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All good chat rooms have moderators, and Paltalk’s rooms are no exception. Whether you’re in your own room or someone else’s, a large room or a small one, moderators help keep a room working smoothly by maintaining order and providing structure for all members. Plus, multiple admins around the world can keep a room running 24/7, giving other members a better chance of finding and engaging with that room. In Paltalk, our moderators are called “administrators”, or “admins” for short.
Almost all popular rooms have multiple admins who share the work. Some admins like to cover all duties by taking shifts alone, while others prefer working with others as a team of specialists. Regardless of your preferences, the main goal of an admin is to make sure the room works as it was intended by the owner.
When an owner creates a room, they can designate admins at their discretion. Admins then shoulder responsibility to keep the room running smoothly, removing disruptive guests or guiding members in a queue.
Admins have many moderation abilities in Paltalk. Let’s work up the ranks:
- Admin – This is the most basic level of moderator on Paltalk, but that doesn’t mean admins are powerless. Far from it. Identified by the ‘A’ next to their names in chat lists, admins are rule-enforcers. They make sure members use the room in the way the owner intended, using one of three tools (in order of severity): red dot, bounce, or ban.
- “Red dotting” someone means an admin controls whether they can speak, send video, or participate in text chat. You can red dot someone in a chat room you admin by right clicking their name in the list and choosing “Restrict.” Lift restrictions in the same way. Red dotting is a great way to control who can talk when, and can allow admins time to welcome new members and explain the rules of a particular room.
- When an admin bounces a member, they kick them out of the room for 24 hours. This can be accomplished again by right-clicking the member’s name and selecting “Bounce.” To lift a bounce before it expires, click the hamburger menu above the chat list, show Admin Console, click Bans & Bounces, and hover to click the X to clear.
- If a member is being particularly disruptive or completely uncontrollable, admins have the right to ban members from a chatroom entirely. To do this, bounce a member, navigate to the Bans & Bounces section of the Admin Console, and hover over a name to ban. This is also where you can come to remove a ban.
- Superadmin – The next level up from regular admins, superadmins can do everything a regular admin can, plus add and remove regular admins. This position is meant to support the room owner in preventing abuse of administrative power, and should only be awarded to a room’s most trusted moderators. Superadmins are marked with the same ‘A’ in chat as regular admins.
- Room Owner – Identified by the grey star to the right of their name in the chat list, room owners can do everything an admin and superadmin can do, plus they have access to the Admin Monitor tool. As its name suggests, that Admin Monitor tool allows the room owner to track an admin’s actions in the owner’s room, monitoring for any abusive or unsanctioned behavior.
Outside of member moderation, admins on Paltalk can also control the display mode of a room, the welcome and static messages, and more. You can change both Topic and Welcome Messages in Admin Console’s General tab — play around with them until you hit the right tone and cover all the rules. We also recommend exploring the Mode and YouTube tabs, which allow you to feature text or video chat more highly, and to share your favorite youtube videos for all to see and discuss. For more general tips about moderation, check out this subreddit.
Ultimately, the most important aspect of chat room moderation, on Paltalk and elsewhere, is consistency. Follow the admin guidelines, hold all members to a fair and explicit standard, and have fun making the magic happen. We couldn’t do it without you!
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