Quarantine

Registered members of the TT chat forum are assigned to different membership groups depending on their status.

The majority of members belong in the ordinary members grouping. In addition there is the moderators group, the admin group, and the Supporters subscription group.

A fifth group is known as quarantine. Members are usually placed here for reasons of bad behaviour or "crimes against the community" - although there may occasionally be other entirely innocent reasons also.

Members of the quarantine group have restricted privileges on the forum. They are not allowed to use the personal message or email system, nor are they allowed to update their profile. They may still, however, post to the public forum. Being placed in quarantine is usually held for only minor offences. More serious offenders are blocked entirely.

Sometimes males will join the forum and proceed to trawl the membership list for females aged under 30 with an attactive looking photo in their profile. They then message these members and invite them out for "a nice picnic" or something similar. The guys who do this are typically from foreign lands where the native language is not English. For example Italy, Pakistan, or Nigeria. Below is an example of just such an email which was sent via the TT forum in 2005:

Hi,

I am Maxwell Ignatius C.A., a young Nigerian Lawyer. I am christian Catholic, I am single and still searching. I graduated from the University of Lagos and the Nigeria Law School. I am tall and athletic looking. I used to reside in England. I am a human rights lawyer and I work with a human rights organisation here in Nigeria that is, the CRIME VICTIMS FOUNDATION as the Legal Officer. I am a member of the International Human Rights Network, Glenboy House, Old Castle County, Meath, Ireland. I like serving humanity and that gives me great joy. I am fair in complextion and a down to earth person. I will wellcome mails from interested young beautiful, intelligent and responsible people like you from Europe, America and Australia. Well, i have found your profile highly captivating and I'll to know more about you and your country. Please, write to me now and include your pic your mail, it's a pity that I don't have a very good one right now. Also, feel free to call my number anytime anyday on +2348052141165 and please do send yours too...!!! I am proud to be a member of Toytownmunich.com and viennaexpat.net just like you, I look forward to reading your mails to know you more and learn more about your beautiful country soonest...

Yours sincerely,
Maxwell Ignatius Chibuzo A.
Lagos, Nigeria.

If you receive such an email, please feel free to forward it a member of the moderation team. Once they have stopped laughing they may decide it's appropriate to place that member in quarantine.