I'd like to suggest a new group function power that would help chat staff communicate about specific users of their chat groups.
For all of xat's history, many chats have implemented punishments that "stack" - a kick for first offense, a short ban on the second, a longer ban on the third, etc. But it's been difficult to keep track of what punishments one user has received, especially if one is guilty of more severe rule violations with days in between offenses.
Owners have also historically chosen preferred temp mods, and with them, preferred durations. There have also been users who follow all the chat's rules but, for whatever reason, are not trusted to moderate the chat in times of need. But how do owners communicate this info to other owners?
Notes power would solve these issues. It's simple: the ability for staff to leave notes about users on their chats. It would be accessible from a simple button on the main user window:
The button would bring up a list of all notes stored about that user. As you can see from this example, @Flake has not been on his best behaviour lately:
The Notes window would show the notes in order of recency, along with the user who left them, and the rank of that user. (Notes written by owners should carry more weight than notes left by mods).
Some additional features/ideas:
The window could be accessible from the ban, kick, and temp-rank windows
There could be an indicator on the button to show that there is a new note (within the last 48 hours) for this particular user, to remind staff to check the notes before banning/kicking
Notes could automatically expire after a certain time period
There could be an option to only show a specific note to specific ranks (a main owner may only want to show notes about mods to owners and not other mods, for example)
Notes power could stack, meaning by default, 1 note per user would be allowed at a time, with more notes becoming unlocked as more powers are assigned
This could cause some conflict if the above suggestion was implemented as mods would know there was an owner note on someone if they saw none but were unable to add a new note
Main owners could control what ranks could remove notes left by other users via the group page
A different version of this power showing the most recent events for a user (bans/kicks, anything that shows up on Events page) in an in-chat window could be made to serve a similar purpose, or to compliment this power
Would love to hear your feedback.