Talk City Defends Chat Ban, Reveals New Chat Interface
By Net4TV Voice Staff (April 9, 2000)
Net4TV Voice interviewed Bruce Dembecki, Director of Community Operations for Talk City regarding their recent policy change regarding custom chat interfaces and clients. Following is the text of that exchange.
Net4TV Voice reporters Dexter Davenport and Dudette also interviewed Bruce during a Sunday afternoon audio chat on Chat4TV.
Net4TV Voice: What is Talk City doing to eliminate the custom chat interfaces? Is this done by WebTV or is it done on Talk City's servers.
Talk City: For obvious reasons we aren't discussing exactly what changes are being made. I can say that the changes are being made on Talk City's servers, not on WebTV's servers, and not in the WebTV box. Generally speaking, Talk City's severs will expect certain information to be passed at log on which isn't normally passed by an IRC Script. The end result is that the majority of custom IRC scripts written for WebTV won't be able to access Talk City's chat servers.
One of the benefits of this process is that Talk City will shortly be introducing a new IRC program for WebTV users accessible through it's web site at http://www.talkcity.com/. This new IRC will have many of the features users look for in their scripts, and none of the destructive capabilities currently being utilized in some IRC scripts.
Net4TV Voice: Will this prevent people from using custom chats on other servers?
Talk City: Not at all. The changes are only at Talk City, and do not affect how the WebTV IRC scripts work, so they will continue to work with other chat servers.
Net4TV Voice: Will this prevent people from using other servers period?
Talk City: No. These changes are purely for accessing Talk City. WebTV users can
continue accessing other servers just as they do now, with or without
the use of customizing IRC scripts.
Net4TV Voice: What types of disruptions does Talk City hope to prevent? You mention that this is being done due to "aggressive components that some of them contain." What aggressive components is Talk City referring to? How prevalent is this? (How many complaints does Talk City handle on this matter, what percentage of WebTV chat sessions use the aggressive components, etc.)
Talk City: This is an extremely difficult question to answer. There are so many attacks and aggressive actions in use every day. Our CSAs are fighting in excess of a hundred such attacks each hour, which takes their focus away from what Talk City is about, providing a clean well lighted environment for people to chat in. This number of course doesn't include any attacks on users which aren't reported to CSAs. We also know that in excess of 50% of all the attacks we do experience come from WebTV units. These attacks come from IRC Scripts with tools to send floods to both rooms and individual users and various other attacks.
WebTV users are particularly vulnerable to these attacks, and are frequently the targets of such activities. We regularly experience attacks which disconnect WebTV users from chat or even their dialup connection, shut down a users WebTV box and in worst case scenarios actually reprogram the WebTV box so it doesn't respond to commands. These are all serious issues which our changes will prevent.
Overall WebTV users with customizable IRC scripts and computer users
using IRC software make up only 11% of our daily connections
(averages taken over a 15 day period). This is not to suggest in any
way that 100% of the WebTV users with IRC scripts or the Computer IRC
users are troublemakers, but we do know that 100% of these problems
come from this small segment of our users.
One of the aims of Talk City is to provide the greatest benefit for
the largest number of our users with the least inconvenience. By
taking these steps that affect this small segment of our users we are
making the chat experience better for the vast majority of our users.
In actual fact we believe that many of our WebTV script users will
find the new Talk City IRC to be a great benefit to them and we have
already had positive feedback from Computer users about our new
EZTalk Client.
Net4TV Voice: What other solutions did Talk City consider?
Talk City: Talk City has been working on this problem for an extremely long
time. It's important to Talk City and important to our users that we
provide a safe environment for chatting. We have been trying various
solutions for many months. From banning individual users, to banning
entire ISPs, to revoking people's access to chat at Talk City with a
WebTV unit. However these are largely ineffective. When we ban an ISP
we invariably hurt many users, and the problem users frequently have
multiple dial up access providers they can switch to. I know for a
fact when we do ban an ISP both WebTV and ourselves get hundreds of
call from affected users who can't connect to chat.
Ultimately this is the only action we can take and still continue to
allow open access for all WebTV users. By preventing access to any
connection that has the ability to take aggressive actions we can
prevent the disruptions, allowing users to access Talk City and
improving their chat experience.
Net4TV Voice: What is the nature of the relationship between WebTV and Talk City? Do they share ad revenues for banner ads placed in the WebTV chat interface?
Talk City: I believe you have a response to this question already from WebTV,
but I would like to address it, as it is something we are frequently
asked. As you know from WebTV Talk City pays WebTV a percentage of
the income earned from banners displayed to WebTV users entering Talk
City through the WebTV Community gateway. WebTV does not pay Talk
City to provide a chat service to it's users. No part of a users
monthly access fee paid to WebTV is paid to Talk City for access to
chat, access to Talk City is free of charge to WebTV and computer
users.
It has been suggested that the real reason we are making these
changes is to increase banner impressions and thus make more money.
It would be silly of me to suggest that we aren't interested in
money, ultimately we are a business and like any business we have a
requirement to earn an income. It is true that half of Talk City's
business model depends on ads. However, it's also important to
realize that the revenue associated with the amount of ad views we
gain is minimal compared to the business expense we incur chasing
hackers and disrupters, and trying to keep them from destroying the
environment for chatting in Talk City and harassing our staff. So,
yes, we are a business and our objective is to make money, but that
is not the reason these changes are taking place. These changes are
taking place purely for the reasons stated, to improve the quality of
the experience for the majority of Talk City's users.
The services that Talk City provides officially for WebTV, the chat
functionality within the WebTV Community web site, is not being
changed in any way as it rely's on the default chat settings of the
WebTV unit, and not the customized settings used in IRC scripts.
Net4TV Voice: Did Talk City request WebTV eliminate custom chat interfaces? If so, why?
Talk City: No, Talk City did not request WebTV eliminate custom chat interfaces.
We are not trying to change the experience WebTV users have on the
internet or deny them access to services available elsewhere. What we
are trying to do is improve the experience for all users at Talk
City, both WebTV and computer users alike.
As far as we aware WebTV has no plans at this time of eliminating the
custom chat interface, and we certainly haven't asked WebTV to do so.
What we are doing is ceasing to support these interfaces on Talk
City. In some cases they may continue to work, in most cases they
will probably fail. We are advising users in advance of these
changes, so they are prepared in the event their IRC scripts fail to
work after April 12th.
Net4TV Voice: Anything you'd like to add?
Talk City: Talk City is not terminating IRC access to the server for WebTV
users. We are simply going to stop supporting the IRC scripts. We
will not provide information on how to use IRC scripts to access Talk
City, nor will we answer questions on why any particular script does
or does not work. What will work with the new changes is the WebTV
Community chat gateway in use by many WebTV users, and a new IRC
script that will shortly be available at http://www.talkcity.com/.
Talk City is actually providing a custom IRC client, designed
specifically for users of Talk City. Our staff has spent the last
couple years working with WebTV users, and this version of IRC
includes all the features most folks seem to want in a WebTV IRC
client. It includes these features:
A list of who is in the chat room;
Live assistance from the CSA staff;
live assistance from the Talk City Help staff;
A direct link to the Talk City WebTV customer support web site;
Talk City chat room list optimized for WebTV users;
Live streaming radio stations;
Message pop-up box to private message chatters in your chat room;
6 Chatter-created pop-ups.
This new IRC we are creating will be available shortly at our web
site, http://www.talkcity.com/, and we'll be announcing the details
just as soon as it's ready to go. [Editor's Note: The new interface is now ready and available from Talk City's home page<>.]
I would also like to stress again that these changes are being made
by Talk City. They are not changes WebTV are making, and do not
affect how WebTV works with other chat services, or with customized
IRC scripts, unless those scripts access Talk City. I know that due
to the integration of Talk City within WebTV's Community web site it
is often difficult for WebTV users to differentiate the two
companies, but it is important that WebTV users understand these
changes are not being made by WebTV, but by Talk City.
