someone, you right click on their name in the member list (area F). A pop up menu will be displayed where you should select Bounce. A screen will pop up asking you to fill in the reason why you are bouncing the person. The reason is not seen by the person being bounced. It is only seen by the Paltalk personnel to identify repeat offenders and people who are abusing the bounce facility. When someone is bounced, they are prevented from reentering your group for 24 hours. 

Bouncing Caveats

We track how many bounces an admin does per day and overall. If the number of bounces per day is high, all users entering your group will receive a warning similar to the following: 

“Room admins in this group HAVE AND DO frequently use the power to remove members at their discretion to maintain an orderly room as they see fit. If this is unacceptable to you, please leave and visit one of our many other rooms.”

If the number of bounces is excessive overall, the group may be closed down permanently and your account restricted from creating new groups in the future. 

Muting Someone (voice groups only)

By double clicking on someone's name (area F), you can change the colored dot in front of them from green to red and back again. Green indicates they can talk, red means they cannot. You would use this for example to take the microphone away from someone who is talking too long or is deliberately trying to tie up the room. Normally you would take the microphone away and then soon after, give it back. 

Muting Everyone

It may be desirable to mute everyone's microphone except your own to help moderate a room. You then can choose to individually turn someone's mic on, let them speak, and then take the mic away. To do this, select the "Remove All Mics" option under the "Mics" menu (area B). This will remove all the mics from everyone except yourself. New people joining the group will default to having their mic turned off. To restore everyone's mic back, choose the "Give Mics To Everyone" option under the "Mic" menu. This will restore everyone's mic and new people joining will default to their mic being on. 

The Static Text MSG (area C) 

When your group is open, you will find that right below the banner area (area C) is a one line static text field (area C). This one line never scrolls so is always visible. You can use this field to display a message to your users that will stay on the screen and not scroll off. Some examples of how to use this field are to display a URL to a web site of interest, or to display a welcome message, or perhaps to display a topic of the day. You have the ability to change this field at any time by simply typing over what is currently there and hitting Enter. Make sure the cursor is at the end of the line when you hit Enter. This area is only editable to the group admins. Your members see this field all the time but cannot not modify it. 

Admin Code and How to open the group

When you create a permanent group, you will have to specify a 4 digit admin code. This admin code is the key to opening your room. To open your room you must do the following. Bring up the Groups List window by pressing the Groups button on the main screen. Select the “Open or /Join Group as Admin” option under the File menu. You then specify the admin code and hit the OK button. Your group will open automatically 

Co administrators

You may allow an unlimited number of people to coadmin your room with you by telling them your admin code. Anyone who knows your admin code can open or join your room as an admin. The procedure for them to open or join your room as admin is similar to how you open up the room. They must select the “Open or /Join Group as Admin” option under the File menu, then select your nickname from the dropdown list and then they must specify your admin code. The group will open automatically. 

If you wish to change who may coadmin your room with you, you simply change the admin code. Pick your coadmins wisely because you are responsible for their actions as well as your own. Violations of these guidelines by you or your coadmins will cause the loss of your room and the ability to create new groups in the future. 

Changing the definition of your group while it’s open

Changes you make to your groups such as changing rating, name, category, banner url, plus most other changes, do not take affect while your group is open. You must always close your group with the ..close command first , then make your changes to the groups definition and then reopen your group. 

Reasons for removal after acceptance

Here are some of the possible reasons your room may be taken away from you after you create it: 

1. Misrepresenting yourself as a Paltalk person. 
2. Continuous allowance of language not appropriate to your room rating. 
3. Abuse of the bouncing and/or muting privileges. 
4. Offensive behavior on your part towards your members. 
5. Abuse of Paltalk personnel. 

Paltalk Uptime

Although Paltalk strives to be a product that is up 24 hours, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, there will be times Paltalk is offline. Reasons for outages include but are not limited to software and hardware maintenance upgrades, ISP related problems and equipment failure. Paltalk makes no particular representation about its uptime, but it is expected that future uptime will be similar to our past performance, which has been near 99% uptime. 

Group Controls

PalTalk offers a variety of controls for you to maintain order in your group. Some features are more apparent than others so we will break them down into three areas for you. 

Right Click Menu Commands
( right click a users nickname in the group list) 

'Mic Menu' Commands
(located in the menu bar of the group window) 

Typed Commands
(Typed in the strip under the banner in your group) 

The static text message area (area C) is also an area where a group admin may issue any of a number of special commands. They do this by typing the command in the this area preceded by a .. (two periods) and hitting the Enter key. A message will be displayed back to you in the groups main text area confirming the command you entered was just executed. Only you see this confirm message, not the entire group. The list of available commands is as follows 

Key Confirmation Code

To continue, you will be asked to enter a key confirmation code. Enter the word agreed. Entering that word will indicate to us that you have read and agreed to the terms of this document. Only those people that wish to open up commercial rooms in Paltalk need to read the remainder of this document. 

Premium Rooms

Any group opened on Paltalk that relates to any type of commercial activity or is a locked room of more than 10 users, needs to be opened as a premium type room (Commerce or Professional Category) in Paltalk. Premium rooms are a fee based service* that have a number of advantages over other rooms

- You have the option of leaving the room always open even when there is no one in the room. 

- You may control what banners are displayed in your room. 

- You may direct every member upon entering your room to have their web browser open up to a web page of your choosing. 

- Your group will appear in the category of your choosing and additionally be listed in the Commerce or Professional category. 

- You may have a locked group of more then 10 people. 

- You may choose to video enable your room allowing your users full motion video.

Displaying your own banners- You may choose to display your own banners in your group rather then having the Paltalk run of the mill advertising banners displayed. Banners should be jpg, gif or animated gif format images that have the following dimensions: 468 pixels wide, 60 pixels tall. Paltalk does not currently offer the ability to serve your banners for you. What this means is that your banner image(s) must be available from some other web server on the Internet. You simply provide us with the URL link to your banner. When it comes time to load the banner, instead of loading our banner using our URL link, we will load your banner using your link. Please reference our banner setup page for the details of how to create the banner images and the container html files needed to load them 

http://www.paltalk.com/paltalk/support/commerce/commerceBannerHints.html

Displaying your own web page when new members join – You may opt to supply us with a URL of a web page that will automatically be displayed in the users browser window when they enter your group. Like the banner urls, the URL you supply us for this option must point to a web page somewhere on the Internet of your choosing. We do not serve up your pages from our web server. The initial size of these pages will be 500 pixels wide by 300 pixels high. It is possible to have your page open to different dimensions. We show an example of how to do that and all the other particular details about Urls for web page popups at the following link: 

http://www.paltalk.com/paltalk/support/commerce/commercePopupHints.html

*PalTalk reserves the right to change prices at company discretion.