Oral History Gallery

Extract Text (Duration 2.06)

But when you've got 30/40 people talking at any one time in a chat room the... as soon as they type what they want to say and press return it comes up on the screen.  Now if you've got ten different conversations going on they don't necessarily follow, that each line that has been put in is in response to the question above it, so as the moderator you're trying to read what people are typing in relation to what it refers to just so you get the feel of ‘is this going to go down the wrong road, are they being offensive to that person or that individual?'  And it is quite difficult at times to keep up.  The terminology's difficult as well, where they speak in text speak, so it's all LOL for laugh out loud, and it's just trying to follow what they're actually saying online.  They are very adept at typing very quickly as well and sometimes you have to scroll back up to find where you'd been on the screen to follow that line of conversation.  It's an art form of picking out what you need to read and what you don't need to read and then picking up on the... there's key words that you have in your head that you might pick up on.  If you ever see a ship name in there of course I'd pick up on that straightaway, or any reference to Captain or... because they're not allowed to make personal attacks on individuals, and that includes the service person as well, so they can't go on there saying, "Oh, the Captain of HMS Westminster is rubbish, he's not telling us anything, he's..." and then... and from there, although that on its own is not too much of a derogatory statement, the... you... the bandwagon will start and it will degenerate to a level where he's being singled out for attention and then we'll draw a line under that from thereon in.