CPS Chat Etiquette

The chat rooms and message boards have become the heart of our support group. The goal of the chat rooms is to provide a comfortable place to receive and give support, to share your pain story and be heard, to be distracted from your pain with friendly chat and with laughter. Very often we have times of fun, sometimes we cry and sometimes we hug. If you are new to our group or you haven't tried out the chat rooms, following are some guidelines we've established for our chat rooms as well as some of the terms we use:

• Join in and participate.. you'll enjoy your chat experience much more that way.
• Welcome visitors to the chat room. Be sure that the new person feels welcome and is included in the conversation. This is something that our group is very good at doing!
• The chat moderators use roll call/introductions as a tool to keep track of how we are all feeling and it also lets new people know who we are and gives them a chance to introduce themselves. Roll call/introductions consists of providing the following information: Gender/age/locale/Pain Source/Pain Level
• Be understanding of others who are in pain... give them time to speak about their pain openly.
• We all have times when we need a hug.. a cyber hug is represented with parenthesis around someone's name. Example (((((UNI)))).
• No profanity, hate messages or racial slurs, insults or rude behavior.
• We love good humor.. but keep it clean. Keep it non-sexual and non-racist and out of the gutter.
• No cyber chats are premitted. If you are coming here to find a cyber sex partner.. you're in the wrong place! If you do this, you will be either gagged or locked out of the forum.
• Flaming is not allowed. If you have a problem with an individual in the room, please take it off line and do not involve others. If you flame in our chat rooms you will be gagged and possibly locked out of the forum
• No advertising of any kind in the chat room. If you advertise in chat you will be booted from the chat room and locked out of the forum completely.
• Abbreviations are used very often in chat. The following list displays the ones we use most often and their meanings:
  • LOL = Laughing Out Loud
    
  • ROFLOL = Rolling on Floor Laughing Out Loud
    
  • CMAO = Crying my "A**" off
    
  • HUB = Hug U Bunches
    
  • BRB = Be right back
    
  • BBL = Be Back Later
    
  • GGP = "Gotta go pee" or "gotta get pill"
    
  • WB = Welcome Back
    
  • NP = No Problem
    
  • BTW = By the Way
    
  • KOBC = Kisses on Both Cheeks
  • TY = Thank You
  
  
• Moderated Topic Chat Commands (used only during topic & guest speaker chats):
  • ? = Indicates the person has a question
    
  • ! = Indicates urgent message
    
  • GA = Go Ahead (moderator uses to acknowledge participant)
    
  • Done = Finished my statement or question. This is used both by the moderator and the participant to indicate they are finished speaking.
    

Please note that any information you read on the web, (including our web site, message board, or chat rooms) is not intended to replace the advice of your health care providers. Please discuss with your physician any changes in diet, exercise, or symptoms. He/She is the best person to guide you to better health.

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