Understanding Anonymity in Chat Sessions

At Pigeonhole Live, we believe that anonymity can empower attendees to speak freely and share their thoughts without the fear of repercussions, especially where sensitive topics are concerned. Anonymity surfaces candid conversations that bring value to organisers and attendees alike.

That’s why we believe in always giving organisers the option to allow anonymity in Chat sessions hosted on Pigeonhole Live and take our stance on anonymity very seriously. 

However, we recognise that it’s important to take some necessary precautions when anonymity is enabled to ensure a safe and pleasant chat experience for everyone. 

Enabling anonymous messages in Chat sessions

Anonymous messages in Chat sessions is always disabled by default and attendees will be prompted to create a profile to participate in chats. 

However, the option to enable anonymous messages for chats is made available to organisers so you can turn it on when it’s beneficial to your event depending on the event type, size, format, and topic. When anonymous messages is enabled in chats, organisers will not be able to trace a message back to a specific attendee. 

It's important to note that there's a potential for certain attendees to misuse the anonymity afforded in chat sessions. This could result in attendees sending inappropriate or offensive messages with the intention of malice. Some message types that you may encounter are: 

• Offensive language or inappropriate content
• Comments with the intention to hurt or attack a person or group of people
• Irrelevant content or questions that deviate from the topic of the session

While Pigeonhole Live does not exercise any auto-blocking mechanisms for messages with profanities or inappropriate content, we provide other check and balance mechanisms to help you enforce the rules of engagement for your chat sessions. 

Best practices when enabling anonymous messages

If you choose to enable anonymous messages in chats we recommend the following steps to ensure that your chat is still a safe space for all attendees: 

Enable Message Filtering 

Message Filtering is a powerful tool that helps organisers or event admins moderate all chat messages before they are displayed to all attendees in the Audience Web App. 

Message Filtering for chats is disabled by default. We recommend that you enable Message Filtering for chats if you choose to enable Anonymous messages.

When Message Filtering is enabled, all messages sent by attendees will first appear on the Pending tab in the Admin Panel. From there, admins managing the Admin Panel can choose to Allow the messages (which will then move to the Audience Web App for everyone to see) or Block the messages (which will remain in the Admin Panel and not be visible to others).

Communicate chat guidelines clearly 

If you choose to enable Message Filtering we recommend that you inform attendees that the chat will be moderated and communicate the rules of engagement for your chat sessions clearly. 

Informing attendees in advance on the type of messages will be blocked by event admins helps attendees self-correct their behaviour in your chat sessions and have a pleasant experience in engaging with other attendees and speakers.

Refer to this article for more information on setting up a Live Chat session on Pigeonhole Live.

If you have any feedback on Live Chat, drop us a note at productteam@pigeonlab.com.