James Van Praagh

The JVP chat site is a chat forum where what is most important is a safe and comfortable environment for you to share in spiritual understanding, grief support and friendships. This chat site is visited by people of many beliefs, cultures, faiths, needs and backgrounds. As it is a LIVE chat room it will be much like any social event; interesting, exciting and unpredictable.

To ensure that everyone who visits the JVP Chat Room enjoys their time here,
the following are some simple chat policies and guidelines. Thank you for taking the
time to acquaint yourself with all that the JVP Chat Room has to offer. Welcome to the JVP Chat family!

Chat Room Operators

For comfort and safety during your visit, all chat rooms are monitored throughout the day by volunteer operators, or "Ops." Ops have been specifically chosen to assist in keeping the chat room a harmonious and caring environment. For a list of the current JVP Ops, please visit the Op Page.

Ops volunteer their time and energy to the chat room and are not affiliated in any way with James Van Praagh. The Ops are NOT professional counselors nor do they claim to be. Neither JVP nor the Ops bear liability for any conversations held in the chat room. For those seeking professional assistance, please visit the Resources page offered on this web site.

All Ops are designated with a "moderator" avatar in front of their nickname. You will always find the Ops listed at the top of the names list. When JVP is in the chat room his initials will appear at the top of the name list with a special avatar symbol.

An Op's text and JVPs text will appear in blue in the chat room.

If you have questions or problems, please ask one of the Ops for assistance. Or, you may leave a message on the JVP Web Administrator area of the Message Board.

Ops have the authorization to gently warn and, if necessary, move from a room, kick or ban anyone who displays disruptive, or any other behavior that is deemed inappropriate in the chat rooms.

Chatter Behavior and Op Actions

As a common courtesy, please continually use the same username when visiting the JVP chat room. Those who come into the chat room continually changing their username give a "red flag" to the Ops whose duty it is to help keep our chat environment safe. Using multiple nicknames is confusing to other chat guests and can be interpreted as deceitful. Please be aware that the Ops use an administrative system that can identify when you are using a different nickname.

Please use discretion in what you share in the chat room as many of our visitors are newly bereaved and may be visiting the chat room for the first time. Always treat others as you wish to be treated. Be respectful of others and careful with sharing unsolicited advice.

If you encounter disruptive behavior by another visitor, please notify a Chat Room Op or you may leave a message on the JVP Web Administrator area of the Message Board. Failure by disruptive individuals to comply with warnings may result in being kicked or banned from the site.

Because this is a chat room environment, many times the "intent" or feeling behind what you may type in the room is not always read in the same vein. This can cause misunderstandings and sometimes hurt feelings by others. Please think before you type and re-read something before jumping to conclusions. If you are concerned about a comment made, approach that chatter with politeness. If you disagree with something a person says, discuss the issue tactfully or take it to a private room. Please do not verbally attack another chatter. This can create a very unpleasant experience for everyone in the chat room and should be avoided.

Unless you know information to be recommended by James Van Praagh or know that it appears on his web site, for liability reasons it is asked that you please refrain from posting the following information in the open chat:

• Web site URLs of any other chat rooms, especially those who offer readings.
  
• Any web site URLs or blogs of known readers or that have products / services / information;
  
• Personal contact information to include email addresses, personal web sites or blogs, phone numbers or postal addresses.

In order to maintain a harmonious and spiritual environment, disruptive, rude, or any other behavior deemed inappropriate, will not be permitted in the chat rooms. This includes and is not limited to:

• Profanity (including typing text so as to avoid or get around the chat room
  word filter);
  
• Hostility toward other chatters or Ops;
  
• Sexually "suggestive" messages, conversations or emoticons including overly flirtatious comments, sexual innuendoes or chats of a sexual topic. This applies to all public chat rooms as well as private chats. JVP chat is here to provide bereavement and spiritual support and friendships, and should NOT be used as a dating service;
  
• Inappropriate conversations or topics in chat rooms specified for support or prayer. The Frivolity Room is the perfect place to share your zealous energy in keeping with appropriate topics;
  
• Harassing other chatters or Ops;
  
• Disrespect of other chatters;
  
• Disrespect of Op requests;
  
• Offensive nicknames;
  
• Impersonating JVP or other well known practitioners;
  
• Flooding the chat room with continuous characters or inappropriate emoticons
  (this can make it uncomfortable for other chatters, especially chatters new to
  our room); and
  
• Soliciting for readings or giving readings in the chat room (see the No Reading Policy below).

Individuals displaying the above listed behaviors, or other inappropriate behaviors, will encounter any or all of the following procedures from the Chat Room Ops or Web Site Administrator, depending on the situation:

• A public request to discontinue your behavior;
  
• If the inappropriate behavior continues, chatter may be physically moved to another chat room to be approached in private by a Chat Room Op; or
  
• Kicked from the room with the reason displayed or banned from the chat site.

No Reading Policy

Because JVP understands the need for some to have personal spiritual counseling, he has listed many reputable Practitioners on the Resource page of this web site for your reference.

We welcome the opportunity to meet all chatters who wish to enjoy the JVP Chat Room. As this is a spiritually-based chat environment, there are many intuitive individuals, of various degrees, who will want to visit the JVP Chat Room.

• Announcing in the room that you are a reader and asking if someone would like your service or letting people know you are reader by continually working it into a conversation;
  
• Blatantly giving "reading-type" information to a chatter in the chat room or in private messasge;
  
• Saying in the room you "picked up" on some information and does it make sense to anyone (this is considered "fishing");
  
• Bringing a chatter into a private message conversation and sharing unrequested personal "reading-type" information with the chatter (this is considered to be preying on chat guests);
  
• Sharing personal emails, other chat room URLs, or web site or blog URLs, in the open chat or in private message chats, in order to solicit clients for your services or products;
  
• Giving reading-type information or sharing personal emails or other chat room URLs or web site or blog URLs (either in open chat or in private message) to a chatter who actually requests a reading.

Chatters with psychic/mediumship abilities who solicit for readings or, due to their behavior, bring about concern in any way that they may be giving readings in the JVP chat room or in private message will be approached by a Chat Room Op or Web Site Administrator. Those individuals who do not comply to the No Reading Policy or become hostile to an Op regarding the No Reading Policy will be permanently banned from the site.

For our regular chat visitors, if you are approached by ANY individual in this chat room that solicits his/her reading services, or tells you about other chat rooms that allow readings, please immediately notify any JVP Op member. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding in our ongoing protection of you and our internet friends.

IDLE POLICY

For technical purposes with the chat server, there is an Idle Policy in the JVP chat room. It is asked that you do not remain in the chat room if you are not actively participating in a chat for more than 30 minutes. This is considered being idle.

Ops have the ability to see the status of every chatter who is in the chat room or on the chat server. This status information includes if a chatter has been idle and not chatting in the room. If you are in a private message, your status information does shows up as active.

It is understood that some chatters may step away from their computer for a length of time for personal reasons such as answering a telephone, getting something to eat or drink, helping a child or family member, walking their dog, etc. If, however, you are going to be away from the chat room for longer than 30 minutes, it is requested that you log out of the chat room and re-enter when you are able to join in the active chatting.

If an Op comes into the chat room and sees that a chatter or chatters are idle for more than 30 minutes, the following procedures will take place:

• The Op will ask the idle chatter(s) if they are at the computer. The Op may also ask other chatters present if they are aware if the idle chatter has stepped away.
  
• If chatters do not confirm an idle chatter's whereabouts and there is not a response from the idle chatter(s) to the Op's prompting within 2 minutes, the Op will ask again if the idle chatter is at their computer.
  
• If after 2 minutes or so there is still no response, a prompting question will be asked a third time. After 2 additional minutes if the idle chatter does not respond, the Op will do one of the following:
  
  
  1. Kick the idle chatter from the chat room, or;
     
  2. Move the idle chatter to an unused chat room and wait a few more minutes to see if they return. An Op will use their own discretion on whether to leave the idle chatter in the unused room or to kick them after another period of time. (Please Note: There have been instances that when an Op moves an idle chatter to another room that the idle chatter's own computer automoatically boots them from the chat room.)

Throughout the day for security purposes the Web Site Administrator and the Ops check the status of the chat server. If a chatter's name is found on the chat server and they are not in a JVP chat room, that chatter will automatically be removed from the chat server without any warnings.

The Idle Policy does not apply to chat room events when chatters are idle before an event begins or while a guest speaker is presenting their seminar. After the event is over when the room has been opened for general chatting and chatters are found to be idle for over 1 hour, Ops will begin removing those idle chatters from the chat room using the "prompting question" procedure stated above.

Chat Room Safety

With any internet chat room environment there are issues of your personal safety and privacy while visiting. Because the JVP Chat Room is spiritually-based, unique safety concerns arise. We wish to offer you some specific tips on how you can protect yourself in the chat room.

Please be aware that neither JVP nor the Chat Ops bear any liability for any situation which may occur due to negligence on the part of a chatter for their own personal safety.

1. Never share your personal email address, telephone number, street address or real name with anyone in the chat room, whether in the open chat or in a private chat message. In a chat environment you don't really know who another chatter may be. JVP or the Chat Ops bear no liability for any emotional harm or personal grief which may occur from these situations.
   
2. Any person could come to the chat room saying they are a medium or a psychic or other gifted person. As this is a chat environment, this can not be verified. Please be careful what information you share with these individuals. There are unkind people who enjoy coming to chat rooms like ours to prey on grieving and vunerable chatters.
   
3. If you are approached by ANY individual in this chat room that solicits his/her reading services, or tells you about other chat rooms that allow readings, please immediately notify any JVP Op member. If you accept the above mentioned information from a chatter here and go to another chat room or web site or contact any reader, you are responsible for any experience you encounter. JVP or the Chat Ops bear no liability for any emotional harm or personal grief which may occur from these situations.
   
4. Unfortunately, chat rooms on the internet have become a place for predators to lurk and go after unsuspecting chatters who are easy targets for their sexual advances. As the JVP Chat is a site focused on grief support, chatters here are emotionally vunerable. Please be cautious about the chat relationships in which you become involved and what personal information you share with others. The JVP chat is here to provide bereavement, spiritual support and friendships, and should NOT be used as a dating service.
   
5. There have been past incidents in the JVP Chat Room of chatters who ingratiate themselves as a regular, loving part of the JVP chat family only to purposely create false situations for the effect of emotional turmoil. These situations are called "hoaxes" and can happen on any internet chat room environment. These hoaxes have caused hurt, distrust and confusion for others in the chat room. Please be aware that hoaxes can happen and don't allow them to effect your visiting the JVP Chat Room.

Thank you for your cooperation regarding the above safety tips and in your understanding of our ongoing protection of you and our JVP chat family.