Moderators in that place are poorly selected among the user pool, they are all stricken with mental disorders and completely unprepared to deal with people in need of any kind of support to the point of bullying users, they bully suicidal users! Sometimes it is like this: "Move on from that subject and call a help line", "Do not question moderators!", BAN! You are banned for 48 hours (reason: not obeying a moderator). Thats how things work there.
My guess about why moderators are so terrible there? Apparently they are handpicked by some "Bluegobi", a moderator notoriously toxic and aggressive with ties to the proprietor of the website. The "boss" of the moderation team, Bluegobi is in favour of a "ban on the spot" policy and favor moderators who follow this approach. Moderators cold and harsh to the users, moderators that lack empathy, for some reason are her favorites. Bluegobi openly admits to the chatters to have issues with self harm and depression. This mentally unstable person was given the important role of selecting and training the moderators and room assists for all these years.
As a result, users who find common ground, build relationships and encounter any peer support to the point of relying or even needing that place might suddenly see all ties severed by a moderator in a mood swing who bans them for "not staying on topic". Instead of helping its much more likely that chat will induce mental breakdowns, if not worse.
Sexual predators freely mingle among the users, searching for vulnerable people, specially minors, who they proceed to exploit. Incompetent moderation fails to keep them in check, and in fact might ban any user for being loud about it. I wrote to them saying I would contact the authorities about the many pedophiles they refused to remove. That was enough to get me perma banned.
To make matters worse, a large number of the users is comprised of young teenagers, kids of 12 or 13 years old of age, some even victims of sexual abuse, children who lie about their age are daily engaging in conversations with men in their late 40s, even older. The age acceptance rule of healthful chat admits minors who are 16 years old.
There is no doubt you will find great people there but this is a fact: sooner or later you will be bullied by the mods, the fact it lacks regular users despite being around for more than a decade is proof enough.
Do not be deceived by the fake reviews, that place runs a business and bots constantly spam ads about "online counseling". Anyone willing to spend a week there will surely find evidence of everything stated here.
It is a dangerous chat and should be shut down, it is a theat to public health.
If anyone knows of agencies where I can report all this please reply. I confess I really tried but so far to no avail.
It's moderated but it's awful moderating.
Like Emily said the moderator Forever is on a power trip and a complete bully, one of the worst moderators along with CGJ and Rosie.
Forever bullies by muting chatters and then keep them muted until she logs off. The other moderators won't unmute you while she's there which means she can keep chatters on mute. While you're on mute she either ignores your messages or just PMs snarky comments like "so how are you?" or "you seem to think you have a lot of fans here" or "not much going on with me". It's part of the bullying to avoid talking about why she muted you and to provoke you. She keeps you on mute and then logs off and you have to wait until another moderator comes on and ask them to unmute you.
Rosie tells people that graphic details of death can be discussed in the anxiety room because "it causes" anxiety, even though it's supposed to be done in the bereavement room like other moderators say all the time. If you call her out, she accuses you of "acting like a moderator" but she has been called out by former moderators who are now chatters for making up the rules and breaking them.
Rosie claims to have lots of conditions, like ptsd, but has no symptoms at all and doesn't need any treatment for it. She also claims she has COP, agoraphobia, health anxiety and has social anxiety but goes out all the time on public transport and in cars, she goes shopping and goes to appointments without any issue she also uses elevators with ease, goes to social events all the time including activity group events and walks on beaches and smokes. She never seems to have any concerns with her health and said she manages it by "self-reassurance"
Rosie recently decided that she has OCD but she doesn't have any obsessions or compulsions and doesn't have a diagnosis for it either.
Cally is another incompetent moderator whose main trick is to shadow mute and shadow ban anyone she doesn't like. She hates guests and does it to them the most; she is snarky and generally provokes fights because she jumps on every little thing. You can call out her incompetence but do so at the risk of being kicked and banned.
The site is in desperate need of moderators so maybe that's why they'll accept people who make up site rules and make up health conditions.
You won't get real help here, maybe some sympathy but if you want anything more than breathing techniques for anxiety and sympathy for loss then get professional help.
The moderating is awful.
Sage Aurora and Rosie are the newest recruits to moderating
Rosie is hypocritical and quick to post every rule she can think of without reading what's been said: She will post a rule at a chatter if someone says they don't want to PM but the chatter has asked publicly to PM and so hasn't done anything wrong. She'll post a rule for swearing but will swear herself: she'll tell people not to talk about food because it's "triggering for people with eating disorders" then she'll tell everyone what she'll be eating that day and will repeat this in different rooms like Anxiety, Lounge, PTSD, Motivation. She doesn't like guests and if you're friends with her, she'll let you get away with stuff. Rosie never admits when she is wrong instead she says "let's get back to support" or says she's just got out of bed.
It seems like she must have been trained by Forever because Forever is still up to the same old thing of letting her friends get away with things, targeting guests and being rude to people. Forever's new tactic is to secretly mute and remove chat permission. This basically means she secretly mutes you so you don't know and then she removes chat permissions which mean you cannot change rooms and you cannot use the site, but you still think you're live on the site. Forever does this when you disagree with her not because you break rules. Other moderators have confirmed they use covert bans but mainly on people who are clearly trolling not just because they dislike someone.
Aurora has the same problem as Rosie and doesn't know how to comprehend words on a screen and so just repeats "respect the RAs and respect others or you will be removed". She will say this no matter what the issue is because according to Aurora if you don't agree with her then you are disrespectful.
Sage used to hang out in philosophy and was obnoxious every time he was there, he was so obnoxious that chatters would say "I almost wish Sage was here" whenever a really abusive troll came into the room.
Sage likes to think he's always right and doesn't like to admit when he's wrong even when everyone tells him that he's wrong. Much like Rosie he jumps the gun and doesn't read the whole conversation, instead he just sees the last comment and decides you must be doing something wrong and puts up a rule or mutes or kicks. When he's told to read the whole chat to prove the chatter hasn't done anything wrong, he ignores this.
These guys give moderating a bad name.
To the reviewer Nora's comments about vendettas
Southerngent used to be a moderator and since he quit he goes into anxiety room and has said that as a moderator he wasn't always professional and thinks a lot of chatters are idiots.
If a moderator thinks of chatters as idiots, then they're going to treat them like trash and be unprofessional.
This is a good place to find help. As noted in other reviews there are some issues with some chatters and with moderators. The option to ignore anyone who is bothersome exists - the ignore feature. It's a good feature. We're all there with our own mental health issues so of course we're going to clash. Ignore is the only way to find some peace and I'm happy site has the option.
As for the moderators: they are volunteers who are also chatters. They are not perfect. They try. They put up with a lot, including some chatters who were rightfully banned stalking them and threatening their lives and the lives of their families.
Rules are posted that are to be read prior to entering site. Many chatters don't even read them and then get defensive and abusive when the moderators try to enforce the rules. Their "buddies" then team together to fight the moderators.
In my opinion:
Forever - best moderator who gets a lot of hate because she does try to ensure site rules and chatter safety.
Jameson - decent moderator who will help chatters and listens to you if you are decent to her.
Cally - super sweet, caring, helpful
Tranquilspirit - not overly active, but no issues with so far
Swamptoast - not overly active, but the few interactions I've had were satisfying
Parzival - takes frequent breaks from chat, but when he is moderating seems to want to help
There are two moderators I avoid completely whenever possible - Southerngent and bros
Southerngent has been kind and helpful at times and mean at times. The meanness is why I avoid him; you never know which you're going to get.
Bros seemed okay, but he misses a lot. There was trolling going on, these two or three chatters would set chatters they didn't like up. When the chatters responded after being harassed they would bring it to bros attention. Bros then muted the targeted chatter. Every single time. This went on nightly when there were no other mods available. He's either biased or his gaming while in chat makes it so he can't make good calls.
Both Southerngent and Bros will out chatters in room and instead of taking it to pm they will argue with the chatter right in room, which is disruptive, something we're asked to not be.
Honestly if you go this site and follow the rules, don't argue with the moderators, ignore the trolls, use the ignore feature, and avoid the moderators you clash with it goes well in Healthfulchat.
Gave it one star because CGJ could be doing this to people who are really in desperate need of some kind of support and this could just be one kick in the teeth to many.
On a site that's about peer support it's not a good idea to have staff with cognitive impairments or extreme mood swings if this affects how they do their jobs.
Sites are supposed to have cookie policies and privacy policies about how they collect, store and use your data, but this site doesn't have either of those at all so who knows what's happening to the data and chat logs, they could be going to marketing companies etc.
Pretty sure there's a law that means all websites have to have a cookie policy if Google, Ebay and Amazon have to have one, everyone probably has to have one but this site doesn't have either.
That's the summary review and this is the reason for the review:
Visited this site three times over one month as a guest number as I'm wanted to see if it was worth joining (it isn't). The last time I visited I was accused of being someone else by a junior moderator (room assistant) called CGJ. This guy admits to having a condition which means his cognitive function is impaired and also says he has a condition that means he's prone to extremes mood swings so I don't know if that's why he did what he did.
CGJ had already threatened to kick another guy for asking women to private message about sex (which isn't allowed on the site) and when another guy did it, I called him a slimeball. CGJ asked me to be nice and I said that I wasn't nice to slimeballs.
5 minutes later CGJ tells me to use my "proper nickname" and that "you've been warned about this" I told him it was only my third time there and never had a nickname but he banned me for 48hrs for not using the "proper name" whatever that is.
The ban was either because he has records and couldn't understand them properly or because he didn't like the fact I said I wasn't nice to slimeballs and so he made up a fake reason to ban me (tbh both of those reasons are pretty bad)
I contacted the site because if there is someone else with that "proper nickname" they'll get a nasty surprise when the log on and find themselves banned.
Either the site doesn't store personal data properly and it gets corrupted because
It's saved as some kind of file that can be easily or accidentally modified or CGJ just made it up to use as an excuse to kick me, or his cognitive impairment means he couldn't fully understand the data he was looking at (probably IP addresses) and yes, there's the possibility that it wasn't his impairment but just his slapdash approach to moderating (if he didn't just make up the whole "proper nickname" thing)
Be careful with what you share and don't choose a nickname until you're sure this is the site for you. It's not the site for me, but thanks to the other review, I'll check out 7cups which sounds much better (the "peer support" on this site varies from unhelpful to awful for the exact same reason Vi N said in their review)
Chris j - As chatters we are unaware of what goes on behind the scenes. It's possible the chatter in question had been reported as inappropriate. As you've noted in other comments the site is prone to perverts and it's the moderators job to protect chatters, therefore chatters should not question a mods motives when they try to do exactly that.
Tommy d - Agree there is favoritism. New chatters get in trouble for things mods themselves do and the mods ignore the same thing a regular chatter does. Agree there isn't enough focus on health issues and people coming in seeking help are missed. Disagree with your opinion about Forever. Many chatters love this mod. She is fair, kind, and one of the mods who actually takes actions when needed. Chatters who don't follow rules dislike her for that reason.
Tom D - yes, it's a pick up site. Have to learn to close the pm and put the pervs on ignore. Mods used to mute and kick the pervs. Something happened with the modding where they started focusing on minor infractions and letting the big stuff go. Wish they'd bring back the kick butt mods.
Freya l - It says in the rules displayed before entering site self-harm and suicide talk is not allowed as it puts undue stress on and triggers other chatters. I agree with the rule.
Bill b - no proof mods read personal messages, just a rumor
Felicity M - Many chatters are defensive in general and feel they can break rules without being reprimanded. Extensive disrespect for the mods and rule breaking goes on. Site rule is to not argue with the mods and if you have an issue use report content to address since it disrupts room to argue.
Timmy V - Agree. Chatters are banned and when contact is made to find out why at times not answered. There's 2 sites, Depression/Trivia and Healthfulchat, who share the same server. Depression bans without reason and it's difficult to enter back into room. Healthfulchat sometimes same, but much better than Depression.
The thing about a lot of these comments are they are directed at the Depression/Trivia site, but listed under Healthfulchat because you can enter Healthfulchat via Depression site and vice versa so many chatters don't realize they are different.
To combat the pervs have to close pm and ignore. I think it should be an auto-ban, but it's so easy to override a ban mods don't ban.